REVIEW #20: RIKU ONDA SHINES SOME DAPPLED SUNLIGHT INTO OUR DARK SOULS

Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight
By Riku Onda
Bitter Lemon Press, London, 2022
English Translation by Alison Watts

After being so deeply impressed by Onda’s novel, Honeybees and Distant Thunder, I decided to order in her second novel, Fish Swimming in Dappled Sunlight, and I am now on a mission to discover whether memory is a cultural preoccupation for many Japanese writers, or whether I have, coincidentally, read four books in a row that explore the power of memories to continue to shape us and our relationships through our lives. The first two I read were Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s café tales in which the central characters are haunted by their memories and desperate to revisit the loved one they lost.

The other interesting factor in the two novels I have read by Onda, is that the setting centres around a short, specific event, in one a piano competition and in the other the final night before two young adults who were separated in childhood, found the pressures of trying to re-establish their sibling relationship too great, especially after their tragic hiking trip in which their experienced guide fell to his death. Both became suspicious that the other had been involved in that and were determined to thrash it out for one last time before they went their separate ways. Memories are key to them making many shocking discoveries about their past and about their own character.

A SOBERING VIEW OF FAMILIES, SOCIAL POLICIES AND FAILED EMPATHY. BEST TO LAUGH AT OURSELVES AND LEARN FROM THIS ONE!

Both the protagonists are introspective, but they also suffer from our very human foible of vividly filling in gaps in our knowledge about others with our own fantastic imaginings. Most honest readers will probably have a wry smile on their face as they recognize their own tendency to believe their worst fears and catastrophise their vaguest memories. Moreover, they think that their bizarre re-creations of the thoughts and actions of others, are born out of insight and wisdom, rather than the desperation of intense emotions that need to find answers to bewildering situations and dysfunctional relationships.

Despite all the murderous feelings and tense suspicions, the female protagonist refers to the ‘night’s comedy’ on more than one occasion. This seems, on the surface, to be so out of place in this dark night of the soul. Yet, for me at least, it struck me as comedic. Today, more than ever, We have lost track of the past. We have lost track of the truth. All our fantasies are being poured out in a never-ending stream of conspiracy theories that have long passed the point of bizarre and seem to have pooled into a communal insanity that gives credence and grave consideration to the most absurd notions, imposing them on the populace in all seriousness. One can’t help but be constantly reminded of the Emperor’s New Clothes, but there are very few brave souls wishing to call out these idiocies. I can’t help feeling that Riku Onda was soundly mocking us. She wasn’t writing a menacing tale about a murder. She was trying to show us what we have become and how much our relationships have suffered as a result of our tendency to live in fantasy worlds where all communication has broken down. All we have left is our wild, increasingly paranoid imagination, and our victimhood to keep us company, instead of reason and circumspection and a capacity to listen to someone else’s perspective, rather than continually impose our own thinking on those around us.

I have tried to avoid giving away details of the novel, as this would spoil it altogether. All I can do is wish you luck with the ending. It will leave you howling at being human in the same way as Orwell’s Winston and Fitzgerald’s Gatsby. I would label it dark comedy and hope it lets in some light. The biggest mystery here is why we humans never learn our lessons.