Deep River Hardcover – 18 December 1995
by Shusaku Endo (Author), Van C. Gessel (Author)
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The river is the Ganges, where a group of Japanese tourists converge: Isobe, grieving the death of the wife he ignored in life; Kiguchi, haunted by war-time memories of the Highway of Death in Burma; Numada, recovering from a critical illness; Mitsuko, a cynical woman struggling with inner emptiness; and, the butt of her cruel interest, Otsu, a failed seminarian for whom the figure on the cross is a god of many faces. In this novel, the renowned Japanese writer Shusaku Endo reaches his ultimate religious vision.
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Review
...Mr. Endo is a master of the interior monologue, and he builds 'case' by 'case, ' chapter by chapter, a devastating critique of the world that has 'everything' but lacks moral substance and seems headed nowhere.--Robert Coles "New York Times Book Review"
A soulful gift to a world he keeps rendering as unrelievedly parched.--Robert Coles "New York Times Book Review"
One of Japan's greatest twentieth-century writers.-- "Publishers Weekly"
From the Back Cover
Thirty years lie between the leading contemporary Japanese writer Shusaku Endo's justly famed Silence and his powerful new novel Deep River, a book which is both a summation and a pinnacle of his work. The river is the Ganges, where a group of Japanese tourists converge: Isobe, grieving the death of the wife he ignored in life; Kiguchi, haunted by wartime memories of the Highway of Death in Burma; Numanda, recovering from a critical illness; Mitsuko, a cynical woman struggling with inner emptiness; and butt of her cruel interest, Otsu, a failed seminarian for whom the figure on the cross is a god of many faces. Bringing these and other characters to vibrant life and evoking a teeming India so vividly that the reader is almost transported there, Endo reaches his ultimate religious vision, one that combines Christian faith with Buddhist acceptance.
About the Author
Shusaku Endo (1923-1996) is widely regarded as one of the most important Japanese authors of the late twentieth century. He won many major literary awards and was nominated for the Nobel Prize several times. His novel Silence was recently made into a major film directed by Martin Scorsese.
Van C. Gessel is a professor of Japanese at Brigham Young University, and has a Ph.D. in Japanese literature from Columbia University. After joining the Church of Latter-day Saints in 1968, Gessel served as a missionary to Japan from 1970-71. He was given a lifetime achievement award from the Donald Keene Center of Japanese Culture of Columbia University for his translations of modern Japanese fiction.
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Product details
Publisher : New Directions (18 December 1995)
Language : English
Hardcover : 222 pages
ISBN-10 : 0811212890
ISBN-13 : 978-0811212892
Dimensions : 14.48 x 2.29 x 21.34 cm
Customer Reviews: 4.3 out of 5 stars 90 ratings
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5.0 out of 5 stars A book of great substance, rich landscape and thoughtful characters.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 29 January 2011
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Deep River is an authentic and rewarding story that peers directly into the heart and mind of one of Japan's really great writers. I opened it and could not close it until I had finished it.
This short (200 page) novel packs more emotional punch and character depth is a paragraph than most books do in a chapter. I was quickly taken in on Endo's portraiture of the main characters. Isobe grieving for his recently deceased wife is captured so well - the classic suffering in silence of a late middle age salaryman suddenly and for the first time unable to suppress feelings and emotions. There is Kiguchi. Endo deftly uses spare but gripping language to describe the desperation of the Japanese soldiers of WWII retreating through Burma at the tail end WWII. It's both a physical and mental hardship which plays on Kiguchi even 40 years later.
Then there is the intriguing interplay between Mitsuko, 20 years removed from the beguilingly smart and beautiful college student who is now in middle age, divorced and still bothered by Otsu, a student at the same time as she, who is committed to Christianity but is insecure and inarticulate about his faith and position in life. She sees him as weak and yet cannot quite convince herself as she herself looks for something to commit to in her own life.
These and others cross paths on a seemingly innocent group tour heading to India. Using the backdrop of 1980's India and the deep spirituality of the people coming to the Ganges in pilgrimage provokes something in each of our characters to lead them further on the path of life. The story ends with some characters finding what they were looking for and for others there remains lots of ambiguity.
For me this was a deeply satisfying snapshot of men and women of various stages of life confronting emotional and spiritual needs.
This is a well paced story with universal themes, empathetic characters and full of provocative challenges to the meaning of faith or friendship or alienation. It's done earnestly and intelligently.
Equally I liked the very Japanese manner and tone. Endo questions the materialism creeping into modern Japan by then. He shows the growing generation gaps between characters of different ages. And he clearly has doubts about Christianity's role in Japan or Asia. He is willing to express where others may have only been thinking or burying deep within them. In Japan those are rare traits and because of that this is a gem.
