![]() ![]() In his 1932 Kindai Osaka (Modern Osaka), Kitao Ryōnosuke had singled out the southeast-northwest road that crosses over the Hatategura Bridge and Funatsu Bridge on its way to Kobe as the point probably having the heaviest traffic in Osaka, 1 and predicted that it would be a transportation nexus and gateway for future development. These honest, realistic descriptions reflect the pragmatic, unromantic attitude of the typical Osakan, and also reveal a pervasive ambivalence that runs through the story.įirst, the setting of the story (in both place and time) is itself ambivalent. One might think a more beautiful scene should have been chosen for inclusion on a memorial, but in “Muddy River,” all beauty is compromised and brought down to earth: the fair-skinned, pretty face of Kiichi’s older sister Ginko is balanced by the skinniness of her body and a mosquito bite on her shin the sensual beauty of Kiichi’s and Ginko’s mother is that of a prostitute Kiichi’s eyes gleam with a mesmerizing light in his dirty face and the beautiful, haunting blue flames in the climactic scene are products of Kiichi’s cruelty. But to Nobuo it looked like a fragment of muck clinging to the bridge piling. Squinting his eyes, Nobuo could in fact see a boat tied up below Minato Bridge. ![]() Under that bridge… See, that boat there.” Today, where “The Dōjima River and Tosabori River come together,” there is a memorial commemorating “Muddy River.” Carved on the stone face of the memorial, after the opening sentences quoted above, is the following description of Nobuo’s first sight of the boat where his new friend Kiichi lives with his mother and sister: The river flowing by the Yanagi Diner is, significantly, a “Muddy River.” But this is not the romanticized Osaka of the Meiji era, nor the sanitized one of today’s tourist brochures. This is the “City of Water” (mizu no miyako), one of Osaka’s monikers, which resonates with the days of Meiji, when the city was dubbed the “Venice of the Orient” by Westerners. The customers of the Yanagi Diner are the captains of the boats that ply the rivers. The Yanagi Diner is an udon noodle restaurant run by the parents of Nobuo, the eight-year-old protagonist of the story. Looking from Shōwa Bridge directly across the Tosabori River, at the approach to Hatategura Bridge, was the Yanagi Diner. They are Shōwa Bridge, Hatategura Bridge, and Funatsu Bridge. Where the two rivers mix together are three bridges. The Dōjima River and Tosabori River come together, change their name to the Aji River, and flow into a corner of Osaka Bay. The opening sentences set the scene, at the western tip of Nakanoshima in downtown Osaka: The rhythms of Osaka dialect flow through the speech of the characters, and the descriptions of the humid river burnished by the light of the sun perfectly catch the sweltering, oppressive atmosphere of Osaka’s summer. “Muddy River” is set in Osaka and steeped in the atmosphere of that city. ![]() “Muddy River” (“Doro no kawa,” 1977), however, was the work that made Miyamoto famous. Mud river travel kit series#Nationally famous in Japan, the works of this prolific writer include Kinshū (1982, translated as Kinshu: Autumn Brocade), the six-volume Ruten no umi series (1984-2011), Gaikotsu-biru no niwa (2009), and numerous short stories, some of which have been published in English translation in the collection Phantom Lights. See here for more information about the prize and to submit an application. Sibley Prize offered by the University of Chicago. He is a previous winner of the William F. Professor Murakami-Smith teaches at the Graduate School of Language and Culture at Osaka University and is a specialist in the language, literature, and culture of the Osaka area. Another of Miyamoto’s works, Phantom Lights, has been made into the acclaimed Maborosi, directed by Koreeda Hirokazu in 1995. In 1981, it became the basis for the well-known film of the same name, directed by Oguri Kōhei. Set in the city of Osaka in the late 1950’s, the story won the Dazai Osamu literary award the year it was published in Japan. Translated and with an introduction by Andrew Murakami-SmithĬornell’s Asian Studies Department has awarded the 2015 Kyoko Selden Memorial Translation Prize to Andrew Murakami-Smith for his translation of the 1977 short story “Muddy River” (“Doro no kawa”) by contemporary author Miyamoto Teru. ![]()
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