Simple Is the Best: My Impression of Kindle 4th Generation

It took such a long time for Amazon.co.jp (the Japanese branch of Amazon) to begin to sell Kindle, so I couldn’t wait it and bought “Kindle 4th generation” from Amazon.com.

Finally, Amazon.co.jp started selling “Kindle Paperwhite” and “Kindle Fire”, but they don’t sell “Kindle,” which does not support Japanese digital books. Now, I read English digital books with Kindle 4th Generation and Japanese ones with Kindle app on Nexus 7.

Kindle 4th generation has many restrictions. It is obviously inconvenient for me, as a native Japanese speaker, not to be able to read Japanese books. Its display is just black and white, and too low resolution for us to watch photos and read mangas. Unlike Kindle Paperwhite, it doesn’t even have a touchscreen and a light.

But it is really comfortable, when you just read a string of character on a book.

Firstly, it is very light in weight. It is quite important. Nexus 7 isn’t heavy as compared with other tablets, but I feel it is much heavier than Kindle 4th generation when I read digital books for a long time.

Secondly, it is just suitable for carrying out. I don’t have to be careful for running out of battery, because it isn’t necessary to recharge its battery almost for a week. It is just a right size to put in a jacket’s breast pocket.

When I flip a page with Kindle 4th generation, I have to push a button on its side. Pushing a button isn’t fashionable, but actually it is much more convenient for me just to push a button than to swipe a display.

Kindle 4th generation has nothing but functions just only to read digital books.

Simple is best.

Your English’s Getting Very Good: Munenori Kawasaki and His English

A few years ago, I heard that Munenori Kawasaki, who was a member of the Japanese national baseball team in 2006 and 2009 World Baseball Classics, would try out for MLB.

Honestly, I thought that it would be really hard for him to become successful. Although there are many Japanese pitchers showed good performances in MLB, most Japanese infielders failed because of lack of power. Kawasaki, as a shortstop player, is agile enough, but it was obvious that he didn’t have enough power to be in the starting lineup in MLB.

Since I hadn’t heard anything about him for a while, I'd almost forgotten about him.

I'd heard that he'd become popular on the Internet, and so I watched a video about him on YouTube.



In a post game interview, his teammate, Mark DeRosa, called him over, and he just shouted, "Thank you very much. My name is Kawasaki. I'm from Japan. I'm Japanese!"

He was pretty funny. When I saw it the first time, I laughed out loud.

The following video is an interview with him from a program on the MLB network.



In this one, both Kawasaki and DeRosa reappear. Kawasaki read out some phrases from his small notebook.

I laughed out loud again, but at the same time I was really impressed that he had really made an effort to survive in MLB.

English may not be great, but his character shines through. I can’t help loving him.

Recently, I've heard that his English has gotten much better.



The interviewer said, "Your English's getting very good." I agree with him. He has made great progress. What he was talking about might not have been all that important, but he was able to have a conversation with the interviewer, whereas in the earlier videos it was like he was just making pronouncements.

It’s wonderful that he doesn't seem to be the least bit timid or shy.

In the interview he said, "I have teacher. Everyday talking."  I guess that he talks a lot with his teammates. That might be quite important for his MLB life.

I was wrong.

He has an enough ability to play in MLB.

The Cultural Trade Deficit: Japanese Intellectuals, Let’s Speak Out in English

It’s often said that the Japanese cultural trade deficit is very large.

Japanese intellectuals who can speak foreign languages have been earning money by bringing foreign knowledge and information into Japan. Most of them haven’t been interested in expressing their thoughts to the world, because it is much easier for them to import foreign knowledge and sell it in Japan.

It’s might not be bad that there are rich collections of Japanese translations of foreign books, but there are much fewer translations of Japanese books. Haruki Murakami is a complete exception.

Through the experience of keeping a blog in English I have realized that Japanese intellectuals should speak out in English to the world much more.

Firstly, remarks by Japanese intellectuals in English have value because of their scarcity at this time. When I write in English on my blog, I found that my opinion was unique because of my Japanese origin, even if I don’t try intentionally insisting on a Japanese point of views. We, as Japanese intellectuals, have a duty to provide our unique point of views to the world.

Now, many non-Western countries fail to build democratic governments. Japan, as a non-Western country, has the experiences of importing the concept of democracy from the West and developing our own democratic government; Japanese intellectuals could point out factors which make non-Western countries fail in building democratic governments that Western intellectuals can't see.

