Something Old, Something New

There was a time when book talk was a regular feature of this blog. For one reason or another the last book post was nine months ago when the view out my windows was still pelicans and blue ocean and not yet a forest of twisted live oaks with dangling beards of Spanish moss. The drift away from book talk has been too long and some readers might have wondered what happened to dislodge the periodic “book reports.” Easy answer for that; nothing more than a change of scene, adjustments to that change and preoccupation with thoughts curving in a different direction. High time for a return to earlier topics.

The “new” remote country setting far from the tumult of traffic, tourists and malls has if anything boosted the time allowed for reading. A tiny local library, a multitude of online booksellers and minimal interruption provide the opportunity to explore or reconsider heaps of books, writers both new and old. The words ‘new and old’ should suggest that reading is a hand-off between new writers, new books and older, established or deceased writers and their work. Am I alone in thinking that reading pleasure includes not only books newly published, but on occasion an old book gone back to a second time, and other times a dusty and battered paperback picked up for 25¢ at a yard sale?

Here are a few of the books in my reading stack the past few weeks, three of them new and two going back a few years. Nothing like a comprehensive review for any of the five, only a few brief remarks which depending on taste, might encourage or discourage.

Light of the World (July 2013) by James Lee Burke

Long a fan of James Lee Burke and rarely disappointed, this one failed to make the grade. Few would argue that Burke is a writer of great talent, often touching on the sublime. His descriptions of south Louisiana are without compare and bring to life a setting that ripples across the skin with tactile expression. Burke is best known for his ongoing series of novels featuring police detective, Dave Robicheaux as the major character, most of them set in and around New Iberia, Louisiana. Not for the first time, Burke has moved Dave Robicheaux northwest to Missoula, Montana for a clash with bad folks in that neck of the woods. While the setting is Montana, the story still adheres to the established parameters of a Dave Robicheaux story but this time the writer has fallen overboard into a deep trough of moralizing, pondering too long the nature of evil and it’s origins. A heavy-handed  bee-in-the-bonnet about the overall hopelessness of us regular folks against the barons of industry and their environmental scourge is another weight to the novel. With Light of the World, I found myself murmuring for the first time, “Get on with your story and stop with all the preaching.” A highly recommended writer stumbling a little off track. 

Dissident Gardens (September 2013) by Jonathan Lethem

If you’ve never read Jonathan Lethem, run to the bookstore or dial up Amazon now. This guy is one of America’s best young writers and it will be no surprise if this latest book wins either a Pulitzer or the National Book Award. Lethem writes of Brooklyn like nobody else and Dissident Gardens is right in his backyard. The story covers a stretch of years in the lives of 1950s communist, Rose Zimmer, her black policeman lover, Rose’s radical daughter and son living in a 60s East Village commune, and Professor Cicero Lookins, son of the black policeman. Always top notch, Lethem has outdone himself with this one.

Lookaway, Lookaway (August 2013) by Wilton Barnhardt

A novel of the American south, Lookaway, Lookaway centers around the dissolution of a once wealthy aristocratic family in Charlotte, North Carolina. Scandal and mishap work their ruin in the family of Jerene Jarvis Johnston and her husband Duke and their four children. The novel includes a moderate dose of Civil War history but don't misunderstand that to mean it bogs down in long passages of dull history. On the contrary, Barnhardt’s tale is a laugh out loud romp, alternately funny, poignant and disturbing. Despite their foibles and weaknesses, the characters are people we can’t help empathizing with.

One Hundred Years of Solitude (1970) Gabriel García Márquez

Since it’s publication, this Márquez classic has been put by many readers, critics and scholars among the best books of the twentieth century. No argument from this reader on that claim. It came to me last week that it was time to give this book a second read and no surprise that a second reading is every bit as rich and telling as the first. A book of this depth offers the assurance that a second or third reading will uncover nuances and insights that slipped past the first time. Not quite finished with my second reading, I’m starting to regret there aren’t more pages to the story. One Hundred Years of Solitude should be on your ‘have to read’ list. Hard to imagine how anyone could be disappointed or bored by this book, one that is even more enchanting than the later Márquez diamond, Love in the Time of Cholera.

Rivalry (1916) by Nagai Kafû

I will be honest and say from the start that this is not a book that will attract a great many American or Western readers, unless they have an interest in the details of life in the early twentieth century Tokyo demimonde. It is a tale of geishas and their patrons and the intrigues that colored the lives of a small segment of Japanese society in that age. Beautifully written, with lyrical passages describing the city and its people, Rivalry (Udekurabe in the original) is only one of Nagai Kafû’s (1879-1959) several paeans to a vanishing culture. The writer is best remembered for his short novel The River Sumida (1911).

