Masahiko Kishi "A Piece of the World": How do things that cannot become stories exist in this world?

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"A Piece of the World" is a book published by Japanese sociologist Masahiko Kishi in 2015. Before that, in addition to the two sociological books "Assimilation and Otherization" and "Street Life", he also wrote several Young novels, such as "Plastic Umbrella" and "Library", were shortlisted for the Akutagawa Award and the Mishima Yukio Award.

"A Piece of Life" is written about Masahiko Kishi's more than ten years of working in sociology, during his studies, interviews, research, and teaching, various moments of getting along with people. Some of these clips are the experiences of others that I overheard, some are notes that I stumbled upon in casual browsing on the Internet, and some are sudden episodes of personal experience, which cannot be included in rigorous academic monographs, nor can they be included in rigorous academic monographs. Treat it as a complete story. From a certain point of view, the stories that happened in these moments do not seem to have an ending that can be called an ending, but often end in a state of nothing.

For example, during the author's interview in Ryukyu, the child of the interviewee suddenly ran in and said, "Dad, the dog is dead." For a while, the two of them were not sure what to do. Continue to talk about the topic just now. As if what just happened didn't exist.

Or, it's some seemingly unremarkable trivia that unexpectedly confuses the author. For example, the author found that if you want to chat with someone, it is better not to invite the other person to chat with yourself, but to invite them for other reasons, it will be easier to achieve the goal, such as: "Should we go to eat hot pot?", rather than "Let's talk."

 "Perhaps, people are really afraid of letting themselves be naked in front of the other party? ... I don't want to stare at the other party's eyes, nor do I want the other party to stare at their own eyes. So put a small hot pot in the middle, when If you are the focus of your attention, you will be less afraid... If you think about it carefully, maybe language, currency, art, etc. all play a role in this way.”

Being good at thinking about the relationship between many people from small things is the feature of this book. The issues in this range from large to small, ranging from expressing sentimentality about that moment, to thinking about the various contradictions and entanglements that often exist between people, as well as the meaning of the story to people, and even finally Reflections on Sociological Research.

"A Piece of Life" is like a piece of life and thoughts of Masahiko Kishi sandwiched between novels and sociology. It is neither a rigorous sociology work, nor a fictional novel. Rather, it is a fragmented narrative intermingled between society and fiction. The intro chapter of the book is "things that have not been analyzed", and Masahiko Kishi said in it:

 “Although my work is to analyze statistical or historical data through the theoretical framework of sociology, what I really like are things that cannot be analyzed, things that simply exist, things that are exposed to the sun and gradually become forgotten things."

The Japanese writer, Tobu Kunikida once wrote a very short novel "The Unforgettable Person". In this novel, the unforgettable person does not refer to the person who cannot be forgotten, but it does not matter even if he is forgotten, but he cannot be forgotten. Forgotten people. In the book, they are a man who accidentally catches a glimpse of a man squatting on the bank to pick up things, a groom who sings a folk song and drives by the road, and finally a man who plays the lute alone in a crowded alley. These people have no interaction with the protagonist in the book, and may not even meet the eyes, but in the protagonist's startling glance, they leave an unforgettable figure inexplicably.

These unforgettable figures, as Masahiko Kishi said, are some kind of "simple existence". Although they are exposed to the sun every day, they are rarely noticed, and they just exist silently in this world alone. Only in an accidental moment, it enters the eye, leaving a fragmentary figure.

Pursuing the uniqueness of naturalism, he believes that the value and meaning of literature is to pay attention to these real but silent people and things, because it is these things that are usually ignored that constitute people's daily life; sociologist Kishi Masahiko, although he did not mention When it comes to literature, the book also discusses the meaning of fiction and stories to people.

 "Self" is a collection of many stories, some light, some heavy, some simple, and some complex. Combining these stories creates the so-called "one" self...ourselves and ours The world not only tells stories, but is also constructed by stories...

Such a statement sounds reminiscent of the theory of narrative psychology or hermeneutics. The past that people perceive is not the real past, but the past as a story. Moreover, people know themselves through the stories they make up and tell, rather than having an innate self.

But if we continue to look down, we will find that what interests Masahiko Kishi is not just the so-called stories, but the interrupted "story".

Sometimes, these stories will be interrupted and torn, or entangled with other stories, resulting in contradictions... At this time, "something" that exists outside the story may be quietly peeping at us, maybe .

"A Piece of the World" is not so much a prose-like description of various unforgettable moments, but rather that through the description of these various moments, the author wants to describe the intricate contacts between people. These "fragments" are not simply stories of constructing ourselves and others, but one by one that can break the gaps in our own stories, allowing "something outside the story" to break into our lives.

Through various small and trivial events, Masahiko Kishi makes people see not only how many "stories" our life is full of, but the stories called "life", full of indescribable gaps, and many hidden stories. A moment of cognitive exclusion, neglect. As long as we pay attention to these gaps, we can see a lot of ourselves that we didn't know before, as well as strangers who exist around us.

