The Stones Cry Out

by Hikaru Okuizumi, James Westerhoven (Translator)

The Stones Cry Out is the story of an amateur geologist and bookseller who is collapsing under the burden of his own history. Tsuyoshi Manase learned his first geology lesson from a dying soldier in a cave at the end of World War II. The soldier, a corporal, is skeletal, his eyes swarming with maggots, but his voice is low and steady, as he tells Manase of how a small pebble contains the Earth's history in its ephemeral matter. When the war ends, Manase returns home and opens a bookstore. He marries, and becomes the father of two sons. But what consoles him the most is the collecting of stones, and he enjoys his quiet life. That is until horrible violence visits his family and Manase must face his past in order to survive the nightmares of the present. A darkly compelling tale of one man's struggle against his own memories, The Stones Cry Out is a formidable debut novel from an international writer with an unusually penetrating voice.

Genres: Japan, Fiction, Japanese Literature, War, Literature, Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction

138 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1993

About the author

1956年、山形県生まれ。国際基督教大学教養学部人文科学科卒業。同大学院修士課程修了(博士課程中退)。現在、近畿大学教授。1993年『ノヴァーリスの引用』で野間文芸新人賞、1994年『石の来歴』で芥川賞受賞。2009年『神器 軍艦「橿原」殺人事件』で野間文芸賞受賞。著書に『バナールな現象』『『吾輩は猫である』殺人事件』『グランド・ミステリー』 『鳥類学者のファンタジア』『浪漫的な行軍の記録』『新・地底旅行』『モーダルな事象-桑潟幸一助教授のスタイリッシュな生活』などがある。

Reviews

[Praj · Rating 4 out of 5]

From the outside the stone is a riddle: 
No one knows how to answer it. 
Yet within, it must be cool and quiet... (Simic)

Throughout my academic life, the numerous geographical travels or even during the simplest stroll down the lane, never once did I think about the pebbles I kicked clearing my serene path. Standing in the midst of an eternal shimmering sand dune, the golden grains escaping the strangeness of my fingers, only if these minute granular marvels could voice the ancestral tale of the cerulean ocean free flowing a long time ago, the current sand once submerged at the subterranean oceanic flooring. The immaculately inscribed grave stone, the tiny rocks at the cremation grounds, the inert debris of shattered homes, the comatose history silent within the darkness of a cave rising with the slight flicker of a candle light, the history of mankind crystallised in the muteness of the empathetic universe; no such celestial sensibilities mirrored within me, until the potent voice of the gangrene inflicted lance corporal resonated vociferously within the cherry red walls of my room quietening the cello rendition next door. You normally don’t pay much attention to the stones you see by the side of the road, do you? You just think of them as meaningless objects scattered in the mountains, rivers and fields. Even if they’re in the way, it doesn't occur to you that they might be worth picking up and studying. Well, you’re wrong, you know. Even the most ordinary pebble has the history of this heavenly body we call earth written on it."


When does the war truly leave a soldier? Or rather when is a soldier liberated from the mirage of a crystallized masked reality? When or rather where the does the healing begin? Can the promising notion of cure truly culminate into totality challenging the linearity of time and liberating humans from the troublesome sensory core in which the living and the dead crowd? Can the imminent dawn of life moisten the dullness of a delirious death? A WWII war veteran, the traumatic POW experiences calcified like the etchings in the dark cave, Manase become the impervious symbolic stone, the transparency of his nightmarish memories masking the opaque reality. Unable to adjust to the nitty-gritty of the civilian life, Manase submerges himself in his exploratory geological obsession of accumulating assorted stones. On a broader horizon, war stories emit the general melancholic sentiment submitting the dilemma of reception and repulsion. But, when microscopically view in a higher magnitude, similar to the rainbow of refractive indexes of each rock-forming mineral scattered in a petri-dish underneath the magnified lens variegated through miraculous hued combinations revealing a painstakingly elusive design of a world within a world, these war stories create a galaxy of their own, magnifying the stippled mélange of a young soldier devoted to the objectivity of authoritative devotion and later as a civilian baffled in the subjectivity of free will. The heart of a man accustomed to numbness unmoved by the cyclic salvation of life and death, the vestiges of a harrowing time gone by floating like phantoms in the dense streams of memory marred by the wartime massacres, festering corpses, the spliced carotid veins in the consciousness of the cave. Memories are nothing but events that have changed into landscapes, and for people who have reached a certain age, the past holds more variety than future because they can paint the landscapes of their past.


