After convincing himself that his wife’s cheating on him, beard professor Gilbert arbitrarily flees to Japan where he equally arbitrarily picks up a book of famed Japanese poet Basho’s and decides to visit the pine islands of Matsushima, which took Basho’s breath away when he visited them. Along the way Gilbert picks up a suicidal young Japanese student, Yosa, and decides to distract him from thoughts of death by taking him to the pine islands with him.
What an odd little book! As contrived as it is, I find the whimsical premise beguiling - throwing caution to the wind and embarking on a pseudo-spiritual pilgrimage at a crisis point in life is one of those moments that defines a person’s life, which usually makes for a good story. Unfortunately that’s not the case with German writer Marion Poschmann’s bafflingly award-winning novel.
I don’t normally get hung up on the point of a novel so long as it’s entertaining but, as The Pine Islands simply wasn’t, I have to ask: whyyyy? What was the point of this academic’s breakdown and pointless quest that led nowhere? Why did he care about saving the life of this young man he’d never met before? Was his wife actually cheating on him? What did he accomplish through all his meanderings?
The ambiguity of the story lends itself to the game of literary what if? so - what if Yosa isn’t real and all in Gilbert’s head? He’s representative of Gilbert’s insecurities (not living up to expectations, not being manly enough). Yosa’s surname - Tamagotchi, which is not a Japanese surname - hints at his being made up as that’s the kind of surname a clueless Westerner like Gilbert might imagine on the spot. I mean, tamagotchi - those stupid little plastic digital “pets” that were insanely popular for a hot minute in the ‘90s??
So that might mean that Gilbert’s suicidal and is trying to dissuade himself from death and look on the bright side of life. Alright - except I don’t buy it. He only thinks his wife’s having an affair after he dreams it and as for not being successful - dude’s a fucking “beard professor”! What the fuck is that?! It’s the kind of silly job you give a character in a bad literary novel. Oh… I don’t know, I’m not convinced that these are reasons enough to fly off to some random country to top yourself.
But then if it’s not about this guy working through his suicidal feelings it’s just a string of random coincidences that don’t add up to anything. And that’s largely why I found this to be such an unsatisfying read.
Beyond the lack of a point, the letters from Gilbert to his wife Mathilda weren’t interesting - I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised given that he’s a beard professor but his voice is so dull - and the ending was completely flat and unimpressive. And I really didn’t care for Poschmann’s writing style - SO many run-on sentences! Put a full stop there instead of a comma - not every sentence needs to be a paragraph long!
I read a lot of Japanese fiction and it rarely focuses on the darker side of Japanese society so I appreciated seeing that angle - of course it had to come from a foreigner! And I liked the Westerner’s perspective of Japan as that’s how I experience the country too and it took me back there again. The premise and journey of the characters is original even if it doesn’t amount to much.
Still, The Pine Islands is definitely not a great novel. I didn’t hate it but I can’t rec it either. Hey, that’s almost a haiku!
The Pine Islands sucks,
I didn’t hate it but I
Can’t rec it either
Basho would be turning in his grave if he had one (pretty sure dude was cremated)!
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