Ooku volumes 2-4, Yoshinaga Fumi
Ooku 2-4, Fumi Yoshinaga
(Yes, I did read volume two more than a month ago.)
Ooku volume 2 is set about one hundred years before volume 1. It's a stronger book, I think, but it's clear why it needed to be the second volume in the series. The flawed but relatively functional matriarchal Japan of Yoshimune's reign needed to be established and made to feel convincing, to give the decisions made in Chie/Iemitsu's time the gravity they need to feel real.
There's this sort of story that I think of as a "negotiable narrative" - one where, for some reason, the reader is compelled make comparisons between the narrative presented, and an alternate narrative that is in some sense more "real." In this case, if volume 2 were read before volume 1, the alternate narrative - with which most Japanese readers would be at least somewhat familiar - is the actual historical narrative of the early Edo era.
When volume 2 is read after volume 1 and framed as a story that Yoshimune is reading, however, Yoshimune's own alternate Japan becomes the basis for comparison. We read it wondering what she and the people around her might think of it, not what the historical Iemitsu might have thought.
This is a good choice for the kind of alternate history Yoshinaga is writing here. It's sort of a suspension-of-disbelief issue, but it's also partly a question of tone. The first kind of alternate history always runs the risk of feeling didactic, even when that's not the author's intent (though I think it often is). It's easy for even innocuous decisions on the author's part to feel like criticism, or advice. By beginning the story in a Japan radically different from the real one, then moving backwards to one that is just beginning to diverge, Yoshinaga defines the story as one taking place in another world, which makes the criticisms that she is sneaking in - and I would say that she is making some criticisms here! - seem more organic to the story.
(Incidentally, I feel like Jacqueline Carey did something very similar to this with Kushiel's Dart. She gives the reader a kind of permission to buy into the fantasy by introducing the floating world of the Night Court first - and not making it clear until further in that, oh, by the way, this is all happening in a fairly close approximation of Europe. It just works better.)
Volume 2 and the first portion of volume 3 are the sort of story Yoshinaga is good at - several smart, unhappy people make a lot of understandable bad decisions and hurt each other, slowly coming to terms with the unfairness of the world.
I'm not sure what happened with the second part of volume 3, but it started to fall apart. Maybe Yoshinaga was uncomfortable with the fact that she was writing what was, essentially, a tragedy? Maybe the historical elements were weighing her down? I don't know. But the segment leading up to Iemitsu/Chie's death fell very flat.
Part of the problem is the cutaways. There were a lot of scenes in which an omniscient narrator described the social changes that were taking place, while a peasant family and a noble family tried to deal with them. This is bad because the manga didn't give us much reason to care about these people. They seem nice enough (okay, I loved Terutsuna and wanted more of her), but the limited view we get of them is not very interesting, and their stories don't feel connected to that of the protagonists. It's like there are two different manga running here.
This wouldn't be a deal-breaker on its own, except that at the same time, the omniscient narrator also starts sneaking in to push forward Iemitsu/Chie and Arikoto's story. Sometimes this sort of taking-a-step-back strategy can be used to give a personal story a sense of the mythic. Unfortunately, if that's what Yoshinaga was going for, she didn't succeed. The feeling we get is more that she lost interest.
In particular, Iemitsu/Chie's growth into a harsh but able leader is shown only the context of the increasing intelligence of the orders she gives. We don't learn how she's learned so much - it's obviously not from Arikoto. Along the same lines, Arikoto's increasing ability to look the other way when Iemitsu/Chie does something cruel is described, and understandable given his circumstances, but it's not delved into deeply. These decisions don't make much sense to me.
The problem continues after Iemitsu/Chie's death. If Yoshinaga did not find Ietsuna interesting - and she evidently did not - I think that she should have skipped her. It might have been a good idea to spend that time on Tsunayoshi's childhood and her relationships before moving into the middle of her story.
Presumably Japanese readers could be expected to know a little about the historical Tsunayoshi going in, as he's a fairly infamous figure. But given the amount of development given to Iemitsu and Yoshimune, I don't think it's unfair to expect Tsunayoshi to receive a similar amount of analysis. It's not really clear who the protagonist is, or whether there is one, which is not a good thing. Yoshinaga's strength is characters, and it's hard to care about any of the people inhabiting Tsunayoshi's court. I hope that the series pulls itself together a little more in volume 5.
-
The Viz translation's still stupid.