Okuizumi clutches the capricious masquerade of his protagonist haunting the decisive way of Manase’s war memories and his existing perplexities between schizophrenic hallucinations and a confronting lop-sided realism Resembling the sedimentary green chert demarcating two polarised era yet amalgamating the account of each of these times, Manase’s traumatic life is defined by his relationships each carving an eternal niche of two different worlds. The captain for whom Manase swore his blind devotion, served as a beginning for a long suffering inner dilemma of a governing fidelity to the valued supremacy and the subjectivity of exercising free will in a sovereign libertarian civilization. The illusion of lance corporal swarmed with flesh eating maggots in the inescapable sinister cave, embracing the guilt and loneliness serves the purpose of an eventual alternative reality aiding to unmask the fragmented mental instabilities. A tussle between an individual modernity and communal ideological adherence hampers Manase’s relationship with his two sons, thereby, weakening the already vulnerable bond with his wife. The trauma of repressed war experience develop into the metaphorical red-hot magma cooling and solidifying the bonds of a man to his surrounding under the influence of a changing environment regrettably acquiring only the impenetrable tangled opaqueness of the stone and not the evolving trait enhanced by the transient weather.


Time fits together in a peculiar way – fortune and misfortune, pleasure and pain, all are exiled to the past to form a landscape in monochrome. It is a mystery and a blessing. The Palaeozoic, the Mesozoic.......the sedimentary, igneous , metamorphic rocks dispersed in the continuum of time, the vivid hues of the rock formation crystallized peacefully within the loneliness of fossils and metallic ores awaiting the wind of change in the evident erosion compressing a tangled world refracting the condensed history of the earth intermingled in the subtle chemical design . Unlike, the metamorphosing stone embracing the wind of change, Manase was trapped in the fragments of time, unable to amend under the changing weather. The static physicality of Manase repelled the upheaval of deep-rooted emotions coursing for an imperceptible change, equating the vacillating path of the minerals inside the solidified rocks, eventually crumbling beneath the pressure of hallucinations of a sinister past. The psychosomatic predicament masking the quintessence of real human existence alienates the entire being of Manase as a man, a war veteran, uprooting the simplicity of an everyday civilian life polarising the reality from the ephemeral uniqueness of the rock, a geological diversion that had consumed Manase.


Okuizumi establishes the mislaid subsistence of human pandemonium through the universe of geological gradations. The idea of a man being born as a part of the universe, the body predominantly made up of water, the bones brimming with calcium and the inner flow of blood a steady stream of non-static minerals exacting the zenith of evolutionary cosmos is analogous to the metamorphosing constitution of rocks/stones crystallizing the past, surviving the present and ultimately discovering a way to look into the altering future. Manase’s masking of the reality and inability to accommodate the subjectivity of a civilian life beyond his nightmarish past ceremoniously draws the intricacies of human obligations as an institution traumatized by conception of an ethical life rooted within the philosophical perseverance unmasking the blind devotion of societal responsibility; a far cry from the multi-dimensional fragments of the chert. This green chert, for instance consists of the petrified bones of ancient organisms. One day or bones will be like this. This is how the dead come to life again.


Man. Revolution. Life. War. Death. Man. The winds of change transforming the subjectivity of human life along with cyclic environmental existence juxtaposing the multiple dimensions of magic realism with the fragmented reality infused within the alternation of time. The delirious ethical instability shrouded with the philosophical resolution of the unreliability of real human existence resounds the linearity of time and the emancipation of humans from the rigid cyclic order in which the dead and living swarm awaiting for the next gleam of life when moistened with the far-fetched magnitude of evolving time emulating the phenomenal traits of a green chert that sparkle with life when moistened radiating the splendour of a gold-rimmed sunrise. Even the plainest, most ordinary pebble has the history of the universe written on it.

I have seen sparks fly out 
When two stones are rubbed, 
So perhaps it is not dark inside after all; 
Perhaps there is a moon shining 
From somewhere, as though behind a hill— 
Just enough light to make out 
The strange writings, the star-charts 
On the inner walls. (C.Simic)**

-----------

** The verses are taken from Charles Simic's poem Stone from What The Grass Says.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author of this book won Japan's prestigious Akutagwa Prize for this novel, and after reading it, I can see why. Its short 138-page length might tempt people into thinking it's an easy, breezy read, but really, it is anything but. In this short space, as the review blurb from The Detroit Free Press says, the author has managed to

"create the most vivid of fictional realms, the inner world of an Everyman battered by the cruel and seemingly random hand of fate..."

and has effectively "magnified" the horror of this "Everyman's" story in "the quietness of its telling." I could not agree more.

This story focuses on a man whose soul has been virtually split apart by the memories of wartime trauma and how his own inner turmoil affects not only himself, but continues to have repercussions on those closest to him. What happens in this book is best experienced rather than simply read about, moving well beyond plot into serious psychological territory. It's a sad, beautiful, and unforgettable book that reflects on the human costs of war, and one I recommend; if you're so inclined, I've written more about it here.

and now that I'm thinking about it all over again, I'm probably mentally done for today. The best books seem to have that effect on me.

sigh.

