One of the foremost Western celebrities with a particular connection to Kyoto was British philosopher and entertainer, Alan Watts. He has appeared previously on this blog in a 4-part series extracted from his autobiography, but a 2012 biography sheds a different light on the man and adds some further insight into his attachment to Kyoto. In Zen Effects: The Life of Alan Watts (p.172-3), Monica Furlong writes…
During the years 1960-1965 Alan Watts visited Japan two or three times a year, escorting tourists to Kyoto. He was helped in the practical chores of tour guiding by Gary Snyder, who had extensive knowledge of the country; installed in his monastery, he sorted out accommodation and currency problems for Watts and gave him a welcome bolt-hole from the responsibility of looking after his charges. Snyder was by this time advanced enough in Zen studies to be able to discuss some of the things Watts was curious about, such as what went on in the silence of a Zen monastery, for example, and how the system was structured. Snyder introduced Watts to his roshi and to some of the head priests, and arranged for him to attend lectures at the monastery, as well as some of the ceremonies, which Watts enjoyed tremendously.
Snyder was not his only contact in the city, for Watts also knew Ruth Fuller Sasaki to whose daughter he had been married. She had taken over an unused subtemple in Daitoku-ji and was well established (see here). During the 1960s Watts gradually loosened up from the British reserve with which he had arrived in California. He took LSD with Timothy Leary and was influenced by the hippie movement. ‘I got to like him more and more, even though I realized he was getting naughtier and naughtier.’ says Snyder. Along with his womanising went an increasing use of alcohol, to the extent that he became an alcoholic.
Watts spoke only a little Japanese, enough to order taxis and order food, but he felt at home in Kyoto. He was fascinated by the tea ceremony and liked to browse shops for materials for ‘ink and brush meditation’. His favourite place was Teramachi with its array of small shops selling antiques, tea items, Buddhist goods and calligraphy accessories. On one of his visits, he came with his newly-wed third wife, Jane, and together they meditated on the forested slope behind Nanzen-ji. On another occasion they took LSD together, serving each other in sake cups in the manner of a sacrament.
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To read more about other celebrities connected with Kyoto, please see the following:
(Charlie Chaplin’s visit to Kyoto is covered in Donald Richie’s The Honorable Visitors, p.105. David Kidd, William Gilbey and Harold Stewart are covered by Alex Kerr in a piece for Echoes, the WiK Anthology no. 2, page 55-62, published in 2017.)
To learn about the love of Steve Jobs for Kyoto, see here. For his love of woodblock prints, see here. For his love of Japanese ceramics, see here.
To read how Henry Stimson saved Kyoto from atomic destruction, see this BBC piece.
Writers in Kyoto, Words & Music Bōnenkai, Dec. 10th Report by Mark Willis
Photos by Kirsty Kawano and John Dougill
Pulling open the door to Irish Pub Gnome at six o’clock on December 10th, I found the basement pub already filled with writers, readers, singers, and listeners gathered for the Writers in Kyoto Words & Music bōnenkai.
I left my daypack on an empty chair, and joined the line at the bar, studying the food and drink menu, while those ahead of me placed their orders for Guinness and shepherd’s pie, red wine and vegetable gratin.
At six-thirty, Kirsty Kawano, the event’s organizer and MC, welcomed a packed house and introduced the first presenter, John Dougill.
John read a section from his recently published book, Off the Beaten Tracks in Japan. He recounted his early days in Kanazawa, and when he described his early missteps with Japanese language and culture, some of us recalled our own first stumbles in the country.
One of two presenters in the evening who chose music over words, Yasuo Nagai sang a cappella an original song of his about the power which memories have on us — those memories that haunt and hold us.
From They Never Knew, Mike Freiling read senryū written in 1942 by Japanese Americans who were being held in a detention center in Portland, Oregon, awaiting transfer to permanent camps. Depicting the anxiety the writers felt, the poems also were occasionally humorous.
Daniel Sofer read from his book of photos on Empty Kyoto
Having chosen to stay in Kyoto when international borders closed due to the pandemic, Daniel Sofer told us how he began to take photos of the tourist-free city which were then compiled in Empty Kyoto. He shared text and photos from his book.
