Yume jû-ya - Ten Variations on Sōseki's Dreams/ IV

Well, the real fun comes with The Sixth Dream: everything is so weird from now on that any filmmaker needs all the courage in the world to keep the pace with the craziness of the stories.

(image from the movie: The Sixth Dream)

The Sixth Dream is about a bunch of folks living by 1900, watching in amazement an artist coming from the twelfth century and crafting a huge Kamakura sculpture in their presence.

Director Matsuo Suzuki went further and decided to make the artist come from the twenty-first century: a young guy colored blonde, wearing sun glasses and kind of astronaute dungarees, carving like in a trance, while dancing a robot-like dance, on the rhythms of some techno music, watched by the 1900-folks; the segment is done in black and white and the people watching the craziness look like some Kurosawa's farmers; one woman repeats as in a drunkness, muje - muje (a Japanese word that can be translated into amazing, unbelievable); the whole setting is kind of Kurosawa-like; so everything looks very 1900, but the guy in the middle; his dance gets faster and faster, the rhythms get wilder and wilder, things get off the scale; once the carving finished, music and dance stop, and the guy falls in ecstasy. Ten minutes of great, pure dementia!

(image from the movie: The Sixth Dream)

The Seventh Dream is a tale of desperation. A man embarked on a ship keeps on asking where's the ship going, and nobody, sailors, passengers, seem to pay any attention to him. As the story is advancing you start to realize that the ship is a metaphor for our life and what's the guy trying to find out is if there's any sense on Earth.

(image from the movie: The Seventh Dream)

In the end the guy commits suicide, just to realize in his last moments that even death does not free you from loneliness and despair.

Well, Yoshitaka Amano (helped by Masaaki Kawahara) transformed this story into a fairytale!

(image from the movie: The Seventh Dream)

Yoshitaka Amano is a well-known figure among Japanese Animé fans. He started to work in this field in the seventies and designed animated characters for TV series (like Final Fantasy and its sequels) as well as for some video games. He also illustrated fantasy novels and participated as character designer in the production of some animation movies.

(image from the movie: The Seventh Dream)

2006 was the year Yoshitaka Amano took also the responsibility of a film director. He created a video, Fantascope 'Tylostoma' (a 33 minute black and white animation: a man who appears every 700 years; stretching before the man's eyes the world rusted away to monochrome and gray; once the town was flourishing; it is now in ruins; one lonely person amid ruins; that person is a prostitute; a story of passion begins - AnimeNfo). This was immediately followed by the segment in the Ten Nights' Dreams, which is his first production for the big screen.

(image from the movie: The Seventh Dream)

So the Seventh Dream became a mixture of 2D and 3D animation, the ship became a great ballroom on the waves, the place of an uninterrupted carnival, an overwhelming symphony of colors. The segment of Yoshitaka Amano is what you call an eye catcher.

(image from the movie: The Seventh Dream)

A character was added to the story: a girl in white, the only one who is interested in the lonely man; the segment in the movie starts with her, and in the end, the man retrieves the girl within the deeps of the ocean.

Now, passing to The Eighth Dream, director Nobuhiro Yamashita kept only one paragraph from the book, while remaining quite faithful to the spirit of the original in a totally new story!

The paragraph (... I found about five oblong basins lined up to the left of the entrance; in them were a lot of goldfish-red ones, spotted ones, lean ones, fat ones; the goldfish seller sat behind the tubs; his eyes were fixed on the goldfish before him; he remained still, with his chin resting on his hands; he hardly cared about the busy people passing by; for a little while I stood looking at this goldfish seller, but all that time he didn’t move at all) is just the last scene of the segment (as it was the last one in the text). Actually in the movie, exactly at the end of this scene some big object falls unexpectedly from the sky.

What happens in the original text is that someone who's sitting for a haircut in a barber shop is witnessing various small scenes through the window, only each scene disappears instantly, as nothing happened. It's like passing through a chain of small illusions. As for the barber, he doesn't notice any of these images. He only observes the goldfish seller outside. The client will see the seller and his merchandise only when he leaves the barber shop, realizing that his presence is ignored. Is he real, or just an illusion himself?

In the movie a guy is trying to enter a room and starts talking to someone who's inside, to find himself suddenly in another room, in another house, talking to someone else, on a different topic. What's more, the guy is changing constantly his look, his dress, his age. Like in the text, nothing can be caught, the room, the house, the person he is talking to, the subject of the conversation, even the own identity. It is exactly like in a dream, everything is floating, and probably this segment renders a dream in the most accurate way.

Director Miwa Nishikawa was the only one who took a purely dramatic approach for his segment (The Ninth Dream). This way he put a definite distance to the text (in my opinion): the book offered in this chapter an elegant elegy unraveling the tragedy in just one sentence at the end (the father, whose safety the mother is so concerned about each night, has already been killed by a lordless warrior); the segment in the movie is telling the whole from the beginning. What's remarkable that the sad tale of a family torn by the war is rendered in a very solid way in only ten minutes (the short amount of time allowed for each segment within the whole movie).

(image from the movie: The Tenth Dream)

And here we are at the last dream. The cult-favorite Yûdai Yamaguchi (Jigoku kôshien - Battlefield Baseball) is a kind of mad genius. Once he gets the controls you can expect anything. His segment that mix animation and live action is a story about pig mutants, actually about humans becoming pigs and pigs becoming humans, actually about mutants who can be either way in any given moment: it's weird, it's creepy, it's crazy, it's disgusting - I couldn't eat anything any more that day, I cannot eat pork any more - the image of humans fattened by pigs cannot leave my mind since I saw the vignette of Yamaguchi - this segment is unforgettable.

(image from the movie: The Tenth Dream)

(Sōseki)

Yume jû-ya - Ten Variations on Sōseki's Dreams/ III

(image from the movie: The Third Dream)

The Third Dream is a horror story (a man is carrying his baby on the shoulders while gradually realizing that the child is the same person he had killed long time ago). A horror icon was chosen to make this segment: Takashi Shimizu, the director of the Grudge series (for those who haven't watched it - me included - it's about an American nurse that has moved to Tokyo and encountered a supernatural spirit who was finding pleasure in possessing its victims - not very funny, hm - however, look what Takashi Shimizu once said, I do really like making horror movies because it's interesting, because you have all these tricks to play on, it's very much fun - so, horror stories are funny after all, even very funny).

Takashi Shimizu took the last sentence of the text (the child on my back suddenly grew as heavy as a stone Jizō statue) to extend the story; while the book was speaking about father and son only, in the movie the wife appears to carry a long forgotten sin by herself: as a child she had broken a small Jizō statue; there is an aura of somehow unclear collective guilt, embracing now the whole family, parents, and children, and even the expected child who would die at birth: again a suggestion toward Sōseki (whose wife also got through the drama of a miscarriage).

(image from the movie: The Fourth Dream)

For The Fourth Dream Atsushi Shimizu came with an unexpected solution.

This Shimizu (not to be confounded with the other one, Takashi) is known in US for his Umezu Kazuo: Kyôfu gekijô- Negai (Kazuo Umezu's Horror Theatre:The Wish: an introverted boy finds one day a head-shape block of wood and is building from it a huge doll, wishing to bring it to life; when he gives up and burries the thing somewhere, the toy becomes animated and seeks revenge; it is the cinematic version of a macabre manga by Kazuo Umezu, considered the godfather of the genre).

(image from the movie: The Fourth Dream)

But let's come back to The Fourth Dream of Sōseki. The text is very cryptic: an ageless man is traveling from nowhere toward nowhere, and he's attracting with a silly play some kids who'd wish to follow him. Atsushi Shimizu wrapped this in a small mysterious whole: a man (presumably a young Sōseki?) visits his childhood places and is gradually enveloped by long forgotten events. As memories come back, present and past are no more distinct. The air seems saturated with the expectancy of horror.

(image from the movie: The Fourth Dream)

It was the fifth segment (made by Keisuke Toyoshima, another horror artisan, the same brand as the two Shimizu) that gave me suddenly some clue on all the segments that I had seen so far.

Toyoshima got rid of the whole story from Sōseki's Fifth Dream and kept only the ride of the girl. But, while in the text the girl was riding to see her lover (who had fallen in the hands of the enemy), here in the movie the ride was left totally unexplained - and it was so on purpose: dreams are full of incongruent occurrences!

(image from the movie: The Fifth Dream)

Actually the segment in the movie has other two personages, husband and wife: it is the description of a dream of the wife, and the girl riding the horse is just an element of the dream. The husband has also his dream, but it's up to us to decide whether it's not just another occurrence in her nightmare.

A nightmare where all ambiguities of the husband-wife relation get free voice, the whole complex of obsessions, fears, frustrations, egoism, unfulfilled desires and untold reproaches.

The ending of this segment is marvelous: husband and wife sit at the table, joined by each one's little monster.

(image from the movie: The Fifth Dream)

And here suddenly came for me the question: weren't the dreams of Sōseki (among other things) about the complex of love/hate/guilt within the close, caged universe of the family, between husband and wife, between parents and children? About the hidden desire for free open spaces, for riding at large?

(Sōseki)

Yume jû-ya - Ten Variations on Sōseki's Dreams/ II

(image from the movie: The First Dream)

The first segment of the movie follows, using the same house and the same props. A man is working on a manuscript, like Sōseki, sitting at the same small table (only a man of different age). The oddities come immediately into picture. The clock on the wall seems to run backward. A huge Ferris wheel is revolving slowly somewhere in the background, seemingly counterclockwise.

The main oddity is that we are witnessing two parallel actions in adjoining rooms, very different each other. While the main personage is working on his manuscript, with his wife watching him with lovely care, the other room is a small Japanese restaurant, with a very young waitress and an old patron (with a taste for dirty jokes). Everybody seem to know the writer, while ignoring the other people from the parallel action. The wife is nonexistent for the patron and for the waitress, they are in turn nonexistent for the wife.

(image from the movie: The First Dream)

Akio Jissoji made this first segment. It was his second to last film; he died shortly after. A perfect mastership in running the bizarre logic of this vignette: at a certain moment the actors start to move out the props from the stage and we get the impression of watching a movie about making this movie!

The original story is resolved quickly: the wife announces at a certain moment that she will die and asks her husband to wait for her coming back after a hundred years, while we begin to guess that she had been so far alive only in his mind, and the hundred years have just passed.

Here was the mastership of Jissoji: to create an elegant demonstration that our concepts are just conventions, nothing more: time can be made to run forward or backward because it is only our convention. Past and future are pure conventions, and the same goes for all our logic.

The second segment was created by Kon Ichikawa, who also died shortly after. Ichikawa was very well known for his adaptations of some Japanese classics (Sōseki's Kokoro and Mishima's Enjo). Here in telling The Second Dream Ichikawa took a a very different approach than that of Jissoji: he followed very faithfully the text of Sōseki without any initiative of a replica. More than that, the segment created by Ichikawa seems to come from the very period Sōseki wrote his novel! It is black and white, a silent movie with intertitles. It is perfect in its ascetic renouncement of any distance from the original.



(Sōseki)

Yume jû-ya - Ten Variations on Sōseki's Dreams/ I

(image from the movie: The First Dream)

Sōseki is a very interesting case study. Edwin McClellan (who translated Kokoro in English) considers him the Dickens of Japan. Within the Nippon culture Sōseki is a classic of the modern literature. He is considered the most European among Japanese classics while his mastership in creating a delicate blend of Zen irony is what enchants us. He is very European indeed, just for the perfect balance of his Zen universe: we can read any of his books without any difficulty while being charmed by his Japanese specific.

My relation with his Ten Nights' Dreams was a great web adventure. I found firstly The Second Dream and posted it on my blog, just to realize later that what I had found was not the text from his book; it was something different (possibly written also by Sōseki, in another of his novels). I found then his first five dreams, translated by Chris Pearce. For the rest, I bought the eBook.

