The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern

For the second time this year I have revisited a novel for the purpose of discussion.  It thrills me to enjoy it more the second time around.  The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern is about imagination, illusions, magic, manipulation, love, passion, and beauty.  Beyond that I am hesitant to say too much.  Many people would say the back cover of the book says too much, so I will not even quote from there.

This novel involves a challenge between two older magicians, but they do not compete.  Hector Bowen and Mr. A.H. serve as mentors.  Two young people, the daughter of Bowen and a young man chosen by Mr. A.H., are unwillingly committed to this competition.  

Morgenstern employs two timelines: the creation of the circus in the late 1800s and the end of the competition in the early 1900s.  The sections are clearly labeled, and eventually the timelines overlap.  If you enjoy a story that keeps your mind’s eye busy, this novel will thrill you.  I hated to leave this world and will have the images living in my mind; her descriptions are breathtakingly realistic, and Morgenstern brings her reader into the experience as if seeing a live performance:  “A show without an audience is nothing, after all.  In the response of the audience that is where the power of performance lives” (57).

This novel is about keeping secrets, and I will honor that:

Secrets have power…And that power diminishes when they are shared, so they are best kept and kept well.  Sharing secrets, real secrets, important ones, with even one other person, will change them.  Writing them down is even worse because who can tell how many eyes might see them inscribed on paper, no matter how careful you might be with it.  So it’s really best to keep your secrets when you have them for their own good, as well as yours.  (226)

And yes, I will be reading The Night Circus again.

Morgenstern, Erin. The Night Circus. New York: Anchor Books, July, 2012. Print.
http://erinmorgenstern.com/

Kokoro by Soseki Natsume

My second journey into novels of Japan also focused on man’s loneliness in the modern world but with quite a difference.  Soseki was writing in the late 1800s and early 1900s.  Kokoro, considered by many to be his best novel, tells the story of a young man who befriends an older man he calls “Sensei” or teacher.  The translator, Edwin McClelland, states in a footnote that although this word translates most closely to teacher, a better translation would be the French word, “maître.”  After consulting a friend in Quebec, I agreed that the use of this word implying a more erudite nature is more appropriate for the character of Sensei.

The novel is divided into three sections:  Sensei and I, My Parents and I, Sensei and His Testament.  The last section is half of the book.  It is all first person point of view, but the last section is from the viewpoint of Sensei.  For the young man, understanding the secret behind Sensei’s monthly visits to a gravesite – always alone – is the story that must be told.  Without offering any spoiler to someone who may read the novel, I cite this passage from Sensei’s Testament:

When I was cheated by my uncle, I felt very strongly the unreliableness of men.  I learned to judge others harshly, but not myself.  I thought that in the midst of a corrupt world I had managed to remain virtuous.  Because of K, however, my self-confidence was shattered.  With a shock, I realized that I was no better than my uncle.  I became as disgusted with myself as I had been with the rest of the world.  Action of any kind became impossible for me. (238)

Sensei’s self-imposed loneliness and experiences shade the knowledge he shares with the narrator.  But the story is mesmerizing, and the style of writing obviously modeled on the novel of the Western tradition.  One website refers to Soseki as the “Dickens of Japan.”  I withhold making a judgment call on that label, but I will look for other books by this author.  One of his other novels is a trilogy entitled I Am a Cat described as the story of a stray cat taken in by some Japanese people and told from the cat’s point of view.  It is still in print and reminds me of “Tobermory” by Saki (H.H. Munro).  I will probably search out that one as it predates the short story.  I am wondering if Munro was influenced by Soseki.

Finally, every thinking reader makes connections between different books.  I love when a line in one novel sends me scurrying through my notes to find that other line it brings to mind.  Near the end of this novel Sensei says, “But who are we to judge the needs of another man’s heart?” (247)  It made me think of this line from The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford, “For who in this world can give anyone a character?  Who in this world knows anything of any other heart – or of his own?” (130)  Ford’s novel was published in 1915; Soseki’s in 1914.  It certainly has me thinking of the changing world these two men lived in and how thinking people experience recognition of truths.  Both of these authors, from very different cultures, are still reaching out a century later to the modern reader.

Soseki, Natsume. Kokoro. Translated by Edwin McClellan. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co. Inc., 1986. Print

Ford, Ford Madox. The Good Soldier. New York: Barnes & Noble Classics, 2005. Print.

http://www.ibiblio.org/eldritch/ns/soseki.html

Darkness in Summer by Kaiko Takeshi

Over the past year I have worked with many Japanese students in the writing lab at Alfred State College and have so enjoyed the experience that while searching for my next read, my eyes were caught by this novel – a gift from a foreign exchange student years ago.  And so begins my journey through three novels by Japanese authors.  I also learned that the Japanese always write family name first and have corrected that error from the cover of this book.

