January Reads
Rock star memoirs can be hit and miss but Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth has always been a thoughtful, interesting person so I was looking forward to reading this very much, and it didn’t disappoint. It goes from his childhood up to the final Sonic Youth album in 2009 but the bulk of the book focuses on his late teens/early 20s in the heart of the punk/No Wave scenes in late 70s/early 80s New York which was exactly what I hoped for. Moore has a poetic yet readable style and really brings to life the excitement of being a skint teenager sneaking in to CBGBs to see the Ramones, Blondie, The Dead Boys, Patti Smith et al. He goes into some technical detail on the musical side of Sonic Youth which I just lapped up (the 33 1/3 book on Daydream Nation, for example, focuses mainly on the lyrics which I always think are the least interesting part of most rock songs) particularly when he digs into their weird tunings. He barely mentions the divorce from Kim Gordon that ended the band, pointedly saying that he’s not going to use it to sell books (perhaps a dig at Gordon, whose Girl in a Band memoir really goes to town on the subject) which was fine by me—celebrity scandal is dull—but I could have done with it being brought up to date: there’s no mention of his solo albums and other projects. Perhaps a volume two is in the works? I hope so.
An Isobar Press book that I picked up in October at the Japan Writers Conference, Sanki Saito was a part of the “New Rising Haiku” (basically “modernising”) scene in the early to mid part of the 20th century and a wonderful writer. Translating him has been Masaya Saito’s (no relation) life work (Isobar also published his translation of Saito’s memoir, The Kobe Hotel) and it’s easy to see why one could get lost in Sanki Saito’s world. Translator Masaya Saito is an excellent poet in his own right, whose book Snow Bones I use in my creative writing classes. If you are at all interested in haiku then this is a must-buy collection.
Scottish author Tony (T. Y.) Garner’s debut novel The Hotel Hokusai centres around a murder in 19th century Yokohama investigated by young Korean worker Han and Scottish painter Archie Nish (a fictional member of the Glasgow Boys: George Henry and Edward Hornel, real Scottish painters who visited Japan in the 1890s, are also characters in the novel). Ringwood sent me an advance copy in the hope that I would provide an endorsement blurb which, after reading, I was very happy to do. I said:
Evocative and atmospheric, The Hotel Hokusai brings the colourful, bustling world of 19th century Yokohama to life. Packed with memorable characters, drama, mystery and humour, this is an impressive and ambitious debut from a talented new voice.
Kurodahan sent me a copy of The Cthulhu Helix which I’ll review properly for Shoreline of Infinity. I have to admit to a certain lack of enthusiasm. I’ve never been a particular fan of H. P. Lovecraft, so an SF novel that riffs on his ideas didn’t seem up my street. However Japanese SF in translation is a rarity, so I was willing to give it a go. I’m glad I did. It’s awesome. A hardboiled noir narrator, lashings of action, and a solid foundation of actual science fiction, heavy on the science. It’s split into five action packed sections that kept me guessing how it would play out right until the end. If you like classical military SF, this is one for you, and what’s more, a working knowledge of Lovecraft isn’t required.
The latest issue of Monkey is as good as ever with new translations of stories by writers like Hiroko Oyamada, Hiromi Kawakami, and Mieko Kawakami as well as a poem by my perennial favourite Hideo Furukawa.