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White-haired Melody
KEY POINTS
•One of Japan's most influential authors of contemporary literature.
•Winner of the Mainichi Art Award.
•A quiet reflection of the coming to terms of life and death.
SYNOPSIS
This novel is the record of the daily experiences of a man approaching old age. It delves into the essential but hidden nature of his daily life, employing prose that is relentless in its re-creation of detail. Each scene is recorded in such minuteness that the novel sometimes leaves the impression that it has gone beyond the bounds of reality. "I", the protagonist, cannot sleep, so he goes to the hospital where he is receiving treatment. There he meets a young man with a broken leg. Without being asked, the young man begins to relate episodes about deaths that have occurred in his family. In a nearby park, he then meets a man with white hair like his own. It turns out that this man is Fujisato, a high school classmate from over forty years ago. He, Fujisato and another friend get together frequently after that, and as he interacts with
these friends, he begins to recall incidents connected with life and death in his own past: the suicide of a classmate in high school; the frenzy of trying to escape the flames during the fire bombings; his parents' deaths; the death of a friend's girlfriend; the almost daily reports of the deaths of people he has known; and so on. It is virtually a dialogue with the dead, belonging neither to this real world nor to any dream world. Then Fujisato relates to "I" how he had had one particularly difficult period, just before reaching retirement, when he went mad. "I" wonders if it is possible that people go mad as they approach old age. Are his dialogues with the dead a sign of madness? On the other hand, he hears that his young friend with the broken leg will soon be blessed with a baby. Sanity and insanity, life and death, stretching back into the past and forward into the future, appear in the strangely cheerful lives of these aging men.
•One of Japan's most influential authors of contemporary literature.
•Winner of the Mainichi Art Award.
•A quiet reflection of the coming to terms of life and death.
SYNOPSIS
This novel is the record of the daily experiences of a man approaching old age. It delves into the essential but hidden nature of his daily life, employing prose that is relentless in its re-creation of detail. Each scene is recorded in such minuteness that the novel sometimes leaves the impression that it has gone beyond the bounds of reality. "I", the protagonist, cannot sleep, so he goes to the hospital where he is receiving treatment. There he meets a young man with a broken leg. Without being asked, the young man begins to relate episodes about deaths that have occurred in his family. In a nearby park, he then meets a man with white hair like his own. It turns out that this man is Fujisato, a high school classmate from over forty years ago. He, Fujisato and another friend get together frequently after that, and as he interacts with
these friends, he begins to recall incidents connected with life and death in his own past: the suicide of a classmate in high school; the frenzy of trying to escape the flames during the fire bombings; his parents' deaths; the death of a friend's girlfriend; the almost daily reports of the deaths of people he has known; and so on. It is virtually a dialogue with the dead, belonging neither to this real world nor to any dream world. Then Fujisato relates to "I" how he had had one particularly difficult period, just before reaching retirement, when he went mad. "I" wonders if it is possible that people go mad as they approach old age. Are his dialogues with the dead a sign of madness? On the other hand, he hears that his young friend with the broken leg will soon be blessed with a baby. Sanity and insanity, life and death, stretching back into the past and forward into the future, appear in the strangely cheerful lives of these aging men.
- GenresJapanese LiteratureJapan
275 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2007
2 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
About the author
Yoshikichi Furui
20 books11 followersYoshikichi 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)
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)
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
September 18, 2016
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.
October 5, 2021
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.
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.
Want to read
January 4, 2016I 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.
"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.
September 8, 2014
A very good, unusual read. I'm not sure what to think of the book overall, but every page was pleasant, interesting reading.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews