OUT

"One strong theme in Out is that the bonds that exist in society, whether between families, friends, or co-workers have irreparably broken down. It’s almost Existential—are you saying that in the end we really alone? Is there such thing as society or community? Or is it all an illusion. . . 
I think the existence of the idea of “society” is only an illusion that exists inside the heart. However, that often becomes a reality, not illusion when you commit an anti-social act. I would say people unconsciously reveal their true violent nature. I feel that humans are solitary creatures. What saves us from this solitude is not this vague notion of “the public” but the human connections and ties I mentioned above in the first question." (Interview on Japan review .net)

Natsuo Kirino 

This "anti-social act" is murder. Yayoi strangles, with a leather belt, her abusive husband. Then with the assistance of her co-workers covers up this crime, this involves cutting up the body & disposing of the parts.

We start this book, meeting the women as they are about to start the midnight shift at a bento* factory. Masoka, Kuniko, Yoshi & Yayoi work together on the conveyer belt preparing the separate parts of the bento boxes. We learn about the pointless day to day reality of their existence, home life's ranging from abusive partners to cold sterile relationships with family that if they've not physically left, have at least done so emotionally. These women are domestic slaves  with no real presence in a society that cannot respect them, as it doesn't really see them, they are automaton, there for production - whether its bento boxes or babies.

It's in this environment that Yayoi steps out of her role of perfect wife & in a fit of passion, murders her abusive philandering husband (whose blown all their money gambling & chasing a prostitute).

"At that moment, her patience snapped. With lightning speed she slipped off her belt & wrapped it around his neck"

"He needs to suffer more, she thought. He's got no right to go on living like this!

Yayoi then calls one of her colleagues (Masoka) who arranges the disposal of the corpse. Masoka along with Yoshi use a couple of sashimi knives to butcher & bag up the body, then with some help from Kuniko they dump the bags around Tokyo. The body parts are discovered, the police step into the picture as do the Yakuza & a ruthless night club owner.

 

 It's from this point that story spirals out. What slight ties they have with each other easily fray & they realise that alone they  have to cope with the consequences of their actions. For some this may lead to freedom, for the others another path is dictated.

 

                   Some Question's raised.

• Would you do this for a colleague?  At which point would it be ok, just keeping quiet, the disposal, the cutting up? Would this be different for a friend?
• How far removed (alienated) would you need to be/to feel, for this to be acceptable, at least on some level?
• At the start of this crime (for Masoka at least), how altruistic are these actions?
• Are they (the women) inherently evil, or do they cross the line, if so at which point & are the points the same for each of them?
• Are their actions purely amoral as opposed to immoral?
• Is there such a thing as petty evil?
• If they know it's wrong, but it is seen as a judgement by a society that doesn't acknowledge their lives, can it still relate to them?
• Are we (Human beings) intrinsically evil? Are all our philosophies, codes, laws etc. merely ways to blind us to our true nature ?

 

I loved this book, in one sense it's a portrayal of a  certain segment of Japanese society, with it's graphic description of not just the underbelly but the entrails of a culture normally hidden behind an elaborate mask.

Yet on another level this is an old fashioned page turner & by that I mean you will read it before you sleep & upon awakening you will wipe the sleep from your eyes, then start from where you left off the night before. Out is violent physically & sexually, its dark and so gritty you may feel the need to use an eyewash, but as the character Yoshie expresses  " that she would follow Masoka to hell"  so will you,  page by page.

 

Interview Natsuo Kirino (Japan review.net)

Natsuo Kirino (Wikipedia)

Natsuo Kirino interview (Indie bound)

*bento (boxed lunches)

A murder of Crows*

Crow - From the life & songs of the Crow.

by Ted Hughes.   

"From Gods nightmare, Crow is created and God, who feels pity for this ugly little creature, shows him around Creation. But Crow gets involved, plays about and more often then not messes things up. So God gets fed up with him. "

Crow sloughs off persona after persona, Crow is Bran, Crow is Arddu the dark one. He is Chronos the emasculator,  Oedipus , Mans advocate & Gods conscience. At one and the same time creator and destroyer, giver and negator, he who dupes others and is always duped himself.

