『レギオンの肖像』
The Portrait of Legion
by Umisawa Kaimen (Vita Sexualice)
Review by Yuuki Ao.
Original article: [link(JP)]
There is a ton of kanji. There are so few line
breaks and so many words that the pages are more black than white. It is
difficult to read. Not only are the sentences and words themselves
difficult, many use characters that no normal person knows how to
pronounce.
There are several words and phrases that hint at a deeper meaning,
but no more insight is offered throughout the entirety of the book—if a
deeper meaning is truly intended, I do not understand it. Frankly, it is
gross. Grotesque depictions make up the better half of the novel, and
the remainder consists of impossibly abstract musings that I cannot wrap
my head around. The word choice is unique and stands out, but there is
so little variation throughout the book that it quickly becomes a bore.
You can tout with examples the beauty the word-smithery has distilled
out of the Japanese language, but to the layman the language is overly
decorated and needlessly verbose.
If I were to spend this article berating Umisawa Kaimen’s novels, the
above should give you a fair hint of what that would look like. Not only
is the above representative of some of the criticism leveled at Umisawa
Kaimen’s works, it would be hard to argue that such criticism is not
valid.
The target (or rather victim) of this review is Umisawa’s The
Portrait of Legion (レギオンの肖像), released at Winter Comiket in
2013 (C85). Despite being a doujin novel, it was released as a
hardcover-bound book—which on its own was enough do draw widespread
attention. However (returning to our berating mode for a moment), what
use is there to bind a doujin novel as a hardcover book, other than to
serve to inflate the ego of its author? Do not most readers of doujin
novels just want to read about their favorite characters doing this or
that in a novel setting, without giving two cents about the outward
appearance and design of a physical book?
I would say so. Other than a small subset of self-professed binding
fanatics, most readers of doujin novels do not care about a books
binding or how much it cost to produce—at the very least, such matters
are secondary or tertiary to its contents. Moreover, you could say that
a work whose contents is rubbish despite all the effort put into its
binding is much more of an eyesore than great content barely patched
together. Following that logic (and again excuse me for continuing this
beratement), one might say that The Portrait of Legion is an
egotistical production of value only to its author and a small subset of
otaku who never learned to grow up, and that is that—but is it
really?
The answer to that question is a resounding no. You cannot write off
The Portrait of Legion as such.
It is true that this novel, as I have stated previously, is
frustrating in a variety of ways, but even with that in mind, it has
value.
One source of value may be found in the extreme nature of its
contents: In The Portrait of Legion, Marisa (to center on one
example), is subjected to a broad spectrum of sexual violence and dies
ten times. She is raped and bleeds out. She has her
internal organs ruptured. She has a glass bottle forced into her vagina
and shattered. She has flies’ eggs implanted in her womb, whose hatched
maggots eat and tear at her internal organs. It is…a lot.
And this abuse is not limited to Marisa. Every other cast member
dies, and often in the most gruesome possible way. While of course,
killing Touhou characters off does not itself make a masterpiece, when
it is done this thoroughly, and this meticulously, it is only human to
want to invite others to share in your reading experience. What I mean
to say is: Such extremes get people talking about the book. It sparks
conversation.
From my perspective at least, the ability of a work to become the
topic of conversation is immensely important. Especially given the
ability of such notoriety to breathe new life into the genre. Although
fans of Touhou-derived doujin novels know that there are many
interesting titles to be found, doujin novels as a whole are a rather
minor subset of the doujin works more generally. There are multiple
reasons for this, but for one, sales probably will never approach that
of doujin manga.
When the publication of a work such as The Portrait of
Legion, endued with such seeds of notoriety, sparks conversation of
Touhou-derived doujin novels outside of the usual circles, I think it is
fair to say that it contributes a considerable amount of life-force to
the entire industry. Therefore, whether you are a fan of the actual
content or not, I think you must admit that the direction of Umisawa’s
works as a whole, has merit in and of itself.
A second source of value may be found in that “overly decorated and
needlessly verbose” language I mentioned earlier, which is to say, the
intrigue inherent in Umisawa’s writing style.
I am not pivoting away from my previous statements to say that
Umisawa Kaimen’s writing is beautiful, or inspiring. However, it is
clear that Umisawa fully indulges themselves in their writing style and
that a significant number of fans praise the result. Such writing
demands a closer look.
