With Repubblica, Japan is closer. A new series with our newspaper

«When we see the beauty of the snow, when we see the beauty of the full moon, when we see the beauty of the cherry trees in bloom, when in short we come across and are awakened by the beauty of the four seasons, it is then that we think more about the people dear to us and we want them to share the pleasure.” When he received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese to obtain the coveted recognition, Kawabata Yasunari delivers a speech entitled Japan, beauty and me. A speech which can indeed be considered a manifesto of his poetics – in which, as can already be understood from these first words, the world of nature is viscerally linked to that of human experience – but it is also a a hymn to Japanese beauty and sensitivity.

The neve with its cold light, the luna constant companion who illuminates the inner journey of the characters (key element in Kawabata’s narrative universe and beyond), the cherry trees in bloom in spring, if on the one hand they represent natural landscapes of calm beauty of which Japan is home, on the other they make this country of which in recent years everything has attracted us – literature, cinema, the arts, food – the land of interior landscapes.

It is in fact in this close link between inside and outside, the individual and the landscape, that much of the fascination exercised on us Westerners by Land of the Rising Sun. There is one term in particular that the Japanese refer to to explain this correspondence and it is mono no aware, of which also Kawabata with his novels he became a spokesperson: a concept that is over a millennium old and yet still at the center of cinema, literature, manga and anime, which well expresses man’s strong emotional participation towards the beauty of nature, with the awareness however that this, like everything else, is changing and will therefore soon come to an end.

Precisely to get to the roots of a culture that is still mysterious in many ways, a world where there are more than one meanings for anything, Republic brings the new series entitled to newsstands Deep Japan (starting tomorrow with the newspaper at 8.90 euros more). Fifteen volumes edited by Giorgio Rivieccio which each put a word at the center and from that then go on to explore history, religion and philosophy, literature, art and food culture to give us an all-round image of Japan, between past and present.

Because «in Japan what the well-known woodcut shows happens The big wave by Hokusai, where the very small boats with their crews follow the movement of the gigantic waves that come towards them”, as he explains Giorgio Riviecci in the preface to the first volume. “As everything fluctuates, nothing has a pre-established purpose. And since reality is changing, in the Japanese language there are many different words, and different concepts, which identify the same thing, and even the same person, depending on the context and who observes or uses them. Everything revolves around this vision.”

This is why we start tomorrow with the first volume dedicated to the word Ofideal to aim for when looking for a harmonious balance, but also a character used in the early days by the Chinese to refer to Japan itself, starting from its origins. First of all from the origins of the Japanese language and lexicon to also discover the writing systems and the foundations of calligraphy, or Shōdo, art that helps you to know yourself. A section then describes the process of formation of Japan as a state and the evolution of houses from ancient times to those of today. Speaking of literature, we arrive at the twentieth century with the two Nobel Prizes Kawabata Yasunari in 1968 and Kenzabur? ?e in 1994, while the arts section could only begin with The big wavethe work of Hokusai which is a bit of the emblem of this land that we like so much.

The word to discover with the second volume is instead In, what does it mean link, connection. Another term which, however, hides different meanings: the bond between people, between destinies, human and cosmic interconnections, attachment, but also the relationships between words, as he explains Chiara Ghidiniprofessor of East Asian religions and philosophies at the University of Naples L’Orientale, who, alternating with other professors, researchers and scholars of Japanese language and culture, signs the different sections of each volume of which the series is composed.

And, again, another volume, another word to start from. This time – we’re on the third one – it’s up to Shizeni.e. nature: term used in pre-modern Japanese texts to refer to a situation not altered by humans. Nature which can be generous or cruel as the history of Japan also reminds us, during which the natural environment has now shown its bright side, giving flowering trees and abundant harvests, now its darker side, causing calamities and disasters, from floods and typhoons to the most recent earthquakes and tsunamis. Disasters which, however, have inspired over time that rich imagination in the form of stories, legends and illustrations that never cease to fascinate us.

Necklace

Is titled Deep Japan the new series on newsstands from tomorrow with Republic every Saturday for 8.90 euros in addition to the price of the newspaper: 15 volumes edited by Giorgio Rivieccio with contributions from teachers, researchers and scholars of Japanese language, history, religion and literature. Acting as a guide in each volume is a particularly significant Japanese term, which suggests a way of living, of knowing, of acting. A word that works as a key to reading and accompanies us in the exploration of the many aspects of a thousand-year-old but still constantly changing culture: from ideograms to food, from fashion to cinema, from literature to philosophy to art.