 |
|
Paddyfield.com
paperback £6.99
Ccv
Paddyfield.com
More reviews by Peter Gordon
Readers may purchase reviewed books from Paddyfield.com, Asia's online bookseller.North American readers may prefer to buy US editions from Powells.com.
|
|
|
The Fourth Treasure by Todd Shimoda
Few recent novels have caused me to think as much as TODD SHIMODA's THE FOURTH TREASURE. While undoubtedly intriguing, I haven't yet decided whether I think this is a "good book" or not. It's different, and there's not a lot to compare it against; I'm not even sure I know what "good" means in this context. I imagine I'll probably have to think about it for a while longer.
Author Shimoda, who is a professor of cognitive science as well as a writer, is skating on pretty thin ice here a lot of the time, and part of the thrill is wondering whether the ice'll crack and he'll fall in. The ice cracks in a few places, but he doesn't fall in.
Pictures worth a thousand words
We have come to accept that the substance of a work of literature -- the words -- is independent from its presentation, so that book -- the physical form -- is often used as a synonym for novel, i.e. the words, so much so that it now possible to source the "complete works" of a number of authors of the classics off the Internet: just the letters, no formatting. Paperbacks and hardcovers are identical except in heft.
TODD SHIMODA's THE FOURTH TREASURE takes us back to an earlier time, a much earlier time, when books were more than just words presented linearly, when the visual and even tactile context was crucial.
The Japanese (and Chinese) always knew this; the physical form of the words on paper, even the quality of the paper itself, was often as important as the words themselves.
THE FOURTH TREASURE communicates not just through the words on the page, but also through the beautiful and intriguing illustrations, both calligraphy and calligraphic imagery, that adorn the pages.
Perhaps it takes a cognitive scientist to remind us that the brain accepts information in many forms, and at many levels, simultaneously, and that information divorced from its context is much impoverished. Shimoda, as a scientist and writer, is clearly interested in the nature of consciousness and meaning. Tina, the neuroscience grad student protagonist, asks how mere synapses and neural pathways can give rise to meaning. The answer, which seems both scientific and traditionally Japanese at the same time, is that meaning is accumulated through use and context.
The four treasures alluded to in the title are the brush, the ink stick, the paper and the inkstone. The Daizen inkstone in the story -- a centuries-old inkstone --
- has accumulated centuries of meaning. The inkstone itself, as a rock, has no meaning but for the accumulation of use, of being coveted, of being prized. And so it is with conscious experience; it is accumulated meaning.
Shimoda reminds us that books are also not just static objects, but that they acquire additional meaning through use (as anyone who makes use of a library will appreciate). Not prepared to wait for readers to add their own notes in the margin, or perhaps because that process would be too random, Shimoda has added his own marginalia, in the form of explanations of the origins and meaning of the calligraphy, scientific notes and comments from Tina's notebooks, as if the protagonist were annotating the book in which she is a character.
There's a story in there, too
But, in addition to being an experiment in artistic fusion and a discourse on current developments in neuroscience, THE FOURTH TREASURE is also a novel about love and multicultural synthesis.
Tina is a first-year UC Berkeley grad student. Her mother Hanako, a Japanese immigrant, raised her alone by working as a waitress, and is now suffering from MS. Tina's somewhat odious japanophile boyfriend, Robert-san, is studying shodo, or calligraphy, from a Japanese sensei who suddenly has a stroke and suffers considerable brain damage as a result. The sensei's continued attempts at calligraphy yield what appears to be nonsense and simultaneously make him a valuable research subject for Tina's professors. The story stretches back into Japan, where Tina's mother and the sensei knew each other and back further to the origins of the inkstone. The story is populated with students and professors, a single mother, a gangster businessman, a private-eye and a piece of stone which is a much a character as any of them.
The story at times tiptoes on edge of the cliche without quite falling in -- there is a lot of bowing, oriental stoicism and manipulative gaijin ultimately bested by their more subtle Japanese opponents -- but for this and other reasons, the story provides tension, switching from the mundane to the sublime, from the problems of homework to those of art, from science to food, from Japan to California, from miso to coffee, from love to muscle spasms.
It is in many ways a haunting story, of love lost, of understanding gained. Some passages are beautiful, almost poetic, thrown in among the prose. And then there is actual poetry, short Japanese-style poems of a couple of lines, which illuminate the illustrations that illuminate the text.
Different strokes
I am completely out of depth when discussing Japanese art forms or poetry and so have no way of knowing whether the illustrator, L.J.C. Shimoda (the similarity in surname is no coincidence), has extended the traditional art of shodo calligraphy in ways that are considered proper.
But I'm not sure that I care. I had considered oriental calligraphy (as opposed to Western or Arabic calligraphy, which I had studied to at least some extent) to be a rather arcane art. I rather doubt I would ever actually read a book on shodo itself. By relating the art form to the story, and by insinuating explanations and examples into the annotations in the margins, THE FOURTH TREASURE succeeds in teaching a great deal and awakens, at least in me, a new interest and appreciation. Since author Shimoda does the same trick with several principles of neuroscience (something which I do know a little more about), and since he is a professor himself, one suspects a pedagogical purpose. It works, so who's complaining?
That being said, I have to wonder if either technique -- illuminations or marginalia -- will work if used more than rarely; part of the appeal is in its novelty; I don't know if it can be repeated too many times without becoming wearisome. There are good reasons why novels are almost never illustrated; the lack of visual images allows the reader to form his own. Perhaps books really are just words.
But THE FOURTH TREASURE sure is interesting, thought-provoking and well worth reading. And looking at. And maybe looking at again. I have little doubt that I'll pick the book up again in a few weeks to have another look at it.
Peter Gordon
30/05/2002
|
Peter Gordon is editor of The Asian Review of Books. |
| |
|
