Status Updates From The Buddha Tree

And I know how to get rid of Yamaji...it involves grinding glass, very finely, and slipping it into his food. Play dumb, Tomoko! This is the 60's, I'm sure you can convince any cop who investigates, assuming they even would, that LaDy brAiN could never possibly conceive of such a scheme.

Shoko went on to join...the school at Marimite, that Buddhist girl! Noriko.

This makes sense in my mind.

"'The Nichiren people are on to a good thing nowadays, with their talk about getting rich with prayer and the rest of it (...)'"

I have a vague idea I'd hard this; I should look into what the "new religions" are.

Buddhist Communist versus Nasty Capitalist Misogynist: This is really compelling, it is a shame Niwa is not better known abroad!

More Therapy, Less Real Pure Land.

True Pure Land it is.

Whenever it's called "Shin", I always think of this 'shin' [新] instead of this one [真]; making it "new" as opposed to "true", so that in my mind it's morphed into New Pure Land.

These are Pure Land Buddhists, or True Pure Land Buddhists...I am sure the Introduction will let me know but I don't want any spoilers, will read it later.

Interestingly, Roykun's childhood adventures are a sidestep from the hypocrisy and inner turmoil of the adult lives portrayed by Niwa. Niwa gives explicit descriptions of festivals, tenants of Buddist faith, musical instruments, and food preparation as interludes in his story. They could be eliminated but they add to the social realism of the culture. At times he is allegorical and his narration has a deeper meaning.

Niwa's prose is concise and sufficiently descriptive of the character's physical surroundings but his key strength as an author is his ability to make the reader feels the intensity of his character's emotions of shame, guilt, and failure of courage. The characters reflect the shotcomings of society and its inability to live up to the ideals of its faith. Soshu recognizes this hypocracy. Roykun runs counter to this.