I worked like in a trance to post the texts on my blog. I attached to each dream related images and videos; I found even two videos with a beautiful girl reading the dreams in Japanese.

I commented each dream, just trying to understand better their universe. Probably it would have been better to leave them uncommented: they should be taken as-is, just give in to their spell. On the other hand, trying to comment them prolonged my pleasure.

His dreams were a riddle to be solved after hundred years (well, that's a joke, based on the fact that Sōseki used this expression, hundred years have passed, to express the atemporal nature of his stories: the riddle was to be solved sometime or never).

The movie was made in 2006 (so after only ninety-eight years, which is not exactly hundred after all :). Each dream was recreated by another filmmaker. and each of them enjoyed total freedom in treating the story. Each segment is following very loosely the text of Sōseki; we have in the movie rather ten replicas to the chapters of the book: ten variations on Sōseki's themes.

Is there any link among the segments of the movie? It seemed to me that each author tried to understand whether Sōseki had described his own dreams. Only he was too cautious to reveal anything in this respect. Were these his own dreams? Was it pure imagination? Then, was he imagining himself within each dream? As the main personage? As a witness, mixed among the other folks populating the space? Also, if he was imagining himself there, in the story, was it at the age when the book was written, in 1908? Or, was he rather trying to recreate passages from different stages of his life?

As I said, Sōseki was very careful not to leave any hint. And the filmmakers were preoccupied by the same question, trying eventually to suggest his presence.

The movie opens with a small prologue, made by Atsushi Shimizu (he is also the director of the fourth segment, as well as of the epilogue); a prologue that creates the environment for the whole movie: Sōseki is working on the manuscript of his Ten Nights' Dreams, a nice person looking a bit older than early forties (his age in 1908); a cat is meowing from somewhere, an allusion to his novel, I Am a Cat. So, the question is put from the very beginning: is Sōseki the personage of his dreams, or is he just observing the characters with a bit of irony and slight amazement, the way the cat was observing humans?

(Sōseki)

Kokoro

(video by AsianVirusNet)

The novel of Sōseki attracted three film directors: Kon Ichikawa in 1955, Kaneto Shindô in 1973, and Shô Tsukikawa in 2007. The video above shows scenes from the movie of Ichikawa.

Kokoro: a Japanese word that means heart; the meaning deepens: heart of things, feeling; the novel is a meditation on the loneliness in modern society. You realize inexplicable mysteries wrap your friends, then you realize parallels exist with mysteries of your own. You explore deeper and deeper your heart, your memories, you go down further and further in your heart, to find there more and more hidden levels, of guilt and shame; it's loneliness that you discover at the heart of all things, and the feeling is that the only escape is death. Is it truly an escape? Think at the Seventh Dream of Sōseki: even death is no escape.

(Sōseki)

Who Was Sōseki

Natsume Sōseki (real name Natsume Kinnosuke), born in 1867; discovered first the beauties of Chinese literature; his first compositions were haiku; he signed them Sōseki (stubborn in Chinese, as it seems); sent in 1900 in England with a scholarship that was by far insufficient; he lived in London a very reclusive life (beside the scarcity of funds, he was far too small, a dwarf among Britons his age); he spent all his time there studying English literature; returned to Japan in 1903 to take the chair of English literature at Tokyo University (where he followed Lafcadio Hearn); started to publish by that time; major novels, I am a Cat and Botchan (1905), The Miner (1907), Ten Nights' Dreams (1908), The Gate (1909), Kokoro (1914), Light and Darkness (1916); died in 1916; his portrait was till 2004 on the front of the 1000 yen bill.

Brief notes (chosen at random) on each of his books:

• I am a Cat: I am a cat and as yet I have no name;

• Botchan: most of the story occurs in summer, against the drone of cicadas and the sting of mosquitoes;

• The Miner: being walking through this pine grove for a long time now; these places are way longer than they look in pictures. Just pine trees, and pine trees, and pine trees that don't add up to anything;

• Ten Nights'Dreams: a riddle to be deciphered after hundred years;

• The Gate: his prose is so delicate that each page is like looking at a set of dreamy watercolors;

• Kokoro: it was at Kamakura, during the summer holidays, that I first met Sensei;

• Light and Darkness: his last novel, a complex analysis of egocentric personalities of the modern age, was left unfinished at his death.

• Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The First Dream
• Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Second Dream
• Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Third Dream
• Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Fourth Dream
• Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Fifth Dream
• Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Sixth Dream
• Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Seventh Dream
• Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Eighth Dream
• Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Ninth Dream
• Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Tenth Dream
• Kokoro
• Yume jû-ya - Ten Variations on Sōseki's Dreams/ I
• Yume jû-ya - Ten Variations on Sōseki's Dreams/ II
• Yume jû-ya - Ten Variations on Sōseki's Dreams/ III
• Yume jû-ya - Ten Variations on Sōseki's Dreams/ IV

(A Life in Books)

(Japanese Cinema)

Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Tenth Dream

Ken-san came to tell me that Shoutarou unexpectedly came home that night, seven days after he had been taken off by a woman, and that, his temperature having risen suddenly, he is sick in bed.

Shoutarou is the best-looking young man in our neighborhood and an extremely honest fellow, but he has a favorite pastime that may strike one as odd. When evening comes, he puts on his Panama hat, sits at the door of the fruit shop and looks at the faces of the passing women, which never fail to entertain him. He never seems to want to do anything else.

When there are few women on the street, he turns to look at the fruit instead. All kinds of fruit. Peaches, apples, Japanese fruits, and bananas are beautifully served in baskets, arranged in two rows, so that the customer can easily select one for a present. Shoutarou looks at these baskets and says that they are beautiful. He also says that if he were ever to enter a trade, a fruit shop would be just the thing for him. Nevertheless, he just sits there in his Panama hat and idles his time away.

Occasionally he comments on the fruit, saying the color of that Chinese citron, for example, is nice. Yet he has never bought any fruit, nor does he eat any free. He just extols the color.