On the Irish pub’s upright piano, Malcolm Ledger played a piece he had recently composed and which was warmly received and applauded. He invited the audience to take a look at his YouTube channel for more of his music.
During the break, WiK members lined up at the bar to order another glass of red wine or pint of Guinness, and mingled, catching up with friends and making new ones until Kirsty announced the start of the second set.
James Woodham, ‘the bard of Biwako’, reads one of his poems.
James Woodham traveled from Shiga to join the bōnenkai, and he read poems inspired by a wide range of topics, from reading Sylvia Plath to a late night out in Kyoto to drones. His advice to us was to “empty the mind and write down what comes out.
Ken Rodgers’s reading about taking part in Wesak at Kurama-dera was a preview of a piece written for Kyoto Journal 107 (Fire & Kyoto), which will be published in the spring of 2024, in print. Before that, however, a digital issue on cultural transformations, KJ 106, will be created.
Mayumi Kawaharada read in English, her haiku adorned with awe-inspiring natural imagery — “rain’s golden strings” and “bell cricket chorus.” My personal favorite (and this is a guess at the line breaks) was — “Two vapor trails glow / in the clear blue sky / New Year’s.”
Playing cajón and soprano saxophone, Ted Taylor and Gary Tegler performed jazz improvisations built on the seasonal song “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen.” Ted also read from his writings about how he’d come to Japan following in the fictional footsteps of the character Japhy Ryder in Dharma Bums.
Impro maestro Gary Tegler plays sax with Ted Taylor accompanying
Although the microphone was offered to anyone else wanting to read or sing, no one took the offer, and instead tabs were settled, contact info exchanged, and promises made to read or sing at the next Words & Music event, and I left the pub to make my way home through the December night.
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A round of applause goes to Kirsty Kawano for organizing the event and ensuring that it ran smoothly. Also thanks to the owners of Irish Pub Gnome, Yuko and Tatsuya Shirasaka, and to their serving staff, including Joseph Wright. And a special thanks goes to those WiK members who volunteered to share with us their words and music.
Kazu sat in the freezing waterfall beside the white-bearded yamabushi. The mountain priest’s temple lay below. Kazu knew it from hikes in Kyoto’s hills with his high-school mountaineering club.
He’d sought refuge here three months ago, in November. Heartbreak had sent him, and fear.
It was her smile. Every time his co-worker Emi at the department store smiled, his love deepened.
“We’re soulmates,” Kazu said, one day, “tied by a red thread.”
“You’re an interesting person,” she said. Kazu’s heart froze. Emi’s smiles weren’t for him. They were a sales tool.
The panic attacks started soon after.
The yamabushi had no other acolytes. No sermons, no talk at all. Kazu cleaned, washed, cooked, and foraged for sansai —wild roots, greens, mushrooms. Maybe he’d catch a yamame trout, dredge it in salt, and broil it over glowing embers.
When he wasn’t working or sleeping Kazu meditated with the old man. The falling water smoothed and rounded the sharp shards of his heart. Heijoshin, equanimity, grew to fill the cavern of unrequited love.
For twenty minutes each morning they’d sit under the waterfall. But today seemed longer, much longer. Kazu stole a glance. The old priest’s head lolled sideways, cheek cupped in hand —Buddha enlightened —legs frozen in full lotus.
The local villagers insisted that Kazu leave immediately. He’d be a homicide suspect when the police showed up. They gave him fresh clothes, a bus ticket, and a bento for the once-daily ride back to Kyoto.
As the bus turned onto Shijo Dori in front of the department store, Kazu looked out the window, wondering. His heart had healed. Could his relationship with Emi mend as well? She wasn’t the person he thought she was. And now, neither was he.
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Stephen Benfey’s homepage with examples of his short stories can be found here. For his short story on gardening and rocks, see here. For a New Year story, click here. For his piece on foxes, see here. For Gaijin’s Redemption, click here. For his short story titled Tofu, see here.
