Author’s Note on:

Origins - I write a lot of stories, most of which don’t end up in magazines, and most of those still don’t end up finished. After having been accused of writing flowery prose years ago, I decided to name my stories after flowers. And, indeed, flowers served as inspirations for concepts even before then, so the shoe fit and I wore it. Of the few stories I have published, two are named after flowers. As a teenager I found a great amount of pleasure in the aspect and symbology of the Japanese Cherry Blossom. While poignant and multi-faceted in its cultural relevance to the island nation it is prevalent enough that most surface level interest of Japanese culture is often distracted by it and obsessed over it. As I grew up and naturally rejected my teen angst and pleasures I ended up pivoting to the opposite viewpoint of the Cherry Blossom, from admiration to spite. The thought was that obsession or repeated mention of the motif would be indicative of someone with that surface level interest which I—being, of course, “Knowledgeable”—found to represent a fake or fetishistic interest in Japanese culture. Having had the time to mature which I have, I reject that arrogant reduction of people and the flower itself. But I still didn’t write a story about it because I was immediately anxious that, by using it, I would attract ire from those who were like I was. Those who would relegate the associate piece to the bin of fetishization of a foreign culture. But the flower was still very much a relevant part of the culture which I gravitated towards in my writing. Rosa Rugosa and Tokyo Comedy are two published examples of such a thing. It felt neglectful for me, a person who at one time felt quite attached to the flowers, to forgo using that motif for some purpose. And so I endeavored a purpose, and so I found it and developed it over the course of Autumn Sakura.

Autumn - “I am as inconstant as falling leaves” was a note I had scratched somewhere one day while at work and then transcribed into my computer for future use. I was, at the time, spending a lot of time on individual words, and here was trying to find a good way to use the term “inconstant”, which is somewhat archaic or just otherwise not commonly used by a greater portion of the world. I liked the word, so I made the phrase. But the phrase itself was at once highly poetic and also cringe-inducingly, frustratingly, pretentious. It comes off as someone trying to sound smarter than they are, and indeed, the self-description being poetic thinly veils the essential nature of the statement itself. Someone who is inconstant, at my immediate knee-jerk idea, is someone who is neurotic and lacks direction. A person who probably can’t stay on one project too long before hopping to another. Not out of condition, but conviction. A person who lacks the ability to really relate or attach themselves to anything around them, so they jump ship when a call of ice is made before the Captain even begins evasive maneuvers. Inui isn’t exactly like that, he is of a different neurosis, but the essential disconnect between someone who puts themselves on this pedestal in their mind compared to their actual objective influence on the world was an interesting effect.

Snowballing - As I was going to talk about a person I inherently abhorred, I had to dedicate a fair amount of effort towards illustrating the grimness of his state. Here I began to fall victim to his pattern of thought. In inhabiting that mindset I started to believe that, ultimately, the piece was not exactly about the man himself, but about the nation as a whole. The use of “Sakura”, that ubiquitous flower, then represented not the man or the boy, but Japan. And this section of “Autumn” was merely the “dying off” of that which could not survive the peace of the post-war era. That which was too caught up in the schooling of his youth to understand that something like a “kilometer” was the new standard. Basically, a guy who can’t get with the times, but on a more pathological level. The intellectual that was unable to come to grips with the new world was unable to catch a ride with it, and with the speed of progress would be left behind. As such, and with a certain desire to not write something too bleek, I realized a desire and possible path towards a series of stories using a framework that was easy to understand. Seasonal change, therefore, made the most sense and provided the best method of easy-to-induce pathos.

Summer - Though the first chronologically it was actually the second installment which I wrote, and the third which I had made for the character of Sonochihama Ryuuta. The first being Alstroemeria and the second being River Eel, which are also on the site here. Both of those stories capture a particular ambivalence to the world which Ryuuta happily embraces because, at the end of the day, he thought it would never have an effect on him. It would, and the nature of that effect was a difficult thing to pin down. Too much and it would come off as a white guy talking about the plight of the Japanese, too little and it would be like I was saying there was no struggle in the postwar. I chose a middle ground of financial impact, by taking the nature of his comfort from him, his comfort itself became the effect of the war which he would have to work to struggle against. This is to some degree an attempt at colouring an aspect of the upper-middle class, or, at the least, the type of “intellectual” who spends most of his time thinking about the world rather than participating in it. If Ryuuta is defined by his laziness as a result of his generational wealth, then what happens when we take it from him? Well, first we have to arrogate ways in which to rob him of it as a narrator. Debts, house repairs, and the snakes head cut off. Forcing him to confront the new context of his life with the appearance of his brother provides a way for Ryuuta to come face to face with the physical reality of what he could potentially become should he not change his path. Ryuuta and Deizo are similar creatures in that both are haunted by the ghosts of the pre-war Japan, but both have different ways of interacting with those ghosts, and different reactions to them. Not to mention, Ryuuta has a pretty foolhardy guy like Gendo to throw him a live preserver when he falls off the ship because Deizo bumped into him on the way down.

