心に太陽を持て 山本有三

少年少女がこれから多難な世の中にいくとき、先人たちはどのように生きたかが描かれている。特に南極の極地点に二番目に到達したスコットの悲劇と、パナマ運河をどのように完成させたかの苦労話が詳しく書かれており、感動した。スコットの日記も原文で読み心を打たれた。

少年少女に勧める一冊である。

Indian Camp by Hemingway

 Nick, after experiencing life's hard moments such as the birth of a baby and the Indian husband's death, seems to be very alive. Hemingway writes, "he trailed his hand in the water. It felt warm in the sharp chill of the morning. . . . he felt quite sure that he would never die."
The contrast of sad and noisy airs in the shanty and the calm river atmosphere is
so vividly illustrated.

An Alpine Ddyll by Hemingway

Hemingway’s writing style is concise, simple, and never laborious. He writes only necessary matters and facts as you see them. “An Alpine Idyll” is one such short story.

This is a black humor story. The two skiers come down from a month-long ski life in the mountains. They drink beer at an inn. The innkeeper is disgusted with a peasant, who says he had hung his lantern from his frozen wife’s open mouth while he cut out the big wood. The story is simple. It does not move your heart. The contrast between the ill-natured deed of the peasant and the drinking beer under the bright May sunlight is big.

君たちはどう生きるか 吉野源三郎著

 １９３７（昭和１２年）、すなわち昭和１６年の対米戦争に突入する４年前の発行で、いわば軍国主義が台頭しつつあるとき、日本の少年少女に古今東西の知の世界を知らしめるべく「日本少国民文庫」全１６巻を出版した山本有三、吉野源三郎、その他の著者と出版した新潮社に敬意を表したい。

「君たちはどう生きるか」は倫理を説く話であるが、著者は道徳臭くならないように、コペル君を主人公にした物語風にしあげ、コペル君の叔父さんがいろいろ人生のことを教えてくれる形式になっている。この手法がいい。

私は三点が印象に残った。

①  豆腐屋の浦川君の話。

私の家は曽祖父が岐阜県の味噌醤油醸造業で、父が三代目である。私は「味噌屋の子」であることが嫌だった。汚らしくて味噌臭く、会社員の子のほうがいいと思っていた。あの頃、浦川君が物を生産し、人のためになっている、ということが書いてあるこの本を読んでいれば、そんなに味噌屋を卑下しなかったかもしれない。

②  コペル君の裏切り

コペル君は友達がいじめられているのに、隠れていたことを後悔する話があるが、私は現職教師のとき、いじめの問題をきちんと指導ができなかったことがあり、今でも後悔の念にかられることがある。

③  仏像のこと

私は歴史が好きなのに、仏像をギリシャ人が造ったということは知らなかった。日本から古代ギリシャに繋がっているという古代世界にいざなわれた。

戦前にこのような素晴らしい本を読むことができた少年少女はごく僅かだと思うが、彼らはラッキーだった。

Sarrasine by Balzac

Balzac’s scheme is so successful that I thought Zambinella was a woman, a beautiful, fragile, womanly perfect woman. However, in the end he reveals that Zambinella was a man. I think every reader will be deceived, and will be shocked as much as Sarrasine. He is stabbed to death when he was in the height of disappointment, anger, sadness, revengefulness, despair, and madness. I sympathize with him. He was made fun of by Zambinella, was disappointed and was killed.

This is a tragedy as well as a comedy. In the last page Madame de Rochefide gets angry to know the ending of the story. She resembles with Sarrasine because both of them become furious at the bad ending. Balzac apparently tried to add some moral taste, which ruins the entertaining element of the story.

Balzac is successful in representing the feeling of the reader. He knows how the reader feels at the shocking revelation. He spends more than one page describing the feeling of Sarrasine. If Balzac had spent only one or two lines to describe Sarrasine’s feeling, that would frustrate the reader. By writing as much as almost two pages, the reader’s psychological unbalance will be cured. The reader always wants a well-balanced ending.

1949 by George Orwell.

I first thought Winston and Julia would undermine Big Brother at the end of the story, but my guess was 180 degrees betrayed. Like “Animal Farm,” Big Brother (Napoleon) wins and destroys Winston completely.

Secondly, I was surprised that O’Brien was a Thought Police member, who at the end of the story destroys Winston’s sanity and makes him half insane and half-unconscious by torturing him physically. Orwell excellently misleads the reader. Almost every reader may think that O’Brien was Winston’s strong ally.

Thirdly, Big Brother changes the rebellious thought to the obedient thought and kills the “criminal,” after making him unconsciously “love” Big Brother.

Some of the points the book reminded me of:

1.    What has become of Julia?  Orwell does not reveal it. 

2.    Nowadays Telescreens are everywhere, at every street corner and stores. Such security cameras can single out criminals and wanted people among a crowd of people. They are telescreens.

3.    By brain-washing, you can hypnotize the normal people’s thoughts as in the case of the Sarin Incident, where many young intellectual people became the victims of brainwashing and did a savage crime. They were not tortured, but brain-washed.

4.    China and North Korea govern the citizens by the totalitarian ideology. Those who are against the Party’s policy are expelled or executed. Recently China passed a national security law. Now China can arrest any person that they think is dangerous to China and put him or her to a lifelong sentence.

5.    During the era of Qin Shi Huang, the first ruler in China around 240 B.C., showed a horse to his subordinates and said, “I think this is a deer. What do you think?” Those who said it was a horse were killed. Thus, he eliminated those who were against him.