This is the new edition of Shin Noguchi’s book In Color In Japan, which appeared first in 2020. I saw this first edition from my friend Bouwe just after I had received my copy of the new edition. I did not compare the selection of the pictures with those in the new edition. The print quality of the pictures in the new book, however, was obviously so much better than the print quality of the pictures in the first edition that I would safely state it is well worth buying the new edition even if you already have the old one.
Shin Noguchi is broadly known under the category of street photographer, and he is a member of the street photography collective Up.
Avoiding the definition-question of street photography and its slur of religious and esthetical fundamentalist discussions, I would say that Noguchi’s style and subject matter are much more in the realms of Luigi Ghirri and William Eggleston, with the humoristic twist of Martin Parr. Noguchi combines this with personal documentation of his family life, which is intimate and loving. In general, when Noguchi captures people, he does this with a lightness and compassionate feel. He never gets negative or vicious in his depictions.
You find strange objects in Noguchi’s images: a tram behind a fence, a car stuck on a staircase in a park, large balls in a garage box, one white, one red, a dog dressed up as a lion in the street of Tokyo. What is going on in Nogochi’s world?
Noguchi observes the world around him and finds its oddities. He views his Japanese environment like a stranger. He could be a tourist in his own country. With a minimalistic approach, he captures a KFC shop front and a fluorescent light bar in a red room (a clear reference to Eggleston) with the same curiosity as typical Japanese situations like people dressed in manga suits in the streets of Tokyo and ladies in kimonos. He finds pictures in a torn curtain, a spot of light in an empty sports hall, and a picture of a billboard in front of Mount Fuji, displaying Mount Fuji itself.
Noguchi is not your typical street photo hunter. He is a craftsman who creates remarkable pictures from the unremarkable, with great precision and skill.
On the plane from Miami to home, I watched the movie adaptation of this book. I probably watched half of it because of the self-prescribed high-melatonin-dose-induced half-sleep. Regardless, I dare safely state that the book is much more enjoyable.
Aza, a girl with an obsessive awareness and fear of bacteria in her body, goes through her teen life. She falls in love with an old friend she was friends with in her early youth. His father is now a billionaire. He goes missing. Daisy is her best friend. Aza and Daisy search for the father, and in the end, they find him, dead.
John Green is a writer who can create moving stories without falling into traps of cliches or annoying theatrical emotions.
J.A. Baker is a unique character in English literary and ornithological history. Baker wrote two books. The first is a classic called The Peregrine—a book you have never read before. Baker visited a 50-square-mile piece of Essex for years on his bicycle. He meticulously described the movements of the birds, especially the peregrines in the area. Baker is fascinated by the peregrine falcon.
The second book is The Hill of Summer. This book has a broader subject, the south of England.
Werner Herzog and The Peregrine
Director Werner Herzog recommends the book The Peregrine as a lesson in observing, describing, and evaluating viewpoints.
That’s how a filmmaker should see things: in loneliness. He or she or it should see the world with an incredible amount of human pathos and enthusiasm and rapture.
Indeed, the book describes the life of the peregrines in his part of Essex in very attractive terms, both visually and metaphorically.
Throughout his life, Baker lived in Chelmsford, Essex. Baker was a manager at AA and later at Britvic, a soft drink company. In his spare time, he biked around the area and worked on his observations of the nature around him, especially of the birds and peregrines. Baker was a very reclusive person. He married a colleague, Doreen Grace Coe. They did not have children.
He died of cancer, caused by his medication for his severe arthritis, from which he suffered increasingly throughout his life.
The Peregrine
Baker describes his observations from his point of view but also flies with the peregrine. He follows the peregrines through the Essex nature reserve. In particularly poetic prose, he describes the environment, how the birds fly, and how they hunt and kill.
Peregrines are known for their unique killing method: stooping. They fly high up in the air, target their prey, and start a skydive reaching 400 kilometers per hour. Baker describes the kill in clean, surgical, and visual terms.