◆ THEME: Kyoto (English language submissions only) ◆ DEADLINE: March 31st, 2024 (23:59 JST) ◆ GENRE: Short Shorts (unpublished material only) ◆ WORD LIMIT: 300 Words (to fit on a single page) ◆ FORM: Short poems, character studies, essays, travel tips, whimsy, haiku sequence, haibun, wordplays, dialogue, experimental verse, etc. In short, anything that helps show the spirit of place in a fresh light. A clear connection to Kyoto is essential.
SUBMISSION REQUIREMENTS
● Limited to one submission per person ● You do not need to be located in Kyoto to participate. We accept submissions from anywhere in the world. ● Must be submitted by Microsoft Word attachment file. Submissions by PDF attachment and submissions within the body of the email will not be accepted. ● At the top of the Microsoft Word attachment (not in the body of the email), please include the following personal information: Full Name, E-mail Contact, Nationality, Current Residence (Town, Country). ● Do not provide any special formatting to your piece. We request your personal information at the top with the plain text directly below. Submissions in [Times New Roman, 12pt] are preferred. ● Please send your Microsoft Word attachment file to: kyotowritingcompetition2024@gmail.com ● Submissions which do not have the author’s personal address at the top of the attachment file, are not submitted in MS Word format, or are submitted with special formatting will not be considered for judging. ● Submission in multiple competition years is welcome. However, eligibility for each prize is on a one-time basis only.
TOP PRIZES
Kyoto City Mayoral Prize ¥50,000 cash prize, The Nature of Kyoto (Writers in Kyoto Anthology 5), One-year complimentary WiK membership (April 2024-March 2025), a complimentary space in an upcoming Book Proposal Masterclass (valued at £679, or more than 120,000 JPY) by Beth Kempton (WiK Member and Author of books including Wabi Sabi: Japanese Wisdom for a Perfectly Imperfect Life and The Way of the Fearless Writer), publication on the WiK website, and inclusion in a future WiK Anthology
Yamabuki* Prize (awarded to the national of a country in which English is an official language) The Nature of Kyoto (Writers in Kyoto Anthology 5), publication on the WiK website, and inclusion in a future WiK Anthology
Unohana* Prize (awarded to the national of a country in which English is not an official language) The Nature of Kyoto (Writers in Kyoto Anthology 5), publication on the WiK website, and inclusion in a future WiK Anthology
* Yamabuki (Japanese yellow rose) and Unohana (Deutzia) are flowers appearing in haiku.
OTHER PRIZES
Writers in Kyoto Member Prize A book of the winner’s choice authored by another WiK member and publication on the WiK website
USA Prize Uncrating the Japanese House (Junzo Yoshimura, Antonin and Noemi Raymond, and George Nakashima), a one-year complimentary membership to the Japan-America Society of Greater Philadelphia, and publication on the WiK website
PUBLISHING RIGHTS/COPYRIGHT
Writers in Kyoto reserve the right to publish entries on the group’s website. The top three winners will be eligible for publication in a future WiK Anthology. All authors retain the copyright of their own work.
SUPPORTERS
In addition to the aforementioned entities, the Writers in Kyoto Ninth Annual Writing Competition is supported by the Kyoto City Cultural Office, Kyoto City International Foundation (kokoka), and Kyoto Journal.
The WiK Competition logo was designed by Rebecca Otowa, author and illustrator of 100 Objects in My Japanese House (2023), At Home in Japan (Tuttle 2010), My Awesome Japan Adventure (2013), and The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper (2019).
PREVIOUS WINNERS
Winning entries from four previous competition years can be found here (2023), here (2022), here (2021), and here (2020).
STAY CONNECTED WITH WRITERS IN KYOTO
Please save our website link to your Favorites and follow us on Facebook, Twitter (@KyotoWriters), and Instagram (writersinkyoto). There is also a private Facebook group for paid-up members.
WiK ANTHOLOGIES
Writers in Kyoto anthologies available in Amazon marketplaces in paperback and Kindle editions:
Report by Felicity Greenland (all photos by her unless otherwise stated)
John Dougill’s latest book, Off the Beaten Tracks in Japan: A Journey by Train from Hokkaido to Kyushu, was launched in Kyoto on Sunday November 19. The event was held at Irish Pub Gnome, with music by Quin Arbeitman on piano, and 35 guests in attendance, including Writers in Kyoto members and other friends.