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Consumer Watchdog
3.0 out of 5 stars Flawed Masterpiece
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 11 February 2011
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Read this book for the possibilities of what it could have been. Not for what it is. This work really does have a masterpiece hidden within it, like a sculpture in marble, but the final form is missing. Many of the conversations are just not that realistic or engaging while the plot appears somewhat contrived at times. The character of Gaston, for example, appears to have been simply 'transplanted' from 'Wonderful Fool', although it does serve the purpose of echoing the self-sacrifice of Otsu and acts as a counterpoint to Mitsuko's motivation for working in a Hospital. While the book purports to be about a group of Japanese tourists the focus eventually turns to the fate of Otsu, a Catholic priest of sorts. On the one hand, Otsu's failings are, at times, a projection of Endo himself (with his troubles of reconciling Western thought with Eastern traditions) while the sacrifices Otsu makes clearly cast him as a Christ-like figure. Underlying 'Deep River' is the beautiful idea of redemption. The Classical writers directed Western thought to believe that life, in all its guises, is a quest for immortality whether it be through fame, deeds or our own children. In 'Deep River', Endo portrays life not as a quest for immortality (a little surprising given the religious scope of the work), nor as the pursuit of happiness, but as a searching for fulfillment. A disparate group of Japanese tourists each seek an answer to their troubles. Only the minor characters of Sanjo and his wife seem to be 'typical' tourists unburdened with life's troubles being simply swept along by materialism. In a place where two rivers meet, Endo tried to reconcile the East -West dichotomy in his own thinking. He doesn't quite get there. 'Deep River' is a good read but lacks the philosophical weight and credibility of 'Silence'. Endo requested to be buried with two of his books. One of these was 'Deep River', which he believed to be his masterpiece, but which is flawed. The other was 'Silence', which is his masterpiece, and one of the greatest works of the twentieth century.
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Elias Baumgarten
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting characters and description of an amazing place (Varanasi)
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 25 January 2013
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This novel is about a few Japanese tourists visiting India, especially Varanasi. I chose to read the novel originally because Varanasi is probably the most amazing place to which I have traveled, a holy Hindu city on the Ganges in India (also known as Benaras). So this novel would probably appeal most to people who have either visited or would want to visit Varanasi or an exotic place of spiritual importance like Varanasi.
On the other hand, the novel is more about the characters of the individual Japanese: a man grieving over the death of his wife and hoping to find her reincarnated, another who has haunting memories of wartime in Burma, two rather shallow (but not atypical) tourists, a couple, one of whom just wants to take pictures without any real interest in the culture and his wife who wishes she were in Europe where everything is neater and cleaner, and a woman who is partly cynical about everything but who also gets drawn into elements of Indian spirituality.
The novel would appeal to people interested in spirituality generally. The author seems to have a cosmopolitan view of spirituality, but the novel also has a Christian element. One of the characters, not mentioned in the previous paragraph, could be thought of as a Christ figure. Many will find him the most powerful figure of all.
I enjoyed the novel and found the characters interesting. I don't know Japanese, but it seemed well translated or, I should say. written quite well in English.
In sum, this is a good novel even if not an example of the greatest literature.
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Ash
5.0 out of 5 stars Very thoughtful
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 30 April 2016
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I absolutely loved this book. It was a requirement for my Japanese Literature course and I'm very glad I got to read it. It's very interesting, especially because you along with the characters have no idea where it's all headed. I wouldn't describe it as 'eventful', but rather it goes through the book introducing various Japanese characters that are very unlike each other and how they all come together in the Ganges of India, each one searching for their own sense of understanding or closure in their lives. If you're familiar with Indian or Japanese culture, this may be of interest to you. I am personally interested in both, so I was pleased to see a lot of cultural blend. The author of this book, Endo Shusaku, was a Japanese Christian and struggled with that identity, trying to make sense of it, which does reveal itself in the pages of this book. It offers interesting perspectives and I would recommend to read with an open and thoughtful mind.
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Brian Lewis
5.0 out of 5 stars Deeply Moving
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 2 December 2016
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This novel by Shusaku Endo follows several Japanese tourists from their homeland to India and the holy waters of the Ganges river. The characters each face spiritual and moral crises in the course of the book. The author does an excellent job at intertwining the multiple story lines and setting the tone.
Endo is also the author of Silence, and given the recent movie by Martin Scorcese, some may feel a need to reach that first. But it seems to me that both books, though similar in style and tone are stand alone books, one set in feudal Japan and this set in contemporary Japan and India.
Highly recommended.
3 people found this helpful
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ira feirstein
4.0 out of 5 stars Good but only fair translation.
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 23 September 2020
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I found it deep. Not sure that the translate is up to the original. Perhaps a new translation could reveal a truly profound Work.
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QuixoticMan
4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Stories of Self Discoverey with an interesting view of Indian Culture on the Gangees
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 27 July 2017
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I found this book engaging from the first page. Several character's stories are unfolded in parallel, all leading to an experience on a tour of India around the Ganges River. This is a compelling story witnessing the revelations of these different characters, and also provides an interesting view of Indian Culture on the Ganges river.
Prior to this, I read Endo's Silence. I think I enjoyed Deep River even more.
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Allen Aicken
4.0 out of 5 stars The river subsumes it all.
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on 20 March 2013
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The book has a spiritual, even religious, heart that sees life through the eyes of one committed to the starting point of Jesus, yet it sees that life, warts and all. There are the usual story themes here but they come from a Japanese perspective, which translates most beautifully into deeper and clearer Western perception. There is hope in ihe novel that filters through from surprising sources.
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Antonio De Felice
4.0 out of 5 stars Very nice book
Reviewed in Japan 🇯🇵 on 22 July 2015
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I liked it a lot. It is a book from several points of view. Each person has a story to tell. Each of them has something good/bad we can think about.
