Trane DeVore (Author of Dust Habit)

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Trane rated a book 5 of 5 stars

kokeshi book―伝統こけしのデザイン
by 編集

read in September, 2012

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This is a wonderful short book about traditional Japanese kokeshi dolls. The book is almost entirely in Japanese, but it's a picture book and almost every page is characterized by beautiful photography (albeit of pretty much the same subject —kokeshi...more This is a wonderful short book about traditional Japanese kokeshi dolls. The book is almost entirely in Japanese, but it's a picture book and almost every page is characterized by beautiful photography (albeit of pretty much the same subject — kokeshi dolls).

The book flap features just about all the English the book has to offer:

"Kokeshi dolls originated in northeastern Japan as wooden toys for children. The techniques used to produce kokeshi dolls are principally rooted in districts in the northeast and evolved into a folk craft that reflects the characteristic designs of each district. During the postwar reconstruction from the mid-1940s to the mid-1960s, kokeshi dolls were produced as souvenirs for visitors to recreational spots and as momentos for tourists and rapidly became well-known throughout Japan. This book introduces traditional kokeshi dolls, the origin and roots of kokeshi dolls, along with the districts where traditional kokeshi dolls are produced and designs endemic to each district."

The kokeshi featured in this book are not the cute contemporary kokeshi that are often found at airport tourist shops, but rather the more colorful, more alien, and altogether cooler traditional-style kokeshi in all of their rudimentary, highly-stylized glory. These kokeshi are hand-turned on lathes and then hand painted, so they sit right on the border between traditional handicraft and small-scale mechanized production. As such they are remarkably similar, and yet minor differences in decoration — minor differences in the style of painting the eyes, noses, mouths, and hair of these dolls — makes each of them appear startlingly unique.

The book contains a section on the different names of stylized facial features (a long thin nose is a たれ鼻 and an eye that looks like a fish is a 鯨目), a section on "modern" (i.e. postwar) kokeshi, a section on antique kokeshi, and a section called "kokeshi, etc.," which is exactly what you would expect it to be.

If you like kokeshi you won't be disappointed with this book, even if you don't read a lick of Japanese. This is a book made for the kokeshi enthusiast by people who are clearly themselves kokeshi enthusiasts. (It's probably not for the kokeshi specialist, who probably knows everything in this book already anyhow.)

Highly recommended for kokeshi maniacs.(less)

Trane rated a book 5 of 5 stars

May Apple Deep
by Michael Sikkema

read in September, 2012

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This beautiful book is full of consciousness thinking the world into existence, and then abolishing it at the next turn of thought. Sometimes almost a lyric being born, but then suddenly a swerve into a register that resists the clichés of lyric voic...more

Trane made a comment on Readingmonkee's review of Opium Fiend: A 21st Century Slave to a 19th Century Addiction

"Actually, there's a lot of really reasonably priced vinyl in Japan —especially if you like Japanese pop/rock. And Japanese pressings of US releases ar...more "

Trane rated a book 4 of 5 stars

Please Save My Earth, Volume 1
by Saki Hiwatari

read in September, 2012

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I'm stealing the series description just to get the basic plot elements out of the way on this one:

"Part science fiction, part fantasy, and completely engrossing, this provocative manga stars sensitive high school student Alice Sakaguchi, who has a r...more I'm stealing the series description just to get the basic plot elements out of the way on this one:

"Part science fiction, part fantasy, and completely engrossing, this provocative manga stars sensitive high school student Alice Sakaguchi, who has a recurring dream that she's part of a team of alien scientists on the moon. She doesn't really believe it, until new evidence arrives. Now even her eight-year-old neighbor is acting strange. Alice's dreams of being a lovely woman living on the moon are a respite from her job babysitting the holy terror Rin. When he goes one step too far, she slaps him, causing him to fall off a balcony and into a coma. When he awakens, he seems changed — and strangely connected to Alice. Meanwhile, at school, Alice meets a pair of boys with an oddly close relationship. Soon she learns they too have dreams — of living on the moon."

