David van Reybrouk, Against Elections ***

Against Elections reminds us that elections are not synonymous with democracy, despite the rampant "electoral fundamentalism" that treats them as the same. "After all, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948 states as such: 'the will of the people shall be the basis of authority of government; this shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections....'" Van Reybrouk argues that the current problems with our democracies stem from a disconnect between the governors and the governed, and that elections can do nothing to ameliorate that disconnect.

He recommends that we return to the Athenian method of sortition, aka the drawing of lots. Appointing (certain) officials in the same way we create juries would be far more democratic and would also increase engagement. Van Reybrouk provides several examples, both ancient and modern, where aleatoric methods have been incorporated into decision making.

The book does a good job making me question unexamined assumptions about democratic governance, and it describes the current crisis well (especially for Europe, since the author is Belgian). I find the recommendations less convincing. None of the modern examples, such as revising the Icelandic constitution or Canadian electoral reform, was an unqualified success. The description of van Reybrouk's preferred system sounds like the summary of an alien civilization. After pointing to jury selection as a model, the author should have explicitly addressed the problems in that system such as unrepresentative juries, outrageous verdicts, and everyone's desire to get out of jury duty.

Mohsin Hamid, Exit West **** 1/2

Exit West follows Saeed and Nadia as they fall in love while their home city descends into civil war and deal with the complications of living under the threat of violence. It is written in a very Saramago-esque style: the tone of a folk tale, long sentences, social commentary, offhand acceptance of magical elements, an empathetic take on terrible circumstances.

I especially enjoyed the first half, in which everyone continues with their day-to-day lives as the situation worsens. I also appreciated how Hamid tells Saeed and Nadia's story from beginning to end, and that their story was ultimately neither a fairy tale or a tragedy.

The apocalypse appeared to have arrived and yet it was not apocalyptic, which is to say that while the changes were jarring they were not the end, and people found things to do and ways to be and people to be with, and plausible desirable futures began to emerge, unimaginable previously, but not unimaginable now.

Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows ***

The final selection from my Kyoto collection of Japanese literature is this essay about Japanese aesthetics. I chose this particular Tanizaki book based almost entirely on its title.

The middle section of the essay is an interesting and atmospherically written mediation about how the spareness of Japanese taste in art and architecture flows from an appreciation of darkness, which contrasts with the Western tendency to illuminate everything as clearly as possible. This idea made me think about three artworks that we saw on Naoshima during our recent trip to Japan:

• The dark room below the lobby of our hotel, which displayed Hiroshi Sugimoto photos with titles like "Coffin of Light" in purposely low light
• The Chichu Museum, which is entirely underground and uses only natural light
• The Ishibashi house that was part of the Art House Project, with its abstract landscapes on its traditional paper walls

In Praise of Shadows starts with a surprisingly long discussion of Western toilets and ends with a questionable hypothesis about a racial dimension to Japanese preferences. The essay enhanced my appreciation of Japanese art and architecture while also making me think of Tanizaki as a grumbler.

The Westerner has been able to move forward in ordered steps, while we have met superior civilization and have had to surrender to it, and we have had to leave a road we have followed for thousands of years.

Yasunari Kawabata, The Sound of the Mountain ****

How do you extend a vacation to Japan? By reading classic Japanese literature at home!

Kawabata was the first Japanese author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. The Sound of the Mountain is a mid-career novel from the early 1950s. The main character, Ogata Shingo, is an old man pondering his life as his friends are dying, his memory is failing, and his children are dealing with difficult marriages.

The Sound of the Mountain is a very Japanese book, in the same sense that Ozu films are very Japanese. The "action" consists of small domestic incidents and the passing of the seasons; the themes concern our responsibilities to each other and the disappointments of a lived life.

The cover says, "Of all modern Japanese fiction, Kawabata's is the closest to poetry," and refers to the book as "lyrical and precise." I would describe is as delicate and lovely. Most of the short chapters describe quiet conversations about the garden or everyday minutiae, but the details feel freighted with meaning. It's much more hopeful than expected with a fading elderly protagonist.

My one complaint is that the language is often awkward when it means to be oblique. I suspect a too-literal translation from Edward Siedensticker. Mr Siedensticker translated a lot of classic Japanese literature, but I would be very interested in reading a new translation of this one.

Yasuko Kubo, Swords of Japan ****

Swords of Japan is an impressively comprehensive Beginner's Illustrated Handbook about Japanese swords. It covers the different types of swords, their evolution over the centuries, the parts of a sword, the stylistic variations from period to period and craftsman to craftsman, the manufacturing process, and evaluation criteria. Sprinkled throughout are tidbits about sword-related terms that made it into everyday language; for example, "tsuke-yakiba" means a blade that can't hold a cutting edge, and can also describe a person whose skills are not deep enough.

The volume of Japanese terms can be intimidating for a foreign reader, although it's not surprising that most of the very specific sword-related words haven't been translated. I spent a lot of time flipping back to the glossary or to an earlier diagram to decipher sentences like "blades from this period...are generally wide with little or no difference between the moto and saki-haba, [and] have an extended chu-kissaki."

I feel like I could appraise swords with this book in my hands, figure out when and where it was made and what type of person carried it. I would have liked it if the book had more information about the evolving social contexts for the swords, beyond letting me know that you carry a tachi with the cutting edge down and a katana with the cutting edge up and that a formal daisho must have a plain black lacquered saya.

Kobo Abe, The Face of Another *** 1/2

The Face of Another is the first (alphabetically and in reading order) of the Japanese literature I bought from the impressive foreign-language section at Maruzen in Kyoto. I know Kobo Abe from the film adaptation of The Woman in the Dunes.

In The Face of Another, a scientist has his face deformed in a laboratory accident and sets out to design an undetectable mask to cover his scars. As he does so, he ponders the relationship between a person's face and his or her self: society interacts with you through your face, and your personality determines which expressions shape your face, so a different face means a different personality.

From the plot description, I expected a horror novel with the scientist gradually finding himself acting differently when wearing his mask. However, it is more philosophical than that. The scientist understands the potential consequences from the beginning, and he considers the relationship between one's face and one's self from every angle. The book also spends a considerable amount of time describing the difficulties of designing the mask. Abe uses evocative descriptions and analogies to keep the abstract philosophizing grounded.

Hideo Yokoyama, Six Four *** 1/2

Six Four is an unusual crime novel in that it deals primarily with (Japanese) police department politics. The main character, Mikami, is director of Media Relations, and he's trying to satisfy an unruly press corps while the two major branches of the police, Administrative Affairs and Criminal Investigations, are engaged in a civil war. Meanwhile, the commissioner is coming down from Tokyo to pay his respects to the victims of an unsolved kidnapping/murder from fourteen years previous. "Six Four" is the detective's slang for that case, because it occurred in the sixty-fourth (and final) year of the Showa period.

Most of Mikami's "detective" work is figuring out what's going on between the departments, and there's no current crime until four fifths of the way through. If you accept this offbeat angle, Six Four is well plotted, and the author is thorough about making Mikami's reasoning explicit. When the new crime finally kicks in, many of the small details from earlier become relevant. The prose is a bit stiff, which may be Yokoyama's fault or the translator's.

I really like the packaging of the Picador edition, although it suggests a different type of book. I would say it's the opposite of "Cinematic," as Entertainment Weekly called it; and the endorser who compares Yokoyama to James Ellroy has completely misunderstood the appeal of one or both authors.