Ghosts of the Tsunami – An Emotionally Devastating Chronicle of the World’s Worst Natural Calamity

It’s not difficult to offer condolences and prayers to the communities devastated by natural disaster. We may watch the disaster news coverage with mild shock and feel horrified by watching videos of people consumed by giant waves in real-time. Yet the excessive coverage of mayhem and death kind of creates an emotional detachment or desensitizes viewers. If we are not among those whose lives are altered by the natural disaster, the death toll and other astounding statistics tend to defy comprehension, holding us back from understanding the real human & environmental costs. In the study of such calamities, there’s a need for more personalized, deeply empathetic approach which should convey a lot more than the quantitative figures. British author and journalist Richard Lloyd Parry’s Ghosts of the Tsunami: Death and Life in Japan’s Disaster Zone (published August 2017) provides such a profoundly humanistic look at the Great East Japan Earthquake.

Richard Parry, Asia editor of the Times, has been living in Tokyo for more than two decades. On March 11, 2011 he was sitting in his office when he felt the strong vibrations. Earthquakes are common phenomenon in Japan and the tremors are much regular things. Nevertheless, despite being miles from the epicenter, the experience was mildly frightening. Thirty minutes later, Richard walks outside and finds no visible damage to buildings and people (“In 30 mins stroll… I saw one cracked window and a few walls”, he reports). But this powerful earthquake – 9.1 on the Richter scale – that occurred 20 miles beneath the sea about 250 miles from Tokyo soon triggered a massive tsunami. The humongous black-brownish tidal wave devoured the coast of northeast Japan. It killed more than 18,000 people and caused dangerous meltdowns at three reactors in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. Although the Japanese government and institutions were known for impeccably forecasting and facing earthquakes and tsunami, they were totally taken by surprise. The eventual damage was unprecedented. It was the single greatest loss of life in Japan since the atomic bombing of 1945.

I have previously read Richard Parry’s non-fiction true-crime book People Who Eat Darkness: The Fate of Lucie Blackman. It was less a journalistic narrative of an appalling crime than it is a humanistic and perceptive narration of the idiosyncrasies pertaining to Japanese community. The author employs the similar emotional narrative to study an exceptional tragedy, eschewing abstract words and impersonal images. Parry says that while reporting the disaster he ‘experienced a numb detachment and the obscure sense of having completely missed the point’. But soon he came across the ruins of a small coastal village, where he found his narrative vantage point to cover the loss and trauma in its entirety. In one disregarded corner of Japan, nearly 200 miles from Tokyo, Parry zeroed-in on lamentable human loss that overwhelmed the bleak statistics. In the Okawa Elementary School, situated in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture more than 80 pupils and teachers lost their lives to tsunami.

Despite the school’s frequent disaster readiness drills and a steep hill behind the building, 74 of the 75 students who stayed at school lost their lives. Around 30 students were earlier (after the earthquake) picked up by their parents. In an engrossing manner, Parry builds his account of solving the mystery surrounding these deaths. He questions what exactly the faculty members did in the 51 minutes between the earthquake and onslaught of tsunami other than evacuating the students to a safety position. To solve this mystery that still haunts the parents of the Okawa children, Richard Parry doesn’t opt for an exploitative approach to extract grim fascination out of the irreparable loss. His lucid, compassionate gaze falls upon the surviving family members of Okawa children. Through casual meetings with the parents, he studies their character, culture, sense of grief and responsibility in detail. Parry conjures distinct humane voices to construct a narrative of sorrow and compassion.

The Okawa elementary school where more than 80 pupils and teachers lost their lives (situated in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Prefecture)

There’s Naomi Hiratsuka, a housewife practicing self-restraint who in the aftermath of Tsunami learned how to operate an excavator to find the remains of her daughter amidst the mud and rubble. Then there’s Sayomi Shito, whose search for her 11 year old daughter Chisato is saturated with sad turns. Junji Edo, middle-aged school teacher and the lone adult survivor, and the headmaster Teruyuki Kashiba (who was not at school that afternoon) have avoided reporters, yet even watched from periphery they seem like vital part of this inconsolable incident. Apart from the grieving parents, Parry also interviews other members of the village community and the most intriguing among them is Buddhist priest Kaneda, who for years continued to exorcise the spirits of people who had drowned in tsunami. The subject of God and ghosts may not be the choice of reporters chronicling a huge disaster. But Parry approaches Kaneda and other men of God in a civilized, deeply understanding manner so as to comment (or scrutinize) on people’s disposition after an inexplicable tragedy.