Kaiko Takeshi (1930-1989) was a highly acclaimed writer, and the recipient of many awards in his country.  He is noted for standing against the American involvement in Vietnam and being an activist proponent of peace in that country.  Darkness in Summer is, if not a sequel, a novel that revisits the characters from Into a Black Sun.  The novel begins with an epigraph, Revelations 3:3: “I know thou works, that thou are neither cold nor hot.  I would thou wert cold or hot.”

The unnamed narrator could use the epigraph as his motto.  The novel tells the story of this man and his relationship with a woman he had loved, years ago, in Tokyo. They have kept in touch, and now while traveling in France, she comes to visit him.  He is a novelist/reporter; she is completing a dissertation.  They share their lives sexually, but he is too depressed to have feelings for another person.  The turning point of the action happens while they are staying at her apartment in Berlin.

It was not the storyline that kept me reading this novel; it was the writing.  Despite the literal and figurative darkness, the language was lush, pensive, challenging, and erudite:

…you write a novel with words, but words are the ultimate imprecision.  They are facts and matters, and yet they are nothing but obscurity and there is no specific weight in their meanings.  Words can take on any connotation depending on one’s experience.  They are constantly living and changing.  You can’t stop them.  They collapse as soon as you pause to scrutinize them. (66)

I was moved by these words while contemplating the keen precision a translator must employ to bring a Japanese novel to life for the Western reader.

Published in 1972, the novel reflects the author’s interests when the narrator becomes obsessed with reading more about the Tet Offensive.  I would be interested in reading Into a Black Sun to gain a better understanding of the character, but it is not necessary to appreciate this novel.  I have two more novels by important Japanese writers, both gifts from the same student.  This one stands out as a modern contemporary novel reflecting the times in which it was written.

Takeshi, Kaiko. Darkness in Summer. Translated by Cecilia Segawa Seigle. Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc., 1973. Print.

Revisiting Amelie Nothomb...

Back in March I read Life Form by Amelie Nothomb and was not sure exactly how I felt about that novel; however, looking at her bio and number of published works, I decided to read more of her novels. Hygiene and the Assassin is her first published novel (1992), and the connections with Life Form (2010) are intriguing.

 Life Form told the story of an author, Amelie Nothomb, and her correspondence with an obese American soldier serving in Iraq. It was strange reading a novella in which the author is a character. It is still difficult to put an assessment of this novel into words. There is an element of the absurd, but even that label is incomplete. Hygiene and the Assassin seemed the logical choice for a follow up as it is her highly acclaimed first novel. Eye brows raised, I began reading a novel about a Nobel Laureate recipient, Pretextat Tach, who is an obese misogynistic recluse. When his impending death is announced, reporters take turns interviewing him. The efforts of three male reporters are repulsed in quick dismissive style; a fourth male reporter gleans a bit more information of Pretextat Tach and his world; however, it is the fifth interviewer - a woman, Nina - who breaks through his deceptive surface.

 In the fourth interview Tach proclaims that he does not believe anyone really reads his work; if they do read his work, only he is capable of understanding it. The interviewer argues the Nobel would seem to refute this theory, and Tach responds, "There are a great many people who push sophistication to the point of reading without reading. They're like frogmen, they go through books without absorbing a single drop of water" (54). Tach goes on to describe what he expects of a true reader:

I thought that everyone read the way I do.  For I read the way I eat:  that means not only do I need to read, but also, and above all, that reading becomes one of my components and modifies them all.  You are not the same person depending on whether you have eaten blood pudding or caviar…the majority of people emerge from reading Proust or Simenon in an identical state:  they have neither lost a fraction of what they were nor gained a single additional fraction.  They have read, that’s all:  in the best-case scenario, they know ‘what it’s about.’  And I’m not exaggerating.  How often have I asked intelligent people, ‘Did this book change you?’ and they look at me, their eyes wide, as if to say, ‘Why should a book change me?’ (54).

I understand what Tach is saying here; many people read for the story; that is, they appreciate some authors more than others but do not benefit from what they have read.  Robertson Davies would describe Pretextat Tach as a member of the clerisy.

Nina does successfully complete her interview. The past of Pretextat Tach is exposed for the world; although, I will not expose it to my blog readers.  The derivation of his first name is important to the story; that is the only hint I will give.  And the novel ends with Nina serving as Tach’s self-proclaimed avatar – the embodiment of a concept or philosophy – who also performs his dying request.

Has Amelie Nothomb won over another reader?  Oh, yes.  I have four more of her novels waiting to be read.  I only wish I could read her in the original French because if her writing is this good in translation, I cannot help but wonder what I am missing.

Nothomb, Amelie. Hygiene and the Assassin. translated by Alison Anderson. New York: Europa Editions, 2010. Print.