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Originally Posted by orlok
I'm posting this before reading the rest of the reviews, so as to not unduly influence my thinking... I finished it a couple of weeks ago, so my memories of it are not quite as strong as they could be.
As I previously said, this should be mandatory reading for anyone going to war, and particularly for those with their fingers on the button. It is a cautionary tale that reads more like non-fiction than a novel, and whilst it is very bleak in parts, it also manages to relieve that depressing litany of horror with absorbing peeks into the lives of the survivors. One would think that to have lived through something as devastating and life changing as that would make it difficult to function normally any more. Truly life must go on.
The early stages of Black Rain felt very much like a modern post-apocalyptic novel, and I suppose to those in and around Hiroshima at the time, that's exactly what it was.
A fascinating (for me) insight into Japanese life at the time, and into their psyche. The concepts of honour and duty go far beyond those of most modern-day Western societies. For example, I was surprised by the way the workers felt that they still needed to report for work, and do their utmost to keep the companies running, after such an apocalyptic event. But then maybe hindsight makes that seem stranger than it was to them at the time.
I did find some of the unremitting descriptions of the dead and disfigured almost too much to take at times, possibly because it felt like it was a recounting of actual experience rather than a fictional account. And it did make me angry at times - how could any human being visit this destruction upon another? Once again, hindsight is a fine thing, and I'm sure at the time it seemed like a necessity, though I'm not sure bombing Nagasaki as well can be quite as easily explained away.
As an aside, I had to buy this as a paperback, as I couldn't get the eBook, and I must say it was a pleasant experience. The "nearly new" book I received was pristine (I doubt it has ever been read), was actually printed in Japan, and came with a dust jacket - unusual for a pb here in the UK at least.
So, not a book I'm going to be in a hurry to revisit, but certainly a reading challenge I am glad I took part in. Thanks to whoever first nominated it (can't remember right now), and I look forward eagerly to the next.
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Yes, I really liked how Shigematsu and his family are portrayed as just decent people that are just trying to live their lives and do the right thing. That he blames neither side, just the folly of war and the inhumane measures that it entails.
I always look for, in a novel, an ending that really sums things up and captures the novel. I think the ending here did that:
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The transcription of the “Journal of the Bombing” was finished. Nothing remained but to read it over and give it a cardboard cover.
The following afternoon, Shigematsu went to inspect the hatchery ponds. The aiko were coming along well, and in a shallow corner of the larger pond some water weed was growing. Shōkichi had probably planted it there; he must have got it from the Benten pond at Shiroyama. Its oval, shiny green leaves dotted the surface of the water, and from their midst rose a slender stalk on which a small, dark purple flower was in bloom.
Shigematsu looked up. “If a rainbow appears over those hills now, a miracle will happen,” he prophesied to himself. “Let a rainbow appear—not a white one, but one of many hues—and Yasuko will be cured.”
So he told himself, with his eyes on the nearby hills, though he knew all the while it could never come true.
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