This was the fourth book (adult) of poetry by Ted Hughes, and is easily the most bleak & disturbing. By ransacking the worlds folklore, the poet creates a figure that strides omnipresent through his own personal mythology, laying to waste all it perceives, including itself. Although this started as a Project for the American artist Leonard Baskin, it easily transcends it's original purpose & Crow re-appears as Shaman.

This is Crow as deicide, for ever tripping over it's own chaos, this is Crow as victim, cowering in it's own shadow.

As I have already said, this is bleak and very disturbing, but what I haven't said is how very, very funny it is. The humour is black, black as Crow.

A. Alvarez wrote in the Observer, "Each fresh encounter with despair becomes the occasion for a separate, almost funny, story in which natural forces and creatures, mythic figures, even parts of the body, act out their special roles, each endowed with its own irrepressible life. With Crow, Hughes joins the select band of survivor-poets whose work is adequate to the destructive reality we inhabit".

 

TED HUGHES wikipedia

A Ted Hughes website

CROW mythology

 

*A group of crows is called a "murder".

Stained Glass Elegies. by Shusaku Endo

Translated by, Van. c. Gessel.

Is your faith strong enough to withstand repeated beatings, starvation, torture and all the myriad of methods, one human being can devise to hurt and scar another?What if, they came for your family, friends, or even your neighbours?
Now what if come this moment, this brutal challenge to your beliefs, you are offered a way out, (no questions asked), just renounce your god, stomp on some old relics of your faith and walk away.

You've survived, your free....But then what? There was your family & friends whose faith remained unquestioned, whose beliefs took the kicking but stood up, again and again, till they could no longer stand...
But you've survived, your free.  Now what ?, after the initial relief has faded and your heart has returned to its pedestrian beat.

What of your conscience
Now what of your faith?


This represents just one of the ideas in this collection of 11 short stories, by Shusaku Endo. It mainly consists of works previously published in Japan, as Aika (Elegies), which appeared in 1965 and Juichi no iro garasu (11 stained - glass segments) published in 1979, making this - Stained Glass Elegies, a composite of the two. In this compilation, Endo, introduces us to characters who are trying to come to terms with their relationship (past & present) to the Christian faith, in a society, that when it's not antagonistic towards it, is just indifferent.

This book could easily be described as Autobiographical Fiction, and in that role,  the author's dialogue through the characters in these stories, could be seen as an attempt to comprehend his own relationship to the faith he was raised in and also the image & role that Christ, plays in that relationship.
These tales are dour*, but beautifully written, there are tales set in hospitals, with individuals with serious health problems (mirroring the author's own life). We have people trying come to terms with the war, with their own survival, stories dealing with a lack of faith, with guilt & dishonour.
Then, there's - The Incredible Voyage, at face, a parody of a 1966 American film "Fantastic Voyage", without a spoiler alert,all I will say is this is a Quote from it.

"I shall cut a hole in my sister's stool with the surgical scalpel. A hole just big enough for our ship to pass through."

Whether it's through the use of humour or straight narrative, what comes across, is Endo's philosophy "That the actions of a human being is never self contained" they creates ripples that permeate, far beyond the initial thought or deed & with this idea, comes the need for a sense of personal responsibility, of accounting for ones actions.


Van C Gessel,( lost in translation)

SHUSAKU ENDO wikipedia



*Dour- marked by intractable sternness or harshness.

There is only so much Insanity in the world & it's avoidable!

            Now that I have your attention.

The Quantity Theory of Insanity by Will Self.
What if there is only a fixed proportion of sanity in any given society at any given time? Regardless of your social outlook, your geographical position, regardless of whether you are a member of the Women's Institute or gay bikers from Mars. But don't panic, you can offset this problem by making sure you have the correct proportion of insane people around you.
This is just one of the stories in Will Self's book, which starts with the story - The North London book of the dead - in which we find that when you die in London, you just move downmarket. We then follow this with - Ward 9, where an art therapist becomes so embroiled in the lives of his patients that he's having sex with them, taking drugs, and there is no dividing line between him & them.
The third story, Understanding the Ur-Bororo, is a tale concerning an Amazonian Tribe that have no real faith or philosophy & are in fact so boring, that they refer to themselves as " The people who you wouldn't like to be cornered by at parties". The Ur-Bororo are strangely suburban in their outlook, in fact if it wasn't for the fact that they live in the rainforest, you could easily imagine them at dinner parties or on the local P.T.A.

