Tengu Child: Stories by Kikuo Itaya

Description

Western writers and a Buddhist writer like Kikuo Itaya may seem to employ similar techniques, yet as John Gardner points out in his Introduction to these fifteen stories, the symbolism used by the Eastern and Western writer “is no more the same than wings are to, respectively, a butterfly and a bird. The two are products of distinct evolutionary lines.”

If we are not Buddhists, Gardner asks, why read the stories of Kikuo Itaya? The simplest answer is that they are beautiful. And while they “violate many of our normal expectations . . . , these fictional meditations can prove as persuasive and liberating as the idealism of childhood.” The artist remains impeccably honest with his readers, yet leads them—as Aristotle would never allow—down inexplicable twists and turns in which conflict turns out to be harmony and “characters and actions we felt safe in judging as ‘bad or good’ emerge in a surprising new light.”

These meditational stories also create suspense. Where will the plot lead us? But the “more important kind of suspense in Itaya’s stories has to do with understanding. One soon learns that in every story secret forces are moving, and that the visible surfaces of those forces may be misleading.”