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Summary: A strangely quiet study of the effects of war
Review: This novel is a well-crafted study of the effect of war on a young soldier Manase and the secondary effect on his family. At the point that the focus changes to that of the second son, the reader may, for a short while, wonder if Okuizumi has drifted from the otherwise tight structure; rest assured that he has not.The first section of the book narrates the events of World War II that plague Manase - time in a cave with sick and dying comrades who dreamed of one last chance to die in battle while killing the dying to decrease the need for food an water. One of the dying spoke to Manase of rocks - rocks containing the history of the world. The second section narrates Manase's obsession with rocks, his emotional distance from his family, his outward success and inward failure - all under the cloud of nightmares of the cave. When tragedy comes, the surface normality of his family life collapses. The final section narrates the story second son, the son raised by his aunt. The son's fate becomes the vehicle through which Manase is forced to remember that part of the history of the cave that was sublimated. As part of that remembrance, he is forced to reevaluate the destruction of his family. That the author tells the story in such quiet and compact a manner adds to the impact of the book. Add this to your must read list.
Rating:
Summary: Beyond Tragedy
Review: This profoundly beautiful, horrifying and seamless novella begins in the darkness of an island cave at the end of World War II and ends fewer than 200 pages later in a final paroxysm of tragedy. The novel takes its title from the New Testament book of Luke: "Be answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out." It is the memory embedded in the stones that preoccupies Tsuyoshi Manase, the book's protagonist. As a war veteran, Manase has seen suffering beyond what any imagination could conjure, including prolonged hiding from the enemy in a cave where he is plagued by hunger, thirst, disease and rotting corpses. It is a dying Lance Corporal, however, who becomes the catalyst that will change Manase's life forever as he speaks to Manase about his own love of geology. After the war, Manase, himself, becomes fascinated with geology and spends increasing amounts of time gathering stones allowing his business, his marriage and his children to recede in importance beside his mounting obsession. The symbolism of the stones, and the way they carry Manase's particular memories, as well as the memories of the universe itself, is woven into the narrative in such a way that any reader would be hard-pressed to forget. As this harrowing story weaves its way expertly in and out of Manase's memories, reality and hallucination intertwine until finally, the real world, Manase's sanity and even his own innocence regarding a ghastly crime begin to weaken and implode. The two time periods, past and present, are so skillfully and artfully intertwined that one has to wonder if Manase's entire life is really nothing more than an illusion in the cave. Manase, we come to see, is battling an immense, but nebulous, evil, an evil of which he may be the victim or he may be the perpetrator. Okuizumi renders this profound tale of terror and beauty in the most subtle and delicate prose style, much like an exquisite painting on a grain of rice. The result is that Manase's nightmarish past becomes all the more real and horrifying. A surrealistic tragedy of one man's passions, fears and delusions, this book, although short, is extremely complex, much like the classical Japanese novels of Yasunari Kawabata. And the horror of Manase's story is only magnified by the exquisite quietness of its telling.
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Summary: A lesson on man's place in the universe
Review: This spare, lovely and heartbreaking little novel is based upon one thought: "Even the smallest stone in a riverbed has the entire history of the universe inscribed upon it."
Tsuyoshi Manase, in the final days of his WW II service, is hiding in a tropical forest, along with the other half-dead Japanese soliders desperately hoping to evade capture and death. Trapped in a cave and weak from disease, Manase finds himself next to a dying officer who's feverishly giving lectures on geology. When he eventually does go home Manase becomes obsessed by rocks to the extent he has no time for his wife and children, driving a wedge between himself and his family. One day his oldest son starts visiting his father's workshop, intensely interested in learning more about rocks and geology. Manase, skeptical at first, becomes overjoyed that he's able to pass along his passion to his child. Then one day tragedy strikes, out of the blue, and the lives of Manase and his family begin spiralling down to disaster.
This novel is ultimately about how tiny human beings really are, in the big scope of things. It's also about man's inhumanity to man, and how each person is connected to everything else in the universe. This is a moving little book with very much to say.
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