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)
(Yes, I did read volume two more than a month ago.)
Ooku volume 2 is set about one hundred years before volume 1. It's a stronger book, I think, but it's clear why it needed to be the second volume in the series. The flawed but relatively functional matriarchal Japan of Yoshimune's reign needed to be established and made to feel convincing, to give the decisions made in Chie/Iemitsu's time the gravity they need to feel real.
There's this sort of story that I think of as a "negotiable narrative" - one where, for some reason, the reader is compelled make comparisons between the narrative presented, and an alternate narrative that is in some sense more "real." In this case, if volume 2 were read before volume 1, the alternate narrative - with which most Japanese readers would be at least somewhat familiar - is the actual historical narrative of the early Edo era.
When volume 2 is read after volume 1 and framed as a story that Yoshimune is reading, however, Yoshimune's own alternate Japan becomes the basis for comparison. We read it wondering what she and the people around her might think of it, not what the historical Iemitsu might have thought.
This is a good choice for the kind of alternate history Yoshinaga is writing here. It's sort of a suspension-of-disbelief issue, but it's also partly a question of tone. The first kind of alternate history always runs the risk of feeling didactic, even when that's not the author's intent (though I think it often is). It's easy for even innocuous decisions on the author's part to feel like criticism, or advice. By beginning the story in a Japan radically different from the real one, then moving backwards to one that is just beginning to diverge, Yoshinaga defines the story as one taking place in another world, which makes the criticisms that she is sneaking in - and I would say that she is making some criticisms here! - seem more organic to the story.
(Incidentally, I feel like Jacqueline Carey did something very similar to this with Kushiel's Dart. She gives the reader a kind of permission to buy into the fantasy by introducing the floating world of the Night Court first - and not making it clear until further in that, oh, by the way, this is all happening in a fairly close approximation of Europe. It just works better.)
Volume 2 and the first portion of volume 3 are the sort of story Yoshinaga is good at - several smart, unhappy people make a lot of understandable bad decisions and hurt each other, slowly coming to terms with the unfairness of the world.
I'm not sure what happened with the second part of volume 3, but it started to fall apart. Maybe Yoshinaga was uncomfortable with the fact that she was writing what was, essentially, a tragedy? Maybe the historical elements were weighing her down? I don't know. But the segment leading up to Iemitsu/Chie's death fell very flat.
Part of the problem is the cutaways. There were a lot of scenes in which an omniscient narrator described the social changes that were taking place, while a peasant family and a noble family tried to deal with them. This is bad because the manga didn't give us much reason to care about these people. They seem nice enough (okay, I loved Terutsuna and wanted more of her), but the limited view we get of them is not very interesting, and their stories don't feel connected to that of the protagonists. It's like there are two different manga running here.
This wouldn't be a deal-breaker on its own, except that at the same time, the omniscient narrator also starts sneaking in to push forward Iemitsu/Chie and Arikoto's story. Sometimes this sort of taking-a-step-back strategy can be used to give a personal story a sense of the mythic. Unfortunately, if that's what Yoshinaga was going for, she didn't succeed. The feeling we get is more that she lost interest.
In particular, Iemitsu/Chie's growth into a harsh but able leader is shown only the context of the increasing intelligence of the orders she gives. We don't learn how she's learned so much - it's obviously not from Arikoto. Along the same lines, Arikoto's increasing ability to look the other way when Iemitsu/Chie does something cruel is described, and understandable given his circumstances, but it's not delved into deeply. These decisions don't make much sense to me.
The problem continues after Iemitsu/Chie's death. If Yoshinaga did not find Ietsuna interesting - and she evidently did not - I think that she should have skipped her. It might have been a good idea to spend that time on Tsunayoshi's childhood and her relationships before moving into the middle of her story.
Presumably Japanese readers could be expected to know a little about the historical Tsunayoshi going in, as he's a fairly infamous figure. But given the amount of development given to Iemitsu and Yoshimune, I don't think it's unfair to expect Tsunayoshi to receive a similar amount of analysis. It's not really clear who the protagonist is, or whether there is one, which is not a good thing. Yoshinaga's strength is characters, and it's hard to care about any of the people inhabiting Tsunayoshi's court. I hope that the series pulls itself together a little more in volume 5.
-
The Viz translation's still stupid.
This post was cross-posted from Dreamwidth. Please comment there using OpenID. (Comments:
)