That evening a woman had unexpectedly stopped at the entrance of the store. Judging from what she was wearing, she seemed to be a woman of quality. The color of her clothing caught Shoutarou’s fancy. And her face, too, had a quality he found attractive, so Shoutarou saluted her in a courtly way by taking off his precious Panama hat. Then the woman pointed to the largest basket of fruit and asked him for it. Shoutarou quickly took it and handed it to her. When she tried to lift the basket, she remarked that it was a bit heavy for her.

As he was a man of leisure and very open-hearted by nature, Shoutarou offered to carry the basket to her house, and they left the shop together. He had been away ever since.

Easygoing as he always had been, this was going too far. While his friends and relatives were fretting over what they thought as quite serious, Shoutarou suddenly came back on the night of the seventh day after he had gone away. People crowded around him and asked, where have you been, Shou-san? He merely replied that he had taken a train to the mountains.

It must have been a long train ride. According to what Shoutarou said, on getting off the train, he and the woman had come to a field. It was quite a large field, and wherever you looked, you could see only green grass. Walking along the grass they suddenly came to the top of a huge precipice. Then the woman invited Shoutarou to jump off. Peering down, he could see the wall all right, but the bottom of it was too deep down to make out. Shoutarou, doffing his Panama hat, politely declined, again and again. The woman asked him whether he preferred to be licked by pigs, since he would not venture to jump off the precipice. Now Shoutarou hated pigs and Kumoemon the balladeer very much, but he thought that even not saving himself from either of these was worth the price of his life, and so he could not bring himself to jump. Then a pig came grunting along. Shoutarou reluctantly hit the pig on its snout with a thin stick of a betel palm. Giving a yelp, the pig tumbled down to the bottom of the cliff. While Shoutarou was still breathing a sigh of relief, another pig came towards him, rubbing him with its large snout. Shoutarou reluctantly swung the stick. With a yelp, the pig followed the first headlong down to the precipice. Then a third pig appeared. At that moment Shoutarou raised his eyes to discover, on the horizon where the green field ended, tens of thousands of grunting pigs trotting straight at him. He was terrified, but he could not stop tapping the snout of each pig one by one, gingerly, with the betel palm stick. Surprisingly, only a light touch of the stick to each snout sent the pigs easily over the cliff. Looking over the edge, he could see the pigs in an endless line, tumbling headfirst into the bottomless valley below. Thinking how many pigs he had dispatched to the bottom, Shoutarou began to feel afraid, and still the pigs came on and on and on. Like a swarming black cloud which had grown legs, continuously grunting, the pigs thrust their vigorous way through the green grass towards him, in a never-ending horde,.

Shoutarou had tried desperately to keep up his courage, and for seven days and six nights he had gone on tapping pig snouts, until his arms got weak as a konniaku jelly. Then one pig finally succeeded in licking him, and in the end, Shoutarou collapsed.




Ken-san told me that story of Shoutarou and advised me not to stare too much at the women. He is right, too, I find. Ken-san also mentioned that he would like to own Shoutarou’s Panama hat.

It seems Shoutarou will not be saved. His Panama hat will be given to Ken-san.


(Natsume Sōseki)

My comment:

Terrible image of History!

We engage during our life in a chain of events, we manifest our personalities, we manifest our distinctiveness. This way we create History, and here's the image: a chain of ugly fights without any horizon, till we give up.


(Sōseki)

Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Ninth Dream

The world has somehow become unsettled. A battle may break out at any moment. There is panic in the air, as though an unbridled horse has plunged wildly from a burning stable and is day and night running amok, round and round the house and grounds, raucous grooms in pursuit. Yet within the house all was still.

In the house were a young mother and a three-year-old child. The father had gone away somewhere. It was on a midnight dark and moonless that the father had gone away. He had put on straw sandals and his black hood as he sat on the bed, and then he had left by the backdoor. The flame of the lantern that the mother held cut a narrow strip of light into the thick darkness and shone momentarily on an old cypress tree by the hedge.

The father had not returned since that time. Every day the mother would ask the three-year-old child, where is Father? At first the child would not answer, but then would say, over there. Even when the mother asked, when will Father be back home?, the child only smiled and again answered, over there. Then the mother would smile, too. The mother tried again and again to teach the child the words, Father will be back in a minute. However, the child only learned to repeat, in a minute. After that, every once in a while, when asked, where is Father? the child would answer, in a minute.

Every night, when it began to grow dark and still, the mother retied her obi sash and put into it a dagger in a shark-skin sheath. Then she tied the child to her back with a narrow obi, and went out softly through the wicket. The mother always wore straw sandals. The child was sometimes lulled to sleep on her back, listening to the rhythmic padding of those sandals.

Going west along the adobe walls of the neighboring estates and down a gentle incline, there stands a big gingko tree. A turn to the right at the gingko tree leads one to a torii arch of stone, the gateway to a shrine a hundred meters beyond. With rice fields on one side and a low patch of dwarf bamboo on the other, one reaches the torii. Beyond the torii is a clump of black cedars. Walking alone the stone-paved path for another forty meters, one comes upon the stairs leading to the old shrine. Above the offertory box, weathered gray by the sun and rain, a pull-rope hangs down from the big wishing bell. In the daytime, one can see the wooden plaque inscribed with the name Hachiman-guu, the shrine of the god of war. The Japanese figure hachi (eight) is curiously formed, like two doves beak to beak. Nearby there are framed pictures, mostly records of famous marksmen and their prowess with the arrow, plus an occasional sword, in dedication to the shrine.




Every time when the child passes through the torii, it can hear an owl hooting in the top of a cedar. The child also hears the slap-slap of the mother’s straw sandals on the paving stones. Then the sound stops as she rings the wishing bell and stoops down to clap her hands in the ritual way. Even the owl stops hooting. Then the mother prays to the gods with all her heart for her husband’s safety. She has no doubt that Hachiman, the god of bow and arrow, will not leave unanswered her urgent prayer for her warrior husband.

At the sound of the bell the sleeping child often wakes up, and looks around, startled. Then it starts to cry on the mother’s back, there in the darkness. She dandles the child, still murmuring her prayer. At times the crying stops, but sometimes it continues, loud and terrible. But the mother does not yet stand up.

