Biography of Izumi Kek

Attention to nature. Izumi Kyoka. Winged woman Izumu Kyoka. Meanwhile, in Japan, this is a recognized classic, whose name is even named a literary prize. Izumi Kyoka wrote novels, stories, novels and plays, and during his lifetime there was a complete works. The Western reader’s interest in his work can be caused by the fact that the writer inherited the classical Japanese tradition of the Edo period and, apparently, did not seek to copy Western samples as it became fashionable after the restoration of Meiji.

The stories and novels of Izumi Kyok were published in English and French translations, in particular, in France a small book “Winged Woman” was published, which included two small novels - “Winged Woman” and “Camphor Wood”. The novels are written in a leisurely style, devoid of the cost of modern literature. This is a classic prose that forgets about the bustle of the world, and abides within other limits, where the imagination creates reality.

The Winged Woman tells the story of a boy and his mother, who live in a tiny guard at the bridge and earn a fee for the passage. Whoever you will not see in a day! And dancers, and sellers, and poultry. The problem is that not everyone wants to pay. The boy is watching these people from the window. He goes to school, but he does not get along with the teacher. They constantly argue.

The last time the teacher said that man is a crown of nature. He has a mind, he knows how to think and speak. The boy does not agree, are animals and fish not the same beautiful living creatures? The teacher objects: if they are so beautiful, then why do they allow themselves to catch and eat? And it is precisely the person who hunts them, because he is smarter and better.

The boy argues again. When fishermen dive from their boats and their legs are shown above the water, it looks terrible. Is it compared with the silver tail of the trout! Or, for example, sometimes a person says, but nothing can be understood. Does this compare in comparison with bird singing? The boy is sure that he could well understand what they were singing about, if he were closer to them.

The world where he lives with his mother is very small - this is a bridge, a forest, a pond. Not far from the bridge, the monkey that the owner abandoned. Once the boy went to play with her, but the monkey behaved aggressively and pushed him into the river. And then the boy experienced something unimaginable-some winged woman lifted him into heaven above the mountains.

So the boy escaped, although he could have drowned. Now he wants to find this woman. He wanders around, looks into bird cages, listens to sounds, but cannot find it. Maybe this is his mother or one of the acquaintances? Some kind magic emanated from her, and it would be nice to meet her. This small story depicts the world without a receipt of time. So people could live a thousand years ago.

And the boy and his mother are among natural symbols, not yet spoiled by civilization. The harsh reality is almost not invading here, although we find out that the boy’s mother had experience of extreme suffering. Thanks to suffering, she learned to see things in a different light and conveyed this skill to her son. Now the boy looks from the window on the bridge and compares people with animals.

Not with the aim of humiliating, but with the aim of better understanding and becoming closer to the world of beautiful images. However, this little family is lonely in their skills. Such a vision of things is inherent only to them, no one else would simply understand them. They comprehended the unity of nature and saw that animals, plants, insects and mushrooms are the same people.

And although nature can be not only magical, but also threatening, it should not be avoided. Mother and son are carriers of exceptional, almost sacred knowledge about her and are surrounded by those who blindly mired in everyday life. The second story of the collection is called the camphor tree. It can already be said here that in the yard the twentieth century, however, is again about some provincial town, where modernization has reached only partially.

Everything in this town is skewed.

Electric lighting has already been carried out, but the wires are sagging around around. People are gloomy, women go without jewelry, no imagination and imagination in life. The world should seem to disappear. There is a sawmaker Yokichi. He lives in a boat, and when in the morning he goes to work, his sick father remains in the boat. Yokichi does not quite understand his father, because he, following some incomprehensible beliefs, refuses to eat fish.

But who knows, maybe normal food could be put on his feet? For the father, fried fish or cut into pieces for sashimi - all this is like a corpse of a living creature that does not follow. After all, what remains after the meal - the remains of the flesh attached to the bones, and the head. Just as if you ate the animal. Maybe the father is not so wrong when he adheres to his diet, in any case, Yokichi sincerely tries to understand his aversion to fish and even fear of her.

And again, as in the previous story, the protagonist of the camphor tree can be convinced of the unity of all living things. He comes to work and is taken to work.It is necessary to cut the camphor tree, which Yokichi begins. And suddenly, looking at the sea of ​​sawdust around him, he wonders: is this a tree of blood? He represents how this tree once grew, and it seems to itself an insect against its background.

Before he was cut down, a rope was attached to him, which was enclosed by the territory of the Shinto sanctuary. And suddenly, when the saw enters the place where the rope was attached, Ekichi covers an alarm. After that, he runs out of the workshop and shouts that the tree gave shoots, that his branches had grown. Of course, Izumi Kyok has a very strong element of fantastic.

However, it is intended for a noble purpose - to open the eye to the reader of the beauty of nature. The writer seems to call us to be ethical where it seems absurd, in particular, to respect the trees. This line in Japanese literature did not die after the Second World War, in any case, in the novel “The waters to my soul,” Kenzaburo OE, also sounds a call to relate to trees and whales as people.

In general, this, of course, is not the most original topic in the literature of the 20th century, but the voice of Izumi Kyok returns us in an era when words reported something else besides their vocabulary. With him they convey the energy of life itself, the delight of the endless diversity of the universe and the desire to cover the whole world in a fit of love for it.

In other words, before us is a classic Japanese prose, which will seem old-fashioned to someone, and someone can give moments of joy. Sergey Sirotin.