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Yukiko
It is August of 1945. An American submarine, silent and hidden, moves in toward the darkened coast of an island. On board are an odd quartet: Gus, a commander who was once a student of religion; Angelo, a skilled navigator who conceals his secret almost to the end; Havenmeyer, who understands firearms and explosives better than he does the complexities of the soul; and Ikeda, caught between two cultures and uncertain where his loyalty lies.
The books begins like no other: partly an adventure-thriller set in wartime Japan, partly a glimpse into a primitive world in which the Ainu who still live in small settlements on Hokkaido are turned into a race of occult artificers, half real and half magic. Interwoven into this is what is surely one of the strangest sexual encounters in modern literature. In spite of the electric air of calmness in which everything happens, the suspense builds by page. The climax is as unexpected as it is inevitable.
MacDonald Harris's novel is related in a brilliant enamel-like clarity, resembling Camus more than an American writer. Its Yukiko is a heroine who lingers in the mind with the vividness of things known and felt, half forgotten, and then remembered again in a dream. History and fantasy are mingled; they become one and then there is only the story. After the mythological fable of Bull Fire and the nostalgic Jules Verne adventure of The Balloonist, Harris now offers a novel of action, of violence and peril, that is in the end, simply a love story.
The books begins like no other: partly an adventure-thriller set in wartime Japan, partly a glimpse into a primitive world in which the Ainu who still live in small settlements on Hokkaido are turned into a race of occult artificers, half real and half magic. Interwoven into this is what is surely one of the strangest sexual encounters in modern literature. In spite of the electric air of calmness in which everything happens, the suspense builds by page. The climax is as unexpected as it is inevitable.
MacDonald Harris's novel is related in a brilliant enamel-like clarity, resembling Camus more than an American writer. Its Yukiko is a heroine who lingers in the mind with the vividness of things known and felt, half forgotten, and then remembered again in a dream. History and fantasy are mingled; they become one and then there is only the story. After the mythological fable of Bull Fire and the nostalgic Jules Verne adventure of The Balloonist, Harris now offers a novel of action, of violence and peril, that is in the end, simply a love story.
277 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
43 people want to read
About the author
MacDonald Harris
30 books25 followersPseudonym of Donald Heiney
Donald Heiney was born in South Pasadena in 1921. Seastruck from the time he read Stevenson at the age of twelve, he went to sea in earnest as a merchant marine cadet in 1942, sat for his Third Mate's license in 1943, and spent the rest of the war as a naval officer on a fleet oiler. After the war he earned a B.A. at Redlands and a doctorate in comparative literature at the University of Southern California. In 1964 he lived with his wife and son in Salt Lake City where he taught writing and comparative literature.
Taking the pseudonym MacDonald Harris for his fiction, his first story appeared in Esquire in 1947. Since then he has published stories in The Atlantic Monthly, Harpers Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and The Saturday Evening Post, as well as a number of literary quarterlies. His story "Second Circle" was reprinted in the 1959 O. Henry Collection. Private Demons, his first novel, was published in 1961. Mortal Leap, his second, was finished in the summer of 1963 in Rome.
His novel The Balloonist was nominated for the National Book Award in 1977. He received a 1982 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his entire body of work.
Heiney died in 1993, at age 71, at his home in Newport Beach, California.
Donald Heiney was born in South Pasadena in 1921. Seastruck from the time he read Stevenson at the age of twelve, he went to sea in earnest as a merchant marine cadet in 1942, sat for his Third Mate's license in 1943, and spent the rest of the war as a naval officer on a fleet oiler. After the war he earned a B.A. at Redlands and a doctorate in comparative literature at the University of Southern California. In 1964 he lived with his wife and son in Salt Lake City where he taught writing and comparative literature.
Taking the pseudonym MacDonald Harris for his fiction, his first story appeared in Esquire in 1947. Since then he has published stories in The Atlantic Monthly, Harpers Bazaar, Cosmopolitan, and The Saturday Evening Post, as well as a number of literary quarterlies. His story "Second Circle" was reprinted in the 1959 O. Henry Collection. Private Demons, his first novel, was published in 1961. Mortal Leap, his second, was finished in the summer of 1963 in Rome.
His novel The Balloonist was nominated for the National Book Award in 1977. He received a 1982 Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for his entire body of work.
Heiney died in 1993, at age 71, at his home in Newport Beach, California.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 10, 2015
A calm, cool, quiet, eerie novel - which is surprising, considering that it's about war, submarines, top secret missions, and inflatable sex dolls.
But that's life in the bizarre yet finely calibrated fictional worlds of Macdonald Harris; you get used to it after a while. Unlike my favorite works of his, The Balloonist and Carp Castle, which are written in effulgent prose and bursting with backstory and digressions, Yukiko is terse and lean, focusing very much on careful descriptions of people and landscapes and not venturing much into emotional terrain.
In a book full of enigmas, our protagonist is the most enigmatic of all - he narrates with an elemental, almost childlike simplicity, and rarely reflects on the events of the novel or his own feelings. This keeps us moving ever forward, but at a meticulous, measured pace, and never quite sure of where we're going.
The conclusion is satisfying, surprising, and in retrospect, obvious. Harris was a writer of great imagination and exacting skill, and I don't look forward to the day when I run out of his books.
But that's life in the bizarre yet finely calibrated fictional worlds of Macdonald Harris; you get used to it after a while. Unlike my favorite works of his, The Balloonist and Carp Castle, which are written in effulgent prose and bursting with backstory and digressions, Yukiko is terse and lean, focusing very much on careful descriptions of people and landscapes and not venturing much into emotional terrain.
In a book full of enigmas, our protagonist is the most enigmatic of all - he narrates with an elemental, almost childlike simplicity, and rarely reflects on the events of the novel or his own feelings. This keeps us moving ever forward, but at a meticulous, measured pace, and never quite sure of where we're going.
The conclusion is satisfying, surprising, and in retrospect, obvious. Harris was a writer of great imagination and exacting skill, and I don't look forward to the day when I run out of his books.
Displaying 1 of 1 review