[Elsje · Rating 5 out of 5]

Prachtig boekje over hoe een oorlogstrauma het leven van een Japanse boekhandelaar en amateur geoloog ook tientallen jaren daarna stuurt. De stenen zijn zijn getuigen.

[Arno Vlierberghe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enorm blij dat ze dit grijs steentje uit 1998 hebben opgepoetst en wederom tentoon hebben gesteld.

[Blackdogsworld · Rating 3 out of 5]

"แม้แต่ร่างกายของพวกเราเอง แคลเซียมจากกระดูกก็จะเปลี่ยนเป็นหินและเข้าสู่วัฏจักรของแร่ธาตุในที่สุด ดังนั้นก้อนหินที่เธอเก็บได้จากแม่น้ำลำธารแม้จะดูไม่เกี่ยวข้องกับตัวเราเลย แต่ที่จริงมันเชื่อมโยงกับตัวเธอ เธอกำลังมองทุกสิ่งทุกอย่างที่เป็นประวัติศาสตร์ของโลก ซึ่งมีตัวเธอเองเป็นส่วนหนึ่ง หมายความว่าเธอค้นพบสภาพของเธอในอนาคตนั่นเอง"

- ฮิคารุ โอคุอิซึมิ, หินครวญ

----------

หินครวญคือวรรณกรรมญี่ปุ่นที่อ่านแล้วบีบหัวใจมาก ๆ โดยเฉพาะไม่กี่หน้าสุดท้ายก่อนจบ เมื่ออ่านจบแล้วรู้สึกโหวง ๆ ชอบกล แต่ผมคิดว่านี่ล่ะคือพลังของวรรณกรรมที่ดี ซึ่งทิ้งอะไรบางอย่างไว้ในความรู้สึกนึกคิดของเรา แม้เรื่องราวในหน้ากระดาษจะจบลง แต่มันยังดำเนินสืบเนื่องต่อในใจของผู้อ่าน

[Ties Bergen Henegouwen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Zowel op micro- als macroniveau een bizar goed geschreven boek

[Myriam · Rating 5 out of 5]

‘Zomerlicht. Wat hij zich er later van kon herinneren was het zomerlicht dat alles overgoot. Keer op keer keek Manase op de dagen van die zomer terug en poogde zich alle gebeurtenissen weer voor de geest te halen, maar steeds met een gevoel alsof hij een verre droom probeerde te achterhalen. Misschien was het allemaal onmogelijk geweest. Hij en Hiroaki, drijvend in een doorzichtig vat dat tot de rand was gevuld met licht. Het vat deinde vlak voor zijn ogen, maar als hij er een hand naar uitstak, dreef het van hem weg, en als hij ernaar greep, spatte het visoen als een zeepbel uit elkaar. Had het allemaal eigenlijk niets met hemzelf te maken gehad, was het niet meer geweest dan een tijdelijke hallucinatie?’

[Laurens · Rating 5 out of 5]

'In één klein steentje uit een rivierbed staat heel de geschiedenis van het heelal gegrift.' (p. 7)

Toen ik op literair platform Karakters.nu een voorpublicatie van Kenkō's De kunst van het nietsdoen las – het boek is onlangs voor het eerst door Jos Vos in het Nederlands vertaald en verschenen bij Van Oorschot – zag ik in een toelichting een naam van een Japanse auteur voorbijkomen waarvan ik nog niet eerder had gehoord: Hikaru Okuizumi. Voor zijn bekendste werk Ishi no Raireki (1993), in het Engels vertaald naar The Stones Cry Out, won hij de Akutagawa Prize, één van de meest prestigieuze literaire prijzen van Japan. De Nederlandse vertaling, van de hand van Jacques Westerhoven, luistert naar de ietwat plechtige titel De stenen getuigen, maar toch besloot ik een tweedehands editie op de kop te tikken.

Puike beslissing, zo blijkt nu.

Dit werk laat zich in één woord definiëren: steengoed – en nee, ik schaam me niet om die veel te gemakkelijke woordspeling. Deze slechts 140 pagina's tellende roman bevat alles wat ik in een kwalitatief hoogstaande roman zoek: kraakhelder, ingetogen en tegelijkertijd meeslepend geschreven proza (een knappe combinatie die betrekkelijk zeldzaam is), de sporadische filosofische inzichten, levensechte en imperfecte personages, gruwelijke details die aan het licht worden gebracht, een verhaallijn die zich geleidelijk naar een verontrustende climax toewerkt en genoeg ruimte overlaat voor meerdere interpretaties. Bovendien is de vertaling, op een aantal kleine storende herhalingen ('in arren moede') na, uitmuntend te noemen.