It is really good book to think about ourselves and about the people around us.
3 people found this helpful
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Mary Reynolds
5.0 out of 5 stars Very thought provoking
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 29 June 2014
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I bought this book to decide ir I wanted to take a short course about it. This book is the amazing story of 4 individuals, each with their own back story, going to India and the Ganges River specifically. Themes include feeling of apartness, responsibility, differing cultures, religions, good and bad within each of us, promises, etc. etc. A novel about people and less about plot. An amazing read for such a short book.
3 people found this helpful
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BGH
5.0 out of 5 stars Really good book and brilliantly translated
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on 3 August 2016
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Really good book and brilliantly translated. There are similarities in terms of theme with another book by Endo: Silence. I really liked the setting of India and the "back stories" of the main characters in this book. Very readable and highly recommended.
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ARP
4.0 out of 5 stars Christianity in the East
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 11 October 2015
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Considered a seminal work, and perhaps it is. Endo offers Western Christians a rare glimpse into what it means to stand up for the Church in the midst of serious critics
4 people found this helpful
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Ryan
3.0 out of 5 stars Not what I expected
Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on 26 December 2012
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The novel starts pretty well as Endo describes case by case who the main characters are. However the narrative gets repetitive at times and in the end the cases don't really come together.
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Robert D.
5.0 out of 5 stars Perhaps his best..?
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 24 March 2009
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Though his book Silence is often understood to be his masterpiece, I still think this may be my favorite book by Endo. There are already plenty of reviews here that simply tell you the whole story, so I will not do that, let me just say that if you are on any sort of religious/spiritual or intellectual pilgrimage, this is the kind of book you will appreciate.
4 people found this helpful
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Angela Fitzpatrick
3.0 out of 5 stars I was disappointed in this book
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 14 September 2014
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I was disappointed in this book. I expected that the characters were going to have some kind of soul awakening in this book and in my opinion they didn't. This book gave some background to each character and talked mostly of their trip to the Ganges.
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bdixon
3.0 out of 5 stars Not properly recorded
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 18 March 2017
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The last 2 CD's were duplicates of an earlier CD! Disappointed. The author and story were great - sure would like to know how it ended!
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R. Dickerson
5.0 out of 5 stars Classic
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 22 April 2017
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Classic book and the basis for the movie of the same name. Graphic violence so not good for younger readers. Not a feel good story.
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juanitabanana
5.0 out of 5 stars An extraordinary writer
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 27 December 2012
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Quite a marvellous, dark, troubling, insightful, beautiful read. Some of the personal stories in this novel are also in his book of short stories 'Five by Endo' and are just as absorbing as part of this novel.
3 people found this helpful
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ibo girl
5.0 out of 5 stars I particularly like Endo's sensitivity in dealing with the India
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 17 November 2014
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Just finished reading this interesting book about Japanese tourists in India. It is interesting to learn how other cultures view each other. I particularly like Endo's sensitivity in dealing with the India.
5 people found this helpful
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jimmy O
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on 21 February 2015
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GOOD READ
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====
====
Deep River
Shūsaku Endō
,
Van C. Gessel
3.93
2,278 ratings296 reviews
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In this moving novel, a group of Japanese tourists, each of whom is wrestling with his or her own demons, travels to the River Ganges on a pilgrimage of grace.
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216 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 1993
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Shūsaku Endō
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Shusaku Endo (遠藤周作), born in Tokyo in 1923, was raised by his mother and an aunt in Kobe where he converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of eleven. At Tokyo's Keio University he majored in French literature, graduating BA in 1949, before furthering his studies in French Catholic literature at the University of Lyon in France between 1950 and 1953. A major theme running through his books, which have been translated into many languages, including English, French, Russian and Swedish, is the failure of Japanese soil to nurture the growth of Christianity. Before his death in 1996, Endo was the recipient of a number of outstanding Japanese literary awards: the Akutagawa Prize, Mainichi Cultural Prize, Shincho Prize, and Tanizaki Prize.
(from the backcover of Volcano).
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Profile Image for K.D. Absolutely.
K.D. Absolutely
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March 5, 2012
Reading Deep River is like having a sugar rush. It is too much sweet. Right after the book, I just thought of having an edgy book. Maybe one that is dark and sad. I thought I’d like to neutralize the taste and get rid of the sweetness. Maybe a dark and strong coffee or some salty corn chips. Maybe just brush my teeth and I would be fine again.
Had I read this in high school when I was still a naïve young man, I would have rated this with 5 stars outright. It talks about pantheism or a belief that God and material world are one and the same thing and that God is present in everything. It talks about One God. The God was there at the beginning but men had different ideas of worshipping Him so they created different religions. No religion is perfect since men are not perfect. It tackles the beliefs of three religions: Buddism, Catholicism and Hinduism. The setting starts with the characters in Japan and as they search for something, they all end up in India particularly at the Ganges River. This river is the most sacred river to the Hindus. They believe that the river is holy because its water comes from a confluence of many small streams and thus it has its cleansing effect. They believe that when you bathe in it, your soul is purified and you are reborn. They also scatter the ashes of their dead people believing that they will have a peaceful journey to reincarnation. So, even carcasses of dead animals can be seen floating on it. So, they submerge themselves there, swim and even rinse their mouths, unmindful of the fact that the water is ranked among the top 5 most polluted rivers in the world in 2007 due to high levels of fecal coliform bacteria.
