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Kawabata's The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa is supposed to be a work of "modernism" and "New Perceptionist" blah blah. Those words mean nothing to me. It's like trying not to translate everything front to back when you're learning a second language, or an actor with natural talent going to a method school. I'd forget how to walk and talk at the same time! I'd forget how to do either on their own. Trying to make those words mean something in comparison to something else, say other literature classics from the period, will really make my head hurt and I'll forget about why I should care about the people in the story in the first place. This might be a noteable book because of those things, but I am not a reliable reviewer in that respect. Kawabata lived in Asakusa when he was a student. He'd skip off to go on walks around the city instead of attending classes (my kinda guy). I don't think he cared about going by a syllabus either? (I'm going with that so I don't feel bad.) There were people to watch. There are still people to watch, in his mind's eye and now my heart's eye.

Donald Richie (I've some of his books at home to read and I'm pretty psyched) wrote an awesome foreward about the history of Asakusa, Kawabata as a young student and budding new school thinker. It made me think of the oh so serious lit students in Soseki's Sanshiro and I had to laugh. I guess my point is that it is 2011 of this reading and Asakusa is looooong gone. It was me and the gang. If you've known people who were abused who hold within themselves an outfit, say a sort of sheild, that becomes its own glamour... That's the Scarlet Gang to me. They are not untouchable as the stars but are as unknowable in the night or day depending on who they think you want them to be. The freedom is shuttered in confusion. Definitions of style, or the nods to the reader and "This is just a book" deflections and inflections, are not important to me. Outside is the new inside! What are outcasts? There's always a society, as long as there are people...

I feel Kawabata did more here than make strokes in written history about that short wick place. It's just knowing people and feeling something. At least I can feel something... He wanted to save it. I know that, even as I ignore it in favor of what's pulling me harder. It's just... The why it mattered in the first place is more important to me than the how?

I'd say this is an introvert drawing closer to the lively people who will draw them out of the unceasing time of being themselves. The sense of all of that acting feels uncontrolled dramatic. I don't know... It's hard for me because I don't find it easy to feel reflected on by the light of others. I'm suspicious of loud because I wonder what they are trying to cover up. (I've also long suspected one of the reasons why shy friends inevitably dump me is because I'm too quiet to draw anyone out. I don't live to make things happen, that's for sure. Shit, I just confessed to being boring on goodreads.) Asakusa IS that moth sucking flame. Shit, you didn't just say the city is a character, Mariel. Did you? Don't! It's not that important. Times past? History? Nope. It's better than a post card. Wish you were here wouldn't be this feeling. You need the shy person on the soles (souls). (That's you, Kawabata.) After the earthquake of 1923 the girl Yumiko (figurehead bad girl of the Scarlet Gang. More like a scarlet thread holding the transparent fabric together) and her sister stay in a shelter with many, many other bodies. Beggars, vagrants, misplaced bodies. She misses them when a lot of them go. Damn if that's not how Scarlet Gang feels to me. The kids building their school again. That they wouldn't have the heart to rebuild it again if it failed... Kawabata is the best. That's Scarlet Gang. DYI and congenital hearts.

I could have a tupperware party and go to everyone of goodreads house with all my thoughts about this book. Better yet, a bento box. Every flavor will hint of shyness instead of modernism (to me) mumbo gumbo (since that means fuck all to me and shyness is a daily reminder of society, like Asakusa).

So Asakusa was a pleasure city of flesh, food and commerce. Not commerce like shopping malls of middle America and China commerce but everyone was trying to have something to sell, or liked to be in the vicinity of that open market (mall rats and street rats are cousins). At least it was honest about what was for sale, if not what it could cost. I don't buy the glamour like pleasure glamour, though. For instance, that there were so many beggars that the pretty were the commodities? If they looked at them after they were consumed... (One character poisons herself with arsenic to make her skin white and glowing. Fucking poison!) They were pretty until they became wizened on benches, unable to move (or unwilling. Benches were few and competition was brutal). They say you are lost when you can no longer run...

Perusing goodreads and amazon reviews I got the impression that Scarlet Gang is considered a comedy. Not exactly... It's you'll laugh about this some day if you're lucky humor. Sharks not stopping because if they do they'll die humor. It's funny like that like this isn't a history story like it is all the kinds of timelessness. Going into crowds to touch people to be a "them" instead of just "you", nothing matters beyond sales transactions because it's pretend, just business. Dreaming in your own made up costumes. Stage lights never go down. (Damn, where was it in this book that Japanese didn't dress up in costumes in Ginza but it was becoming common in Asakusa? Costumes are definitely popular in Japan today. I found that interesting because I've long admired the cosplay and street kids of today's Japan. Okay, twist my arm! It is kinda a history book, sometimes. It just isn't statistics or a photograph...)

What I was saying about the shark swimming humor? The young girls (thirteen or fourteen, none older than twenty) dancing with their legs showing off singing songs from childhood (think patty cake or something). The longing to be back in braids, innocent and little again. The women in the audience feeling confused, a little resentful. Men strangely excited. Fuck. I can't believe all this talk of Kawabata as the "eternal traveler" (Damn you, Mishima!). Nooooooo. It's the shy thing! The shy cannot bring them out of their glamour in a breakage. Break your own heart. That. They broke HIS heart. If we don't know if he did the same to him... Where's the moving on coming from? He wrote this book! He didn't move on.

The artwork from the serialization was included in my edition. I know less about art than I do about modernism. The style seems familiar to me, although I do not know why. I can say that what I noticed above all else was that the women's thighs were prominent. Maybe it is because I don't pay much attention to women's thighs. I had the feeling that their thighs were taking over their bodies. They were becoming their job as dancers and "ladybirds". Soon they'd have no choice but to be one of those fallen women who put on their makeup in the day time. Oh shit. See all that underlying feeling of honesty in being still had a safe border. Not giving up, not doing the costumes anymore. When the thighs were enormous and the only costume was the makeup of ladybird...

I'm fascinated in the ways that nobody owns anyone else. Richie wrote in one of his books (one of the journals) that there was nothing wrong with selling yourself. He wrote in the afterword that he found "freedom in flesh". Is it really freedom? Or was the attraction of Asakusa a movement of acting out outside, instead of only inside? Because I have to say, the flesh was not "dormant" as Richie said. Not any more than a conquered or surrendered country is dormant. Something is on inside... I wouldn't say it was wrong just that I doubt that there's a real price tag for this. If there was no one would be dressing up, right?

I'm interested in freedom. I don't feel this is it. But I love the shy person breaking their heart stuff. Me too, Kawabata. That's one of the reasons why I love you so damned much. Freedom is out with modernism in the washed away bath water. The acting out movement is something you can't help. Washing away the dirt doesn't feel right so cover it up with makeup and a stage show song (and hope there isn't a clean spot on the wall behind the picture frame about little girl sing-songs and braids).

P.s. I freaking loved that Richie described Kawabata as "bird-like" in appearance and manner.