I've read Hyakken Uchida's "Meido". Exactly, quite a horrible book. And this book has been written with a great skill of narrative. This book has been written by the logic of dreams. The logic of dreams... means that we have to accept the slapstick logic if we want to survive in our dreams. Even if we understood that we were in a dream, we have to face the things which appear as creatures or something horrible because we can't control the dream itself. That's the logic of dreams. This kind of achievement of describing dreams is rare. So Hyakken's works are precious.
Reading Hyakken's works, I also write about Waseda days when I had enjoyed Paul Auster's "Moon Palace" as my novel. Yes, I remember Waseda... I was a guy who loves music and books. Already I had a disappointment in my life, and also had a serious depression although I had not drunk alcohol at that time. I even couldn't find a part-time job so I lived with my parents' money. Yes, I was almost a hikikomori. I walked into Tokyo without purpose and read Rilke, Haruki Murakami, Walter Benjamin (of course, their works were beyond my understanding). I thought I wanted to be a writer in the future.
People often get surprised if I say I am from Waseda university. But it is (yes, this is a dirty metaphor) like the past which the person who worked in "porno videos". Yes, quite a shameful past which should be talked with shyness. I'm enjoying this life now. Now I have friends and live a sober life with good meals. I can create various things as I want. When I was at Waseda, nothing satisfied me and friendships always broke up because of my acting. Always I had huge guilty and thought that being born in this world must be wrong. I remember those days...
Slapstick things as dreams... I can remember Barry Yourgrau's and Toshio Shimao's works from that. Or Yoriko Shouno, Hiromi Kawakami... Influenced by their works, I once tried to write journals of my dreams. Now I can't write because I don't see dreams. Once I tried to write about a novel about cutting a big tree of spinach with a chainsaw. But that kind of idea doesn't come above. I should want for the whisper of Muse, so I have to wait for the day with Yoshikichi Furui's and Fernando Pessoa's works.
