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Twelve Views from the Distance
"In this book, Twelve Views from the Distance, the poet Mutsuo Takahashi has managed to achieve firm prose that, while unmistakably the work of a poet, shines with a black luster much like a set of drawers crafted by a master of old. This book is a magnificent collection of sensations and of memories, much like the toys we might find in a dark closet. The part toward the end in which the theme of his ¡®search for a father¡¯ crystallizes in a copy of an erotic book radiates a certain tragic beauty." ¡ªYukio Mishima
From one of the foremost poets in contemporary Japan comes this entrancing memoir that traces a boy¡¯s childhood and its intersection with the rise of the Japanese empire and World War II. Originally published in 1970, this translation is the first available in English.
In twelve chapters that visit and revisit critical points in his boyhood, Twelve Views from the Distance presents a vanished time and place through the eyes of an accomplished poet. Recounting memories from his youth, Mutsuo Takahashi captures the full range of his internal life as a boy, shifting between his experiences and descriptions of childhood friendships, games, songs, and school. With great candor, he also discusses the budding awareness of his sexual preference for men, providing a rich exploration of one man¡¯s early queer life in a place where modern, Western-influenced models of gay identity were still unknown.
Growing up poor in rural southwestern Japan, far from the urban life that many of his contemporaries have written about, Takahashi experienced a reality rarely portrayed in literature. In addition to his personal remembrances, the book paints a vivid portrait of rural Japan, full of oral tradition, superstition, and remnants of customs that have quickly disappeared in postwar Japan. With profuse local color and detail, he re-creates the lost world that was the setting for his beginnings as a gay man and poet.
From one of the foremost poets in contemporary Japan comes this entrancing memoir that traces a boy¡¯s childhood and its intersection with the rise of the Japanese empire and World War II. Originally published in 1970, this translation is the first available in English.
In twelve chapters that visit and revisit critical points in his boyhood, Twelve Views from the Distance presents a vanished time and place through the eyes of an accomplished poet. Recounting memories from his youth, Mutsuo Takahashi captures the full range of his internal life as a boy, shifting between his experiences and descriptions of childhood friendships, games, songs, and school. With great candor, he also discusses the budding awareness of his sexual preference for men, providing a rich exploration of one man¡¯s early queer life in a place where modern, Western-influenced models of gay identity were still unknown.
Growing up poor in rural southwestern Japan, far from the urban life that many of his contemporaries have written about, Takahashi experienced a reality rarely portrayed in literature. In addition to his personal remembrances, the book paints a vivid portrait of rural Japan, full of oral tradition, superstition, and remnants of customs that have quickly disappeared in postwar Japan. With profuse local color and detail, he re-creates the lost world that was the setting for his beginnings as a gay man and poet.
256 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2012
3 people are currently reading
165 people want to read
About the author
Mutsuo Takahashi
47?books16?followersMutsuo Takahashi (¸ß˜ò ÄÀÀÉ) is one of the most prominent and prolific male poets, essayists, and writers of contemporary Japan, with more than three dozen collections of poetry, several works of prose, dozens books of essays, and several major literary prizes to his name. He is especially well known for his open writing about male homoeroticism. He currently lives in the seaside town of Zushi, several kilometers south of Yokohama, Japan.
After a bout of tuberculosis, Takahashi graduated from the Fukuoka University of Education, and in 1962 moved to Tokyo. For many years, he worked at an advertising company, but in the meantime, he wrote a good deal of poetry. His first book to receive national attention was Rose Tree, Fake Lovers (ËNÞ±¤Îľ?¤Ë¤»¤ÎÁµÈˤ¿¤Á, Bara no ki, nise no koibito-tachi?), an anthology published in 1964 that describes male-male erotic love in bold and direct language. A laudatory review from the critic Jun Et¨ appeared in the daily newspaper Asahi shimbun with Takahashi¡¯s photograph¡ªan unusual instance of a poet¡¯s photograph included in the paper¡¯s survey of literature.
