Akiyuki Nosaka (1930–2015)

3+ stars
I really wanted to like this book a lot, but it just didn't happen. An outstanding film was made by Studio Ghibli based on one of this author's stories: Grave of the Fireflies. That story is not included here, and I had never read that story. As far as I could tell this present collection of 12 stories is the only available book that has been translated into English excepting for an earlier version that had 7 stories according to info at the back of this book. However, I did find online what appears to be Grave of the Fireflies, translated, here: https://www.gwern.net/docs/anime/1978-nosaka.pdf. I skimmed this and it is very recognizable as the story in the film. Well written, too.

This collection, if you look around, gets almost entirely 4 and 5 star reviews and is heaped with praise. I'm not at a loss, but I just don't think it was that praiseworthy. Events are somewhat repetitive. A couple of these stories are rather weak - either imperfectly translated or poorly written in the first place, or both. I would say these are children's stories and deal with the end of World War II, primarily in Japan and the effect on everything but especially children and animals. Death, starvation, towns and cities razed to nothingness over and over, there is a lot of it. Each story is dated August 15, 1945, the day the story ends. That is the day that Victory over Japan was declared and Emperor Hirohito announced over the radio airwaves that Japan had surrendered. It was the first time the general public had ever heard the Emperor speak. It is an interesting and odd speech of surrender https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiGtQ8mu1qc

But I digress ... these are sad and depressing stories that will tug at you.

I read the first two stories early this year and put the book aside. I re-read them this time along with all the stories.

The 12 stories are:

The Whale That Fell in Love with a Submarine
The Parrot and the Boy
The Mother That Turned Into a Kite
The Old She-Wolf and the Little Girl
The Red Dragonfly and the Cockroach
The Prisoner of War and the Little Girl
The Cake Tree in the Ruins
The Elephant and Its Keeper
A Soldier's Family
My Home Bunker
A Balloon in August
The Soldier and the Horse

I thought "The Old She-Wolf and the Little Girl" was a really good story and possibly my favorite. This one was set in China with the Japanese fleeing at the end of the war as the Soviets attack. Very sad story with a very sad end.

In "The Elephant and Its Keeper", which was first published in 1975 the author writes: "Too many undernourished people and animals appear in these stories, I know, but it was wartime, after all."

"A Balloon in August" was about the Japanese plan to attack the American mainland with fire balloons. Interesting.… (lisätietoja)

(ARC was provided to read and review.)

The book contains seven short stories which are all set on the 15th of August 1945, the day Japan surrendered in WW II.
The stories are told in the style of children's fables and often an animal plays a mayor part in them (whale, parrot, she-wolf, cockroach). The language is clear and often even poetic, but happy tales they are not. War is cruel and it's the innocent children who suffer the most. In this stories children die, suffer, starve to death. These are stories which make you think, which will linger with you for a long time and which also offer a good glimpse into life in Japan during the second World War and the Japanese way of thinking, where it's a disgrace to be a POW and a great honour to kill yourself as a kamikaze bomber.

The Whale That Fell in Love with a Submarine is the story of a whale, who has problems finding a female partner as he is too big in size for his species, the sardine whales. He lives a lonely life, until he happens to come across a Japanese submarine, where the crew has just heard the news, that the war is over, but they aren't sure if they should believe it or if they are just tricked by the enemy.
They decide to not give up fighting in any case, when the whale starts to basically rock the boat, showing his affection, for what he believes is a female whale and hopefully the love of his life.
Their close encounter is disturbed by the arrival of American warships and when the attack towards the submarine is launched, the whale doesn't want to leave his partner and tries to protect "her".
It doesn't end well for the poor whale, but his sacrifice wasn't in vain, it leads to an interesting shift in thought aboard the submarine.

In The Parrot and the Boy, an eight year old child tries to survive by itself in an air raid shelter at the foothills of the mountains. The only company he has, is his pet parrot, who can speak. He has already been hiding since a couple of weeks night and day in the shelter and why he is there all alone is heart breaking, as is the end of the story.

