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Shipwrecks

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SHIPWRECKS by Akira Yoshimura

Written by one of Japan's most honored novelists, Akira Yoshimura, SHIPWRECKS is a tale that takes place in a poverty stricken Japanese fishing village during Medieval times and centers on the difficult life that the villagers endure to keep alive. Translated from the Japanese by Mark Ealey, it is a tale of suffering and hard work, told from the viewpoint of a young boy as he grows from child into man.

Young Isaku is 9-year-old boy at the start of this story. But for him, childhood is short-lived, and even as a young boy of five, he was expected to pull his weight and help support his family. The village where he lives is isolated from the rest of the island, and to make ends meet, they resort to fishing and trading, depending on the season. The other option is selling oneself into servitude or bondage, in exchange for goods. Isaku's father has sold himself, and at the start of this novel he is already living in another village working for his master.

In the meantime, Isaku is the man of the house, and it is up to him to catch their food and to keep his mother and siblings from starvation. Rice is hard to come by, and most of their meals are vegetables or grains traded for salt with the neighboring village. He barely knows how to fish, so it is not often that they have anything substantial to eat.

Isaku eventually learns about the "ofune-sama", which is Japanese for "ship god" or "ship master", and it is this ofune-sama that helps the village thrive. Every few years, a ship or two will ground itself upon the rocks that border their shores and the villagers will pillage and kill any survivors on that ship to take what they can to feed their families. The villagers see no harm in this. It is what they have done for many generations and it is how they live. They know no other way, and Isaku follows his family in obeying their customs.

One year, a ship arrives that they think is "ofune-sama", but brings bad fortune to the people of this tiny village. What happens to them is beyond description. Is it karma that brings this ill luck to them? Yoshimura's tale of life in this impoverished town does not point fingers, but serves as a parable.

I found this book one of the most unique stories I have read in my entire life. Not only did it describe a way of life that was totally foreign to me, but also it was done so to the minutest detail. The first half of the book was dedicated in describing this lifestyle, so by the second half the reader has become quite familiar with the routines that are performed month by month that Isaku and his family had to endure to keep alive. It is a trip into another world and another time, with a possible lesson to be learned at the end. I recommend this book for those who are serious readers, and are willing to read "outside the box".

Languid, beautifully ascetic prose tells the story of a young boy's coming of age in an extremely poor fishing village on the medieval Japanese coastline. Isaku [9] is primed to take over as head of the household after his father sells himself into indentured servitude in a neighboring village. This wonderfully crafted snapshot of an ancient lifestyle tells of his slowly developing fishing techniques, his interaction with his mother and siblings, and his later attempts at wooing a village girl. Surviving always on the brink of starvation, the village has for centuries employed a technique of luring and beaching passing ships to supplement their staples. Once the ships have had their bottoms ripped by the rocks, the villagers kill the remaining crew and dismantle and disseminate the ship skeleton and its cargo [rice, wine, sugar, etc.]. One good size `haul' of this type would last a family many years. Like the reader, Isaku is gradually introduced to the various methodologies employed in the creation of the salt fires which lure the ships during stormy nights. The novel spans the three years of the fathers servitude and presents the unvarying, but vitally important changes of the season which bring their own seafood type and technique for capture. This translation's writing matches the sparseness of the village, presenting itself with the stark beauty of a crashing Japanese reef. One certainly gets lost in the wonderful descriptions of this far-away time and place. Conflict arrives at the hind end of this novel in a whirlwind conclusion, the abrupt finality mirroring anguish and despondency in the reader as well as Isaku. A very intriguing and recommended read.

Shipwrecks is a tale of a town's destruction told through one resident's eyes. The witness in Yoshimura's novel is Isaku, who, at the beginning of the book is only a nine year old boy. His small fishing village is balancing precariously between a meager life and death by starvation. Family by family, the inhabitants stave off total collapse only through selling their individual kin into slavery in the town across the mountains.

