Deep River.

The basic premise of the book so far is this:

There is a tour of Japanese tourists going to see Buddhist temples in India. Each chapter looks back at the life of one of the people going on the tour. So it's a little bit disconnected as far as coherency between the chapters, but each chapter is full of emotion and heartbreak. I'll just summarize each chapter up to this point, with perhaps a few comments.

Chapter 1. The Case of Isobe
There is an old man whose wife was dying of cancer. He realized how he had simply taken advantage of her always being there for their whole marriage, and he regretted that he could not be more kind and understanding. But even in her last weeks, he could not bring himself to be honest or kind about how he felt for her. The reader sees his inner struggle as he fights against the love -selfish or not? I don't know, you decide - that he feels inside and wants to come out. He fears that if he begins to show love, she'll suspect the end is near. His wife would daily hold conversations with the trees and plants outside of her hospital window. She would pretend she didn't know she was dying because her husband didn't want her to know. But she knew. She believed in reincarnation, and told her husband to look for her wherever she would be reborn.

Whether you believe in reincarnation or not, it is such a sweet idea that a husband would look for his wife, even if she were born back as a flea or a loud, smelly boy. I can't decide if the husband's new-found love is selfless. I don't think it is. I think towards the end it bordered on it, but never was in the first place. I think it would be extremely difficult to make selfless love out of a selfish one all of a sudden, even in the face of death.

Chapter 2. The Informational Meeting
This chapter is a segue to understanding the set up of the book. Chapter 1 was simply the husband's story, and chapter two shows him going on this tour and meeting a nurse again who had been with his wife in the hospital. Chapter three is her story.

Chapter 3. The Case of Mitsuko
Mitsuko went to a Christian school in japan, and lived it up the way most college students do. She didn't buy into Christianity, and resented those who did. There was one boy, Otsu, who believed in Christianity because his parents had taught him to, and he had never known anything else. Mitsuko despised this, and so she tried to make him reject his beliefs. First, she and her friends tried to drink it out of him. Then she decided to seduce him in order to make him reject his god, only to be rejected by her. In later years, on a trip to France, she found him studying to be a pastor. They got together and caught up, and Mitsuko reflected on her destruction of his heart. She realized that while he was seeking and finding fulfillment, she had no joy or steadiness in her heart.

This chapter really caused me to think, because I think if I were not a Christian, I would be and think and feel similarly to Mitsuko. This thought makes me so grateful to be saved from needing to feed off of others. I was disgusted by Mitsuko's need to see Otsu cease to have faith and how she had so long ago lost respect for herself that she nonchalantly used her body to destroy others. Otsu had already comprimised himself enough by having relations with her, but then he was further wronged because he still had a hope of taking Mitsuko to his family and marrying her. He had justified his actions by telling himself it would have happened within the bounds of their marriage anyways, so it may as well happen now.

Another instance of selfish love.

Chapter 4. The Case of Numada
I don't remember this chapter as well, but I'll do my best. Numada was a little boy who became friends with the servant boy in a time when his parents were always fighting. Together they took care of a stray dog and the three of them were the best of friends. When the servant was accused of something wrongly, he was sent away, which left Numada only the stray dog as a friend, and this in secret. So he grew to love animals and animals loved him. When he was married, the only animal he had was a bird. He went to the hospital for something and he needed to have surgery. His bird died because no one took care of him. His wife felt terrible and bought him another bird for his hospital room. After the surgery, the doctor said that at one point, Numada's heart had completely stopped pumping. His new bird had also died. Numada wonders "I wonder if it died in place of me!?"

Chapter 5. The Case of Kiguchi
I read this chapter last night, so it's fresh in my mind. Kiguchi was a war veteran who had fought in Burma. The chapter recalls some of his more grotesque memories, particularly of a time he contracted malaria and had to stay behind from his unit. His close friend, Tsukada, stayed with him to wean him back to health. Many years after the war, Tsukada got a hold of Kiguchi and asked if he could find him a job in his business. So the began working together. Kiguchi noticed that Tsukada had taken up excessive drinking. He warned him about it, but Tsukada said it was the only way to stay reasonably happy. Tsukada worked very hard at his job, and many people around him said, "Men who are too serious are the first to break." After a few months of hard work, Tsukada had a hemorrhage and coughed up loads of blood. They found some problems in his stomach because of the alcohol, and he had to stay in the hospital for an extended time. Kiguchi could see that there was something bigger than just the war memories that drowned Tsukada in drink. He continued to urge him to stop once he got out, but Tsukada said he would not. Eventually, Tsukada confided that while Kiguchi had been sick and he had gone off to find meat, he had brought back the meat off of the other dead soldiers. ever since the war was over, he could not forgive himself for doing this.

In the hospital, there was a volunteer named Gaston who had faith in god. [It didn't say which god.] Soon before it was obvious that Tsukada would die, he asked for Gaston and told him about what he had done. He asked if gaston's god could forgive that. Instead of directly answering, Gaston told Tsukada that he was not the only person to eat human flesh. He told a story of a recent plane crash in the middle of nowhere and those who were badly injured told the ones who still had a chance to live to eat their bodies once they were dead. Those who ate them survived and returned to Japan. The families of the eaten were proud to have their loved ones help the survivors to survive.

With my over active imagination, this chapter was hard to read. There were many gross images, and my stomach wasn't too happy with me at the late hour. But I was reminded of Heart of Darkness, in which the cannibals seem to be even more humane that the "civilized" people oppressed them. They had a code of honor and were not savage killers. I certainly don't endorse eating our dead - I think it's sick - but these two things have caused me to think that sometimes the grossest things are the most merciful, and the most merciful are the grossest.