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sea_su's review against another edition
2.0
I wasn't a fan of the author's writing. It got very confusing when he brought his fictional character to life.
Read for JAPA 310
Read for JAPA 310
mariomenti's review against another edition
5.0
Hideo Furukawa's "Horses, Horses, in the End the Light Remains Pure" is the second book I read this month to remember 3/11. It's a difficult but very compelling mix of journal entry and novel, with interesting insights into the history of horses, which of course somewhat parallels that of humans - in the sense of horses being slaughtered at the whim of governmental powers, and the Fukushima nuclear power plant serving almost exclusively Tokyo (which was relatively unaffected by the disaster).
Not an easy read (it's too weird and infuriating for that), but very powerful.
Not an easy read (it's too weird and infuriating for that), but very powerful.
storytimed's review against another edition
2.5
I picked this up because it was on a list of books that my library had received from the Japanese-American Society of Orange County + it is a Fukushima book, so I was expecting something with general cultural and political relevance
What I did not expect was for Furukawa to spend nearly 100 out of 200-something pages writing fanfic about his characters from a book I have not read and detailing his own occasional hallucinations (not Fukushima-related)
An interesting experience, though a bit of a slog to get through
I did think it was interesting to see other people's reaction to the earthquake + nuclear meltdown, especially everyone else labeling him as a Writer From Fukushima bc that's where he grew up
It's not a straightforward disaster novel: he wasn't at the site, and he doesn't really talk about the reaction of his relatives who still live there. What he does do is relate a possibly ill-advised expedition with him, his editor and a couple people from his publisher where they all pile in a car and head over to the disaster site together. Why did they do this??
Like, these four people, only one of whom is a writer, decide that they all have some kind of responsibilty to witness the disaster area........... I want a tell-all from Ms. S where she explains her reasoning as a low-level publishing house staff member for feeling like she needed to go
Also one very interesting part was when he goes to NYC to visit Ground Zero and explains very earnestly that America's disaster had a villain who could be killed (aka Bin Laden) but Japan's did not
Tbh I think the idea of needing to heal without punishment or hatred is v. resonant and the way it's phrased is quite poetic but like.......... the context is so goofy and geopolitically fraught idk
What I did not expect was for Furukawa to spend nearly 100 out of 200-something pages writing fanfic about his characters from a book I have not read and detailing his own occasional hallucinations (not Fukushima-related)
An interesting experience, though a bit of a slog to get through
I did think it was interesting to see other people's reaction to the earthquake + nuclear meltdown, especially everyone else labeling him as a Writer From Fukushima bc that's where he grew up
It's not a straightforward disaster novel: he wasn't at the site, and he doesn't really talk about the reaction of his relatives who still live there. What he does do is relate a possibly ill-advised expedition with him, his editor and a couple people from his publisher where they all pile in a car and head over to the disaster site together. Why did they do this??
Like, these four people, only one of whom is a writer, decide that they all have some kind of responsibilty to witness the disaster area........... I want a tell-all from Ms. S where she explains her reasoning as a low-level publishing house staff member for feeling like she needed to go
Also one very interesting part was when he goes to NYC to visit Ground Zero and explains very earnestly that America's disaster had a villain who could be killed (aka Bin Laden) but Japan's did not
Tbh I think the idea of needing to heal without punishment or hatred is v. resonant and the way it's phrased is quite poetic but like.......... the context is so goofy and geopolitically fraught idk
affiknittyreads's review against another edition
4.0
Horses, Horses is, as Slaymaker says in his afterword, compelling and important, exasperating and demanding. It reflects the way people process overwhelming events: emotionally, imaginatively, chaotically, haphazardly and ultimately perhaps incompletely.
yannea's review against another edition
2.0
Reading this book brought back so many memories.
First of all, sitting in my living room and seeing the emergency notice in the TV. Waiting for hours before hearing from my friends that they are alright. And then days of being in a daze.
And then 4 years later - The Tohoku highway, the empty fields where houses used to be, the frozen clock, and the ocean - far but visible - and you wonder how can it be this calm right now?
I first visited Japan in 2010 and I lived with host family near Tokyo. In 2014 I moved to Sendai so I saw the affected areas and heard the experiences of the local people. It was ~4 years after the tragedy but it was still there and I think it will always be there.
