On the Narrow Road Quotes

“But from earliest times the barrier at Shirakawa was somehow special. There was a magic, a glamour about it. For it was here that travellers crossed over into the untamed northern territories, the remote land of Oshu. When poets came this way, it was customary for them to mark their crossing with a poem; and even poets who did not make the long journey were expected to produce a poem on the subject. Nöin Hoshi, an eleventh-century priest, wrote the most famous poem of all miyako o ba kasumi to tomoni tachishikado aki-kaze zo fuku Shirakawa no seki Though I left the capital With the spring mist — The autumn wind blows At Shirakawa Barrier”
― Lesley Downer, On the Narrow Road to the Deep North

“When people say they come from the country, they say it abjectly, apologetically. Unlike Londoners, Tokyoites do not drive out to the country at the weekend or yearn for a country cottage. Everyone, if they had the chance, would live in Tokyo. Four hours to the next train, while inconceivable in Tokyo, was only to be expected of inaka.”
― Lesley Downer, On the Narrow Road to the Deep North

“Facing me was a stone pillar, half hidden in the grass, some worn hieroglyphs carved down its side. The hillside rose right behind in a tangle of trees. Laboriously I read the characters one by one: ‘Old — Barrier — of — Shirakawa’. It had taken me five and a half hours.”
― Lesley Downer, On the Narrow Road to the Deep North

“Echoing Nöin’s words, he wrote: ‘The spring mist filled the sky and, in spite of myself, the gods filled my heart with a yearning to cross the Shirakawa barrier.’ There were no surly border guards and no crowds of travellers when I finally reached the barrier — no merchants in sedan chairs, no daimyo on horseback with retinues of foot soldiers and servants and porters; no pilgrims, no priests; no ladies in palanquins or travellers in capes and straw hats, like the colourful figures in Hokusai’s woodblock prints. In fact, I nearly walked straight past it along the rough country road.”
― Lesley Downer, On the Narrow Road to the Deep North

“But — but — it’s twelve miles,’ they spluttered in chorus. ‘You can’t walk. It’s impossible! It’s too far!’ Strolling along the empty road in the sunshine, between the paddy fields spreading flat to humpy hills, I didn’t care even if they were right.”
― Lesley Downer, On the Narrow Road to the Deep North

“I had only had a few days in Tokyo this time. But that was long enough to get used to its ways again — stations where you never have to wait, trains that are never late, telephones that never break down, shop girls who bow to you and smile. It all went together with the high tech facade of the place, the insistent newness of it, the looming skyscrapers and streets crowded with people in chic black or sewer-rat grey, all inexplicably in a hurry. In the countryside, on the other hand, no-one was in a hurry. ‘Countryside’, actually, is rather a mistranslation. Inaka really means anywhere that is not Tokyo — the provinces, in other words, the boondocks, the sticks.”
― Lesley Downer, On the Narrow Road to the Deep North

“Perhaps I would have to walk — an unattractive prospect. Thirty minutes on the bus was a good number of miles; and I had not been planning to begin my walk around the north country at Shirakawa, which could, after all, hardly be called the north country at all, really just a distant suburb of Tokyo. The pair looked at me apologetically. I thought a little. Was there perhaps a train? The old man’s face brightened and he waved a stubby finger at me. Yes, of course! How could he have failed to think of that? From under the heap of papers on his desk he extracted a volume the size of a telephone directory and began to thumb methodically through, muttering as he ran his finger slowly down the lines of tiny figures. I waited patiently. Finally he looked up, beaming triumphantly and stabbing the page with his finger. ‘Here, here — here’s a train for you. 15.37 next one.’ ‘But that’s nearly four hours from now!”
― Lesley Downer, On the Narrow Road to the Deep North

“The old barrier, is it? But …’ The grizzled old fellow at the information desk at Shirakawa station tilted his head to one side and drew his breath through his teeth with a long hiss. ‘Nothing there now, you know,’ he said firmly. ‘Really no reason to go there. Nothing at all to see.’ ‘Nothing at all’ echoed the large untidy woman at the desk opposite. Still pondering, he ground his cigarette into a large ashtray and slowly lit another. He had enormous hands, dark and work-stained, and a weather-beaten face creased and wrinkled like old leather — as if he had spent most of his life out in the fields, not bent behind a desk in this bleak sunless station. Tokyo, with its skyscrapers and crowds of pale plump faces, was less than two hours away; but this old fellow could almost have been from another race.”
― Lesley Downer, On the Narrow Road to the Deep North