The storytelling is wonderful though. The plot is thicker than say Paolo Coelho’s The Alchemist and the characters are multi-dimensional. Each of the four Japanese tourists has his/her own interesting story. The story of Isobe was the one that struck me most. The opening scene of him being told that his wife for 35 years had cancer and would only have 4 months to live was so moving it made me glued to the book and ignored the 2 buddy books I was expected to read for our book club. The other equally brilliant story was that of the soldier Kiguchi and I was entralled by the twist. I did not see it coming. The death of his friend and the way Endo made it intersect with the life of atheist nurse Mitsuko were nicely crafted. Endo chose not to incorporate fantasy or supernatural elements to make himself believable. This is my first time to read a Japanese novel with religion as the main theme. I’ve read 8 books by Haruki Murakami and one book each by Banana Yoshimoto, Yukio Mishima and Kenzaburo Oe. They all did not dwell anything on religion and all use gimmicks (talking river, apparition, surrealism, falling leaches, talking cat, etc). So, this book got me interested since I found it refreshing and beguiling.
Yet, after reading, the sweet taste was there. Motherhood statement like All religions are equal. Scenes that seemed like pan in the sky: the Japanese priest carries the dead Hindus imitating Jesus Christ; the nuns belonging to the congregation of Mother Theresa (may the Lord bless her soul) helping the sick and the needy; and the nurse realizes that she needs God in her life after all. They were too positive that my head was swirling and my heart was palpitating from sugar rush. Quite timely because this was the season of Lent but I just did not expect the book to be like a Religion101 prescribed-book in high school.
But then, maybe I am an old man and my eyes are jaded already. I better have my blood sugar checked and my eyes refracted one of these days.
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April 25, 2012
Deep River is a rich story which jumps around in time, in place, in ideas. So off we go, to Japan, Washington DC, France, Manchuria, Burma and India. We catch glimpses of the gods Chamunda and Kali, the Burma Highway of Death, yakiimo, reincarnation, a Ginko tree, a stray dog, Buddhist holy spots such as Lumbini Kapilavastu, Buddh-Gaya and Sarnath, the caste system called varna jati, the Andes Survivors, Shirley Maclaine, Indira Gandhi - and - sins of the flesh. Pierrot appears as a man, and as a bird. There is the quintessential ugly American, who happens to be Japanese this time.
One of the characters studies the works of François Mauriac, Georges Bernanos, and Julien Green at University (as Endo himself did). Their novels become a blueprint of her life.
Endo has stated in an essay that characters in a novel are free and cannot be coerced. He, like other great Christian writers (Charlotte Bronte, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, Waugh, Greene, Tolkien, Flannery O’Connor, to name a few), reveals much about his characters through their relationship with God - but they act freely and have a will of their own.
The title and the epigraph reference an old negro spiritual called Deep River. However, the river in question here is the Ganges, sacred to Hindus. On its shores, in the year 1984, the characters search for spiritual meaning in their lives. They are pilgrims who do not know what they seek - it's not really the Buddist temples they are touring. Endo sees them as "cases", and there is a chapter for each.
The case of Otsu is central. A failed Catholic priest, he is a type of Prince Myshkin, a bumbling Christ like figure, full of goodness. Otsu has his onion, a name he uses for God. As in the parable of the onion told by Ivan in The Brothers Karamazov, the humble, earthy onion takes on a spiritual significance.
Another case is the woman Mitsuko. Acting out Moïra in Julien Green's novel, she seduced Otsu while they were students together, then spurns and despises him. Later on, in a loveless marriage she sees herself as Therese Desqueyroux.
Numada, who yearns for a connection with every living thing but finds it only with animals, has a back-story which could be its own novel, though that could be said of all these characters.
There's Kiguchi, a former soldier in Burma, with hellish memories,
I like this image of Chamunda too, Kiguchi unexpectedly announced with deep feeling. "On the battlefields in Burma, I always felt as though death was close at hand, and when I look at this gaunt statue now, I remember all the soldiers who died in the rain. The war was - horrible. And all those soldiers - they looked just like this."
Isobe, recently widowed, searches for his lost wife, yet the search is more inward than he knows.
Enami, the tour guide, has issues of his own and sees Chamunda as his mother. And that figure of woman, whether goddess or virgin or human is a major theme in the story.
The ending is abrupt, although you can easily make your own conclusions. I just wanted more. Also, some expressions in the translation seemed a bit clichéd. So, a heaping 4.5 stars and a handful of stardust too.
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Dhanaraj Rajan
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September 11, 2019
First Declaration: This book is my new favourite. And it has made it to the list of my all time favourites.
The Reasons:
The book answers many questions or tries to answer many questions. These questions are obviously the themes very close to my heart.
Some of the Questions:
1. What is humanity? Is suffering part of humanity? Why can life be only of happiness? (Answer is primarily tried in the episode relating to Hindu Goddess Chamunda. And parts of the answer are also scattered in the other chapters).
