This is the latest in Pushkin Press’ series showcasing contemporary Japanese writing, all brightly packaged and all elegantly slim. It’s the third I’ve read: I started with Hiromi Kawakami’s surreal Record of a Night Too Brief, having enjoyed both Strange Weather in Tokyo and The Nakano Thrift Shop, then ended last year’s reviews with Mieko Kawakami’s Ms Ice Sandwich. Toshiyuki Horie’s The Bear and the Paving Stone is made up of three stories: one not quite long enough to be a novella, the other two much briefer.
The eponymous story sees a Japanese translator, educated in Paris and back from Tokyo on a visit, contact a friend he met as a student but has not seen for some time. Yann suggests they meet in Normandy where he now lives. It’s to be a brief visit as he has a photographic assignment in Ireland the next day. The two pick up where they left off five years ago, discussing all manner of things from the decimation of Yann’s family in the Second World War to the narrator’s project, translating a biography of the renowned lexicographer Lettré whose family originated in Normandy. Yann leaves the next day but the narrator stays, engaging in a little desultory research and coming to a surprising conclusion.
In ‘The Sandman is Coming’ a man visits his best friend’s family on the second anniversary of the friend’s death. Walking along the beach with his friend’s sister and her little girl, they recall her love of sand castles and our narrator is surprised by a vivid memory. A letter from a friend prompts a man to remember a night when he took fright in ‘In the Old Castle’. Locked in an old Normandy fortress by an officious groundsman he had a sudden understanding of freedom’s preciousness.
All three of these pieces are narrated in the first person making them both immediate and vividly impressionistic – from the titular story’s opening with its sea of bears stretching up into the mountains, to the lovely seashore exploration of the second. All three are closely linked by themes of memory and friendship. ‘The Bear and the Paving Stone’ ends on a particularly pleasing ‘madeleine’ moment with the narrator greedily biting into a tarte tatin only to be met with a piercing pain in a troublesome molar and remembering a similar moment with a carrot cake made for him by Yan. These are quietly enjoyable stories, elegantly polished. I hope Pushkin Press have a few more up their sleeves.
I’m yet to read something bad by Pushkin Press. It sounds like this is a worthy addition to their catalogue!
Yes, they’re up there with Oneworld for me.
Lovely review, Susan. This sounds like a pleasant read. I love Japanese fiction.
Me, too, Belinda, although – perhaps because of its setting – this one had a much more European feel about it.
I’ve not yet read a Pushkin Press book but I think I need to. This sounds intriguing.
They have a great backlist to explore, Janet. Well worth investigating.
It’s wonderful to find a press whose catalogue can double as a reading list, because you so trust what they produce. I love that!
They’re a small press, too, so I’m very happy to support them.
I really enjoyed Record of a Night Too Brief but I haven’t yet read any of the others. I find Japanese literature very hit and miss: sometimes I love it but on other occasions it leaves me cold. These editions from Pushkin are a great way to read new writers though.
It’s an interesting series. This one’s quite different from the other two I’ve read. It has a much more European feel about it which could be the setting or perhaps the translation.
I loved The Bear and the Paving Stone too! This is my first book from Pushkin Press, and I have heard loads about it. Stumbled upon your review while writing my own. Great site here 🙂
Thank you! Lots to explore at Pushkin Press. They’re a great publisher. Hope you find lots of other titles you enjoy.