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elf_0203's review against another edition
adventurous
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
vidyareads's review
2.0
Of the four stories, I liked the first three. A realization came to me that they are all in some way connected to the sky and the stars. The last story is the longest but I can’t pinpoint why I was glazing over the words. I rarely DNF so I finished the book but was not my favorite
saroz162's review
2.0
...And here we have something which is probably very beautiful and lyrical in its original language, only to suffer from (what I assume to be) a basic and literal translation. These simply don't read easily, and while I can appreciate the imagery Miyazawa has provided, a somewhat more sympathetic translation is probably necessary to convey the full symbolism and artistry that Japanese readers have enjoyed for a century. Most of my previous knowledge of Miyazawa comes from the disconcerting anime adaptation of the title story, Night on the Galactic Railroad, and the adoption of the "Afterlife Express" trope throughout Japanese - and later Western - culture surely points to his influence. Were I ignorant of these facts, however, the writing in this slim volume could only come over as stilted and awkward. I suspect there are better translations available.
tonyzale's review
3.0
These 3 Kenji Miyazawa short stories read like traditional fables infused with a helping of early 20th century technology. Lead characters are challenged by mundane cruelties and their problems aren’t solved as much as they are endured. Peace and dignity is the reward for the perserverance.
“The Nighthawk Star” is the most traditional of the collection, the story of a bird who decides to fly away to the stars after being bullied by a hawk. The bird is initially rejected for starhood for lack of grace and money, an example of Miyazawa’s quiet humor.
“Signal and Signal-less” explore Miyazawa’s fascination with railroads, and its anthropomorphic train signals in courtship vaguely reminded me of the world of Thomas the Tank Engine. A crass utility pole threatens the budding romance, leaving the signals to appeal to a strange mix of Catholic saints, Thomas Edison, and railway pioneer George Stephenson. In the end, a kindly warehouse offers guidance that leads to a moment of clarity.
“Night on the Galactic Railroad” is a deeper, dreamlike tale about a troubled boy riding a train from earth to the heavens and back. Giovanni’s errand to retrieve milk for his sick mother somehow finds him on a train to the heavens and back. Strange encounters during the journey influence his notions of happiness and the meaning of life and death.
“The Nighthawk Star” is the most traditional of the collection, the story of a bird who decides to fly away to the stars after being bullied by a hawk. The bird is initially rejected for starhood for lack of grace and money, an example of Miyazawa’s quiet humor.
“Signal and Signal-less” explore Miyazawa’s fascination with railroads, and its anthropomorphic train signals in courtship vaguely reminded me of the world of Thomas the Tank Engine. A crass utility pole threatens the budding romance, leaving the signals to appeal to a strange mix of Catholic saints, Thomas Edison, and railway pioneer George Stephenson. In the end, a kindly warehouse offers guidance that leads to a moment of clarity.
“Night on the Galactic Railroad” is a deeper, dreamlike tale about a troubled boy riding a train from earth to the heavens and back. Giovanni’s errand to retrieve milk for his sick mother somehow finds him on a train to the heavens and back. Strange encounters during the journey influence his notions of happiness and the meaning of life and death.
wavieff's review
5.0
It's no secret that I've spent the first three years of my adult life wasting away, indulging myself in activities that never really satisfy me, spewing empty promises and feeling nothing upon breaking them, since they rang so hollow to begin with. But it's only now that I completely realise; all this waste was in pursuit of childlike wonder.
The age-old idiom of "you can never be a child again" was something I never believed in, instead choosing to believe, should I ignore it well enough, that the fingers of adulthood would never clamp around me if I never opened my eyes to it. And, given certain circumstances, I was allowed to believe this, to believe that these circumstances were made solely for me, to believe that, in this masking of insecurities with endless intaking and intaking and intaking, I could self-bloating while never vomiting any of it, and get an inane sort of satisfaction from doing what truly amounts to nothing, at least to my synapses.
I believed that I could suppress my creative spirit if I tried hard enough.
"Tomorrow," I'd promise, "I'll work on that story," or "tomorrow," I'd say, "I'll record that video." But this over-indulgent stomach of mine proposes, "just a little bit more," and, so easily, I concede. (None of this is to say you, the reader, or those, not reading this, amount to nothing because they do not regurgitate; I'm saying it's a fault of myself for discrediting this spirit of mine, and attempting to bury it beneath mounds of extraneous thoughts. I shot myself, I hold the gun not to you, but to me!)
