Lofty
nostalgia versus the gravity of reality (4/5)
Prior
to last year, this novel had been on my to-buy for ages and ages, but I never
found a Kurodahan book at any bookstore I ever shopped at on two continents or
online. I was becoming desperate—I must have this book! My last resort to
quenching my thirst for Japanese speculative fiction and finally procuring the
books was to contact the publisher. Masaki Yamada’s novel Aphrodite was
one book of many I received from Kurodahan Press after I politely inquired
for nicely asked for begged on my hands and knees for translated
Japanese SF. Edward Lipsett was kind enough to send me a Japanese SF
care-package and I’ve been kind enough to give the books an honest review—and
honestly, I love this stuff.
This novel was originally published in Japanese in 1980 (Kodansha) and later translated by the pseudonymous Daniel Jackson in 2004 (Kurodahan).
Rear
cover synopsis:
“This
is the story of Makita Yuichi, a youth who escapes the regimented world of
Japanese society for the beauty and freedom of the island city Aphrodite. But
as Yuichi grows and changes, we approach the true heroine of the work: the city
Aphrodite—ever beautiful, ever filled with the limitless energy of creation.
And as the global economy spirals downward, leaving Aphrodite a deserted slum
slated for destruction, perhaps Yuichi is the only person who can save her…”
------------
Yuichi
was only seventeen years old when he decided to leave his family. Slotted in
the pit of urban, social, and spiritual decay, he had nothing to call his own,
nothing with which to coddle or idolize, only “drifting aimlessly through life
like a rudder-less ship” (11). He left his family in that insane city of Tokyo
and emigrated to the land of opportunity—the floating city of Aphrodite. Here,
he fancies himself a type of James Dean and begins to become optimistic. Now he
has a cause for which to live.
Mr.
Caan is a world-renowned architect who designed and had Aphrodite constructed;
he’s also a “sportsman, an international playboy, and … a wielder of vast
political power” (13). It is this influential man—the mayor of the city of
Aphrodite—whom Yuichi works for as a mere boat boy for the mayor’s rocket
submersible. While Yuichi doesn’t exactly idolize Mr. Caan, the mayor is the
personification and driving force of Aphrodite. Soon, however, Yuichi will find
himself questions other citizen’s allegiance toward the city and it’s demigod
mayor.
As
much as Yuichi thinks that Aphrodite is a heaven of sorts for himself and all
disfranchised, Mr. Caan says that the city was structured to always be somewhat
incomplete because,
people can’t live in totally finished worlds.
It is a city, and yet it isn’t it’s something else… People aren’t such
high-class animals. They can’t live in a true utopia. An incomplete
utopia—that’s the best environment of all. (42)
The
some-200,000 residents of the floating city live in “highly-advanced welfare
system” (27), quartered in the city’s regions: Herhead, the nautilus-shaped
island’s pinnacle; Herself, the administrative and nerve center; and Herleg and
Herhip sections for common residency. Down by the docks of the island, Yuichi
tends to the expensive submersible with caged desire to experience the machine
under his own control.
On
a casual evening with his friends, he meets a beautiful girl; however, his
friend, also a boatboy, also thinks she's beautiful. This provides the ideal
circumstance to test his ability to control the craft and control the direction
of his own life. When a vortex of water disrupts the race and nearly kills
them, Yuichi must accept his stupidity and must be confronted by the
mayor-cum-boss Mr. Caan. Surprisingly, his punishment is absolved;
surprisingly, his love interest is a lost cause; unsurprisingly, his life
continues.
The
prior events in 2018 mold Yuichi's life into its future form of disappointment
the outcome of his expectations and disconnectedness with the island's social
ethos. There seems to be going resistance toward Mr. Caan's clutch over the
floating island's destiny—what was supposed to be unique outfit of sea
civilization and exploration that could be employed by various nations has
turned into one of a number of such floating islands. On Aphrodite's horizon,
three futures loom: one of military affiliation, one of industrial taint, and
another of touristy irrelevance.
Regardless
of the expressed concern by many, Yuichi maintain his allegiance to Mr. Caan.
Considering that the island is of his own design and destiny, he feels that Mr.
Caan knows best about all decisions, even though Mr. Caan had some previous
poor decisions in his personal life. Whether in 2023 or 2028, Yuichi keeps to
his hope as an 18-year-old that Aphrodite will blossom in its own way. Flows of
nostalgia engulf Yuichi as the sentiment around him regresses: “[F]ear was
rooted deep inside himself, and that was why he was scared to look at reality,
instead fleeing into nostalgia” (94).
While
Aphrodite is on the brink of disastrous uncertainty regarding its future as a
seafaring city of welfare and camaraderie, the cusp of reality encroaches upon
Yuichi and soon the cusp broadens into a crack, a crevice, an expanding chasm
of doubt. This doubt plagues him; the years of lost love and lost hope age him
immediately when reality sinks in: Aphrodite isn't perfect and is no longer
viable. Having lost his love, hope, and passion, Yuichi departs in 2028 only to
return on the eve of Aprhodite's destruction many years later—though still a
young man then in appearance, his experiences have aged him greatly.
------------
The
syrupy nostalgia of Yuichi is a common sentiment among those with sheltered
hopes. His dreams aren't exactly shattered because his motivation for moving to
the island was simply one of living simply; in this, he achieves his goal to a
fault. He has incubated his hope for so long on a personal basis that he hasn't
developed additional hopes or shared his life. From 18 to 28 years of age, he
remains detached from popular opinion. When turmoil effervesces from the cracks
in society, Yuichi remains coldly subjective in the sense that he doesn't
understand the negativity and as someone who loves Aphrodite, the negativity
must not exist.
Like
the island upon the sea is, at first, an independent entity free from outside
influence, so too is Yuichi. As Aphrodite's independence is being dissolved and
its importance diminished, Yuichi too is quickly becoming prone to the
sentiments of others—his long-incubated personal hope begins to feel the chilly
persuasion of the population. When he
realizes his loss, his precarious hope is teetering high upon a cliff with only
reality to assist its plunge.
Aphrodite
is
an introspective foray into escapism and caged hope in conflict with reality.
Yamada paints a dualistic portrait of a solitary man with his solitary dreams
on a solitary island... but when the latter-most is encroached upon by outside
influences, the former two become tainted and diseased—if the dream is not
amputated, the death of the individual would quickly follow.
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