Secondly, we could make our opinions more sophisticated by expressing them in English. When we speak in English to the world, we have to explain things that are obvious for Japanese people. This forces us to think about our fundamental assumptions.

In my blog, I wrote the entry "Is Japan Really a Democratic Country?" Certainly I could think much more deeply about Japanese government by that than writing it in Japanese.

Japanese intellectuals, let’s speak out in English!

The Problem of Mistranslation of “Norwegian Wood”

The title of the Beatles’ song “Norwegian Wood” was translated as “ノルウェイの森 (noruei no mori)” in Japanese. “noruei” means “Norway”, and “no” means “of,” and “mori” means “forest,” so “ノルウェイの森 (noruei no mori)” means “Forest of Norway.”

Some one pointed out that this was mistranslation, because “Norwegian Wood” means Norwegian wood furniture. Basically I agree with it.

I looked up the word “wood” in a dictionary.

wood 

1 [uncountable and countable] the material that trees are made of 

Put some more wood on the fire. 

a polished wood floor 

soft/hard woodPine is a soft wood. 

Her house was made of wood. 

a piece of wood 

2 [countable] also the woods a small forest: 

a walk in the woods

The word “Wood” in “Norwegian Wood” isn’t plural, so it doesn’t mean the second definition “a small forest” but the first definition “the material that trees are made of.”

And let’s read the lyrics of "Norwegian Wood."

She showed me her roomIsn't it good Norwegian wood?

No one might think that there was a small forest in her room. It is obvious that this “Norwegian wood” is Norwegian wood furniture.

Haruki Murakami named his novel  “ノルウェイの森 (noruei no mori)” after the Beatles’ song. He wrote about this problem in his essay.

I, as one of a translator, want to say that the right interpretation of the word “Norwegian Wood” is just “Norwegian Wood.” The other interpretations might be more or less mistranslation. If you look at the context of the lyrics, it is clear that the ambiguous tone of these words dominates this song and lyrics. It is difficult to definite these words as one special meaning. It is not different between in Japanese and English. If you wanted to catch it, you would lose it. Of course, one of images that these words contain might be “Norwegian wood furniture” = “Nordic furniture.” But it isn’t the only meaning of them. If you insisted that they meant just “Nordic furniture,” the narrow way of assertion would detract the deepness of this song that the ambiguity (this deepness is the point of this song). It is just to miss the forest for the trees. “Norwegian Wood” might not be “ノルウェイの森 (noruei no mori),” but at the same time it isn’t “Norwegian wood furniture,” I think.

翻訳者のはしくれとして一言いわせてもらえるなら、Norwegian Woodということばの正しい解釈はあくまでもであって、それ以外の解釈はみんな多かれ少なかれ間違っているのではないか。歌詞のコンテクストを検証してみれば、Norwegian Woodということばのアンビギュアスな（規定不能な）響きがこの曲と詞を支配していることは明白だし、それをなにかひとつにはっきりと規定するという行為はいささか無理があるからだ。それは日本語においても英語においても、変わりはない。捕まえようとすれば、逃げてしまう。もちろんそのことば自体として含むイメージのひとつとして、ノルウェイ製の家具＝北欧家具、という可能性はある。でもそれがすべてでない。もしそれがすべてだと主張する人がいたら、そういう狭義な決めつけ方は、この曲のアンビギュイティーがリスナーに与えている不思議な奥の深さ（その深さこそがこの曲の生命なのだ）を致命的に損なってしまうのではないだろうか。それこそ「木を見て森を見ず」ではないか。Norwegian Woodは正確には「ノルウェイの森」ではないかもしれない。しかし同様に「ノルウェイ製の家具」でもないというのが僕の個人的見解である。(村上春樹「雑文集」)

Honestly, this passage is inarticulate.

If he was right, no one could translate the words “Norwegian Wood” in Japanese. There is no perfect translation, but translators seek better translation. In this case, it is clear that “ノルウェイの森 (noruei no mori)” isn’t relatively adequate.

I’d like to know how native English speakers think about the words “Norwegian Wood.”

The Reason That I Really Want to Improve My English

I’m learning English as a secondary language. I wrote about the reason that I learned English in the entry “The Meaning of Learning a Foreign Language.”

A while ago, I was almost satisfied with my English, because I felt that I could largely express what I want to express. But now I’ve got frustrated with my English.

