Akira Yoshimura: Shipwrecks

By ELSPETH SANDYS*

Some novels compel the reader, gripped by the desire to find out what happens, to keep turning the pages. With others the writing has such power that the compulsion to re-read becomes as strong as the compulsion to read on.

Such a novel is Shipwrecks. Reading this haunting tale of life in a remote fishing village in medieval Japan is like reading a narrative poem, so condensed and deceptively simple is the language, so vivid the imagery, so merciless the sense of destiny underlying the story.

Shipwrecks is Akira Yoshimura's 21st novel. That he is almost unknown in the West, despite being highly celebrated in his native land, seems shocking to me now that I have come under the spell of his austerely beautiful prose.

Isaku, 9 years old at the start of the tale, is forced by tragic circumstances to provide for his family - mother, younger brother and two baby sisters.

Isaku is a fisherman. For the inhabitants of this island village the sea is the source of a meagre living, eked out by the occasional shipwreck. The first ship to founder on the reef that surrounds the island brings life: the second, the mysterious "red" ship, brings death.

Isaku's growing attraction to Tami, one year his senior; his friendship with Sahei; his devotion to his mother and siblings, are pools of light in an otherwise dark universe. As are the many exquisitely described ceremonies, and the sense of the village as a precious entity.

There are many marvels in this book, but for me the most marvellous is the author's evocation of a lost time and place; as detailed and perfect as a Vermeer painting, and as unforgettable.

Canongate Press

$29.95

* Elspeth Sandys is an Auckland writer.