by David Peace
In the dim light, on the frayed tatami. First there are the pictures, the lurid illustrations. In the Kusazōshi, the Edo storybooks. So vivid, so magical. With their pictures of ghosts, with their pictures of monsters. Your eyes wide, your heart pounding. In the dim light, on the frayed tatami. Then there are the words, the cryptic signs. In Saiyūki, in Suikoden, these Chinese classics, in abridged translations. So intense, so spellbinding. With their legends of heroes, with their tales of adventures. Your eyes wider still, your heart pounding faster. In the dim light, on the frayed tatami. Word after word, sentence after sentence, paragraph after paragraph, page after page. You read and you read. In the dim light, on the frayed tatami. Becoming these heroes, living their adventures. In another time, a different world. A better time and a better world. That dim, dim light, now pale moonlight. The frayed tatami, now forest floors. The dripping tap, a thunderous river. The steep stairs, a mountain pass. Your bedding, now a bearskin. Reading and reading, learning and learning. You learn all the names of the One Hundred and Eight Heroes at Liangshan Marsh, you learn all their names, their names by heart. Your heart steady now, your eyes narrow now. Your toy wooden sword, a cold metal blade. You are battling with the fierce warrior beauty Ten Feet of Steel, you are duelling with the wild, brash monk Lu Zhishen. Against merciless bandits, against night witches. With bloody cudgels and with whistling arrows. Living characters, true heroes. These characters your friends, these heroes your teachers. They teach you bravery, they give you courage –
Don’t be scared, they shout. Be strong, Ryūnosuke! Be strong …
So you read and you read. Page after page, page after page. You read and you read, on and on. Legends and tales, stories then novels. Book after book, on and on. You read and you read. Not afraid, not afraid. No longer afraid. You read and you read. In the house, then at school. At your desk, on the street. You read and you read. Bashō and Bakin. Izumi Kyōka and Kunikida Doppo. Mori Ōgai and Natsume Sōseki. Japanese books and foreign books. The Bible and Aesop. Shakespeare and Goethe. Pu Songling and Anatole France. Book after book, character after character. Living each book, becoming each character. Hamlet and Mephistopheles, Don Juan and Julien Sorel, Prince Andrei and Ivan Karamazov. Each book a revelation, each character a transformation. So many characters, so many, many books –
We will guide you, Ryūnosuke. We will help you …
They keep whispering to you, keep calling you. Inside the house, now from outside the house. So many books, so many more books, but so little money, so very little money. Your adoptive father is a cultured man, yet a frugal man. But there are the libraries, always the libraries. And your own frugality, and your own guile. The public libraries across the river are too far, too far for an elementary schoolboy. But by the Big Ditch, so near to home, so close to hand, there is a commercial Rental Library. The sweet old lady who runs the place, she smiles at you, the sweet old lady who runs the place, she calls you ‘Sonny Boy’. So day after day, for hour after hour. You pretend to hunt, you pretend to search. Day after day, hour after hour. She never realises, she never suspects. Sonny Boy is always secretly reading, Sonny Boy is only occasionally renting. Day after day, hour after hour. With your own frugality, with your own guile. Day after day, hour after hour. The sweet old lady making her ornamental hairpins at her counter, the sweet old lady calling you ‘Sonny Boy’ as you enter. Day after day, hour after hour. Reading and reading, book after book. Thanks to your own frugality, thanks to your own guile. For day after day, for hour after hour. Until you have devoured all of her books, until you’ve eaten all that she has. By your own frugality, by your own guile. Until there is nothing more for you to read, nothing more for you here. Until the day arrives, now the hour comes –
You must cross the river, Ryūnosuke …
