Japanese Reading Nut

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Comment by ivana petan on July 16, 2008 at 5:40pm

dear ron,
your insight of kawabata lecture "saved my day"...!!! i know this sounds weird but i felt sad and hurt inside when the possibility of kawabata's suicide appeared! although it is hard to connect his writings and possibility of him committing a suicide... so, perhaps kawabata was not enlightened, but he definitely knew quite a lot about emptiness. and i am happy now, hah hah. maybe now is the right time to read again some of his novels...
...thanks, great talking to you, i.

Comment by Ron Samul on July 16, 2008 at 9:24am

Ivana,
This is an interesting junk from Kawabata's Nobel Lecture - it touches on some of the ideas we were talking about above. It is interesting how ambiguous his death seems. The entire lecture is HERE. Be well and thanks for the inspiration.


"The title comes from the suicide note of the short-story writer Akutagawa Ryunosuke (1892-1927). It is the phrase that pulls at me with the greatest strength. Akutagawa said that he seemed to be gradually losing the animal something known as the strength to live, and continued:

"I am living in a world of morbid nerves, clear and cold as ice... I do not know when I will summon up the resolve to kill myself. But nature is for me more beautiful than it has ever been before. I have no doubt that you will laugh at the contradiction, for here I love nature even when I am contemplating suicide. But nature is beautiful because it comes to my eyes in their last extremity."

Akutagawa committed suicide in 1927, at the age of thirty-five.

In my essay, "Eyes in their Last Extremity", I had to say: "How ever alienated one may be from the world, suicide is not a form of enlightenment. However admirable he may be, the man who commits suicide is far from the realm of the saint." I neither admire nor am in sympathy with suicide."

Comment by Ron Samul on July 15, 2008 at 11:22pm

Ivana,
That is an interesting connection between these two men. Particularly because Kawabata won the Nobel Prize in literature while Mishima was passed over three times. I've read Donald Keene and Nathan's biographies and they shed some light on the mind of Mishima and his work. But more is coming as the years go on. Here is an interesting link concerning Kawabata, Mishima, and the Nobel Prize Connection. Again thanks for your interesting thoughts and ideas. I have read most of Mishima's work that's around in English, but this conversation has set me off on the further exploration of Kawabata. Much thanks.

http://neojaponisme.com/2008/04/11/kawabata-mishima-the-nobel-prize/

Comment by ivana petan on July 15, 2008 at 7:20pm

ron, i agree with your comment on mishima. and for me kawabata's snow country was beautiful. also 2 novels: thousand cranes and the sound of the mountain.
but!!! kawabata and mishima were friends! - i found this at wikipedia: "Kawabata apparently committed suicide in 1972 by gassing himself, but a number of close associates, including his widow, consider his death to have been accidental. Many theories have been advanced as to his reasons, among them poor health (the discovery that he had Parkinson's disease), a possible illicit love affair, or the shock caused by the suicide of his friend Yukio Mishima in 1970. However, unlike Mishima, Kawabata left no note, and since he had not discussed it significantly in his writings, his motives remain unclear. However, his Japanese biographer, Takeo Okuno, has related how he had nightmares about Mishima for two or three hundred nights in a row, and he was incessantly haunted by the specter of Mishima. He was in a depressed state of mind and, in the last years, told friends that he wished sometimes, when he went on a journey, that his plane would crash."
good night, i.

Comment by Ron Samul on July 8, 2008 at 12:52pm

I agree Ryokan and Kawabata understood that. I wonder if Mishima could every give into the concept completely. He was a bit of narcissistic and had a strange vision of Japan. I've only read Snow Country by Kawabata - I should read more. Be well. Ron

Comment by ivana petan on July 8, 2008 at 9:56am

the thing with the buddhist void or emptiness, as i understand, is that when you reach this state of mind, hope or anything else does not matter any more. everything can exist or not exist, but that has nothing to do with the person being in the world, because she got over the attachment on things, people, feelings, meanings...nothing is fixed and unchangeable anymore and she is capable to live in a moment here and now. as far as i know japanese literature, ryokan and kawabata were really masters when it came to speaking of the emptiness.
and this mishma guy - he was and interesting guy indeed.

Comment by Ron Samul on July 5, 2008 at 11:22pm

Ivana Petan wrote - "...dig into this emptiness: he was talking about nothingness which resonates with zen emptiness."

It is interesting that you mention the void. Mishima had an obsession with the void and creating this kind of meaningless beauty that had a random and patterned evil and beauty wrapped in the same idea. He wrote a book called "Sun and Steel" - more like an essay, but it speaks to the concept. He is an interesting study - apart and beside his work. In the four boo Sea of Fertility Cycle - which was his last epic series before he killed himself, move around these ideas of the void, the history, disgrace, and rebuilding of Japan in the 20th century and the hope that we have as we look into the void. Although I never hope to think or live like Mishima - he gave me a great respect for writing in the novel form and what can be accomplished.

Comment by ivana petan on July 5, 2008 at 3:28am

ron, thank you for book references!
and regarding art work and individual expression, i agree. everybody has her life flow, a path and the intersections on it are very important signs. as far as i remember i was always fascinated by the eastern philosophy, with emptiness, full of yet undefined meanings. and as you say, when i started postgraduate study of philosophy of art, i was subconsciously drawn to the philosophers like heidegger and merleau-ponty. as much as we - westerns - are told and taught, that this eastern philosophy is too far from our capability to understand it properly, there are important western theologians and philosophers who showed that this saying does not hold water. for example, martin heidegger, german philosopher dig into this emptiness: he was talking about nothingness which resonates with zen emptiness.
so, as i see it, the limitations there are, are only the ones, we make for ourselves. humans as individuals are capable of changing and getting to know ourselves by opening to the yet unknown nothingness (emptiness) inside us and contributing something good and truthful to our society and earth. i think that is the reason why artist are for. take care, i.

Comment by Ron Samul on July 3, 2008 at 11:07pm

Thanks for your interesting feedback. Good Yukio Mishima stories are Temple of the Golden Pavilion and Sailor Who Fell from Grace with Sea. Once you put the word out to people that you are looking for something - they respond. Someone bought me a library discard that I would have never found. It was titled Japanese Short Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. In it is a disturbing tale called The Hell Screen.

As artists, we are very in tune with what we need subconsciously. Not to sound to "far out" but we intuitively move to what inspires us. Don't discount those important connections you make jumping from one book to another, one country, one writer to another. It can be an amazing exploration of literature, creative power, and inspiration that feeds your art. Thanks again for the comments and ideas.

Comment by ivana petan on July 3, 2008 at 5:01pm

ron, i am also big fan of japanese writers! that sincerity and flux of emptiness which touches your soul and opens your heart...i love kawabata and murakami, maybe i should read some mishma - can you recommend something? and there is junichiro tanizaki with his essays on japanese culture and art with critical reflections regarding western influences on them - the book called in praise of shadows - really great, reading this book i started to love foggy, cloudy weather and dark places. and i also love japanese poetry - my favorite is ryokan, he was zen budist, he wrote: " not much to offer you- just a lotus flower floating in a small jar of water. and another one: twilight-the only conversation on this hill is the wind blowing through the pines. take care, i.

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