STILL LIFE AND OTHER STORIES
by Junzo Shono
translated from the Japanese by Wayne P. Lammers
Berkeley: Stone Bridge Press, 1992.

This book received the 1993 PEN West Literary Award for Translation and the 1993-94 Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature. .

From the Introduction

So little in these stories by Shono Junzo is overtly "Japanese" that readers of the translations may at times even forget that the stories are set in Japan. This gives them a universal appeal and familiarity, allowing them to become stories about any family of any modern society, not merely exotic stories of a country far away. The stories gently illumine the essence of human existence in a manner not unlike Thornton Wilder's "Our Town."

But at the same time, there is much in these stories that will strike the reader familiar with Japan and its literature as being, indeed, very "Japanese." The family appearing here is, after all, a Japanese family: even when most of the day-to-day activities described could belong to any modern society, the patterns of relating between family members, and the whole family's experience of life's major milestones, clearly bear the imprint of Japanese traditions and values. Not only for this steady focus on the family but for their intimate, "snapshot" style--a progression of brief episodes capturing moments in the life of a family almost like an album of photographs--the stories bring to mind the films of Ozu Yasujiro, with their low, stationary camera. The constant attention to nature, the autobiographical method, and the inclination toward reflective musing rather than analysis, all have deep roots in Japanese literature, both classical and modern--though Shono combines them in a refreshing new way. The stories are quite unlike those that have been associated with the haiku aesthetic before this, but there is nevertheless a quiet and spareness about them that make one think of haiku poetry--especially the way haiku describe scenes or momentary events as if to say "Look!" but then leave it to the reader to ponder the significance of those scenes or moments. The simplicity, both in haiku and in Shono's stories, is deceptive: if we heed the command and turn our attention in the direction pointed, we see more than we had ever noticed before, even among the most commonplace of things.

And this is true of every reading. As translator, I have now read these stories a great many times, but continue to be moved by them anew. Sometimes I marvel at the simple beauty of the stories and their wonderful, unstinting, trueness to life. Sometimes I am warmed by their normalness and happiness--by the light Shono casts upon successes and joys and satisfying connections between people instead of dwelling on failure, dysfuntion, and alienation as so many of his contemporaries have done. Other times I am put on edge by the fragility, the subtle tensions, the dark and chilling shadows that I find lurking behind the apparent calm in places I had never noticed before. Even more than most, these stories call for several readings.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS(click on 3, and 8 to read excerpts)

Part I: Marriage

1. A Dance
   
2. Evenings at the Pool

   Part II: Family Album

3. Still Life
4. Crabs
5. Birds
6. Woodshed
7. Azure Sky
8. Two Men and the Autumn Wind
9. The Workshop
10. Picture Cards<>

    Part III: Still Together

11. The Rooster
12. The Mouse
    
13. On the Roof