"The Legend of the Akatsuki Family" is hailed as the Japanese version of "One Hundred Years of Solitude", but to be honest, apart from the original setting with a mythological atmosphere and the mode of unfolding the story with family history as the main line, the book is not magical realism at all. On the contrary, in order to show the span of post-war Japan in the decades, the macro narrative throughout the text consumes the mystery of the story itself.
If Kazuki Sakuraba wants to explore any theme in this book, then perhaps two words can explain everything, the times, and fate.
"The Legend of the Akatsuki Family" is a river historical novel, as a family history, it runs through the lives of three generations of women in the Akatsuki family, from the early post-war period of Japan to the golden age of rapid economic development, from the bubble era of broken dreams to the lifeless and confused status quo. And for these rapid decades, Sakuraba Kazuki divides it into the last mythical era, the age of greatness and nothingness, and the present that will always sail into the future.
But this is not simply a novel that clarifies the past and the present, trying to tease out what history itself looks like. Behind Sakuraba Kazuki's objective presentation of history is also hidden her own question, what does the era mean to the individual?
"Can we only live in our time? The men and women in the village, centered on the iron-making world, are in the midst of the era and the rush in which they lived. Humans are creatures that are very clumsy. Introspection, I also know how useless I am, but it is difficult to get rid of this self. It's hard to change, how hard it is to grow, but I want to try to live. ”
In the face of the times, the individual seems so fragile that there is no resistance at all. The times can abandon their original appearance in just a few decades, but a person can only follow the times and live. In Sakuraba Kazuki's pen, the individual is only a temporary gear for the operation of the times, and almost no one in the book can escape the shackles of the times.
During World War II and into the early post-war period, strong and strong men were popular in Japan, and for those who were thin and feminine, they did not seem to be allowed to survive in this world. The black and green brother was cowardly by nature, but under the frenzy of war, he could only helplessly go to the icy Siberia. By the time he returned to his hometown, the fragile man had been tortured mad by the times. Dressed in his sister's women's kimono, he wandered around the red-green village, only to be tragically crushed by a speeding train at midnight.
Born at the end of the mythical era, the first generation of heroines, Akatsuki Yawanye, is an abandoned child of the mysterious mountain people, born with the ability to see the future, and in her it perfectly reflects how deep the influence of the times on the individual is.
The most painful thing in Manyo's life was to watch the child's life when he gave birth to the tears of his eldest son. She knew that her meek, erudite, excellent and stable eldest son would die unexpectedly from mountain climbing, but surprisingly, Manyo never seemed to want to save him, but after witnessing all this, he showed a kind of fate-like sadness. She would rather have a few more children than do what she can before the accident and try to change the fate of her beloved son. But this is not Sakuraba Kazuki's mistake, but her cleverness.
Yes, Akatsuki Wasa was born in the Age of Mythology, and she received the gift of the Age of Myth, and while being able to predict the future, she was also deeply bound by the Age of Myth itself. She believed that everything that had been shown in the times that gave her this ability was immutable, and that the unexpected death of tears could not be saved, and could only be left to nature. Fundamentally, Manyo is no different from the longevity of the ironworks workers she loves. Fengshou firmly believes that the blast furnace of ironmaking is something he has to protect all his life, and in the east wind of economic development in the early post-war period, the blast furnace burns fiercely, and the flames spewed out reach the sky. And Fengshou is also full of energy, is the factory director's right and left arm, no two confidants. However, with the development of the economy, the heavily polluted blast furnace must withdraw from the stage of history, and the kidnapped Fengshou also chose to jump down and die in the blast furnace because of the deactivation of the blast furnace.
In the second generation, the red leaf hairball, the story began to gradually enter a better state. In the second generation, the shackles of the times seem to be a little loose. The hairball born in the middle of the year has a violent personality, and his life can be described as legendary. When I was in school, I set up a group of runaway girls called Iron Angels, and its reputation was thunderous all over the country. After retiring from the Gangsters, he focused on manga creation, and created the legendary manga with the largest sales in Japan.
In fact, since the second generation, they have been vaguely aware of the constraints of the times themselves. The most typical of these is the butterfly. Butterfly is the most impressive character in my entire novel, she has a sobriety and maturity that is not commensurate with her age, and seems to have long understood what the way to success in this society is. Her initial dream was to become a successful person in the sense of society and then find an opportunity to be a "bad girl", which is actually Butterfly's struggle against the era itself. Unfortunately, the struggle seemed futile, so she gradually degenerated during high school and finally embarked on the path of breaking the law and committing crimes.
