12.4

'"I am very sorry," said little Hans, rubbing his eyes and pulling off his night-cap, "but I was so tired that I thought I would lie in bed for a little time, and listen to the birds singing. Do you know that I always work better after hearing the birds sing?"
    '"Well, I am glad of that," said the Miller, clapping little Hans on the back, "for I want you to come up to the mill as soon as you are dressed, and mend my barn-roof for me."
    'Poor little Hans was very anxious to go and work in his garden, for his flowers had not been watered for two days, but he did not like to refuse the Miller, as he was such a good friend to him.
    '"Do you think it would be unfriendly of me if I said I was busy?" he inquired in a shy and timid voice.
    '"Well, really," answered the Miller, "I do not think it is much to ask of you, considering that I am going to give you my wheelbarrow; but of course if you refuse I will go and do it myself."
    '"Oh! on no account," cried little Hans; and he jumped out of bed, and dressed himself, and went up to the barn.
    'He worked there all day long, till sunset, and at sunset the Miller came to see how he was getting on.
    '"Have you mended the hole in the roof yet, little Hans?" cried the Miller in a cheery voice.
    '"It is quite mended," answered little Hans, coming down the ladder.
    '"Ah!" said the Miller, "there is no work so delightful as the work one does for others."
    '"It is certainly a great privilege to hear you talk," answered little Hans, sitting down and wiping his forehead, "a very great privilege. But I am afraid I shall never have such beautiful ideas as you have."
    '"Oh! they will come to you," said the Miller, "but you must take more pains. At present you have only the practice of friendship; some day you will have the theory also."
    '"Do you really think I shall?" asked little Hans.
    '"I have no doubt of it," answered the Miller; "but now that you have mended the roof, you had better go home and rest, for I want you to drive my sheep to the mountain to-morrow."
    'Poor little Hans was afraid to say anything to this, and early the next morning the Miller brought his sheep round to the cottage, and Hans started off with them to the mountain. It took him the whole day to get there and back; and when he returned he was so tired that he went off to sleep in his chair, and did not wake up till it was broad daylight.

'"What a delightful time I shall have in my garden," he said, and he went to work at once.
    'But somehow he was never able to look after his flowers at all, for his friend the Miller was always coming round and sending him off on long errands, or getting him to help at the mill. Little Hans was very much distressed at times, as he was afraid his flowers would think he had forgotten them, but he consoled himself by the reflection that the Miller was his best friend. "Besides," he used to say, "he is going to give me his wheelbarrow, and that is an act of pure generosity."
    'So little Hans worked away for the Miller, and the Miller said all kinds of beautiful things about friendship, which Hans took down in a note-book, and used to read over at night, for he was a very good scholar.
    'Now it happened that one evening little Hans was sitting by his fireside when a loud rap came at the door. It was a very wild night, and the wind was blowing and roaring round the house so terribly that at first he thought it was merely the storm. But a second rap came, and then a third, louder than either of the others.
    '"It is some poor traveller," said little Hans to himself, and he ran to the door.
    'There stood the Miller with a lantern in one hand and a big stick in the other.
    '"Dear little Hans," cried the Miller, "I am in great trouble. My little boy has fallen off a ladder and hurt himself, and I am going for the Doctor. But he lives so far away, and it is such a bad night, that it has just occurred to me that it would be much better if you went instead of me. You know I am going to give you my wheelbarrow, and so it is only fair that you should do something for me in return."
    '"Certainly," cried little Hans, "I take it quite as a compliment your coming to me, and I will start off at once. But you must lend me your lantern, as the night is so dark that I am afraid I might fall into the ditch."
    '"I am very sorry," answered the Miller, "but it is my new lantern, and it would be a great loss to me if anything happened to it."
    '"Well, never mind, I will do without it," cried little Hans, and he took down his great fur coat, and his warm scarlet cap, and tied a muffler round his throat, and started off.