On finishing her prayer at last, she walks up to the holly place, unties the narrow obi and slides the baby around from her back into her arms. She rubs her check tightly against the child’s, saying, you’re such a good baby. Wait here for a moment. After straightening out the tangles in the narrow obi, the mother ties one end around the child’s waist and the other to the balustrade of the oratory. Then she goes down the stairs and paces back and forth a hundred times along the 40-metre stone-paved path, offering prayers.

It is lucky for the mother that her child, tied to the balustrade, can creep around the terrace of the oratory as far as the obi reaches. If the child sets up a cry, she tries to finish the prescribed hundred prayers quickly in her anxiety, but she loses her breath. When there is no other way, she interrupts herself, climbs up to the oratory where she hushes the child, and then starts over again from the beginning.

The father, whose safety the mother is so concerned about each night, has already been killed by a lordless warrior.

Such is the sad story that I heard from my mother in my dream.



(Natsume Sōseki)

My comment:

Such a delicate elegy! For Father, for the memory of Mother, for the memory of your own childhood... and for prayers going apparently nowhere. Are prayers and rituals useful? Yes, says the story, yes, at least for us, for our memories, for our elegies. As long as we have faith we live.

(Sōseki)

Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Eighth Dream

As I crossed the threshold into the barber shop, I saw several people there, all dressed in white, who asked in chorus if they might help me.

I stood in the middle of the room, looking around. It was square. The windows on two sides were open and on the two other walls hung mirrors. I counted six mirrors.

I went to one of the mirrors and eased myself deep into a facing chair, which wheezed pleasantly as my body sank into it. It was quite a comfortable piece of furniture to recline in. I saw my face resplendent in the mirror. Behind it there was reflected a window and slantwise I could see the lattice-work that separated the cashier’s counter from the rest of the shop. Behind it there was no one to be seen. Outside the window I could see reflected clearly the upper-halves of the passers-by.

Shotarou walked by with a woman. He had bought a panama hat which we all took no notice of, and he was wearing it. I wonder when he met that woman. I have no idea of such things. Both of them looked proud of being seen together. I wanted to have a close look at the woman’s face, but I missed my chance as they had already passed by.

A soybean-curd maker passed blowing on his horn, his lips on the mouth-piece, his cheeks puffed out as if he had been stung by a swarm of bees. I could not help worrying about the man and his puffed cheeks. It looked as though he had spent his whole life being stung by bees.




A geisha came up. She had not yet out on her make-up. Her hair was done up in a loose root of shimada knot, which made it look wobbly on top. She looked sleepy, too. A pity her complexion was so extremely bad. She made a bow and introduced herself to someone, but the person was out of range of the window.

Then a big fellow dressed in white stepped up behind me with a pair of scissors and a comb in his hands and began to scrutinize my face. Twisting my thin mustache, I asked him if anything could be done with it. The man I white made no answer, patting my head with the dark brown comb.

I said, listen, aside from the matter of my head, will this mustache ever amount to anything? Still without a word he began to snip at my hair with the scissors.

I tried to keep my eyes open to see everything reflected in the mirror, but I soon closed them because black hairs began flying to and fro and every snip frightened me. The man in white finally said in a loud voice, did you see the goldfish vendor outside, sir?

I said I hadn’t. The man in white did not ask me anything further and continued busily trimming my hair. I suddenly heard somebody bellow, watch out! I opened my eyes to glimpse the spokes of a bicycle wheel visible from just the man’s white sleeve. The steering wheel of a rickshaw cart appeared. Just then the man took my head in both hands and turned it forcefully to one side. The bicycle and the rickshaw snapped out of sight. The sound of snipping was all that could be heard.




The man in white soon came around to my side and started cutting the hair around my ear. I was relieved to open my eyes now that the hairs were no longer flying about. Awa rice cake; rice cake; rice cake, somebody chanted outside. They were making rice cakes, beating out a rhythm with a small mallet against the large wooden mortar. I would like to have had a look at how they were going about it. The last time I had seen Awa rice cake making had been when I was a small boy. The Awa rice cake maker however, never appeared in the mirror. I could only hear the sound.

I peered as hard as I could into the mirror, trying to see inside, beyond the corner of its frame. I saw a woman whom I had not noticed until then. She was a big dark woman with bushy eyebrows. Her hair was done in the gingko style and she was wearing a linen kimono with a black satin decorative collar as she sat on the mat with one knee up, counting bills. The bills looked like ten-yen ones. The woman was counting intensely, eyes down and thin lips drawn tightly. She certainly worked up speed. She acted as though she was going to count bills forever. Yet the number of bills on her knee was a hundred at most; however much she counted them they would never amount to more.

I was gazing absently at the woman’s face and at the bills. Just then the man in white announced loudly in my ear, I will wash your hair. It was a good moment to have a direct look at the scene, so as soon as I stood up I turned around toward the lattice. But nothing, neither the woman nor the bills, could be seen.

I paid and went out, whereupon I found about five oblong basins lined up to the left of the entrance. In them were a lot of goldfish-red ones, spotted ones, lean ones, fat ones. The goldfish seller sat behind the tubs. His eyes were fixed on the goldfish before him. He remained still, with his chin resting on his hands. He hardly cared about the busy people passing by. For a little while I stood looking at this goldfish seller, but all that time he didn’t move at all.


(Natsume Sōseki)

My comment:

The impossibility to catch a moment could tell you a lot about The Time Delusion.

(Sōseki)

Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Seventh Dream

(video by l4urz)

I find myself on board an extraordinarily big ship.

The ship steams against the waves emitting black smoke continuously and making a deafening noise. The trouble is, I have no idea where the ship is heading. The sun, reflecting like burning tongs, seems to come from beneath the waves. I see the sun motionless above the tall mast for a time, but in the next moment it passes the big ship and finally disappears again into the depths, sputtering on the water as though the burning tongs had been suddenly dropped there. Each time this happens, blue waves turn blackish-red far beyond and the ship makes a terrible noise in a vain chase after the sun’s traces.

Once I got hold of a crewman on deck. Is this ship heading west?

