When one says "Japan" a variety of thoughts come to mind: Sushi, karaoke, Akihabara, video games, anime. However the cherry blossom, or sakura, is the quintessential symbol of Japan to many. Why is the sakura so iconic? Of course, it is a beautiful tree. But why is it beautiful?
Picture the sakura in the Spring: You see the buds open one day; sitting under its full blossoms the next with company, food and drink. And then the blossoms wilt, seemingly in the blink of an eye. When one considers this cyclical act of the sakura, what is felt? Can it really be described? Is the feeling the result of pretty petals, or something else?
In Oh! A Mystery of Mono no Aware, by author Todd Shimoda and published by Chin Music Press, the reader is introduced to character Zack Hara, a third-generation Japanese-American living and working in Los Angeles. A very logical person, Zack can realize that other humans feel emotions, but he himself has a difficult time experiencing them. Leaving his "girlfriend" and his job behind, he sets off to the land of his grandfather, Japan.
Zack is the kind of fellow who looks at the sakura and understands its significance to other people, but it cannot evoke the same feelings in himself. At a hanami, or cherry-blossom viewing party, Zack is acutely more aware of his fellow participants preferring food and drink while under the sakura, to actually admiring the blossoms and their significance.
He does not deal in prose and long-winded sentiment, which is helpful as the book reads from the first person perspective and so this is useful for keeping the chapters short and the story flowing. Ironically, this means that the interjection of poetry, another key element in the novel, is at odds with the main character's straightforward manner.
The key solution to all this is a convenient one, as the Japanese poetry forms such as the haiku, can be as brief as they are deep. Poems are interspersed throughout the chapters as the main character attempts writing them to elicit his own emotional response to the world around him. In effect, this creates for the reader a real sense of becoming Zack, seeing and analyzing events logically while dealing with or writing poems which are at times vague, sometimes quite amateurish.
This concept of the logical versus the emotional meshes well with the third theme of the book, the suicide club. Questioning the motives of the Japanese people who join into groups in order to commit the act in tandem, Zack finds himself inexorably drawn towards them while on his path of self-discovery.
Will he unravel the mystery of the sakura? Or was it ever a mystery at all?
-The reviewer read the book to its completion and wanted to say a lot more, but wanted to avoid spoiling the great story. Oh! A mystery of mono no aware 's website is http://ohthenovel.com/. The hardcover version retails at Chin Music Press' website, here: http://www.chinmusicpress.com/. You can currently enjoy free shipping anywhere in the US or Canada.
Picture the sakura in the Spring: You see the buds open one day; sitting under its full blossoms the next with company, food and drink. And then the blossoms wilt, seemingly in the blink of an eye. When one considers this cyclical act of the sakura, what is felt? Can it really be described? Is the feeling the result of pretty petals, or something else?
In Oh! A Mystery of Mono no Aware, by author Todd Shimoda and published by Chin Music Press, the reader is introduced to character Zack Hara, a third-generation Japanese-American living and working in Los Angeles. A very logical person, Zack can realize that other humans feel emotions, but he himself has a difficult time experiencing them. Leaving his "girlfriend" and his job behind, he sets off to the land of his grandfather, Japan.
Zack is the kind of fellow who looks at the sakura and understands its significance to other people, but it cannot evoke the same feelings in himself. At a hanami, or cherry-blossom viewing party, Zack is acutely more aware of his fellow participants preferring food and drink while under the sakura, to actually admiring the blossoms and their significance.
He does not deal in prose and long-winded sentiment, which is helpful as the book reads from the first person perspective and so this is useful for keeping the chapters short and the story flowing. Ironically, this means that the interjection of poetry, another key element in the novel, is at odds with the main character's straightforward manner.
The key solution to all this is a convenient one, as the Japanese poetry forms such as the haiku, can be as brief as they are deep. Poems are interspersed throughout the chapters as the main character attempts writing them to elicit his own emotional response to the world around him. In effect, this creates for the reader a real sense of becoming Zack, seeing and analyzing events logically while dealing with or writing poems which are at times vague, sometimes quite amateurish.
This concept of the logical versus the emotional meshes well with the third theme of the book, the suicide club. Questioning the motives of the Japanese people who join into groups in order to commit the act in tandem, Zack finds himself inexorably drawn towards them while on his path of self-discovery.
Will he unravel the mystery of the sakura? Or was it ever a mystery at all?
-The reviewer read the book to its completion and wanted to say a lot more, but wanted to avoid spoiling the great story. Oh! A mystery of mono no aware 's website is http://ohthenovel.com/. The hardcover version retails at Chin Music Press' website, here: http://www.chinmusicpress.com/. You can currently enjoy free shipping anywhere in the US or Canada.
I would like to post a link for this review to the Oh! website. Can you provide me with the full name of the reviewer?
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Mark MacKay
markmackay@earthlink.net
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