-------

12.5

 'What a dreadful storm it was! The night was so black that little Hans could hardly see, and the wind was so strong that he could scarcely stand. However, he was very courageous, and after he had been walking about three hours, he arrived at the Doctor's house, and knocked at the door.
    '"Who is there?"' cried the Doctor, putting his head out of his bedroom window.
    '"Little Hans, Doctor."
    '"What do you want, little Hans?"
    '"The Miller's son has fallen from a ladder, and has hurt himself, and the Miller wants you to come at once."
    '"All right!" said the Doctor; and he ordered his horse, and his big boots, and his lantern, and came downstairs, and rode off in the direction of the Miller's house, little Hans trudging behind him.
    'But the storm grew worse and worse, and the rain fell in torrents, and little Hans could not see where he was going, or keep up with the horse. At last he lost his way, and wandered off on the moor, which was a very dangerous place, as it was full of deep holes, and there poor little Hans was drowned. His body was found the next day by some goatherds, floating in a great pool of water, and was brought back by them to the cottage. 'Everybody went to little Hans's funeral, as he was so popular, and the Miller was the chief mourner.
    '"As I was his best friend," said the Miller, "it is only fair that I should have the best place;" so he walked at the head of the procession in a long black cloak, and every now and then he wiped his eyes with a big pocket-handkerchief.
    '"Little Hans is certainly a great loss to every one," said the Blacksmith, when the funeral was over, and they were all seated comfortably in the inn, drinking spiced wine and eating sweet cakes.
    '"A great loss to me at any rate," answered the Miller; "why, I had as good as given him my wheelbarrow, and now I really don't know what to do with it. It is very much in my way at home, and it is in such bad repair that I could not get anything for it if I sold it. I will certainly take care not to give away anything again. One always suffers for being generous."
    'Well?' said the Water-rat, after a long pause. 'Well, that is the end,' said the Linnet.
    'But what became of the Miller?' asked the Water-rat. 'Oh! I really don't know,' replied the Linnet, 'and I am sure that I don't care.'

'It is quite evident then that you have no sympathy in your nature,' said the Water-rat.
    'I am afraid you don't quite see the moral of the story,' remarked the Linnet.
    'The what?' screamed the Water-rat.
    'The moral.'
    'Do you mean to say that the story has a moral?'
    'Certainly,' said the Linnet.
    'Well, really,' said the Water-rat, in a very angry manner, 'I think you should have told me that before you began. If you had done so, I certainly would not have listened to you; in fact, I should have said "Pooh," like the critic. However, I can say it now;' so he shouted out 'Pooh' at the top of his voice, gave a whisk with his tail, and went back into his hole.
    'And how do you like the Water-rat?' asked the Duck, who came paddling up some minutes afterwards. 'He has a great many good points, but for my own part I have a mother's feelings, and I can never look at a confirmed bachelor without the tears coming into my eyes.'
    'I am rather afraid that I have annoyed him,' answered the Linnet. 'The fact is, that I told him a story with a moral.
    'Ah! that is always a very dangerous thing to do,' said the Duck.
    And I quite agree with her

--------------

Originally written by Paul Sutton on January 6, 2009 4:59 PM Just (re)read the Murakami story and the tears are still in my eyes. Thanks Nana! He is just the greatest. (He and Cortázar.) Whenever I read Murakami, I always find deep resonances with what I'm doing, or just did.

Thank you, Paul. It means a lot to me that you (and other people too) can see the beauty in Murakami's books and short stories. I was introduced to A Wild Sheep Chase by a close Japanese friend.

Interesting about the resonance. It wasn't till I read the second book, Dance Dance Dance that my heart jumped into my throat. I knew then that Murakami had something to say that I wanted to hear.

I appreciate your sharing, Paul.

Nanna

Originally written by Paul Sutton on January 6, 2009 5:54 PM here's another quote I like, read in a recent interview with Yoko Ono : "Vibrations from love or music can be felt everywhere, at all times."

Yoko Ono opened her exhibiton in Warsaw three months ago. “During the opening in Warsaw, she asked the audience to join in a performance of switching on a torch and saying "I love you." (http://www.warsawvoice.pl/view/18717) We were thus invited to send and receive “I Love You” messages with small flashlights to and from Yoko Ono, but I must say  there was not too much enthusiasm about that in the audience. “The message "I love you" sent by Yoko Ono at her opening in Warsaw in September, as well as other spiritual suggestions, were just repetition from the hippie times, with no power today,” wrote the satirical http://thekrasnals.blogspot.com/2008/10/yoko-ono-i-love-you-catholic-voice-at.html

For more on Yoko Ono's interaction with the public today see for example this info on how to use Onochord flashlights she distributes during her performances:

Onochord | IMAGINE PEACE

The fact is that both Yoko Ono's and Dalai Lama's recent visits to Warsaw generated an enormous interest and resulted in huge lines of people waiting to get in and see those events.

A tribute to the poster and the lovely idea found in post #172904 and dedicated to Paul Sutton.

HARUKI MURAKAMI

WHERE I'M LIKELY TO FIND IT

Translated by Philip Gabriel

13.1

My husband's father was run over by a streetcar three years ago and died," the woman said, and paused.

