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When I Whistle
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06/2024 When I Whistle, by Shusaku Endo
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I found a copy on ThriftBooks, if US users want to try that.I'll read this at the start of the month. I should read more Endo, but I never seem to prioritize him. His most well known novels are Silence and The Sea and Poison . The only one of his I've been disappointed with so far is Scandal.
I have received my used copy also. Almost finished with The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan, then on to this month's book.
The description above seems to contain quite a few spoilers, and also to not be particularly clear.In the first part, Ozu senior runs into someone on the train that he doesn't remember, and starts reminiscing about school and his friend Flatfish from then. Flatfish is the one who meets the girl, not Ozu senior.
In the second part, Ozu junior is a doctor more concerned about getting ahead than in proper treatment of patients and is an intern to a senior doctor with a similar attitude.
Perhaps the man Ozu senior met on the train is Flatfish (it didn't say), and it's Ozu father-and-son who are the main characters, not the man on the train. But what do I know. I'm less than a quarter done.
This is the sixth book I have read by Endo and it is excellent. The slow and subtle contrast that the author builds between the two generations: the war generation and the ambitious generation is dealt with in a surprisingly evenhanded manner. Ozu's loyalty to his long deceased best friend and an 'unrequited' love is set against his own son's scheming, dehumanizing work as a young doctor. Rather than a didactic story, Endo efficiently narrates the conflicting personalities and leaves the judgement up to the reader.
What's most interesting to me is the "role reversal."Normally an author would write about how a hard-working middle aged man and his slacking teenage son don't see eye to eye. But alternating chapters between the father as a slacking teenager and the son as a hard-working young professional, Endo turns this on its ear.
As yet, I know nothing about what happened to Ozu senior after school. Did he too have a period where he worked hard, before he ended up in a dead-end job? And what was Ozu junior's youth like? Was he always so driven?
I have read the book a few times over the years and have just finished reading it again. It is one of the first novels I read by a Japanese author and, being set in a Japan I had yet to visit, it made a big impression on me at the time. The paperback on my bookshelf was printed in 1980 and has seen much better days.I think the control of the story’s plot is masterful and the writing of the main characters of Ozu, Eichi, Aiko and Flatfish to be wonderful. The character of Flatfish has stayed with me over the years, like the memory of a good friend. One theme in the story is the power of friendships and the impact on your life people have, including those “who touch your life only once whom you cannot forget as long as you live.” Despite the changes in Ozu’s life and the transformation of Japan after World War II, what remains constant and precious to Ozu are the memories he has of Aiko and Flatfish.
I only found the Spanish ebook in the library, so I'm not able to particularly appreciate the translation, but I loved the book, especially the comparison between "the father" and "the son" and how the generation that survived the war, had much more principles than the generation born after the war and driven by fundamentally utilitarian purposes. I still find it a bit difficult to imagine the immense difference between father and son, as if the two had nothing to do with each other, but probably, when fathers really had little to do with raising children back in the day, it was even more likely.
I added a profile of Endo Shusaku in the buddy reads thread and a profile of the English language translator, Van C. Gessel, in the Translator profiles thread.
Thanks, Jack. I just want to say, in my defense, I also copy the publisher’s copy for book descriptions. So it isn’t *really* my fault the publisher did a crappy job and filled this one with spoilers. It’s the same description that was on the Goodreads page. 😅
But I’m sorry to anyone who was bothered.
Jack wrote: "I added a profile of Endo Shusaku in the buddy reads thread and a profile of the English language translator, Van C. Gessel, in the Translator profiles thread."Thank you! I just read the linked articles about Van C. Gessel's friendship with Endo Shusaku. Van C. Gessel's contribution to the movie adaption of Silence is also fascinating.
Could someone who knows Japanese please tell me what the Japanese word Endo used for "bleary-eyed" is? Maybe you could give a couple of synonyms also. Thank you!
Marcia wrote: "Could someone who knows Japanese please tell me what the Japanese word Endo used for "bleary-eyed" is? Maybe you could give a couple of synonyms also. Thank you!"Looking in the dictionary, 目腐れ （めくされ）mekusare means bleary-eyed person.
Wow. This novel just gets better and better as it goes on. I didn't expect that from the beginning.The oddest thing about it is the two storylines that barely intersect. It could (almost) be written as two short novels. The opposition between the two male leads never breaks out into open conflict, the way father-son relationships regularly do in literature.
Perhaps I'm as old as Ozu senior. His taxi trip at the end reminds me of times I've spent looking at old places on google maps. Once I thought my memory was playing tricks on me, and then I found that a school I once went to was moved across town to a new location.
The other thing that occurs to me at the end is that even if Ozu junior has 'won' for now, it's only a matter of time until he gets trapped by Doctor Ii's bad behavior and forced to resign or relocate. It's clear Ii is never going to change.
Marcia wrote: "Could someone who knows Japanese please tell me what the Japanese word Endo used for "bleary-eyed" is? Maybe you could give a couple of synonyms also. Thank you!"Bleary-eyed happened to be the word of the day at one dictionary site 😂. Some sample sentences:
Both boys woke up, stiff and bleary-eyed, as dawn light flooded the hotel.
I saw a bleary-eyed dope fiend going along the street the other day.
"The others come in around nine," the clerk said, yawning, bleary-eyed.
I was able to easily find a used copy.
I don't mean to belabor a small point like the meaning of one word, but it was repeated so often. "Bleary-eyed" just doesn't seem quite right. Upon further research, I found out that the word "kusaru" can also mean feeling down, depressed, discouraged or dispirited. I think one of those translations would fit "bleary-eyed" Flatfish also, in light of the fact his father had recently died in the war. Thanks to everyone who commented on this!
Japanese Literature
Books mentioned in this topic
The Ink Dark Moon: Love Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi Shikibu, Women of the Ancient Court of Japan (other topics)Silence (other topics)
The Sea and Poison (other topics)
When I Whistle: A Novel (other topics)
Unfortunately, When I Whistle: A Novel is out of print. (We may change the nomination rules to require that books be in print in North America and elsewhere, but that's still a matter of discussion.) Members already looking for copies seem to have had luck on the website AbeBooks.com.