About the same time, Takahashi sent the collection to the novelist Yukio Mishima who contacted him and offered to use his name to help promote Takahashi¡¯s work. The two shared a close relationship and friendship that lasted until Mishima¡¯s suicide in 1970. Other close friends Takahashi made about this time include Tatsuhiko Shibusawa who translated the Marquis de Sade into Japanese, the surreal poet Chimako Tada who shared Takahashi's interest in classical Greece, the poet Shigeo Washisu who was also interested in the classics and the existential ramifications of homoeroticism. With the latter two writers, Takahashi cooperated to create the literary journal The Symposium (ð‹Ñç, Ky¨en?) named after Plato¡¯s famous dialogue. This interest in eroticism and existentialism, in turn, is a reflection of a larger existential trend in the literature and culture of Japan during the 1960s and 1970s.
Homoeroticism remained an important them in his poetry written in free verse through the 1970s, including the long poem Ode (íž, Homeuta?), which the publisher Winston Leyland has called ¡°the great gay poem of the 20th century.¡± Many of these early works have been translated into English by Hiroaki Sato and reprinted in the collection Partings at Dawn: An Anthology of Japanese Gay Literature.
About the same time, Takahashi started writing prose. In 1970, he published Twelve Views from the Distance about his early life and the novella The Sacred Promontory (Â}¤Ê¤ëáµ, Sei naru misaki?) about his own erotic awakening. In 1972, he wrote A Legend of a Holy Place (Â}Ëù»Õh, Seisho densetsu?), a surrealistic novella inspired by his own experiences during a forty-day trip to New York City in which Donald Richie led him through the gay, underground spots of the city.
In 1974, he released Zen¡¯s Pilgrimage of Virtue (ÉƤαéšs, Zen no henreki?), a homoerotic and often extremely humorous reworking of a legend of Sudhana found in the Buddhist classic Avatamsaka Sutra.
After a bout of tuberculosis, Takahashi graduated from the Fukuoka University of Education, and in 1962 moved to Tokyo. For many years, he worked at an advertising company, but in the meantime, he wrote a good deal of poetry. His first book to receive national attention was Rose Tree, Fake Lovers (ËNÞ±¤Îľ?¤Ë¤»¤ÎÁµÈˤ¿¤Á, Bara no ki, nise no koibito-tachi?), an anthology published in 1964 that describes male-male erotic love in bold and direct language. A laudatory review from the critic Jun Et¨ appeared in the daily newspaper Asahi shimbun with Takahashi¡¯s photograph¡ªan unusual instance of a poet¡¯s photograph included in the paper¡¯s survey of literature.
About the same time, Takahashi sent the collection to the novelist Yukio Mishima who contacted him and offered to use his name to help promote Takahashi¡¯s work. The two shared a close relationship and friendship that lasted until Mishima¡¯s suicide in 1970. Other close friends Takahashi made about this time include Tatsuhiko Shibusawa who translated the Marquis de Sade into Japanese, the surreal poet Chimako Tada who shared Takahashi's interest in classical Greece, the poet Shigeo Washisu who was also interested in the classics and the existential ramifications of homoeroticism. With the latter two writers, Takahashi cooperated to create the literary journal The Symposium (ð‹Ñç, Ky¨en?) named after Plato¡¯s famous dialogue. This interest in eroticism and existentialism, in turn, is a reflection of a larger existential trend in the literature and culture of Japan during the 1960s and 1970s.
Homoeroticism remained an important them in his poetry written in free verse through the 1970s, including the long poem Ode (íž, Homeuta?), which the publisher Winston Leyland has called ¡°the great gay poem of the 20th century.¡± Many of these early works have been translated into English by Hiroaki Sato and reprinted in the collection Partings at Dawn: An Anthology of Japanese Gay Literature.
About the same time, Takahashi started writing prose. In 1970, he published Twelve Views from the Distance about his early life and the novella The Sacred Promontory (Â}¤Ê¤ëáµ, Sei naru misaki?) about his own erotic awakening. In 1972, he wrote A Legend of a Holy Place (Â}Ëù»Õh, Seisho densetsu?), a surrealistic novella inspired by his own experiences during a forty-day trip to New York City in which Donald Richie led him through the gay, underground spots of the city.
In 1974, he released Zen¡¯s Pilgrimage of Virtue (ÉƤαéšs, Zen no henreki?), a homoerotic and often extremely humorous reworking of a legend of Sudhana found in the Buddhist classic Avatamsaka Sutra.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
March 3, 2014
Mutsuo Takahashi knows how to make beauty from suffering. What skill could be more urgently necessary now? How lucky that this book, originally published in 1970, has at last been translated by Jeffrey Angles in language that is as accurate as it is gorgeous.