                                        Q(Q><[Q]) = Q(Q><[Q])



In the 4th tale we finally get to meet the narrator, as he explains the story of "The Quantity Theory of Insanity", as well as explaining the theory, he goes on to expound on what happened after he went public with this theory.
In case you're wondering about the Q's, that's the formula for the theorem.
"Mono cellular" is the penultimate tale & appears to be about a man who suffers from insomnia or for some reason refuses to sleep. It's...... not clear which is the more accurate description, as his sanity & his ability to clarify what he is going on about diminishes as the story proceeds, although he appears to be waiting for something/someone. But as the time progresses his musing becomes more  problematic & less coherent.

The final tale, Waiting, is narrated by a man who describes his friends descent into madness & obsession with waiting. His mate becomes caught up in some cult that claims to have solved this problem that affects society & that is encapsulated in the phrase - Imminent & the Immanent.


The Ur-Bororo have a saying, "However far you travel in this world, you will still occupy the same volume of space".

If The Quantity Theory of Insanity is proven & turns out to have some basis in fact, your best defence against insanity is to carry this book at all times, it will counteract any bedlam you find yourself in. It's a mad dark satire that disturbs at the same time as it makes you laugh.

The Longrow C.V.

Information from distillery web page

                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Springbank Distillery is unique. It is the oldest independent family owned distillery in Scotland. Founded in 1828 on the site of Archibald Mitchell's illicit still, the Springbank Distillery is now in the hands of his great great great grand son, Hedley G. Wright.

Owned by Mr Wright's J&A Mitchell & Co Ltd, Springbank is the only distillery in Scotland to carry out the full production process on the one site. 100% of the traditional floor malting, maturation and bottling is done at the distillery in Campbeltown.

It produces the most hand made whisky in Scotland, with traditional production methods being used throughout the process, and human involvement at each and every stage.

It is the only distillery in Scotland to have never chill-filtered, nor do we add any artificial colourings to any of our single malts.

It is the only distillery in Scotland to produce three different single malts, Springbank, Longrow and Hazelburn, using three different production methods.

 

Longrow C.V.

Having long been a fan of the malts produced under the Springbank name, when I saw this in my local off licence, I just had to check it out. The original Longrow distillery closed in 1896 & was on a site adjoining the Springbank distillery, who first released malts under the Longrow name in 1985 ( Springbank first distilled Longrow in 1973-4).

This brand is double distilled from heavily peated malt to produce a whisky with the character of an Islay whisky (Ardbeg, Bruichladdich, Caol Isla etc.), & by having it's own maltings, Springbank can achieve the right amount of peatiness.

Longrow C.V. (Curriculum Vitae) is a vatted malt comprising of vattings of 6, 10 & 14 year old whiskies, I'm guessing that the idea is to introduce new customers to the Longrow house style - hence the C.V. part of the name. It also contains no artificial colouring (caramel etc.) & is not chill filtered.

I'm sitting here with a glass of the malt, holding it up to the light to check the colour (this is my third glass as I want to be professional & get it right) & I have to agree with Michael Jackson's Malt whisky companion, it's kind of straw coloured. Carrying on  with my newly acquired studied demeanour, I next stick my nose into the glass (Nosing) & after several sniffs I get past the smoky peat, I find fudge, but now I'm a touched confused - have you ever made or had homemade fudge & it's lovely but a little grainy, that's what I smell.

                              

Now the important bit . Taste, as a heavily peated single malt you expect it to be full of peat & Smokey flavours reminiscent of Applewood smoked Cheddar heading almost into smoked Haddock (that mineral, tin ? like element), but what hits first is how sweet  it is, yet not cloyingly so. Because before the sweetness hits overkill, I would say the peat comes in to balance it, what I mean, is this stunning spicy peaty gorgeousness clubs your senses reducing the sweetness to almost the backing choir. The finish has that vanilla fudge but it's sharing bed space with the peat which has a dry ginger pepperiness to it, which is a bit like  when you were a kid & you put a 9 volt battery on your tongue ( Don't try this at home, I am a trained professional *) it's that sense of metallic, but in a good way.