When I read IMDb’s user reviews, I think that they are more advanced than these on similar sites in Japanese but at the same time I can write a review from my unique stand point of view. So I try to write reviews, but I am not satisfied with them at all.

First of all, I can’t write grammatically accurate English.

Before I’ve got frustrated with my English, I thought, “It’s OK. I’m not a native speaker. If I made some mistakes, readers could guess what I meant.” 

In fact, if I mistook “a” for “the,” it might lead a critical mistake. In order to express accurately what I mean, so I have to write accurate sentences. Nevertheless, I haven’t understood even the usage of “a” and “the,” yet.

Secondary, I can read and write in English too slowly. I guess that I can read and write in Japanese four or five times faster than in English.

I have a lot of books and articles to read in English, but actually I can read only a small part of them. I can only read two or three articles of newspaper a day and it takes two or three weeks to read through only a book.

My typical entry in this weblog has about two or three hundred words and it takes about one or two hours to write through one entry. Sometimes, I haven’t written what I’d like to express yet, I don’t have enough time to write through it.

Of course, I couldn’t keep up with chat, if I used dictionary and thesaurus.

Thirdly, I don’t understand the nuances of English expressions well. In Japanese, I can write both of formal document and casual mail. But I don’t know what impression my writings in English give to readers, so I can’t control my style of writings.

When I wrote the title of this entry “The Reason That I Really Want to Improve My English,” I try to find an adequate adverb and search thesaurus, but I am not convinced which adverb is most adequate for what I really want to express.

In the end, I should read more and more English in order to improve my English. The road ahead will be long.

A Great Story, Good Actors and Actresses, but a Cheap Direction: My Impression of the Movie, “The Great Gatsby”

I saw the movie “the Great Gatsby” yesterday.


I love the novel “the Great Gatsby,” so I was looking forward to this movie, and at the same time I felt anxious about it.

Of course, the plot is great, not due to any staff of this movie but to F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Gatsby devoted whole his life to Daisy, who wasn’t what she really was but what he believed that she should be. He did anything that he believed that she would love, but actually it wasn’t sure that she would love it. In the end, he was betrayed by the real Daisy, because she wasn’t what he thought that her was.

In this sense, “the Great Gatsby” is tragedy and comedy like “Don Quixote.” Gatsby and Don Quixote lived in their own imagination. All of us also live more or less in our imagination, but we can’t forget the real world at all. Therefore, we look down on them and adore them at the same time like Nick Carter.

Would you like to live your own life at any cost and go to ruin like Jay Gatsby, or to watch someone else’s life from a safety zone like Nick Carter?

Tobey Maguire was adequate as Nick Carter. Although sometimes Leonardo DiCaprio overacted, I can’t imagine that another actor palys Gatsby. Carey Mulligan was cute enough for Daisy who Gatsby loved.

But I was really disappointed that the direction was so cheap.

In my entry “Punk Rock and the Digital Camera: the Impression of the Documentary Movie “Side by Side,” I wrote, “I want to watch a movie made by punk rockers more than by Thomas Edison.” I don’t deny developing of the digital technology, but I just hope that directors would use them effectively.

In this movie, everything in the images was unnatural. If it was a music video, I could say that their images were fashionable, but in this movie they broke my concentration on the story.

Did they use such artificial images in order to express the cheapness of the Roaring Twenties? If they wanted it, it would be successful. In fact, I seemed this movie to be cheap.

I’ll try Robert Redford’s “the Great Gatsby.”

"Gibu Mi Chokoreito": Ration D Bars and Japanese Children

There was a cliche, "Gibu mi chokoreito", which was used during the U.S. occupation of Japan just after the Pacific War. Of course, "Gibu mi chokoreito" means, "Give me chocolate."

I just started to read the book "the emperors of Chocolate," which is about the U.S. chocolate industry, focusing especially on the competition between Hershey and Mars.

The first chapter of this book, "Bar Wars," is written about the relationship between the U.S. Army and chocolate companies. The author wrote:

In 1942, when the United States entered the war against Germany and Japan, the military ordered Hershey to commence full-scale production of the new ration bar, and for the next four years the Hershey plant operated around the clock, seven days a week, churning out half a million Ration D bars per shift.

I didn't know about "Ration D Bars" before reading this.

I heard that the  U. S. Army soldiers gave chocolate to Japanese children during American occupation of Japan. At that time, even dairy foods were running short, so obviously sweets were quite valuable goods. Japanese children followed American Army's jeeps and shouted, "Gibu mi chokoreito!"