Winter - I managed to use a flaw as a feature. Generally its the case that whenever I write from a young male perspective I tend to lean towards needless narcissism or nihilism. I don’t like either of those things, but that’s where the pen drifts. Ichishi, raised by the curmudgeonly Yoshukura, did not have the emotional maturity to read between the lines of his mentor’s grunts and grimaces. He learned all of the spite, and none of the reprieve. That is, he didn’t really know how to let go of the fact that other people won’t cooperate with the way you view the world or what you think about them. Nobody cares and you have to account for that, find those who do, and generally strive to succeed in what you can. That’s all very non-specific and general, but really it’s about a boy whose mentor is dying, and he blames the world for it. He is in his winter because he is cold to the struggles of the real world, refined to putting the elders on pedestals at his own expense and the expense of the future. A young person who is much alike Ryuuta and Deizo, but alike them in that he would say they are right, the “times” were bad. That things should go back to how they were. Yoshukura’s struggle, then, is to figure out how to get it across to the boy that he should let old men die so the young can create new meaning from their bones. The young have no place in a graveyard.

Spring - I like Mitsuyo a lot. She’s had a lot go on for her in life and this is just another part in the narrative of who she is as a person. From the death of her father at such a young age which resulted in the loss of her family home, to working in a textile factory making shoes beside her sister while men she could never know died on beaches hundreds of miles away. All to come out on the other end being told to wear some fancy blue skirt with pleats. It’s a lot for a young person to have to go through, and don’t let my brief generalization fool you, the trauma of the young during that terrible time is something that is unjustifiable. The point of Mitsuyo is not to accurately depict the life of a youth from that time, just like Ichishi and Yoshukura and Ryuuta and Deizo, none of them are accurate, I’m not a historian. My job is to depict an idea, and to capture that idea in a way that is easily communicable and, to some degree, stimulating. Mitsuyo succeeds where Ichishi first failed—because she had a must less gruff mentor, to be sure. She, of her own will, moves from the winter cold of her mother’s apartment to the Spring heat of the capital in the midst of reforms and reconstruction. The world has been moving on ahead of her, and she has to do what she can to catch up. She has to sweat, she has to get hurt, she has to trip and fall and get bruises so the skin of her heart is firmed against the abrasive nature of progress. She has to mourn the dead but not let her tears become leaden-ice weights which slow her pace in the race to the present, and subsequently, to her bright future. The young have to step over the old. It’s a harsh thing to say, and meant with any degree of respect that we can really have. But while minding the facts of their lives, young people have to take the lessons of their elders and improve upon them. To merely accept the past as fact full stop is to reject progress, and thus stagnate. She had to rebuild that old house and improve it in order to actually live her life in the modern age. Sure, having a stone hearth to burn charcoal on is a neat idea for vacation to your hometown in the sticks, but it’s just easier to install a gas stove.

Conclusion - If you ever want to write about a flower, make sure you know restraint. I’m not nearly arrogant enough to pretend like I had this planned out from the start—that’s far from the truth as you can tell. Technically speaking the actually progress of the narrative is characterized and covered almost completely in the narrative of Autumn Sakura. It does all the mention of Inui as said before, only in that cycle Ryuuta is replaced by Yoshukura, and Mitsuyo by the younger Ichishi who at first is just himself, cold to the world and then progressing into his own life separate from the old men who drank sake at his bosses fish stall. Of course, though, just because something snowballs doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad. I like the series as it stands. With special attachment to Spring and Summer because I generally prefer to read stories with happy endings which aren’t so somber. Autumn is something similar, but I like it more as a representation of my growth as a writer since that time I youthfully rejected symbolism. Everyone has their angsty period, and I’m emerging on the opposite side of mine. Of course there is the matter of form—unavoidable, given my inspirations. If you know you know, that’s kind of the best way to put it without coming off like a prick. I’ve tried to explain it a couple times and each ones worst than the last. If you read Dr John Smith Esq who writes three books a year about some sci-fi or mystery dude in a trench coat, or maybe Madam Jane Doe who writes like a dozen smut novels a week, then I don’t know, maybe this stuff isn’t for you. That’s not to say it’s better or worse, but it’s different enough in its pathos of creation that even appreciation might not exactly be for the “correct” or “intended” ways. But that’s the essay on intention again, so I’ll just end it here.