Parry’s narrative gains weight by studying the trauma it inflicted on a single community and by observing how each one of them faced it differently. Through people’s varying reaction to loss and death, Parry finds ample space to examine the indomitable strengths and acute weaknesses of Japan. He describes the incomparable Japanese sense of duty and community in the face of catastrophic circumstances, while also picking apart the strict cultural conformity and bureaucratic indifference. He also stuffs the narratives with unique details regarding Japanese language (contrary to what non-Japanese think they rarely say sayonara, but often use the phrase ‘itte kimasu’, which literally translates to ‘Having gone, I will come back’ – the author uses this phrase in the earlier chapter to recount the sadly ironic departure of a tender-hearted little girl). Eventually, Parry’s book doesn’t offer any false hopes or tries to diffuse the anxiety and stress through feel-good accounts. It says how the deep emotional pain will always be there for the haunted survivors.

On the whole, Ghosts of the Tsunami is a multi-layered and crushingly sad book that pierces through a tragedy’s surface and contemplates the survivors’ unspeakable trauma with recognizable humanity. 

Ghosts of the Tsunami: Seven Years After 3/11

Beartown – A Rich and Deliciously Complex Fiction about Human Nature

It’s only a game. It only resolves tiny, insignificant things. Such as who gets validation. Who gets listened to. It allocates power and draws boundaries and turns some people into stars and others into spectators. That’s all.

For me, culture is as much about what we encourage as what we actually permit. David asked what he meant by that, and Sune replied: That most people don’t do what we tell them to. They do what we let them get away with.

On the outset, Swedish author Fredrik Backman’s stories seem pretty simple. The characters appear to be a caricature or a stereotype. But gradually, as Mr. Backman’s masterful storytelling technique kicks in, the characters very much comes alive, packed up with all the nuance, depth, and fragility of human nature. The author’s works are often addressed as ‘uplifting’. But he isn’t a hack ideologue or driven by a misguided sense of morality so as to entirely cover up the real horrors of life for feel-good moralization. Emotional pain, loneliness and irreparable sadness are the constants ailing Backman’s characters. Yet the deep empathy he has for the people (even for the grumpiest) and his sense of positivity finds ways to slowly push down the gloomy factors, channeling us through the whole spectrum of human experience. The movie version of ‘A Man Called Ove’ first introduced me to Fredrik Backman. And since then, I have devoured his novels with a relish, and got deeply addicted to his magic for creating richly imagined, believable literary characters.

Beartown is proposed as a trilogy, set in a tiny, frozen, and economically faltering hockey-obsessed Swedish town. The novel, released in September 2016 in Sweden, was considered to be different from Backman’s previous novels, since it was bit darker and eschewed his usual tone of gentle whimsicality and quirkiness. In fact, Beartown’s first chapter opens with a bleak passage: “Late one evening toward the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barreled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. This is the story of how we got there”. What Backman promises in the first chapter do happen in the end. Although the story here is tightly coiled to keep us on-the-edge, and delves into the emotional depths of individuals that one might not reckon in reality.  The first-third of the novel is entirely devoted to set-up the characters, steadily observing the idiosyncrasies and universalities associated with the proud hockey town, north of Sweden.

For decades, there’s nothing much going on in the community except ice hockey. Jobs are fast disappearing. People are moving to nearby larger town, the abandoned isolated houses are getting swallowed up by the forests. But the residents pin their hopes on the hockey team. The town’s struggle to stay alive and desire for resounding success lies in the hands of hard-fighting young sportsmen. Every little boy in the town learns to play in the ice as soon as they walked. Beartown’s junior team actually has a shot at the national hockey championship that year. When the novel starts the whole town is preparing to support their team in the semi-finals played at home. At the very center of the town’s hope is star-player Kevin, the obsessively motivated and incredibly talented 17 year old boy, hailing from a prominent family. Peter Andersson, the general manager of hockey team, was once a golden boy like Kevin. He went professional and made it to the National Hockey League in Canada. On his mentor/coach Sune’s insistence, Peter has moved back to the native town with his strong-willed lawyer wife Kira and two children – 15-year old Maya and 12-year old Leo.

Author Fredrik Backman

If the town wins this year Junior Championship, there might get a hockey academy and tourists may begin flocking to Beartown, revitalizing the jobs and business. The rich sponsors and powerful board members deliriously discuss the prospects awaiting the town. But they also pose a challenging proposition to Peter. While Peter mulls over the board members’ decision of sacking coach Sune, more devastating events unfold. With each darker turn, the town’s falsehoods, ugly group mentality and other ominous elements of human condition are broached with clarity and complexity. Yet, what sets apart Backman’s tale from other small-town witch-hunt narratives is his ability to not simply wallow in horror. He never shies away from exhibiting the emotional and physical violence inflicted upon the characters. However, the basic humanity is never downplayed for the sake of proposing a half-baked polemic statement. Backman keeps on finding the beauty of human spirit, all the way through the novel’s darker, heavier times. 