2. The differences. Do they add to the value of human kind? What are the negative sides to them? Do we bond together because of the hatred we have for the other? For instance, do I bond with my fellow compatriots because we are united in hating my enemy nation? Is the enmity the reason for our bonding or the love? Can differences be brought together under one unifying umbrella? If yes, at what expense? (Answer partially tried in the episode relating Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's assassination).
3. What is a true religion? Is it Catholicism/Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism or Shintoism? Can one religion claim superiority over other religions? Can one religion claim full authority for God's revelation? Why are there many religions? The answers are tried in the episodes relating the encounters between a Japanese Catholic Priest (Otsu) and Mitsuko (the girl who seduced Otsu in his school days). These episodes are my favourites too. The present day hot theological discussions on Religious Pluralism are expressed in a wonderful manner by Endo. Implicit in these arguments are also the tensions between the understanding of spirituality in the East and in the West. Superb analysis. (Disclaimer: It will appeal to the people in the East and for the people in West it may not appeal immediately. But it might help in clarifying the positions of the people in the East).
4. Reincarnation. Can a person be reincarnated after his/her death? I loved the answer. One gets reborn in one's memory.
5. Can good exist in bad? And can life and death be together? Can sin which results in separation from God also act as the source of redemption? Again, the answer is lovely.
6. Who is Jesus? What is the River Ganges? What does the Amida Sutra (Buddhist religious text) say? You will love the answers as you read the pages in the book.
7. How does a person cope with the loss of the beloved/hope? How does one deal with the grief? How does one deal with his/her inability to love?
Finally: Endo had brought to the conclusion of his own heart's search for many answers in this novel (Endo's last novel). If he had time left, he could have written another five or six novels each for the each question mentioned. Anyway, he did well in encapsulating everything in a succinct manner and weaving them in a superb story.
Postscript: In this novel, Shusaku Endo recommends, using the characters as his mouthpieces, two French novels. I will have to read them. The recommendations are: Moira by Julien Green and Therese by Francois Mauriac.
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Fabian
940 reviews · 1,546 followers
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September 28, 2020
Wow, those forlorn and disparate spirits do not rest! But they do manage to come together, and what they find there, at the fated nucleus, fountainhead, existential monolith is exactly what moves the reader towards the epic end. The Ganges has never before been characterized in such a raw, personified way...
Asians in the Holy Lands. Japanese tourists in India...
There is something about the P.O.V. of Japanese tourists... mystical figures all their own. I will definitely abstain from saying anything about Japanese tourists in Las Vegas. Or Los Angeles. Or the beaches of Mexico. So the psychologies of these very Eastern characters is like mana from heaven, we unaccustomed to such unabashed neosemiEuropean repression. Unique, sad. But I cannot altogether subscribe to such fickle ways of reality...
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Mariel
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September 17, 2011
Do you know that scene in Billy Madison when (this is a major spoiler if you haven't seen Billy Madison and still mean to) Bradley Whitford's character is asked to explain the difference between ethics and morals? And he whips out a gun instead? (It's on youtube.Here it is anyway. It must be wrong to post links to Adam Sandler movies. What can I say? I'm a heathen.) Deep River is apparently beloved by ethics students all over goodreads and amazon. I guess it is loved in Japan too, if ejaculatory book jacket quotes are to be believed (why would they falsely present information?). I really didn't love it. I'm probably the only person who pretty much hates this book. I don't know what the heck it had to do with ethics anyway. If I had a gun I'd whip it out instead of answering the big questions about which religion is more valid than the other. I don't care about any of them. So what does that have to do with ethics (or morals)? If anyone trembles in face of the gun than maybe any of these characters was anything more than a platform for Endo's religious posturing.
What Shusaku Endo tried to do with his novel is something I can appreciate in a "That's a nice message" kind of way. Like a bumper sticker in traffic. I don't want to stare at that same bumper sticker for hours during a traffic jam. World peace! Yeah, let's get that. Am I going to be stuck here all day? Look, there's a horrific car accident. Or a billboard. Yawn. Looking for a face in crowds that don't have any. The answer was spiritual. Was it? The make up was different. Hinduism, Buddhism or Christianity. Sure, all religions should get along and are as valid as any other. It seems to me that if you are going to believe in any outside of what you were raised into it would come from living rather than theorizing and talking a whole lot. That bumper sticker solved all my problems!
The characters were fighting the great gnawing hunger in the stomach that's dread of nothing to look forward to. The not even knowing why you don't feel anything. The characters were not characters but faceless subjects for Endo to easiest fit the expressions of the serene gods. If they had looked in each other... If there was an other to look to... One husband took his wife for granted while she was alive and follows her last words about reincarnation because he doesn't know what else to do. It's a feeling she had. But we don't know her! She was the stereotype of the doormat Japanese wife. Where was the belated passion? Doing what someone said or ignoring them is still frictionless. Another guy is dying. So is everyone else. The furthest into the void is Mitsuko and her quest to "win" over God/Jesus when she has premarital sex with a fellow student, Otsu. Yeah, because people who are dying to preach to you about what big Christians they are never whore it up. Riiiight. Since he threatened to kill her when she dumped him I'd say he wasn't taking the basics to heart. She gets the idea from your basic idiot guys having fun because they instinctively scorn someone who doesn't know how to fake the same normal. Not exactly groundbreaking insights here. There could have been something in the mutual emptiness if only. Endo pretty much writes that she feels empty and wants to be chosen over God by a man who doesn't know if he believes in the first place. Because he's as boring as she is, I thought. She'd have better luck with unsmiling Russian guards. If there's a pitch black version of empty it is these two. Too empty for me to give a fuck.