Springbank won Whisky magazine's, Icons of whisky - Scotland whisky distiller of the year 2010.   

 

 

Longrow C.V.

Producers: Springbank Distillers Ltd.

Bottled by: Distillery ( Springbank ).

ABV: 46% .

Vatted from 6, 10, 14 year old malts, aged in  rum, sherry, port, bourbon casks.

Non chill filtered, no colour added.

District: Argyle.

Region: Campletown.

 Longrow (Springbank distillery)

Campletown single malts

Longrow ( Wikipedia)

*The Parrish Lantern, will not be held liable for anyone attempting to - lick, chew, eat or in any way treat a 9 volt battery as  something  comestible.

SHADES OF GREY

The road to high saffron.

By Jasper Fforde.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In colorimetry, the Munsell colour system is a colour space that specifies colours based on three colour dimensions: hue, value (lightness), and chroma (colour purity). It was created by Professor Albert H. Munsell in the first decade of the 20th century and adopted by the USDA as the official colour system for soil research in the 1930s.

Several earlier colour order systems had placed colours into a three dimensional colour solid of one form or another, but Munsell was the first to separate hue, value, and chroma into perceptually uniform and independent dimensions, and was the first to systematically illustrate the colours in three dimensional space.^[1] Munsell’s system, and particularly the later renotations, is based on rigorous measurements of human subjects’ visual responses to colour, putting it on a firm experimental scientific basis. Because of this basis in human visual perception, Munsell’s system has outlasted its contemporary colour models, and though it has been superseded for some uses by models such as CIELAB (L*a*b*) and CIECAM02, it is still in wide use today. ^[2]

Imagine that you live in a post catastrophic world, where almost everything has been wiped out & spoons are a rare & highly valued commodity. This monumental incident referred to as "The something that happened" has left people blind to most colours & a persons life, social standing, job, partner etc. are defined by what colour they  can see.

Welcome to Chromatacia a society set 500 years after the collapse of a society very similar to our own, whose very foundations are based on the rules laid down by Munsell the founder of Chromatacia. In this post apocalyptic future everyone (almost) follows the rules without questioning them, no matter how strange, absurd or illogical they seem to be.

 "The word of Munsell was the rules, & the rules were the word of Munsell. They regulated everything we did, & had brought peace to the collective for nearly 4 centuries. They were sometimes very odd indeed- banning of the number between 72 & 74 was a case in point, & no one had  ever fully explained why it was forbidden to count sheep, make any new spoons or use acronyms. but they were the rules- & presumably for some very good reason, although what that might be was not entirely obvious."

In this world we meet Eddie Russet, who has been sent to an outer fringe town to conduct a chair census as a punishment & to learn humility because of some prank he played on a prefect's son. It's in this town he meets & falls head over heels for Jane a lowly grey & through her learns about how ruthless & controlling this world is beneath it's surface.

"Continuous  sustainability. A community where everyone has their place, & everyone knows their place, & everyone works ceaselessly to maintain continuance. If you were to dispassionately consider the principle aim of society to be longevity rather than  fairness, then everything is downgraded to simply a means of attaining that goal. Rather than wait for a resident to prove themselves disharmonious, they are flagged early & sent off to reboot as  a   precaution. If you think about it, the whole notion is quite ingenious. "

Being new to the writing of Jasper Fforde, I looked him up on Wikipedia & it seems the genre's he writes in are- Alternate History, Comic Fantasy & Postmodern Literature, to which can be added Comic Dystopia & Just Plain Funny.

"This is where The Little Engine that could once sat.' She lapsed into silence & we all stood there respectfully, staring at an empty space in the air. What was it about?' asked one of the junior librarians, as clearly a tour was an honour not often bestowed. "It was about an engine", said Mrs Lapis -Lazuli,"that could".