Raised in poverty by day laborers, Takahashi appears to be one of those rare persons able to use every misery as fuel for insight. The twelve chapters of this book are indeed ¡°twelve views¡±, or angles, and the perspective gained thus of violence, sexuality and rural Japan is complex and unflinching.
¡°I have been loved by many different spirits,¡± Takahashi writes. This book preserves an understanding of ¡°places outside the world we cannot see with eyes alone¡± that seems to have been eradicated in modern Japan as surely as the rivers have been lined with cement. ¡°Spirituality¡± is what it usually gets called but it is a spirituality devoid of wishfulness and precise as cartography. The only other book I¡¯ve found that conveys this level of (how to say it?) rural Japanese spiritual acumen is Michiko Ishimure¡¯s Lake of Heaven.
Of the twelve views, the view of sexuality is certain to grab one¡¯s attention. After all, Mutsuo Takahashi was Yukio Mishima¡¯s lover and confidante. (You are also unlikely to find another truly compelling literary depiction of sex with chickens.)
Besides the understanding of ¡°communities outside the world¡±, what I find most stunning about the book is its profound understanding of violence. After describing a beating at the hands of his mother, Takahashi writes, ¡°It sounds strange to say this, but when adults behave violently toward children, they always seem much sadder than the children they mistreat. Children do not fail to notice that, even as they tremble in fear.¡±
Justly lauded for his translations of Tada Chimako and other Japanese poets, Jeffrey Angles is able to render Mutsuo Takahashi¡¯s swirling, image-saturated poetic prose is English that is both clear and full of emotion. Indispensable for anyone interested in Japanese literature, rural Japan, or the lives of gay men, this book deserves to be widely read for its profound understanding of the unseen world, the nature of violence, and the transformation of suffering.
Raised in poverty by day laborers, Takahashi appears to be one of those rare persons able to use every misery as fuel for insight. The twelve chapters of this book are indeed ¡°twelve views¡±, or angles, and the perspective gained thus of violence, sexuality and rural Japan is complex and unflinching.
¡°I have been loved by many different spirits,¡± Takahashi writes. This book preserves an understanding of ¡°places outside the world we cannot see with eyes alone¡± that seems to have been eradicated in modern Japan as surely as the rivers have been lined with cement. ¡°Spirituality¡± is what it usually gets called but it is a spirituality devoid of wishfulness and precise as cartography. The only other book I¡¯ve found that conveys this level of (how to say it?) rural Japanese spiritual acumen is Michiko Ishimure¡¯s Lake of Heaven.
Of the twelve views, the view of sexuality is certain to grab one¡¯s attention. After all, Mutsuo Takahashi was Yukio Mishima¡¯s lover and confidante. (You are also unlikely to find another truly compelling literary depiction of sex with chickens.)
Besides the understanding of ¡°communities outside the world¡±, what I find most stunning about the book is its profound understanding of violence. After describing a beating at the hands of his mother, Takahashi writes, ¡°It sounds strange to say this, but when adults behave violently toward children, they always seem much sadder than the children they mistreat. Children do not fail to notice that, even as they tremble in fear.¡±
Justly lauded for his translations of Tada Chimako and other Japanese poets, Jeffrey Angles is able to render Mutsuo Takahashi¡¯s swirling, image-saturated poetic prose is English that is both clear and full of emotion. Indispensable for anyone interested in Japanese literature, rural Japan, or the lives of gay men, this book deserves to be widely read for its profound understanding of the unseen world, the nature of violence, and the transformation of suffering.
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September 18, 2013"This superb translation of Takahashi¡¯s autobiography¡ªnominated for the 2013 Lambda Literary Award¡ªis an excellent companion to the poet¡¯s other translated works such as Poems of a Penisist (1975)." - Takeshi Kimoto, University of Oklahoma
This book was reviewed in the September 2013 issue of World Literature Today. Read the full review by visiting our website:
This book was reviewed in the September 2013 issue of World Literature Today. Read the full review by visiting our website:
July 19, 2013
Gorgeous autobiography-infused meditations on language, thought, sexuality, Japan, and much more.
