銀河鉄道の夜 (Gingatetsudou no Yoru)- Night on the Galactic Railroad (1934) by Kenji Miyazawa

Around 8 years ago on a trip to Strasbourg (of all places) I went into a FNAC (a chain of book stores) in the city centre and for some reason noticed that it had a section of foreign language books, including a small selection of Japanese books brought straight from there. I bought 2. One of the, was this odd but interesting looking one called 銀河鉄道の夜.

Keeping it among the items I have since dragged through 3 different countries, I finally sat down and read it, while learning more about what it was. Especially as I assume my level is higher than it was 8 years ago.

Kenji Miyazawa (宮沢 賢治) turned out to be a prolific writer of children’s stories and is a very famous author in Japan, the Night on the Galactic Railroad being among his classics. According to some however, this story has children as a protagonist but is much more than a children’s story, touching on many elements: science fiction, spirituality, the role of an individual in the world… The devices are simple, the message is not.

In keeping with these themes, Miyazawa became a devout follower the Nichiren sect of Japanese Buddhism, which emphasises activism, good works above solitary worship to attain enlightenment.

**What is it about?**

*In a village by the coast, the protagonist Giovanni is learning at school about the galaxy on the eve of a town festival. After school, after finishing work at the local print shop, he heads home to help his mother. He leaves to get milk and attend the festival. On the way however, after some complications with getting the milk, he suddenly finds himself on a steam train travelling across the Milky Way alongside his school friend, Campanella. The adventure from then on, meeting all sorts of people and visiting places across the galaxy*

(I won’t spoil any more)

Reading through the 81 pages, especially as someone who grew up with a large amount of literature, none of it Japanese, I found it quite interesting. But even more so, I didn’t realize at the time that this isn’t even modern literature but pre-war modern literature that Japanese writers had already been producing for a generation. You get a sense of what pre-war Japanese was written like, the already decent amount of loan words used, and the influence of Western mythological and cultural figures for allegory. But aside from this, you get the sense of what one looks for in Japanese cultural items: friendship, nostalgia, childlike wonder and bittersweet moments.

It is actually only after completing it now that I’ve read how influential this book actually has been in Japan…

Definitely worth a read, however I would say that the vocabulary used therein is fairly complex at times. The back of the book has a glossary for certain terms that are rarely used nowadays with an explanation and their modern day Japanese equivalents.

As one would expect from pre-war literature, it uses more kanji, though my version (Haruki Bunko) would usually put furigana in for the more complex words.　(碍子　- がいし、苞　- ほう、狼煙 　- のろし to give a few examples)

Older ways of saying things I had to look up　あなたがた　(あなた)、あすこ　(あそこ)、何べん　(何回)、とこ (ところ)

**To conclude:** Glad I’ve finished it. I feel as though I have finished something worthwhile and hope to delve into more Japanese literature in its original, though probably will continue next with something more modern.

But I would say that works of literature such as this is what makes studying Japanese, with all of its difficulty, worthwhile.

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