The Dandelion

It’s impossible to trust any text that’s incomplete, and Kawabata’s novel The Dandelion (also Dandelions, Tanpopo) was published posthumously and unfinished (in 1972). An editor’s mindset kicked in while reading this (an exercise in itself), and I wonder if the author might have scrapped this ragged story if he’d lived longer. Polishing it would’ve done away with the repetition and inconsistency, but the whole thing doesn’t feel like it could be ironed out into anything on par with Kawabata’s other novels. Kafka died before finishing The Castle, but reading that you get a clear idea of where he was going with it. The Dandelion, on the other hand, comes across as half-baked.

Kawabata possibly realized it was a dud… There’s an exchange in the last few pages that starts with Ineko’s mother bringing up the phrase tōne no sasu kane—a bell with a distant ring. She says, “It’s a nice way to describe the sound of an old bell, don’t you think?” To which Ineko’s lover replies, “A distant ring. Yes, that’s nice, and you could say that about this conversation, too.” The book up to this point has mostly been this conversation, long and wandering, between the two. The mother, channeling Kawabata, I imagine, comes back with, “Don’t be ridiculous—not this random chatter.”

I agree.

There are some wonderful Kawabata-ish descriptions and sentences here, though. These make it worthwhile to read, but its lack of cohesion and rather stagnant plot make it unenjoyable overall.

Souls on the Road

Souls on the Road (Rojō no Reikon), directed by Minoru Murata and released in 1921, is one of Japan’s best remembered silent films and considered among the first steps towards a distinctly Japanese cinematic culture.

When his career as a violinist ends in disgrace as he collapses on stage in the capital, Koichiro returns to his mountain village on foot with his wife and daughter. At a crossroads in a snowy forest on the way, they're accosted by a pair of recently released convicts. The men, one lame and the other tubercular, both dejected and desperate, attempt to rob the weary family, but seeing how badly in shape they are offer them a chunk of bread instead, before limping off in another direction.

Koichiro arrives at the village on Christmas Eve but is soon rejected by his father. The ex-cons are discovered by the master of another house who, presumably, has caught them trying to sneak inside someplace to escape the winter storm that's coming. At rifle point, he forces the men to take turns beating each other with a switch.

The violinist’s daughter has a fever, but Koichiro's father shows no mercy, kicking the lot of them out into the inclement weather. They shelter in a barn while a boisterous party kicks off in a house that has been quite immoderately decorated for Christmas. The joy of the revelers, streamers hanging around their heads as they dance, is shown in stark contrast to the misery of the now febrile and fading wife and daughter, whose heads appear wreathed by strands of cold, limp hay.

Towards the end, a young boy and girl, the former loyal and hardworking throughout the film and the latter naïvely self-indulgent and frivolous, come to a spot in the woods where a body has been found in the snow. For a fleeting moment the character of each—both static up until then—is interrupted by a pondering of what if's. What if the master of the house had shown mercy? What if the father had shown compassion? A Maxim Gorky quote about compassion and missed opportunity follows to end the film.

Souls on the Road is visually compelling in its storytelling and in the emotions of characters, the rural setting and way of life, and the mix of traditional and foreign clothing. We can see the frenzy of the storm and ghostlike visions which fade in and out and, surprisingly, Santa Claus as well. Laced with sentimentality but not gushing with it, as Japanese films tend to do, Murata gives us a fairly straight telling of the shepherd’s lost sheep, here the prodigal son and the marginalized, and dips it in the inhumanity of the unmerciful and those who turn a blind eye.

Santa Claus appearance in Souls on the Road (1921)

Living Carelessly in Tokyo and Elsewhere

Japanologist, translator, documentary filmmaker John Nathan gives us a memoir packed with delightful stories from his years in Japan and, yes, elsewhere. There's an ebb and flow in these pages as Nathan reflects on his life's paths while either (humbly) patting himself on the back or kicking himself for perceived wrong turns.

He's a bold writer, and Living Carelessly is compelling for its acute honesty and Nathan's sharp insights and wryness. He's lived life on a large scale. But carelessly, he has us believe. In the 1960s, he translated Yukio Mishima's The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea and Kenzaburo Oe's A Personal Matter and regularly hung out with these authors. He also made three documentary films in Japan in the 70s (Full Moon Lunch is currently on YouTube. I couldn't track down The Blind Swordsman or Farm Song). In the book, he recounts his failures in Hollywood later and, yes again, elsewhere.

There's a wry sense of humor that surfaces throughout his writing, whether he's lamenting about salaries and royalties for certain projects or describing the quirks and whims of renowned artists or sharing stories about his two families.

I liked his anecdotes and fun facts about Mishima and Oe.

"Mishima had no sense of rhythm; his dancing looked like death throes."

And his recollections of his youthful years out on the town.

"...[they] kept your highball glass full without waiting to be asked, a Japanese custom that made moderation impossible, like drinking from a magically replenishing glass."

There are also regrets and self-flagellation.

"Striving, and failing, to feel superior, I tumble into despair about myself, which blinds me to what I have achieved and prevents me from finding any pleasure in it."

But the mixture of humor and despairing with a balance between inward- and outward-looking reportage works well. A few parts bored me. For example, the thirty or so pages he goes on about his days making TV commercials for AT&T and other companies. Overall, though, it's an interesting read with lots of "appearances" by famous (mostly male) faces in Japan, and elsewhere, including Donald Richie, Donald Keene, Peter Coyote, Akira Kurosawa, John Updike, Shintaro the "crude, misogynist scoundrel" Katsu, Saul Bellow, Robert Duvall, George Lucas, Francis Ford Coppola, Michelangelo Antonioni, Shintaro Ishihara and New Kids on the Block!

Shelved between Ian Buruma's A Tokyo Romance (2018) and Robert Whiting's Tokyo Junkie (2021).

Cheers to Pat McCoy for recommending this.