Calling to you, calling you. Over the bridge, over the river. Your school notebooks under your arm, your packed lunchbox under your arm. Crossing the Ryōgoku Bridge, crossing the Sumida River. After school and on holidays, over the river and along the streets. You are twelve years old, and you are on a mission. Mobilisation orders have been issued, lanterns outside the police stations. First to the Ōhashi Library on Kudanzaka Hill, then to the Imperial Library in Ueno Park. Among marching boots, under waving flags. Through the inviting used bookstores cluttering Jimbōchō Avenue, the blinding sun rising over Kudanzaka Hill. With the dawn, back by dusk. Two hours’ walk there, two hours’ walk back. Under sun and under moon. Whatever the season, whatever the weather. Through the spring winds, plum blossom then cherry petal. Through the summer rains, blooming hydrangea then flowering lotuses. On carpets of leaves, on carpets of snow. With returning boots, under victorious flags. In the Ōhashi Library, in the Imperial Library. They keep calling to you, keep calling you –
Waiting for you, we are waiting for you …
On your first visits, you are afraid. The high ceilings, the large windows. The iron stairways, the catalogue cases. The basement lunch room and the reading room. The numberless people, on numberless chairs. But on your next visits, you start to read. To read and to read, turning page after page. Turning and reading, book after book. In library after library, for year after year. The Ōhashi Library and the Imperial Library, then the Higher School Library, then the university library, the Tokyo University Library. Library after library, for year after year, borrowing and borrowing, book after book, hundreds of books, loving and loving, loving these books, these borrowed books, these borrowed books all loving you –
Please don’t take us back, Ryūnosuke, please …
The parting, these partings, tearing and tearing, tearing you apart: you want to keep these books, keep these books with you, these borrowed books, to hold and to cherish for the rest of your life, reading them over and over, again and again. Never taking them back, never letting them go. Never parting, never parting. So with your frugality, and with your guile. Your devotion and your discipline. You stay away from the cafés, and you teach part-time. Mathematics, even mathematics, for three days a week. You earn and you save. Then you buy, and you buy. On Jimbōchō Avenue, in its used bookstores. Book after book, second-hand book. Loving and keeping, cherishing and holding. Owning and possessing. Book after book. Your own books, your own library. Book by book. Building your library, your very own library. Book by book. But there are still so many books, so many more books you want. On Jimbōchō Avenue, the used bookstores. So many books, many more books. Inviting you, tempting you –
Take us home, take us, please …
Always so many books, still so little money. And so, but so. All else having failed, as the last resort. With your heart filled with pain, with your eyes filled with tears. Deaf to their protests, deaf to their screams. After all they have taught you, after all they have given you. Deaf to their protests, deaf to their screams. Your victims smothered with cloth, your victims strangled with string. As though to a funeral, an ancient tragedy. You cross the bridge, you cross the river. Tripping on a stone, falling in the road. You dust yourself down, you pick yourself up. With heavy feet, with slow steps. Along the streets, to Jimbōchō you go, you go, you –
No, Ryūnosuke, no. Don’t …
Enter the bookstore, the second-hand bookstore. You place the bundle on the counter, untie the string before the owner. You open up the cloth, take out the books. And you ask the woman, you ask, How much, how much for these? She offers you less than half of the price you paid for these books, even for books that are still quite new. You sigh, you nod. You accept her offer, and take her money. And you turn, you hurry. Deaf to their protests, deaf to their screams. Away from the crime, the scene of the crime. Their protests and their screams –
Why, Ryūnosuke …?
Because still there are so many books, so many more books you want. On Jimbōchō Avenue, in its used bookstores. So many books, so many more books. Inviting you and tempting you. So many books, now so many regrets. Regrets and lost loves:
Ryūnosuke?
Two months later, i
n the twilight. You are back on Jimbōchō Avenue, you are back among the used bookstores. Lightly dusted with snow, wrapped in your cape. From shop to shop, you’ve been making your way –
Remember me, Ryūnosuke?