Shades of Grey- The road to high Saffron, is the first in a series of books planned by Jasper Fforde & although not a great fan of Fantasy Fiction, I picked this up in my local library because of the writing on the back cover which said- part satire, part romance, part revolutionary thriller, it didn't disappoint, plus I was also intrigued to find out

                                  Where have all the spoons gone ?

Jasper on Wiki

Jasper's Home page

Roberto Bolano- Last evenings on earth.

 

Exile on dead-end street

"A minor poet disappears without leaving a trace, hopelessly stranded in some town on the Mediterranean coast of France. There is no investigation. There is no corpse. By the time B turns to Daumal, night has fallen on the beach; he shuts the book &amp; slowly makes his way back to the hotel."

The last evenings  on earth, shouldn't make sense, it's a book about failure, not the usual fireworks &amp; all guns blazing failure I've come to expect from Bolano's work (The savage detectives, 2666). No this is wretched, abject - from the Latin "abjectus"  meaning, cast away, this is the flotsam &amp; jetsam of Latin- America, exiled from their own past. Individuals washed up on the shores of Europe, some having escaped torture &amp; violence under General Pinochet's regime, yet having not really escaped, still wearing the chains, still bearing the scars, still living haunted lives of utter anonymity. Bolano also writes about the writers, poets and artists that history forgot, the ones who regardless of talent, pursued a life of dedication to their muse, the ones who sacrificed themselves upon its altar &amp; left not a blood stain.

"Have you found Henri Lefebvre? asks M. She must be  still half asleep, thinks B. Then he says no. She has a pretty laugh. Why are you so interested in him? she asks, still laughing. Because nobody else is, says B. And because he was good."                                                    

These characters work as dishwashers, send poems to obscure magazines, enter competitions for a pittance of a prize, for the one chance that a light may illuminate their genius, that some voice will sing out &amp; proclaim their worth. Lives are spent travelling from A to B, but B's never different, it's the same cheap hotel, the same bar filled with the same shades, just a different costume on  the same whore .
These stories fall into two categories, they are either 1st person recollections, where the narrator recounts an episode from his past - a chance encounter, meeting old friends or enemies - or 3rd person accounts of a writer named B, (Belano/Bolano).  Exiled from his homeland &amp; subsisting on the margins of his adopted country, of time spent travelling in search of something long lost &amp; settling for some short lived comfort, some transient shelter. Yet at the heart of these tales, this is just one story, that is not a criticism of the book. This is the story of artists, writers &amp; poets exiled from all that could be called home. Individuals caught in their own private quests, hunted by nightmares, always on the edge. These are chased shadows no longer relevant.

Despite all this, the book is addictive. By the time you've started the third story, you will belong to these characters, it will matter what happens to them. The French poet who shone in the resistance only to fadeout as a teacher in some  remote village, the exiled writer who goes home to recover his sons body then  languishes &amp; dies, or just following Ann Moore's life from the age of 20 - 40. It will matter, fold the corner on the page, put the book down, leave the room &amp; it will be there, just behind your eyes, in between your thought processes, it will be the beat that paces your journeys, it's shadow will dog your footsteps &amp; your sleeping self, will continue to turn the pages.

"There's nothing for me to do here, says B. This sentence will pursue him throughout the return journey like the headlights of a phantom car"

Although last evenings on earth is compiled from  2 previous collections (Llamadas Telefonicas &amp; Putas Asesinas) of Bolano's, it doesn't feel bolted together, if there are joins, if in places it doesn't quite match, I couldn't find them. Yes it's fragmented, but the fault lines are those of the characters, the fractures are the human lives that he writes about.
 

"The secret story is the one we'll never know, although we're living it from day to day, thinking we're alive, thinking we've got it all under control and the stuff we overlook doesn't matter. But every single damn thing matters! Only we don't realize. We just tell ourselves that art runs on one track and life, our lives, on another, and we don't realize that's a lie."

Translator.
Chris Andrews

 Roberto Bolano Interview

The Romantic Dogs - Roberto Bolano

Natasha Wimmer on translating (Bolano's risqué scenes)