February 19, 2025
Beautiful language throughout but a little boring.
October 29, 2020
Katsushika Hokusai is best known for ¡°The Great Wave Off Kanagawa,¡± a masterpiece of Japanese woodblock prints, ukiyo-e. And even though ¡°The Great Wave¡± was a part of a series, Thirty-Six Views of Fuji, it has almost eclipsed the rest of Hokusai¡¯s work. Similarly, the poet Mutsuo Takahashi is best known for his homoerotic poetry, particularly the thousand-line ¡°Ode,¡± which has drawn comparisons to Walt Whitman¡¯s work for its merging of the sacred reverence and corporeal pleasure.
But as powerful as ¡°Ode¡± is, it shouldn¡¯t necessarily cast a shadow over Takahashi¡¯s other work, particularly his newly-translated collection of essays, Twelve Views from the Distance. And although Takahashi¡¯s examination of sexuality doesn¡¯t start until 3/4ths of the way through the collection with ¡°The Shore of Sexuality,¡± his work (ably translated by Jeffrey Angles) shows a lyrical sensuousness throughout that hint at his sexual awakening.
Interestingly enough, he connects early childhood games with his relatives¡ªthe equivalent to say ¡°Airplane¡±¡ªto his burgeoning sexuality. These games would soon escalate to more explicit adolescent explorations, but sexual feelings, explains Takahashi, ¡°connects the individual to the outside world.¡± In other words, Takahashi¡¯s sexuality is not merely an internal expression, but an outward expression¡ªbridging him to humanity at large.
The flipside of that bridge, however, is violence. And while much of the violence that Takahashi relates is on a personal level¡ªfights with his classmates, for instance, or beatings from his mother¡ªit reflects the violence wreaked upon Japan itself both during and after the war, recalling, for instance, the leftover mines that would occasionally break apart a ship.
The pieces collected in Twelve Views from the Distance originally appeared sequentially in a Japanese periodical, and, as such, don¡¯t have the narrative cohesion that one expects of a memoir; instead, each essay is discreet and thematic. And although the essays have a chronological flow¡ªstarting with his earliest memories and moving to his later ones¡ªthe chronology is never strict, and Takahashi freely moves back and forth in time not only within the collection, but at times within the same essay.
The earlier essays, as well, have a more abstract feel to them. Immediately, with ¡°The Snow of Memory,¡± Takahashi interrogates the trustworthiness of his recollections, and the subsequent essays center upon certain constants: his grandmother¡¯s house, for instance; Japanese folklore and legends; and Japanese spiritual beliefs. But as the collection progresses, Takahashi is able to draw upon memory more reliably, and the essays become more concrete and narrative-oriented.
The constant in these essays, however¡ªmuch like Mount Fuji in Thirty-Six Views of Fuji¡ªis Takahashi¡¯s mother. Widowed at a young age, Takahashi¡¯s mother left him in the care of his grandparents to work in China, and soon thereafter, take up with a lover. When she later returns to claim him, they begin a relationship fraught with both love and confusion, amidst crippling poverty. His mother¡¯s presence permeates the book; she, herself, is a paradoxical figure, someone who both physically intervenes when someone threatens the young Takahashi as well as visiting her own violence upon her son.
Takahashi¡¯s mother animates the book as much as Takahashi¡¯s prose does. And while there¡¯s no ¡°Great Wave¡± to overwhelm them both, the views that Takahashi offers here are at once touching and troubling.
from Twelve Views from the Distance by Mutsuo Takahashi (translated from the Japanese by Jeffrey Angles):
As she holds my hand, she leads me into town so that she could buy some medicine for the ailment we call "blood paths" in Japanese -- a nervous affliction that appears in women, sometimes taking the form of dizziness or even hysteria. Early in the spring, when the buds were appearing on the trees, Mother would inevitably begin to suffer from this ailment. I imagined that the blood that runs throughout the earth would begin to move through the invisible arteries under the ground, and it would flow into the slumbering roots of the trees, erupting like boils in the form of the leaves above. Meanwhile, the same flow of blood would stir the blood in the blue veins beneath her skin and push through each and every hair on her body. At such times, Mother's violence toward me would grow crueler, and ever more unjustified.
