#saiichi maruya

[anamon-book]

決定版 深夜の散歩－ミステリの愉しみ 福永武彦・中村真一郎・丸谷才一 講談社 装幀・挿絵＝和田誠

[straycatboogie]

2023/07/26 English

BGM: Nav Katze - Never Not (Black Dog Mix #1)

I finished reading Shuntaro Tanikawa's book, "Proses". The proses by Shuntaro Tanikawa was so lyrical, therefore I could enjoyed the "rich taste of Japanese itself". I thought about his brain which can product his marvelous poetry and also these proses. Where can such a smartness of him come from? I remember Natsuki Ikezawa's comment about any great Japanese authors as Kunio Tsuji and Saiichi Maruya. Are those great writers/artists the "chosen geniuses"? Or they are just ordinary human beings? I can see that Shuntaro Tanikawa's real figure is just the one of an ordinary, snob person. I can't see that he is trying to pretend he can be greater than the real. Just a natural, and cool guy... Indeed, there must be some geniuses we can't see what they have been thinking certainly. But I am attracted by the people who are showing their ordinary, banal figures but also having their greatness within those figures. I call them as "tacticians". For me, Haruki Murakami, Kenzaburo Oe, and Paul Auster are that kind of "tacticians" (I welcome your different opinions would come). And I am also thinking that I want to live that kind of "ordinary" "orthodox" life with expressing myself. I live within this world, and also talk to it.

This morning I had a meeting about English on ZOOM. I found that there was a member from India besides us, the Japanese members. I was surprised at his great Japanese which enabled him to write some great examples of Japanese sentences. I thought that this meeting had a really high level (every member must keep on trying to do their effort in their lives). Today we created some examples by using the phrases "after all" and "all year round", and I created "I've been wearing the same pants all year round". Then it made other members laugh... I used this "pants" as a kind of clothes, so not as an underwear. But they accepted that "pants" as an underwear... Of course, this is not wrong understanding. If we listened to that example as British English or Japanese context, it would be accepted as a natural one (and I learned after this meeting this. Tonikaku Akarui Yasumura, who is now popular in England, is saying his underwear as a "pants" on the stage). OMG... But that happening was accepted as a funny, great one. I was glad to learn that because my "too natural" comments would be accepted as that kind of funny ones (BTW, in England we say that kind of clothes as "trousers").

This afternoon, with reading the book "Proses", I finished compiling the record of the meeting about autism we had had ten days ago. I look back at the past we autistic people learned our handicap, and it is impressive that a participant said her difficulty which came from her autism had reached to the limit by using the word "explosion". I can see what the "explosion" could be by looking at "my personal" past days. Every day's little stress by miscommunication would become a huge cluster in ourselves, and we couldn't solve it effectively therefore it "explodes" in ourselves one day... In other words, how can we solve that problem before we experience the "explosion" or "meltdown"? Me, my "meltdown" is just like to drink heavily, to buy something too much, and to eat a lot. Although I quit alcohol, but I have to accept that still I buy something on Amazon by one click. How can I solve the problem before "melting down"? How can I do maintenance my mind? I learned again that how important to let the gas in my mind out by using LINE because recently I had a trouble about money management again.

This evening I went to the "danshu" meeting. I confessed the event I had experienced last Sunday. It was not related with any traumatic past drunken days... Other person talked about a man who he had met on Facebook. They had a great, precious opportunity therefore it wouldn't come again if we lose it. He ended his story with saying that we should share the pleasant time each other without staying within our shells alone. I remembered the meeting I had had this morning. Or this "danshu" meeting has been also a great opportunity for me. I have enjoyed this "danshu" meeting about 8 years, but still have learned a lot of interesting, great things as the lessons. After the meeting, I spent the time with reading Fernando Pessoa's "The Book of Disquiet". The main character Pessoa describes must be the on e who has shown an orthodox worker, and also a great owner of the huge poetry talent (he must be "gifted"). I am enjoying "The Book of Disquiet" even though I have read this already for 5 times. During that Pessoa's book, I read Shuntaro Tanikawa's poems. After passing 10 pm, I posted my poetry because I had forgot doing so. My poetry creating becomes a certain, stable habit?