Paul Carty on stage giving a preview of the book
After people mingled for some time, John Dougill was warmly introduced by WiK treasurer, Paul Carty. “John calls himself a loner,” he said, “yet there is no-one with a greater network of friends.” (John is protesting heartily at this point, and the audience laughs at his protests.) “Not only that,” continues Paul, “but when you read the book, John is always engaging with people, and that’s where this book is really powerful. He travels from the north to the south of Japan, listening to people, and just as Walt Whitman heard America sing, John heard Japan talking, and he has captured the humanity of the people in a very beautiful way.”
Author’s profile by Mark Thomas
John himself then gave a short speech and then read from passages from the book on Mt. Rishiri in the chapter on Wakkanai, and the tale of Tama the cat in the section A Brief History of Japan’s Railways. John was seriously ill last winter, and it had looked uncertain as to whether he would see this day at all. Not only was he “glad to be here,” but “frankly I’m glad to be anywhere,” he said in his speech to laughter, channeling Keith Richards. He also publicly thanked Paul Carty for his support throughout his illness, and also for Paul’s help with the book.
Another reason that the book is very dear to the author is because it is his most personal. In his previous writing (college textbooks, books about Oxford, film, Japanese culture and so on), he had refrained from such personal writing. This time he felt free to express himself and had intended to self-publish, but was delighted that the publisher, Stone Bridge Press, agreed to take it up. They urged him to add extra information to appeal to train enthusiasts, and did a wonderful job on the design.
I felt that this was not just a book launch, it was a celebration of life. It could also be seen as one of the good things to result from the Corona restrictions to overseas travel. The account of the long journey from Japan’s far north to the deep south runs on parallel tracks – past and present, fact and contemplation, social commentary and humour, erudition and passing thought. Not surprisingly all copies of the book at the launch were sold and signed. It was good to see, and now it is launched it is sure to win attention in the highly competitive world of travel literature.
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Off the Beaten Tracks in Japan is now on sale through amazon.com and amazon.jp. For a review by Rebecca Otowa, see here. For other reviews, see the amazon page and scroll down past the endorsement by Alex Kerr (“I know of no Japan journey that is so full of joy as this one.”)
Food, drink and conviviality
Networking, connections and books for sale
Old friendships renewed – shakuhachi maestro Preston Houser and man about town Tagd McLoughlin
Reporter Felicity Greenland with inebriated author
David Duff and Gerald share a couple of pints of Guinness
Smiles all around from a table of WiK members
Kyoto Journal was represented too in the guise of John Einarsen and Ken Rodgers
Quin Arbeitman gave musical accompaniment throughout the evening
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Off the Beaten Tracks in Japan is available through amazon and in leading bookshops in Japan (Kinokuniya and Maruzen). For a review by Rebecca Otowa, please click here. For other reviews see amazon or goodreads.
Malcolm, right, a tea ceremony teacher, dressed in kimono for the occasion (photo by Kirsty Kawano)
Malcolm Ledger lives in a remarkable house, a restored ryokan situated by a wooded mountain stream in Kyoto’s north-west. So special is the setting that the prestigious Aman franchise chose it for the location of their Kyoto hotel.
Though billed as a maple-viewing party, the event was more of a socialising and networking occasion. The maples this year are simply not so pretty this year. Far from being spectacular in red, they are a rather dirty brown. The cause is said to lie in the heat of summer and a lack of water, weakening the trees’ capacity to produce the usual effect.
Every cloud has a silver lining, and the lack of maple splendour led to more time for drinking and eating the generous pot-luck selections. As well as a short outing along the stream that runs past the remarkable rocky open basement, the occasion provided an opportunity for Rebecca Otowa to tell the group of her latest publication, a labour of love detailing the many fascinating objects in her venerable old house. Thanks to her, and a big thank you to Malcolm.
