[Book Review] When the Past Saves the Future

Mizuki Tsujimura, 'Amber Summer', Bungeishunju (2021)

By the way, I wonder what it means to be overly self-conscious.

Thinking only about oneself, thinking only about how one appears to others, feeling embarrassed about the self one thinks others see, having excessive inferiority complexes, or becoming overly confident.

The protagonist, Noriko, who could be called an overly self-conscious child, is honestly so focused on her own convenience and reputation that it is exhausting.

Fourth-grader Noriko ends up going to a summer camp for a somewhat suspicious group called 'School of the Future' at the recommendation of a friend's mother.

Noriko cannot quite fit in with the other children in her class.

She worries that what she thinks, says, and does looks 'weird,' and that because of that, she might be bullied or ostracized.

I sometimes think of Noriko's excessive self-consciousness as something cute and childlike, and other times I think that if she grows up and keeps complicating things like this, life will be difficult for her.

Even if the way Noriko is depicted in the novel is extremely exaggerated, I feel that many people will sympathize with her to some extent.

It's like I have memories of it myself.

And as 'painful memories' at that.

If you deviate even slightly from the group, you won't be forgiven. You can't even breathe. You can't survive.

You cannot make a single wrong step or move.

The intensity of that tension is immense.

At that summer camp, Noriko meets Mika and Shigeru from the 'School of the Future'.

Time passes, and by the time she has forgotten about the 'School of the Future,' Noriko has become a mother of one and a lawyer.

The news was that the skeletal remains of an unidentified young girl had been found where the 'School of the Future' once stood.

While repeating to herself that she is Noriko, she ends up becoming involved with the 'School of the Future' in an unexpected way.

The characteristic of the 'School of the Future' is to separate parents and children. They create a world only for children, where children are guided by teachers to deepen their thinking through 'dialogue' and acquire the ability to think for themselves.

Is the skeletal remain that of Mika, whom she met at the summer camp back then?

While reading the first half of the story, I thought it was trying to depict the dangers of the kind of "thinking techniques" that are rampant in the real world, layered over Noriko's self-consciousness, the relationship between parent and child, and the theme of cultivating the ability to think.

That was true, but it was also different.

Noriko ends up defending a certain person at the "Future School".

What is the past to one's future self?

It differs from person to person, but two things can be said for certain.

It is something that saves your future self.

It is something that becomes a shackle for your future self.

Even if you forget your past actions, not everything is lost.

Because people do not live alone, your past self remains in someone's heart like an alter ego.

As a beacon of hope, or as a shadow of despair.

The past me.

The future me.

That child from the past.

You of the future.

This world, which seems to have no connection, is complexly intertwined and continuous.

Choosing something for your future self now might be because of your past self, and being unable to choose something might be because you are still bound by something from the past.

You cannot choose the future while ignoring the past.

Because of the past, you cannot move forward, and because of the past, you can move forward and change.

When the past saves the future. It is a certain sign that once existed there, even if it is thin and fleeting.

How the characters make their choices and live their lives.

With a perspective characteristic of Mizuki Tsujimura, the suffocatingly intense emotional turbulence of self-conscious children is depicted in vivid detail.

When a deep-sea fish rises to the surface, it is actually dying, but if it were to suddenly yearn for the view from the surface from the depths, seek breath, and successfully float up to the surface, could the deep-sea fish become a different creature?

Holding onto hope like a deep-sea fish, I try to connect my past self with my future self.

[Today's Senryu]
Topic: 'Waking up early'
They say it's a virtue, but I'm just sleepy.

[Today's English Composition]
I think it is better to remain silent from the beginning than to give false hope.
I'd rather keep silent from the beginning than give false hope.

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