Umisawa Kaimen’s novels, generally speaking, do not contain much of
what we might traditionally think of as a plot. They begin without
providing the reader any sense of what is going on, present layer upon
layer of bodily destruction in exorbitant detail and end without
providing any clear answers, leaving the reader no less confused than
they were at the beginning. The Portrait of Legion itself has
some kind of arguably logical conclusion rushed at the end, but not in any
sense that should count. It would be generous to call it more than an
afterthought.
But Umisawa Kaimen’s readers do not read these novels for twists,
hidden subplots, overall composition or the sense of catharsis that
comes with a satisfying conclusion. The simple truth is, Umisawa
Kaimen’s readers read these novels because they want to read the prose
contained within the work.
To understand why that might be the case, let us put aside Umisawa
Kaimen for a while and look more generally at two categories of
novels.
Anthony Burgess, the author of A Clockwork Orange, once
separated authors into two distinct categories in one of his essays on
James Joyce.
The first category of author, he wrote, strove to use language as a
transparent tool, used only as a means to craft the worlds of their
stories. On the other hand, to the second category of author, the words
themselves were the object of their obsession.
This does not mean to say that all authors clearly fall into one
category or the other, but for instance, one would not argue that J. K.
Rowling or Sakaguchi Angō clearly fit in the former category, or that
James Joyce, Vladimir Nabokov or Anthony Burgess fit in latter. Umisawa
Kaimen, without a doubt, also belongs in that latter category.
In Burgess’s essay, he referenced the opening lines to James Joyce’s
Ulysses, and pointed out that it was not, in fact, the kind of
flowing prose that ought to win awards. Instead, it was incredibly
shaky, even clumsy — what normally would be offered up as an example of
how not to write:
Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl
of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed. A yellow
dressinggown, ungirdled, was sustained gently behind him on the mild
morning air.
The very first word ends abruptly with a comma, followed by a triple
alliteration of the same vowel. To English speakers, reading these first
four words feels like stumbling, and then hopping three times in an
attempt to regain balance — according to Burgess.
After these first two lines, a confusing conversation immediately
begins without any context, filled with omissions that might otherwise
provide it. Only later does the reader finally get a sense of the
scene.
Burgess proceeded to take these opening lines and rewrite them in
ordinary style of the “type 1” author.
His rewrite began by setting the stage: a scene of morning light
dawning upon Dublin, of women gossiping amongst themselves before his
literary camera zooms into the tower where Buck Mulligan and Stephen
Dedalus make their entrance, quickly introducing the two. Their
conversation is filled with context, and every aspect of the opening is
made clear to the reader in easy to read prose.
After presenting his rewrite, Burgess says this: “If Ulysses were
written like this, surely it would have no literary value.”
According to Burgess, Ulysses has value not because it has
beautiful imagery or awe-inspiring prose. Nor does it have value thanks
to a realistic depiction of its characters’ struggles or a critique of
societal problems. It is certainly not due an exciting evolution of its
plot. Ulysses has literary value only because it does not fit
into the former category. It cannot be adequately described in pictures
because its “poor” prose lacks the necessary clarity.
Why though, should a lack of clarity be valued over the clear writing
of the “type 1” author? Ultimately, a novelist who uses their words only
as a transparent tool cannot win against other mediums, such as
television or film. No matter how vividly detailed their depictions of
scenes or people are, a visual will have more impact. In this sense,
Burgess writes, novels have no future. From the perspective of a
multimedia consumer, visual media will deliver more to them at a lower
cost (of their investment in terms of time and energy) than the prose of
a “type 1” author. In this day and age, we even have virtual reality. In
terms of simply crafting a world, words are simply not as strong a tool
(and so, the percentage of readers in the younger generations continues
to decline).
However, what about “type 2” authors? What about those authors who
write nonsensical sentences you can hardly wrap your head around, who
trip you up and make you stumble as you read, who leave you feeling off?
What about the puns, the sounds of the language, the rhymes, the play on
words, the fetishes, the adherence or non-adherence to form? More than
the surface level story, sometimes these elements are more important, at
least in poetry and strange prose. It is in these elements, Burgess
argues, that you can find value unique to the medium of the novel.
Authors who lean into these elements accomplish what only writers can.
Can film or television accurately portray the stumbling feeling inherent
in the first four words of Ulysses? Surely not.
Not that I mean to say that “type 2” novels are vastly superior. If
there are people who like puns, there are people who do not. I am sure
they exist out there, somewhere — the pun-haters. I would not bet my
life that they do not exist, at least.
