Wednesday, March 27, 2013
White rice
Osugi Sakae was a Japanese anarchist murdered by the military police after the great earthquake in 1923. He has left behind his The Autobiography of Osugi Sakae (University of California Press, translation into English by Byron K. Marshall) which stands not only as a an important document for the development of the revolutionary movement, but as a fine literary work.
Osugi is particularly evocative on the subject of prison, which he experienced several times because of his beliefs, and of food.
Here is an especially fine passage:
""There it is—where you're all going."
Osugi is particularly evocative on the subject of prison, which he experienced several times because of his beliefs, and of food.
Here is an especially fine passage:
""There it is—where you're all going."
We peered out at it. There we could see its splendid beauty,
surrounded by a tall brick wall and shining radiantly in the sunlight of a
lovely September day. When I saw it on a cloudy day or in the rain, the color
of the building, which made me think of a persimmon-colored kimono I had seen
somewhere, produced an odd melancholy in me. Yet when the sun was shining, it
mysteriously lifted my spirits.
"It makes me hungry for sardines!"
Arahata, who was sitting right next to me, had got one of the
trusties to purchase some for him just the day before. No matter how often we
went to jail, the accent was always on salted cod or salmon or some other kind
of fish. Hearing him, I begin to feel a singularly pleasurable anticipation:
"That's it! I want to hurry up and get there to eat."
Even finer is this evocation of white rice at the very end of the book:
"For a time before I got out I would dream about
what I would eat on the outside and how much I would eat. But when I did get out
everything I ate was extraordinarily delicious. Above all else was white rice.
When I took up the bowl its whiteness seemed to form a shining halo. I put the
rice in my mouth. My teeth seemed enveloped, as if I lay on a down-filled quilt
under something pleasantly soft and at the same time was bathed in an intensely
sweet broth that sprang from the end of my tongue. White rice by itself was
enough. I wanted nothing else. When I reminisce with my comrades who are
ex-convicts, we'll start to laugh and say, "Thinking about that still
doesn't stop you from going to the lockup!" Still, only an ex-convict can
fully savour Japanese rice."
Labels: anarchism, food, Japan, Osugi Sakae, prison, Rice, white rice