That pretty much sums up the plot, which is interesting in itself but not really what makes this series such a draw. What holds the series together are the thematic threads that are woven between the two different stories being told at the same time — the story of Alice's alienating experiences as a newcomer at her high school and the group of dreamers that she meets (many of whom later turn out to have special powers), and the story of the people living on the moon that unfolds slowly like a mystery, or like an almost forgotten dream that returns bit by bit during the day.

The first theme that comes into play is the theme of existential homelessness. Alice is out of place at her new school, but that's just really an expression of the out-of-placeness that most adolescents work with on a daily basis. Alice's family has moved because her father has a new job, a circumstance that calls attention to capitalism's tendency to create rootlessness and destroy tradition. Alice finds herself adrift in a plastic urban landscape where locality has no meaning except as a place of residence and where the bulk of immediate relationships available are either constituted by meaningless obligation or the brutal group dynamics of the high-school clique. The desire for home, for a feeling of belonging, is foregrounded in the opening pages: “The moon ... full and bright — a mystery. It makes me feel ... homesick. I want to go home. I want to go home ... all I want ... is to go home.”

One of the ways this desire for belonging plays out is in the classic opposition between natural space and urban space. Alice has moved from the countryside to the city where concrete dominates. Alice has a special relationship to the natural world — a spontaneous ability to communicate with plants and animals — that clearly symbolizes a type of spiritual and unmediated oneness with the universe itself. In the city however, concrete — and the forms of negative sociality that it represents — prevents Alice from having this kind of deep contact with the world. The opening image, of a cosmically large Alice embracing an aura-encircled Earth while floating in a space shower of cherry blossoms, is the apotheosis of the desire to belong, a complete absorption into universality.

The desire for belonging plays out in another way too, however, in the classic style of outsiders banding together. Jinpachi and Issei, two students in Alice’s class, have been having identical dreams about having once lived a different life on the moon as different people. In sharing these dreams together they form a bond that’s completely their own, and completely outside of the normative types of bonding that define high-school sociality. In a way it’s almost like the fantasy worlds that children create and share, or the worlds of fantasy and science fiction that are consumed and shared among the geeks of the world, who are often equally as ostracized. A really important element here is, of course, the idea shared by Jinpachi and Issei that they are not really only themselves, but also the aliens Gyokuran and Enju. This highlights the desire we have to inhabit identities other than the ones we already exist as (one of the very reasons we read fiction), and sounds very much like the common fantasy that Freud identified among children of having secretly been adopted. In this fantasy you discover one day that your parents are not really your parents and that instead you come from a family with a great lineage. “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” by T.S. Eliot and "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" by James Thurber both engage with a similar theme — the impossibility of being heroic in an age in which social pressure pushes the individual to conform, be a good subject, and get to work on time without complaint. When the option of become a hero is foreclosed, the next best thing is to fantasize about heroics, to fantasize about being someone completely different than you are. (Of course, in Please Save My Earth, the point is that everyone really is completely different than they are, but it is a fantasy, after all.)

A final theme that plays a major role in this series is the theme of identity. Almost all of the characters in this series have multiple identities (a bit like Dax from Deep Space Nine), and the series spends a lot of time playing around with what it means to carry multiple selves inside. Of course, this is also a major theme of adolescent life, in which a high-school student might present one way at home, one way at school, and one way within a particular peer group. Hiwatari approaches this question on a much deeper level, however, basically asking what it might mean to have a particular type of ‘soul’ in a world in which you’re not allowed to be that soul. In the first issue this plays out as a question of gender identity: in their past lives Enju (a woman) was in love with Gyokuran (a man), but in this life the personality Enju is made manifest in the body of Issei, which means that Issei is in love with a part of Jinpachi (Gyokuran), even though both are boys and neither is gay. It’s complicated, but it’s a complexity that is perhaps more representative of the selves we really are, rather than the fictional unities we convince ourselves must exist.