Life of a Book

An article from NPR on Saturday reignited thoughts on the changing fate of printed books, leading me to wonder what will eventually become of my own carefully collected library of books. Some might question what the concern is, since I won’t be around to care one way or the other, but that thought does little to alter my hope that all the books I have lovingly collected over the years won’t end up discarded or destroyed. Likely it is a question that all book lovers ask in these days of e-book popularity, when Amazon sales of e-books are higher than their printed book sales, when the format is now available in a range of devices and when independent booksellers are fighting for the scraps. But this is not the point of the above mentioned NPR story, one that examines how books are passed on from one person to another, how lines of sharing and communication are often part of a book’s life, and how certain qualities—no matter the razzle-dazzle of technology—are untranslatable to the e-book’s metallic shell.

The first books of pages ‘bound’ inside two covers came to us from the Romans, and though each of the pages was handwritten, the package was at least in a shape close to what we know today. People had been writing and disseminating their words and thoughts for long years but the Roman codex gradually became the dominant form in the ancient world. The next great leap came with water-powered paper mills around 1282, replacing the labor intense handmade paper of China and Muslim cultures and increasing the production of paper. Paper-making centers multiplied in Italy especially and by the late thirteenth century paper was being made and sold at a fraction of earlier prices. Bookmaking entered the mechanical age in 1440 with Johannes Gutenberg’s printing press, a shift that continued to lower the cost of printing as well as the price of books. By the mid-nineteenth century growing industrialization made it possible to print books faster, in greater quantities and with less labor. Mechanical typesetting made the process more efficient and efficient distribution of printed material by railroad put books into more hands. 

The span of years between then and now is about 150, a number long enough to imply an age or era and hint that we are on the verge of another radical shift in book production, book buying and the way we read. No doubt an exciting era of book publishing for many, one that has opened a door of opportunity to writers, publishers and retailers alike. The phenomenon will reap rewards (of whatever nature) for many people worldwide and will be added to the list of advances made possible by technology.

Even the most confirmed Luddite will have to admit to the benefits of reading brought by the advent of e-book technology. Denying the advantages of reading a book on Kindle, Nook or iPad might be described as flirting with masochism—like saying that cell phones are uniformly bad. Some of us could list half a dozen things that e-readers fail to do, but in the end it adds up to nit-picking. But wait, hold on, because there are an equal number of us who can wax poetic about the advantages of reading from a real book that requires actual page turning, doesn’t include a built-in dictionary, and can’t be downloaded at home in sixty seconds. There are after all, two sides to every question.

Real books are my passion, hardback first edition books, first printings, and if signed by the author, then it becomes a blessing increased. Books have an almost tactile heartbeat and warmth that invite the reader to value them as something more than the paper and price tag imply. Holding a book in my hands, savoring the feel of it in my lap, the sound of pages turning, the smell of ink and binding—all the sidelines that are the small relish of reading a book. Maybe I was fortunate years ago in a part-time job at the public library where I worked with people who respected books and who taught me much about the life of books. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred I will choose a hardback book over either a paperback or e-book. Children’s author Cornelia Funke said it eloquently… 

“Isn’t it odd how much fatter a book gets when you’ve read it several times? As if something were left between the pages every time you read it. Feelings, thoughts, sounds, smells…and then, when you look at the book again many years later, you find yourself there, too, a slightly younger self, slightly different, as if the book had preserved you like a pressed flower…both strange and familiar.”

Happy with my ten-pound hardback copies of Haruki Murakami’s 1Q84 and Stephen King’s 11/22/63, when I began reading each of the books, I sorely wished for e-book copies to save my overworked hands the pain of reading from leaden volumes. At other times I find the clarity of pages on my iPad unbeatable, and the sharpness of a Kindle in the noon glare of the beach amazing. And then there is always the price difference in an e-book and a hardback first edition. Good Louisiana friend R says it all in a word— “Convenience.” 

Hard to count the times I go back to a book to flip through the pages, look up a particular passage, or maybe just reacquaint myself casually with the feel or flavor of a certain book. Then, there is the increasing value of a book, especially one by an enduring author, even more if it’s a signed copy. Should the day come when you either want or need to sell a book, the rewards are going to be much higher for a printed book. The e-book in its nebulous digital lifetime offers no such return.

