Starting my own canon of 108 best books of the world

Whether I will make it to 1001 108 books, or get bored along the way, I do not know, but I have started reading in order to build my own "canon of great books."

(After just two days I have lowered my target from 1,001 to 108 - 108 is a Buddhist number and a safer bet as a target!)

My principles are:

• All texts, so not only fiction, but also poetry, essays, historiography, plays, even great science writing will qualify. And manga, of course.
• Texts will be considered from all cultures and languages (but my personal preference will steer me often in the direction of East Asia).
• All texts selected must be of "literary interest." That is to say, the writing must be "artful", and add its own layer of meaning, not a mere flat text.
• All texts selected must mean something to us, living in the present-time. So no texts that are only of historical relevance, etc.
• And finally, a subjective criterium, they must grip me with their humor, boldness, fantasy, insight in the human condition, etc. In other words, literature that broadens and deepens the heart.

I will report individually on the books I have read and consider fit for inclusion (you can expect a lot from Japan and China, that is why I keep it in this blog!). The first books I am reading (again) are the Zhuangzi and Murakami's The Elephant Vanishes.

The Art of the Cook in Zhuangzi

In previous posts about Japanese cuisine and sake-making I have talked about the obsession with ultimate quality in cooking (and in cutting, which is very important in Asian cuisine as the diners themselves do not have a knife!), as well as of sake brewing as a handicraft that in the end is practiced on a spiritual level...

Reading the Zhuangzi again, the great Chinese Daoist wisdom book from around 300 BCE, I found this passage that expresses this perfect spiritual art in very clear terms (I cite from the old translation by James Legge, which is open source):

His cook was cutting up an ox for the ruler Wen Hui. Whenever he applied his hand, leaned forward with his shoulder, planted his foot, and employed the pressure of his knee, in the audible ripping off of the skin, and slicing operation of the knife, the sounds were all in regular cadence. Movements and sounds proceeded as in the dance of 'the Mulberry Forest' and the blended notes of the King Shou.'

The ruler said, 'Ah! Admirable! That your art should have become so perfect!' (Having finished his operation), the cook laid down his knife, and replied to the remark, 'What your servant loves is the method of the Dao, something in advance of any art. When I first began to cut up an ox, I saw nothing but the (entire) carcase. After three years I ceased to see it as a whole. Now I deal with it in a spirit-like manner, and do not look at it with my eyes. The use of my senses is discarded, and my spirit acts as it wills. Observing the natural lines, (my knife) slips through the great crevices and slides through the great cavities, taking advantage of the facilities thus presented. My art avoids the membranous ligatures, and much more the great bones.

A good cook changes his knife every year; (it may have been injured) in cutting - an ordinary cook changes his every month - (it may have been) broken. Now my knife has been in use for nineteen years; it has cut up several thousand oxen, and yet its edge is as sharp as if it had newly come from the whetstone. There are the interstices of the joints, and the edge of the knife has no (appreciable) thickness; when that which is so thin enters where the interstice is, how easily it moves along! The blade has more than room enough.

Nevertheless, whenever I come to a complicated joint, and see that there will be some difficulty, I proceed anxiously and with caution, not allowing my eyes to wander from the place, and moving my hand slowly. Then by a very slight movement of the knife, the part is quickly separated, and drops like (a clod of) earth to the ground. Then standing up with the knife in my hand, I look all round, and in a leisurely manner, with an air of satisfaction, wipe it clean, and put it in its sheath.'

The ruler Wen Hui said, 'Excellent! I have heard the words of my cook, and learned from them the nourishment of (our) life.'

In other words: we are not talking about a mere technique here, a procedure that may be mastered, but about something that goes way beyond this. We might call it a "Dao," a "Way" or an "Art." Any activity, whether butchering a carcass, making sushi, or brewing the perfect sake, becomes a Dao when it is performed in a spiritual state of heightened awareness. (See Zhuangzi in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

Canon of Literature

This weekend, I happened to come across a NY Times review called “1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die” by Peter Boxall. The reason I bring it up here, is that this list is unbelievably and unashamedly Anglo-centered (including the U.S.) - it is not even a list of great Western literature, let alone that it tries to define the best in world literature.

Another matter is the narrow focus on the novel (and short stories). In ancient China, fiction in contrast was not considered as literature (which included rather philosophical and historical works as well as lyrical poetry) - the present West is just as short-sighted by only considering prose fiction. Of course poetry and plays should be included, but also - if they have sufficient literary value - historical texts, essays, even scientific work. Darwin and Hawkins, for example, should be part of the canon! It should be a canon of literary texts, and not of novels!

The weakness of the NY Times list is most clearly visible in the (smallish) pre-1700 section, where the only non-Western book is The Thousand and One Nights...

What about the Manyoshu? The Genji Monogatari? Basho?

And where are the Analects, Daodejing, Zhuangzi and the Book of Songs? Where are the Lotus Sutra and the Mahabarata and Ramayana?

