That's the bookshelf I need to destroy.
Every time I think about it, I burst out laughing at the bad taste of that bookshelf. When I visited my grandmother's house in Kyoto, there was a room that was hardly ever used. It was filled with deer hunting trophies, an out-of-tune upright piano, and a grandfather clock that chimed throughout the house at midnight. It was the perfect example of a reception room for a wealthy family after the war. In that room, there was an extremely sturdy bookshelf with glass doors.
My grandmother was the only one living there, but it was my grandfather who built the house and furnished it, the reception room. He passed away shortly after I was born, so honestly, I have no memories of him at all. The bookshelves were lined with complete works of modern literature and paperbacks that I'm sure he had bought but never opened.
When I was in middle and high school, stories about my late grandfather seemed patriarchal and made me feel very uncomfortable. At the same time, I was also annoyed by my grandmother's steadfastness as a widow. I was dissatisfied with everyone related to me by blood. But I still accompanied her on her visits home because I enjoyed stealing a few paperbacks from the bookshelf in the living room and reading them secretly, away from anyone else's eyes.
Among the many paperbacks stolen, the most shocking was Junichiro Tanizaki 's "A Fool's Love." Needless to say, Tanizaki is known as a "perverted" literary figure. The story is about the protagonist, Joji, succumbing to a femme fatale named Naomi.
It's not exactly feminist, but it depicts the destructive desire of a prewar society, like a negative film, in which a socially powerful man, a man, wants to give everything to a beautiful, powerful, and charismatic woman. It's different from the works of modern male authors that I had previously found a little boring to read, and yet the writing is beautiful no matter how you look at it. How did this book end up on the bookshelf of my grandfather, the epitome of machismo? There's no way of knowing now.
At the time, reading was something only eccentric people around me perceived, so for me, books were something to keep secret (I still hesitate to show my bookshelf to others). Stealing my grandfather's books and reading them was a form of spiritual escape for me. And Naomi, in the paradise I had escaped to, symbolized a kind of freedom.
However, I didn't really want to be Naomi, and I sympathized with Joji. Regardless of sexuality, there is something irresistibly appealing about a story with a "charismatic you and me being pulled along by you" plot.
My grandmother passed away a while ago, and I went to the empty house to look at the bookshelf. There was no trace of Bankin's bookshelf left, and instead, my grandmother's nursing bed had been placed there. The clock had stopped ticking, and the piano was still out of tune.
These days, if you try to live without neglecting yourself, you inevitably come up against things that you must overcome. Vested interests, discrimination, prejudices, fear, the desire for peace. These are what we call "walls that must be overcome." For me, it is that bookshelf that towers deep in my heart. An indelible desire to possess things, and at the same time, a desire very similar to Joji's: "If only I could just surrender everything to someone else."
