When I got a whole bunch of comp copies of both editions of Strange Pictures, for more than I knew what to do with, the first place I went was to the library to see if I could donate some to put on their shelves.
Hikari Public Library is small and serves a relatively limited Japanese community, so there isn’t a lot of demand for English materials, but the staff not only accepted the books, they celebrated them. They were openly excited to get copies after seeing the local newspaper article about my Uketsu translations. I’m not sure I can explain how good that feels.
I’m one of those people for whom libraries are borderline sacred. I have been a ravenous reader since I was in first grade, and there were no bookstores in my small town. So, I practically lived in the library. The librarian, Mrs. Beardโwho was almost laughably stereotypical librarian: little old lady in glasses on a chainโknew me by name and never tried too restrain my reading by age or “difficulty.” She just helped me find books to love.
That library was utterly foundational to who I am. It’s where I discovered Stephen King. Where I explored art and history and parts of the world that I never dreamed that I might actually one day get to see. It was where I started to see stories as more than just words on a page, but a way to live other people’s lives for a time.
I really could go on and on. The smell of all those old books, the quiet and cool spaces where you can just read and read as long as you want… You know, I’m sure, for yourself.
And now I’m right there on the shelves at the library. How lucky I am too live this life.
As I become more and more a “literary” translator, I find myself beginning to approach reading as a professional duty, even as I remain steadfastly fixated on choosing books that I think will actually be interesting. This book, a collection of horror stories by a single author, was solidly on both sides of that equation. Japan is in the middle of a bit of a horror story boom, due in no small part to Uketsu’s success, and given my own connection to Uketsu now, I’m kind of in a horror boom, too. With publishers on both sides of the Pacific now plumbing the genre for the Next Big Thing, I am trying to keep up myself to see if I can spot something interesting.
Nashi is an author often associated with Uketsu in the media, it seems, along with Sesuji. One reason might be that they all use pseudonyms with seemingly random meanings. Nashi uses the Japanese character for “pear,” ๆขจ, although there is a stated nod to another character with the same pronunciation, ็กใ, which means “nothing.” Which would be suitably “horror-esque” on its own, but having read 6, I wonder if there isn’t some other meaning.
This anthology is, in its own way, utterly unique while also being part of a tradition of literature that goes back basically as far as literate goes. In short, it is religious allegory as entertainment fiction. Yes, this thin tome of horror stories follows in the footsteps of Milton and, um, C. S. Lewis? Anyway.
Let’s pull back a minute. 6 comprises six stories, of course. They appear, at first, unconnected, but much like other recent horror hits, there are threads that join them that only become clear as you read further. The story names are all in the Roman alphabet, and contain hints to both their individual content and to the larger meaning of the book. The stories are ROOFy, FIVE by five, FOURierists, THREE times three, TWOnk, and ONE [sic, sic, sic after sic]. Now, I would say the pattern is clear except for ROOFy, which I can’t for the life of me connect to “six.” Even in Japanese, it would be roku or ro. But hey, the world is a flexible place.
ROOFy is a nightmare fairy tale, a story in the first person about a young girl who visits a little amusement park on the rooftop of a department store. She wishes she could play there forever without all the other people in the way and, when she comes out of the bathroom, it seems her wish has come true. Her parents are gone, as are all the other children. She has the park to herself… But then it begins to change. It is filled with decay and corruption, and… Well, no spoilers.
FIVE by five presents the story of a magazine writer who disappears and leaves behind stories with odd changes, and the editor who is tracking the reporter’s steps to see what might have happened to him. His investigation takes him to a mountain town with odd stone towers bearing metal antennae along the road, and glimpses of an eerie truth.
As the other stories progress, we find more connections to this disappeared writer and the impact on the editor, but what comes even more clear is something… Other. Because these aren’t just horror stories skirting around the pseudo-documentary style that has grown so common now. They are clear, open Buddhist allegory. The six stories address the Six Realms of Samsara: the realm of gods, the realm of demigods (or asura), the realm of humans, the realm of animals, the realm of hungry ghosts, and the realm of hell. It is a trip through the realms, woven with a story about an impossible death (really. Not, like, in the mystery sense), and a break in the order of the universe. The stories themselves openly mention Samsara and the six realms, so the allegory is pretty on the nose, but for someone who grew up outside the Buddhist tradition, it’s fascinatingly unfamiliar ground.
It is, in other words, heavy, heady stuff. It is also properly “horror” in the traditional sense, but the way this book haunts me is not in the scary stuff. No, it’s the way it presents an almost nihilistic (nihil meaning, of course, “nothing”, which is also one way of understanding liberation from worldly desires in Buddhism, or becoming “Nothing”โSee?) view of the Buddhist cosmology. Because the core of Buddhist belief is freedom from the wheel of samsara, of escape from eternal rebirth in a cycle of suffering, but this story offers a counterpoint: a way of escape that breaks the wheel itself, upsetting the order and questioning the very possibility of liberation.
It deserves reading, in my opinion, and is worth it for both horror seekers and those interested in meatier, chewier problems like “What does living even mean if death is not just inevitable, it is inevitable an infinite number of times?”
I’m feeling like this isn’t so much a review as me just meandering about the book. But I am glad I read it, and I will read it again, and it was pretty creepy and chilling in parts, so I think it’s a recommendation for those who like reading that sort of thing. Maybe I’ll even try to see if someone wants to pay for it to be translated?
The next in my newspaper column series is about my finally successful search for a crested kingfisher, or ใคใใปใ in Japanese. It’s an elusive bird that seems to be only active in the early morning, so it took a while to get a picture. But I did, and I was glad to do it. They’re lovely birds, big and smooth.
I didn’t realize I’d missed so many of these! It was a pretty heavy summer, anyway. But I’m still writing my column for the local Setouchi Times ็ฌๆธๅ ใฟใคใ ใน newspaper. This might not have been “the next” but it’s in the series.
This was a summer edition, about getting to photograph the city’s fireworks festival. Fireworks are a summer standard in Japan. This year, I got special permission to photograph from atop a local hotel for a view above the crowds. The article ran in mid September, but I seem to have misplaced it, so no scan. Ah well.
Jim Rion - Translator & Writer 