But as powerful as ¡°Ode¡± is, it shouldn¡¯t necessarily cast a shadow over Takahashi¡¯s other work, particularly his newly-translated collection of essays, Twelve Views from the Distance. And although Takahashi¡¯s examination of sexuality doesn¡¯t start until 3/4ths of the way through the collection with ¡°The Shore of Sexuality,¡± his work (ably translated by Jeffrey Angles) shows a lyrical sensuousness throughout that hint at his sexual awakening.
Interestingly enough, he connects early childhood games with his relatives¡ªthe equivalent to say ¡°Airplane¡±¡ªto his burgeoning sexuality. These games would soon escalate to more explicit adolescent explorations, but sexual feelings, explains Takahashi, ¡°connects the individual to the outside world.¡± In other words, Takahashi¡¯s sexuality is not merely an internal expression, but an outward expression¡ªbridging him to humanity at large.
The flipside of that bridge, however, is violence. And while much of the violence that Takahashi relates is on a personal level¡ªfights with his classmates, for instance, or beatings from his mother¡ªit reflects the violence wreaked upon Japan itself both during and after the war, recalling, for instance, the leftover mines that would occasionally break apart a ship.
The pieces collected in Twelve Views from the Distance originally appeared sequentially in a Japanese periodical, and, as such, don¡¯t have the narrative cohesion that one expects of a memoir; instead, each essay is discreet and thematic. And although the essays have a chronological flow¡ªstarting with his earliest memories and moving to his later ones¡ªthe chronology is never strict, and Takahashi freely moves back and forth in time not only within the collection, but at times within the same essay.
The earlier essays, as well, have a more abstract feel to them. Immediately, with ¡°The Snow of Memory,¡± Takahashi interrogates the trustworthiness of his recollections, and the subsequent essays center upon certain constants: his grandmother¡¯s house, for instance; Japanese folklore and legends; and Japanese spiritual beliefs. But as the collection progresses, Takahashi is able to draw upon memory more reliably, and the essays become more concrete and narrative-oriented.
The constant in these essays, however¡ªmuch like Mount Fuji in Thirty-Six Views of Fuji¡ªis Takahashi¡¯s mother. Widowed at a young age, Takahashi¡¯s mother left him in the care of his grandparents to work in China, and soon thereafter, take up with a lover. When she later returns to claim him, they begin a relationship fraught with both love and confusion, amidst crippling poverty. His mother¡¯s presence permeates the book; she, herself, is a paradoxical figure, someone who both physically intervenes when someone threatens the young Takahashi as well as visiting her own violence upon her son.
Takahashi¡¯s mother animates the book as much as Takahashi¡¯s prose does. And while there¡¯s no ¡°Great Wave¡± to overwhelm them both, the views that Takahashi offers here are at once touching and troubling.
from Twelve Views from the Distance by Mutsuo Takahashi (translated from the Japanese by Jeffrey Angles):
As she holds my hand, she leads me into town so that she could buy some medicine for the ailment we call "blood paths" in Japanese -- a nervous affliction that appears in women, sometimes taking the form of dizziness or even hysteria. Early in the spring, when the buds were appearing on the trees, Mother would inevitably begin to suffer from this ailment. I imagined that the blood that runs throughout the earth would begin to move through the invisible arteries under the ground, and it would flow into the slumbering roots of the trees, erupting like boils in the form of the leaves above. Meanwhile, the same flow of blood would stir the blood in the blue veins beneath her skin and push through each and every hair on her body. At such times, Mother's violence toward me would grow crueler, and ever more unjustified.
March 2, 2014
Before reading "Twelve Views from the Distance," I'd never heard of Mutsuo Takahashi. I chose this book because I liked the title; also, I've been reading a variety of Japanese-themed books (history, fiction, biography) in preparation for a trip to Japan this summer. "Twelve Views from the Distance" is a painful collection of childhood memories by the gay poet Takahashi. His father died young, his mother serially abandoned him throughout his life, his grandmother and aunts verbally and physically abused him, and his family suffered through WWII and the post-war years as day laborers of very little social status. I find that so much of what is written about Japan is about warlords and emperors and geisha and stern monks and modernizing industrialists. It was refreshing (although very sad) to read about the daily lives of Japanese who toiled for little and the desperate lessons learned by their children.
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