"Yama no Oto" (The Sound of the Mountain, 1949 - 1954) by Yasunari Kawabata

There is always something very sad about Japanese culture. As the only country that has been nuked, twice at that, there is something in the mentality of the post-war Japanese population that we, as foreigners, would find difficult to comprehend. Written in some graceful and lyrical prose, this novel is astonishing in that it encapsulates all the anxiety of living under the shadow of defeat at a time of monumental social and cultural transition. It is epic in length by Kawabata's standard, and is impossible to discuss all the symbolism in a short IG post. The story follows the life of the aging man Shingo, who is gradually realising his own mortality, and is living to bear witness to the sequential deaths of his own generation and the PTSDs of the younger generations. He blames himself for the failures of his children's lives, and attempts to rectify problems against the tides. It cuts very deep into the ramifications of war, and the futile attempt of living under decaying circumstances, yet, as the ending suggests, they must charge on. It is also interesting and somewhat refreshing to read in an era of individualism about the parental perspective on society and the social responsibilities such attitudes entail. Having said all that, this is not a depressing text, but softly glows in a sort of "Yugen" (幽玄) way as in Noh theatre. (I will leave you to Wiki that term.) This novel has been hailed as the most important piece of post-war Japanese literature. It is not easy to interpret this work, nor would the regular reader find it immediately relevant. One can read it on surface level as well as performing a Jungian analysis of dreams on it. It is a substantial work, but worth every effort to go through it.

"Mizuumi" (The Lake, 1954 - 1955) by Yasunari Kawabata

In "Maihime", the concept of "the realm of the wicked" (魔界) was introduced, but what happens when one actually enters it? "Mizuumi" might be a novella, but is a psychologically turbulent one. Here, Kawabata offers an insight into his vision of dystopia in a rare outing of stream-of-consciousness narration. As a metaphor for the defeated nation of WWII, it encapsulates all the powerless sentiments of living as a "loser". Much like "Pelleas and Melisande", various forms of water provide unifying backdrops linking themes together in an otherwise fluid progression - the protagonist was born to a lake-side house; he lost his father in said lake; he was rejected by his first crush by the lake; he discovered his own ugliness in a bathhouse; he failed as a schoolteacher and was reduced to robbing a woman called Mizuki Miyako ("mizu" means water in Japanese), who herself lives off a sugar daddy to support her brother's education, who in turn has a good friend called Mizuno, with whose 15-year-old girlfriend the protagonist falls in love and stalks; he loiters in a sewage after failing an affair with his former student; he is confronted by Mizuno and eventually resigns from further perverted advances by a river. Almost everything goes wrong for the protagonist but the novella offers a slightly positive resolution in the end: he maintains some decency by rejecting the advances of a random encounter and facing his own ugliness (of the foot) directly and charges on. Perhaps it is what they call honour. This is a dark work, elegantly structured and as ever intellectually stimulating. Perhaps not the best entry point, but one that is essential when one has entered the world of Kawabata.

"Meijin" (The Master of Go, 1949 - 1954) by Yasunari Kawabata

For all the descriptions about gradual breakdown of tradition in the other novels, this extraordinary work chronicles the total and irreversible disintegration of a particular cultural practice, namely, the artistic emphasis of playing the chess game Go. It was made even more philosophically interesting when one read the work in August 2017, three months after DeepMind's AlphaGo won 3 - 0 to the World No. 1 - this reprint is update enough to include the results in the preface. In the modern world, we consider a game of chess a competitive sport, where the objective is to win within set rules. It is a battle of decision making - reason rather than feeling - so the advent of artificial intelligence brings all sorts of wonders about the limitations of human intelligence. In the days of Imperial Japan, however, to practice the art of Go was a well-paid honour, in which the playing style and respected conventions are direct reflections of sophistication so there was more to mere winning and losing. The best player, often undefeated, was given the title of "Meijin". There was only one Meijin at a time and the titleholder retained it for life. This tradition diminished when it lost official support, and eventually ended when the last Meijin decided to retire the title in a last match against a tournament-chosen challenger in 1938, and this novel is a historical account of this encounter. It is remarkable in that the book not only details the 237 moves that spanned over six months in 41 chapters, it is also an epic description on and, at times, unusually blunt commentary of all the psychological and physical struggles of both players, the changes of the surroundings, the spectators and cultural significance. It writes as much about facial expressions as urination frequencies. Apparently it is recommended reading for all aspiring Go players. You really have to read it to believe how the arrangement of 237 black and white dots in a regular-spaced 2D grid can be so engrossing.

"Nemureru Bijo" (The House of the Sleeping Beauties, 1960 - 1961) by Yasunari Kawabata

This is a conceptual masterpiece: through extreme creepiness, bleakness and decadence draws the beauty of pure love. This novella is an acute and haunting reevaluation of the perennial love-death cycle. As the introduction at the back aptly suggests, it has "the unique aroma of over-ripe fruits". In a cliff-side house, a mysterious woman hosts impotent old men and allows them to sleep with naked young girls who are drugged with a heavy dose so they would not wake up for the entire night. The old men can do anything with the girls as long as there are no penetrations of any sorts, and they are provided with sleeping pills so they could dream about their past with these young beauties in arms. For the old men, these visits are as rejuvenating as humiliating, as they can exert power by freely manipulating motionless limbs when in reality they are merely being patronised. The protagonist refuses to categorise himself alongside fellow clients, and considers demonstraing his manhood by violating the rules - raping the girls, impregnating them, killing them even. Then he remembers his past, realises the girls are virgins and decides to respect the rules. The writing is so deeply sensuous it is a wonder in itself. Just as he discovers the inner romance of "pure" love by negation, this nightmarish dreamworld collapses in some quiet ways. It paves way for a suspiciously similar novella by Gabriel García Márquez, "Memories of My Melancholy Whores" (2004), which offers a sunnier resolution. Fellow Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee wrote a fantastic review on both, and reading that is totally worthwhile in itself.

Boeing 787 Smart Glass

Nobel Week Latergram Science: When I was travelling earlier in the year, I had the fortune of flying on a Boeing 787 with Virgin Atlantic. The unusual thing was that I had to put up with a window seat for the first time in years, but it allowed me to discover this fun piece of gadget. So on 787 Dreamliners, they no longer have standard physical blinds for the windows. Instead, they have installed these fascinating smart glasses. There are five settings for each window and you can change the amount of shading from near-complete transparent to near-complete translucent within seconds. Out of curiosity I looked up the technology behind it. Apparently these glasses, patented by Research Frontiers, belong to a class of materials called Suspended Particle Devices (SPD). On standing, the particles are distributed across space randomly and move about by Brownian motion and block out light. When you apply a voltage, these particles line up and arrange themselves to allow light to pass through. Three questions came to mind immediately: 1) what are these particles (presumably molecules with large dipole moments); 2) how energy efficient are these given you have to apply voltages across all the windows to keep them transparent and; 3) how many reversible iterations can they perform before these glasses fail (for chemical reasons)?

P.S. They also have "Le Marteau sans maître" (Sony recording) on the classical playlist. Virgin Atlantic has very good taste in music.