Like The Bonnie

They must hate me...But that's I decide Some are still standing by my side I don't care the boss who would chide I even adore the "Bonnie and Clyde"

Yes, this would bring me a certain hate They probably say that it's too late It must be a mistake just Eve who ate But I try to do by myself, open the gate.

This is the style of mine. I just choose I want to live like Oasis. I sing good blues That attitude must bring me a sweet fruit

Autistic people might be, no must be mad Understand this attitude, or I would feel sad I have a fine spirit made by blood

[ochoislas]

En la autopista de Tokio, justo antes de la salida de Kasumigaseki, hay una vista que me gusta especialmente, aunque probablemente no sea algo en lo que la mayoría de la gente se fija siquiera. Normalmente llego desde el enlace de Meguro, pues vivo en esa parte del mundo, y ya cuando voy por el túnel de Iigura me voy preparando, mirando expectante hacia la izquierda cuando aparece la señal de salida a trescientos metros a Kasumigaseki. El empinado talud detrás de la residencia del primer ministro presenta una amplia extensión de cemento gris como fondo a una hilera de ginkgos: eso es lo que estaba esperando.

Lo que me atrae es la combinación del fondo con los árboles. Ni éstos ni aquél son nada extraordinario en sí mismos. Los árboles son los mismos que se ven junto a cualquier carretera. Lo que me resulta tan sugestivo debe de ser la extraordinaria nitidez con la que se recortan contra una superficie tan lisa. Sobre todo me gustan cuando un fuerte sol proyecta sus sombras directo al cemento, aunque otros momentos y estaciones, cuando las sombras son tenues o sesgadas, también tienen su fascinación. Incluso los días nublados, cuando no hay sombras, obtengo cierta satisfacción pensando que siguen allí en el gris oscurecido del fondo. La visión sólo dura unos segundos, pero quizá esto contribuye a dotarla de una fugacidad casi dolorosa en su intensidad. Aunque el área de Nagata —el núcleo del poder gubernamental— no tenga nada que ver conmigo y sea algo que casi no miro mientras corro por la autopista, la existencia del talud y los árboles le ha prestado una importancia que de otro modo no tendría.

Siempre me han atraído las sombras de los árboles, aunque no sabría decir por qué. Las sombras proyectadas en el suelo no me provocan una emoción particular, aunque tampoco me disgustan. Lo que me conmueve son las sombras verticales, en concreto el efecto de conjunto de las arrojadas contra un muro por los árboles de una avenida. Remueven algo profundo en mí: un sentimiento desconsolado —como de un hogar perdido al que nunca he de volver— pero percibido casi con placer, una calidez reconfortante. El muro tiene que ser muy liso y despejado, mejor si es de un tono apagado, neutro; cualquier clase de motivo adultera el efecto. Me desagradan los edificios con muchas ventanas y las fachadas de ladrillo jaspeadas, pero lo que más me repugna son las marcas blancuzcas que dejan en el cemento las reparaciones. Una superficie vacía, insulsa, es lo mejor: la imagen de los árboles arrojando sus sombras en la amplia vacuidad parece recalcar la soledad de todas las cosas, pues lo único que verdaderamente pertenece a un objeto es la sombra que proyecta.

Maruya Saiichi

[bookmonsterzero]

Best of 2017 in Letters

I will restrict myself to new readings after returning to quite a few favorites this year (otherwise these recommendations would be pretty boring.) I will group titles by category with my favorite in each made bold: 