Normaliter wil ik vooraf altijd weten waar een roman over gaat en of het mijn tijd waard is, maar tijdens het lezen ervoer ik spijt dat ik de achterflap vooraf las. Blijf weg bij de achterflap, want deze geeft teveel weg van de plot. Probeer gewoon ergens een e-book of een tweedehands exemplaar aan te schaffen en duik er zonder voorkennis in. Met de hand op het hart: dit boek is zonder meer je geld, tijd en moeite waard.

‘Herinneringen zijn niet anders dan in landschappen veranderde gebeurtenissen, en voor mensen van een zekere leeftijd biedt het verleden meer afwisseling dan de toekomst omdat ze de landschappen van het verleden op verschillende manieren kunnen schilderen.’ (p. 92)

[Paula · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5 of 4 sterren. In de drie lange hoofdstukken die dit boek telt volgen we Manase, als soldaat tijdens de oorlog in de bergen en in een grot en daarna als vader. Hij ontwikkelt een fascinatie voor stenen die hij deelt met zijn oudste zoon. Een boek waarin oorlogsverleden, revolutie in de jaren ‘60 en vaderschap in elkaar zijn verweven inclusief de Japanse literatuur vibe. Erg goed en ontroerend, zonder irritant cliché te worden of in eindeloze zinnen te vervallen die nergens heen gaan.

[ดินสอ สีไม้ · Rating 3 out of 5]

แผลเป็นในใจ .. จิตในห้วงลึก .. ใต้สำนึก ..

เป็นเรื่องราวที่จบแบบอึ้งๆ อึนๆ
คำตอบของคำถามเกิดขึ้นในใจใครใจมัน
งุนงง สงสัย สับสน และอัดอั้น

ปล. ชอบกระบวนการเรียนรู้จักหินของมะนะเซะ
เสียดายที่มันกลายเป็นตัวนำโชคร้าย? .. หรือไม่ใช่?

[Granada Dolores · Rating 4 out of 5]

+14
Read the reviews, they say everything
Awesome Japanese book, really liked it, a little bit hard to understand sometimes

[tat · Rating 4 out of 5]

A soul filled of split memories from war and the repercussions onto his family. One hobby that tied him together with his son, and tore him apart with the other. What a chilling and fantastic story about the human costs of war and its later destruction to the self.

These types of reads aren’t the easiest, but once you get into the story, you never want to leave.

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

As I read the end of this book I felt chills go through my body. I'm stunned by what's happened over the course of just 138 widely-spaced pages. This slim volume bares the truth of the phrase our protagonist often returns to, the last lecture of a dying soldier wishing to impart that even "the tiny pebble that you might happen to pick up during a walk...is a condensed history of the universe." So it is with the best literature here, as Okuizumi explores timeless themes of trauma, memory, fatherhood, regret, loneliness in a subtle but unforgiving interrogation of how we reconcile our fleeting time on earth with the unfathomable expanse of time that we are born into (and which holds a parallel to the timeless, ephemeral world of memories that persistently resurface, and will never go away). The geologically-inclined perspective Manase uses to rationalize his quiet post-war life appears early on to be an adequate coping method with the horrors he'd witnessed (and participated in), through its humble depersonalization, but this sturdy disposition crumbles over time, and instead the stone's hardness serves as a mask for the inevitable course of what trauma has unleashed in him: "In other words, the form of minerals is never static, not for a second; on the contrary, it undergoes constant change...All matter is part of an unending cycle. You know of course that even the continents actually move, though at an imperceptibly slow pace." If you are looking for the kind of story that hides its most unsettling bits beneath a placid surface, this is the one for you. Okuizumi pulls of this kind of repressed, story-in-the-margins style (reminiscent of Kazuo Ishiguro's "Never Let Me Go") to a much more satisfying effect than Ishiguro.

[Bogdan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Again the Japanese writers amaze me. Although I had read only about 10 books from Japanese writers, they were all very good. This one is again very good. It is a drama in post World War II Japan, where the horrors of the war are still marking the society. And mostly the people that participated in that war were highly affected.
My copy of this book is in Romanian.

[Andy Plonka · Rating 4 out of 5]

With Japanese novels you have to prepare yourself for lots of angst and hardship. It is important that the main characters show strength against adversity even though they fail at achieving their goals. This is certainly the case in this novel of family relationships which started out with good intentions, yet suffer horrible tragedies.

[Grada (BoekenTrol) · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting story. At first, it just seems an ordinary short story of the life of a man who survives the horrors of WWII.
He picks up life after returning to Japan and does rather well.
Only near/at the end of the book it appears that nothing really was what it seemed. Manase is still being haunted by... Well yes, by what or who?

