A mysterious encounter with an overwhelming novel
A short story about the strange customs surrounding childbirth that have been passed down in a remote village. The private edition was published in 1979 by Yumeya Shoten, a small publishing house founded by the author himself. The special accordion-fold binding was also done by the author, one book at a time. Yumeya Shoten / Out of print.
Three books with the same title, the same author, but different designs are lined up next to each other on the bookshelf.
"The Dolls of Michinoku" by Shichiro Fukazawa
I have encountered and purchased each of these three books from my twenties through the decades. I have transcribed a portion of the colophon of each book in the order that I picked them up.
<Hardcover>
First published on December 20, 1980
Published by Shigeru Takanashi
Publisher: Chuokoron-Shinsha
<Paperback>
First published November 10, 1982
Revised edition published on May 25, 2021
Published by Takakazu Kobayashi
Publisher: Chuokoron-Shinsha
<Private book>
August 1, 1979
Publisher: Shichiro Fukazawa
Publisher: Yumeya Bookstore
I think the first time I bought a book was right after I graduated from university. I had already read several of Fukazawa Shichiro's novels, but I was drawn to the design of the box (covered entirely in pictures of Tohoku folk implements) and knew I had to read the seven stories included.
I read the title story, "Dolls of Michinoku" without knowing it had won the Junichiro Tanizaki Prize, but I was horrified the first time I read it. The story begins with the sentence, "It was a quiet Sunday afternoon when that person came to my house," and the narrator is led to a remote mountain area by a bunch of Japanese maple blossoms. In the village, there is a strange custom in which villagers come to borrow folding screens as a birth approaches, and the house where the narrator is staying has a curse related to folding screens. I shuddered at the feeling of peering into the darkness of life through a crack in time and space, trembling with excitement and amazement at having read such an incredible novel, and I bowed down to the power of the novel.
It is my usual habit to keep both hardback and paperback versions of books that are important to me, but there was another chapter in my relationship with "The Dolls of Michinoku."
About ten years ago, I was strolling through an open-air secondhand book market in Fukuoka. I remember it was a sunny Sunday. As I was browsing through the wooden boxes filled with secondhand books lined up on the street, a long, thin object in a plastic bag caught my eye. It was 18 cm long, 7 cm wide, and 1 cm thick. On the slightly sun-bleached white cardboard cover, one line in black type read: "Dolls of Michinoku."
"Ah!" I exclaimed. With trembling fingers, I took out the contents and discovered it was a book with accordion openings like a sutra. When opened, there were seven lines on the right page and seven lines on the left page. You read fourteen lines at a time by turning the accordion opening to the right, and to my surprise, the second half of the book was printed on the back as well.
It is shocking to find a novel that begins with the sentence, "It was a quiet Sunday afternoon when that person came to my house," contained within a sutra book. The publisher and publishing house are as mentioned above. On the right page of the colophon, the author's own thin handwriting is printed modestly: "This piece is dedicated to my dear friends, Fukazawa Shichiro."
On the streets of Fukuoka, I felt myself floating in the air. A rare encounter. The emotions entrusted to the private edition. The powerful magnetic field emanating from the novel "Dolls of Michinoku." To this day, I have been unable to escape from these "three volumes in one."