I’m making it sound like the series is all theme and no action, but this isn’t the case at all. Rin (a nine-year old with special powers who is in love with Alice) is a brat and a cipher. He also survives a nine-story fall, is able to predict the immediate future, and he can fly. There’s a scene at the end of the first book where he confronts a tough on a motorcycle that’s almost like a shojo take on Akira. There are dreams, disembodied states, and a base on the moon. The dinosaurs at the beginning of the book may or may not be involved in all this.

Highly recommended, though many comic readers may have trouble getting past Hiwatari’s somewhat naïve style (I myself love it) and/or the stylized melodrama that is part and parcel of the shojo genre.(less)

Trane rated a book 3 of 5 stars

Dororo, Vol. 3
by Osamu Tezuka

read in September, 2012

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

I loved the first two volumes of Dororo, especially for their yokai (a style of Japanese monster) weirdness. The third volume has some good yokai too —demonic sharks, a ghost horse that returns for revenge after it's foal is taken from it, and a gian...more I loved the first two volumes of Dororo, especially for their yokai (a style of Japanese monster) weirdness. The third volume has some good yokai too — demonic sharks, a ghost horse that returns for revenge after it's foal is taken from it, and a giant demon turtle that sends its spirit out to enter into the belly button of a rich rice hoarder.

The problem with the third volume is that it ends so abruptly that it's jarring. The first two volumes set up quite a few interesting plot threads and fields of thematic development, but the third volume closes without wrapping up any of these, almost as if one were to come home to one's spouse of a decade to find them packed and ready to go without any prior indication whatsoever.

Okay, so what goes unresolved here? First, there is a map tattooed on Dororo's back that should lead to a treasure laid down by his bandit prince father that was intended to be given away to poor farmers (the class that Dororo's family comes from). There's a long sequence involving triple betrayals and an enormous battle, but when they finally find the spot where the treasure is buried, it's empty. Dororo's bandit father didn't trust his underlings, so he hid the treasure somewhere else. Okay, but then why tattoo the map on your son's back? Also, why let the storyline die out like this?

Then there's the secret that Dororo is really a girl. This comes up early on in the third volume, and it's clear that Tezuka has been setting up this reveal for a long time. But the fact that Dororo is really a girl never amounts to anything, and is barely mentioned again. Why even bring it up?

Although Hyakkimaru does end up finally confronting his father and seemingly winning, it's in a fairly unsatisfactory manner. He also meets up with his mother, who begs forgiveness. Normally this would be the place where a story should end, but Hyakkimaru still has demons to fight to become whole and the last story ends with a kind of "further adventures of Hyakkimaru" feeling, except that there are no further adventures.

Finally, Hyakkimaru decides to divorce himself from Dororo at the end of the volume, but this feels completely incidental and unmotivated. The volume ends with the unsatisfying line, "It is said that fifty years hence, the flames of war burned down the Hall of Hell that housed the forty-eight sculptures. Where Hyakkimaru went from there, no one knows."

The final story in this volume really feels like Tezuka's editor phoned suddenly one morning and said, "Hey, Tezuka — we've decided to end the Dororo series, so you've got one more story in which to wrap it all up. Good luck."

Of course the artwork is still brilliant, and if you have the other two volumes it's worth having the third one as well. As a way to end the series, however, it's a real disappointment.(less)

Trane rated a book 5 of 5 stars

Dororo, Vol. 2
by Osamu Tezuka

recommended for: yokai lovers, Tezuka fans, anyone who likes samurais

read in August, 2008

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The second volume in Tezuka Osamu's Dororo series is just as good as the first. Of course we have Hyakkimaru, the freakish swordsman born missing 48 body parts, and Dororo, the miniscule child thief who he protects. As Hyakkimaru kills demons, his mi...more The second volume in Tezuka Osamu's Dororo series is just as good as the first. Of course we have Hyakkimaru, the freakish swordsman born missing 48 body parts, and Dororo, the miniscule child thief who he protects. As Hyakkimaru kills demons, his missing body parts are replaced with the real deal.

