Book Review: Mokusei by Cess Nooteboom and Adrienne Dixon

Quote: Whether he had been asleep for a long time or not, did not know, only that he had dreamt that he was still in the aeroplane high above the ocean, on the way to her.

An eighty-five pages long tragic love story of Arnold Presser, a Dutch photographer and a Japanese model, Sakoto.

My soft spot of anything remotely related Japanese got me this. Originally written in Dutch, the book has a promising beginning. Opens with a conversation between a diplomat De Goede and Presser.

The conversation between both brings out the difference between observation, expectations, and reality. To Presser, Japan is the land of beautiful gestures, kimonos, Mt. Fuji, Basho's Haikus and Hokusai's paintings: a Japan devoid of pollution, consumerism and expanding modern cities. While De Goede explains this very idea of Japan and it's culture in the heads of visitors ends up repulsing them of Japanese culture as their expectations and experiences collide and create a disillusion of which they can't recover.

Presser also realises his passion for photography might only find an income through brochure-photography. The ones people glance once and discard twice. While on one such trip to photograph a beautiful Japanese girl in front of Mount Fuji for De Goede, Presser meets Sakoto, with whom he has a passionate and secret love affair for five years.

He gives her two names Snow Mask as her expressions are unreadable to him and Mokusei: one of the few of fragrant flowers Japan has.

The language of the book is beautiful and functional. The author-translator has bought out the balance between unbound unexplainable passion and controlled narrative. The conversation that opens the book aligns well with the suffering and internal torment of Presser. He can neither open up to his friends nor can he settle down with Sakoto.

The ending of the book is as predictable as it gets. A beautiful mysterious homely Asian girl refuses to leave her parents and decides to get married to look after her parents. I don't understand why couldn't Presser ever suggest to her, that he moves to Japan and lives with her instead of her leaving the country. Presser is like typical rootless creative head protagonist with hypersensitive heart, but he is not close to his family or friends so why not leave the Netherlands if his love was that intense?

I have nothing to take away from this book other than beautiful language. Overall it was an impact less read. The most beautiful aspect of the book is the lovely cover.

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