The Stones Cry Out

by Hikaru Okuizumi

Book Overview

The Stones Cry Out is the story of an amateur geologist and bookseller who is collapsing under the burden of his own history. Tsuyoshi Manase learned his first geology lesson from a dying soldier in a cave at the end of World War II. The soldier, a corporal, is skeletal, his eyes swarming with maggots, but his voice is low and steady, as he tells Manase of how a small pebble contains the Earth's history in its ephemeral matter. When the war ends,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156011832
• ISBN13: 9780156011839
• Release Date: November 2000
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 144 Pages
• Weight: 0.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 5.2" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Wires

"and his face resembled a skeleton of wires covered with parchment"The metaphor of a person wasting away is not unique. What is usually different between Authors is what they say about the material that covers the bones. What it is like that is not human, and denotes fragility. The quote I reference is on page one, and the metaphor of wires I found unique, as I found the entire book. Mr. Hikaru Okuizumi is a talented writer who transfers enormous amounts of information and emotion in a very small space. In the case of "The Stones Cry Out" 138 pages is all he uses, all he needs.I don't know how much elegance is lost when translating from Japanese into English, but there were a few points that seemed too rough and out of step with the cadence the Author set for this piece. The story as a whole is wonderfully written, however the reader must reach to nearly the very end before the book's genius is realized. At least this was the case for me. I found much of the contemporary plot, with lengthy highly detailed writing about stone collecting tedious. It is true this flows from the book's opening line "Even the SMALLEST stone in the riverbed has the entire history of the universe inscribed upon it." Where and when the protagonist hears these words is the real center of the tale, and it is as dark as the cave it is heard in.Ms. Renoir mentioned that the possibility of illusion being present in the mind of Manase whose story is the one we read. When I reached the end I was struck with two strong reactions, one was that I was astounded at how much was relayed in so short a story, and secondly how unsure I was of what had happened. I read the book a second time only reading the earlier of the two time frames with one exception, and the result while different, is still not definitive for me.There indeed are 138 pages, when you remove what I felt did not have a direct bearing on what actually happened, the number is easily cut in half. That only doubled my amazement at what this man can write, and I still am not certain I can draw the line between fact, dreams, and possible illusions.The book is remarkable; I hope it serves to have more of his work translated.

A strangely quiet study of the effects of war

This novel is a well-crafted study of the effect of war on a young soldier Manase and the secondary effect on his family. At the point that the focus changes to that of the second son, the reader may, for a short while, wonder if Okuizumi has drifted from the otherwise tight structure; rest assured that he has not.The first section of the book narrates the events of World War II that plague Manase - time in a cave with sick and dying comrades who dreamed of one last chance to die in battle while killing the dying to decrease the need for food an water. One of the dying spoke to Manase of rocks - rocks containing the history of the world.The second section narrates Manase's obsession with rocks, his emotional distance from his family, his outward success and inward failure - all under the cloud of nightmares of the cave. When tragedy comes, the surface normality of his family life collapses.The final section narrates the story second son, the son raised by his aunt. The son's fate becomes the vehicle through which Manase is forced to remember that part of the history of the cave that was sublimated. As part of that remembrance, he is forced to reevaluate the destruction of his family.That the author tells the story in such quiet and compact a manner adds to the impact of the book. Add this to your must read list.

Beyond Tragedy

This profoundly beautiful, horrifying and seamless novella begins in the darkness of an island cave at the end of World War II and ends fewer than 200 pages later in a final paroxysm of tragedy. The novel takes its title from the New Testament book of Luke: "Be answered, I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out." It is the memory embedded in the stones that preoccupies Tsuyoshi Manase, the book's protagonist.As a war veteran, Manase has seen suffering beyond what any imagination could conjure, including prolonged hiding from the enemy in a cave where he is plagued by hunger, thirst, disease and rotting corpses. It is a dying Lance Corporal, however, who becomes the catalyst that will change Manase's life forever as he speaks to Manase about his own love of geology.After the war, Manase, himself, becomes fascinated with geology and spends increasing amounts of time gathering stones allowing his business, his marriage and his children to recede in importance beside his mounting obsession. The symbolism of the stones, and the way they carry Manase's particular memories, as well as the memories of the universe itself, is woven into the narrative in such a way that any reader would be hard-pressed to forget.As this harrowing story weaves its way expertly in and out of Manase's memories, reality and hallucination intertwine until finally, the real world, Manase's sanity and even his own innocence regarding a ghastly crime begin to weaken and implode. The two time periods, past and present, are so skillfully and artfully intertwined that one has to wonder if Manase's entire life is really nothing more than an illusion in the cave.Manase, we come to see, is battling an immense, but nebulous, evil, an evil of which he may be the victim or he may be the perpetrator.Okuizumi renders this profound tale of terror and beauty in the most subtle and delicate prose style, much like an exquisite painting on a grain of rice. The result is that Manase's nightmarish past becomes all the more real and horrifying.A surrealistic tragedy of one man's passions, fears and delusions, this book, although short, is extremely complex, much like the classical Japanese novels of Yasunari Kawabata. And the horror of Manase's story is only magnified by the exquisite quietness of its telling.

fearfully beautiful and pitifully true

This is a gorgeous book in concept and design and in its sharp impressionistic tale weaving. The story is a story the ancients would recognize and the future will, I'm sure, see its eternal truths as well. The prose is simple and clear but evocative at all times.This work is a model of concision, a nice contemporary effort that reflects the virtues of most modern Japanese lit. The story is a heart crusher. If this was music it might be something by Arvo Part or Steve Reich. I wish more work by this man would be translated, and soon.

Fragile and haunting, peels back the skin of reality

Through the eyes of one man, the author exposes the fragmented lives of war survivors, how every moment stands out in sharp relief ... how poignant and sometimes futile their attempts at interaction, their desire to protect their loved ones from the horror bound into them, yet the inevitability of that expression. This character's inarticulate pain is played out in quiet dignity, organized around one clear idea that coalesces in his mind like the very stones he comes to love. The book has a profound tenderness, as softly piercing as death itself.