I'd like to know what kind of chocolate was given by the U.S. soldiers, so I googled it and found an image of the Ration D Bars. It was much rougher and bigger than I imagined. I think that the Japanese children who got Ration D Bars were probably very surprised by the size of the chocolate.

I began to want to eat a simple “Hershey’s Milk Chocolate Bar.”

The Meaning of Being Outdated: The Impression of Kazuo Ishiguro's Novel “An Artist of the Floating World”

I've just finished reading Kazuo Ishiguro's novel “An Artist of the Floating World.”

I love his novels, but I'm used to reading them in Japanese translations. I heard that his English was beautiful, so I wanted to read his novel in the original English version. This time, I tried to read “An Artist of the Floating World” in English.

When I read the conversations in it, I felt kind of strange. In this novel, all characters are Japanese, and obviously they speak in Japanese. But Kazuo Ishiguro wrote their conversation in English, because the entire of this novel was written in English.

The first half of the novel is about an arranged marriage of the daughter of the main character, Masuji Ono. I felt like I was reading the English translation of a Japanese novel like Junichiro Tanizaki's "the Makioka Sisters."

His daughter talked to him like this.

"Forgive me, but I wonder if it may not be wise if Father were to visit Mr Kuroda soon."

She denigrated herself to her father very much. I'm guessing that native English speakers don’t talk with their fathers in such a way. This conversation sounds like a direct translation from Japanese to English. I don’t know if Kazuo Ishiguro can speak Japanese, so I wonder whether he wrote this conversation in Japanese first and translated into English, or if he wrote in English as if he were writing a translation.

There appeared many outdated people in this novel.

Masuji Ono was a retired painter. During World War II, he worked for the military, and he drew many paintings endorsing the Japanese invasion of Asian countries. At that time he believed that he was doing the right thing for the Japanese people, but after Japan surrendered, he was blamed for his responsibility in the war, and no one was interested in his paintings.

Ono’s master drew only beautiful women in the red-light district. Although his paintings used to be quite popular, just before World War II people became to think of his paintings as not patriotic.

Ono criticized and broke away from his master, and then he himself also was criticized by younger generation. In the end, everyone became outdated.

Ono’s master told Ono the following:

“When I am an old man, when I look back over my life and see I have devoted it to the task of capturing the unique beauty of that world, I believe I will be well satisfied. And no man will make me believe I’ve wasted my time.”

Kazuo Ishiguro didn’t make clear if Ono and his master was actually satisfied with their lives.

Everyone must be outdated, when they are old. I wonder if I will be well satisfied.

A Very Well Written Novel: My Impression of Haruki Murakami’s New Novel “Tsukuru Tazaki without Colors, and the Year of His Pilgrimage”

I’ve just finished Haruki Murakami’s new novel “Tsukuru Tazaki without Colors, and the Year of His Pilgrimage.”

To put it bluntly, this is a very well written novel.

Haruki Murakami wrote a short novel after a long novel. He wrote “South of the Border, West of the Sun” after “Dance Dance Dance”, “Sputnik Sweetheart” after “The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle”, “After Dark” and “Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman” after “Kafka on the Shore”, and this novel after “1Q84.”

His long novels are somewhat confusing. I guess that Haruki Murakami intentionally made them confusing. Dostoyevsky’s long novels, for example “The Brothers Karamazov”, are confusing, too. The intentional confusion of such long novels moves me deeply.

On the contrary, Haruki Murakami’s short novels are very well constructed. When I’m tired, it is too hard to read his long novels, because I don’t want to be moved but be calm. Thus I read his well written short novels, like “Tsukuru Tazaki without Colors, and the Year of His Pilgrimage.”

If you try to read his first novel, I recommend his short novels.

I’d like to translate several passages from this novel.

Jealousy that Tsukuru understood in his dream was the most desperate prison in the word. That was because it is the prison where prisoners locked themselves up. Nobody forced to imprison them. They themselves got into it, locked the door from inside, and threw the keys outside of the iron bars. Nobody knew that they were locked up there. Of course, if they decided to get out of there, they could do so, because the prison existed in their own heart. But they couldn’t choose to. Their hearts got as hard as stonewalls. This is the essence of jealousy. 