The culture of hockey and few other strange native mannerisms may make Beartown a singular literary atmosphere. But the characters inhabiting it and the choices they make are certainly universal (‘what is a community? It is the sum total of our choices.’). We can take the conformity, homophobia, indifferent politics, sexism, and bullying of Beartown and equate it with any other flawed community around the world. By adding layers after layers into the story and characters that’s never ailed with illogicality, Backman continually draws the readers in and making us comprehend the full implications of each action, words, and worrying silence. Before picking up the book, I wondered whether it’s an underdog sports novel, and after browsing through the synopsis, I felt it could be a lacerating depiction of sexual assault and the ensuing trauma. But it’s not about just one thing; it’s the kind of satisfying fiction with a huge heart that examines everything from gender, loyalty, parenting, relationships, adolescence, collective psyche, culture, etc.

Of course, Fredrik Backman acutely depicts the culture of youth sports, the commitment and loyalty demanded of the players, and the way covetous sponsors treat the players. He also crushingly conveys the mind-image of a woman’s body under attack (“For the perpetrator, rape lasts just a matter of minutes. For the victim, it never stops”), and unflinchingly delineates the culpability of the rapist and those who add their voice to victim-blaming. But as a fine novelist, Backman’s concerns aren’t strictly ideological (except for one odd moment where he strongly denunciates the ‘evils that men do’ in the name of religion, politics, sports, etc); he rather casts a humane eye on the warped and formidable aspects of our communities. It is said that ‘everyone has their own version of truth’. Through the town’s culture of sports and its inhabitants’ reaction to the sexual assault, the author peruses everyone’s truth. Even though, these personal viewpoints never muddle or fuzzes over the difference between right and wrong (such writing technique turn the stock villains into complicated humans, and hence all the more terrifying). At the same time, Beartown isn’t about the conflict between right and wrong. Backman includes many characters caught in the middle, struggling from within to choose one side over the other. In this aspect I liked the characterization of tenacious junior-team coach David (a guy we neither love nor hate) and elderly determined bar-owner Ramona (whom we eventually regard with teary-eyed adoration).

Most importantly, Backman doesn’t confine the assaulted girl to only occupy the position of victim. The extent of the girl’s mental damage is painfully presented, but she also happens to be strong and loving girl. She makes great effort to not allow her life to be defined by that single ugly moment. In fact, the novel is full of such very strong characters who preserve their basic humanity, in the face of gruesome activities. The prose occasionally leans into sentimentality, yet it doesn’t get fully drenched. To the author’s credit, by the end Beartown is not about the oft envisioned darker side of human behavior, but about the oft unheralded elements of our race: the resilience of an empowered individual; the camaraderie and unbreakable bonds of friendship and family; and staunch belief in fulfilling one’s dreams. Beartown may not be the perfect literary treat that's unparalleled in terms of style and scope. Nevertheless, it is deeply satisfying, and the genuine emotional wallop it instills upon us will definitely stay for some time. 

The Shipping News – A Nuanced, Dryly Humorous Tale of Self-Discovery

"If life was an arc of light that began in darkness, ended in darkness, the first part of his life had happened in ordinary glare. Here it was as though he had found a polarized lens that deepened and intensified all seen through it."

Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom’s movies (‘My Life as a Dog’, ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?’, ‘Chocolat’, etc) can be sickly sweet; feel-good dramas that could overdose on wistful nostalgia. It’s undisputed that he makes gorgeously-shot dramas, gleaning out memorable performances from star actors. But there have been quite a few lows in his career. His adaptation of Annie E Proulx’s Pulitzer Prize winning The Shipping News (published in 1993) is one of those. The film version essentially simplified the text, concentrating more on the sublime, quaint atmosphere and concealed its lack in depth of characterization by casting well-known actors. Eventually, the movie seemed like one among the average works, set in a picturesque, storm-battered coastal town. Reading Annie Proulx’s prose, however, provides one of a kind experience. Her intoxicating and inventive writing style that conveys the varying textures of the dazzling environment also serves as a perfect tool to divulge the tough yet uncannily humorous speech patterns of local characters.

The Shipping News is largely set in the village of Killick-Claw, a foggy, abandoned shell of a place in the Newfoundland coast, Canada. But it opens in New York, chronicling the miserable life of the protagonist Quoyle. Proulx describes Quoyle like this: “Hive-spangled, gut roaring with gas and cramp, he survived childhood; at the state university, hand clasped over his chin, he camouflaged torment with smiles and silence. Stumbled through his twenties and into his thirties learning to separate his feelings from his life, counting on nothing.” Quoyle is a plump, terminally shy, and ungainly man in his 30s, who makes a living as a ‘third-rate’ newspaper man. Well-meaning but ineffectual, Quoyle finds short-lived happiness after his marriage to Petal. She is an unfaithful, fretful woman who oft prefers the company of her raucous boyfriends than Quoyle and their two little daughters, named Bunny and Sunshine. More gruesome things happen to Quoyle: his cancer and-ridden parents commit suicide; Petal takes off with her new boyfriend, before selling Bunny and Sunshine to a pornographer. Nevertheless, a prospect for fresh life develops after Petal gets killed in a car wreck and subsequently the children are rescued without damage.

