Once and Forever

August 1, 2018
Best known as a poet, Japanese writer Miyazawa (1896-1933) turns to folklore and European modernism alike in this welcome collection of short fiction.It's a pleasing sign of cultural flexibility that Japanese pop culture, by way of anime, has found room for Miyazawa as inspiration and model; it's hard to imagine an American superhero comic making similar room for, say, Sherwood Anderson. Yet Miyazawa is certainly playful enough to sustain a cartoon or comic, even when his purpose might be darker than it would seem at first glance. Consider his story "The Restaurant of Many Orders," whose title does not refer to the rush of customers to keep the cooks busy but instead to a bossy establishment that instructs would-be patrons to go through a series of mandates, from combing their hair to spreading cream over their faces and ears, and lots of it, too. Finally, one of the well-groomed hunters who wanders into the place comes to a realization: "I've an idea that 'restaurant' doesn't mean a place for serving food, but a place for cooking people and serving them." Spot-on. Some of Miyazawa's enigmatic stories seem to conceal hints of Kafka, as with "Gorsch the Cellist," in which a not so very accomplished musician finds that his best audience is a studious cuckoo: "In fact, the more he played the more convinced he became that the cuckoo was better than he was." Badgers, cats, rabbits, and other critters figure in the story, as they do in many of Miyazawa's pieces--and it's a stroke of Kafkaesque brilliance that in one of them, a trap that catches a rat should have a speaking role. A hallmark is "The Fire Stone," a story in which a family of puzzled rabbits comes into possession of a dazzling jewel that burns "like the fires of a volcano...[and] shone like the sunset" and that touches off all kinds of discord before it takes flight like a bird and disappears.A marvelous writer who deserves to be much better known in English.

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August 27, 2018
In the transcendent stories of Miyazawa (1896–1933), Earth teems with magic and wonder. Hunters can overhear bears conversing, earthgods weep with loneliness, and animals must attend “Badger School.” While ostensibly for children, these stories are suffused with a sublime melancholy that will appeal to all ages. “The Nighthawk Star” recounts how the physically ugly nighthawk, bullied by the other birds, flies high into the night sky until he becomes the nighthawk star, “still burning to this day.” In “The Restaurant of Many Orders,” two young hunters deep in the forest stumble upon The Restaurant Wildcat, which is far too inviting, showcasing Miyazawa’s sly humor. Some tales, such as “A Stem of Lilies,” in which a King dispatches his chancellor to find a stem of lilies for the king to present to Buddha as an offering, seem little more than enigmatic sketches. While most of the stories possess a timeless folktale quality, details such as General Electricity and his marching telegraph poles, or soldiers trying to blow out electric lights, situate the work in a rapidly changing Japan. While Miyazawa does not eschew the tropes of folktales—his forests teem with talking animals, magic stones, and moral lessons—this collection proves his poetic voice and craft transcend the genre.