嫉妬とは―つくるが夢のなかで理解したところでは―世界で最も絶望的な牢獄だった。なぜならそれは囚人自身が自らを閉じ込めた牢獄であるからだ。誰かに力尽くで入れられたわけではない。自らそこに入り、内側から鍵をかけ、その鍵を自ら鉄格子の外に投げ捨てたのだ。そして彼がそこに幽閉されていることを知るものは、この世界に誰ひとりいない。もちろん出ていこうと本人が決心さえすれば、そこから出ていける。その牢獄は彼の心中にあるのだから。しかし、その決心ができない。彼の心は石壁のように硬くなっている。それこそがまさに嫉妬の本質なのだ。

“You just say what you feel honestly. It isn’t an excuse.” 

「君は自分の気持ちを正直に口にしているだけだ。言い訳とは違う」

“I had been thinking of myself as a victim. I was forced into a cruel experience without any reason. So I suffered from a deep pain in my soul, and this ruined my natural life. Honestly, I blamed four of you. I wondered why only I had a terrible experience. But it may not be true. I’m not just a victim, but I might also hurt people around me. And I might also hurt myself. ” 

「僕はこれまでずっと、自分のことを犠牲者だと考えてきた。わけもなく苛酷な目にあわされたと思い続けてきた。そのせいで心に深い傷を負い、その傷が僕の人生の本来の流れを損なってきたと。正直言って、君たち四人を恨んだこともあった。なぜ僕一人だけがこんなひどい目にあわなくちゃならないんだろうと。でも本当はそうじゃなかったのかもしれない。僕は犠牲者であるだけじゃなく、それと同時に自分でもしらないうちにまわりの人々を傷つけてきたのかもしれない。そしてまた返す刃で僕自身を傷つけてきたのかもしれない」

“If you are a empty vessel, it’s OK,” said Eri. “Even so, you are truly a wonderful and fascinating vessel. Nobody knows what they really are, don’t you agree? If you are so, it is enough for you to be a beautiful vessel, which someone wants to put something into. A favorable vessel.”

「 たとえ君が空っぽの容器だっとしても、それでいいじゃない」とエリは言った。「もしそうだとしても、君はとても素敵な、心を惹かれる容器だよ。自分自身が何であるかなんて、そんなこと本当は誰にもわかりはしない。そう思わない？それなら君は、どこまでも美しいかたちの入れ物になればいいんだ。誰かが思わず中に何かを入れたくなるような、しっかり好感の持てる容器に」

How to Use the Relative Pronouns, Who and Which, and That

I am now reading the book, Adrian Wallwork’s “English for Writing Research Paper.” Even though I have not finished reading this book yet, I’d like to recommend it strongly especially for non-native English speakers.

Basically the author tried to show researchers that are non-native English speakers how to write a more readable research papers. In fact, the book itself is easily readable and clear, so it is a good resource for writing a readable paper.

For many years, I had a question about how to use the relative pronouns, who and which, and that. This book explained it quite clearly:

Here is an example using who and that, which should help to clarify the difference between adding extra information (S6) and making a definition (S7). 

S6. My sister, who lives in Paris, is a researcher.S7. My sister that lives in Paris, is a researcher. 

In S6 the information contained between the two commas is not essential. S6 tells the reader that I have only one sister and she is a researcher – the fact that she lives in Paris is just additional information. I could simply say: My sister is a researcher. 

But in S7 I am giving very different information. I am telling you that I have more than one sister, and that the sister that lives in Paris is a researcher. Perhaps my other sister is a doctor and I am using Paris to distinguish between my two sisters.

Eureka!

As I wrote, the author’s aim was not elegance but readability. He just tried to write this book more readably, but consequently it also became elegant.

I think that I, as a non-native English speaker, would not be able to write rhetorical and literary English like native English speakers do, but I want to write readable, concise, clear, and elegant English like Adrian Wallwork does. Hopefully I will be able to do so someday.

My ambition is to show that even a non-native English speaker that lives in non-English surroundings can express things and thoughts in English. To put it strongly, this blog is a record of this challenge.

A Cat in Love on a Spring Night

Last night, some stray cats in my neighborhood were fighting and shouting at each other, and running around on the roof of the house next door.

Each haiku should have a seasonal word, which was called a "kigo" (季語).

"A cat in love" (恋猫) is one of the seasonal words of spring. In spring, tomcats fight over mates.

Shuson Kato, who is a famous modern haiku poet, wrote a haiku about a cat in love:

A cat in love

Licks a dish at once

And goes calling

恋猫の皿舐めてすぐ鳴きにゆく　加藤楸邨

I'm wondering if I will also hear cats in love calling tonight.