That's all well and good, but how about the yokai (Japanese traditional monsters) that we get in this volume? That's the most important thing after all, isn't it? First of all we get a horde of demon night foxes, led by a powerful nine-tailed fox (apparently the most evil and powerful type of fox found in yokai legend). We also get a fantastic demon that poses as a Buddhist Fudo Myo'o in order to lure unsuspecting ascetics so he can steal their faces when they train themselves by meditating under a powerful waterfall. Then there's the singular ghost who stands in for a murdered multitude of children and a demon moth woman who has hypnotized a local lord so that her and a host of other moth women can propagate their species.

But what about the family drama? There are two things that appear repeatedly in Tezuka's works, and one of them is the constant appearance of bizarrely dramatic family relations that would give Freud enough material to write case studies for 100 years. In this particular volume (spoiler alert!) Hyakkimaru comes face to face with his brother (who he never knew existed), his father (who sacrificed him to the demon world and wants to seem him dead now), and his mother (who still loves him). And at a critical moment he needs to decide whether or not he needs to kill his brother.

The other element that often shows up in Tezuka's works is a kind of populist notion of revolution. Tezuka himself was obviously more of a humanist than a genuine revolutionary, but his humanism often leads to an identification with oppressed classes and the revolutionary ethics of the 60s are sometimes evident in his works. In this particular case it turns out that Dororo's parents, who were peasant thieves that stole in order not to starve and who acted as a classic redistributive banditry, have marked his back with a map that leads to their hidden treasure cache. Before her death Dororo's mother urged him to return to this treasure cache and use the treasure to lead a peasant revolt.

Let's hope we see that peasant revolt in Volume 3! And some more great yokai too, of course.(less)

Trane rated a book 5 of 5 stars

Notational
by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa

read in September, 2010

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Here's the blurb that I wrote for this wonderful book:

Jane Joritz-Nakagawa’s Notational puts consciousness through an egg slicer and allows the slices to slip away and initiate poetic investigations within the environments that have come to define th...more

Trane rated a book 5 of 5 stars

We Are Nippon: The World Cup In Japan
by Simon Moran

read in June, 2012

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2002 was the first year that I watched the World Cup from end to end. As far as was possible, that is: I was living in the US and the Soccer Channel was yet to make its debut, so to watch several of the matches we had to tune in to the local Spanish-...more 2002 was the first year that I watched the World Cup from end to end. As far as was possible, that is: I was living in the US and the Soccer Channel was yet to make its debut, so to watch several of the matches we had to tune in to the local Spanish-language affiliate (which was actually fortunate, since Spanish-speaking announcers blow American announcers away when they yell "goal"). I remember how exciting it was to watch the Japanese and Korean teams play. Japan had the most rampantly awesome hairstyles, and there was Tsuneyasu Miyamoto's protective facemask that made him look like some kind of superhero manque. On the South Korean side you had Ahn Jung-Hwan's golden goal against Italy and some of the most dedicated fans it's possible to imagine. The final between Brazil and Germany was stellar, with the winning goals for Brazil coming from Ronaldo (sporting the worst haircut ever), who only had to beat Oliver Kahn, who was widely considered to be among the best goalkeepers in the world at that time.

The 2002 World Cup has always been my emotional entry into soccer, and my love for the sport has grown ever since. I've also moved to Japan since that time, and was incredibly excited to find Simon Moran's book about the 2002 World Cup — a book written from the point of view of a longtime resident of Japan and a diehard soccer (football) fan. Moran meets up with a crew of four fans who live in Japan: two Japanese fans, a former professional goalkeeper from Germany, and a Zainichi Korean fan with split loyalties. He travels from match to match, keeping up with a brutal schedule during the incredibly hot and humid Japanese summer. His match reports consist of well-placed observations about the local residents, how soccer culture fits in with Japanese culture, the views of the fans (both local and international), and interesting and entertaining accounts of the matches themselves. There's a lot of very good research that's gone into this book in relation to how precisely the Cup ended up being split by FIFA between Japan and Korea, as well as about the construction of the individual stadiums, and — perhaps most importantly — the way the Cup played out in terms of the complicated and often antagonist relationship/rivalry between Japan and Korea. The on-the-ground account that Moran gives of the daily experience of being in Japan during the 2002 World Cup is full of brilliant detail and he's in an almost perfect narratorial position — he's writer steeped in football who just happens to be a cultural insider and a cultural outsider at the same time.