The selection of modern Japanese literature is also rather biased, with no Tanizaki or Kawabata and by Oe only Nip the Buds, by Mishima only A Sailor who Fell from Grace with the Sea... Murakami Haruki is represented by Kafka on the Shore, After the Quake, Sputnik Sweetheart and the The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. Not my list of favorite Murakami (except the last title) - Sputnik Sweetheart is one of his weakest books, as a "love story" Norwegian Wood (which I have been reading for a second time recently) is much stronger.

In the end, of course, everybody should build his or her own "canon" - based on personal preference and also clear principles (so as to be interesting for others). If I have time, I may start building my canon gradually, ten books at a time... Seeing a list made by others, really stimulates you to start making your own...

P.S. The great thing for pre-1900 literature is of course that so much of it is available on the web as "open source" - at the well-known Gutenberg site but also in many other places. And Wikipedia forms a convenient stating point for studying the various ancient and national literatures.

A Dose of Vertical - Publisher of Japanese mass fiction

Japanese popular culture is "cool" and for the first time in history, mass fiction is riding along on the high wave of manga popularity.

Although Nobel Prize winner Oe Kenzaburo is sadly lingering in the shadows, with too many important novels still going untranslated, today more popular fiction is being translated than ever before. Long established companies like Kodansha International are playing a role in this, but surprisingly, the main actor is a tiny publisher called Vertical, Inc. (The name goes back to the fact that the Japanese script is (originally) written vertically.)

As the New York Times reported some years ago, the company was founded by Sakai Hiroki, a former book editor and business journalist, who in 1998 moved from Japan to the United States. With financial backing from a large Japanese newspaper (his former employer) and a trading house, he started publishing Japanese popular fiction, because he saw so little of it in bookstores outside of Japan.

That is not an easy venture, the selection from the vast ocean of mass fiction is all that counts. Popular fiction is perhaps even more difficult to bring to another culture than highbrow literature. On top of that, much - very much - of Japanese fiction is just cheap rubbish. That is the case everywhere, but especially so in Japan where authors are paid little and so have to go on writing and writing, churning out several books a year. After the initial few inspired books, even famous popular authors like Matsumoto Seicho descend into the hell of hack-work.

So what has Vertical come up with?

• They started with a coup: the novels of Suzuki Koji, such as the complete Ring trilogy, Dark water etc.
• Riding the manga wave, the first volumes of Buddha by Tezuka Osama, the godfather of Japanese comic art.
• The Guin Saga by Kurimoto Kaoru. Vertical has published the first volumes of what promises to become a 100-volume series in the original Japanese. Pure escapist fantasy, about princely twins Rinda and Remus, who loose their kingdom but are helped by Guin, a creature with a human body but the head of a leopard. Think Edgar Rice Burroughs at his most unapologetic.
• Shinjuku Shark by Osawa Arimasa. a hard-boiled police novel set in seedy Kabukicho. Review by Mark Schreiber.
• Filmmaker Kitano Takeshi's Boy, three stories from his youth. Reviewed enthousiastically by Donald Richie in the Japan Times.
• Zero over Berlin by Sasaki Joh tells about a (fictional) effort in 1940 to fly two prototype Zero fighters to Berlin, to help the Germans manufacture better planes. Review by Mark Schreiber.
• Outlet. An intriguing New Age mystery by Taguchi Randy.
• Naoko by bestseller mystery author Higashino Keigo. About a man whose wife dies in an accident after which their young daughter seems to be inhabited by the mother's personality.
• The Crimson Labyrinth by Kishi Yusuke, a potboiler about something that seems to start out like a mysterious survival game...
• And of course J-Horror by David Kalat, reviewed in these pages.

And much more, in all about 40 titles. It certainly is a very mixed bag and nothing if not exotic, although the publisher tries to stay away from cherryblossoms and other Japonisms.

Although this is a very laudable effort, I have the following small criticism (apart from the fact that I do not like all books selected and that some translations are rather monotonous): It would be more interesting to have novels written today, rather than fiction from the vast reservoir of the last decades, as is now the case. And when they start with an author, I would like Vertical to continue following that writer and continue translating his or her work (not only the odd trilogy).

Most of the books have been beautifully published, with cover art by Chip Kidd (now replaced by Peter Mendelsund). Certainly worth checking out for your next holiday reading.

What water is suitable for Sake brewing?

Sake is for 70% water, so water is by far the major ingredient. Water used in the sake brewing process is called "Shuzo Yosui" and can be divided into two types: "Jozo yosui," or the water used for the fermentation process and "Binzume yosui" or the water used for bottling and other processes. The first type encompasses the water used for washing and steeping the rice as well as the water used directly in fermentation tank, the second type the water used to clean the bottles, but also the water used to dilute the sake to obtain the proper alcohol level.

As with the rice, some elements that can be found in water are good for the brewing process, others not.

Good elements, which help micro-organisms such as the yeast grow, are:

• Potassium
• Phosphoric acid
• Magnesium

Negative elements are:

• Iron (colors the sake!)
• Manganese (same)
• Heavy metals (bad for humans)
• Ammonia and nitrous acid
• Wild yeasts

Sake breweries take their water - especially the all-important water used in fermentation, from wells and springs, or from subsoil water of rivers. In other words, they use very pure and natural water. Many breweries have their own, private well.

We also have to take into account the difference between hard and soft water. Hard water has a high mineral content (often the "good" minerals mentioned above), soft water much less so. In the Edo-period, sake brewers preferred relatively hard water, as the "good elements" in it helped the fermentation process, making it faster. In the Meiji-period, brewers discovered that it was also very much possible to brew excellent sake with soft water, only the technique should be different. Anyway, the Ginjo type sake - which became a technical possibility in the 20th century thanks to rice polishing by machines - should always be brewed slowly.

A famous example of hard water is the Miyamizu ("Temple water"), discovered 160 years ago in Nishinomiya by the Sakura-Masamune Brewery. This water contains little iron and mangan, but a lot of phosphoric acid, and also a relatively large amount of potassium and magnesium. The hard water gives a dry taste to the sake and that became characteristic of the sakes made in the Nada districts of Kobe. All breweries in the area started using this water, transporting it in casks to their premises. This "masculine" sake, as it was called, became very popular among the population of Edo, where it was shipped.

Excellent soft water can be found in the Fushimi ward of Kyoto or in Hiroshima Prefecture. Sakes from these areas are sweeter and have therefore been called "feminine."

Water is important for sake brewing - it is the only element that gives a clear local identity to the sake, as "terroir" in the case of grapes (sake rice nowadays is shipped all over Japan, and anyway, most of the typical local elements are lost during the polishing process). So the water drawn from local wells, is the only "terroir" for Sake!

What rice is suitable for Sake brewing?

Rice and water are the two main raw materials in sake, but for sake, not all rice is equal. The rice used for sake is called "sakamai," "Sake rice;" about 5% of all rice grown in Japan is "Sake rice."

One particular type of "Sake rice" is the so-called "Shuzo Kotekimai," the "Rice ideally suitable for sake brewing." These are specially developed and cultivated strains of rice that possess certain qualities that make them most suitable for sake-brewing (they are not suitable as rice for at dinner!). About 30% of all sake rice (so roughly 2% of all rice grown in Japan) is "Shuzo Kotekimai."

Rice contains various elements, some of which are good for sake brewing, others much less so. Here are the five main elements:

1. Carbohydrates (starch): 70-75%. By saccharification or liquefaction this becomes sugar. The most important element in sake brewing - the more starch (the larger the grain) the better!
2. Proteins: 7-8%. Changed into amino acid by the enzymes produced by the Koji. Bad for fermentation.
3. Chemical elements. Necessary for the growth of micro-organisms and therefore good for the brewing process. There are 4 kinds: potassium, phospohoric acid, magnesium, calcium.
4. Lipids: 2%. Concentrated in the germ. Influences the aroma of the sake in a negative way.
5. Vitamins. Concentrated in the germ, also not necessary for sake.

Only 1 and 3 are good for fermentation. "Sake Kotekimai" will have much of these and less of the others. The three most important qualities of "Sake Kotekimai" are:

1. Have a large grain (1,000 grains should weight 25-30g, against ordinary rice only 20g (the famous Koshihikari and Sasanishiki types weigh 22-23g). As individual grains are so small, rice is weighed in units of 1,000 grains, called "Senryuju.")
2. Have a soft opaque white center called "shinpaku," a sort of "white heart." This is pure starch.
3. Have only little proteins and fats.

The large grain is of course necessary for super premium sakes (such as Ginjo), where the grain is polished to 60%, 50% or even less of its original volume.

Types of "Shuzo Kotekimai" are:

• Omachi from Okayama Prefecture, the oldest variety, developed in the Edo period.
• Yamada Nishiki, the most famous variety, very suitable for Ginjo sake, developed in Hyogo Prefecture in the 1930s. 30% of all "Shuzo Kotekimai." Has been called the King or Yokozuna of Shuzo Kotekimai.
• Gohyakumangoku from Hokuriku and Tohoku. 50% of all "Shuzo Kotekimai."
• Miyama Nishiki from Nagano Prefecture.
• Hattan Nishiki from Hiroshima Prefecture

Unfortunately, demand for "Shuzo Kotekimai" far exceeds supply. This rice is very difficult to grow, because it stretches to 120 cm (against normal rice 90 cm), making it prone to devastation by typhoons. It must be placed wide apart (double from ordinary rice) and is a late harvesting type. Not for nothing that it costs double the price of ordinary rice (600 yen per kilo)!

So generally speaking, the special rice is used for the premium sakes (also about 30% of all sake brewed in Japan), while "ordinary sake rice" is used for the Futsushu or "ordinary sake" with added alcohol.