“The tranquility that lies deep in the words”

Genichiro Takahashi in Shukan Asahi

Trans. by Nishida Hanae

Indiana, the U.S. I have never been there, but I have a feeling that it is a very beautiful place.
A character in this novel would agree with me, for he drops the name of this place just like this:
‘Why is Indiana the greatest state in the country?
That’s what I’m asking.
Shanks shrugged.
I don’t know. It’s home. It’s where we’re stuck. Anyway, sounds good, don’t it?
Indiana, said Noah.
Indiana, said Shanks.’ (197)
Reading this novel, I also felt like saying the word “Indiana” to myself. It is like a fascinating spell that opens up before us a landscape that we have never seen.
I realize that I have begun with places to talk about a novel. It might have been more appropriate to start with characters and plots. There are, however, certain novels that require none of such explanations. They only invite you to listen to their words. They ask you nothing more than just gazing at their landscapes. In other words, they only ask you to read them as they are.
It is one of the most difficult things to do in the world, though.
It is so difficult because we are now lost in the midst of too much information. There is too much noise that distracts us from reading things just as they are. We have forgotten how to tune our ears to catch the subtle tones and sounds of the words.
There is an old man called Noah. He lives in a shed by himself. Sometimes, a man called Max comes visit him. Both Noah’s father, Virgil, and his mother, Ruby, are no more; so is his beloved Opal. Noah has lost everyone he loved. An ordinary person couldn’t bear this, but he can. He can, because he lives in the beautiful Indiana, because he remembers everything – what happened and who said what –, and because he can put on the wall and read the letters Opal sent him from the sanatorium. Over and over again he reads them. He listens. And he finds something delicate hidden in the words. The readers have to listen to Noah’s words, just as he does: the lesson that he teaches us.
When we listen carefully, we can catch the colors, the luster, and the sounds of Noah’s words, as well as those of Virgil’s and Opal’s through his.
And I believe that the readers would find themselves thinking, “Hmm, what is this? It seems familiar. I seem to have heard of it somewhere long time ago.”
This novel reminds me of J.M.G. Le Clezio’s Voyages de L’autre Cote (Noah is like its heroine Naja Naja), Kenji Miyazawa’s poems (Opal is like the poet’s sister Toshi in his poem “Eiketsu-no-Asa”), as well as many other works that are filled with similar tranquility.
Deep down in the heart of words, there is a place filled with tranquility. Some poets and writers are aware of its presence, and write about it in their works. Laird Hunt is one such novelist. And probably, so is the translator of this novel.

“Those people chosen by dreams”

Kurita Yuki in Issatsu no Hon

Trans. by Nishida Hanae

I knew from the first page that this is a novel that I cannot possibly miss. Such a novel is rare to find among numerous books circulating in the world. But in my idea, great novels necessarily convince readers that they are such works.
The protagonist of this novel is a man called Noah, who apparently suffers from some mental problem. He used to work as a postman, but now he doesn’t work and lives alone.
Except for occasional visits of a young man called Max, he spends most of his time in silence. Myriads of memories come and fill this silence: memories of his father, mother, a woman called Opal whom he seems to have loved. These people come alive vividly in his memories.
While reading this novel, I was thinking of the people I love – both particular individuals and people in general.
Not that my thought wandered away because I couldn’t concentrate. On the contrary, I was so absorbed in the novel that those people surfaced in my mind. It was a disturbing experience to feel the presence of those who are usually hidden from my consciousness.
And it was not mere sentimentality. As I listened to Noah’s story, my own voice gradually faded away and my heart became tranquil. I think those loved ones appeared in my mind because the limpidness of Noah’s world, with the permanent sadness at its core, touched me deep within.
Many letters from Opal to Noah are woven in the novel’s narrative. Opal, who also seems to be mentally handicapped, fill her letters with colorful plants, interesting people, and mysterious images rendered in her peculiarly elusive way. The beauty and poignancy of these letters heart-wrenchingly draws affection and pity from us as we read on.
Although the episodes told in the letters are presented as private between Noah and Opal, their beauty is open for everyone to share.
For me, it was as if I had seen all this before in my dream – all the things Opal sees and all the stories Noah tells. And if you think that everything happened in the dream, then you can appreciate the beauty of it without trying to figure it out. In fact, it is this elusiveness itself that generates its beauty.
It seems to me that Noah and Opal meet each other and live in dreams. They do not trouble themselves to define the boundary between dream and reality. Nor do they feel the need to dream of paradise. They just see what is before them.
Unlike the paradise which is generally set against the unsatisfactory reality, the dream is something that stands alone. It is just there, regardless of past, present and future. Noah and Opal are, so to speak, the screens where dreams are projected. The supernatural power that Noah used to help the Sheriff at some time might reflect this quality.
Noah is not endowed with the capacity to manage things quickly and properly, such capacity normally demanded by the society. But instead, he could see what the “capable” people cannot see.
Or rather, it may be more accurate to say that the scenes were just projected on him. I myself would make a third-rate screen, for I am egotistic and full of worldly desires. So my screen would distort the figure of dreams. Noah, however, is so transparent that dreams can send their images as they are. And Opal must have been able to receive dreams in purest forms as well.
They are the people who are chosen by dreams.
But then, why aren’t dreams content with staying where they are? Why do they assert themselves, using Noah, Opal, his parents and Max, and even the passers-by? The answer is given in strange codes, as Noah’s father say. And dreams are themselves strange.
At any rate, one thing that is sure is that neither they nor I can escape from dreams. After all, dreams are their, and my, Fifty Percent Stories. And we will be forever fascinated by their beauty.