The Great Passage (Miura)

The Great Passage, by Shiwon Miura (2011)

This was another of the books that Amazon allowed to download that time when they had 12 world books available for free.

The story was a little confusing at first. In the beginning, we are introduced to Kohei Araki, who as a boy was fascinated with words and loved the dictionary. Next thing we know, he's close to retirement after having worked on dictionaries for Gembu Books for thirty-seven years. Although we begin with him, it isn't his story.

Araki needs to find a replacement who can continue his work, and bring his dream project, The Great Passage, to publication. Thanks to Nishioka, one of the few employees in the dictionary department of Gembu, Araki finds Mitsuya Majime, an odd fellow who works in the sales department. After an interview, they discover that they are kindred spirits in the love of and fascination with words, and how to define them precisely.

Majime is introverted and awkward, which makes it difficult to approach Kaguya Hayashi, his landlady's granddaughter. The awkward love letter he writes her becomes a running gag of sorts. There is even a version of it appended to the end of the book, but it, thankfully, doesn't run the fifteen pages it's supposed to. (It always includes a running commentary by Nishioka and Midori Kishibe, a character that seems oddly inserted into the drama after an equally odd time-skip).

I also want to mention Professor Tomosuke Matsumoto, just so I don't forget the name. He also consults on the dictionary, even after Araki retires, during the time jump between chapters, which shows you what a labor of love this project is. It also shows that while dictionaries are important projects, they are also money sinks and often get put on the back burner for other projects. (These other projects help to fund the dictionary, so they do what they have to.)

I did enjoy the book, although it probably isn't something I would have sought out on my own. In preparing to write this, I discovered that there was both an anime version and a movie that was submitted, but not nominated, for the Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

If I had any problems with it, it would be the shift in focus and the weird time skipping. Possibly the addition of the new primary character halfway through the book to replace a different character, who is still there, but moved to a different department. Worth reading.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

1632 (or The Ring of Fire) (Flint)

Image
1632 (or The Ring of Fire) , by Eric Flint, 2000 In the year 2000, a freak occurrence, referred to as The Ring of Fire , sent the town of Grantsville, Virginia back through time and space, swapping places with a plot of land in central Germany in 1632, in the middle of the Thirty Years War. The small mining town quickly realizes the unlikeliness of a second cataclysm putting right what had been torn apart and sets out to acclimate to their way of life. And, of course, survive. Their weapons and technology give them a great advantage, but they no longer have the industry to produce that technology. Nor do the have the industry to produce the industry ... An alternate timeline is born as the United States of America is founded 144 years early (and on a different continent). History plays on around them. The book divides its time between brutal battles fought across Germany, building a new society and some overlong passages on just how well the Americans are getting along with thei...
Read more

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Halloween Rain (Golden, Holder)

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Halloween Rain, Golden, Holder, 1997 An episode of the show which I hadn't seen. Killer scarecrow that comes alive during the rains on Halloween. Samhain can see through the eyes of any pumpkin and move if it's on a scarecrow. Quick read. Should've been quicker. Mind candy. There's a line that I left out that says, "Cute line about coupe....", except that I can't read my own handwriting, nor remember what the cute line was actually about. I'm also not sure if this was actually an episode, or if it was my belief at the time that it was based on one particular episode and not based on the characters from the series. Ultimately, it was forgettable.
Read more

Two Short Books

Image
Big Bullet Monster Bomb: lost little things: a short story for mature readers by Adam Archer (2020) The Race by John Russo (2021) (Not a review, just some notes to help me remember the things I've read. But written this way because it's the Internet, and some people will stumble across this page.) I don't remember where I found these stories. I don't think it was reddit. It could've been on Facebook or Twitter. Nothing about the Bullet Bomb book was particularly geared toward mature readers, other than the cover showing a woman wearing rags that barely cover what they need to. It seems like a story set in a larger world that I haven't read but I have no idea of this is the case. It's post-apocalyptic and the last of the human race is slowly morphing into cratures. This much is interesting. The main character is pulling a sled of her belongings (including guns) and looking for some place to hide so she can sleep. Her sleep c...
Read more