The peregrine swoops down towards his prey. As he descends, his legs are extended forward till the feet are underneath his breast. The toes are clenched, with the long hind toe projecting below the three front ones, which are bent up out of the way. He passes close to the bird, almost touching it with his body, and still moving very fast. His extended hind toe (or toes — sometimes one, sometimes both) gashes into the back or breast of the bird, like a knife. At the moment of impact the hawk raises his wings above his back. If the prey is cleanly hit — and it is usually hit hard or missed altogether — it dies at once, either from shock or from the perforation of some vital organ.
Prose like poetry
Many passages are pure poems. Not even sentences, just words in a sequence increasing the power of the language.
Screaming gulls corkscrewing high under cloud. Islands blazing with birds. A peregrine rising and falling. Godwits ricocheting across water, tumbling, towering. A peregrine following, swooping, clutching. Godwit and peregrine darting, dodging; stitching land and water with flickering shuttle. Godwit climbing, dwindling, tiny, gone: peregrine diving, perching, panting, beaten.
Tide going out, wigeon cropping zostera, herons lanky in shallows. Sheep on the sea-wall grazing. Revolve the long estuary through turning eyes. Let the water smooth out its healing line, like touch of dock on nettled finger. Leave the wader-teeming skies, soft over still water, arched light.
And more.
The sky peeled white in the north-west gale, leaving the eye no refuge from the sun’s cold glare. Distance was blown away, and every tree and church and farm came closer, scoured of its skin of haze. Down the estuary I could see trees nine miles away, bending over in the wind-whipped sea. New horizons stood up bleached and stark, plucked out by the cold talons of the gale.
I read the book like I read a book of poetry: a few poems, passages, and pages per day. More I can’t consume in one sitting. The prose is too strong. You have to give it room to rest and appreciate. So progress through the book is slow. But there is a difference with poems. For with every new poem, I want to be surprised. But with Baker, the longing is for that feeling to come to you in a new form from the next page. The outliers keep you on your toes, but the detailed, poetic sentences are addictively satisfying.
Identifying with the birds
Baker identifies with the birds. With the hunter, with the hunted. On fear.
All morning, birds were huddled together in fear of the hawk, but I could not find him again. If I too were afraid I am sure I should see him more often. Fear releases power. Man might be more tolerable, less fractious and smug, if he had more to fear. I do not mean fear of the intangible, the suffocation of the introvert, but physical fear, cold sweating fear for one’s life, fear of the unseen menacing beast, imminent, bristly, tusked and terrible, ravening for one’s own hot saline blood.
Baker often finds himself the hunter, following the peregrine, and they become the same. As we will see, Baker prefers the company of birds and can relate much better to animals than humans. Unconsciously, the hunter starts resembling the hunted.
Unconsciously I was imitating the movements of a hawk, as in some primitive ritual; the hunter becoming the thing he hunts. I looked into the wood. In a lair of shadow the peregrine was crouching, watching me, gripping the neck of a dead branch. We live, in these days in the open, the same ecstatic fearful life. We shun men. We hate their suddenly uplifted arms, the insanity of their flailing gestures, their erratic scissoring gait, their aimless stumbling ways, the tombstone whiteness of their faces.
And despite, or probably because of, his bad eyesight, he identifies with the peregrine hawk scanning the area for prey.
I scanned the sky constantly to see if a hawk was soaring, scrutinised every tree and bush, searched the apparently empty sky through every arc. That is how the hawk finds his prey and eludes his enemies, and that is the only way one can hope to find him and share his hunting. Binoculars, and a hawk-like vigilance, reduce the disadvantage of myopic human vision.
More poems, and unification with bird life.
All day the low clouds lay above the marshes and thin rain drifted in from the sea. Mud was deep in the lanes and along the sea-wall; thick ochre mud, like paint; oozing glutinous mud that seemed to sprout on the marsh, like fungus; octopus mud that clutched and clung and squelched and sucked; slippery mud, smooth and treacherous as oil; mud stagnant; mud evil; mud in the clothes, in the hair, in the eyes; mud to the bone. On the east coast in winter, above or below the tide-line, man walks in water or in mud; there is no dry land. Mud is another element. One comes to love it, to be like a wading bird, happy only at the edges of the world where land and water meet, where there is no shade and nowhere for fear to hide.