The man glared at me for a moment. Why? he finally asked.

Because the ship seems to be running after the setting sun, I replied.

The man gave a loud, amused laugh and went off. I heard the strains of a sea shanty:

Is the Sun heading East? It may be, Ho!
Is its home in the West? Don’t ask me, Ho!
It’s a sailor I am and belong to the waves;
My ship is my home and ever I roam,
Sail on, sail on, sail on, Ho!

I came to the forecastle deck and found a crowd of sailors hauling the big jib rope.

I felt completely lost, abandoned. I had no idea when I would be able to get off this ship. I didn’t even know where it was heading. I was only sure the ship was steaming against the waves, emitting its black smoke. The waves were fairly high and looked infinitely blue. The water sometimes turned purple, but white foam was always being blown back in the ship’s wake. I felt completely lost. I thought of jumping into the sea to my death rather than staying on this ship.

There was a lot of company on board. Most people looked foreign, with very different types of features. As the ship pitched in the heavy, cloudy weather, I found a woman leaning against the rail, crying unceasingly. The handkerchief she used to wipe her tears looked white, I saw, but she wore printed Western clothes, probably cotton. When I looked at her I realized that I was not the only one who was sad.

One night when I was alone on deck watching the stars, a foreigner came up and asked me if I knew any astronomy. Here I was almost ready to kill myself as a non-entity. What did I need to know about astronomy? But I kept silent. The foreign man began to tell me about the seven stars over Taurus. He said that the stars and the sea were something God had created. Finally he asked me if I believed in God. I kept silent, looking up at the sky.

Going into the saloon one time, I saw a young woman dressed in flashy clothes. She had her back to me and was playing the piano. Beside her was a tall, fine gentleman singing a song. His mouth looked enormous. Anyway, the man and the woman appeared to be entirely indifferent to every one but each other. They even seemed to have forgotten that they were on a ship.

I found myself getting more and more unhappy. In the end I decided I would kill myself. One night when there was no one about, I ventured to throw myself into the sea, but just as my feet left the deck and my tie with the ship was severed, I wished from the bottom of my heart that I had not done this thing, but it was too late. I had to enter the sea whether I liked it or not. The ship was so tall that although I was physically parted from it, my feet would not touch the water that quickly, but with nothing to hold on to, it was getting closer and closer. However tightly I curled my legs under me, it was useless. The water was black.

The ship passed me, trailing its perpetual black smoke. I realized that it would have been better for me to stay on board even without knowing where the ship was bound, but I was unable to put this new wisdom to any practical use. I feel deep into the black waves quietly, with infinite regret and fear.


(Natsume Sōseki)

My comment:

Have we imagined nonexistent gods, or rather nonexistent time? To fight our loneliness, and despair. To delude ourselves that there is a sense somewhere. Even death cannot fill our emptiness.



(Sōseki)

Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Sixth Dream

I had heard the great Unkei was carving the figures of the two Temple Guardians, the ancient Niō, at the main gate of Kokoku Temple, so I walked out to see it. There were many people already there before me all talking about the project.

Before the main gate stood a red pine tree five or six ken high, spreading its branches out against the blue sky far above at an angle that partially screened its roof. The green of the pine tree and the vermilion of the lacquered gate reflected each other in beautiful harmony. The tree was well placed so that one heavy branch extended obliquely to avoid blocking the left side of the gate. It seemed somehow old-fashioned to let the branch stick out over the roof that way. It could have been the Kamakura period.

However, the people looking at it, including me, were of the Meiji era. Most of them were rickshaw drivers. They must have been standing there because they were tired of waiting for passengers.

One said, that’s what I call big!

That must be harder than it takes to make a man, said another.

Still another said, do they still carve the Niō nowadays? I thought that was all way back when.

It looks plenty strong all right. They say there was never anyone as strong as the Niō. They say they were even stronger than Yamato-takeru-no-mikoto, that ancestor god of the Emperor himself. This speaker with his kimono tucked in was not wearing a hat. He seemed somehow uncultured.

Unkei was working with his chisel and hammer, unconcerned about his reputation among the onlookers. He never turned to look at them. Perched on his high place he went on carving the first Niō.

Unkei was wearing the strange headgear of a bygone era and had his sleeves tied across his back. Anyway, his whole aspect was that of another age. He seemed to be ill-matched with his noisy audience. It was strange to be watching him there. I wondered why he was still alive in this modern period.

Unkei, however, was carving away as if everything were absolutely normal. A young man who was looking up at him turned to me and began extolling his work, saying, he is great. We are beneath his notice. He seems to be telling us that he and the Niō are the world’s only heroes. He is splendid.

I thought that his words were interesting. I glanced at him and he said at once, look how he uses his chisel and hammer. That’s exquisite mastery.

He was now carving the Niō’s eyebrow a sun sideways and in the precise instant that he turned over the blade of the chisel, he brought the hammer down. He planed the hard wood and thick shavings flew with the sound of the hammer as the side of an angry noise emerged. He seemed to have an unconcerned way of working, yet his hand was perfectly sure.

He uses the chisel in such an offhand manner. How can he make the eyebrow and the nose the way he wants? I was so impressed that I began talking to myself. No, the young man at my side observed. He doesn’t do it with his chisel. All he does is just dig out the eyebrows and nose already buried in the wood. It’s like digging stones out of the ground. He cannot make a mistake.

What a discovery. So this is what sculpture is! It occurred to me that if that is all there is to it, anybody can do it. I suddenly longed to make a statue of the Niō for myself, so I went home there and then.

I got the chisel and hammer out of my toolbox. In the backyard there was a large stack of oak wood, already saved for firewood after a recent storm had scattered tree branches about.

I chose the biggest one and began to cave it vigorously, but unfortunately I couldn’t seem to find the Niō. I couldn’t find one in the next piece, either. Nor was it in the third. I caved in the stacked wood piece after piece, and in none was hidden the Niō. At last I had to accept the fact that the Niō does not reside in the wood of the Meiji period. I also learned the reason why Unkei is alive today.