[Miss Jools · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Memories are nothing but events that have changed into landscapes, and for people who have reached a certain age, the past holds more variety than the future, because they can paint the landscapes of their past. Manase's landscapes were worm-eaten. The canvases had black holes that became wider every day. They made it impossible for him to look back on his past in tranquillity; they slowly but surely gnawed away at his daily life." (89)

[Rob Spruijt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Een prachtig meesterwerk’je’!

Een boek over traumaverwerking (oorlogstrauma), stenen, afwezigheid van een vaderfiguur, de studentenrevolte van de jaren zestig. Zeker geen feelgood boek.

Op aanraden van Boekenwinkel Het Voorwoord (eens niet door Gert) mijn eerste kennismaking met de Japanse literatuur. En wat een ontdekking, dit smaakt naar meer!

[Gert Dronkers · Rating 4 out of 5]

Een prachtig staaltje naoorlogs Japans proza. Zo ziet verwerking van een collectief oorlogsverleden eruit, denk ik mij zo in, waarbij het equivalent van een Befehl-ist-Befehl-achtige cultuur waarin ijzeren discipline het hoogste goed is, tegen het licht wordt gehouden.

Okuizumi stelt door een mooi en pijnlijk individueel verhaal de grote vraag aan de kaak voor zijn lezer: wie en wat was ik, toen het erop aankwam?

Niet echt geschikt voor feel-goodlezers.

[André · Rating 4 out of 5]

Door André Oyen

op 18/07/2021
Voor zijn bekendste werk Ishi no Raireki (1993), in het Engels vertaald naar The Stones Cry Out, won Hikaru Okuizumi ( 1956 )de Akutagawa Prize, één van de meest prestigieuze literaire prijzen van Japan. De Nederlandse vertaling, van de hand van Jacques Westerhoven, luistert naar de ietwat plechtige titel De stenen getuigen.
Het is het verhaal van een amateurgeoloog en boekhandelaar die instort onder de last van zijn eigen geschiedenis. Tsuyoshi Manase leerde zijn eerste geologieles van een stervende soldaat in een grot aan het einde van de Tweede Wereldoorlog. De soldaat, een korporaal, is skeletachtig, zijn ogen zwermen van maden, maar zijn stem is laag en stabiel, als hij Manase vertelt hoe een klein steentje de geschiedenis van de aarde in zijn kortstondige materie bevat. Als de oorlog voorbij is, keert Manase terug naar huis en opent een boekwinkel. Hij trouwt en wordt vader van twee zonen. Maar wat hem het meest troost is het verzamelen van stenen, en hij geniet van zijn rustige leven. Dat wil zeggen totdat verschrikkelijk geweld zijn familie bezoekt en Manase zijn verleden onder ogen moet zien om de nachtmerries van het heden te overleven. The Stones Cry Out is een duister meeslepend verhaal over de strijd van één man tegen zijn eigen herinneringen en is een formidabele debuutroman van een internationale schrijver met een ongewoon indringende stem.
Wanneer laat de oorlog een soldaat echt los? Of beter gezegd, wanneer wordt een soldaat bevrijd van de luchtspiegeling van een gemaskerde realiteit? Wanneer of beter gezegd waar begint de genezing? Manase kan zich niet aanpassen aan de kern van het burgerleven en dompelt zich onder in zijn verkennende geologische obsessie van het verzamelen van diverse stenen.
Okuizumi grijpt de grillige maskerade van zijn hoofdpersoon die de beslissende manier van Manase's oorlogsherinneringen en zijn bestaande verbijstering tussen schizofrene hallucinaties en een confronterend scheef realisme achtervolgt. Manase's traumatische leven wordt gedefinieerd door zijn relaties die elk een eeuwige niche van twee verschillende werelden snijden. De kapitein voor wie Manase zijn blinde toewijding zwoer, diende als een begin voor een lang lijdend innerlijk dilemma van een regerende trouw aan de gewaardeerde suprematie en de subjectiviteit van het uitoefenen van vrije wil in een soevereine libertarische beschaving. Manase's relatie met zijn twee zonen, verzwakt de toch al kwetsbare band met zijn vrouw. Het trauma van onderdrukte oorlogservaring ontwikkelt zich tot het metaforische roodgloeiende magma dat de banden van een man met zijn omgeving afkoelt en stolt onder invloed van een veranderende omgeving die helaas alleen de ondoordringbare verwarde ondoorzichtigheid van de steen verwerft en niet de evoluerende eigenschap versterkt door het voorbijgaande weer.


In tegenstelling tot de metamorfoserende steen die de wind van verandering omarmde, zat Manase gevangen in de fragmenten van de tijd, niet in staat om te veranderen onder het veranderende weer. De statische lichamelijkheid van Manase weerde de omwenteling van diepgewortelde emoties af die voor een onmerkbare verandering zorgen, gelijkstellend aan het ontruimende pad van de mineralen in de gestolde rotsen, uiteindelijk afbrokkelend onder de druk van hallucinaties van een sinister verleden.
Okuizumi stelt het misplaatste bestaan van menselijk pandemonium vast door het universum van geologische gradaties. Het idee dat een mens geboren wordt als een deel van het universum, het lichaam dat voornamelijk uit water bestaat, de botten vol calcium en de innerlijke bloedstroom een gestage stroom van niet-statische mineralen die het hoogtepunt van de evolutionaire kosmos eisen, is analoog aan de metamorfoserende constitutie van rotsen / stenen die het verleden kristalliseren, het heden overleven en uiteindelijk een manier ontdekken om in de veranderende toekomst te kijken.

[Konatsu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for a literature class focusing on Japanese literature on the theme of war and memory.
Like Soseki's Kokoro, a very thin read, and yet so complex, thought-provoking, and just beautifully written. Probably because this was taught to me by the same Professor with whom I read Kazuo Ishiguro, but I was strongly reminded with the idea of "buried memory"/"The Buried Giant"—our past, our memory, traumatic, painful, and so heartbreaking, that we cannot but bury it deep within us, at times even temporarily forget it, until it comes crawling back into our consciousness and physical lives, as if to haunt us, demanding us to come to terms with it. As Manase is one that lived through the war, tormented by the memory from then, this story most certainy would read as the way in which the traumatic memory of war were and is for many, along with the way we should or must deal with it. It is a tale that speaks to all, even, or especilly, those that have no first-hand experience of the war, including myself, and the author himself too, involving us in our own collective memory of the past, that, despite it seeming so distant, is undoubtedly a part of who we are. And yet for me, more than this aspect of war memory, it was a story that hit close to home, one that spoke to a very personal part of me. I think we all have those memories that we rather keep buried, forgotten, even cut off from our lives, even when we know it will always linger somewhere in your mind, and that sooner or later, we woud have to confront it in one way or another. Manase's story is of course, extremely tragic; elements of his postwar life, especially his two sons, became repetitions and doubles of the past he had resisted to remember, with which he dealt by further retreating to his shelter of the stones, resulting in the deaths of both of his sons. Although our recollections may not be as vivid and horrific as Manase's, nor come with grave consequences like his, I think we can definitely relate to the way our buried memories, mistakes, and disasters keep coming at us like deja vu, repeating itself in our lives that come so many years after the event of the memory. This is an example my professor provided with, but this is true for our failed relationships, and I certainly have some that come to my mind, ones that I wish I could erase from my life. The way Manase attempts to escape into the larger, much more vast, geological time is a complete disaster, and one cannot but think, "only if he had pushed himself to face his past much faster!". But isn't Manase's ways exactly the way we deal with things like this? And that's precisely why this story is so painful to read... because we know the feelng of constantly escaping, and the struggle to live with the consequences of that. The metaphor of the dark cave that parallels with the cavernous hole in Manase's memory is wonderful, so clever. Being the place in which the lance corporal and Hiroaki were muredered, it is a darkness so deep within the cave, as if buried deep down in our mind. The story is left hopeful though, with Manase being able to dig into this cave in the end, with the green chert, which travelled through the hands of his two sons and the lance corporal, back into his own hands.
Beautiful, and so so painful.

[Michael Kuehn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don't even recall now how I happened upon this short novel – I'd heard of neither it nor its author before. It must have been as I worked through the novels of another Japanese author, Yukio Mishima, that I read about this prize winning novel, the first of Okuizumi's to be translated. It entered my “must read” queue immediately.

Tsuyoshi Manase, a Japanese veteran of World War II, is still haunted by the horrors and suffering he witnessed on the island of Leyte in the Philippines, as the few remaining soldiers of the defeated Japanese forces fought malaria, dysentery, and malnutrition while trying to evade capture by American forces.

Manase had come upon a small emaciated, exhausted group of his compatriots camped in and around a jungle cave, led by a ruthless captain who still dreamed of a final offensive. Many of the soldiers were close to death, and, by the captain's standards, a hindrance and a needless drain on limited resources. As Manase remembers it in his nightmares, the captain dispatched the dying men, one by one, with his sword.

One of these dying soldiers was a lance corporal who, picking up a stone, said to Manase, “Even the smallest stone in a riverbed has the entire history of the universe inscribed upon it.” A strange comment that would have great importance, echoing through Manase’s life.

The events that transpired in that cave on Leyte forever would torment Manase, but that comment from the lance corporal would send Manase on an obsessive journey of rock collecting, becoming something of an amateur geologist.

But memories are unreliable, and we soon suspect that Manase's memories and senses are certainly unreliable. What really happened in that cave on Leyte? Events in Manase's life, his constant nightmares, flashbacks, his failed marriage, the unsolved homicide of his son, Hiroaki, and the estrangement of his younger son, Takaaki, all appear to be reverberations from that monstrous cave in the Leyte jungle.

What really happened in that cave on Leyte?

THE STONES CRY OUT is a meditation on war's casualties, on how the mind creates masks to hide emotional trauma. It's a meditation on blind obediance to authority versus subjective free will. It's a powerful book in a small package. This book will resonate with you for a long time after you've closed the cover. It won Japan's most prestigious literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, in 1994.

[Zachary Pritchard · Rating 4 out of 5]

The most paradoxically perfect book, I believe, I will ever read. In no way was I enthralled by the book; I was barely even entertained. But, no matter what, I was so perplexed by this book that I couldn't stop reading it. After my first thorough read-through, I gave up trying to comprehend the meaning of the rocks. How can something so bland, so minuscule yet plentiful, drive this man's life to absolute misery and dread? The more I thought about it, the more confused I was and the more upset it made me feel. These rocks, just like how they did the man's family, left me utterly and entirely lost at why they are so important.
After my second read, I started to grasp the connection to the rocks a bit more, not the meaning nor the importance, but simply why the man feels the need to collect more and more, why he commits his life to this act. I could envision the entire story playing out, and feel it, yet I still could not help the feeling that there was something missing.
I just finished reading the book for a third time, and by no means have I figured this book out, yet I am no longer frustrated by that fact. This book will go far beyond surface level, as long as you let it. Okuizumi leaves the reader with enough information to be satisfied with just a casual read, but he offers so much more for those willing to look. I already know I will read this book again, most likely more than once, after that. These stones have a meaning for everyone. Maybe you'll find yours much quicker than I will, but I am certainly not upset with the fact that this book can give me so much to think about, and as I do, the book gets better with every read. I can only recommend this book if you understand what you're getting into. Read not only from the perspective given to you by the author, but by the perspective you naturally want to chase. There is so little at face value, but so so so much if you start collecting your stones as you read along.

[ltcomdata · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is an interesting book. There are some wonderful images in it. But I cannot say that I know what the book is about. The title of the book comes from a quotation of Jesus: "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out." And that is all that is contained about religion in this very short work. In the case of the gospel, the very stones would cry out that Jesus is the Messiah. What exactly are the stones crying out in this book?

The whole history of the world, apparently. That seems to be the unifying theme. The stones contain the history of the world, because they contain and are made of the atoms found at the foundation of the Solar System, and have been recycled through endless eons and millions of years. But what does that have to do with a soldier's trauma in World War II (as the book starts)? Or what does it have to do with a father's sorrow at loosing his beloved child (as the book ends)? If there is an answer to these questions in the book, I missed it.

[Miriam Cihodariu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Again and again I discover the beautiful, steady-paced prose of yet another Japanese writer. I think I will explore this lit zone some more. :)

In this story, Okuizimi paints the story of a man trying to forget the horrors of the war by getting lost in observing the beauty of stones and their delicate, shiny layers. As he becomes better and better at this, gaining the fame of a self-taught geologist, his family falls apart as an indirect effect of his new passion and his habits of passive contemplation.

Of course, this way of recounting it is pretty crude. You will have to read the story for yourself in order to understand its many nuances, and I wholeheartedly recommend it.

[Taweepong Santipattanakul · Rating 4 out of 5]

แม้หินธรรมดาเพียงก้อนเดียว ก็ยังจารึกประวัติศาสตร์ของจักรวาลในตัวมัน สงครามไม่ได้จบลงเพียงแค่ในสนามรบ แต่มันยังจารึกในความทรงจำ แม้รอดชีวิตมาได้ สงครามก็ยังคงกัดกินเขาอยู่อีกแสนนาน นวนิยายของ Hikaru Okuizumi ได้รับรางวัล Akutagawa Prize ในปี 1994 เล่มนี้เป็นแรร์ไอเท่มของ OMG BOOKS ผมได้มาจาก ร้านเล่า

[Socrate · Rating 3 out of 5]

Până şi ultima pietricică din albia râului poartă cu sine întreaga istorie a universului. Motivul pentru care Tsuyoshi Mânase devenise un înfocat colecţionar de pietre îl regăsim întorcându-ne în timp la vorbele auzite de acesta de la un muribund în timpul celui de-Al Doilea Război Mondial, pe la jumătatea lunii decembrie 1944, într-o grotă din mijlocul pădurii tropicale mai sus de Golful Carigara din nordul provinciei Leyte.