American Fiction

Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin

In Watermelon Sugar by Richard Brautigan

The Damnation of Theron Ware by Harold Frederic 

In Love by Alfred Hayes

Brown Girl, Brownstones by Paule Marshall

British, Irish and Commonwealth Fiction

Sunset Song by Lewis Grassic Gibbon

Selected Stories by Alice Munro

Good Morning, Midnight by Jean Rhys

Train to Pakistan by Khushwant Singh

He Knew He Was Right by Anthony Trollope

French Fiction

Hell by Henri Barbusse

La Femme de Gilles by Madeleine Bourdouxhe

My Mother's House by Colette

Imaginary Lives by Marcel Schwob 

Dirty Snow by Georges Simenon

German Fiction

Extinction by Thomas Bernhard

The Hothouse by Wolfgang Koeppen

Mephisto by Klaus Mann 

Vertigo by W.G. Sebald

The Tanners by Robert Walser

Spanish and Portuguese Fiction

Blow-Up and Other Stories by Julio Cortázar 

Zama by Antonio di Benedetto

Doña Barbara by Rómulo Gallegos

Facundo by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento

Pepita Jimenez by Juan Valera 

Japanese Fiction

Grass for My Pillow by Saiichi Maruya 

Japanese Fairy Tales by Yei Theodora Ozaki

Naomi by Jun'ichirō Tanizaki

Russian Fiction

Generations of Winter by Vasily Aksyonov

The House with the Mezzanine and Other Stories by Anton Chekhov

A Lear of the Steppes and Other Stories by Ivan Turgenev 

African Fiction

So Long a Letter by Mariama Bâ 

Chaka by Thomas Mofolo

Houseboy by Ferdinand Oyono

Scandinavian Fiction

World Light by Halldór Laxness

Unknown Soldiers by Väinö Linna

The Birds by Tarjei Vesaas 

Other Asian Fiction 

Monkey: A Journey to the West by Wu Cheng’en 

Romance of the Three Kingdoms by Luo Guanzhong

Last Words from Montmartre by Qiu Miaojin

Other European Fiction

Seiobo There Below by László Krasznahorkai

The Engineer of Human Souls by Josef Škvorecký 

Pereira Declares: A Testimony by Antonio Tabucchi 

Genre and Speculative Fiction

I, Robot by Isaac Asimov

Lilith's Brood by Octavia E. Butler

The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth

The Futurological Congress by Stanisław Lem

The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson 

Philosophy, Politics, and Science

The Pocket Oracle and Art of Prudence by Baltasar Gracián

Being and Time by Martin Heidegger

Neurosis and Human Growth by Karen Horney

Public Opinion by Walter Lippmann

Conjectures and Refutations by Karl R. Popper 

Biography and Memoir 

Hitler by Ian Kershaw 

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi

Farthest North by Fridtjof Nansen

The Pillow Book by Sei Shōnagon 

Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette by Judith Thurman

History

The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy by Jacob Burckhardt

The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans

The Comanche Empire by Pekka Hämäläinen

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen

Out of Mao's Shadow by Philip P. Pan

Other Non-Fiction

Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power by Steve Coll 

Purity and Danger by Mary Douglas 

The Guide of the Perplexed by Moses Maimonides

The Tibetan Book of the Dead by Padmasambhava

The Three Christs of Ypsilanti by Milton Rokeach

[kurauchiryuko-works]

writer Saiichi Maruya 評論や翻訳ものは読んでいるが、そういえばまだ小説を読んでいなかった。たった一人の反乱当たりを読もうと思いつつも今日に至る。 #丸谷才一 #作家 #評論家 #座談 #講演 #英文学 #芥川賞 #ユーモア #ユリシーズ #人物 #似顔絵 #顔

[anamon-book]

世界スパイ小説傑作選1・2・3 講談社文庫 1＝丸谷才一[編] カバーデザイン：菊池薫 2＝丸谷才一・常盤新平[編] カバー装画：山藤章二 3＝丸谷才一・常盤新平【編】 カバー装画：山藤章二

[ochoislas]

En la autopista de Tokio, justo antes de la salida de Kasumigaseki, hay una vista que me gusta especialmente, aunque probablemente no sea algo en lo que la mayoría de la gente se fija siquiera. Normalmente llego desde el enlace de Meguro, pues vivo en esa parte del mundo, y ya cuando voy por el túnel de Iigura me voy preparando, mirando expectante hacia la izquierda cuando aparece la señal de salida a trescientos metros a Kasumigaseki. El empinado talud detrás de la residencia del primer ministro presenta una amplia extensión de cemento gris como fondo a una hilera de ginkgos. Eso es lo que estaba esperando.