We are the killers
Death, pain and fear, and his dislike of humans becomes more recurring. The prose becomes darker.
No pain, no death, is more terrible to a wild creature than its fear of man. A red-throated diver, sodden and obscene with oil, able to move only its head, will push itself out from the sea- wall with its bill if you reach down to it as it floats like a log in the tide. A poisoned crow, gaping and helplessly floundering in the grass, bright yellow foam bubbling from its throat, will dash itself up again and again on to the descending wall of air, if you try to catch it. A rabbit, inflated and foul with myxomatosis, just a twitching pulse beating in a bladder of bones and fur, will feel the vibration of your footstep and will look for you with bulging, sightless eyes. Then it will drag itself away into a bush, trembling with fear.
We are the killers. We stink of death. We carry it with us. It sticks to us like frost. We cannot tear it away.
Then, this confession: the peregrine hides for humans, but is it the peregrine hiding, or is it Baker’s aversion to human contact?
I avoid humans, but hiding is difficult now the snow has come. A hare dashed away, with its ears laid back, pitifully large and conspicuous. I use what cover I can. It is like living in a foreign city during an insurrection. There is an endless banging of guns and tramping of feet in the snow. One has an unpleasantly hunted feeling. Or is it so unpleasant? I am as solitary now as the hawk I pursue.
The birds-eye view
He puts himself in the view of the bird. We fly over the fields like in a drone, but much more beautiful.
Looking down, the hawk saw the big orchard beneath him shrink into dark twiggy lines and green strips; saw the dark woods closing together and reaching out across the hills; saw the green and white fields turning to brown; saw the silver line of the brook, and the coiled river slowly uncoiling; saw the whole valley flattening and widening; saw the horizon staining with distant towns; saw the estuary lifting up its blue and silver mouth, tongued with green islands. And beyond, beyond all, he saw the straight-ruled shine of the sea floating like a rim of mercury on the surface of the brown and white land. The sea, rising as he rose, lifted its blazing storm of light, and thundered to freedom to the land-locked hawk.
Idly, indifferently, he saw it all, as he swung and swayed round the glittering gun-sight of his eye’s deep fovea, and watched for a flash or spurt of wings at which to aim his headlong flight.
And like Baker, we cannot get enough of this.
She drifted idly; remote, inimical. She balanced in the wind, two thousand feet above, while the white cloud passed beyond her and went across the estuary to the south. Slowly her wings curved back. She slipped smoothly through the wind, as though she were moving forward on a wire. This mastery of the roaring wind, this majesty and noble power of flight, made me shout aloud and dance up and down with excitement. Now, I thought, I have seen the best of the peregrine; there will be no need to pursue it farther; I shall never want to search for it again. I was wrong of course. Once can never have enough.
When he sees a seal in the coastal waters, he philosophizes how much better such a free life for animals is.
He looked at me, breathed in, and dived below. Slowly he splashed and idled round the bay and out to the estuary again. It is a good life, a seal’s, here in these shallow waters. Like the lives of so many air and water creatures, it seems a better one than ours. We have no element. Nothing sustains us when we fall.
On beauty
He can get very dark.
But the pull and twist of his bill to break off a bud reminded me of a peregrine breaking the neck of its prey. Whatever is destroyed, the act of destruction does not vary much. Beauty is vapour from the pit of death.
Afterword
In Robert MacFarlane’s afterword, some more personal details about Baker are shared, but none go further than what you can find online and summarize on a single page.
This scarcity of personal information about Baker is primarily due to (he would say thanks to) Baker’s own doing. As said, I will have to read his biography now.
About the peregrine: The species has been under pressure in England for almost a century now. During the Second World War, the birds were believed to potentially disturb the Royal Air Force and were actively hunted. After this ban was lifted, insecticides like DDT became the biggest threat. Nowadays, it is the ridiculous English tradition of grouse hunting that threatens the bird population. Baker was right, you would say. We are the killers.