The NPR article describes a book given by an uncle to a nephew in 1898. The nephew died in 1945 and in the mid 1950s his wife passed the book on to her husband’s biographer. When the biographer died in 1966 the book passed on to his widow, who lived until March of this year. As her grandchildren sorted through her books, they came upon that old edition of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds. It now rests on a shelf in the home of one of those grandchildren, author of the NPR article. I love stories like this but they make me wonder about the favorites among my own collection and where they might one day wind up. Hope is it will end up on a bookshelf somewhere where others can enjoy what it has to say.

More Dusty Pages

Journal entries: August 2008 - March 2009

FRIDAY 1 AUGUST 2008

They say that in East St Louis you have to stand in line to commit a crime.

Got the ‘recommendation’ form from International Christian University regarding Daisuke F. Surprised that it was two pages long. It took about an hour to translate, making sure how they want the questions about Daisuke answered. Pretty straightforward and not too hard to apply to someone I believe is a bright and worthy applicant. Will take my time writing the best possible descriptions in each section. Lots of time, no hurry.

Reading Philip Roth’s Exit Ghost. I went to Kinokuniya thinking I might find a copy of his 1959 novel Goodbye Columbus, but among a large assortment of Roth books that title was missing.

SUNDAY 17 AUGUST

Strangely cool today. Horribly hot and humid all week and suddenly on Sunday you think about pulling on a jacket. Had to wait a couple of hours for a misty rain to clear and in the end wore long pants for my walk. It finally dried up enough to not worry about fogged glasses. Usual distance of 5 miles, barely breaking a sweat because of the coolness. Good for a change to see everything through a cloudy sky without the glare and harsh sun that is usually the case on summer days. In cloud or bright light the green of summer is vibrant all along the Kanda River. Gigantic sunflowers stare out at joggers and cyclists passing the stretch in front of the bamboo grove.

In the afternoon I stopped for an iced coffee on the terrace of the Starbucks in Kichijôji, the one behind Tokyu Department Store. Crowded, much of the foot traffic high schoolers and mothers taking their young children out for a stroll in the cooler weather. Beautiful afternoon, looking around and noticing what a pleasing street this is with its well-kept and busy shops. The street a mosaic of red brick, green all around in the shape of trees and potted plants, tubs of flowers and a never ending parade of very fashionable young Japanese men & women. I sit in a pleasant spot opposite the Mediterranean restaurant Tapas Tapas. Hope I can talk the Aoki family into eating there when we go out for dinner on Friday.

SUNDAY 31 AUGUST

Mostly a day at home working at my desk. Talked on the phone with Nobu in Florida; he’s at the beach and worrying about Hurricane Hanna. Looks a little threatening at this point, but still too far out in the Atlantic to be called a certain threat to Florida’s east coast. The hope is that it will veer south and bypass Florida. For now, it’s in almost a straight line to collide with New Smyrna Beach.

TUESDAY 9 SEPTEMBER

Something of a landmark day guess you’d call it. Got news of a necessary ‘first time’ event in my relatively healthy span of years. At sometime in the next 2 or 3 weeks I will have to spend 2 days in Keio University Hospital for tests. Frankly, the procedure sounds a little frightening, maybe with the possibility of some pain. Never spent so much as one night in a hospital up to now. Surprising was the explanation that I must bring another person along with me on the morning I am admitted. Not only that, but he or she will have to remain at the hospital until the tests are completed; sit around the hospital all day waiting to be told that everything is okay, and that it’s permissible to leave. The hospital also requires a signature from my employer, a little more than I ever imagined, but then really unavoidable. It’s the Japanese way.

THURSDAY 25 DECEMBER

In as few as 6 words the lavender fragrance is rising off the page of this notebook. Writing today with another of the new De Atramentis inks, this one with a lavender scent. Got myself a bottle when I bought a Christmas bottle for Kumiko. We had lunch today at Salvatore’s in Akasaka-Mitsuke. Haven’t seen a whole lot of Kumiko lately for one reason or another. She sounds busy with work. According to her, the economic downturn has been good for her company, Brown-Foreman. More people staying home and drinking, avoiding the higher cost of doing it in restaurants & bars. Gave her the ink, a desk diary and the latest issue of Shumi no bungu bako, thought she might enjoy looking through the handsome pages and layouts it always includes.

FRIDAY 26 DECEMBER

Dentist appointment at noon; cleaning part 2. Amazing analysis of my gums using of all things an iPod Touch loaded with some kind of dental software. During the examination, the hygienist punched in notes on the iPod resting on my chest. Dr Kondô then looked over my gums while giving notes to the hygienist, who once more entered them into the iPod. When the analysis was complete I got a three page color printout of the results.

Leaving Dr Kondô’s office I went to Tower Records in Kichijôji to look for a CD I heard at the dentist. Bought a new Shôta Shimizu CD.