On Jimbōchō Avenue, lightly dusted with snow. In your cape, stamping your feet. Outside each of the stores, the books on the street. Inviting you and tempting you. But before one shop, now among their books. This shop you know, these books you know. You find a copy of Zarathustra, but not just any copy of Zarathustra. A book well read, a book well loved. Read by you, loved by you. The very copy you sold not two months ago, the very copy still smudged with the oil from your fingers. Your former book, your former lover. You pick it up, you open it up. Standing out front, rereading and rereading. Passage after passage, page after page. And the more you read, the more you miss. This book, this book, you –
Ryūnosuke, please …
Enter the bookstore, the second-hand bookstore. You place the book on the counter, and you ask, you ask, How much is this? One yen sixty sen, smiles the woman who owns the shop. But for you, I’ll make it one fifty …
Take me back, Ryūnosuke. Please take me back …
You had sold it to her for a mere seventy sen, and can only bargain her down to one forty. But you miss this book, for you love this book. So you sigh, then you nod. And hand over double the amount you had sold it for. It always happens, you never learn …
Thank you, Ryūnosuke. Thank you …
Outside the store, back on the street. The buildings now dark, the streets now white. All very quiet, so strangely quiet. Jimbōchō covered with snow, you are wrapped in your cape. The steel-grey cover of Zarathustra pressed against your chest, a self-mocking smile upon your chapped lips. You walk and you trudge. Through the night, in the snow. Back to your house, back to your library, your very own library, your very own …
House of Books …
Book after book, book by book, pile by pile, shelf by shelf, screen by screen and wall by wall, you build and you build a house of books, your house of books. Made of paper, made of words. A house of books, a world of words: everything you know about the world, everything you learn about the world, you know and you learn from books, through words. You cannot think of anything you do not to some degree owe to books. First books, you believe, then reality; ‘from books to reality’, your unchanging truth: you do not try to improve your knowledge of life by observing the passers-by in the street. No, rather you read about the life of mankind in books, in order to better watch the passers-by in the street. Yes, real-life people are merely passers-by. In order to understand them – all their loves, all their hates, their lives and their deaths – to truly know them as they pass you by, you sit in your house of books, in your world of words, and you read and you read, book after book, observing and noting peculiarities of speech, of gesture, facial expressions, the line of a nose and the tilt of an eyebrow, the way they hold their hands, rough outlines and sketches, in Balzac, Poe, Baudelaire, Dostoevsky, Flaubert, the brothers Goncourt, Ibsen, Tolstoy, Strindberg, Verlaine, De Maupassant, Wilde, Shaw and Hauptmann; you will be the most well-read man of your generation. But every book you read is a textbook for life, an instruction in the art of living. You will find yourself in love with certain women. Yet none will show you what beauty truly is; only thanks to Balzac, thanks to Gautier, thanks to Tolstoy, only thanks to them do you notice the beauty of a woman’s ear, translucent in the sunlight, or the shadow of an eyelash, falling on a cheek. If you had not read of such beauty in books, then you would have seen nothing in a woman except the female animal of your species. Without books, without words, life would be unbearable, so unbearable, so ugly, so very, very ugly –
Not worth a single line of Baudelaire …
But your house of books, your world of words, with its screens and its walls, with its windows and doors, is built from other people’s books, other people’s words, borrowed and bought, always, already stolen and used; in your second-hand house of books, in your second-hand world of words, your life is always, already secondhand, second-hand.
6. A Bridge, a Gate; on the Way to Work …
One day, at school, you are daydreaming, looking out of the window, not thinking, just dreaming, the wind so very, very strong today, the wind moving through the branches of the trees today, the leaves rustling, the leaves trembling, each leaf, each leaf, halting your dreams, holding your gaze, enchanting you, bewitching you, making you see, making you feel, see for yourself and feel for yourself, the beauty of nature, the wonder of creation, this secret, this mystery, a current, a light; you will always remember this day, this moment, for this is the day, the moment, you know what you want to do, to do with your life, the rest of your life –
You will devote your life to literature, to the creation of literature, the rest of your life to writing.
In the Japanese language you have the word kaku, which means ‘to write, to draw or to paint’, in other words ‘to compose or to depict’. The characters with which kaku is written consist of ‘the hand’ radical on the left and the character for ‘seedling’ on the right. The character for ‘seedling’ is itself a compound of two radicals: one for ‘grass’, the other for ‘field’. When you put them all together you get kaku or egaku: a picture of a hand planting a seed. For you, all art originates from the germ of an idea, then the seed has to be planted or sown, then cultivated and nurtured by hand. This is what writing means to you, and this is what you are going to do.
