Books and Films

Another Japanese Classic

I read another book by Osamu Dazai titled Otogizōshi: The Fairy Tale Book of Dazai Osamu. Totally fascinating! I must admit that the cover design was partly responsible for my decision of which of this author's books to read next. Isn't it neat? It shows a famous fairy-tale character riding on the back of a sea turtle. Here is the original print.

Urashima Taro Returning Home from the Palace of the Dragon King, 1886.
Yoshitoshi Tsukioka (source: Art Institute of Chicago)

In this collection of stories, Dazai retells several fairy tales that would have been familiar to any Japanese child or anyone who grew up in Japan before or during World War II. While I am completely unfamiliar with these classics, his presentation is complete, so I felt as if I understood him. (Maybe I did, and maybe I didn't.) 

Each of the tales is retold with a great deal of elaboration, explaining the moral of the story, in a way, but actually turning these fairy tale types into psychological and social histories of individualized human beings. As the author interprets each tale, he describes his own thoughts and experiences, living through World War II bombings, as he writes. At the beginning of the last fairy tale in the collection, he explains:

"I’ve been writing these fairy tales little by little in what spare time I’ve had, what with being mobilized for civilian duty and dealing with the post-bombing remains of my house and what have you, and despite a persistent fever, hoping only that they might prove a mild diversion suitable for any moments of leisure afforded those fighting courageously to help Nippon through her national crisis."  (p. 97). 

The foreword of this translation points out that Dazai wrote in a style of "autobiographical or self-referential semi-fiction, known as shishōsetsu, which exerted a powerful hold on many Japanese authors and readers for much of the twentieth century." As I learned a few days ago, his daughter also wrote in this style, as do many more recent Western writers. Very intriguing. 

A Popular French Novel

After participating in the blog event Paris in July, I have mainly switched my focus from France to Japan for the month of August. However, as a Paris in July followup,  Emma, of the blog Words and Peace, who organized Paris in July, sent me her copy of An Astronomer in Love by the very popular French writer Antoine Laurain. I very much enjoyed reading it. 

An Astronomer in Love contains two wonderful and vivid stories, told alternately in brief, beautifully written short chapters. One physical object unites the stories: a beautifully crafted telescope. And one astronomical phenomenon motivates the central characters in the two stories: the Transit of Venus, which is the passage of the planet Venus in front of the sun from the perspective of an observer on earth. The brilliant feature of this novel, in my opinion, is that the two stories are not in the least parallel -- there's no forced connection other than the telescope, the planet Venus, the sun, and in a sense, love. That's all. 

One of the alternating stories is about the efforts of a French astronomer named Guillaume to make accurate observations of the successive transits of Venus in 1761 and 1769; he travels around the world on the very slow ships of his day, and spends almost 12 years on his long and fascinating voyage. In the 18th century, accurate observation of the transit would have contributed to a more exact estimate of the size of the solar system, so the French astronomer was sent with a clear mission. 

Laurain based this story on the actual diaries of the historic person, Guillaume le Gentil, who was the appointed astronomer to King Louis XV of France. A wonderfully told story, it vividly describes many exotic locations in that long-ago era. For example, Laurain describes how Guillaume experiences many remarkable things; among others, he has the opportunity to taste "thousands of fish caught, from Isle de France to the China Sea, fish he had prepared, boiled, eaten, and shellfish too, species that no one in France had cracked open, even in their dreams." (p. 149)

The other story is about a modern Frenchman named Xavier, who somehow comes into possession of Guillaume's original telescope, and then witnesses the transit in 2012. Xavier is a rather ordinary man who lives alone, and often for a meal just eats some cheese, toast, and a tomato -- but in a small parallel, he once is offered a luxury meal, in which a butler offers him "skewers of grilled lobster" as well as the finest of wines.A little parallel tease, maybe?

In the course of the story, Xavier meets the love of his life, a woman named Alice, and they manage to watch the 2012 transit together. And at the end, Guillaume also finds the love of his life, who had been waiting for him for 12 years. Laurain describes the transit as both the 18th and 21st century characters see it. Here's what they saw:

The Transit of Venus, 2012.
(NPR: this source also explains the science involved in the observations.)

The next Transit of Venus will take place in 2117 -- it is a strange and rare event with a rather bizarre 243 year repeating schedule: two transits occur 8 years apart, then there is a more-than-100 year pause, another two close together, and an even longer pause. I remember hearing about the transits that took place in 2004 and 2012. Historic discussions then were focused on another historic figure that made an extraordinary voyage to witness the 18th century transit; that is, the famous Captain James Cook. On his ship the Endeavor, he went to Tahiti for the 1769 event. Unlike the unfortunate French astronomer Guillaume, who missed both of the 18th century transits, Captain Cook did manage to observe the celestial event in 1769.

More Agatha Christie

This is one of Agatha Christie’s paranoid spy stories, which I watched in the 1981 Netflix version that is now available on streaming.. Her spy stories have many of the same features as her murder mysteries, but also a kind of existential fear that Britain is full of sinister plots and evil people. I probably read this years ago but forgot it, or maybe the script writers rejiggered it in some way. But fun to watch, and also full of great period clothing and antique cars.

Reviews © 2023 mae sander.

Shared with bloggers on my favorite weekend blog parties.