A cat in love is

Running through

The dark night

暗闇を駆け抜けてゆく恋の猫　山羊庵

Can the Japanese Government Promote “Cool Japan” policy and Japanese “soft power?”

Joseph Nye, a political scientist and a former chairman of the National Intelligence Council of the U.S., pointed out the importance of “soft power” in international politics.

Nye defined “power” as the ability to influence the behavior of others to get the outcomes you want. He wrote that there were two types of power, “hard power” and “soft power.” Diplomats mainly have been paying attention on “hard power”, which is the use of coercion and payment, but Nye insisted that “soft power,” which the use of attraction, was more important than “hard power.”

I translated Haruki Murakami’s speech at the Catalonia international prize into English in the entry “Haruki Murakami's Speech on Catalonia International Prize: As an Unrealistic Dreamer.” Kevin, who is managing the website “Senrinomich,” started the project of translating this speech, and now it was translated into thirteen languages.

After the earthquake and the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant, we, Japanese people, have been thinking about nuclear power deeply, but I think that people abroad have not heard much about what we have been thinking.

Although I knew that Haruki Murakami was popular in the world, I was really surprised that people from so many countries wanted to read his speech. When he made a speech about what Japanese people think, people in the world were willing to hear it.

The existence of Haruki Murakami is just Japanese “soft power.”

Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry of Japan is promoting “Cool Japan” Policy. They are trying to make Japanese culture more popular in the world and promote Japanese “soft power.”

But I strongly doubt that the government can promote them.

Haruki Murakami has “soft power,” just because he wrote novels that people in the world love. Japanese government has nothing to do with his works. Hayao Miyazaki, Akira Toriyama, Shigeru Miyamoto were not supported by the government, either.

I don’t believe that the government can find such people at all. Nobody thought that they would be success in the world, before they actually became popular across the world. The next person who wields this “soft power” will appear out of the wood works, a place which can't be predicted. How will the government support them?

Both Sides of the Same Coin: Haruki Murakami’s “Norwegian Wood” and Hideo Levy’s “A Room Where The Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard”

In 1949 Haruki Murakami was born in Kyoto. His father was a high school teacher and moved to a high school in Kobe, so Haruki Murakami was brought up in Kobe. In 1968 he entered Waseda University and moved to Tokyo. Although his novel “Norwegian Wood” isn’t an autobiography, in it he described the student lives in Tokyo at that time.

In 1950 Hideo Levy was born in Berkeley, California. His father was a diplomat, and he was brought up in Denver, Taichung, Hong Kong, Washington D.C., and Yokohama. In 1967 he began to study Japanese at Waseda University, and then he ran away from his home in Yokohama, and moved into his friend’s room and worked at a coffee shop in Shinjuku. He described Waseda University and Shinjuku from the standpoint of a foreigner in his first novel “A Room Where The Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard.”

In the late 1960s student movements escalated throughout the world, May Event in France, anti-Vietnam movement in the U.S., the Cultural Revolution in China, and Zenkyoto movement in Japan. Waseda University and Shinjuku were in the midst of Zenkyoto movement, and Haruki Murakami and Hideo Levy were deeply influenced by it but both of them couldn’t fully get into it.

Haruki Murakami felt something different from Japanese society. In fact he wanted to run away from his parents, so he chose Waseda University in order to move to Tokyo and to live alone. But in Tokyo he still felt something different from students especially who took part in Zenkyoto movement. All of the characters in the novel “Norwegian Wood” more or less couldn’t fit in Japanese society.

Hideo Levy also felt something different from his father and wanted to run away from him and get into Japanese society, but he, as a foreigner, was rejected by Japanese society and people. Of course he couldn’t get into Zenkyoto movement, because he couldn’t speak Japanese and he was a “Gaijin”, which means “foreigner” in Japanese.

“Norwegian Wood” and “A Room Where The Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard” are both sides of the same coin. After that, Haruki Murakami became a world-famous novelist and he got out of Japanese literary society into the world. Hideo Levy began to write novels in Japanese, and got into Japanese literary society, if not fully.

If you like the novel or movie “Norwegian Wood,” I strongly recommend that you read Hideo Levy’s “A Room Where The Star-Spangled Banner Cannot Be Heard.” If you have learned Japanese, I suggest you try the original Japanese version of this novel, but you can read it in English translation as well.