"If you are so miserable that you want to fall, you don't have to fight so hard." There's not just one thing to learn in this world. ”
"There is only learning, and our obligation is only to learn."
It is true that the world is not only one thing to learn, but it has planned the so-called "successful people" in various senses. By learning to get ahead, this is a success, relying on comic creation to make a name for itself, it is also a success, and even becoming the leader of the rampage clan, being reported in the news, is also a success.
The fate of the second generation is also tragic, they seem to be the most free generation, when they squandered their youth, and when they became adults, they followed the rules and regulations into social life, and they had a feeling that they had to do everything. However, during this period, being a bad teenager was also a social trend, and the gangsters were essentially no different from the excellent students who picked up the lights in the school and read at night, they just embarked on two different roads paved by the times themselves.
But after all, there are people like butterflies, so even the hairballs can't help but waver. However, it is clear that Kazuki Sakuraba did not choose to give the task of challenging the era to Hairball, so Hairball will die before the third generation grows up.
If the first generation is completely obedient, and the second generation is wavering but still walking along the path of the times, then the third generation is pure doubt. By the generation of the Red Leaf Pupil, the tide of the bubble era has gradually disappeared, but the atmosphere of decadence and wilting has hung over the entire country. The main figures of the third generation, Hitomi Akatsuki, and his boyfriend are undoubtedly representatives of this generation of young people.
They began to reflect on the true meaning of life, no longer accepting everything that the times had given them. They begin to question why one is forced into a job they don't like, why one has to put away all the edges and corners and step into the cycle of boredom day after day without complaint. Problems such as "successful men in the social sense" still worry the protagonists, and Hitomi can't understand what a successful man in the social sense is, just like a few decades ago, Black Linglu didn't understand why his feminine brother couldn't find a place to live.
But compared to the previous two generations, the pupils are much freer. Manba marries Yaoji without tasting love, and transforms into a woman after a rough wedding night. Although Mao Qiu had several free love affairs, he eventually married Kang Fu, who was chosen by his father, because of the family's mission. Only Hitomi does not have to take on the responsibilities of the family and can live freely with her boyfriend.
Akatsuki YeChen said that it is not the name that determines the fate, but the fate that determines the name, and that the generation of the Akatsuki Leaf Freedom was born to be confused for freedom and fight for freedom. And because of the proximity to the reality of the present, the sorrow, sorrow, and confusion of the free people seem to be clearly felt by me. You have to go to college, you have to go to graduate school, you have to find a good job, you have to buy a house, you have to buy a car, you have to get married and have children. It is because there are so many necessities that life is so painful. We should have been free.
"Hopefully, in the future, the country we live in together will be as interesting and mysterious as ever."
At the end of the book, Sakuraba Kazuki expresses her best wishes through the mouth of a pupil, but the future is about the past, and it seems that if the present continues to develop like this, the mystery and fun of the past will disappear.
In fact, it is true that modernization will erase the mysteries of the past, and technology will replace the gods of myth who are born with great power, mercilessly expelling the space they can imagine. Nature and mystery always go hand in hand, and only when there is room for the unknown, there will be endless conjectures. And in the steel jungle, we have nothing but anxiety, confusion, and the reality of seeing through it at a glance.
The reason why the Mythical Age's Akatsuki Leaf Manye was so determined and blindly obedient was because she believed that there was a destiny in the underworld that made everything so. The Akatsuki Leaf Hairball began to pursue individuality, but it was still under the shadow of the gods (Akatsuki Leaf Manyo). Only the loss of the pupil of the red leaf Manba is truly nothing, and it is the complete shattering of the mythical era.
"Why can't feminine men stand?" "What exactly is women's freedom in this day and age?" "What does a strong man in the social sense represent?" These questions that run through the book are repeated. From the moment of not thinking about it to the beginning of doubt, this is the progress of human nature, but not the progress of the times. The times always want to control us, obliterate the freedom and soul of individuals, and become prisoners of the "spirit of the times". However, in the past mythological era, there was still God's protection, and now we can only rely on our own strength. The smallness of the individual has created our generation that is awakened and powerless to break free, and is free and confused and anxious.