Evening Clouds

There are some books which stay with you after long you are done reading them and Shono's "Evening Clouds" is one of them. With haiku-like prose, and an almost Zen like approach, Shono narrates the day to day happenings in the life of Oura, a guy who moves to a new house on the top of a hill with his wife and 3 kids. The beauty of the book lies in the fact that while nothing really "happens", the reader can really connect with the family and feel life's rhythms in the written word. This book is meant to be read slowly and savored without rush and haste. Also, somehow after reading the book I felt that it gave me the same vibes as "My neighbor Totoro" by Miyazaki. I think that is because both are about families moving to a new house set among trees, wind and babbling brooks. And because both touch you in the same way, with the warm fuzzy feeling that I cannot begin to describe.

This is one of the most uneventful novels I've ever read. No drama, no storyline per se, no extraordinary characters, no deep symbolism to speak of, and devoid both of extreme emotional impact and pseudo-sophisticated postmodern detachment. Sounds boring, right? Wrong, strange to say. "Evening Clouds" consists of a number of loosely-related episodes that focus on the little day-to-day happenings in the life of a fairly ordinary family (okay, the father is a self-employed writer, so not exactly representative per se) narrated in a manner that, while straightforward and deceptively plain, is quiet, thoughtful, and engaging. At first the episodes and images seem random and disorganized, though with a little attention one catches on that most of them in some way or another suggest the family's transplantation to a new location and its gradual maturation there. Shono unfolds this theme according to organic rather than strictly linear organizing principles, and does so with an eye for detail and a knack for making the quotidian suggestive in a warm-hearted though unsentimental fashion, all of which slowly grows on the reader. It is almost as if Shono has taken the old abandoned prewar "I-novel" with its autobiographical fixation and confessional tone, subtracted out the weak points and hackneyed aspects (such as the impulse to drag oneself through the dirt), and refined it anew into a concoction of his own that actually is a joy to read and savor. Lammers' translation is top-notch, catching the casual tones of the novel nicely, and the secondary materials he has appended to the work are short and to the point, doing a fine job of introducing this fine author and his novel to the English reader without impeding the novel from speaking for itself.

Evening Clouds is an incredible book that should be read slowly. This is not the kind of book to stay up all night with; the tranquility and closeness of the Oura family should be enjoyed over a week or two. Once reconciled to the idea that nothing "exciting" is going to happen, the reader can sit back and savor the beauty that may or may not exist in his own life. A person leading a particularly stressful existence would benefit from a few weeks mentally on top of a windy mountain in Tokyo with a loving wife, three adorable children and ample time to work in the garden. The only threats to peace are that developers are encroaching on the surrounding hillside and the children are growing up; this hint of sadness in an otherwise happy novel makes it a perfect reading experience.