You can gain a lot from "casual reading"
"For the past few years, I've been spending the same old days holed up at home drawing manga, so I decided to change my environment and rent a workspace that could be used by multiple people, similar to a shared house. I figured hurry would be better, so I decided on a place within a week. Now, two of my friends, an editor, and a classmate from my school days often use it."
A few months ago, Uo Toyo established a new base for his work. Soon after moving in, he installed a light gray shelf in a corner of the living room and decided to share the bookshelf with his friends, just like the space.
"The friends who come over are also big book lovers, so we've decided on a space for each of us and share shelves. In reality, we buy whatever books we can get our hands on, such as reference books for work or manga, but we keep those at home and keep this space compact. We mainly keep books that each of us has recently read, so we can visually see what each of us is interested in at the moment."
The two blocks on the far left of the bookshelf are mainly Uo's space. He majored in Western philosophy at university, and there are about 40 books lined up across a wide range of genres, including technology, economics, and art, with a focus on humanities books dealing with ideas and philosophy, which have long interested him.
With the manga serialization that began in the summer of 2023 coming to an end, he says the past six months have been "a long-awaited period of input where I can read as I please." Because he prefers highly specialized books, his style is to purposefully purchase books online that are cited in books he has already read or that he has become interested in through social media or other media.
"Although I pick up a book because I'm interested, I don't read it to gain anything. Rather, what I like about books is that I can empty my mind. With movies or manga, I can't be satisfied unless I understand every single scene, and I stop as soon as I find it boring, but with a book, even if I find it boring, I somehow manage to keep turning the pages without any hesitation. And yet, I naturally learn new things and it allows me to think in my own way. Compared to other media, the good thing about books is that I can approach them however I like."
"Paper People" by Salvador Plasencia, translated by Hikaru Fujii
A man whose wife has left him wages war against "Saturn," who watches over them. "This is an experimental fantasy novel, with the layout sometimes splitting into two or three columns in the middle of a page, and sentences sometimes having gaps. Not only is the writing interesting, but the literary theme of loss and recovery that is consistently depicted is also compelling." Hakusuisha / 4,070 yen.
"Takekurabe" by Rieko Matsuura, Fujisawa Shu, Itsuji Akemi, and Abe Kazushige
A tender love story between a boy and a girl of different social classes. "Even though it is set in a completely different time period, when I was talking about this book with my friends at a book club, it was fascinating to see everyone start talking about similar experiences they had in the past. It was a great experience to get a three-dimensional look at universal human feelings." Kawade Bunko / 858 yen.
The assigned books for the reading group give me fresh insights
He first drew manga when he was 13 years old. Since then, Uo Toyo says, "I didn't join any clubs and just kept drawing manga," and he is personally interested in the question, "Why do people create stories?"
"While I've been passionate about it, I've also been wondering why artists, including myself, engage in the kind of meaningless act of depicting things that aren't real."
Therefore, among the many books I have picked up, the ones that stick in my mind are those that somehow touch on fundamental questions I have long had. Not only are there books that I have personally picked up because I am interested in them, but there are also books that I have picked up unexpectedly as part of a reading group that I continue to hold once or twice a month with friends who share my shelf, and these have brought me fresh insights.
"Mikhail Bakhtin's The Language of the Novel, which a friend of mine selected for me as assigned reading, was fascinating. What really opened my eyes was his analysis of words themselves. In my interpretation, the author Bakhtin is saying that "words are not only the product of the accumulation of the past, but also paradoxically emerge from the future." He says that the true nature of words, both in novels and in reality, is that they are released while being constrained by the subsequent reactions of the recipient.
As a writer, I also write with the next development or dialogue in mind, even if it's unconscious, so this made a lot of sense to me. At the same time, if you look at it from a different perspective, it also implicitly points to the barrenness of the current social media discourse space, where words fly around chaotically without any consideration for the other person. It made me keenly aware of the significance of writers who take on the original role of words, and the fact that this book is nearly 100 years old yet has an unexpected link to the present day really struck me."
"The Language of the Novel" by Mikhail Bakhtin, translated by Ichiro Ito
A collection of essays delving into the "words written in novels" by the author, who studied Dostoevsky in the Soviet Union. "At a time when novels were looked down upon in the 1930s, I was captivated by the opening line, which seeks to restore their authority, saying that 'the words of novels are what truly represent the world.'" Heibonsha Library / Out of stock.
"I was born into this world by chance - Milan Kundera and Fate" by Teruhiko Sudo
A critical essay by Milan Kundera, a writer known for works such as "The Unbearable Lightness of Being." "A writer with a complex background who tries to affirm his birth, and a researcher who carefully analyzes his back. Although this is a doctoral dissertation, it is a passionate book that gives the impression of a master-disciple relationship that transcends time and place." Shobunsha / 3,960 yen.
"The Riemann Trilogy" by Stefano Massini, translated by Ryosuke Iida
A story of the rise and fall of the family that founded Lehman Brothers over 150 years. "This is the book that has struck me the most this year. It's a massive work of over 700 pages, but it's a masterpiece that lightly depicts America from the mid-19th century onwards, capitalism, and World War II, using not only text but also comics and musical scores at times." Hayakawa Publishing / 7,480 yen.
With a sense of curiosity, he broadens his reading horizons, picking out parts of a book that catch his attention and continuing to consider fundamental questions. Uo's contemporary and universal works, which depict the essence of human beings in various forms, may be born from this thought process that he repeats naturally as he reads.
