UNESCO Representative Literature

I read another issue of The New Yorker, but also three books by Shusaku Endo: first, The Samurai, about Catholic converts in Japan in the 16th century; second, When I whistle, which didn't make much of an impression on me; and third, Wonderful Fool, a comic novel about a Frenchman in Japan. I did enjoy the latter, having been myself a foreigner in Japan. And I didn't really speak much more Japanese than Gaston Bonaparte, the protagonist.

I also read Yasushi Inoue's Roof Tile of Tempyo, about four monks going to China to bring back Buddhist materials. It didn't impress me that much, but the introduction by the translator, James Araki, was nothing short of a revelation. He discusses several characteristics of Japanese literature based on the taste of readers which don't exist in the West He discusses how the temple names are repeated often because a Japanese reader enjoys the aesthetics of an elegant hand writing those names. Japanese readers enjoy imagining rather than hearing the thoughts of the characters. Much as we like to see familiar landmarks in movies, Japanese readers like to catch glimpses of famous historical people in a novel. Well, who knew?

I read Yukio Mishima's Sound of Waves, a pastoral novel which thankfully didn't contain some of the more extreme sadomasochistic scenes I read in his other novels. I also read Salvador Garmendia's Memories of Altagracia, a fantastical novel I had trouble following, and finally Hwang Sun-Won's Descendants of Cain, about the communist takeover of a village in North Korea. I can readily believe it was a bestseller in South Korea, for political reasons. I found it unsubtle, frankly, although the translation may not render fully its literary merits. I also read Atheis by Achdiat Mihardja. This is the first Indonesian novel, and I found it conventional in itself, but of course it represents a great departure for Bahasa Indonesia. I found no sense of place in it, even though I've been to Jakarta, and the highlands of Indonesia.