SHORT STORIES: JOSEPH WOODSreviews The Plum RainsBy John Givens The Liffey Press, 248pp. €19.95
JAPAN IN the 17th century was a relatively peaceful place, unified by the Tokugawa family in 1601 after many centuries of feudal warfare. The resultant peace, however, left many men who had lived by the sword, the samurai class, out of work, and since samurai were not permitted to work at anything else, many became destitute and roamed the countryside; some even turned their hands to poetry and calligraphy.
This stability also ensured the rise of the merchant classes, an explosion of the arts from theatre to poetry, and a growth in trade for courtesans who inhabited “the floating world of desire”.
It is into this remote world and in particular the last decade of that century, that John Givens breathes a whole new life, in his book of short stories exploring the characters of that era, from courtesans to bandits, monks, brigands and rogue samurai. Each story can be read separately or as part of a connected narrative, with some characters making multiple appearances throughout.
The dominating presence is of the great poet Matsuo Bashõ, who is captured here in his final years, now Old Master Bashõ, ruminating on what makes great art or haiku:
It is the ordinary that seems satisfying to me now. And not the ordinary seen in new ways, but the ordinary as it is, the ordinary linked to the ordinary.
He dispenses advice to younger poets who meet in group sessions to write “linked verse” or poems, a scenario that reads as a precursor for today’s creative writing workshops or poetry master classes. Peppered throughout the book, are poems (mostly by Bashõ) translated by the author or pastiches of haiku of his own devising from both Japanese and Chinese models. Givens is not just a gifted storyteller – these stories are freighted with a deep knowledge and cultural understanding of Japan; he was a student of its art and literature in both Kyoto and Tokyo and lived in Japan for 12 years.
The Plum Rainsdoesn't confine itself to poetry and there are glimpses into the pleasure quarters of the "floating world", monasteries, and, occasionally, the rigours of Zen Buddhism. Indeed many of the stories function as modernised versions of Buddhist debate dialogue and have something of the koan clarity about them. Givens's prose and dialogues are so authentic that it's almost as if these stories were handed down or were translated from original sources.
There is also much bloodshed and blood sacrifice for what was nominally a peaceful time. One samurai comments on the shogunate becoming a bureaucracy and bemoans the fact that
Men who used to trust their blades now make entries in account books and are judged by the quality of their calligraphy. Gone! Gone! The old happy days of slaughter!
AND SLAUGHTER IS NOT in short supply when a teenage sociopath in The Road to Black Feathersdares to call himself a samurai and demonstrate this to a poor soul he meets on the road. A savagery is unleashed that is so dark it invokes a Monty Pythonesque humour.
In the final story, which is also the title of the book, an entire family is made to pay for the misdemeanour of one daughter, in a chilling tale of blood sacrifice and honour killing that reminds us of the extremes of that world which Givens has managed to convey. The book can also be read as travel narrative, another Japanese invention, in the sense that all these characters are transient and in flux through the landscape.
The Liffey Press should also be complimented for producing such a beautifully bound and attractive book.
Joseph Woods is a poet and co-edited Our Shared Japan, published by Dedalus Press
