iPad, iPathos, iPoetry

Well, the iPad has landed and I have no doubt that it will prove to be a game changer. Once the iBookstore is available in Canada, I can’t see how I will stop myself from buying one to serve as my primary reading device for books that I’m interested in reading, but not having on my bookshelf. By no means, however, should the iPad’s arrival be seen as the “death of the book” as has been feared in some quarters.

As long as there are publishers like Chin Music, who take just as much pride in book craftsmanship as they do in their editorial choices, there will be a place for battery-free reading. I have just finished Todd Shimoda’s Oh! A mystery of mono no aware, and must say that the aesthetic experience of holding the physical book added a dimension to the reading itself.

Although I was expecting a textured hardcover like Kuhaku, Oh!’s is smooth, with an embossed title and author’s name. The first signature (bundle of pages) consists of a rough, unbleached paper that contains the front matter. The information could have been shared on fewer pages, but by taking a less practical approach, it serves to draw the reader into the novel. The novel itself is printed on a smooth, white paper I’m not used to finding in novels, hardcover or otherwise. Not being a paper expert myself, the best way I can describe it is being like a high quality laser printer paper. The second last signature contains abstract photographic artworks created by the author’s wife. The final signature is printed on the same paper as the first, and it contains footnotes for postModern readers who like their fiction served with a portion of non. Credit goes to designer Josh Powell for creating a book that carries on the Chin Music tradition without repeating anything from Kuhaku. I’m not a book collector per se, but I do enjoy having these books on my shelf as much as I enjoyed reading them. If you happen to be a bibliophile, it’s not too late to add some first editions to your collection at retail prices.

As for the novel itself, I am reluctant to offer much of a review, because I’d rather you just experience it for yourself without too many preconceptions. Was I a bit skeptical at first when the protagonist went to Japan and took a teaching position so that he could find himself? Sure. I’ve already read a handful of books with that premise, and didn’t think too much of where they ended up. Fortunately, in Oh!, the narrator only holds his job long enough to meet two important characters, then goes off in a few different directions, all of them involving a mystery of some sort. Each mystery gets resolved in a satisfying manner without offering a pat sense of closure.

While the multitude of definitions of mono no aware offered throughout the book might leave the reader more confused about the aesthetic concept than when they started, that might not necessarily be a bad thing. Before reading it, I would have defined mono no aware as “finding beauty in the pathos of transience,” and predictably cited Lady Murasaki’s Tale of Genji as the alpha and omega of evidence to support my definition. While my definition, Genji, and Murasaki’s time period feature prominently in the novel's investigations of mono no aware, I slowly accepted that it was not always meant in the sense of “finding beauty in sadness,” but perhaps in the sense of finding beauty in any experience of emotion.

It reminded me of a trip I took that led me to a stop at Yamadera in Yamagata Prefecture. I had been particularly impressed by a famous poem from Matsuo Basho:

静かさや岩にしみ入蟬の声

which I translated as

Utter stillness
Absorbed by stones
the cicada's whirr

Either before walking up the mountain or upon my return--I can’t remember which--I stopped by a small pond with a few koi in it that seemed to have no particular reason for being there:

maple branches fan
over the cloudy pond with
a black carp--aware