A Japanese Summer in London and The Great Masturbation Novel

Being a book nerd, I like to set myself mini-literary seasons. It's like running a festival at which you are the only person attending. (Screw you, Hay-on-Wye!)

Japan has been the theme of the past month. I've just started David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet. Long-listed for the Booker a few days ago, the novel is set on the artificial island of Dejima during the nation's closed years and charts the experiences of Dutch clerk Jacob as he attempts to bring order to the Company's books. A relative innocent in a corrupt trading post, he encounters swindlers and liars, and observes the coming together of Japanese and European culture on what is the only point of contact between 'The Cloistered Empire' and Eighteenth Century Europe. I'm only a few chapters in but already I'm impressed. Mitchell's dialogue is spot-on, full of wit and double meanings. Dejima is realised in such a way as to emphasise the mutual strangeness of the Japanese and the Dutch. Although separated by language and culture (a gap that is, however, being slowly bridged) , political machinations are revealed as common to both parties. The romantic plot also appears to be building nicely.

De Zoet wonders whether the Japanese enjoy self-sacrifice and this brings me neatly on to Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima. This was recommended to me by the lovely staff at Daunt, who clearly think that I have a taste for sado-masochistic gay literature. A semi-autobiographical text, it chronicles a young Mishima's growing awareness of his homosexuality and his desire for beautiful, suffering men. Every gay man loves a martyr and Mishima was no different. His first ejaculation is prompted by a picture of the arrow-punctured Saint Sebastian and the image remains an object of erotic obsession throughout his life. Mishima even posed as the saint for this photograph. The book is shockingly frank, frequently beautiful and occasionally repulsive. Misihima's sexual fantasies often involve inflicting pain upon others and, as a result, this is not a read for the faint of heart. One of the best, and most intriguing, things I've come across in a long time. It deals uniquely with common gay topics: denial, performance, youth and martyrdom. It's the greatest, and only, book about masturbation that I know of. Yes, I thought the same, where are all the other Great Masturbation Novels? Discuss.

Natsume Soseki's novel of romatic and sexual awakening is a great deal less explicit. It's protagonist declines the friendly attentions of a fellow train passenger. He's from a small village, you see, and inexperienced. But Tokyo, THE BIG CITY: NOW WITH ADDED ELECTRIC LIGHTS, is to change all that. Published 1908-9, Sanshiro is to Japan what Sentimental Education is to France and Great Expectations to Britain. Provincial boy falls for unattainable girl. Progresses from innocence to experience in the modern city. The novel definitely holds up against anything written by Flaubert or Dickens. It's elegant, witty and, in its presentation of unrequited first love, deeply moving. It wrung tears from my cynical heart. That's not to say it's all youthful angst. It's a great campus novel. Soseki delights in poking fun at students, lecturers, and internal university politics. If I have one criticism, it's that the novel pushes the 'Ancient vs. Modern' line a bit too much. An important topic, particularly in Meiji era Japan, but I could have done without so many laboured references to electric light.

A Chaste Man In Kentish Town Road

There is a hotel in South London with rooms that have been moulded out of white. Pure, Daz-The-Soap-You-Can-Believe-In white. And, this morning, in one of these rooms, I had a job interview. During this potentially employment-inducing event, I may, or may not, have confessed to sociopathic tendencies. Encounters with strangers tend to produce this compulsion to confess slightly unnerving personality traits. I like to think it makes an impact, which probably explains why I'm never going to be a careers advisor. 'Go forth and disturb your interviewer' is not, I believe, what your average Job Centre employee would recommend.

Root of this melodramatic confession? My recently discovered ability to terrify people I care for with drunken tears and multiple texts declaring my undying love. The text was not made for poetry nor do Vedett-tainted tears a desirable lover make. Two lessons, learnt the hard way. I hereby make a vow of emotional chastity. Or, at the very least, emotional restraint. I will remember that life is not a soap opera and that, as a result, bar room confrontations rarely end in lifetime partnerships. My emotional investment is not to go beyond my deep concern for the Little Goblin Man who lives next door.


