Strangers

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Only by allowing colleagues, friends, and family -- all of whom he had largely abandoned or allowed to drift away -- to help can he be saved. Strangers is an odd little book and isn’t my usual fare because it involves ghosts. Fortunately there was more to it than the spectral element. Yamada has gained accolades from substantial writers such as David Mitchell and Bret Easton Ellis, but this novel is more a gentle entertainment than a serious psychic disturbance." - James Urquhart, Daily Telegraph The Japanese original won the 1987 Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize for best human-interest novel. The English translation was one of sixteen works long-listed for the 2006 Foreign Fiction prize awarded by The Independent. In the anticipation of the upcoming film “All of us Strangers” adapted and directed by Andrew Haigh, who has directed one of my favorite films of all time, the immortal and intimate “Weekend” about a queer love affair set in working class England 2011.

Strangers (Japanese title Ijintachi to no natsu 異人たちとの夏 Summer of the Strange People) is a novel by Taichi Yamada, published in 1987. The English translation by Wayne Lammers was published in 2003. This is a strange little book. The protagonist, Harada, is a middle aged screenwriter, orphaned aged twelve when his parents are killed in a traffic accident. Recently divorced, he throws himself into his work. He is tired and lonely.Pe de alta parte, daca acceptam supranaturalul, atunci putem afirma ca prin suferinta, prin divort, Hideo a devenit un fel de "felinar", un "magnet" pentru spiritele care mai aveau ceva de spus in lumea noastra. Acesta este un concept des intalnit si in filme, indeosebi cele japoneze, cand eroul devine un portal pentru spiritele de dincolo. Eu as tinde spre aceasta explicatie, mi se pare mai pe gustul meu. :) The impact of All of Us Strangers will likely vary wildly depending on the beholder. With such a despairing thesis, the film may seem awfully foreign to some younger queer people who, while no doubt still suffering the batterings of an often hostile world, can’t quite identify with Adam’s internal wrestling: his fear, his coded shame, his hermetic longing. Older viewers may run headlong toward the film’s despondency, finding solace, even catharsis, in its haunting ache. In news designed to make homosexuals make weird sounds when they hear it: Looking and Weekend creator Andrew Haigh’s new movie includes Fleabag’s sexy priest, Andrew Scott, and Normal People’s sexy shorts wearer, Paul Mescal, in a loose adaptation of Taichi Yamada’s 1987 novel, Strangers. Also starring in the cast are The Crown’s Claire Foy and Kate Mara’s Jamie Bell. Foy has plenty of reasons to shout “A bunch of boys!” again. And the trailer for the film is just as sensual, gorgeous, and gay as any self-respecting homosexual might hope.

One night the woman who appears to be the only other residential tenant in the building shows up at his doorstep with a half-empty bottle of champagne, looking for some company, but he pretends he is too busy and so she leaves. Strangers has also been made into a movie, Ijintachi to no Natsu (1988), directed by Obayashi Nobuhiko, and apparently released in the US under the titles The Discarnates and Summer Among the Zombies Strangers is narrated by middle-aged Hideo, a recently divorced TV scriptwriter living in a Tokyo apartment building where most of the apartments are used as offices, leaving the building practically deserted at night.

Harada-san (Hideo) is in his mid 40s, is a scriptwriter for television who isn't working all that much any more and lives alone, having been recently divorced and never taking enough time to see his college-age son. He lives in Tokyo, in an apartment which is an office building by day but which during the night has maybe one or two lit windows that one can see from the outside. He is just a drab little man with a blah life. Many years ago, when he just a boy (I think he was 12), he was waiting for his parents to return home but they never did. His mom and dad were doubled on a bike when they were hit from behind in a hit-and-run accident. He was sent to live with his grandmother, but then she died, then sent to live with his uncle, who sent him to college and then died. Well, as it turns out, one day it was Hideo's birthday and he got a bee in his bonnet to go to his birthplace of Akasuka. When he arrived, he walked into a mediocre comedy club pretty much kept going by tour bus crowds, and there he saw a man that looked just like his father. It looked so much like his dad that he couldn't help but to keep looking at the guy. At the end of the performance, the strange man invited Harada-san to come home with him for a beer so Hideo goes. When he arrives, the strange man's wife is there and she is the spitting image of his mother. From there, the tale gets stranger and stranger and Hideo Harada finds himself in great danger from the other side.

I liked this book. Again, it was somewhat stilted and formalized in translation but that's easily overcome. The dialogue sometimes was kind of silly, with little annoying things like money being called "dough" etc which seems out of context in the story. Kind of simplistic in tone, although it does delve into the whole search of self by Harada-san and why he feels like he must continue to see his "parents." Harada is a very tragic figure to begin with, and by the end of the book I was really pulling for him. When a book does that for me, then it's a good read. related in a pared-down prose style that matches well with Harada’s spartan life. He’s doesn’t seem to have any friends, he has lost touch with his only son and has no interest other than working on the script for a new series. Understandable therefore that he feels the pull towards this other surreal world. Kei isn’t convinced his trips to Asakusa are good for his health. She sees Heido changing day-by-day, becoming hollow-eyed, aged and emaciated. She’s even more worried because Heido himself cannot see these changes – when he looks at himself in the mirror he looks as healthy as ever. Can Kei save him from the ghosts of his past? Or is his desire to make up for the lost years of his relationship with his parents too strong to resist? This article does not cite any sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.Intr-o zi Hideo decide sa faca o mica plimbare in Asakusa, locul unde s-a nascut. Acolo intra intr-o sala de cinema in fata careia cu ani in urma si-au pierdut vietile parintii lui intr-un accident. Surprinzator pe unul dintre locuri il recunoaste pe tatal sau printre spectatori. Acesta il conduce acasa la el unde o vede si pe mama lui traind ca pe vremuri cand era inca vie. Ambii il tot invita sa mai treaca pe la ei si el se tot duce pana cand devine din ce in ce mai palid si secat de viata. Cei din jur isi fac griji pentru el si-l roaga sa nu se mai intoarca in Asakusa insa el tanjeste sa mearga in continuare la parintii lui chiar si cu pretul vietii. Taichi Yamada is one of the most famous and highly respected writers in Japan. Winner of many awards for literary excellence from private organizations and from the Japanese government, he is best known for his scripts for TV dramas, but has also written many novels and plays. He was born in Tokyo in 1934, and graduated from Waseda University in 1958 after having studied japanese Language and Literature in the Department of Education. That same year he entered the Shochiku Film Company and began to work at the Ofuna Studio Production Department. In 1965, he left Shochiku and established himself as an independent scenario writer. David Mitchell (Cloud Atlas) said "highly recommended, a cerebral haunting ghost story" & Bret Easton Ellis describes this as "an eerie ghost story written with hypnotic clarity, intelligent & haunting with passages of acute psychological insight into the relationship between children & parents". The narrator Hideo Harada, a 47-year-old TV scriptwriter, meets a couple who bear an eerie resemblance to his dead parents, and forms a friendship with them, visiting them often. As his health declines, he comes to realise that they are ghosts who are sapping his life-force.