First of all, sitting in my living room and seeing the emergency notice in the TV. Waiting for hours before hearing from my friends that they are alright. And then days of being in a daze.
And then 4 years later - The Tohoku highway, the empty fields where houses used to be, the frozen clock, and the ocean - far but visible - and you wonder how can it be this calm right now?
I first visited Japan in 2010 and I lived with host family near Tokyo. In 2014 I moved to Sendai so I saw the affected areas and heard the experiences of the local people. It was ~4 years after the tragedy but it was still there and I think it will always be there.
lauren_endnotes's review against another edition
5.0
"'Go. Get yourself radiated...Go. See.' I was born in the central Nakadōri section of Fukushima Prefecture. Now I had to go to the ocean side, the Hamadōri.
What can I do to share in their pain?" (p27)
▫️HORSES, HORSES, IN THE END THE LIGHT REMAINS PURE By Hideo Furukawa, translated by Doug Slaymaker and Akiko Takenaka, 2011/2016 by Columbia University Press
An experimental essay / memoir / fantasy / interrogation of history surrounding the triple disaster that began on March 11, 2011 - the earthquake, the tsunami, and the nuclear meltdown - that struck Furukawa's home of Fukushima.
He wrestles with the guilt and grief of not being there when it happened - he was in Kyoto and unable to reach his family members. Along with a small group of others, he travels to Fukushima to SEE.
The essay is a travelogue of this trip north, but also a fluid time warp (the translators refer to "spirited-away time") that includes poetry and fictional diversions that imagine characters from Furukawa's notable (and unfortunately untranslated) SEIKAZOKU (The Holy Family) experiencing the earthquake and tsunami, and telling their tales.
The most arresting (as in it completely stopped me in my tracks) pieces was his interrogation of history, Japanese nationalism and hero worship, genocide and subjugation of Indigenous and Korean people, and relating it to the titular history of the horse
What can I do to share in their pain?" (p27)
▫️HORSES, HORSES, IN THE END THE LIGHT REMAINS PURE By Hideo Furukawa, translated by Doug Slaymaker and Akiko Takenaka, 2011/2016 by Columbia University Press
An experimental essay / memoir / fantasy / interrogation of history surrounding the triple disaster that began on March 11, 2011 - the earthquake, the tsunami, and the nuclear meltdown - that struck Furukawa's home of Fukushima.
He wrestles with the guilt and grief of not being there when it happened - he was in Kyoto and unable to reach his family members. Along with a small group of others, he travels to Fukushima to SEE.
The essay is a travelogue of this trip north, but also a fluid time warp (the translators refer to "spirited-away time") that includes poetry and fictional diversions that imagine characters from Furukawa's notable (and unfortunately untranslated) SEIKAZOKU (The Holy Family) experiencing the earthquake and tsunami, and telling their tales.
The most arresting (as in it completely stopped me in my tracks) pieces was his interrogation of history, Japanese nationalism and hero worship, genocide and subjugation of Indigenous and Korean people, and relating it to the titular history of the horse
baileyvk's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
mhowden42's review against another edition
3.0
I found this book on the New Fiction shelf at my local library. It looked so small next to all the new Mysteries that I had to pick it up and see what it was about. Written in the immediate aftermath of the 3-11 triple disaster by a novelist that grew up in Fukushima Prefecture, this can best be described as a visceral scream of a prose piece written by an artist that is witnessing the devastation of the land he was raised on. In turns, this book is an eye witness report, an alternative history, and the emotionally poetic attempt of a single human to make sense of destruction that cannot be comprehended.
I have been haunted by the images of 3-11 and was hoping to unpack some of that mental baggage with this book. I think it put some things into perspective, but time will tell.
I have been haunted by the images of 3-11 and was hoping to unpack some of that mental baggage with this book. I think it put some things into perspective, but time will tell.
zeldarhiando's review
5.0
Furukawa wrote this novella in one month, immediately following the tsunami of 2011. He is a native of Fukushima Prefecture, but was away when the disaster occurred. It’s both a memoir, and a meditation on the redemptive power of writing, this book plays with form, in a way that is reminiscent of Nabokov, to create a sense of liberation, chaos and loss.
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