All this will, no doubt, fail miserably.

Picture: Thomas Middleton. As far as scholars are aware, never drank Vedett.

Clapton Sun

Yesterday, a friend and I ventured out to Clapton for ice cream and orange juice and to continue my summertime trawl of London's best bookshops. Post-university and pre-employment, I've been spending a considerable amount of my time ambling around bookshops, making lists of possible books for my own literary season (more of which in a future post) and imagining the amazing bookshop/tea room that I will one day own. I feel as if that statement requires an evil laugh of the 'mwahaha' variety but, to be honest, it's far too hot for evil laughter.

Anyway, this week my ambling took me to 'Pages of Hackney' on Lower Clapton Road. It's very small and very sweet with wonderfully high bookcases and a gallery space in the basement. When we arrived yesterday, preparations were being made for the opening of an exhibition by Luisa Alpalhao. The basement is also home to a small, yet interesting, selection of second-hand books. Every good bookshop should also be within short distance of a decent cafe and Parioli, a little Italian place a few doors down, comes recommended by the staff at 'Pages'. They were a little low on ice cream when we visited (I feared rage on the part of my flatmate, as a result) but the remaining scoops were pretty good and there were lots of other tempting sweet treats on offer. Alas, Pages is yet another bookshop for me to spend too much time in.

Dance Magic Dance 2

This should have been attached to the previous post. David Bowie is super. Labyrinth always reminds me of this.

Dance Magic Dance

Since March, exams have been studied for, stressed over and passed. Gigs have been attended, films watched and books read. Many a life drama has been dealt with badly. At present, I am riding the all too calm waters of unemployment, spending my days avoiding newspaper articles about graduate unemployment and skulking mysteriously about bookshops.

Aforesaid skulking has resulted in a couple of book purchases..


Bicycle Diaries, David Byrne -


I bought this as an incentive to learn to cycle. Having been a petulant and easily intimidated child, I never learnt to ride a bike. My first and only attempt at cycling was abruptly ended by a privet hedge and, having an awareness of the power of nature from a young age, I took this as a sign that I was never meant to be a cyclist. But now I am a man. And real men cycle. Unless they're in Sons of Anarchy, in which case they ride bikes bigger than my bedroom and that appear to necessitate peculiar walks.


Byrne is, to say the least, evangelical about cycling. Cycling proves to be a great way of appreciating the various ways in which cities work. I enjoy books that have an unpredictable and ambling feel to them and Byrne's book is full of illuminating asides on urban planning, the music industry and cultural stereotypes. The cover is also rather lovely.

Your Face Tomorrow: Fever and Spear, Javier Marias -


I haven't read this yet as, according to the blurb, it 'illuminates how trust and betrayal characterise all human relationships'.

Exam period is approaching fast and Easter break is looking decidedly stormy. I thought that a neat way to counteract life/exam stress would be a list of things that have made me happy over the past couple of weeks:

1. Waking up from a nap on the tube to discover the guy opposite staring at me. Guy then puts palms together and imitates sleep. This should have been creepy but actually reminded me that wonderful and strange moments can happen on the tube. Or it may have just been creepy....

2. Another tube story. Listening to a guy reading 'The World According to Hamsters' aloud to his daugher. I now respect hamsters more than I did before.

3. Writing a ridiculous short story about the Woodpecker King and transforming it into a book.

4. Waltzing at Palace of Justice gigs.

There are plenty more but I should probably go to bed now.

Put the fish in the boat and we'll have it for dinner..

This is my blog and it's going to be about stuff. I have no idea what kind of stuff but it will probably include the following:

Tales of random encounters on the 134.

Attempts to be of a cheerful disposition with the occasional lapse into violent misanthropy.

Excited posts about books and bookshops and blogs and music and tea.

Hopefully, it will be an adventure!