At the end of the day, it depends on what your preferences are. I am
sure there are people out there who claim that those who do not grasp
the value of Ulysses (or Jean Cocteau, if we want to lean back
towards Umisawa’s writing) are idiots—but they are wrong. Different
people respond differently to different aspects of any work.
However, a reader who responds only to “type 1” works will probably
eventually stop reading novels, because for them, reading a novel must
eventually feel illogical. It would be easier to watch a movie, or
television, or an MMD video on Nico Nico Douga and obtain the same
experience they sought from “type 1” novels.
Let us follow Anthony Burgess’s example and rewrite an excerpt from
The Portrait of Legion.
The Portrait of Legion is split into separate sections with
relatively distinct tones, but for the purposes of this demonstration, I
settled upon a passage from the beginning of the first section,
Higeki (Tragedy), where Marisa descends into the basement of
the Scarlet Devil Mansion.
Original:
The stairwell leading to the basement, decorated in chains of bramble
vines, conjured memories of peering deep into the depths of a witch’s
cauldron. A faint light ignited with magic in the palm of her hand, the
magician slowly lowered her foot upon the first step and shifted her
weight onto it. The surface of the step made uneven by the bramble vines
caused the stairwell, already steep by any measure, to appear as a trap
laid before her very eyes for the purpose of dragging its unwilling
victims into shadows reminiscent of the blackness of night, even as she
traversed each subsequent step cautious, but allured by the path’s gold
flowers, such that her deep in her throat she could not help but mutter
voicelessly: This mansion has always been sealed shut in such a way
that one could never expect to feel a breeze. That I know. However,
there still used to be a clamor to the air… in stark contrast to
the current stagnancy. In taking care to not trip over the undulating
surface of the steps, she would have liked to reach for support from the
wall, but there as well the brambles had spread, preventing her
touch.
At the terminus of her laborious descent—ahead: she lifted her magic
light to glow upon the doorway she knew almost too well. Countless times
she had witnessed the flecks of rust about its metal frame and the
ineffable deep red material constituting its doors, but in the midst of
this familiarity, one object cast an uncanny shadow: the doorknob, whose
purpose was to open the way forward. Upon it, something was hanging that
hitherto had not existed. What first reached her eyes, reflected in the
faint flicker in her hands, was… silver and gold. Gold chains without
the faintest hint of tarnish wound in countless layers around the
doorknob, creeping over the surface of the doors before becoming lost in
the walls’ black brambles. Upon all this was a silver lock. With her
free hand, she reached out and wrapped her fingers around the lock. The
clear and cold rejection characteristic of metals bit into the skin of
her fingertips. With a not insignificant proportion of her strength, she
yanked upon the lock, but the firmly locked silver ring did not budge,
not offering even a few millimeters of give.
“Damn it, what is going on here?” she spat in irritation. (p.12)
Before we continue, I want to make clear that I do
not assert that the above excerpt is poorly written.
Many, I am sure, would call this prose elegant and masterful. However,
it is inarguably not the kind of easy to read prose expected by most
readers. There is an inordinate amount of kanji.
Words like “hitherto” are used in place of simple alternatives. I doubt most people can read the
word “clamor”. Writing out many of the words in phonetic hiragana alone
would would make a world of difference.
How would this passage read if it were written by a “type 1”
author?
Rewrite:
The stairs, which led into the basement, were so overgrown with
bramble vines, the stairwell was reminiscent of a witch’s cauldron. With
a faint magic light held in her hand, Marisa slowly descended the
steps.
It was very dark ahead, the shadows of the furthest depths shaded
with the black of night. Although the stairs had always been steep, the
unevenness of the brambles made them feel even more so, and it was very
difficult to walk. The very passage felt like a trap meant to draw
Marisa into its depths. Still, Marisa continued to follow along the same
path of gold lilies she had followed from the entrance of the mansion,
but deep in her throat she grumbled.
The mansion had always been kept shut, so there was never a breeze
inside. However, even with that in mind, the air felt even more stagnant
than before. While she took care to not trip over the bramble vines on
the stairs, Marisa had reached for the wall, hoping to steady herself,
but there were vines on the walls as well, so she was unable to use the
walls for support.
After a lengthy descent, Marisa finally reached the end of the
stairs. There was a deep red door, made of a material beyond her
knowledge. The frame of the door was rusted.
Marisa had seen the door countless times before, but this time,
something about it was off. Something was hanging from the door knob.
Lifting her light to look closer, she saw gold chains wrapped around the
doorknob, which extended from the doorknob over the surface of the door
to wall beyond it, with the ends buried in the black brambles of the
walls, out of sight.
