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Plum Rains on Happy House
In Japan, the little inn called Happy House looked its age—it drooped, it sighed, its old joints ached, it looked tired of life, just like the timeworn residents within.
Unless it’s rainy season. The monsoon season of early summer offers the old boards an elixir of wondrous, aspiring youth.
The house awakens.
The residents, however, especially the newcomer—the American in Room 1— do not rejoice.
This is the season that’s the most trying of all: the volatility, the decadence, the soullessness. Happy House must take nourishment. It must eat, or the environment debases.
When that occurs—as Room 1 is about to learn—any outrageous nastiness is possible.
Unless it’s rainy season. The monsoon season of early summer offers the old boards an elixir of wondrous, aspiring youth.
The house awakens.
The residents, however, especially the newcomer—the American in Room 1— do not rejoice.
This is the season that’s the most trying of all: the volatility, the decadence, the soullessness. Happy House must take nourishment. It must eat, or the environment debases.
When that occurs—as Room 1 is about to learn—any outrageous nastiness is possible.
265 pages, Kindle Edition
Published June 20, 2018
1 person is currently reading
3 people want to read
About the author
Michael A. Greco
13 books8 followersMy stories start out as ordinary beans. I like to think of them as such.
I don’t know what I have, but I’m compelled to water these beans. Shoots then grow into stems and my beanstalk matures. Sometimes the stems die; the story loses life. Then I travel along my beanstalk and find new stems to explore. Eventually leaves grow and there is a flowering, as the organism that is my story comes to life, and the characters take shape, and I can see them and hear their voices.
Then they grow up and go off and do things I haven’t planned.
The nerve!
That’s how I know I’m getting somewhere.
I don’t know what I have, but I’m compelled to water these beans. Shoots then grow into stems and my beanstalk matures. Sometimes the stems die; the story loses life. Then I travel along my beanstalk and find new stems to explore. Eventually leaves grow and there is a flowering, as the organism that is my story comes to life, and the characters take shape, and I can see them and hear their voices.
Then they grow up and go off and do things I haven’t planned.
The nerve!
That’s how I know I’m getting somewhere.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 16, 2019
Haha, that was a pretty fun and funny read.
Plum Rains On Happy House follows the experiences of a young American in Japan and his interactions/interrelations with an ensemble of odd characters in his new place of residence, an inn called Happy House. Lawrence Thornberry, or the Ichiban, the protagonist, begins as a logic driven character, but soon finds himself swayed by the strange inhabitants of the house, as well as the local residents.
Being that the story is about a westerner who goes to an Asian country to teach English as a foreign language, I could easily identify with many of the Ichiban’s experiences (as I was doing the same when I read the book). For example, the hilarious mistranslations or misinformed difficulty of translations: one of the mottos of the SLOP language centre Ichiban works at is “...we offer flexible, supple, thoughtful intercourse.” Or the name of the other English centre, “Happy House English Golden Shower.” I often found myself laughing at these bizarre translations, as they actually do exist in Asia. It is very normal.
Another aspect of the novel that caught my interest was the absurd and comical mindset the Ichiban had to get into in order to understand the new world he found himself in. As a large portion of the story follows the experiences at English centres, the following scripted dialogue between a teacher and a student might help the reader understand what I mean:
Across the room, Hamster tried a new dialog:
A: Halt. Who dares enter the garden of delights?
B: It is I, the salmon of knowledge.
A: What is it you seek?
B: I seek enlightenment through the ejaculation of serpents.
Hahaha, what?
The story is filled with a continual sense of having no idea what strange happening will occur next, but at the same time the reader is trying to guess and connect the different occurrences to try and explain what is going on. This is not to say it is confusing, but instead it is as if your mind keeps stumbling, but it wants to get back up again because it is curious.
It was entertaining.
Plum Rains On Happy House follows the experiences of a young American in Japan and his interactions/interrelations with an ensemble of odd characters in his new place of residence, an inn called Happy House. Lawrence Thornberry, or the Ichiban, the protagonist, begins as a logic driven character, but soon finds himself swayed by the strange inhabitants of the house, as well as the local residents.