The Mother that Turned into a Kite is the story, which touched me the most and which I will remember for some time to come. A mother tries to save her child from burning to death, after their way to the air raid shelter is cut off by scorching flames, following the bombardment of their town. The end is sad and poetic, both at the same time.

The Old She-Wolf and the Little Girl. Here a mother has to leave her young daughter behind, fleeing from their town. The child suffers from measels and the group is afraid, that she might give it to all of the other children. The mother, who has two young boys to consider, too, assumes, that her daughter won't survive the high fever and puts her into a basket with some food, then places her in the long grass. There the girl is found by an elderly she-wolf soon after and the two found an unlikely bond. Again it doesn't end all smiles.

The Red Dragonfly and the Cockroach is the story of a young kamikaze bomber pilot, who loses directions over the ocean on his way to commit suicide in order to attack the enemy and has to perform an emergency landing on an island. Main reason for the landing is his unlikely friend, a pet cockroach, which he took with him and now deeply regrets his decision, as he would prefer for the animal to survive, instead of having to die, too.

The Prisoner of War and the Little Girl is the tale of an American POW, who escaped during a bombing from the prison camp and has made his way to the air raid shelters up at the hillside. There he has taken refuge. After some days a six or seven year old Japanese girl turns up, who has lost both her parents and the two become friends and hide in the selter until the war is over. The end of the story is excellent, as it shows, that the official end ot the war is just the beginning of a long process to trust each other again.

The last story The Cake Tree in the Ruins made me actually smile and here we have a happy ending, at least for some children in the story.
A group of starving children discovers a mysterious tree in the burned out ruins of the town. They find out, that the twigs ot the tree are edible and taste delicious and they regrow, which means they will always find something to eat. The tree is a Baumkuchen tree. Baumkuchen (tree cake) is a German cake, where layer upon layer is heated up and finally the whole thing is covered in chocolate. It's usually a Christmas treat in certain regions of Germany and I love to eat the stuff.

Overall the book contains a set of excellent stories, which are a combination of war literature and children's fables. As the most of them are very dark with sad endings where often children die, they aren't stories for young kids. They are more suitable for older children and teens, where
WW II is subject during history lessons.
The award-winning author, Akiyuki Nosaka, knows, sadly, very well, what he's writing about, his adoptive parents were killed in the bombing of Kobe, Japan in 1945 and just 14 years old he fled with his younger sister to an evacuation camp, where she died of starvation.
Mika Provata-Carlone's illustrations are wonderful black and white drawings and they tie in perfectly.… (lisätietoja)

Le livre comprend deux nouvelles : La tombe des lucioles et Les Algues d'Amérique, assez diamétralement opposées dans leur style et radicalement différentes dans leur portée.
Les Algues d'Amérique constituent la face B du livre avec une histoire plutôt grinçante et grotesque dans l'évocation délibérément ambivalente du sentiment que nourrissent les Japonais à l'égard des Américains après la seconde guerre mondiale. Sentiment fait de fascination et de haine, de compétition et de mépris.
Mais c'est la première nouvelle-titre qui retient particulièrement l'attention et saisit carrément le lecteur d'effroi par la force de sa narration, le caractère tragique de son histoire largement empruntée aux propres souvenirs d'enfance de Nosaka.
Le décor est celui de l'enfer des bombardements et des incendies qui ravagent Kôbe à la fin de la seconde guerre mondiale, semant partout la famine, la destruction et la mort. Décor rendu encore plus poignant par l'errance d'un adolescent et de sa petite sœur dont le père est parti à la guerre et dont la mère succombe. Orphelins temporairement recueillis chez une tante n'ayant pas envie de leur porter secours, ils se retrouvent face à eux-mêmes, sans nourriture et sans protection, et se réfugient dans "une cave en forme de U". La solitude de l'enfance assassinée prend avec une intensité poignante le visage de Seita, adolescent vaillant et protecteur, et celui de sa petite sœur Setsuko qui ne se sépare jamais de sa poupée, dont les bras et les jambes sont plus rebondis que ceux de sa petite propriétaire qui s'étiole et s'éteint peu à peu.
Le texte touche et hante par sa capacité à dépeindre l'horreur avec crudité, poésie et réalisme tout à la fois.… (lisätietoja)