Mmorgana Female, 33, Married. Milano, Italy

It would serve to explain some popular ideas of the supernatural which Western people know very little about.

Nel giappone spettrale, pubblicato nel 1899, è una raccolta di racconti in cui Hearn rimaneggia sapientemente elementi, temi e figure tipiche della letteratura giapponese favolistica e shintoistica.
Si tratta quindi di racconti sulle tradizioni giapponesi, dal ritmo soffice e profondo e dalla suggestione molto efficace, insieme a piccoli saggi su usi e costumni. Libro incantevole, semplice, coinvolgente e sognante, fa volare lontano nel tempo e nello spazio, dove ancora fantasmi e sovrannaturale sono riconosciuti come quotidiani. Cosa che tra l'altro per alcuni autori contemporanei del Sol Levante è ancora in voga: vedasi Murakami ed alcuni libri della Yoshimoto.

Ogni racconto ci riporta una storia classica, che sovviene al narratore richiamata da un colore, un profumo, una visione notturna.
Storie talvolta tetre, spesso fortemente melodrammatiche, con spettri infelici che agiscono spinti da passioni sentimentali, ma anche storie di cattiveria pura, folle gelosia muliebre e immagini forti.

La scrittura di Hearn, spesso semplice, lenta e fortemente malinconica, unita ad una idea di spettrale ispirata al bagaglio culturale del
chiaroscurale Oriente piuttosto che a quella dello psichedelico Occidente, spiega come mai lo scrittore non abbia riscosso particolare successo se non in Giappone stesso.
E già Hearn stesso comprende che l'apparato immaginario occidentale ha un diverso sentire da quello orientale e che i precetti trasmessi non verrano percepiti in ugual modo.
"But what did you think of the personages?"
"To Western thinking," pag. 111
Ma in fondo egli è talmente affascinato da questa cultura da volerla condividere o almeno comprendere meglio, perchè

Yoru bakari
Miru mono nari to
Omou-nayo!
Hiru saë yumé no
Ukiyo nari-kéri.

Think not that dreams appear to the dreamer only at night: the dream of this world of pain appears to us even by day.
JAPANESE POEM.

In Ghostly Japan - fragment
Racconto di stile zen sull'esistenza e la presa di coscienza. Soffice come nuvola, bianco come ossa, molto suggestivo.

"AND it was at the hour of sunset that they came to the foot of the mountain. There was in that place no sign of life,--neither token of water, nor trace of plant, nor shadow of flying bird, --nothing but desolation rising to desolation. And the summit was lost in heaven.

Then the Bodhisattva said to his young companion:--"What you have asked to see will be shown to you. But the place of the Vision is far; and the way is rude. Follow after me, and do not fear: strength will be given you."

Twilight gloomed about them as they climbed. There was no beaten path, nor any mark of former human visitation; and the way was over an endless heaping of tumbled fragments that rolled" pag 4

"a soundless flood of cloud, like the tide of a milky sea." pag 5

"And the horror of stupendous height, and the nightmare of stupendous depth" pag 17

"A mountain of skulls it is," responded the Bodhisattva. "But know, my son, that all of them ARE YOUR OWN! Each has at some time been the nest of your dreams and delusions and desires. Not every one of them is the skull of any other being. All,--all without exception,--have been yours, in the billions of your former lives." pag 11

Furisodé
Murasaki...la veste rossa della passione, storia di possessioni e della forza distruttiva della gelosia e del risentimento femminile.
"Furisodé-Kwaji,--the Great Fire of the Long-sleeved Robe."

Incense
Breve e folcloristica storia dell'incenso in Giappone, e quindi affresco delle abitudini religiose, civili e cortigiane.
Delicato e profumato.
"-the darkness beneath and beyond is the dusk of a temple-" pag 20

"I shall attempt nothing more than a few notes about the religious, the luxurious, and the ghostly uses of incense." - pag 26

"Now the breath of this body of ours,--this impermanent combination of Earth, Water, Air, and Fire,--is like that smoke. " pag 29

A Story of Divination
Uranaiya minouyé shiradzu: "The fortune-teller knows not his own fate." pag 59

Silkworms
Vita del baco da seta come metafora della vita umana.
The silkworm-moth eyebrow of a woman is the axe that cuts down the wisdom of man. pag 60
Whatever organ ceases to know pain,--whatever faculty ceases to be used under the stimulus of pain,--must also cease to exist. Let pain and its effort be suspended, and life must shrink back, first into protoplasmic shapelessness, thereafter into dust.

Buddhism--which, in its own grand way, is a doctrine of evolution--rationally proclaims its heaven but a higher stage of development through pain, and teaches that even in paradise the cessation of effort produces degradation. pag. 66

A Passional Karma
Storia di karma, amori e fantasmi nel giorno dei morti. Molto bello e molto classico.
"Remember! if you do not come to see me again, I shall certainly die!"