Freezing cold today; feels like the coldest day of the season so far.

Continue to read Peter Matthiessen’s 3 volume history of southwest Florida, Shadow Country, about the infamous E. J. Watson. On the 2nd book now and it continues to fascinate me. Matthiessen as much environmentalist as writer. Stories and descriptions of Florida in the early 20th century are moving.

FRIDAY 13 FEBRUARY 2009

From Michael Chabon’s The Yiddish Policemen’s Union…

“Don’t take that tone with me, John Bear,” the old man says. “I don’t care for it.”

“Tone?” Berko says, his voice stacked like a measure of musical score with a half dozen tones, a chamber ensemble of insolence, resentment, sarcasm, provocation, innocence and surprise. “Tone?”

SUNDAY 8 MARCH

Dinner with Kumiko last night. Altogether a disappointing Mexican restaurant in Yotsuya. A couple of months back I went to a good little Mexican restaurant in Yotsuya San-Chome called Salsa Cabana. The card I picked up there advertised another branch in Yotsuya. It was this branch that Kumiko and I went to last night. The fact that there were only 7 people in the place on a Saturday night says something about the restaurant’s popularity, and probably something about the food. Most of what we ordered came to the table cold. All except the Corona beer, only slightly chilled. Would have done better to have chosen one of the other 3 Mexican restaurants on the same street.

Returned to work on the story-in-progress—the one formerly titled “Smile” now renamed “An Old Woman’s Smile.” Made the decision to hack off the last 4 pages—almost 3,000 words—and end the story at Mr Kobayashi’s funeral. The character of Walter has now been rewritten into a younger man named Wilson, who doesn’t figure largely in the story. Worked on a difficult passage this morning, the visit to Mrs Kobayashi by Hank after Mr Kobayashi’s death. The whole story has been telescoped into a period of 4 months as opposed to many years. Far from finished at this point.

THURSDAY 19 MARCH

Went to Kichijôji to return DVDs and once more decided to walk home from there. That’s a good walk, without putting strain on a still weak right knee. Writing this from the bench along the Kanda River between Mitakadai and Kugayama. Bought vegetables & some fruit at the green grocer’s by the tracks in Mitakadai. Got some incredibly sweet persimmons from Israel, of all places.

FRIDAY 20 MARCH

Shinjuku to do a little research for the story I’m working on. I walked over to the east side of Shinjuku Station to search out a shop I found on the Internet, a place named Kagaya. Turned out it was a cigar speciality store and not the kind of tobacco shop I had in mind. But someone in Kagaya suggested I walk over to Sagami-ya, a few minutes away. So, I did and found exactly the kind of place I had in mind. I asked the man inside and he told me the shop had been there in 1980, and that at the time they stocked the American brand, Lucky Strike cigarettes. That bit of information will be an easy fit in the story.

Dusty Pages of Another Season

Journal entries: June 2006 - September 2007

MONDAY 12 JUNE 2006

Telephone call from Moriyama-san at Fullhalter, the new Pilot Custom 823 fountain pen is ready for pick up. The work wasn’t scheduled to be finished before 8 July.

SATURDAY 17 JUNE

Restaurant in Oimachi called the Sun Room, with Kumiko after picking up the Pilot fountain pen. Pen in hand and full of Montblanc black ink (a very old bottle from 1985). Always thrilled with a new pen from Moriyama-san, this one is no different. As smooth as cream, the nib a perfect width and the whole thing a comfortable size and weight in my hand. The old Montblanc black ink is a surprise—a happy surprise. It has a sumi-like shade that I like. Everything feels just right with both pen and ink.

MONDAY 19 JUNE

Flashback to a memory from early days in Japan when I saw almost every day young businessmen on the way to work wearing the familiar dark suit, and snowy white socks inside black or brown dress shoes. Fast forward 25 years and it’s no longer old-fashioned white socks, but the hugely popular low-cut sport socks which almost everyone wears now. Look at the feet of young businessmen on the train these days and you will see those ankle high socks in dress shoes. Statement on the Japanese male’s sense of fashion?

SATURDAY 24 JUNE

At de feet o’ Jesus,

Sorrow like a sea.

Lordy, let yo’ mercy

Come driftin’ down on me.

At de feet o’ Jesus,

At yo’ feet I stand.

O, ma precious Jesus,

Please reach out yo’ hand. —Langston Hughes, 1932

TUESDAY 19 DECEMBER

Doutor for lunch, but luck is against me this time on my cherished 3rd floor. No sooner do I sit down at my favorite table, then here comes a herd of giggling, chattering housewives who quickly slam 3 tables together, pull down all the shades to erase the flood of sunlight and launch into loud banter.