After Isaku's father has been removed from the home in just such an arrangement, the boy continues to live with his mother and younger brother and sister, Isokichi and Kane. The story is, in some ways, the tale of Isaku's loss of innocence as he attempts to fulfill the duties of head of the household--fishing for saury and sardines and octopus and squid, and, most importantly, tending the salt cauldrons. For Isaku, this represents a confirmation of his own maturation, for the salt cauldrons are of prime importance to the town and its people.

A naïve boy, Isaku comes to learn that, in addition to boiling the salt out of sea water to sell, the fires on shore serve another, more sinister, purpose--that of luring unsuspecting trading ships onto the reef. The village calls it O-fune-sama and sees it--the destruction of those ships and the subsequent murder of their sailors, as a gift from the gods, no different from any other harvest, such as rice and pottery, cloth and utensils. Far from being a crime, what the villagers are now engaged in nourishes the small town and keeps it from dying.

Even as Isaku learns about the inherent risks--specifically those of luring clan ships to ruin instead of trading ships--O-fune-sama is never questioned: it is a necessity and a customary part of the yearly cycle; there is no moral question to be answered...other than the town's quiet acknowledgment that no one beyond the village must know.

In this small book, time unfolds at a leisurly, but disquieting, pace. There is a quiet passing of the seasons in which normalcy seems to prevail: couples wed, children are born, elderly persons die. As Isaku's father is not due to return for years, a routine finally settles in and it is time to fish for saury, then squid, then octopus. And, when the trade ships are running again, it is time for O-fune-sama.

One year, however, the inevitable happens and there is retribution for the town's crimes.

Shipwrecks is a horrifying and tragic book that unfolds slowly and deliberately. Because the village situation is grim and its needs are clear, Isaku's grasp of the situation is understandable; the reader can definitely sympathize...and empathize. And this is what makes the inevitable punishment so personally tragic and sad, yet so very morally justified.

This is a quiet tale of life in a Japanese fishing village so poverty stricken that members of families must sell themselves into bondage for years to put food on the table. After ingratiating us into the yearly cycle of village life, the tale tells us of the villagers' rather macabre secret that keeps them alive, and the unexpected outcome of their activity. It contrasts their own judgments on their means of self-preservation -- by no means limited to them alone in the history of the world -- with the condemnation that would come from their neighbors. The book is simply written, interesting, emotionally involving, and compelling; very informative of how such villagers live. An enjoyable if strange story of what people do to stay alive. What a pity the ending has been more or less given away already in these pages.

Whether you are a fan of Japanese literature or not - I happen to be one - this book is probably worth your time. A short read, it nevertheless manages to convey a very compelling and disturbing story of life in medieval Japan. The story is essentially an illustration of karma at work, but divulging any more than that would give away too much of the story. It reminded me a great deal of The Plague by Albert Camus - both books use similar plot devices to make similar points about human nature, morality, and the tenuous nature of human existence.

Yoshimura does an excellent job of conveying a strong sense of place, personality, and a continuously mounting tension that keeps you turning the pages. A great read.

Concepts of good and bad are confused in this story and another system pervades - survival. The reader is totally immersed with the village people concern for their endurance and in their prayer for O-fune-sama, a wrecked ship that might better their condition for a few years, with the plundered ship's supply of rice.
However, although the villagers are poor and hungry they do not seem to be bitter and the relations amongst them seem to be good. All obey the orders and rules set by the head of the village even if those orders are hard to grasp towards the end of the story. All village is united in its daily work and desperate wish for O-fune-sama and all take part in the daily "work" in trying to lure the ships to their shore by lighting huge bonfires at night.
This book can be read in several levels and as three different stories: The first one is the story of survival through harsh conditions. The second is the story of the coming of age of Isaku. Isaku is only nine years old when his father sells himself for slavery for three years and has to provide for his family while his father is missing. The third is a cosmic tale of world order and the constant battle between good and evil. The villagers are punished upon their "wrong" doing in the same way they are being "prized".

The story is hard but is nevertheless a great read and a very easy one. The author does not spare us the exact details of the "punishment" as he did not spare us the details of the daily existence of the village people and the periodic catch of the sea.