If you're a football (soccer) fan and you have any fascination at all with the 2002 World Cup, you won't be disappointed with this book. I give it five stars, with a couple of provisos: 1) This is a soccer (football) book. If you don't like the sport, you're not likely to like the book. 2) I wish the book were longer. Especially toward the end, it starts to feel a bit rushed (some of the chapters at the beginning are fuller and more fleshed out). This isn't to say that the final chapters are bad, but rather to say that the things I liked about the book were so likeable that I wanted more of the same at the end.(less)

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	Series - Mnemonic 4.8 of 5 stars 4.80 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 1999	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Dust Habit 4.8 of 5 stars 4.80 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2005	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Trane is now friends with Anthony Mcgrath
May 18, 2013 01:23pm · like
Trane is now a fan of Cydney Chadwick
Mar 17, 2013 11:01pm · like · see all of Trane's favorite authors
Trane rated a book 5 of 5 stars kokeshi book―伝統こけしのデザイン by 編集 read in September, 2012	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This is a wonderful short book about traditional Japanese kokeshi dolls. The book is almost entirely in Japanese, but it's a picture book and almost every page is characterized by beautiful photography (albeit of pretty much the same subject —kokeshi...more
Sep 30, 2012 05:42am · see review
Trane rated a book 5 of 5 stars May Apple Deep by Michael Sikkema read in September, 2012	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This beautiful book is full of consciousness thinking the world into existence, and then abolishing it at the next turn of thought. Sometimes almost a lyric being born, but then suddenly a swerve into a register that resists the clichés of lyric voic...more
Sep 30, 2012 04:58am · see review
Trane made a comment on Readingmonkee's review of Opium Fiend: A 21st Century Slave to a 19th Century Addiction "Actually, there's a lot of really reasonably priced vinyl in Japan —especially if you like Japanese pop/rock. And Japanese pressings of US releases ar...more "
Sep 27, 2012 09:30pm · see review
Trane rated a book 4 of 5 stars Please Save My Earth, Volume 1 by Saki Hiwatari read in September, 2012	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
I'm stealing the series description just to get the basic plot elements out of the way on this one: "Part science fiction, part fantasy, and completely engrossing, this provocative manga stars sensitive high school student Alice Sakaguchi, who has a r...more
Sep 26, 2012 08:43pm · see review
Trane rated a book 3 of 5 stars Dororo, Vol. 3 by Osamu Tezuka read in September, 2012	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Sep 19, 2012 07:48pm · see review
Trane rated a book 5 of 5 stars Dororo, Vol. 2 by Osamu Tezuka recommended for: yokai lovers, Tezuka fans, anyone who likes samurais read in August, 2008	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.
Sep 12, 2012 06:48am · see review
Trane rated a book 5 of 5 stars Notational by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa read in September, 2010	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
Here's the blurb that I wrote for this wonderful book: Jane Joritz-Nakagawa’s Notational puts consciousness through an egg slicer and allows the slices to slip away and initiate poetic investigations within the environments that have come to define th...more
Aug 27, 2012 06:30am · see review
Trane rated a book 5 of 5 stars We Are Nippon: The World Cup In Japan by Simon Moran read in June, 2012	Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
2002 was the first year that I watched the World Cup from end to end. As far as was possible, that is: I was living in the US and the Soccer Channel was yet to make its debut, so to watch several of the matches we had to tune in to the local Spanish-...more
Aug 23, 2012 04:06am · see review

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