I’ve always liked the idea of #ReadIndies but was never able to participate. This year, the hosts, Kaggsy and Lizzy, are focusing on micro publishers, publishers, with five employees or less. That said, one doesn’t have to choose from those. Any independent publisher counts. I had far too many choices and finally decided to opt for a micro publisher because I have far less titles from those. Rónán Hession’s novel Leonard and Hungry Paul, a book I’ve been meaning to read for ages, has been published by Bluemoose Books.

Leonard and Hungry Paul tells the story of two unusual friends. At the beginning of the novel, Leonard who is in his thirties, loses his mother with whom he has been living until now. He feels a great loss as his life is very uneventful. He works as an encyclopaedia ghost writer and other than Hungry Paul, he has no friends or relatives. Hungry Paul, too, still lives with his parents. He doesn’t seem to work much other than helping at the post office. Unlike Leonard, he has other relatives, one of which, his sister, is getting married soon.

In the evenings, Hungry Paul loves to play board games with Leonard or, if he doesn’t come around, with his parents. Their lives are full of small rituals that they enjoy enormously. They are also both interested in almost everything  and can discuss many topics at length. The death of Leonard’s mother and Grace’s wedding seem to put things into motion because suddenly there are so many changes in both of their lives.

Leonard and Hungry Paul is a gentle, joyful book about two outsiders and loners who seem to know much more about finding happiness in life than more conventional people. Especially Hungry Paul, whom his sister calls “the sage” sounds often like a Buddhist teacher and Paul is no less wise.

A book like this could very easily have been too saccharine or bland but it isn’t. The style is so witty and humorous, it’s an absolute joy to read.

Here are just a few examples to give you an idea.

Leonard was not exactly sure, but there must have come a point when their relationship (with his mother) grew from a purely filial one into one of partnership. Though an adult son living with his widowed mother is a situation about which society has yet to adopt a formal position, it is clearly seen in second-best terms.

Had he had the courage Leonard would have spoken up and said that his mother looked after everyone in her life as though they were her garden birds: that is to say, with unconditional pleasure and generosity.

The two friends then settled into one of the long pauses that characterised their comfort in each other’s company. They could sit quietly for extended periods without the need to hurry back to whatever it was they were doing, allowing the silence to melt away in its own time. However, on this occasion, Hungry Paul’s extemporising on astrophysics had struck a melancholy note inside Leonard. In the week since his mother had passed on, Leonard had noticed a distinct shrinking of his own personal universe. His evenings were less occupied, his social options had become more limited, and his mind seemed diverted inwards towards a vague, dreamy melancholy.

Hungry Paul had been blessed with a mental stillness which had become his natural state over the years. His mind worked perfectly fine and he had all the faculties of a healthy, if slightly unorthodox, man of his age. He just had no interest in, or capacity for, mental chatter. He had no internal narrator. When he saw a dog, he just saw a dog, without his mind adding that it should be on a lead or that its tongue was hanging out like a rasher.

I really enjoyed this story of a friendship between two unusual characters and the wonderful, witty way in which it has been written.

One of the things I missed the most during my blogging hiatus was Bellezza’s Japanese Literature Challenge. Whenever I participated in the past, I discovered books that made my end of year list. Obviously, I could read Japanese literature, of which I’m very fond, all year long, but we all know how it goes, when you’re a mood reader or “magpie reader”, as I call myself, you pick what speaks to you at a certain time and forget everything else. Unfortunately, as the last two years have shown me, it’s not a successful approach to reading. At least not for me. I need to have a few loose plans.

Ogai Mori’s novel is a recent acquisition and since I was keen on reading older Japanese literature, I felt it was a fitting choice for the challenge.

Ogai Mori (1862 – 1922) was an Army Surgeon, novelist, and translator. From 1884 to 1888 he studied medicine in Leipzig, Münich, and Berlin. In Germany he discovered the literature of many European countries and later translated classics like Shakespeare, Schiller, Goethe, Kleist, Rilke, Daudet, Tolstoy and many more into Japanese.

The Wild Geese, (or Wild Goose) is considered his masterpiece. It was serialized between 1911 and 1913 in the Japanese newspaper Subaru and finally published as a book in 1915.

The story is told by an unnamed narrator who is friends with the main protagonist, Okada, a medical student at the university in Tokyo. They both live in a boarding house for medical students. The story is set in 1880, during the Meiji era, a time, when Tokyo was no longer called Edo but wasn’t yet the Tokyo we know now.

Otama is a young woman who is very beautiful but also very poor. She and her father who raised her as a single parent are very close. There isn’t anything she wouldn’t do for him. When her marriage to an influential man is annulled, she accepts the position as concubine of a rich usurer. This deal allows her father to live comfortably in a very beautiful house, surrounded by nature. Otama herself lives in a side street in Tokyo with a young maid. She has no contact to people as they all avoid and ostracize her. One day she sees Okada from her window and they both feel a strong attraction. Will Otama be able to break free? If you’d like to find out, you’ll have to read the novel.

The Wild Goose is as subtle as it is beautiful. I liked it very much. It’s rich in detailed descriptions of the culture and customs of the time. Flora and fauna play important, often symbolic roles in this story. Throughout the novel we find descriptions of nature that reinforce the mood and the themes of the novel. One of the most powerful examples of nature descriptions was the episode of the wild geese which takes place towards the end of the novel. I was wondering from the beginning why Ogai Mori chose this title as it didn’t seem to make sense. When it was finally revealed, it was quite shattering.

While Mori Ogai is excellent at describing nature, he is also a very fine psychologist and a keen observer of relationships. The friendship between the narrator and Okada, and the relationship between Otama and her father a beautifully rendered.

This book is set during a time when the Japanese society was undergoing profound changes. It doesn’t look like things were changing for women though. To read about Otama is quite upsetting. She has the misfortune of being poor but beautiful which attracts powerful men who don’t have any intention of getting married to her and don’t care that this pushes her to the fringes of society. She might be the mistress in her own home, but as soon as she leaves the house, she’s an outcast.

What impressed me the most, is how immersive this story was. Reading it felt like making a trip to a distant place and time. The imagery, themes, and story are so haunting, I don’t think I’ll forget them any day soon.

I didn’t read the English, but the German translation of this book, which seemed well done. It was published by Manesse in their Bibliothek der Weltliteratur series. If you know the series, you know how beautiful and luxurious these small books are.

This post is a contribution to Bellezza’s Japanese Literature Challenge 6