I am currently reading the amazing Pillow herbs of Natsume Soseki, poetic novel he describes himself as a "novel-haiku". I had not been touched by I am a cat that criticism yet extols and that is supposed to be his major work, I found the writing turgid and quite a bit kitschy, but probably was is rather due to a horrible translation. It is excellent here. Making it invisible artifice, it cancels the distance between languages, eras and cultures. A painter retired to a mountain lodge to paint and think about his art, the act of creation. We follow him as if he was quite possible that in turn passes this hostel soon, although it is actually in the early twentieth century.
"Recognizing the uniqueness of his work, the author wrote:" If this haiku novel (the term is admittedly weird) is possible, it will open new horizons in the literature. It does not seem to me that this type of novel has ever existed in the West. In any case, there never was such in Japan. "
is firstly a novel because it follows a painter in his retirement, but a novel that refuses to enter into the "psychology of the characters" traditional and rather portrays the changing curves, like the polymorphic images of a poem.
Characters are not the product descriptions of an omniscient narrator who analyze the intimacy of being to justify its outward appearance, but rather the opposite: the painter describes the objects and people he meets in the manner of a table, and the strength of his gaze as he arrives to penetrate to touch it and extract the essence that characterizes them and giving us access to their interior, which proves beyond its subjectivity
"It's like a land subsidence had occurred in a area normally motionless and, subsequently, everything has moved around, but, realizing that the movement is contrary to its true nature, the earth is trying to regain its original form, yet without being able to regain its balance and carried by energy, continued to move against her until today, she finally, in desperation, by stirring Express, against all odds ... If such a situation existed, it would precisely describe this unknown.
Behind disdain, lies a landscape that expresses the desire to cling to someone at any cost. It smells a discreet discerning the merits of its mocking aspect. If she gave herself up to her talent and if she put hers, she would not hesitate to confront a hundred men, but in this energy, a sweet sensibility sprang to his knowledge. Yet this lack of unity face. Looks like the insight and misguidance coexist in quarreling. If the face of this woman lacks unity, it is proof that unity is absent from his heart and if the unit is absent from heart is that she is absent from the world of this woman. It is the face of someone being harassed by adversity, attempts to avert it. This must be an unhappy woman. "
But this novel is a treatise on style, a reflection on the aesthetics and the creative act, on Western art, such as the Soseki has apprehended while he was professor of English, and Japanese art that he found after going through a spiritual crisis during which he decided to return home." The steam fills the room, after full, keeps rebound. The lamp was broadcasting its shadow on the night of spring and iridescent air throughout the room that vibrated gently, at the bottom of these clouds is gradually emerging a pale face with dark hair seems blurred. Look at its edges.
Both sides of his neck pandering slightly inward and down these lines with a natural bent towards the shoulders and then using a soft round and took their momentum to divide perhaps five fingers. Free under her breasts and plump, the undulations withdrew for a moment before break, making peacefully abdomen revealed a smooth and firm. Tighter forms seems to continue to back and to where this movement is interrupted, the body and shared looks forward slightly to catch his balance. Resist bending his knees to his legs and when a long ripple reaches the ankles, feet peacefully resolve all conflicts with their soles flat on the ground. The world does not suit more complicated nor any other that is provided with such a unit. Nowhere else can you find more natural contour, more flexible, more obvious, less burdensome. (...)
This contour is gradually taking shape in her pallor. Just when I think that if it is still not, alas, the beloved fairy will fall in the world down here, her hair green because of the wind like the tail of a divine tortoise that cleaves the waves and floats like bent grass. In sharp white steam spinning, the white figure jumps on the steps. The shrill voice of a woman who laughs echoing in the hallway and slowly moving away, leaving the room to silence. I swallowed the cup and sat up suddenly. The waves hit the chest surprises me. Spring water is overflowing the lapping. "
The novel opens elsewhere on this page with great lucidity certainenement was matched only by the pain that gave it birth. The absence of sensitive causes underlying tear in the description of the feeling it gives the appearance of a precipitate of thought. Now universal, because stripped of his worldly circumstances, it is the first aesthetic bias of the book, while it stands as a rule of life:
"I was climbing a mountain trail, saying: to use his intelligence, it is unlikely to cut corners. To navigate the waters of sensitivity can cause you to take laisset. To impose its will, you end up feeling cramped. In short, it is not convenient to live on earth among us.
When the pain of living increases, you feel like you get settled in a peaceful place. Once you understand that it is difficult to live anywhere, then comes the poetry and painting happens.
The human world was created neither by gods nor demons. After all, these are ordinary people, like your immediate neighbors. While it is difficult to live in this human world that ordinary people have created, it should not exist in countries where settle. It remains only to visit men without a country. However, it must be harder to live without men in the country than in the human world.
Since it is difficult to live in this world that we can not leave, we must make even a little comfortable, so that life is ephemeral it liveable, not even for a fleeting period of time . It was then that expresses the vocation known poet, then it turns out that the mission of the painter. Every artist is valuable because it soothes the human world and enriches people's hearts. What
rid of any trouble this world, where it is difficult to live, and projects under your eyes a world of grace, poetry is painting. Or is music and sculpture. To be exact, it does not project the world. It's enough to ask her gaze directly. That's where poetry is born and that's where the song rises. Even if the idea is not written down, the sound echoes in the crystal heart. Even if the paint is not spread over the canvas, the brilliance of the colors reflected in the inner eye. Just look at the world where you live, and contain, with purity and clarity of the camera in mind, the world worldly, frivolous and chaotic. Therefore an anonymous poet who has not written a single line, an obscure painter who has not painted a single canvas, are happier than a millionaire, a prince, that all celebrities trivial, because the former do understand life can be abstracted from any concern are able to enter the world of purity, to build the unique and sweep the constraints of selfishness.
Having lived twenty years in this world, I realized it was worth it to live there. At twenty-five years I had the revelation that light and darkness were two sides of same coin and that wherever light is born, shadow falls on us. Today in thirty years, here's what I think: ... The deeper the joy, the deeper the melancholy greater the pleasure, the greater the suffering. If we want to separate them, it does not blow. If you want to discard it, is the world that falters. Money is important and things of importance, if they accumulate, we continue into our sleep. Love makes you happy, but when the happiness of love increases, there is the nostalgia of the past where we did not like yet. A statesman is on the shoulders of millions of men. It supports on the back the enormous weight of the world. We regret to miss the exquisite meal. If you taste just one is never satisfied. And if one eats to satiety, it has unpleasant overtones ... "I still