  Omul nostru era măcinat de foamete şi de dizenterie amibică, iar faţa lui aducea mai degrabă cu o urzeală acoperită cu pergament. Doar ochii i se mişcau, neostoiţi, în clipa aceea, îşi fixă ochii asupra lui Mânase. Cu degetele-i vlăguite ce semănau mai degrabă cu nişte rădăcini, bărbatul luă de jos o piatră.

  — Acesta este un şist silicios, spuse el pe un ton magistral, ca şi cum s-ar fi adresat unui grup de studenţi. Grota asta s-a format în era paleozoică prin ridicarea la suprafaţă a rocii de bază şi erodarea ei de către apa mării. Mai târziu, în era cuaternară, marea s-a retras, lăsând grota în mijlocul junglei. Aşa se face că zidurile împrejmuitoare erau cel mai probabil pline de organisme marine fosilizate. Dacă ar fi să examinăm cu atenţie la microscop bucăţica asta de piatră, cu siguranţă am depista radiolari şi alte asemenea microorganisme, îi spuse bărbatul lui Mânase.

  Apoi îşi continuă prelegerea mai mult sau mai puţin în felul următor:

  — În mod normal nu dăm prea mare atenţie pietrelor de pe marginea drumului, nu-i aşa? Sau poate doar dacă sunt pietre pe care să le folosim în grădină sau în casă ca să zicem aşa, dar în general nu le dăm prea mare atenţie. Ne gândim la ele ca la nişte lucruri lipsite de însemnătate, răspândite prin munţi, râuri şi câmpii. Chiar dacă le găseşti la tot pasul, nu-ţi trece prin minte să le aduni ca să le studiezi. Ei bine, aici te înşeli, ştii? Până şi pietrişul cel mai neînsemnat poartă cu sine istoria acestui corp ceresc pe care-l numim Pământ. De exemplu, ai idee cum s-au format rocile? Rocile s-au format în urma răcirii magmei încinse şi a solidificării acesteia; rocile se erodează sub acţiunea vântului şi a apelor pământului. Uite-aşa apar pietrele. La rândul lor, pietrele se macină şi devin nisip, iar nisipul se transformă în pământ nisipos.

[Benny · Rating 4 out of 5]

De boekhandelaar Nakase wordt gekweld door het geweld en de gruwel van zijn tijd als soldaat op Filippijnen. Troost vindt hij schijnbaar alleen in zijn passie voor stenen. Ook zijn oudste zoon deelt die passie. Tijdens een zoektocht naar een min of meer zeldzame steen wordt die gruwelijk om het leven gebracht. Ook zijn vrouw, zijn jongste zoon en uiteindelijk Nakase zelf gaan aan geweld en waanzin ten onder.

“Gespierd proza” noemt Kenzaburo Oë de debuutroman van Okuizumi. Naar Japanse normen is het (oorlogs)geweld hier behoorlijk expliciet, al is er altijd wel het contrast met de bijna meditatieve verstilling van de natuur en de stenenverzameling. Keihard, maar ook keimooi legt Hikaru Okuizumi zo het onverwerkte oorlogsverleden van Japan bloot. Trauma, herinnering en verdringing, dit is steentjes verzamelen om niet gek te worden tot ook dat niet meer lukt.

De stenen getuigen (een heerlijk dubbelzinnige titel in het Nederlands), Okuizumi’s debuutroman uit 1994, werd onlangs bij ons heruitgebracht. Dat is mooi, maar als ik het goed heb, is dit nog altijd het enige boek van Okuizimi dat in het Nederlands vertaald werd. Daar liggen kansen, dus.

[Ланьчжань курчатовского уезда · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, that was a little bit strange bc of the style in which this author writes. From my european point of view it sounds a little bit pedophilic or just unnecessarily sexually tinged. For example the mentioning of the butt of the main character's son. Like, his son rides a bike and "only his butt was visible". Or when the author describes how this son got older and more mature and he writes about his pubic hair.

But it was really eerily. And depressive. And had this loneliness-vibe. The author most probably didn't even mean it like that but this is what I perceived

In two words, it's about war but it sounds very personal. Probably the way every pacifistic thing sounds. Or not. I'm not sure. I'm not even sure, if this thing is pacifistic or not. But it has anti-war direction, that's for sure

[Robert Swanson · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re...

Excellent. Engrossing tale.
"Is that all you've learned in the past twenty, thirty years? I'm sorry, but I thought you'd been doing something much more impressive."

As he was now drawing near, at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen, saying, "Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" And some of the Pharisees in the multitude said to him, "Teacher, rebuke your disciples." He answered, "I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out." (Luke 19:37-40 RSV)