(Natsume Sōseki)

My comment:

Unkey lived in the twelfth century and the story takes place in the modern era. The great master of the Kamakura period had the faith, the devotion, the humility, the patience to become intimate with the world of his gods; there was no more distinction between him, his art, the Universe of his art; so, along with them he transcended time and went beyond spatial boundaries. Again, History disappears, overwhelmed by the Eternity of Cosmos.



(Sōseki)

Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Fifth Dream

This is the dream I dreamed.

Probably a very long time ago, I can imagine it being in antiquity near the age of the gods, I was warring. Because our luck went bad and we lost, I was captured, and made to sit in front of the enemy general.

Everyone in that time was tall. And they were all growing long beards. He had on a leather belt with a club-like sword suspended from it. His bow looked like a fat piece of wisteria that had been used as-is. If it wasn’t lacquered, it also hadn’t been polished. It was very austere.
The enemy general was sitting on something that looked like an upside down clay pot. He had pushed the bow into the grass, and his right hand was gripping the middle of it. When I looked at his face, above his nose, his left and right eyebrows were thickly connected. At that time, naturally, there wasn’t anything like a razor.

I couldn’t sit on a chair since I was a prisoner. I sat cross-legged on the grass. I was wearing large straw boots on my feet. The straw boots of this time were very long. When you stood they came up to your knee. At the tops of the boots, bits of straw were left over from the weaving, and they hung down like tassels. They were a decoration, each strand made to move separately when you walked.

The general looked at my face by the campfire and asked if I would live or die. It was the custom of the age to ask every prisoner that. If you answered to live it meant you had surrendered, to die meant you did not surrender. I replied in one word, Death. The general pitched his bow, which had been stuck in the grass, behind him, and started to slip out the club-like sword hanging from his waist. The fire, bent by the wind, blew against the sword from the side I opened my right hand like a maple leaf, turned my palm to face the general, and raised it up above my eyes. It was a sign that meant Wait! The general placed the thick sword back in the scabbard with a clink.

Even then there was love. I told him that before I die I wanted to see the woman I longed for. The general said he would wait if she came before dawn broke and the birds sang. He said she must be called here before the birds sang. Even if she didn’t come and the birds sang, I would be killed without seeing her.

The general sat and stared at the campfire. I sat with my large straw boots folded together, and waited for her on the grass. The night gradually wore on.

Now and then there was the sound of the fire dying down. Each time it would die down, the seemingly upset flames would start to reach out for the general. Below his jet-black eyebrows, his eyes sparkled. Then, someone would come and throw a bunch of new branches into the fire. After a bit, the fire would crackle. It was a brave sound. It sounded like the snapping back of the darkness.

At this time the woman led out a white horse that had been hitched to a Japanese oak behind our house. She stroked his mane three times and nimbly jumped on his tall back. It was a saddle-less, stirrup-less, bare horse. When she kicked him in the stomach with her long white legs he took off at a full gallop. The far sky looked faintly light, as if someone had attached the campfire to it. The horse aimed for this area of light and flew through the darkness. From his nose, breath like two columns of fire was being expelled while he ran. Nevertheless, she kept on kicking his stomach with her thin legs. The horse was running just as fast as if the sound of his hooves was being played on a flute. Her hair lingered in the darkness like a streamer. Yet she still couldn’t make it to the campfire.

Then, at the side of the pitch black road, a bird suddenly cried cock-a-doodle-doo. The woman turned her body toward the sky, and strongly pulled up on the reins she was gripping in both hands. The horse’s front legs cut into the top of a hard crag.

The rooster crowed out once again, cock-a-doodle-doo.

The woman cried out, and at the same time loosened up on the tight reins. The horse broke both of his knees. Both the rider and horse tumbled directly forward. Below the crag, there was a deep abyss.

The imprint of the horse’s hooves is still left on top of the crag. The thing that impersonated a crying bird is a devil. While the imprint of the hooves was being etched into the rock, the devil was my enemy.


(Natsume Sōseki, translation by Chris Pearce)

My comment:

History means past and future, precise moments that specify time limits. Eternity is beyond time. Signs of love (the imprint of the hooves on top of the crag) remain beyond time. History (and time) is supported by evil.

(Sōseki)

Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Fourth Dream

In the middle of the wide dirt floor something like a bench had been placed, and around it small stools had been arranged. The bench shone with a black luster. In the corner, an old man with a small square table set before him was drinking sake alone. His appetizer looked like meat and vegetables boiled in soy sauce.

The old man was becoming quite red thanks to the fine sake. Moreover, his face had a bright complexion, and I couldn’t see anything that even looked like a wrinkle. The only way you could tell he was old was by the full white beard he had grown. As I was a child, I wondered how old he could be. And then the proprietress came in carrying a bucket of water that she had collected from the water pipe out back. While wiping her hands on her apron she asked, how old are you old fellow?

The old man swallowed the food he had stuffed in his mouth and gravely stated, I’ve forgotten.

The proprietress took her now dry hands and stuck it in her thin obi, stood and watched the old man’s face from the side. He gulped down sake in a cup as big as a bowl and blew out a long breath from between his white beard with a sigh. Then the proprietress asked, old fellow, where is your home?

The old man interrupted a long breath and said, deep in my belly button. The proprietress, with her hands stuck in her thin obi, asked again, where are you headed? Once again the old man gulped down hot sake from the cup as big as a bowl, and like before, breathed out a sigh and said, I’m headed over yonder.

When the proprietress asked, are you going straight there? the breath the old man expelled passed through the shoji screen, under a willow tree, and headed straight toward the river beach.

The old man went out the front. I left after him. He had a small gourd hanging from his waist. From his shoulder, he had a square box hanging down under his armpit. He was wearing pale yellow fitted trousers and a pale yellow sleeveless coat. Only his socks were yellow. They looked, somehow, like they were made from leather.

The old man went straight until he was under the willow tree. Three or four children were under there. Laughing, he pulled a pale yellow hand towel from his waist. It had been twisted long and thin like paper string. He placed it on the ground, and then he drew a large, round ring around the hand towel. Finally, from the box hanging from his shoulder, he pulled out a candy seller’s flute made of brass.

