I was not allowing myself anything resembling hope. No landscape, no flower, no sea or sky or meadow could be that beautiful in wartime. Getting through each day required ignoring the beauty around me. [loc. 1001]
Set on the small Japanese island of Hatoma in the last days of the Second World War, Star Sand is presented as the narrative of Umeno Hiromi, a sixteen-year-old girl with a Japanese father and an American mother, who's living alone in a deserted house after the death of her aunt. Every day she goes to the beach to collect star sand: the schoolteacher left behind hundreds of milk bottles, 'each little bottle represented the life of a child under his care', and Hiromi has set herself the task of filling every bottle. One morning, though, she sees a soldier, an American, holding a gun to his head. Following him, she discovers another soldier, a Japanese deserter named Iwabuchi Takayasu, who's living in a cave on the beach. Takasayu, Hiromi and Bob the American form an improbable friendship based on their shared pacifism and disgust with the war. But then Takasayu's injured elder brother discovers the cave: a fervent patriot, he vows vengeance on the deserters and on Hiromi, who he regards as a traitor.
Decades later, Hiromi's diary is found in the cave, together with the remains of three bodies, one of them dressed in female clothing. A university student identifies inconsistencies in Hiromi's account, and sets out to discover what really happened.
Star Sand is a gentle, understated novella, though the parts aren't as balanced as they could be. (There is, however, a happy ending!) Pulvers' depiction of rural life in Japan during wartime ('We had all been told to sharpen a long rod of bamboo, like a lance, so that we could kill the Americans if they landed. I was using mine to catch fish.') is fascinating, and Hiromi is a capable and practical young woman, refusing to think about either past or future but happy to befriend the two soldiers and to translate for them. I bought this -- or possibly acquired it as a Kindle First -- in 2016: I'm glad to have read it.
Fulfils the ‘an alliterative title’ rubric of the 52 books in 2023 challenge.
No comments:
Post a Comment