Author E Annie Proulx

Aunt Agnis Hamm, Quoyle’s father’s estranged sister, arrives to alleviate the family’s pain. Aunt also indulges Quoyle with disquieting stories of their Newfoundland ancestors. Quoyle’s grandfather is described as ‘an incestuous, fit-prone, seal-killing child……had drowned at age 12, having already sired Quoyle's father’. Furthermore, she vows to help Quoyle and suggests that they move back to her childhood home in Newfoundland. Her girlhood house in Killick-Claw stands isolated for decades, held down with cables to keep it from blowing away. A lot of work needs to be done to make the old house habitable. While aunt gets the things organized for renovation, Quoyle gains a job at the local newspaper called ‘The Gammy Bird’. His responsibility is to write ‘shipping news’ column (a record of ships entering and leaving the port of Killick-Claw). The newsroom is full of colorful characters: Nutbeem, who steals foreign news from the radio and specializes in writing sexual-abuse stories; Billy Pretty who writes the Home News Page and becomes advisor to Quoyle on local matters; Tert Card, the gruff, belligerent managing editor; and Jack Buggit, owner of Gammy Bird with a deep love for fishing and sea. Meanwhile, Quoyle’s bratty, emotionally disturbed daughters forge new friendships to deal with their traumas. The Shipping News doesn’t have a plot per se. It’s full of mesmerizing vignettes, drenched in beautiful atmosphere and deeply humane characters.

It definitely takes few chapters to get used to Annie Proulx’s writing. Her clipped sentences, strange cadences, tough sinuous patterns can be bit off-putting initially. Nevertheless, I gradually got invested with the characters and Proulx’s powerful descriptions. The masterful imagery evoked in passages about weather and sea provides immense pleasure to the readers (something which easily trumps gorgeous visual frames). “The ice mass leaned as though to admire its reflection on the waves, leaned until the southern tower was at the angle of pencil in a writing hand, the northern tower reared over it like a lover”…………”the waters crosshatched in complex layers of arctic and tropic, waves foamed with bacteria, yeasts, diatoma, fungi, algae, bubbles and droplets, the stuff of life, urging growth, change, coupling”……….”the sullen bay rubbed with thumbs of fog”……………….”fog against the window like milk”, all such spectacularly-articulated passages are more than mere decoration; it’s the kind of prose that possesses power to instantly transports me to the ruggedly beautiful Newfoundland.

Kevin Spacey plays Quoyle & Judi Dench plays Agnis Hamm in Lasse Hallstrom's movie adaptation

Each chapter in the novel opens with line drawings and short descriptions about different knots, taken from The Ashley Book of Knots (by Clifford Warren Ashley; which Ms. Proulx claims she found at a garage sale for twenty-five cents). The knots are one of the often repeated imagery in the novel, presenting its ability to bind the essential things. However, our bumbling protagonist Quoyle pretty much reminds us of intricate, deadlocked coils within the roughly made knots. Quoyle’s gradual metamorphosis, which constantly renews his human connection and purpose in life, sort of persists as an act of deftly molding the bungled spiral coil of rope. Writer Annie Proulx excels in weaving wonderfully natural or organic episodes, devoid of the typical mawkish feelings. Many of her characters are confounded by inexpressible grief and desolation. But early in the novel, Proulx writes, “A spinning coin, still balanced on its rim, may fall in either direction…. Even now in that moment before the coin falls, it really seems like everything will be all right.” Hence the author often injects this outwardly tragic tale with a fine (slightly macabre) sense of humor and also finds abundance of hope in life’s little triumphs. She also shows deep empathy for the way common people lead their lives in the face of massive social, ecological, and economic change (a lament for our relentless ability for self-destruction). Furthermore, the Newfoundlanders slang, the account of fishermen’s dispirited life, their high-spirited gathering over dishes of snow crab, cod cheeks, lobster salad and seal-flipper stew, etc immensely adds to the novel’s charm and emotional depth.

The Shipping News (337 pages) with its dreamy and slightly daunting prose isn’t definitely a novel that would please everyone. Many might find it boring, although I vastly loved the author's exquisitely beautiful writing style which serves as subtle meditation on fragility and endurance of life. It also stands as a testament to the revised sarcastic saying: don’t judge a book by its movie.

 
The E is for enigma -- Independent