Along with the gold chains, a silver lock hung from the doorknob.
Using her free hand, Marisa touched the lock. It was cold, and gave off
a metallic feeling of rejection as the difference in temperature bit her
fingertips. Marisa tugged on the lock, but it would not budge—not even a
few millimeters.
“Damn it, what is going on here?” she spat in irritation.
This is how I would expect an author who puts a stronger emphasis on
clarity to write the scene. Which style is preferable is entirely up to
the reader’s preferences, but I can say for certain that Umisawa
Kaimen’s readers do not want to read something like what I have written.
Umisawa’s fans are fans because they they respond well to the style of
the original.
There was a doll—at least, it seemed fit to describe it as such.
However, this “doll” had no head. In its place, was only a birdcage.
As she approached, she saw that there was a single chair placed opposite
of it—facing it. Alice sat down in the chair, crossed her legs and
crossed her arms. She then rested her jaw in the palm of her right hand
and stared.
The lower half of the doll was not visible, for the area below the
waist was covered with a crinoline frame—absent any external clothing.
Yet the frame’s interior, wide as though the mesh was, held countless
heads—crowded to the point of bursting. At first glance there was so
spaces between them, such that the heads melded together in continuity,
yet upon closer inspection, what small gaps were there were filled in
with black brambles. Yet it was not that which bothered her. Each of the
heads emanated an inharmonious air, for none of them had eyes. Where the
eyes should have been were dissected columbines. They filled in each
socket, without exception.
The doll’s abdomen was swollen, as if impregnated. Yet—from the upper
ring of the crinoline frame, down across the navel, the abdomen was
split vertically open, the fissure resembling an engorged vagina. From
this opening it was clear that the doll was stuffed with countless eyes.
Each adjacent eye’s iris was of a different color: accounting for slight
variations in hue, not a single eye was the same, despite their number…
From time to time, one of the eyes would tumble out of the opening and
onto the ground, but Alice was confident the doll would never be
emptied.
The doll’s arms were raised toward the ceiling. Upon the palm of its
opened right hand lay an old hourglass, its crimson stand trickling down
without interruption. Upon its opened left hand rested a severed head,
from which draped long scarlet hair. Alice recognized the face, with its
eyes closed. The head belonged to the familiar of the witch who resided
in the mansion’s library. Although she had never once learned her name,
she knew of her existence. (pp. 20-21)
Here is another somewhat graphic scene, where its obsessive level of
imagery transcends into something beautiful: it exposes the reader to
the vivid, grotesque and abnormal in such a way that they could never
experience in a normal day-to-day life. Personally, I am a fan of this
aesthetic, but let us take a look at another passage.
The poet once wrote, whilst sublimating the pain of a certain
skin-devouring mold with the intoxicants of opium:
I ponder this mold.
They too must ponder me.
They who mask half of my face.
With every fetal movement, my consciousness is torn asunder. My blood
has turned to ink. This I should have avoided, at all costs.
Then, the poet wondered:
We ponder God.
God ponders us.
Yet God surely does not do so for our sakes.
The witch removed her lips from the hookah’s mouthpiece, and exhaled
slowly a bluish white plume of tobacco smoke. On and on the smoke lazily
continued to flow. Upon the plate above the long and narrow body of the
hookah rested a bowl shaped not unlike the body of an hourglass.
Inside it, gelatinous brown clumps engulfed in blue-white flames were
slowly stripped of their mass.
Droplets of smoke fall…
…down towards the base of the device, an almost spherical glass
cistern.
Water resided in its depths, filled halfway, while its upper story
was claimed full by blue-white smoke.
The room was vacant, but for a single bed, a single desk and a single
rocking chair…
…in addition to a single small round table beside the hookah, upon
which was a plate with two jujubes, three pieces of hard candy, and a
single fig.
The witch returned the golden mouthpiece to her lips.
“The investigation into the actuality of the statement, ‘We exist,’
is a difficult one to be sure, but it is very much like the smoke of
tobacco. For the soul is like a kind of gas escaping from an eudiometer.
We continue to die. My arms, my abdomen, my legs, the tip of my tongue,
my sex, my eyes, my hair… everything that constitutes who and what I am,
every part of this material body of mine fated to be disintegrated
cries, writhes and kneels, pitying the dying other, my material brothers
and sisters. However, my soul, my still ever captive soul, upon
witnessing those others disassembled on the occasion of their death, my
soul is filled with envy—from the deepest depths of my being.”