That's not even the worst of it. Deep River is your basic hollow travel guide story. Yep. They go to India (what a load of crock their tour guide was! The Japanese are so shocked by the presence of the lower castes. Because Japan doesn't have that? Are you fucking kidding me, Endo? What about the burakumin? See what I mean? Like American tourists who are shocked by the starving and don't notice the homeless on their own streets. But there are poor people living amongst the rich!) Who needs real characters when you have an exotic backdrop and temples and pictures of virgin Marys and goddesses of suffering. The characters can talk about how they question their beliefs and then you can tack on an ending about relating to the gods that represent and never have any real personal feeling with those who really do live around you. That's better than a hug. But they were in India and anything can happen if you distract readers with the comings and goings.
Are there ethics about not getting away with not writing a real book because you tacked on a religious answer? Or is that a moral dilemma? I hate this book, anyway. I look for answers in art. Can't expressing being the expression? Does it gotta get stuck that way?
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William2
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July 7, 2012
Second reading. Isobe is a middle-aged, Japanese businessman whose wife is dying of cancer. Before she dies she comes out of a coma long enough to whisper to her husband: ‘I know for sure...I’ll be reborn somewhere in this world. Look for me...find me...promise... promise!’ He is stricken by her loss. Whereas he hardly ever thought about her during her life, now he thinks about her all the time. He has never loved her as he does in death.
Ms. Naruse is a young hospital volunteer who sometimes sits with Mrs. Isobe. Back in college she was friends with a bullying group of young men, a few of whom she screwed without pleasure. The men want her to seduce Mr Ōtsu, a young student enrolled in the college's divinity program. Ms. Naruse despises everyone around her--especially Ōtsu--because doing so allows her to feel superior to them. She is in fact quite lost. She competes with Ōtsu’s god. She tries to break his faith. She is a cruel woman utterly lacking a spiritual life and devoid of compassion.
Numada makes his living writing stories about children and animals. He grew up in Japanese-occupied Manchuria (“Manchukuo”). His emotional connections in life have all been with animals. Things are going along quite well for Mr. Numada and his raucous family, he is alone even when surrounded by them, when he develops a serious lung condition. He’s in the hospital for two years and barely survives his final surgery. A myna bird his wife has brought him for company in the hospital, he believes, dies in his stead.
Kiguchi and Tsukada were both soldiers during WW II who traveled the Burmese Highway of Death. British and colonial-Indian troops chased their unit through inhospitable terrain during the rainy season until starvation and illness set in. It is thanks to Tsukada that Kiguchi is still alive. At one point he had brought Kiguchi meat he identified as that of a dead cow. Both survive. Thirty years later back in Japan Tsukada has the misfortune to meet the wife and daughter of the man whose flesh he ate. He drinks himself to death as a result.
All these characters,who respond to suffering in different ways, join a tour group going to India to see the Buddhist holy sites. Mr. Isobe to search for his reborn wife. Why India? This question is never addressed. Ms. Naruse goes to follow the troubled Ōtsu because, despite his misfortunes, he’s found meaning in life that she hasn’t. Numada wants to make an offering in thanksgiving for his survival. Kiguchi wants to undertake a Buddhist ceremony of remembrance for Tsukada and the soldiers who traveled the Highway of Death. At some point they all end up standing before the ghats on the River Ganges.
Varanasi, a Hindu holy city, is a place of extraordinary contrasts. Living and dying is everywhere, one right next to the other. The place is teeming, pestilential, filthy. Old and infirm Hindus from all over India travel here to die so their cremated remains --a free service supplied by outcasts-- can be scattered on the River Ganges. For only in this way, they believe, will their karmic slate be wiped clean. Only in this way can they proceed to the next life unfettered by mistakes made in the one they’re leaving.
In reading Endo’s earlier novels I often bridled at his particularly cloying form of Christian storytelling. In Deep River however something entirely new happens. Ōtsu is an outcast among his Catholic brethren because he will not adopt the view that Catholicism is the one true faith. In India he finally breaks with the Church and finds a welcome from a group of local saddhus, Hindu mendicants. It is his belief that every religion has validity, that every faith moves the supplicant toward salvation. For this view he is damned by his pious, dogmatic teachers and fellow students.
Deep River, Endo’s last novel, represents a fundamental shift for him in his subject matter and possibly in his world view. The book’s strength is its religious pluralism, its ecumenicism, nowhere evident in the doctrinaire earlier novels I have read. His narrative is without clutter and full of pungent Indian street scenes. The characters' humanity or lack thereof is convincing and movingly rendered. This is my favorite Endo novel without question. Highly recommended.