The disappointing maple colours
Rebecca Otowa, centre right, discussing her recent self-published book (photo by Malcolm Ledger)
Rebecca holds up some of the illustrations she did for “100 Objects in My Japanese House“. (photo John Dougill)
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To see a review of Rebecca’s book, please click here. Malcolm was the winner of this year’s Japan Local Prize for “Plum Tree by the Eaves”, depicting an ancient tree which embodies the sophistication and elegance of the Heian Period. For pictures of Malcolm’s house and the glorious maples of 2020, please see this report by Felicity Tillack. For Malcolm’s prose and poetry, please run a search on this website.
Recently I reviewed a travel book by Alex Kerr, Hidden Japan (Tuttle, 2023), and in that review I extolled the virtues of “armchair travel” (traveling in one’s imagination instead of physically). At the same time as I was writing that review, I was also reading John Dougill’s Off the Beaten Tracks in Japan (Stonebridge Press, 2023), which I would also recommend as an excellent “armchair travel” book. These two books will be forever coupled in my mind. They are very different in content and in organization, but they are both invitations to read about, rather than run off and visit, out-of the-way spots in Japan.
The title is “Off the Beaten Tracks” rather than the more usual form of the expression, “off the beaten track”. I inferred that the author was calling attention to his journey, which was by train, on train tracks. At the same time, the trains he took, from the northernmost point of Hokkaido to the southernmost point of Kyushu, were on the Japan Sea coast rather than the more populous and better known Pacific side (the left side rather than the right of the Japanese archipelago if one looks at a map). In this sense, the trains he took were indeed “off the beaten tracks” and on less well-known ones.
However, this is not a train buff’s guide. The trains themselves are rather unobtrusive, except for a small historical note at the end of each chapter giving interesting details about the various lines. Actually, Dougill frequently parted company with the train tracks, using branch lines or other forms of transport, in order to visit sites not on them. However, the peculiarly Japanese feel of train travel, clean, quiet and on time, which seems to be enough to induce a meditative state, especially on slower trains, is always present. This interior-looking mood pervades the book, even when the author is not traveling.
The author makes no bones about this not being an ordinary guidebook. In the Preface he writes, “This is not a conventional travel guide… my journey draws rather on over thirty years of cultural immersion to give a personal account of the fascination that Japan holds for foreigners.” Elsewhere he cites the saying that if one wants to write about Japan, one should do so after three weeks or thirty years. Long-term residents of Japan, giving this saying some thought, would probably agree. In between, a lot of forgetting and a lot of learning happens.
This is indeed a deeply personal book. The author tells us about his father’s occupation as a vet leading to a lifelong love of animals, his long-term partnership with a Kyoto woman, and of course his fascination with Japan, based on decades of astute observation, always shines out. This quality of careful observation is enough to make the most jaded and cynical Japan resident fall in love all over again, in a sort of “Hey, I had forgotten about that” way.
John Dougill is following in some illustrious footsteps. He cites many foreign travelers who have covered some of the same ground, including Alan Booth, author of The Roads to Sata (Penguin, 2021), Isabella Bird, the first foreign woman to travel alone in Japan, Ranald MacDonald, who came from Canada to Hokkaido and then to Nagasaki, where he became arguably the first English teacher in Japan, and several others.
His eye rests on many fascinating things on his travels, but he never forgets to include down-to-earth pleasures such as details of memorable meals, hot spring visits, barefoot treks across beach stones, etc. He also gives many interesting historical vignettes, not only remote history but also more recent historical landmarks, such as the racial discrimination case that started in an Otaru bathhouse in the 1990s.
I learned many things by reading this book and was not too tempted to put some of the places as “must-sees” on my personal itinerary. But one place I have never visited, and now thanks to Dougill’s expertise and love of Shinto, I now consider a “must-see”, is the shrine of Izumo in Shimane Prefecture. I knew that October was called “the month of no gods” (kannazuki) but I did not know that this is because the gods of Shinto visit Izumo during this month from all over Japan, resulting in this month being called “the month with the gods” (kamiarizuki) in Izumo. The author was once privileged to see the ceremony welcoming the gods to Izumo at a nearby beach. This description alone made the book worth the read for me.