Footprints of the Buddha
"The sole of the foot of the Buddha is flat, like the base of a toilet-stand. . . . Upon it are lines forming the appearance of a wheel of a thousand spokes. . . . The toes are slender, round, long, straight, graceful, and somewhat luminous." pag. 125

Ululation
Una cagna fedele, di tutti e nessuno, ululante selvaggiamente nella notte porta l'autore a riflettere sulla Natura umana e gli istinti primordiali.
And her howl is also peculiar. (...) I fancy that it is incomparably older. It may represent the original primitive cry of her species,--totally unmodified by centuries of domestication. pag. 137

The whole thing is a song,--a song of emotions and thoughts not human, and therefore humanly unimaginable. pag. 138

Our life upon earth is a state of sleep. (...) All of us dream; none are fully awake; and many, who pass for the wise of the world, know even less of the truth than my dog that howls in the night. (...) And yet she is more awake, in the Buddhist meaning, than many of us. pag. 143-145

Bits of Poetry
Poetry in Japan is universal as the air. It is felt by everybody. It is read by everybody. It is composed by almost everybody,--irrespective of class and condition. Nor is it thus ubiquitous in the mental atmosphere only: it is everywhere to be heard by the ear, and seen by the eye! pag. 150
Introduce il ruolo della composizione poetica, onnipresente in Giappone, quale pratica etica che tramite l'uso di poche parole accorte evoca un'immagime o sentimento, riporta una serie di poesie assai delicate.
Una piena comprensione di queste strofe richiede una approfondita conoscenza della vita che rispecchiano.

Japanese Buddhist Proverbs
I modi di dire proverbiali di un popolo possiedono un particolare interesse psicologico e filosofico, perchè non riportarne alcuni che nella loro sagacia ci possano colpire e far pensare?
Like monkeys trying to snatch the moon's reflection on water.
Cause-and-effect is like a wheel.
Life is a lamp-flame before a wind.
Hell and Heaven are in the hearts of men.
Be the teacher of your heart: do not allow your heart to become your teacher.
This world is only a resting-place.
The mouth is the front-gate of all misfortune.
The Wind of Impermanency does not choose a time.
Even a devil [is pretty] at eighteen.
An iron club for a demon.
The fallen blossom never returns to the branch.
Pleasure is the seed of pain; pain is the seed of pleasure.
There is no shore to the bitter Sea of Birth and Death.
Human life is like the dew of morning.

Suggestion
A man or a woman is scarcely more than half-a-being (...) In the mental and the physical composition of every man, there is undeveloped woman; and in the composition of every woman there is undeveloped man. But a being complete would be both perfect man and

perfect woman, possessing the highest faculties of both sexes, with the weaknesses of neither.

Ingwa-banashi
Horror di gelosia muliebre. Delizioso!

Story of a Tengu
Un monaco ed uno spirito benevolo: la visione del Budda.

At Yaidzu
Descrizione di un villaggio costiero e del Bon (giorno dei morti), riflessioni sul Mare e la musica.
And the life of Yaidzu is certainly the life of many centuries ago. The people, too, are the people of Old Japan: frank and kindly as children--good children,--honest to a fault, innocent of the further world, loyal to the ancient traditions and the ancient gods.
(...) blue, yellow, red, white, and black; these five colors respectively symbolizing Ether, Wind, Fire, Water, and Earth,--the five Buddhist elements which are metaphysically identified with the Five Buddhas.

Are not we ourselves as lanterns launched upon a deeper and a dimmer sea, and ever separating further and further one from another as we drift to the inevitable dissolution?

"The Sea has a soul and hears."

I could distinguish nearly every sound of fear known to man: not merely noises of battle tremendous,--of interminable volleying,--of immeasurable charging,--but the roaring of beasts, the crackling and hissing of fire, the rumbling of earthquake, the thunder of ruin,
and, above all these, a clamor continual as of shrieks and smothered shoutings,--the Voices that are said to be the voices of the drowned. Awfulness supreme of tumult,--combining all imaginable echoings of fury and destruction and despair! pag 238

human life is the music of the Gods

E' difficoltoso trovare questo testo in libreria, quindi viene utile che sia disponibile online al seguente link (in comprensibile inglese):

http://www.sacred-texts.com/shi/igj/index.htm ... (continue)

Questo numero è proprio liquido, scorre via verso il finale senza lasciare alcun segno distintivo nè senza far grandi progressi...mah mah

Il palpatore cortese prosegue le sue avventure per sconfiggere le ombre, si hanno nuovi scontri, nuovi nemici e nuovi amici/rivali.
Belle donne ed un pò di suspence, scontri dinamici ed erotismo da comica.

Libro morbido e con giochi tattili, con marionette per raccontare la storia.
Molto carino e della UNICEF, se fa anche del bene perchè non prenderlo?

...o tittete, come dice la mia bimba a un anno!
I disegni sono belli ma le pagine un pò fragili per bimbi piccoli, nel frattempo giochiamo col peluche!