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Sơn Lương
140 reviews · 102 followers
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March 4, 2019
Những câu chuyện từng đọc đâu đó về Sông Hằng, nơi người ta vừa đốt xác thả trôi sông vừa đắm mình, tắm gội, thậm chí uống nước thánh bất chấp sự ô nhiễm của nó, ùa về đầy đủ khi chính chúng được mô tả rõ nét, nhiều lần trong .. Đó cũng là cái nền để tác giả Shusaku Endo luận về khác biệt trong quan niệm về tâm linh và tôn giáo giữa người cùng quốc gia dân tộc, và giữa người thuộc các chủng tộc, nền văn hóa khác nhau.
Bên dòng sông Hằng là câu chuyện về 4 du khách Nhật cùng tham gia một tour đến Ấn Độ, mỗi người chọn điểm đến này với một mục đích riêng. Độc giả sẽ được kể cho nghe về từng trường hợp một, để hiểu rằng họ là Isobe - một người đàn ông góa bụa đến Ấn Độ tìm bóng hình người vợ quá cố, được cho rằng đã tái sinh trong hình hài một bé gái; một cựu binh muốn chữa lành nỗi day dứt từ chiến tranh và cầu nguyện cho các chiến sĩ trận vong, một người muốn tạ ơn đời vì được ‘chết đi sống lại’, và Mitsuko - một người phụ nữ muốn tìm kiếm một hình bóng dù chẳng rõ để làm gì.
Sông Hằng có gì hay để thu hút những du khách, hay đúng hơn là khiến họ sốc? “Tín đồ Ấn gió coi nơi các dòng sông giao nhau là thánh địa. Kẻ giàu đi xe lửa, xe hơi, người nghèo lội bộ, chen chúc nhau đi hành hương tới thành phố này; Họ tin là một khi được dầm mình trong dòng sông Hằng linh thiêng, thì sẽ được rửa sạch mọi tội lỗi và nghiệp chướng, và khi chết rồi, nếu tro người chết được đem rải xuống cho trôi, họ sẽ được giải thoát khỏi vòng luân hồi".
Bốn người, bốn câu chuyện, bốn quan điểm về tâm linh và đức tin. Họ sẽ được dẫn dắt bởi Enami - một hướng dẫn viên người Nhật từng học tại Ấn và yêu nước Ấn. Anh sẽ là đại diện cho một cách nhìn trong câu chuyện đức tin: với một người không cùng lý tưởng về niềm tin và tín ngưỡng, ta sẽ tôn trọng họ hay khinh khỉnh sự “vô minh” của người đó?
Nếu người hướng dẫn viên Enami chọn cách nghĩ thứ hai, thì một nhân vật khác sẽ hoàn toàn đối nghịch với anh. Ootsu, người từ nhỏ đã kính chúa, sau theo học cả thần học để làm linh mục, nhưng cởi mở trong cách nghĩ, rằng Chúa có thể là bất kỳ ai, và ta có thể gọi ngài là Củ Hành cũng được, miễn là có đức tin. “Nhưng dẫu sao đi nữa, Củ Hành không phải chỉ hiện hữu trong Kitô giáo Tây phương, mà còn hiện hữu cả trong Ấn giáo, Phật giáo. Và không phải chỉ tin mà thôi, tôi đã chọn một lối sống chứng minh cho niềm tin đó". Ootsu đã sống như thế, để rồi bị cho là “rối đạo”, chẳng trường đại học, thần học viện hay tu viện nào chấp nhận anh.
Những quan điểm trái ngược nhau sẽ còn tiếp diễn. Chuyện tái sinh thì sao? Ông Isobe, cho đến trước khi vợ qua đời, hoàn toàn chẳng quan tâm gì đến chuyện kiếp sau. Nhưng vì lời trăn trối của vợ, hãy tìm em ở kiếp sau, mà bắt đầu tìm hiểu và dấn thân vào cuộc hành trình tìm tái sinh của vợ. Nhưng với Mitsuko, tái sinh không có thì tốt hơn: "Nghĩ chết là hết sẽ thoải mái hơn, còn hơn là phải è vai ra gánh lấy quá khứ và tái sinh ở kiếp sau".
Chuyện người Hindu "ngâm mình và súc miệng ở chính nơi người ta, sau khi thiêu xác chết, thả tro cho trôi" là dơ bẩn đáng ghê tởm hay linh thiêng? Enami, người từng du học và yêu đất nước Ấn Độ cũng những mâu thuẫn tồn tại trong đất nước này, khẳng định: “Không có dơ gì cả. Một khi đã chọn đi Ấn...là tự đưa mình vào một thế giới hoàn toàn khác biệt với u châu (...) ở một chiều không gian khác (...) Chúng ta từ giờ sẽ đi và một thế giới khác mà chúng ta đã đánh mất".
Mình thích câu chuyện của Mitsuko và Ootsu, và đó cũng là câu chuyện được dành nhiều đất nhất trong sách. Một người không tin vào Chúa, quyết tâm quấy phá một người ngoan đạo và còn buộc anh phải từ bỏ người, để rồi cuối cùng mải miết đi tìm anh. "Cô không hiểu rõ tại sao xưa cũng như nay cô lại cứ bận tâm bận trí về anh ta. Cuộc đời của Ootsu, như xác côn trùng sa lưới nhện, cứ dai dẳng treo ở một nơi nào đó trong lòng cô. Mình không nhất thiết phải gặp. Cô không biết bao lần đã tự nhủ lòng như thế. Dù có đi Varanasi đi nữa, mình cũng chẳng tìm con người ấy mà làm gì".