The book is divided into five sections, and these divisions are easy to see, thanks to the grey pages introducing them. Each section has a map at the beginning showing the places Dougill visited, and there is also a map showing the entire route. There are also photos of places and things touched on in the text.
Off the Beaten Tracks in Japan is another book that argues for a return to “armchair travel” and an avoidance of the well-known (some would say too well known) tourist spots, in favor of a heartwarming personal account of a life spent exploring Japan, with a background of trains clacking serenely through the landscape.
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John Dougill is the founder of Writers in Kyoto, author of numerous books on Japan including Japanʼs World Heritage Sites (Tuttle, 2014), In Search of Japanʼs Hidden Christians (Tuttle, 2012) and Kyoto: A Cultural History (Signal/OUP, 2004). He also runs the Green Shinto blog. A longer introduction can be found here, and a listing of his available books here.
A Flash of Lightning On Reading David Joiner’s The Heron Catchers Review by Rebecca Copeland
Herons are lithe, elegant birds. Gliding over water, nesting in fields, or soaring through the air, the heron’s perceived ability to transcend the elements has led to fabulous fairytales, stately dances, and sublime paintings. Haiku poet Matsuo Bashō wrote verses about the heron and artist Ohara Koson immortalized the bird in woodblock prints. Now novelist David Joiner adds to our collection of heron lore and love with his hauntingly beautiful The Heron Catchers, published by Stone Bridge Press.
Set within the quiet green abundance of the Yamanaka Onsen village, some distance from the picturesque castle city of Kanazawa, The Heron Catchers promises a lovely idyll of rural life. As charming as rural life may appear from a distance, however, it too is rife with conflict and pain. Shortly after the novel opens, readers are confronted with treachery. Here, main character Sedge visits the famous Kenrokuen garden, at the heart of Kanazawa, to meet a woman:
He stood on a short wooden bridge over a stream winding away from Kasumagaike pond, admiring a newly blossoming cherry tree, and pines here and there recently freed from their protective winter yukitsuri ropes, when a snapping of branches made him spin around. To his astonishment, a wild boar burst from a bush, colliding with a heron upstream and sending a cloud of feathers in the air (10).
Sedge springs into action, covering the injured heron’s head with his jacket to both calm the bird as he attempts to rescue it while simultaneously protecting himself from its razor-sharp beak.
Treachery comes in other forms, too. Soon we learn that Sedge has been deeply wounded by his wife’s infidelity. Nozomi has run off with the talented but volatile potter, Kōichi,—taking with her all of Sedge’s savings—and leaving Sedge the impossible task of running their Kanazawa craft store with no capital. Nozomi’s brother, mostly in an effort to protect the family name, invites Sedge to spend time at the inn he owns not far away in Yamanaka Onsen. Sedge can teach the employees English for room and board. It turns out that one of the inn’s employees, Mariko, is married to Kōichi, the man who ran off with Sedge’s wife.
When the rules at the inn become too oppressive—particularly those that prevent Sedge from seeing Mariko romantically—Sedge decides to strike out on his own. Or rather, he moves in with Mariko. The comfort their strange alliance offers is threatened by the presence of Kōichi’s teenage son, Riku, who lives with Mariko. He, more so than the adults, has been hurt by life’s cruelties. Like the injured heron, he is frightened and dangerous, lashing out at any who try to approach him.
Will Sedge and Mariko be able to find the solace they need to heal their own damaged hearts? Will they be able to rescue Riku? What has happened to Nozomi, Kōichi, and the money? These and other questions propel the narrative forward. But more than the trace of a plot, readers are captivated by the understated beauty of the prose and its shimmery profundity. There are truths buried here, truths about the fragile persistence of sorrow and love and hope. We brush up against them as we read but hardly notice.
When they reached the shrine, Mariko waved him to a narrower path he hadn’t noticed, which wound behind the shrine and through a copse of sugi trees. In a minute they emerged on the opposite side of the mountain, lower than where they’d been. Here the view opened even more. Despite the highway near the ocean, where cars were small as ants, he sensed that no one in the world could find them here (95).
