Book Reviews:

New:

Ikumi (Ikuyo) Yoshimura, elephant's eyes

David G Lanoue, Laughing Buddha: Michael McClintock

Dušan Vidaković, S prebolene obale/From the Forsaken Shore: Jadran Zalokar

Milenko D. Ćirović Ljutički, U zagrljaju sjenki/The Embrace of Shadows: Verica Živković

Stefanović Tatjana; Zoran D. Živković: Haiku cvet/ A Haiku Flower: Moma Dimić

Jianqing Zheng, The Porch, Deltascape, & Found Haiku from Eudora Welty's Delta Wedding: Charles Trumbull

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Classic Haiku, A Master's Selection: From the Preface by Yuzuru Miura

Slavica Blagojević, The Turtledove's Necklace: Vladimir Krasić and Zoran Raonić

Saša Važić, muddy shoes candy heart: Dimitar Anakiev

Gwiazda za Gwiazda, antologia haiku europejskiego: Foreword by Max Verhart 

Michael McClintock, USA

 

HAIKU GUY [a novel], by David G. Lanoue; Red Moon Press, (A Soffietto Edition), P.O. Box 2461, Winchester, VA 22604-1661; 2000; ISBN 1-893959-13-9; 154 pp" paper, $14.95.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Only a true believer in the positive addictions of haiku writing, reading and being, and an ardent student of haiku literature and its most popular philosophic and aesthetic landscapes, legends, lore, and personalities, could write such droll entertainment as found in this first short novel by David G. Lanoue. What we have here is a kind of paean to the realities and mythologies of haiku, set in a wind-blown, temporary world where time and lastingness are without meaning and one-breath is the duration of human wisdom.

The protagonist of this tale can be viewed as the literary tradition of haiku itself, and its uncanny survival generation to generation, age to age, even country to country, culture to culture, language to language--­in a world peopled by fools who move from mystery to mystery in ardent pursuit and need of haiku's redeeming, simple cogence. It is the nature, spirit and character of the haiku poem that this novel reveals; the text is replete with over sixty fine examples. The people are just passing through, but in their passing they play their brief, essential roles as revelators.

Plot? There is none--not exactly a plot, anyway. Actions and events are spontaneous, neither predictable nor linear. The novel flows like time­consciousness flows. Past, present, and future intermingle in a joyful, convincing chaos that creates its own inevitable order and comfortable familiarity. Lanoue thrusts his characters into a Buddha-dream world of random events and meetings, misdirection, hopeless desire and grasping, at the center of which we find the great poet Cup-of-Tea (Kobayashi Issa) in his later years, living in Kashiwabara village. Seeking the Master's guidance comes the clueless and desperate wannabe village poet, Buck-Teeth. Out of their meeting Lanoue weaves a narrative fabric colored by Old Japan and haiku's literary history, real and imagined, with new threads added from the bars, cafes and shrines of New Orleans' dingy and holy Bourbon Street.

Some of the screwy characters--they are caricatures, actually, quickly drawn and deftly proportioned with just the right amount of substance and symbolism--include the terrible daimyo of Shinano province, the fierce but vulnerable Lord Kaga; a threesome of wandering haijin named Mido, Kuro and Shiro, inseparable friends who agree on nothing; the unforgettable geisha, Lady Plum, the coal-hearted object of Lord Kaga's passion and bad poetry; the longsuffering headman of Kashiwabara village, who must countenance fools as his life's work; Cup-of-Tea's sour and wily ancient stepmother, Satsu; the novelist himself and the members of his New Orleans writing group-Micky, Melanie, and Chaz, all of whom appear in period costume in the Japan of Issa's day with Alice in Wonderland ease. Salting this wonderful stew of nonsense are numerous minor characters--a gruff, red-bearded barbarian from Christian Europe; a number of mad-drunk, demented samurai; shop owners, beggars and vendors.

Some readers may find the first person intrusions of the author himself to be jarring, initially, as I did, but one catches on quickly. These unusual narrative mechanics give this book such a necessary perspective on the events and personalities that unfold that, without them, the tale would fail to convey the full force of its comic vision of the creative process.

No character in the book emerges untouched, directly or indirectly, profoundly or casually, by the compelling power of haiku. Buck-Teeth does finally become an accomplished haijin. Mido the poet dies gracefully but abruptly. Lord Kaga turns his back on wealth and power to live as a hermit naked on a mountain. Lady Plum reveals the extraordinary secret of her tattoo. Cup-of-Tea manages to shack-up permanently with the alluring, companionable, heavy-lidded Kiku. The New Orleans writing group loses members and gains new ones. Even Issa's dog, Scruffy, and a family of wandering mice, are changed forever by the life they share with the haijin and guests who inhabit Cup-of-Tea's homey dump, Trash House. How all this comes about is the novel's many-stranded story to tell, not mine.

I hope Red Moon Press sells many millions of copies of this book and that its author becomes ridiculously wealthy on the royalties, which I then hope he promptly converts into stipends for worthy haiku poets throughout the world. That would seem so right.

[Editor's Note: I also found Haiku Guy to be a unique and most delightful novel that every haiku poet true to the appellation should find highly engrossing.]

 

Originally published in Modern Haiku magazine, Vol. 32, Number 1 (Winter-Spring 2001), pages 65-66.

Reprinted by permission of the author.


 

 

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