Today when the summer thrush
Came to sing at Heron’s Nest
I crossed the Bridge of Dreams.
Have decided on the title for my new book: Across a Bridge of Dreams. The ‘bridge of dreams’ is an incredibly resonant concept in Japanese culture – it’s our short human lives, a bit like the Anglo-Saxon concept of human life being like a sparrow flying out of the darkness outside into the Great Hall with its warmth and comfort and almost immediately flying out the other side. In the same way the image of the ‘floating bridge of dreams’ is an image of human life, as insubstantial as a bridge over which we pass from one state of existence to another. In Japanese culture it’s a very famous image. The Floating Bridge of Dreams is the title of the last chapter, Chapter 54, of The Tale of Genji (the world’s first novel, written by a Japanese court lady around 1000AD), though the words are never actually used in the text. To Japanese of that time the words would have immediately evoked the transience of human life.
The phrase was echoed in a wonderful poem by Fujiwara Teika (1162 – 1241):

On a spring night
The floating bridge of dreams
Breaks off:
Swirling round the mountaintop
A cloud drifts into the open sky

And in the sonorous opening lines of The Tale of the Heike, the great 14th century Japanese epic:

The proud ones last but a little while; they vanish like a spring night’s dream.

And it’s the title of a short story by Tanizaki Junichiro, The Bridge of Dreams, which begins with the lines I quoted at the beginning of this blog. Just to say ever since I came across these words and this image I’ve been haunted by them – and wanted to wrote a book evoking that frailty and sense of transience. In fact my new book is a love story, a tale of hopeless love set at the time of the Satsuma rebellion, sort of Romeo and Juliet crossed with The Last Samurai …

Forthcoming lectures:

Sunday July 17th

Festival of Living History, Kelmarsh, Northants.
11.40 – 12.40

‘WHAT WOMEN WORE – AND WHY’
Panel with Hallie Rubenhold and Laura Wilson – and re-enactors in costume!

http://www.thehwa.co.uk/content/festivals
http://www.english-heritage.org.uk/daysout/events/festival-of-history-2011/

Watch this space!

Heading for home after 3 weeks in Japan, just as the cherry blossom starting to fall. Chickened out and didn’t go north – though many friends have. It’s long exposure one needs to worry about. A short trip is fine. Instead went south twice – to hotsprings of Beppu, temples of Kyoto, and south again to Kagoshima with spectacular Sakurajima (volcano in bay) belching ash. Leaving the land of super efficient (and fast) trains, super clean streets, super friendly people and the world’s greatest grilled eel. Last meal of eel tonight!

In Kagoshima you can’t escape the enormous looming presence of Sakurajima, the craggy volcano which dominates Kinko Bay. It spews out black ash which hangs in the air above it; when the wind blows west it blows it over the city, when it blows east it blows it away from the city. There’s ash heaped in corners, blowing into nooks and crannies. It’s prime evidence of Japan’s incredible geological volatility. In fact what everyone was worried about was not an earthquake but Mount Kirishima, near here, which has been erupting for months.

To English eyes this geologically young landscape is quite thrilling – flat plains abruptly ending in sheer crags clothed in dense jungle-like foliage; and hot springs pour out of the earth. Spend my time morning and evening soaking in mineral rich water. Today remembered the rule that ‘hot is better’. The indoor pool was quite hot, enough to make me sleepy. But the outdoor pool – the rotemburo – with steaming water pouring out of the rocks, was so hot I had to have a think and take a deep breath before I dared put my foot in. I edged the rest of me in – fast is better – until I was sitting up to my neck, barely moving. If you move it scalds. Felt really wide awake! Tsukare toru, they say – it takes away your tiredness.

Back in Japan at last to research my next book – but what a time to be here! All the newspapers back home were writing of radiation risks, of water with radiation levels millions of times higher than they should be, and when I e mailed Tokyo friends one at least declared he was on his way out of the country pronto. Bankers fleeing, embassy staff being evacuated, airlines no longer flying here – and the UK Foreign Office Advisory scaring the wits out of me, saying essential travel only advised. Researching for book is not essential travel.