This Boy’s Life is a memoir written by short-story writer Tobias Wolff. I stumbled upon a recommendation for the book somewhere, though I can’t recall the precise source, and was intrigued enough to purchase it.
A boy in the late 1950s United States lives alone with his mother after her divorce. They frequently move from place to place, with his mother consistently drawn to problematic men. Then, after settling in a boarding house at the edge of poverty, she meets Dwight. After moving in with Dwight, Jack discovers that Dwight epitomizes the toxic men to whom his mother is inexplicably attracted. He is a manipulative, deceitful, downright stupid, and self-serving alcoholic who despises Jack. Dwight exploits the boy, forcing him to work and stealing his hard-earned money. Despite being shaped by this harsh environment, Jack retains a moral compass and a sense of decency.
Tobias Wolff
Even when not burdened by Dwight’s demands, Jack struggles. One afternoon, he gambles away the $100 he had painstakingly saved. He also manages to get himself expelled from school, further complicating his tumultuous youth.
Eventually, several pivotal events unfold. Jack’s father appears and helps extract him from Dwight’s toxic influence. Jack is admitted to a boarding school and the narrative gains speed. During his final year, he is expelled and subsequently decides to join the army.
The book was adapted into a 1993 film starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Robert De Niro as Dwight. Though I haven’t seen the movie, De Niro’s reputation for portraying intense, complex characters suggests a compelling interpretation of the villainous Dwight.
The book consists of short essays of no more than two pages, each zooming in on an unexpected fact. The essays are well written and mostly indeed surprising. For example:
Swaziland is actually called Eswatini; it was renamed in 2018 (the name is eSwatini according to the book, but it is generally spelled Eswatini today).
Carrots are white. Orange carrots originate from the Dutch town of Hoorn and may have been grown out of a gesture of support for William of Orange.
Why most refugees do not live in camps: because camps are miserable places. Even when aid is more accessible in camps, refugees prefer an uncertain life in cities because they have more opportunities to do things. Conclusion by The Economist: let refugees out of camps; let them work.
China loans pandas to other countries as a political tool.
Why do people eat more chicken nowadays? It is cheaper, and breading them is so efficient. Chickens are so big nowadays that they can’t get on top of each other anymore to mate. I also talked about this after reading Jonathan Foer’s book Eating Animals (Dieren eten). (Yes, I eat vegetarian.)
Expensive weddings yield higher chances of divorce.
Import tariffs do more harm to the economy than good. (The book was written during Trump’s first presidency). In 2018, the WHO published a list of deadly viruses, including the placeholder’ Disease X’, an undetermined disease that could cause an international epidemic.
The US has, next to Brazil, one of the highest deaths caused by firearms per capita in the world. Two-thirds of these deaths in the US are suicides. So, I would say you could very well conclude that the NRA in the US is a lobby organization promoting suicides. You never hear a pro-life organization about these approximately 26000 deaths per year.
Islamic zina laws inhibit illicit sexual relationships. This often applies to the victim of rape as well. That is a horror even worsened by the primitive punishments of whipping and stoning. A complete nightmare for women.
Turkey puts most journalists in prison of all countries in the world. (And is still contemplating the introduction of zina laws).
An interesting book that gives a different view on many topics.
I read this interesting article in Wired about Sayaka Murata, author of, among other things, ‘Convenience Store Woman’ (Buurtsupermens in Dutch) and ‘Earthlings.’ She is a fascinating writer.
Murata critically examines societal norms around work, conformity, and marginalization in Japanese society. ‘Convenience Store Woman‘ and ‘Earthlings‘ explore characters who struggle to fit into conventional social expectations, offering dark, satirical perspectives on identity and alienation.
Ik vond een tijdje geleden al Figuranten van Arnon Grunberg, op Terschelling bij de leuke tweedehands boekwinkel De Boekenboer op Terschelling.
De eigenaresse is zelf een schrijfster, lees ik in het krantje uit 2022 dat is uitgegeven ter ere van het 25 jarig bestaan van De Boekenboer. Ze is de dochter van de oorspronkelijke oprichter van de tweedehands boekwinkel en ze schrijft lokale detectives.