We follow the characters as they travel deeper in their journey towards healing, a journey that takes them deeper into the mysteries and beauty of nature. There are missteps along the way. We watch as the characters stumble, uncertain in their pain. And, we celebrate with them, too, when they learn to staunch their hurts as surely as they bind a heron’s broken wing.
Given my background in Japanese literature, I could not help but think of the folk-tale of the heron wife while reading the pairing of Mariko and Sedge.
In the Japanese folk-tale, a young man comes across a wounded heron, and he takes it in and nurses it back to health. When the heron has regained the use of its wings, he releases it, and the heron flies away.
Time passes and the young man meets a beautiful woman with whom he falls in love. They marry and live happily together. The young wife weaves cloth, which the man sells, and the two are able to support themselves.
But the wife places a constraint upon the man: He must never observe her while she is weaving. Of course, the young man cannot resist the temptation to look, and when he does he sees a heron at the loom.
Now that her secret has been exposed, the heron wife can no longer remain in the human world. She returns to her flock, leaving the man bereft.
In The Heron Catchers as well there is an importance placed on seeing, control, and the power of knowing. In one scene, Sedge’s desire to see Mariko’s naked body in the moonlight reads with mythic overtones.
She led him into her bedroom. Of the three curtained windows along her walls, only the one behind her futon had been left open for the sky to pour its light inside. It was enough to see her figure when she slid her yukata off, light and darkness moving over her body: her nipples, her navel, the space beneath her armpits, the barely visible bars of shadow between her ribs, the constellation of scars—the sea of skin that surrounded these things like water keeping islands afloat (172).
Unexpectedly, this romantic scene leads to tragic results that threaten to unravel the domestic happiness the two have struggled to achieve. This scene, and the one cited above, suggest the tug at work in the novel to get to the heart of some hidden meaning—to understand, to know, to read “the constellation of scars.” Much of the novel, therefore, carries readers into the characters’ inner worlds where time swirls round and round unanswered questions.
In an online interview between publisher Peter Goodman and author David Joiner, Goodman observes that David’s American characters do not walk through his narratives like the questioning outsider. The story does not draw attention to their otherness or make it the point of conflict but rather integrates them within their landscapes in a very natural way. The comment is astute. Readers know that Sedge is American, but we are never told what he looks like, what race, what religion, or any other identifiers. Rather, we identify with Sedge in a much more universal way, as a human being on a quest. “I want my characters to be on equal footing linguistically and even in some respects culturally,” Joiner noted to Goodman in response, “that allows me to go a lot deeper in their interactions with each other.”
And, deeper we go.
Part of the cultural landscape that Joiner’s characters explore is shared with haiku poet Matsuo Bashō, who traveled through Yamanaka Onsen and Kanazawa on his celebrated journey into “the deep north.” For all his barbs and hard edges, the boy Riku is drawn to Bashō and his poetry. When Sedge asks him why Bashō made the trip, Riku replies that he did it to “escape the pain and sorrow of this world” (169). For Riku, haiku is an escape. For The Heron Catchers, Bashō’s journey offers the characters a model for the momentary epiphanies life offers. In the space between these sudden realizations, Sedge, Mariko, and even Riku take their own journeys deep into the interior where they are able to bind their wounds, meditate, and return.
Matsuo Bashō wrote a few poems on the heron. This one seems most appropriate to this novel:
inazuma ya a flash of lightning
yami no kata yuku into the gloom
goi no koe goes the heron’s cry.
Translated by Geoffrey Bownas and
Anthony Thwaite
Author David Joiner, a Writers in Kyoto member, was born and raised in Cincinnati, Ohio, but now makes his home in Kanazawa. The Heron Catchers is his third novel and will be available from Stone Bridge Press and other online outlets from November 21, 2023.
Joiner’s second novel Kanazawa, also published by Stone Bridge Press (2022), was named as a Foreword Reviews Indie Finalist for multicultural novels. See the review by Rebecca Otowa.
Reviewer, Rebecca Copeland, also a WiK member, is Professor of Japanese at Washington University in St. Louis, a translator, and a novelist. The Kimono Tattoo, set in Kyoto, was reviewed by Rebecca Otowa for WiK on July 6, 2023.