Being that the story is about a westerner who goes to an Asian country to teach English as a foreign language, I could easily identify with many of the Ichiban’s experiences (as I was doing the same when I read the book). For example, the hilarious mistranslations or misinformed difficulty of translations: one of the mottos of the SLOP language centre Ichiban works at is “...we offer flexible, supple, thoughtful intercourse.” Or the name of the other English centre, “Happy House English Golden Shower.” I often found myself laughing at these bizarre translations, as they actually do exist in Asia. It is very normal.
Another aspect of the novel that caught my interest was the absurd and comical mindset the Ichiban had to get into in order to understand the new world he found himself in. As a large portion of the story follows the experiences at English centres, the following scripted dialogue between a teacher and a student might help the reader understand what I mean:
Across the room, Hamster tried a new dialog:
A: Halt. Who dares enter the garden of delights?
B: It is I, the salmon of knowledge.
A: What is it you seek?
B: I seek enlightenment through the ejaculation of serpents.
Hahaha, what?
The story is filled with a continual sense of having no idea what strange happening will occur next, but at the same time the reader is trying to guess and connect the different occurrences to try and explain what is going on. This is not to say it is confusing, but instead it is as if your mind keeps stumbling, but it wants to get back up again because it is curious.
It was entertaining.
July 20, 2020
When I began reading Plum Rains on Happy House, I didn’t know what to expect. I quickly realised it was refreshingly different, as original as your first time in Asia and the author had a wide ranging vocabulary, but by three quarters of the way through I still couldn’t predict the conclusion. It was mysterious – the subject, the plot and then the polite little supernatural intrusion that hinted at something darker which it didn’t deliver until you were asleep.
Happy House is a building from another age, a warping and twisting, ageing, self-renewing wooden ecosystem that has an immortal and sentient aspect to it, like a living vessel which needs the symbiotic relationship it develops with those who dwell within. It doesn’t just house people, it chooses them, changes them, influences scenes in their lives with mischief and ultimately bewitches them. A cat toying with a mouse could do no better than this old building.
The spirit of ancient Japan manifests again in the domain of Happy House, or more accurately the old personality had never left despite the long centuries passing. The Tower of London is no longer ingrained with the fear of death but that might be because it doesn’t have a supernatural familiar nesting beneath it.
The innuendo used in the daily conversations of the transient and jaded English language tutors that reside there also seems out of place in modern politically correct societies, but the Japanese people in this are doing it too (perhaps without understanding everything), then we see the sudden switch between formal manners and crude entertainments that puts what we thought of as rude into historical context. Some of these scenes are an awkward fit for non-Japanese revellers though – seeing what too-disciplined, formal people are allowed to get away with when marking their graduation or in a celebration to welcome the season of rains. There’s a worry pervading this, a sensation that something is wrong with this picture.
The literal translations of the SLOP language school or the English Golden Showers classes are a running joke but after a while don’t seem completely accidental as the joke happens every time. I think what’s happened is that the author has seen hundreds of Japanese signs translated into English and a dozen of them were hilariously inappropriate, so the best of those were worked into the book. The reader can see that the occurrence rate is the thing that’s changed from rare and accidental to 100 percent of the time and that feels intended. It would be funnier if a character prided themselves on getting translations right and then found themselves in such a hurry that they wrote a shocking one.
Lawrence Thornberry is the Ichiban, the number one, the innocent abroad who is out of his comfort zone and wading deeper. Culturally, he’s lost but amused by the strangeness he encounters and is learning to navigate. Morally, he shows tremendous fear when dropping a piece of litter but incrementally becomes de-sensitized to the pull of unnatural perversion that gets a foothold on him and slowly taints his reputation. Will he come out of this as a triumphant figure, a dragon-slayer or a sacrifice in whatever passes in Japan for a wicker man? Like a frog in a pan on the stove, can the Ichiban change his way of thinking quick enough to understand what is happening to him and get out of trouble?
This story is different, creepingly, unnaturally different. It’s a funny and tragic travelogue too, an insight into the life of travelling language teachers – and I recommend it; both the book and the job, but only if you are not foolhardy enough to take a room at the Happy House. It will have you.
Happy House is a building from another age, a warping and twisting, ageing, self-renewing wooden ecosystem that has an immortal and sentient aspect to it, like a living vessel which needs the symbiotic relationship it develops with those who dwell within. It doesn’t just house people, it chooses them, changes them, influences scenes in their lives with mischief and ultimately bewitches them. A cat toying with a mouse could do no better than this old building.
