How Do You Live

By: Genzaburo Yoshino / Afterword and Translation By: Bruno Navasky / Foreword By: Neil Gaiman / Narrated By: Brian Nishii

Length: 6 hrs and 13 min

Ya know what? Didn’t like it until I started talking about it…

-And then it was, like-

Ooh, I liked the part where, and oh yeh, I forgot about that…

Ya gotta love a sibling. What? You don’t have one? Most unfortunate for you because sometimes when you speak to them, they point out the richness that you’re somehow missing out on. Cuz initially? Yikes, I was soooo disappointed with How Do You Live, the 1930s coming of age classic about a 15-year old boy making his way through life without his father. But when Big Sis asked me what I thought about it, whipsnap! I said I was sooo disappointed. I’d liked the earliest conversation between the Uncle and Copper, but then I felt things went downhill.

I’d had Expectations, you see…

And it’s like this: When Big Sis and I were talking about the five audiobooks I’d chosen for Death and Life week, she’d noted that they were aaaaallll Nonfiction, and as such, she had no intention of joining me in a Listen. Booooo, and she made a salient point: SURELY there’s Fiction about Living?! So I’d found How Do You Live, and is the title not perfection, or what?! Sis said she’d join me!!! Thank GOSH! Cuz I do believe I woulda missed the lovely gems within the story.

Copper (Nicknamed after Copernicus cuz the kid’s a deep thinker) lost his father a bit ago, and he’s had to move. Life’s changing, and before he died, Father told Uncle that his greatest wish was that Copper grow up to be a good man. And so Uncle takes it upon himself to foster moral growth in young Copper by encouraging thought, discussion, and he himself jots down lessons in a journal for Copper to peruse.

Now initially, I reeeally liked how Copper, upon standing above Tokyo and viewing sooo many inhabitants below, tiny as ants, living their lives, contemplates each of them with his Uncle. And then he withdraws his focus and ponders that others might be looking down upon Uncle and him, observing the two just as the two observe those below. It was such a nice way of looking at Parts of a Perceived Whole that imMEDiately I thought we’d get into how spiritual Quantum Mechanics can be when presented to, say, idiots such as I who need high-minded concepts sooo broken down into imagery. You know: Uncle and Copper would soon be discussing how the very act of looking at something will determine what it does… or something vaguely akin to that (Did I mention that I’m an idiot…? Yessss!).

This’ll be niiiice, thought I to m’self.

And then we get into Copper’s schoolboy antics, life at school, life with friends, and things get more mundane. And I got a trifle impatient.

Which is where that conversation with Sis came in cuz she went into this withOUT Expectations, and she was just open to the experience of it all. As things ebbed and flowed on moral lessons, on how flawed we as itty bitty creatures of flesh, blood, and fears can make choices… that sometimes aren’t right… but ALWAYS are valuable?

Ahhhhh, I started to Get It. Further, she found translator Bruno Navasky’s afterword quite elucidating as it added a bit of context. Author Genzaburo Yoshino, apparently, wrote this as a way to inspire thinking for the self rather than going along with the crowd, esPECially when the crowd was essentially wrong. Fascinating, yes, but even more?

Think about it: Published in 1937, this came out AFTER the 1932 coup d’état attempt with murder committed and assassins getting off easily and inspiring such a sense of militant anti-democracy; and it came out about a year AFTER the 1936 “2-26 Incident” which was complete with ITS assassinations/coup d’état attempt. So yes, verrrry interesting in context, and a bit sad. Cuz tho’ this was well-received, it didn’t stem the rising militarism in Japanese culture. Sad. So there’s that.

But I digress cuz I love History; now onto to Brian Nishii’s performance… Oh thank GOSH! he didn’t blow it big time! I know I know I know, I’m being totally hard on the guy when my experience of his narrations is only two, count ‘em, TWO audiobooks. It’s just that I loooooathed his performance in If Cats Disappeared from the World, he made a contemptible Hero just intolerable, and he made a wise Cat insufferably obnoxious. ANYone who can manage to make me wanna throttle one o’ my MUCH LOVED feline buddies? Soooo NOT cool, right? Anyhoo, a 50-50 narrator always makes me twitchy, but tho’ I was kinda sorta disappointed with this Listen initially? Well, it was never because of Nishii’s narration. He handles all characters well without making them caricatures. Copper’s mom was done well, and I cite her specifically because I dinged Nishii for his delivery of a woman in… that hideous audiobook… that I already moaned about… So Nishii, tho’ not a GLORIOUS narrator, did really just a-okay find and dandy here. …high praise…?!

I did so love discussing this story with Big Sis, especially as I saw incidents and actions through her eyes, how she experienced them. And it was nice that she went in with zippo Expectations and could just feel her way through it, enjoying it, cringing at The Betrayal, and accepting the little (And big!) lessons tossed Copper’s way.

NOW are you happy you have a sibling? Seriously, you should be!

And if you don’t, well, HEY! You’ve always got a faithful fellow Accomplice right here, right now…!