Robert Weis has a passion for Japan, and for Kyoto in particular. ‘It’s my spiritual home,’ he says. He draws inspiration from its famous and not so famous spots, and for WiK’s fifth anthology he wrote of the significance of mountains around Kyoto. His appreciation of trees, especially maples, is evident in his writing. ‘When I think of Japan,’ he writes, ‘the first thing that comes to mind is the symphony of colorful leaves during fall.’
Robert lives in Luxembourg, and at an informal gathering at Ted Taylor’s house he disclosed that he is fluent in five European languages. As well as the Luxembourg language, he knows German, French, English and Italian. Given that, and his prolific writing, it comes as a surprise to learn that he is a scientist by profession. A paleontologist who is also a poet.
Robert’s poetic side has resulted in a self-published collection entitled, A Tiny Nature, and he read out several of his which spoke to “the heart of things’. For his reading, Robert selected poems about the spirit of place in some of Kyoto’s special ‘power spots’, such as Kiyotaki. Robert’s aim in the collection was to make his readers see ‘the beauty within’. He also talked of his liking for bonsai, and what caring for the diminutive creations means to him. Not so much a matter of gardening, but a practical way of appreciating Japanese values.
Though Robert lives in Luxembourg, he actively pursues his life-long fascination with Japan and has made eleven visits so far. This time he was involved with Shugendo contacts. Evidence of his close connection with the country came last year when he organised an exhibition for Luxembourg’s national museum on Japan’s engagement with the environment, which featured several WiK members. His next visit to Japan is scheduled for 2025. We look forward to hearing him again, and whatever project his Japanophilia inspires him to next.
Cody Poulton makes a point to which Robert responds
A convivial and literary gathering
About the author: Robert Weis works as a natural scientist, and nature is also at the core of his non-fiction and poetry writing. In 2022 he published, together with Davide S. Sapienza, the travelogue Rocklines — a Geopoetic Journey Across Minett Unesco Biosphere (Editions Phi, Luxembourg). He is a contributor to Luxembourgish travel magazine Diariesof, the French Japanophile magazine Ryoko and Japan-based Kyoto Journal as well as Writers in Kyoto anthologies. His first poetry volume, Rêves d’un mangeur de kakis (Michikusa Publishing) came out in January 2023. In summer 2023, the travel narrative Retour à Kyoto (Editions Transboréal) was released. Visit him at www.theroutetokyoto.com.
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For his article on bonsai, see here. For an excerpt from the self-published volume A tiny nature – recollections of poems and trees (August 2023), available from Amazon, click here.
On Sunday, October 29, Writers in Kyoto had the honour and pleasure of a lunchtime talk by Japanese garden expert, Marc Keane. After some twenty years in Japan, when he not only studied about Japanese gardens but designed them, he returned to America where he taught at Cornell University before relocating recently back to Kyoto.
Marc’s presentation focused on the nine books he has written, plus the three books he is currently working on. As well as being published by the two leading Japan specialists, Tuttle and Stone Bridge Press, he has also self-published books, being adept at computers and design. His publications on Japanese gardens, such as The Art of Setting Stones, have won worldwide acclaim not only for their insight into the aesthetics involved, but for the quality of the language. Given his work with translations of Japanese garden poetry, it was understandable that he is branching out himself into literary writing.
Remarkably, Marc told us he is currently working on three books at the same time. One has to do with bonsai, one to do with how we name things of the world, and one an ambitious work of fiction on the theme of empathy. All three sounded appealing, but the one about naming was the most intriguing, coming over as a charming folk tale with an Alan Watts message negating the notion of separation and asserting oneness with the environment. Question and answer followed over coffee, when it became clear that Marc wrote neither for money or fame but for the love of writing. It is fair to say that readers of his books get to be the beneficiaries.
A display of Marc’s books showing their year of publication. As well as translation, there are some heavily researched works which take an average of three years to complete.
The event took place in a private room of the Garden Palace Hotel overlooking a Japanese ‘wet garden’, complete with carp.
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