I didn't say a word, just looked her right in the eyes and nodded twice. During the pause, I glanced at the half-dozen pencils in the pen tray, checking to see how sharp they were. Like a golfer carefully selecting the right club, I deliberated over which one to use, finally picking one that wasn't too sharp or too worn, but just right.

"The whole thing's a little embarrassing," the woman said.

Keeping my opinion to myself, I laid a memo pad in front of me and tested the pencil by writing down the date and the woman's name.

"There aren't many streetcars left in Tokyo," she went on. "They've switched to buses most everywhere. The few that are left are kind of a memento to the past, I guess. And it was one of those that killed my father-in-law." She gave a silent sigh. "This was the night of October first, three years ago. It was pouring that night."

I noted down the basics of her story. Father-in-law, three years ago, streetcar, heavy rain, October 1, night. I like to take great care when I write, so it took a while to note all this down.  

"My father-in-law was completely drunk at the time. Obviously, otherwise he wouldn't have fallen asleep on a rainy night on the streetcar tracks."

She fell silent again, lips closed, her eyes steadily gazing at me. She was probably wanting me to agree with her.

"He must have been pretty drunk," I said.

"So drunk he passed out."

"Did your father-in-law often drink that much?"

"You mean did he often so much that he passed out?"

I nodded.

"He got drunk every once in a while," she admitted. "But not all the time, and never so drunk that he'd fall asleep on the streetcar tracks."

How drunk would you have to be to fall asleep on the rails of a streetcar line? I wondered. Was the amount the person drank the main issue? Or did it have more to do with why he was getting drunk in the first place?

"What you're saying is that he got drunk sometimes, but usually not falling-down drunk?" I asked.

"That's the way I see it," she replied.

"May I ask your age, if you don't mind?"

"You want to know how old I am?"

"You don't have to answer if you don't want to."

The woman rubbed the bridge of her nose with index finger. It was a lovely, perfectly straight nose. My guess was she had recently had plastic surgery. I used to go out with a woman who had the same habit. She'd had a nose job, and whenever she was thinking about something, she rubbed the bridge with her index finger. As if she were making sure her brand-new nose was still there. Looking at this woman in front of me now brought on a mild case of déju vu. Which in turn, conjured up vague memories of oral sex.

"I'm not trying to hide my age or anything," the woman said, "I'm thirty-five."

"And how old was your father-in-law when he died?"

"Sixty-eight." 

"What did he do? His job, I mean."

"He was a priest."

"By priest you mean a Buddhist priest?"

"That's right. A Buddhist priest. Of the Jodo sect. He was head of a temple in the Toshima Ward."

"That must have been a real shock," I said.

"That my father-in-law was run over by a street car?"

"yes."

"Of course it was a shock. Especially for my husband," the woman said.

I noted some more things down on my memo pad. Priest, Jodo sect, 68.

The woman was sitting at one end of my love seat. I was in my swivel chair behind my desk. Two yards separated us. She had on a sharp looking sage green suit. He legs were beautiful, and her stockings matched her black high-heeled shoes. The stilettos looked like some kind of deadly weapon.

"So, what you've come to ask me," I said, "concerns your husband's late father?"

"No. It's not about him," she said. She shook her head slightly a couple of times to emphasize the negative. "It's about my husband."

-------

Originally written by Nanna Mercer on April 4, 2009 11:17 AM ...dedicated to Paul Sutton...

Today had been a very hard day for me, for many reasons. So I absent-mindedly log in here (something I hadn't done for ages) quite late (remember I'm a country lad who gets up before dawn), and Nanna's gentleness warms my heart. Thank you so much Nanna!

RIght now I'm reading Rubin Jay's biography of Murakami. I quite like his translations, but I'm not really keen on his analysis. Shit, I mean if the writer himself says there's no particular symbolic significance in writing about sheep, elephants or whatever, then let's accept that. There again, he's not as bad as the idiot critic (can't remember who) who described Sputnik Sweetheart as a study into lesbianism. That's just about the most mindless crap I have ever heard. If Sumire falls in love with a woman, it's just because unencumbered by the need to deal with sexual jealously, Murakami can concentrate purely on the power of the hero's love for Sumire.

On reflection, I think Sputnik Sweetheart and South of the Border are my favourites. I've probably said this before, and not just once, but I don't think anything outside music has ever moved me so much. The guy is just an absolute genius, the brightest of my literary lighthouse figures.

Interesting to find that Murakami has a rare understanding of how language actually works, from a linguistics point of view: "It is my unswerving belief that all languages are of fundamentally equal value, and without such a recognition there is no possibility of genuine cultural exchange". That's a real translator talking!