If you live in a rural Japanese fishing village, then the Ocean is everything. Absolutely everything you have, your possessions, your very life, is pulled from its churning depths. You worship it like a god, and ask its blessing and fear its retribution. Your skill in managing its mysteries determines your status, who you can marry, how many children you can have, everything.

"Shipwrecks" is an account of this lifestyle, in a tiny village which owes its existence from the whims of the sea. The story follows the life of a young boy 9-year old boy, Isaku, who must take on the responsibilities of providing for mother and siblings, after his father sells himself into indentured servitude to save his starving family. Struggling to be a man, he learns to read the ocean, to know when the fish will come and how to harvest them. He watches the salt pots that burn on the beach, providing an additional source of income for the village. He dreams of the arrival of Ofunesan, shipwrecked vessels filled with exotic goods that occasionally come near the village, lured by the lights of the burning salt pots. The shipwrecks are harvested in the same manner as all things the ocean brings, without worrying about the morality of it all. Things die so that other things may life.

This is not a dramatic book. There are no great life changes, no sweeping events. Good things happen, and the people are happy. Bad things happen, and the people are sad. But they accept both as what life has to offer. There is no outrage at the ocean when it brings devastation, just the knowledge that this too shall pass, and the survivors will rebuild, and the hope that next time the ocean will deliver a bounty. When the book ends, there is no climax, because you know that life in the village will continue on much as it always has, and we were just offered a brief glimpse.

Unfortunately, amazon.com has given it all away above, and randall short is obviously a reviewer who needs a rest. The snyopsis above is fair... I'm reminded of Santayana's definition of beauty: You're on a cliff and see two ships about to collide; you can do nothing about it. Or Tuesday Weld's definition of beauty: that which should cause pain but does not. Shipwrecks is written in a prose that is as devoid of modern stuff as you would expect the medieval fishing village to be. The depiction of the cove reminded me of Refugio Beach, where I spent my summers as a kid, hanging out on the beach, in the surf, carving tikis in the palm fronds. The details of the surf, the storms, the waves and water, the fishing. The writing of the huts, the food, the clothes - all this makes the book so readable. And the emotional pain the characters go through, the separations, the fears, the worries. And is there a moral? Is this some allegorical vision? It is after all medieval times, the times of passion plays. So what's it all about? Blind fate? Naturalism? Or does the village represent all of humanity, and the shipwrecks mankind's just deserts? I don't know. But if you are looking for a book that will draw you into its world, this is one. Highly recommended. Good writing, good strong forward moving story, complications you don't expect, a twisted ending that would make de maupassant weep

A very well done story about a village pushing the boundaries of right and wrong as they struggle to survive in medieval Japan. Yoshimura's short novel transports the reader into the world of a young boy learning how to fish and help his family stay together while forces beyond his control try to tear it apart. It's a novel you won't forget.

This quiet novel is my introduction to Akira Yoshimura. A ship Captain myself, the title caught my eye. I wasn't disappointed.

This short novel is a beautifully rendered cycle of life as seasons and years pass. It's evocative of a Japanese silkscreen with its panels for each season. In the Western tradition, I was reminded of the illuminated calendar, "Tres Riches Heures", crafted by the Limbourg Brothers in the middle ages.

The story is told through the eyes of the young boy Isaku. He must learn the seasonal labors and rituals when his father sells himself into indentured servitude. And it's this plot device that allows Yoshimura to give us this serene "labor of the seasons".

Contrary to the description on the cover of a "thrilling tale of murder and retribution", the story describes the coming of the O-fune-sama, the shipwreck, in the same quiet prose. Killing the survivors is a crime in the world beyond their village and while the villagers worry about being caught. it is a matter of simple survival for them. It is just another "labor of the seasons". The destruction of the village that follows is not an attempt by Yoshimura to achieve moral symmetry; rather it's a consequence of the isolation of the villagers. In the end, the surviving villagers continue their labors and the decimation itself becomes just one more panel in the silkscreen.