Saturday means nothing to me but the passage of time that I, also, refuse to acknowledge, despite the pink-markered slashes on my calendar assuring myself I do. For tomorrow will always be the day that I begin the first day of the rest of my life, but tomorrow is also the day I spend hoping for tomorrow, and taking no steps to cement that tomorrow's hope. Instead, I choose to dream, saying that this is my last hold on 'childhood wonder' (so meaningless a phrase). But the idiom rings true: There will never be a day where I can think like that again.
But the truth is, that's fine.
It's the second part I never realised. That it is fine. The show must go on, the train must go to the next stop, phases exist to end and begin in a loop. None of it's the same, and new perspective is the beauty of it. I may wonder and wonder and wonder I will with that childlike ignorance, not wonder, that I've imposed on yourself, because if I wonder and want, it places me in a cave where I cannot wonder and desire.
I'll tell you what I do: I get angry when a piece of art is praised that I could feasibly do, given a little tutelage. My blood boils when something I deem amateurish flourishes in popularity because I know somewhere I could make much of the same. I am angry, damn it, and I'm sick of pretending like I'm not.
For me, living cannot be an endless stream of entertainment, living must be the adamant pursuit of clenched teeth and boiling bones. Living is striving, and that is my adult wonder. Accomplishment. Etching my name somewhere other than a tombstone, other than breaths of air. I must create and not only consume, this part of me can never be hidden. I live for the pressure in my head and the fire in my chest.
"Why am I feeling so sad? I want a heart that's stronger, more pure. If I fix my eyes on those smoky blue flames straight ahead, perhaps I can cleanse my soul."
This is all encapsulated within Miyazawa's Night On The Galactic Railroad. A youthful novella, to be sure, but an adult one, one that could not be made without a healthy dose of retrospection, and the abstraction of said retrospection. The simultaneous beauty of the current, past, and potential future.
""Look!" Campanella exclaimed. "Gentian flowers! It must already be autumn." In the short grass along the track bloomed splendid gentian flowers that looked as if they had been carved out of moonstone. "Maybe I'll jump off the train for a moment, pick some, and hop back on," Giovanni said, his heart still dancing. "I wouldn't. See, we've already passed them." Before Campanella finished speaking, they had left the gentian flowers behind. But soon another bed appeared, shining yellow and passing over their eyes like bubbling water or rain, while the lights of the signposts seemed to smolder."
During Night On The Galactic Railroad, for the first time in my adult life, I exhaled.
""No one knows what true happiness is, least of all me. But no matter how hard it is, if you keep to the path you deem to be true, you can overcome any mountain. With each step in that direction, people come closer to happiness," said the lighthouse keeper, comfortingly.
"I agree," said the young man, closing his eyes as if in prayer, "but to reach the truest happiness, one must make their way through many sorrows.""
""I'm no longer afraid, even of a darkness, as fathomless as that is. I'm sure true happiness can even be found within it. Let's search for it...however long it takes, or however far we must go..." Giovanni said."
The age-old idiom of "you can never be a child again" was something I never believed in, instead choosing to believe, should I ignore it well enough, that the fingers of adulthood would never clamp around me if I never opened my eyes to it. And, given certain circumstances, I was allowed to believe this, to believe that these circumstances were made solely for me, to believe that, in this masking of insecurities with endless intaking and intaking and intaking, I could self-bloating while never vomiting any of it, and get an inane sort of satisfaction from doing what truly amounts to nothing, at least to my synapses.
I believed that I could suppress my creative spirit if I tried hard enough.
"Tomorrow," I'd promise, "I'll work on that story," or "tomorrow," I'd say, "I'll record that video." But this over-indulgent stomach of mine proposes, "just a little bit more," and, so easily, I concede. (None of this is to say you, the reader, or those, not reading this, amount to nothing because they do not regurgitate; I'm saying it's a fault of myself for discrediting this spirit of mine, and attempting to bury it beneath mounds of extraneous thoughts. I shot myself, I hold the gun not to you, but to me!)