You put down your wooden sword, you pick up your thin pen and you begin to scratch, you begin to write, copying down the old tales Fuki tells, scribbling down the stories the maids share, tales and stories of ghosts and of fireballs, widows obsessed with their late husbands, old ladies tortured by their daughters-in-law, filling notebooks with these stories, making little magazines with your friends, telling and retelling, composing and depicting, writing and writing, story after story, learning and learning, learning your craft, building bridges from these stories, these other people’s stories, bridges to your stories, your own stories, that gate you seek, over these bridges.
You translate one page of Poe a day, first studying the composition of the stories, then the construction of the sentences, all their hidden secrets, their occluded mysteries; their balance of beauty and truth, of passion and terror, humour and sarcasm, the melancholia of their dreams, the alchemy of their poetry, the precision of these sentences, the concision of these stories, the wonder of all these elements, the effect of this totality; his dedication to craftsmanship, his devotion to his craft. This is what you learn from Poe, this is your education, your apprenticeship.
It is a never-ending apprenticeship, to writing, and to language. For literature is an art of words that depends on language for its expression. And so you work ceaselessly to improve the quality of your language, the quality of your writing. And the quality you seek most in other people’s writings is the same as the one you seek most in your own: clarity. You want to write as clearly as possible. You want to express in precise terms what lies in your mind. And so you try and try to do just that. But when you take up your pen, you can seldom write as clearly or as smoothly as you wish. You always end up writing cluttered sentences. All your effort (if you can truly call it that) goes into the clarity of your art.
Yet you know the novel is the least artistic of all the literary genres. The only one that deserves the name of art is poetry. The novel is included in literature only for the sake of the poetry in it. In any other respect, the novel differs little from biography or history. For you, novelists are biographers or historians, relating themselves to the human life of a given age and of a given country. In Japan, the proof of this truth is in the works of the Lady Murasaki and Ihara Saikaku. But the greatest novelists are also always poets, yet always, already impure poets, still obligated to biography, or to history, always, already divided and torn, always, already torn in two; historian and poet, poet and historian.
And so y
ou keep going back, back to the tales, the tales of the past, the tales Aunt Fuki told you, from Uji Shūi Monogatari, from Konjaku Monogatari, going back to the poetry of Man’yōshū, to the language of Hōjōki, always going back, back to the past, long, long ago, mukashi, mukashi …
For suppose you have a particular theme and you want to turn it into a story: in order to express it as powerfully and as artistically as possible, then you need some extraordinary and memorable incident. But the more extraordinary and memorable you imagine it to be, then the harder it is to describe such an incident convincingly if you set it in present-day Japan, for then it seems unnatural, and then the theme is left by the wayside, and then all is lost. But if it is difficult to set an extraordinary incident in contemporary Japan, then the solution is simple: make the incident happen in some remote past (or in the far future), or in a country other than Japan, or both. Then again, if you simply begin with ‘Once upon a time’, and then let the history go at that, then you have failed, too; you have to establish a particular historical time and setting, and then introduce and include some of the social background and conditions of that time, thus making the story seem natural and plausible, thus holding the attention of the reader, the hand of the reader, taking them back, back to the past, making them see the past, making them feel the past, making them live, yes, live the past again, anew …
Yes, from your desk, pen in hand, you will resurrect the stories of the past, the tales once told, lifting the veil, you will raise the dead, raise the dead, lifting the veil, tearing the veil, the veil in two …
Mukashi, mukashi, you are standing under a gate, the Akamon Gate at the University of Tokyo, standing under the gate, watching the rain fall, the rain falling now, the rain falling then, thinking of another gate, a different gate, in another city, a different city, in another time, a different time: the Rashōmon Gate in Kyoto, the grand city gate which once stood at the southern entrance to Suzaku Avenue; now no trace remains, not even a foundation stone. But you know this gate, you have read of this gate in the Konjaku Monogatari, and so you see this gate …
