Wayne P. Lammers, Japanese-English Translator
Undercurrents
Episodes from a Life on the Edge
by Shintaro Ishihara.
Kodansha International, 2005. ISBN 4-7700-3007-X (hardcover).
The outspoken current governor of Tokyo, who before turning to politics was a prominent and successful novelist, has here turned his hand to literary non-fiction, assembling forty episodes from an active life that represent the times when he felt most alive. Many of the reminiscences tell of his adventures in scuba diving and sailing, often involving close shaves with death as he and his companions encounter a giant rock cod that could crush them against the wall of an underwater tunnel, or are nearly washed away to sea beyond the reach of rescuers, or remain lost in the middle of the Pacific for days on end during a yacht race. In more contemplative passages, he ponders the fine line separating life and death, as well as what lies beyond that boundary of common reality.
Episodes from a Life on the Edge
by Shintaro Ishihara.
Kodansha International, 2005. ISBN 4-7700-3007-X (hardcover).
The outspoken current governor of Tokyo, who before turning to politics was a prominent and successful novelist, has here turned his hand to literary non-fiction, assembling forty episodes from an active life that represent the times when he felt most alive. Many of the reminiscences tell of his adventures in scuba diving and sailing, often involving close shaves with death as he and his companions encounter a giant rock cod that could crush them against the wall of an underwater tunnel, or are nearly washed away to sea beyond the reach of rescuers, or remain lost in the middle of the Pacific for days on end during a yacht race. In more contemplative passages, he ponders the fine line separating life and death, as well as what lies beyond that boundary of common reality.
Reviews
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Publishers Weekly
(January 2, 2006) |
"The stories, which flow easily from one to another, each bear their own sense of wonder, fear and discovery. And while the locations may jump from a boyhood soccer field to the summit of Mt. Myoko, the thread that binds them is the author's gratitude for one more day of experiencing the world. Ishihara writes with the grace of a seasoned author who remains in awe of his subject: the taste of mountain trout becomes the affirmation of existence after a long journey, while a powerful electrical storm at sea has him once again wondering if he will escape death."
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The Daily Yomiuri
(April 2, 2006) |
"Miles from the Tokyo metropolitan government building and throwaway remarks about rioting gaijin, here Ishihara writes about the things that inspire him. The result is a much greater understanding of the man than you would get from his statements to the press. In Undercurrents, we see a man who writes with love and awe about the raw energy of the natural world and what he sees as its supernatural mirror. A man--it might be whispered--worthy of a kind of respect.... The quality of Ishihara's writing shines through, thanks to Wayne P. Lammers' translation. Though sometimes a little on the dry side, the English text has a slightly acerbic tone that one feels captures the man."
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Metropolis
(May 5, 2006) |
"Indeed, the more of his buddy-buddy anecdotes about loyalty and dignity and ghosts you read, the more you get a sense that the supposed “straight talker” of Japanese politics is in fact a blatant romantic, an exaggerator, a believer, above all, in myths— his friends’, his family’s, his country’s. And when you start thinking like that, suddenly sensitive novelist Ishihara’s literary fantasyland of will-o-the-wisps, deep sea aliens and the glory of silent suffering seem right at home in his political fantasyland, where Japan has a racial destiny, women are baby factories and you can’t count in French."
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