Ik lees dat ze Kluun een slechte schrijver vindt. Goed zo.
Leuk om Figuranten een keer te herlezen, dacht ik, maar het bleek dat ik het nog nooit had gelezen (of ik moet wel lijden aan zeer zwaar geheugenverlies).
Figuranten is een krankzinnig leuk boek, bijna net zo goed als De Joodse Messias. Drie adolescenten, Broccoli, Ewald en Elvira, proberen hun grootste plannen te realiseren in het Amsterdam van de jaren negentig. Maar er komt natuurlijk geen drol van terecht. Ewald kiest voor nachtmerrie van elke adolescent: hij wordt een geldwolf.
Ik ga het verhaal hier niet natuurlijk niet hervertellen. Het eindigt een beetje in mineur. Zo voel ik het in ieder geval. Zo’n boek waarbij het aan het eind toch allemaal mis gaat. Maar daar is dan weer helemaal niks mis mee.
Earthlings by Sayaka Murata is a wonderfully weird book. Sayaka Murata wrote Convenience Store Woman, which I wrote about a few days ago. Earthlings is another book about people who can not or do not want to fit in.
Natsuki, about ten years old, has declared herself a fairy. Her cuddly Pyuut is from the magic police from another planet and has given Natsuki hate magic. Cousin Yuu is her lover. He is a space creature abandoned by a spaceship in the mountains. They fall in love and “marry” as kids can.
At home, Natsuki is insecure; she is mentally and somewhat physically abused. She wants to belong to “the Factory,” where people produce new people. Therefore, she blames herself for her problems and takes tutoring, but then is mistreated again by the teacher. To protect herself, she has built her magic world. Natsuki grows up in a protected cocoon, controlled by her family.
To escape the pressures of the Factory, she marries a man who, like her, wants to escape society. They have a marriage of convenience to deceive the outside world. They live in this construction for some time, but in the end, their secret is discovered by the people of the Factory – her mother and sister, and they are forced to choose a normal life.
The story degenerates into a gruesome hallucination of Natsuki, her husband, and her cousin Yuu. Earthlings is a grim and socially critical book, written at once humorously and strangely lighthearted.
In a small coffee house in Hakodate, guests can choose to sit at a specific table, usually occupied by a ghost – a man in a suit reading the newspaper all day – and travel through time.
One lady travels back to visit her mother, who left her behind at a young age. A comedian who won a significant comedy award goes back in time to tell his deceased wife the great news about his prize. These are heartbreaking and, at the same time, stories with a lovely lightness. This is one of those great books you don’t come across often.
After immensely enjoying The Storied Life of A. J. Fikry, I picked up a copy of another book by Gabrielle Zevin, Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.
Two nerds, Sam and Sadie, meet each other during their free childhood when Sam is in the hospital for a long time with a broken foot. Sadie visits him regularly. After he is discharged, they lose sight of each other again.
When they study again, they meet again. Both are creative and fond of games. They decide to build a game. Marx, a friend, joins them as a producer.
The game becomes a huge success. They only needed the engine of an obscure friend of Sadie’s, Dov. He turns out to be an oppressive character, leading Sam into a deep depression, which strains their relationship. The game’s sequel also becomes a success. They have since set up a company dedicated to building games and moved from Boston to LA. The relationship between Sam and Sadie remains platonic, going up and down in waves.
The company builds a game with a virtual world in which Sam and Sadie can express their free morals. For example, they create a world where same-sex marriage is not only accepted but celebrated. Sam plays the Mayor of this world. This controversial world leads to furious reactions in the real world from conservative groups who see it as an attack on traditional values. This gets out of hand, and one day, the company is raided, and Marx is shot.
The story devolves into a surreal, dreamlike narrative of Marx lying in his hospital bed, trying to survive. Beautiful style reminiscent of Johnny Got His Gun, the intensely disturbing story about a soldier who wakes up in the hospital and finds that he has lost his sight and his arms and legs. The story about Marx is less disconcerting but beautifully written. The whole experience brings Sam and Sadie back together.