Decided to come anyway – after all Tokyo is a long way from Fukushima, 140 miles or so. And very glad I did. Tokyo is quiet, subdued but normal – though very sadly I did cancel my trip to Aizu Wakamtsu, which is very close to the crippled reactors.
Now in Kagoshima where the second half of my new book will be set. Also almost as far as it’s possible to be from the nuclear reactors – though every night on television there are harrowing scenes from up north. Photographs rescued covered in mud, car parks full of broken cars, people keeping up a brave face. It’s been freezing in Tokyo – and up north they have no heating. And have lost everything. It doesn’t bear thinking about.

So instead today have been exploring places associated with the Last Samurai – Saigo Takamori – who will form part of my book (though, as I’m writing fiction, I’ll change his name). He’s a total hero here, his huge bull-like presence everywhere. Saigo’s birthplace, Saigo’s house, the cave where he hid on his desperate last stand, the place of his death. I hope I’ll be able to communicate something of his enormous presence.

Forthcoming lectures:

Monday April 11th
6.15pm

Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan,
Yurakucho Denki North Building 20F
Yurakucho 1-7-1, Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo 100-0006, Japan

tel +81-3-3211-3161

Illustrated talk: The Yoshiwara and the world of Japanese courtesans

Watch this space!

Forthcoming lectures:

Tuesday March 8th
WORDS BY THE WATER, Keswick, Cumbria

Japanese Culture
Many people are fascinated with the ancient traditions of Japanese culture: geishas, courtesans, Samurai. These two writers, travellers and experts on this mysterious country, tell of their research and travel.

with John Man

5.15pm, Studio, £7.50

tel. 01803 86 73 73

Visit the Words by the Water Literature Festival website

or download the brochure in PDF format

Watch this space!

I have recently reviewed Burmese Lessons: A True Love Story by Karen Connelly in the New York Times.

Karen Connelly’s passionate and poetic memoir begins with her arrival in Burma in 1996 at the age of 27. Brash, naïve and bubbling with confidence, she is enchanted by the country, but also determined to “catch at least a glimpse of the truth — something beyond the beautiful images that are so readily available to the foreign eye.” …

From Border Crossings, a book review published on June 11, 2010.

Read full review online.

I have just reviewed Dreaming in Chinese by Deborah Fallows in the New York Times.

When I used to ask my mother about her family village in China, she always said it was three hours from Canton by bus. A hundred years ago, when my great-grandfather left China for good, that couldn’t have been far, but it was certainly no help in locating it. So I was pleased — though still mystified — to read in Deborah Fallows’s charming and witty little book that in China, “if you ask someone where their hometown is, they’ll say it is seven hours by bus. Or four hours by train. They won’t tell you where it is.” …

From Character Building, a book review published on September 24, 2010.

Read full review online.

Forthcoming lectures:

Saturday June 26th
3.00 – 5.00 pm

Ipswich Literary Tea,
Ipswich Arts Festival,
Arlington Brasserie,
Ipswich,
Suffolk

Box Office 01473 433100
£8 (£6 concessions)

Law and disorder: Making an impression throughout history.

Discussion over tea and cakes with Giles Kristian, author of Sons of Thunder, and Paul Sussman, author of The Hidden Oasis.

***

Hertfordshire Lit Fest - Click thumbnail!

Tuesday June 29th
7.45 pm

Chichester Festivities

History panel: Law and disorder: How to make an impression throughout history.

With Giles Kristian, author of Sons of Thunder, and Manda Scott, author of Rome: The Emperor’s Spy

Details to follow

***

Wednesday July 14th

Blackburn Library

History panel with Giles Kristian and Manda Scott, as above.

Details to follow

Watch this space!