Shizuo Fujieda, 'Denshin Yūraku / Kūkitō'
'Denshin Yūraku / Kūkitō' by Shizuo Fujieda, Kodansha
A unique world that transcends the 'I-novel' (shishōsetsu) by Shizuo Fujieda, a seeker of the 'self' who opened up new frontiers by committing thoroughly to the I-novel, expressing his own truth to the core, delving deep into the unreal world hidden beneath the facts, and encompassing the entirety of the human interior and the external world. Includes both award-winning works: the Art Encouragement Prize-winning 'Kūkitō' (Air Head) and the Tanizaki Prize-winning 'Denshin Yūraku'.
'Denshin Yūraku' is interesting. It has a familiar madness and chaos. The cuteness of the onomatopoeia that appears from time to time, or rather, the playfulness of these generally cute people continues, and then that finale—peii!
The impact of C-ko the goldfish is strong, but I like the part about Saikenpaku; also, the Jizo statues are precious. I want to read an adventure novel about the Jizo statues.
'Haha, perhaps everything is a sham.' 'Perhaps both you and I are still too quiet and useless compared to that kind Buddha.'
I could listen to this kind of conversation for another two hours.
What Okuyama saw as play was the customs of this world, the intersection of truth and falsehood overflowing in daily life; along the long, long road to the black hole, there is a series of such modest, extraordinary explosions of life. Our lives, too, are modest, are explosions, and the intersection of truth and falsehood is likely constant. Is describing our actions with such care the foundation of the I-novel?
Fujieda's prose strength is also the strongest, but Masaaki Kawanishi's commentary is nothing short of brilliant; I am truly speechless.
'Might that formless pain that remains without disappearing even after everything else has vanished be the very spinal fluid of Shizuo Fujieda?'
Precise, robust prose that does not require the approach of others. I cannot help but feel that the imagination involved in close reading and interpretation, and the universal personal nature of the dialogue that is reading and writing, makes this personal nature a value for each individual.
2021/10/19