Les Cheveux blancs

by Yoshikichi Furui, Véronique Perrin (Translator)

Les personnages habitent ces cités nouvelles qui entourent le coeur de Tokyo et où perdurent des coutumes étranges. Leur histoire s'ouvre sur une série de veillées funèbres, elle se superpose aux événements de la mémoire collective. Une fatigue, un effroi, un humour culminent ici dans l'éclatement de la bulle économique, la guerre du Golfe, et les prémisses de la vieillesse, hospitalisations ou décès de proches. Ils sont quatre à se croiser comme par hasard en des lieux déterminés, l'hôpital, la rue, un parc, la maison de l'un ou de l'autre. Le narrateur est un écrivain vieillissant, un ancien camarade de classe resurgit quarante ans après, un vieil ami donne signe de vie tous les trois ans, un jeune homme parle au nom des morts.

Passé et présent s'entremêlent sans cesse, dans une rêverie solitaire, dans des conversations improbables, où les interlocuteurs, unis par une attente réciproque, laissent se déployer la parole à travers des écarts, des obscurités et des malentendus qui produisent un feuilleton partagé, troublant et souvent drôle.

Ils pénètrent la splendeur du monde sous la pression de la mort à l'œuvre.

Genres: Japanese Literature, Japan

352 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Yoshikichi Furui (古井 由吉 , born November 19, 1937) is a noted Japanese author and translator.

Furui was born in Tokyo, Japan. He was educated at the University of Tokyo, where he majored in German literature, receiving a BA in 1960. His undergraduate thesis was on Franz Kafka. He remained at Tokyo University for graduate work for another two years, earning an MA in German literature in 1962. After graduating, he accepted a position at Kanazawa University where he taught German language and literature for 3 years. He subsequently moved to Rikkyo University in Tokyo where he remained as an assistant professor of German literature until the watershed year of 1970.

The early 1970s was a period of rapid economic growth and cultural efflorescence. In the literary sphere, a new group of authors was emerging. These authors differed notably from their predecessors because of their move away from the overt social and political commentary—particularity as directed against the system that supported Japan's involvement in World War II—then common both in recent works of literature, and as a measure by which literature was measured. Because this new group of authors turned their gaze from society to the individual, looking inward, engaging the fears and fantasies of an urban population beset by a crisis of identity in a time of rapid economic growth, they were called the introverted generation, and Furui was, perhaps, their exemplar.

In 1970 Furui resigned from Rikkyo University to become a full-time writer. In 1971 his novella Yoko (杳子) was awarded the Akutagawa Prize, and he has subsequently won both the Tanizaki Prize and Kawabata Prize.

Furui has also translated Robert Musil and Hermann Broch.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Yehia Nasser · Rating 5 out of 5]

very depressing cynical novel about aging process , very boring details with no begining or ending but I realy feel every detail as it was real , may be iam becoming old that's why I read this novel.

[Moushine Zahr · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first novel I ve read from Japanese author Yoshikichi Furui. The book is a semi-autobiography as the author is the leading character and narrator. The book was published in 1996, set in Tokyo just a couple years after. The author describes many times his daily life and routine, his neighborhood's scenery. A couple years after being seriously sick and had gone a surgery during his 1950's, the author seems to reflect on his life, his daily routine, his frienships and relationships through his eyes of a himself after the surgery. For the first time he considered himself as an old person, starts feeling his age physically and mentally.

Due to the book being a semi autobiography, readers whom have read several of the author's novels should definitely read this one. However, readers like me should read his other titles first before reading this one.

[Chana]

I very rarely quit on a book, but I am quitting this one. I read 57 pages, struggling to make sense of what he was saying. It is written in a very unreal way; for example the same scene written again and again, changing each time in some way. It is hard to tell if the main character is dreaming, mixing past, present and future, or hallucinating. There is also a lot of testing the boundaries of reality; if a tree falls in the forest kind of thing. It is a combination of wandering bewildered in someone else's dream thoughts, and being in a philosophical debate while on drugs. This is the paragraph that finally made me quit:

"Soundlessness surely is almost never found in the natural world. Deep quiet is in fact made up of various small sounds and voices. But perhaps it can happen that this profound hush will through some chance occurrence-maybe a tiny sound or voice- suddenly veer toward the infinite boundary of soundlessness, those countless minute sounds cancelling one another into nothing."

OK, that is just not for me. For someone else surely, but not for me.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good, unusual read. I'm not sure what to think of the book overall, but every page was pleasant, interesting reading.