Lo que me atrae es la combinación del fondo con los árboles. Ni éstos ni aquél son nada extraordinario en sí mismos. Los árboles son los mismos que se ven junto a cualquier carretera. Lo que me resulta tan sugestivo debe ser la extraordinaria nitidez con la que se recortan contra una superficie tan lisa. Sobre todo me gustan cuando un fuerte sol proyecta sus sombras directo al cemento, aunque otros momentos y estaciones, cuando las sombras son tenues o sesgadas, también tienen su fascinación. Incluso los días nublados, cuando no hay sombras, obtengo cierta satisfacción pensando que siguen allí en el gris oscurecido del fondo. La visión sólo dura unos segundos, pero quizá esto contribuye a dotarla de una fugacidad casi dolorosa en su intensidad. Aunque el área de Nagata —el núcleo del poder gubernamental— no tenga nada que ver conmigo y sea algo que casi no miro mientras corro por la autopista, la existencia del talud y los árboles le ha prestado una importancia que de otro modo no tendría.

Siempre me han atraído las sombras de los árboles, aunque no sabría decir por qué. Las sombras proyectadas en el suelo no me provocan una emoción particular, aunque tampoco me disgustan. Lo que me conmueve son las sombras verticales, en concreto el efecto de conjunto de las arrojadas contra un muro por los árboles de una avenida. Remueven algo profundo en mí: un sentimiento desconsolado —como de un hogar perdido al que nunca he de volver— pero percibido casi con placer, una calidez reconfortante. El muro tiene que ser muy liso y despejado, mejor si es de un tono apagado, neutro; cualquier clase de motivo adultera el efecto. Me desagradan los edificios con muchas ventanas y las fachadas de ladrillo jaspeadas, pero lo que más me repugna son las marcas blancas que dejan en el cemento las reparaciones. Una superficie vacía, insulsa, es lo mejor: la imagen de los árboles arrojando sus sombras en la amplia vacuidad parece recalcar la soledad de todas las cosas, pues lo único que verdaderamente pertenece a un objeto es la sombra que proyecta.

Maruya Saiichi

[bookmonsterzero]

2017: June 4 - 10

Read

240. An Ethiopian Romance by Heliodorus of Emesa

241. The Rise of Rome by Anthony Everitt

242. H is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald

243. The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell

244. A Laodicean by Thomas Hardy

245. The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy

246. The Song of the Wave and Other Poems by George Cabot Lodge

247. Grass for My Pillow by Saiichi Maruya

248. The Obscene Madame D by Hilda Hilst

249. The Inverted World by Christopher Priest

Seen

218. Lost: Season 6 (2010)

219. The Toll of the Sea (1922/Chester M. Franklin)

220. The River Niger (1976/Krishna Shah)

221. To Each His Own (1946/Mitchell Leisen)

222. Strawberry and Chocolate (1993/Tomás Gutiérrez Alea)

223. Logan (2017/James Mangold)

224. A Welcome to Britain (1943/Anthony Asquith, Burgess Meredith)

225. Ruby Sparks (2012/Jonathan Dayton, Valerie Faris)

Heard

Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A. (Dancing in the Dark)

Lesley Gore Sings of Mixed-Up Hearts (You Don't Own Me)

David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust (Moonage Daydream)

Jimmy Dorsey - Dixie by Dorsey (Struttin' With Some Barbecue)

Ashkenazy / Zukerman / Harrel - Schubert: Piano Trio No. 1

Fugazi - Red Medicine (Target)

Kraftwerk - Trans-Europe Express (Showroom Dummies)

Ashkenazy / Zukerman / Harrel - Schubert: Piano Trio No. 2

Best reading and viewing experiences in bold, other recommended ones are linked. For albums: ♥ track in (parentheses). ® revisited.