It was a momentary intrusion of something that broke our own story, pointing out that while people always want to describe their life as a wonderful story, we often forget that there are other things in life that may It cannot be a story, a novel, but it is more important than what becomes a story.

 "Looking into what is inside of you, you will find that there is nothing amazing inside. There are only fragments of useless things collected in life so far, and there is neither relationship nor inevitability between them. It doesn't even make any sense, it's just scattered there. ... We like to anthropomorphize all kinds of things. Maybe it's because it makes us feel "connected" to the world around us. . If the world is completely inexplicable in our words, then we are too alone. "

Today, I have opened many books about life inspiration or success, and almost every one of them emphasizes the "meaning" of life and life, and encourages people to do work that makes them feel "meaningful" in order to develop "meaningful" life, and live out its own "story". But there are very few people who are so deeply and so deeply in "A Piece of the World" that make people pay attention to the meaninglessness in life. On the one hand, he emphasized the importance of stories to people, but at the same time, he said a little bit nihilistically, in fact, the reason why stories were born may only be because stories can make people less lonely, making people feel like they are indeed " have" many things.

In fact, life should not be just one story, but the source of many stories. He was created not to promote his own "story", but a birthplace where all kinds of meanings can sprout and grow. Some of these stories are happy, some are sad, and some are bland and nothing to say. On the other hand, the task of literature may not be to help people give meaning, but to take people out of meaning and to carry out a journey of exile beyond meaning.

How do moments and others that cannot be stories exist in this world? The author not only mentions the little things in his own life and what he thinks, but also writes about the lives of various characters. Most of these characters are various characters that the author has encountered in his sociological work, including: female special operators, gangsters, women who eloped with their lovers but have been unhappy in their marriages, infertile people, Okinawan tribesmen, and Koreans in Japan , women's clothing, hotel PR, community seniors, bloggers who only occasionally write down fragmentary life records, etc.

These people are not exactly the so-called bottom people, but most of them are marginalized to some extent in society. Through Masahiko Kishi's account, we not only see various fragments of the author's life, but also indirectly see the gaps and sides in the seemingly complete society. From the author's point of view, the work of sociology is to study the aspects of these societies, but unlike sociology's attitude towards these ethnic groups, Masahiko Kishi does not want to treat them as socially disadvantaged in this book. , and I don’t want to describe how hard their lives are. Instead of focusing on the exact social issues and issues they encountered, they describe their living postures and the words they spoke in a moment of stare. Let's see how these people spoke about their past, and how the author felt the process of their words. In other words, as mentioned above, what Masahiko Kishi wants to describe is not various social issues, but wants to talk deeply about the most real contact and interaction between people through the description of fragments and the connection of these fragments. Indescribable emotions and experiences felt.

 Our lives are obviously intersecting with so many people, but why is everyone in their own brains, in the end, a lonely person?

There is probably no real answer to this question. But precisely because there is no answer, perhaps we have to find a way to open up the gaps in our lives to contact and listen to more people and things we are not familiar with.

The author finally wrote the following two paragraphs in the postscript:

 Now, tolerance and diversity in the world are rapidly eroding. Our society is becoming more exclusive, narrower and more suffocating. This is a society that does not tolerate failure, misfortune, and much less being different from others. We can neither fail nor qualify to be unfortunate. We are forced to live positively, to be self-sufficient, and not to depend on others.

We can only choose from the few options that society has forced us into, and be reprimanded for saying, "Since it was chosen by ourselves, we must be responsible for ourselves." This society makes life very tiring and hard. . . . Strangely enough, this society has equate "respecting others" with "keeping one's distance from others." When we want to be kind to someone, the first thing we do is give the other person space, stay out of the way, and keep their distance.

Today's society places a lot of emphasis on the importance of "story" (especially the commercial use of this power), which may also be the importance of reading "A Piece of the World" in this era. Because it is this kind of "story violence" that constantly emphasizes the importance of stories, which is causing us to ignore the fragmentation of disharmony in ourselves and in society, and create a large number of individuals and stratospheres that are the same but unique. .

"A Piece of the World" brings us, apart from a collection of stories, it is also a book of reflection on "story" and various relationships between people. What is written in it is not only the edge of society, but also the edge gap of various stories. Although, as the author puts it, this makes the book look a little "missing", "without a clear answer", and "full of ambiguity". But this kind of record actually shows the author's most important idea about "relationship": meaningless connection.

There may necessarily be a distance between people, but it is putting the cart before the horse to deny the importance of meaningless connectivity in forming relationships between people because of this distance. And it is precisely because there is no absolute and inevitable meaning in life and the relationship between people, so we can develop rich and diverse interactions. The reason why stories are important is that stories can endow people with new connections and bring about the refresh of relationships, rather than the homogenization and consolidation of relationships, opening up gaps in relationships through unfamiliar moments and developing new group relationships.

(This article is simultaneously published on the square grid blog: Literature Lab )

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