Go

Abstract

Kazuki Kaneshiro Go Trans. Takami Nieda. Seattle. AmazonCrossing. 2018. 161 pages. Kazuki Kaneshiro’s (b. 1968) Naoki Prize– winning Go begins with a famous epigraph from Romeo and Juliet and sets, thereby, both the scene and our expectations. The “rose” we are asked to ponder is Sugihara, a Zainichi (resident of Japan) Korean whose quest for recognition as a human being deserving dignity and basic rights forcefully asks the reader to consider “What’s in a name?” Although Sugihara has concealed his name and transferred to a Japanese school, a move that brands him an “ethnic traitor,” he cannot escape the fetters of his birth nationality. The story, adeptly translated by Takami Nieda, interleaves two related narratives: that of Sugihara’s understandably violent progress through the gauntlet of life in Japan as a minority and his unexpectedly tender efforts to understand and, ultimately , keep vital his relationship with Sakurai, a mysterious Japanese woman he meets at a party. The tension between these two threads, and the ease with which the story weaves them together in contrapuntal commentary on both love and resentment, situate Go comfortably in the pantheon of other works of youthful rebellion. Hence, the epigraph. The protagonist is redolent of other literary rebels such as Holden Caulfield. Kaneshiro is not in the same league as Salinger; however, his protagonist’s anger is palpably, viscerally real, although directed toward a discriminatory society rather than adults in general. Sugihara’s seemingly blasé attitude toward the violence that surrounds him masks both his and the author’s, we might infer, long-simmering frustration toward an unforgiving system that seeks to trap him even as he strives to live a life free of prejudice by whatever means he might. His frustrated narrative drew me in as few books have done . . . and against my will. The epigraph already told me all I needed to know, I had thought, and being pulled in by a story so well worn was not the message. Because I found Go to be more satisfyingly compelling than I had imagined, I World Literature in Review 76 WLT JULY–AUGUST 2018 was doubly frustrated with the dénouement . The end twist seems calculated to corral the novel into the narrowly defined pigeonhole against which it so resolutely struggled. It was not so much the pat ending as its swiftness that rankled. Even so, Go is a novel well worth reading, one that offers a sobering insight into racial conflict and social justice. Erik R. Lofgren Bucknell University Tim Winton The Shepherd’s Hut New York. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2018. 288 pages. Set in western Australia, Tim Winton’s newest novel features a teenager who wants to escape an abusive home but can’t do so until his parents pass. Anger, a determination to get to a beloved cousin in another town, and a thoughtlessness in leaving that could make him a fugitive suspected of murder all mix to create an unstable character in Jaxie Clackton. This is familiar territory for Winton, who seems to specialize in damaged adults or children on their way to becoming damaged . In many of his short stories, one encounters a naturalistic situation: a victim of abuse in an environment that offers few options, the mind shackled to place. At the ends of such stories, the characters are usually free, still alive, carrying the readers’ hopes for a better future. That’s certainly true of The Shepherd’s Hut. The narrator holds the reader inside his telling, day by day as he walks away, cultivating a sense of being trapped. Only after he meets Fintan McGillis, an old man living as a hermit in a former shepherd’s hut, are there scenes with dialogue. In a sense, Jaxie seeks stability or peace by learning to understand Fintan. Though he wants to move on, he is held by his curiosity and a grudging affection. Winton shines when describing the landscape, the dry salt lake, jutting rocks, scrub bush, the itching feel of dirt, wild goats, mirages at the end of the day; he likewise captures the flavor of a teen’s language and confusions. Fintan, necessarily , is described from the outside, but his thoughts about...