The spirit of ancient Japan manifests again in the domain of Happy House, or more accurately the old personality had never left despite the long centuries passing. The Tower of London is no longer ingrained with the fear of death but that might be because it doesn’t have a supernatural familiar nesting beneath it.
The innuendo used in the daily conversations of the transient and jaded English language tutors that reside there also seems out of place in modern politically correct societies, but the Japanese people in this are doing it too (perhaps without understanding everything), then we see the sudden switch between formal manners and crude entertainments that puts what we thought of as rude into historical context. Some of these scenes are an awkward fit for non-Japanese revellers though – seeing what too-disciplined, formal people are allowed to get away with when marking their graduation or in a celebration to welcome the season of rains. There’s a worry pervading this, a sensation that something is wrong with this picture.
The literal translations of the SLOP language school or the English Golden Showers classes are a running joke but after a while don’t seem completely accidental as the joke happens every time. I think what’s happened is that the author has seen hundreds of Japanese signs translated into English and a dozen of them were hilariously inappropriate, so the best of those were worked into the book. The reader can see that the occurrence rate is the thing that’s changed from rare and accidental to 100 percent of the time and that feels intended. It would be funnier if a character prided themselves on getting translations right and then found themselves in such a hurry that they wrote a shocking one.
Lawrence Thornberry is the Ichiban, the number one, the innocent abroad who is out of his comfort zone and wading deeper. Culturally, he’s lost but amused by the strangeness he encounters and is learning to navigate. Morally, he shows tremendous fear when dropping a piece of litter but incrementally becomes de-sensitized to the pull of unnatural perversion that gets a foothold on him and slowly taints his reputation. Will he come out of this as a triumphant figure, a dragon-slayer or a sacrifice in whatever passes in Japan for a wicker man? Like a frog in a pan on the stove, can the Ichiban change his way of thinking quick enough to understand what is happening to him and get out of trouble?
This story is different, creepingly, unnaturally different. It’s a funny and tragic travelogue too, an insight into the life of travelling language teachers – and I recommend it; both the book and the job, but only if you are not foolhardy enough to take a room at the Happy House. It will have you.
July 13, 2018
Odd things happen in an equally odd and old house in Japan in Michael A. Greco’s Plum Rains on Happy House.
To read this, and other book reviews, visit my website: http://makinggoodstories.wordpress.com/.
In the tired-looking Happy House in Japan, strange occurrences take place during the rainy season. The American newcomer to the house, inhabiting Room 1 and, therefore called Ichiban, is determined to acclimate to Japanese culture as he teaches English at a local school, but he’ll experience far more than he could have ever imagined. Traversing the numerous inexplicable oddities of events taking place and people residing in the so-called Happy House, the Ichiban slowly comes to accept, though not understand, the strange things happening around him, but when he does, how will the house respond?
An entertaining and wild ride, the narrative moves swiftly through a series of peculiar events taking place within and around the house; these imaginative occurrences offer a fanciful imagining of what could possibly exist within the world as the boundaries and rules governing this version of existence are established. Though the text could benefit from some further typographical clean-up, for both grammar and consistency in the capitalization of character names/descriptors, the story was presented the outlandish elements (certainly oriented toward a more adult audience) well and created an arc that felt complete as it answered the questions it raised.
Overall, I’d give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.
*I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
To read this, and other book reviews, visit my website: http://makinggoodstories.wordpress.com/.
In the tired-looking Happy House in Japan, strange occurrences take place during the rainy season. The American newcomer to the house, inhabiting Room 1 and, therefore called Ichiban, is determined to acclimate to Japanese culture as he teaches English at a local school, but he’ll experience far more than he could have ever imagined. Traversing the numerous inexplicable oddities of events taking place and people residing in the so-called Happy House, the Ichiban slowly comes to accept, though not understand, the strange things happening around him, but when he does, how will the house respond?
An entertaining and wild ride, the narrative moves swiftly through a series of peculiar events taking place within and around the house; these imaginative occurrences offer a fanciful imagining of what could possibly exist within the world as the boundaries and rules governing this version of existence are established. Though the text could benefit from some further typographical clean-up, for both grammar and consistency in the capitalization of character names/descriptors, the story was presented the outlandish elements (certainly oriented toward a more adult audience) well and created an arc that felt complete as it answered the questions it raised.
Overall, I’d give it a 3.5 out of 5 stars.
*I received a copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews