More Plans

In case you were worried, I am doing work. Today I plan to go to the library after school and request an interlibrary loan of the novel "I am a Cat" by Natsume Soseki. For the past week, I studied zen koans and wrote a few myself, although I wasn't really happy with them. Currently, I have begun reading "The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle" by Haruki Murakami, one of the most famous books from one of Japan's foremost contemporary writers. The book, surprisingly, is something of a page-turner and I am already on page 137. I plan to write quite a few reflections on this book, some of which could possibly be used in my end-of-the-semester portfolio.

Film update: Jesse Kray (you may have heard of him) has told me that he the films "Seven Samurai" and "Rashomon", both directed by Akira Kurosawa, and would be willing to lend them to me. I will view these and hopefully have some material for a reflection.

Writing update: I am still always keeping my ears and eyes open, waiting for inspiration to strike. Yesterday I produced a slightly unconventional haiku. I also have some other work that I have written that is somewhat of a cross between Western and Eastern poetry. I have decided that I'm a fan of the spare writing style pioneered by the haiku-ists and adopted by the Imagists. My goal is to emulate that style. One thing I noticed is that austerity is a feature of many Japanese works. From ceremonial tea to rock gardens to the writing of Haruki Murakami, I have noticed an airiness, a lack of clutter and busy-ness. Of course, this generalization is not universal. Take Japanese manga/anime, for example. These are characterized by being completely over-the-top. The female figure is dramatized impossibly. The facial expressions of characters literally leap off the face. Every action, every emotional response in a manga is amplified into the realm of the ridiculous and absurd. The vast majority of manga sharply contrasts the austerity of the haiku writer. Of course, manga is not a complete anomaly. Its streak of absurdism is reflected also in the zen koans of old, and the focus on relationships between men and women can be traced all the way back to Tale of Genji (which I regard as a "Bible" of Japanese lit, a sort of foundational novel).

This is another feature which I have prominently noticed in what I have read so far: the relationship between men and women, specifically marriage. This is obviously not exclusive to Japan; most cultures have focused heavily on love and marriage. However, most Western examinations of men and women focus on the sensual, the sinful, the dramatic. Whereas the Japanese writers seem more practical: they talk about seemingly mundane things: the reality of spending the rest of your life with another person. Conversations at dinner-time. The ways in which a marriage can fall apart. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, or at least the 137 pages I've read so far, have focused on two things: first, the strangely expanding world of the unemployed Toru Okada and the various characters he meets, and second, the mundanity of a six-year old marriage and the psychic implications contained thereof.

Although I have not yet experienced them, I have read that much of the subject matter in the films of Yasujiro Ozu deals with marriage. The role of marriage in Tale of Genji need not even be explained.

Anyhow, these are just random reflections, with some useful information thrown in. So...yeah.