Saturday means nothing to me but the passage of time that I, also, refuse to acknowledge, despite the pink-markered slashes on my calendar assuring myself I do. For tomorrow will always be the day that I begin the first day of the rest of my life, but tomorrow is also the day I spend hoping for tomorrow, and taking no steps to cement that tomorrow's hope. Instead, I choose to dream, saying that this is my last hold on 'childhood wonder' (so meaningless a phrase). But the idiom rings true: There will never be a day where I can think like that again.
But the truth is, that's fine.
It's the second part I never realised. That it is fine. The show must go on, the train must go to the next stop, phases exist to end and begin in a loop. None of it's the same, and new perspective is the beauty of it. I may wonder and wonder and wonder I will with that childlike ignorance, not wonder, that I've imposed on yourself, because if I wonder and want, it places me in a cave where I cannot wonder and desire.
I'll tell you what I do: I get angry when a piece of art is praised that I could feasibly do, given a little tutelage. My blood boils when something I deem amateurish flourishes in popularity because I know somewhere I could make much of the same. I am angry, damn it, and I'm sick of pretending like I'm not.
For me, living cannot be an endless stream of entertainment, living must be the adamant pursuit of clenched teeth and boiling bones. Living is striving, and that is my adult wonder. Accomplishment. Etching my name somewhere other than a tombstone, other than breaths of air. I must create and not only consume, this part of me can never be hidden. I live for the pressure in my head and the fire in my chest.
"Why am I feeling so sad? I want a heart that's stronger, more pure. If I fix my eyes on those smoky blue flames straight ahead, perhaps I can cleanse my soul."
This is all encapsulated within Miyazawa's Night On The Galactic Railroad. A youthful novella, to be sure, but an adult one, one that could not be made without a healthy dose of retrospection, and the abstraction of said retrospection. The simultaneous beauty of the current, past, and potential future.
""Look!" Campanella exclaimed. "Gentian flowers! It must already be autumn." In the short grass along the track bloomed splendid gentian flowers that looked as if they had been carved out of moonstone. "Maybe I'll jump off the train for a moment, pick some, and hop back on," Giovanni said, his heart still dancing. "I wouldn't. See, we've already passed them." Before Campanella finished speaking, they had left the gentian flowers behind. But soon another bed appeared, shining yellow and passing over their eyes like bubbling water or rain, while the lights of the signposts seemed to smolder."
During Night On The Galactic Railroad, for the first time in my adult life, I exhaled.
""No one knows what true happiness is, least of all me. But no matter how hard it is, if you keep to the path you deem to be true, you can overcome any mountain. With each step in that direction, people come closer to happiness," said the lighthouse keeper, comfortingly.
"I agree," said the young man, closing his eyes as if in prayer, "but to reach the truest happiness, one must make their way through many sorrows.""
""I'm no longer afraid, even of a darkness, as fathomless as that is. I'm sure true happiness can even be found within it. Let's search for it...however long it takes, or however far we must go..." Giovanni said."
mikan_yamano's review against another edition
emotional
sad
slow-paced
宮沢賢治さんの不思議な独特の世界観を垣間見ることができました。仏教とキリスト教、科学と空想がいい具合に混ざり合っていて、花、星、宝石とやさしい心がとても美しいく描かれていた。花の魂が変光星になるきれいな話を記した「おきなぐさ」はわたしの幼い日の記憶を呼び起こし、「貝の火」はわたしを傲慢になってはいけないと注意し、「よだかの星」はわたしの心を痛めさせ、やさしいさびしい気持ちがいっぱいになる。「銀河鉄道の夜」を途中わけわからなくなってきて読むのをやめた方たちは、ぜひ最後まで読んでください。最後の結末が見た時、きっと何かあなたの心に響くものがあると信じています。さいわいのみちを、わたしにとってどういうものなのか、もう一度じっくり考えたい。
ktjawrites's review
5.0
Imagination bleeding wild life into the often-mundane.
+
“No matter how long he looked at it, he just couldn’t imagine space being the cold, empty place his teacher had said it was. Actually, the harder he looked, the more he thought he spied a town, farms, and fields, just like the ones around him.”
+
“No matter how long he looked at it, he just couldn’t imagine space being the cold, empty place his teacher had said it was. Actually, the harder he looked, the more he thought he spied a town, farms, and fields, just like the ones around him.”
flattone's review
emotional
lighthearted
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.75
almostbasic's review
adventurous
emotional
reflective
sad
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.5