An expectorated huff of smoke spun a snail’s spiral.
Such are leaps of life.
Dancing in a spiral, crossing the stage, in a leap somehow
refreshing, the smoke left the witch’s lips to find its destination
somewhere about the windowless room’s ceiling…
…to the ceiling but no further.
As tightly as the doors were shut it had nowhere to go, like the
stagnant empty breath of a bird who missed its chance to hatch, bound by
its egg’s unbroken shell. Children boiled alive have no other option
than to desublimate.
Existence solidifies…
…not unlike ulceration.
“What are you talking about, Patchouli?”
“Death, Remilia.”
(pp. 134-135)
“What are you talking about?” indeed…
I doubt anyone would read that passage for the first time and respond
with, “Exactly! That’s so on point! I was just thinking the same thing!”
If they do, they’re either being sarcastic, or trying to play themselves
off as some elite (idiotic) intelligentsia. Patchouli can say “Death”
like it is some sort of answer all she wants, but I still do not get it.
I don’t even know how to read the word that comes just before the end!
(It’s “ulceration”, I looked it up.)
However, setting aside the subject of understanding, I am sure that
quite a few people out there will think the passage is at least
interesting, or intriguing—and it is not necessarily the meaning of the
passage that makes it so, but the rhythm, the conjured up images, how
those images are connected, the ambiance created by the unfamiliar
words, the lack of a distinct singular meaning, how that lacking
diversifies readings, and so many other experimental excursions that
rely on words for words’ sake, that—like Burgess asserts—could not
survive in another medium.
When evaluating Umisawa’s writing, these aspects must not be
ignored.
To be clear:
Up until this point, the argument that I am trying to make is not
that “bad” or “extreme” or “experimental” writing should be praised
simply because it is experimental. I am only arguing that such an axis
of value exists, and that, whether by intention or not, Umisawa Kaimen’s
works lend themselves to an evaluation on that axis.
Because of how Umisawa’s works are read and perceived, one must
consider whether that work succeeds or fails according to those metrics.
As for The Portrait of Legion, I would like to leave that
determination up to the reader.
However, simply offering my honest opinion, without praising or
denigrating the work: as much as it feels Umisawa is only writing for
themselves, I find the prose fascinating—although the more I read the
more I feel my stomach turned upside down. But I would not pin that
feeling down to “bad writing” or even to the obtuseness of it, but to
that feeling of getting pummelled with meaning that almost, but not
quite makes sense, similar to the murkiness of meaning found in Neon
Genesis Evangelion.
Still, as much as I keep saying “I do not understand,” at every twist
and turn, I think it is time to touch on at least one thing I can say I
understand: The characters of The Portrait of Legion,
especially Patchouli, clearly are written with meta-self-awareness in
mind.
“A happening must be realized, for that signifies nothing less than a
cultivation of the void.”
“Which, in turn, is the most meaningless thing one can ever hope to
accomplish.”
“Even so the man continues to fantasize, of girls dying blissfully.
Yes, only for that purpose—for that itself is a happening. A happening
must be realized, for that signifies nothing less than a cultivation of
the void.”
“We exist. However, that existence is nothing more than a cycle
locked in a loop of us all. By repeating our acts we give those acts
meaning. By creating in a mutual environment we exist not as one but as
an aggregation.”
“This story.”
“I am legion, for we are inflated self-consciousness. I am legion,
for we are many.”
All of these lines and phrases level self-referential criticism not
only at the novel as a whole, but at the entire ecosystem of Touhou
derivative works, and they repeat and carry on throughout the novel as
an undercurrent, not unlike a pedal tone, serving as one of the story’s
few cohesive elements.
Therefore, it is possible to read the work with that in mind, and
possible to write a view centered on that aspect alone. However, I was
unable to do so. It did not feel like the main point to emphasize, at
least not in comparison to Umisawa’s writing itself.
That is why I focused on Umisawa’s writing style for this review, but
I am not sure how it has turned out in the end. The review ended up
longer than I expected and am frankly not confident anyone will make it
to the end. I claim it to be a review of The Portrait of
Legion, but I have hardly (if at all) touched on its contents, and
do not feel that I can call myself a “good reader” when it comes to
Umisawa’s works. I’ve only read three or four after all.
Furthermore, I get the feeling that Umisawa’s readers look for
something more poetic than prosaic in a novel such as this… Therefore,
from the perspective of Umisawa’s fans, this review come off as
unsophisticated and unrefined.
kafka-fuura 