Exoteric Buddhism and Esoteric Buddhism: Buddha, Wittgenstein, and Me

There are two major divisions within Buddhism, exoteric Buddhism(顕教) and esoteric Buddhism(密教). 

Early Buddhism was exoteric. Buddha's original teaching was very simple. Our lives are full of pain and nobody can run away from it. There is nothing eternal and everything is changing in this world. He said that we should just accept this.

In other words, it is the truth that there was no way to escape our painful lives, but we just had to accept such a cruel truth. It is too hard for ordinary people to accept it. 

Then esoteric Buddhism appeared. Esoteric Buddhism insisted that there was the truth that was hidden and only higher ascetic disciples could reveal it. I think that Buddha clearly denied such a thought, but ordinary people might want to think that there was a secret help in this world.

In esoteric Buddhism, many disciples tried radical training to realize the secret truth, but Buddha told that radical training would never give the truth to any disciplinant, and he realized the truth just in peace meditation.

As I wrote in the entry "Wittgenstein, Barbara Minto, and Me,"  I am now reading Ludwig Wittgenstein's "Tractatus Logio-Philosophicus." I think that he was similar to Buddha.

Ludwig Wittgenstein was of Jewish origin, but his mother was converted to Catholicism and he, himself, was baptized. In World War I, when he was a soldier of the Austro-Hungarian army, he read Leo Tolstoy's "The Gospel in Brief," and got a deep faith in Catholicism.

In "Tractatus Logio-Philosophicus," he tried to show the limit of what could be expressed in language. The last sentence of this book is "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." He thought that God was what on could not be spoken, so he didn't find any value to hear preach and go to church.

Buddha told that everyone had to realize the truth only by themselves. Wittgenstein might believe that there was no secret truth that only priests knew and the truth was open to everyone equally.

I like Buddha's own original teaching. I believe that I should accept what this world is and what I really am, and stay here and struggle against my own life in this world. There is no utopia out of this world and my life.

Don't Nobody Get Nothing for Free: My Impression of George Alec Effinger's "When Gravity Fails"

I finished George Alec Effinger's novel "When Gravity Fails." This is one of my favorite entertainment novels, and I've read it in Japanese translation so many times, but it was first time reading it in English.

When I was a university student, I was fascinated with William Gibson's novel "Neuromancer", and I was absorbed in the Sprawl trilogy.

Looking back, it is hard to explain why I was fascinated with "Neuromancer" at that time, because the future, which is described in this novel, has already become a reality. "Neuromancer" was published in 1984. Do you remember how the world was at that time? Let's read the entry "I could survive in the Stone Age." There were no Internet and no cell phones! Please imagine how you will feel, when you read a science fiction novel about computer hackers in the cyberspace in the "Stone Age".

Later on, I got crazy about "Cyberpunk novels."

One of the good points of "Cyberpunk novels" is their vision of the future. But as I wrote, the future in "Cyberpunk novels" has become a reality, so if their vision of the future is their only good point, they have already lost their appeal. In fact, most "Cyberpunk novels" have lost their appeal, but I think that it is worth reading William Gibson's Sprawl trilogy and Alec Effinger's Budayeen trilogy nowadays, because they have the other good points.

In the "Stone Age," I enjoyed reading not only science fiction novels but also hard-boiled novels, from Dashiell Hammett to Elmore Leonard. In hard-boiled novels, the central characters are usually "picaresques." I love "Picaresque novels," because everybody in the real world is more or less imperfect and "Picaresque novels" express the imperfection of human beings. One of the significant features of "Cyberpunk novels" is that they are also "Picaresque novels."

In "When Gravity Fails," the central character, Marid Audran, wasn't a superman but just a thug living in Budayeen, which was a squalid city somewhere in Middle East. He was a Muslim, who wasn't so religious. Exoticism is one of the appeals of this novel.

Like most hard-boiled novels, Marid got in trouble and got hurt physically and mentally, because he was an imperfect human being. At the end of this novel, one of his close friends, Chiri, says to him, "Don't nobody get nothing for free." That was the main theme of this novel.

The author of this novel, George Alec Effinger, wrote two more novels about Marid and Budayeen, "A Fire in the Sun" and "The Exile Kiss," and he died in 2002 when he completed only the first two chapters of a fourth Budayeen novel, "Word of Night."

He had been suffering from a variety of health problems. He was really good at describing pain. "Don't nobody get nothing for free." R.I.P. Alec.