Let’s keep looking, let’s keep looking, soon the towel will become a snake, he repeatedly said.

The children watched the towel determinedly. I also watched.

Let’s keep looking, let’s keep looking, okay? he said while he blew on the flute, and he started going round and round the ring. I looked only at the towel. But it didn’t move at all.

The old man whistled on his flute, and over and over he went around the ring. He went around like he was standing on the tips of his straw sandals, like he was walking on his tiptoes, like he was being deferential to the towel. It looked frightening. It also looked interesting.

Before long the old man abruptly stopped playing the flute. He opened the lid of the box hanging from his shoulder, picked up the neck of the towel slightly in his fingers, and threw it in.

If I put it in, it’ll become a snake inside the box. I’ll show you soon. I’ll show you soon, he was saying as he started walking straight. He passed under the willow tree and went down to a narrow road. I wanted to see the snake, so I followed him to wherever the road led to. Now and then, the old man said as he walked, soon it’ll happen, and it’ll become a snake.

In the end, as he was singing, soon it’ll happen, it’ll become a snake, it surely will, my flute will sing, we finally came to the shore of the river. Since there were no bridges or boats, I thought we might rest here and he would show me the snake in the box. The old man started to splash into the river. At first the water was only as deep as his knees, but then quickly from his waist, up to his chest, he became submerged and harder to see.

But even then, while he was singing, it’s getting deep, it’s turning night, it’s becoming straight, he walked straight to wherever. Then his beard, and his face, and his head, and his hood completely disappeared from sight.

I thought the old man would show me the snake when he came up on the opposite shore. He would be standing where the reeds rustled, waiting alone forever. But in the end, the old man never came up.


(Natsume Sōseki, translation by Chris Pearce)


My comment:

History and Universe. We live in History, where each fact has a sense. For us there should always be reason and outcome. But this is only our logic. The Universe has its own way, and for us it seems gratuitous. Actually the Universe is unknown for us. The Universe has nothing in common with our reasons and expectations, with our past and future. A hundred years is nothing, there is no past, no future, only eternity.



(Sōseki)

Sōseki: Ten Nights' Dreams - The Third Dream

This is the dream I dreamed.

I was carrying a child of six on my back. I’m sure it was my child. Only, the strange thing was, before I realized it he was blind with a freshly shaven head. When I asked, when did you lose your sight? he replied, what? Long ago. There’s no doubt that voice was a child’s, but he spoke like he was an adult. Like an equal.

Green rice paddies were to the left and right. The road was narrow. The fleeting shadows of herons could be seen in the darkness.

We’ve started toward the rice paddies, haven’t we? he said on my back.

I turned my face to the rear and asked, how do you know?

Aren’t the herons crying? he answered.

Sure enough, when he said that, they cried out twice.

Although he was my own child, I became a little frightened. With him on my back I didn’t know what would happen from here on. I wondered if there weren’t some place I could just abandon him. When I looked out into the darkness and I could see a large forest. Just as I started to think, if over there, a voice going, hee hee came from my back.

What are you laughing at?

He didn’t answer. All I heard was, father, am I heavy?

You’re not heavy, I replied.

Soon I’ll become heavy.



I kept quiet and, with the forest as my guide, walked toward it. The road in the rice fields twisted irregularly. We couldn’t exit as easily as I had thought. After a while the path forked. I stood at the split in the road and rested.

The boy said, there should be a stone standing here.

Sure enough, an eight inch square stone stood about waist high. Written on the face, left Higakubo, right Hottahara. I could clearly see those red letters in spite of the darkness. They were like the red color of a newt’s belly.

Left will be fine, the boy ordered. When I looked left the forest was starting to cast dark shadows from the sky over our heads. I hesitated a little.

The boy added, you don’t need to hold back. Helplessly I started walking toward the forest. I was thinking that the boy seemed to know everything, even though he was blind. When the single road approached the forest, he said on my back, being blind is a real inconvenience.

“But it’s okay, because I’m carrying you.”

I’m sorry you have to carry me, but to be made a fool of by people won’t do. To be made a fool of by a parent, especially, won’t do.

Somehow things had become unpleasant. I was thinking how I wanted to hurry to the forest and dispose of him, and I hurried.

You’ll understand when we get a little farther. It was just like this night, he said on my back, like he was speaking to himself.

What was? I asked, with intensity in my voice.

What was? You know, don’t you, the child answered with a sneer. And then I got this feeling that I did. But clearly I didn’t know. It was just that it felt like it happened on a night like this. It felt like if I just went a little farther, I would know. Knowing would be very difficult, so while I didn’t understand I hurried to dispose of him. I had to feel relief. I hurried.

Rain had been falling for some time. Little by little the road darkened. It was almost like a dream. But this small kid was sticking to my back, and he illuminated my entire past, present and future, shining like a mirror that didn’t miss an ounce of the truth. Yet, he was my child. And he was blind. I couldn’t stand it.

Here, here. Right at that cedar’s roots.

I could clearly hear the kid’s voice. Unconsciously I stopped. Without noticing we had entered the forest. Just five feet in front of me was a black mass. Without a doubt, I could see it was the cedar tree the kid had spoke of.

Father, it was at that cedar’s roots there, wasn’t it.

Without thinking, I replied, yes, it was.

I think it was 1809, the year of the Dragon.

Of course, I was made to think of 1809.

From today it’s been exactly one hundred years since you killed me.

As I heard those words, one hundred years ago, the year of the Dragon, on a dark night like this, by the roots of a cedar, the realization that I murdered a blind man abruptly burst into my mind. And as soon as I started to become aware that I was a murderer, the child on my back suddenly grew as heavy as a stone Jizō statue.

(Natsume Sōseki, translation by Chris Pearce)


My comment:

Our sins are our children, we carry their burden, we are the victims, the murderers, the parents, the children, all in one, no distinction, everything remains as it was done by us, forever. A hundred years is nothing, no past, no future, only eternity.




(Sōseki)