#makiokasisters

[pavlovasmess]

I spent my sixth birthday frolicking out in the April sun. When I came back home, the walls were decorated with balloons, ostensibly put up by my mother. But to the newly six-year-old me it seemed fantastical; a few dozen pale shiny balloons summoned for me in my absence. Almost a decade later, this came to me while reading my first Murakami—serendipitously titled “Birthday Girl”—the acute banality of my mother putting up balloons and the magical effect it had on me, like modern Japanese literature has on its readers.

Banality is a curious theme. It comes with an expected tone of offhandedness, of unceremoniously viewing from a distance, but it evokes a completely different set of feelings: of intimacy, of living in an alternate world where you watch strangers do gracefully what you might do clumsily. And while it evidently stands in sharp contrast to richly imaginative writing of, say, fantasy fiction, the banality in Japanese literature is just as much or at times, even more evocative. It isn’t far-reaching by any standards, and perhaps this is why modern Japanese fiction comes off as carefully collected and delicately written despite the abrupt endings and the free-flowing writing style.

Woman Admiring Plum Blossoms at Night

Suzuki Harunobu

[pollyssecretlibrary]

I'm going through a very Japanese phase. I've been reading a lot of manga (apart from other types of comics) and watching animes these days because I like them and because I'm having some kind of reader's block. I start April wanting to read again, perhaps I'll get over with the block reading "The Makioka sisters". As a bookmark I will use this beautiful postcard that Magrat and Danvers sent me when they traveled to Japan. The cup is not very Japanese but the tea is sencha (Japanese green tea). Do any of you go through "theme" phases like me? Tell me! . I'd like to remind you that you can recommend me books, or movies... whatever you want. Happy Easter! . . Estoy pasando por una fase muy japonesa. Llevo una temporada que leo mucho manga y veo animes (aparte de otros tipos de comics) porque me gusta y porque tenía una especie de bloqueo lector. Empiezo abril con ganas de leer, a ver si lo consigo con "Las hermanas Makioka". Como marcapáginas voy a utilizar esta preciosa postal que me enviaron @magratajostiernos y @danversdixit cuando viajaron a Japón. La taza no es muy japonesa pero el té es sencha (té verde japonés). ¿Alguno de vosotros pasa por fases temáticas como yo? Contadme. . Aprovecho para recordar que podéis recomendarme libros, o películas... lo que queráis. ¡Feliz Pascua! . . . . . #Aprilreads #currentlyreading #JunichiroTanizaki #TanizakiJunichiro #MakiokaSisters #SasameYuki #Japanesewriters #Japanliterature #Japaneseliterature #springreads #lovelifeandkindness #bookrelated #books #literatura #libros #yoleoycomparto #booksofinstagram #bookwhorm #bookster #booklove #bookstagram #booklover #bibliophile #bookaholic #addictedtobooks #bookaddict #booknerd #IGreads #webtroverts (en Santander, Cantabria)

[tabazko]

Catching fireflies. Inspires by Junichiro Tanizaki “The Makioka sisters”. Inktober. Day 15. Mysterious. . . . #inktober2017 #inktober #mysterious #mystery #fireflies #firefly #catchingfireflies #makiokasisters #makioka #tanizakijunichirou #tanizaki #day15 #night #river #ink #inkdrawing #art #blackandwhite #mermaid #fantasy #illustration (at Amsterdam, Netherlands)

[pavlovasmess]

No writing can ever be or will ever be compartmentalised and divorced from realism: all of it is going to stem from everyday lives because that is what we truly know. It shall be read vociferously, as it is now, because as Nakajima Atsushi puts in Light, Wind and Dreams: “What convinces readers is realism, while what fascinates them is romanticism.” It is perhaps the readers’ detached attachment to writing that makes them persist through banal writing subjects. Washing dishes is glamorous unless you are elbow deep in soap water. They chase for hidden meanings in banality; is an apartment with windows on all sides a metaphor for an open cage? A fire in the distance one for impending doom? But revelations in these texts come silently. Not as groundbreaking metaphors but as vivid images in plain sight, an explanation for which is better left untouched and only to be illustrated, as Tanizaki does in Makioka Sisters:

‘And while she lay with her eyes closed, the fireflies, out there along the river, all through the night, were flashing on and off, silent, numberless. Sachiko felt a surging inside her, as though she were joining them, soaring and dipping along the surface of the water, cutting her own uncertain track of light.’

Japan has come down from its ukiyo and Japanese fiction presents us with an untouchable reflection of our lives. As they say in optical physics: a real image.

[tabazko]

Taeko. Osaka traditional dance. Inspired by “Makioka sisters” from Junichiro Tanizaki. . . . #tanizaki #makiokasisters #makioka #osaka #kimono #taeko #japan #japaneseart #manga #art #anime #doodle (at Amsterdam, Netherlands)