The Mud of a Century

by Yuka Ishii, Haydn Trowell (Translator )

Yūka Ishii’s debut novel The Mud of a Century was a major literary success in Japan where it won the prestigious Akutagawa Prize.

Several days after a once-in-a-century flood moves through the Indian city of Chennai, choking the Adyar River with the titular mud, a Japanese woman contracted to an IT company as a language instructor finds herself caught up in a deluge of flashbacks and memories, reflecting on unspoken words and unlived lives and contemplating the muddy chaos of her own karma.

Told in a magic realist stream-of-consciousness style evocative of the subtle, wry sense of humour found in the traditional Japanese narrative art of rakugo, The Mud of a Century explores the interrelated bonds between self and other, Japan and India, past and present, fact and fantasy, and material and spirit.

Genres: Japanese Literature, Japan, India, Fiction

120 pages, Paperback

First published January 24, 2018

Reviews

[‬⟡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars. I loved the concept, I loved the magical realism and I wish there was more of it. but the story and characters just didn’t hit for me.

[Jeffrey Gough · Rating 4 out of 5]

Japanese 🇯🇵 literature is so refreshing.

Yuka Ishii's novel is written in a stream-of-consciousness style, which is deep and profound.

A thoroughly enjoyable post-diluvian procession of flashbacks and reminiscences feature in this cross-cultural work, which takes the reader from locales in Japan to India 🇮🇳: Madras of old, Chennai of new, and beyond to the Manikarnika Ghat adjacent the Ganga.

Competently and compassionately translated from the Japanese by Haydn Trowell, the message of Ishii's debut novel is evocatively encapsulated in the protagonist Nogawa's own words:

"More important to me were the words that were never spoken, the words that could have been."

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

As I wrote in the Saturday Paper,

"In Yūka Ishii’s slender debut novel, The Mud of a Century, a girl sweeps resentment off a pillow where it had come to rest. Wealthy Indians fly above Chennai’s gnarled traffic on mechanical wings, staring at their phones. People sink into blanketing mud or riotous flowerbeds to hide or sleep until someone scoldingly retrieves them. Lost objects resurface like memories in impossible places. Mermaids might be real and perhaps the mother of Nogawa, the novel’s narrator, was one.

A once-in-a-century flood has swept through Chennai, leaving the city coated in a thick mud that is now rushing down the normally torpid Adyar River. Nogawa is just months into a job teaching English to employees of a tech company in Chennai that will last for who knows – four years, seven? It will end when she has paid off her debts to her irate ex-husband, debts incurred on behalf of feckless other lovers. As a “half-hearted teacher”, taking the job is a deal tantamount to “karmic perdition”. Her best student, Devaraj, is also her most vexing one: “I had developed a bald spot around the size of a ten-yen coin in the top of my head, at least eight yen of which was due to this young man.”

To reveal more about the narrative and characters of this wryly humorous and enchanting novel might give the misleading impression that it has a plot in the usual sense of the word. The Mud of a Century is rather a trickster of a tale, a metaphorical mudflow from which the narrator extracts stories in the same way that the people around her pull sons and friends from the sludge."

If you want to read the whole review, see https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/c...

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very easy to read and written in a way that keeps you engaged throughout the hundred or so pages. I feel as though the elements of magical realism had their potential but never reached a point to where it felt purposeful enough. Maybe the translation took away some finer aspects but I found myself wanting a lot more than I was ever satisfied with.

[SnezhArt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Покопавших в грязи герои выуживают свое прошлое, чтобы, посмотрев на него, окончательно выбросить.

[shreyoshee · Rating 4 out of 5]

i always leave novellas feeling so-so but this one really hit the spot

[Kamil · Rating 4 out of 5]

日本人の女性が日本語を教えに来たチェンナイは「百年に一度」程度の洪水という災難に遭ったのちに、その女性を含めてほとんどの市民が氾濫した川を渡る橋に集まる。水嵩が収まって残った「百年泥」の中から、人はそれぞれの過去、実際に生きられなかった人生を掘り出していく。掘り出されているものは、主人公にとって自分の人生や、日本語を教えている生徒の過去を知る・振り返るきっかけとなる。
この設定自体は面白くて、登場人物の過去を掘り下げるエピソードにも考えさせられたところがあるけど、全体としてストーリー性が欠けているし、いくつか気に入らない要素（インド人生徒を常に見下している感じ、裕福な人がなぜか翼をつけて空を飛ぶという謎めいた現象など）もあるのが残念でした。

[Yasuo Itoh · Rating 4 out of 5]

百年泥とは、百年に一度レベルの洪水が起きた川に流れる泥のこと。この泥の中から過去の品々が掬われる。インドのチェンナイで、その川の近くのIT企業で日本語を教える主人公は、生徒（その会社の社員）のデーヴァラージが交通違反の罰則で川の掃除をしている。泥の中から見つかる様々な物品。輪廻転生を例えたようなストーリー展開が、インドらしさを印象付ける。悠久の時の流れや周りの人々とのめんどくさくも優しい関係など、様々な思いが繰り返し読者を複雑な感情を持たせる引き金となる。芥川賞作品としては読みやすい。そこから得るものはなかなか文字では表現できず、でも確実に何かを残していく。