In the middle of 3 books now, and depending upon where I am the book changes. Sitting at the kitchen table it’s book 13 in the Aubrey/Maturin series, slumped in the big blue chair it’s the book about Japanese student soldiers in WWII, Kamikaze Diaries: Reflections of Japanese Student Soldiers. The 3rd book, and the one in my bag now is Dickens’ Great Expectations, also the one I read on the train or bus.

MONDAY 8 JANUARY 2008

“Coming of Age Day” in Japan. 20 year-olds are celebrating their new ADULT status. Tokyo cold, as it always is on this day of the year. Passed an enjoyable afternoon with Sawane-san in Shinjuku yesterday. Been a long time since I had walked about the area just east of the station, and the changes surprised me—though they shouldn’t have, since no city anywhere tears down and rebuilds as much as Japan. The old oden restaurant Isuzu that a friend and I went to almost every Friday night for 2 or 3 years is now a Starbucks. Too bad, since the building was pre-war and the inside of the bar-restaurant all of that period. Everything has changed, everything.

Sawane-san and I went to the fountain pen clinic at Isetan, but it turned out to be a slight disappointment. Sawane-san was unable to get his Sailor King Cobra repaired.

MONDAY 26 FEBRUARY

Looking for something to read and rummaging through the book closet, I uncovered something I don’t even remember buying, a rather handsome 1st edition hardback of Donald Richie’s Japanese Literature Reviewed (2003). It is a collection of his reviews written over the years for his weekly column in The Japan Times. Happy to find that.

SUNDAY 4 MARCH

Done with a workout at the health club and in Doutor now for a spot of iced coffee, some scribbling and hopefully some moments of quiet here on the 3rd floor. Such a warm, warm March day for Tokyo, especially for a day barely out of February. Read a good bit of Shiga Naoya while riding the stationery bike at Tipness. Almost 20 miles in 60 minutes and 4 Shiga short stories. Thinking I might do a Shiga story in the lit classes at the university during the 2007-08 school year. Maybe some Shiga, maybe some Miyazawa Kenji, and maybe a selection from Ecclesiastes in the Bible. Need to think too about finding a replacement for the dear-to-me E.B. White essay “Once More to the Lake.”

SUNDAY 4 MARCH

Reading Raymond Chandler these days. Talk about ‘economy of expression,’ Chandler can say more in 4 words than most can say in 24. Interesting essay by Chandler called “The Simple Act of Murder” that prefaces his collection of stories with the same name. Love what he said about famous English mystery writer Dorothy Sayers. She: ‘The detective story does not, and never can, attain the loftiest level of literary achievement.’ Chandler: ‘I do not know what the loftiest level of literary achievement is: neither did Aeschylus or Shakespeare; neither does Miss Sayers.’ —‘A male cutie with henna’d hair drooped at a bungalow grand piano and tickled the keys lasciviously and sang “Stairway to the Stars” in a voice with half the steps missing.’ —Chandler, Farewell My Lovely

MONDAY 12 JUNE

Saw something on the Classic Fountain Pens website last night I’m going to buy. It’s a cleansing cream to remove ink from hands and fingers, and do I ever need something to get the ink off my hands. Most of the time my fingers look like a Technicolor screen test.

Enjoyed the movie I saw yesterday in Kichijôji. Bloody spectacle of 480 BC, the Spartan stand at Thermapolae. The fight and battle choreography was excellent, and almost like a bloody ballet with spears, swords and shields. Have to laugh at the critics who get so uppity about 300 being nothing but a shallow and bloody mishmash with no historical veracity. Are they trying to fool themselves with such pretentious claptrap? It’s a Hollywood spectacle, for God’s sake, a film treatment of a graphic novel. What the critics missed was the director’s faithfulness to the format of narrative told through a series of frames on a page. Again and again in the film you see characters in a ‘comic book’ pose. This is especially true in the lush and bloody fight scenes. Freeze the frame and move it straight onto the page of a graphic novel or comic book. Well done and completely over the head of the critics. Same kind of technique in the Japanese movie Ping Pong, which also originated as a comic book.

SUNDAY 30 SEPTEMBER

Rainy and slightly chilly day in Tokyo. Some might call it autumn weather, but to me it doesn’t have that feeling. The air is different. What we call autumn in Tokyo has an entire vocabulary all its own, and there’s none of that in this last day of September. Nonetheless, I wear an autumn-intended pullover despite the contradiction of my sockless feet in a pair of Rockport deck shoes.