Bên dòng sông Hằng được viết từ góc nhìn của một người Công giáo, nhắc đến cả Phật giáo và Ấn giáo. Còn mình đọc với tư cách một người vô thần. Tôn giáo, như nhiều người có tín ngưỡng mà mình từng tiếp xúc, họ nói rằng trải qua biến cố trong đời rồi mới còn tôn giáo cứu giúp, có một cái để họ tin và dựa vào.
Ông Isobe khi vợ mất mới bắt đầu thử tin vào tâm linh. Mitsuko không phải là người duy nhất vô thần, mà còn có cặp vợ chồng mới cưới chọn trăng mật ở Ấn Độ thay vì đi châu Âu.
Với mình Bên dòng sông Hằng là quyển sách đáng đọc. Mình thích cái cách những người xa lạ buộc phải gắn bó với nhau trong thời gian ngắn trong những chuyến đi. Thích cách tác giả đưa ra những va chạm về đức tin và tín ngưỡng. Và thích nhất một câu đâu đó trong sách, “Trong cuộc đời của chúng ta đều có cái gì đó, dù đã chấm dứt nhưng không mất hẳn.”
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Celia
1,166 reviews · 150 followers
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February 8, 2020
"Endo has successfully dramatized the discovery that the sacred river of humanity flows within ourselves."--National Catholic Reporter
That description has really grabbed me.
Book is now both heard and read. I listened to the crisp voice of David Holt while I followed the text in a library paperback.
The book is written by a Japanese author but is primarily about India. A group of Japanese tourists are led through various parts of India as they seek spiritual re-birth. The experience of seeing the Ganges is central to their re-awakening.
The characters are very well drawn out.
There is Isobe, recently widowed and searching for his re-incarnated wife,
Kiguchi, a war veteran haunted by memories of Burma,
Numada, a writer recovering from a serious illness, and
Mitsuko, a cynical nurse searching for a heretical priest she knew in her youth.
I look forward to my next Shusaku Endo: Silence.
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Nguyên Trang
521 reviews · 499 followers
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January 12, 2019
Đọc xong câu chuyện chỉ cho mình thấy một điều: đó là ở đời này, chỉ có đau đớn là thứ tồn tại thật sự và có ý nghĩa. Hạnh phúc thì lúc nào cũng vậy, hời hợt, thoáng qua. Ở đời, ai có nỗi đau lớn lao là một may mắn; còn không, hãy cúi mình xuống hứng nỗi đau nhân gian ;)) anw điều này cũng không có gì mới mẻ.
Truyện viết ok nhưng không đặc biệt quá. Giống như Ấn Độ, nó pha trộn rất nhiều thứ lại với nhau. Tuy nhiên, mình không thấy nó chạm được tới nơi tới chốn chỗ cần tới. Là truyện đáng đọc nhưng không phải truyện nhất thiết phải đọc.
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Inderjit Sanghera
450 reviews · 85 followers
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May 16, 2020
The novel begins with the beautiful-yet haunting-image of a man who, upon finding out that his wife has cancer, also hears the vulgar reverberations of a street pedlar selling his wares, his wife's death forever associated with the pedlar's voice in his mind. In many ways this passage comes to symbolise the feelings of the various characters who inhabit the novel, who are seeking a sense of fulfilment in India as their inner lives have become dominated by a sense of loss and ennui.
Endo explores the motivations of his characters with patience and understanding, building empathy for his characters. So the spiritually empty Mitsuko seeks to the vacuity which has overtaken her life with mockery; firstly for the conventions of bourgeois Japanese society and secondly for religion via her cruel treatment towards the pathetic Otsu. The writer Numada is unable to replicate the empathy he shares with animals in his relationship with people, whereas Kiguchi is haunted by his time as a soldier during the Second World War. Finally we come to Isobe, the character whose wife dies of cancer and is seeking for a sense of passion and love for her which didn't exist when she was alive.
Whilst, like most Endo's stories, the novel is highly moralistic, it does this in way which isn't cloying or sententious, or in a way that all of the character reach a moral apotheosis at the end of the novel. Instead Endo focuses on the human condition, with the stories acting as snapshots at a certain point in time of the characters lives, who demonstrated both frailty and strength, selfishness and selflessness and who are merely seeking a sense of belonging in a world which they cannot seem to make sense of.
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booklady
2,200 reviews · 65 followers
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September 9, 2019
After reading my friend Dhanaraj Rajan's review of this book I knew I wanted to read this.
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Thiên Di
71 reviews · 56 followers
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May 7, 2019
một cuốn sách Người đã gửi tới cho tôi để trả lời cho câu hỏi mà tôi luôn canh cánh trong lòng và luôn hỏi Người. và hệt như cách nghĩ khi đó ai hỏi tôi vì sao tôi yêu Người: bởi vì Người là một người đau khổ, đau khổ hơn tất cả chúng ta, và đau khổ như thế nhưng Người luôn yêu tôi.
cuốn sách hay ở chỗ tác giả kết nối mọi nền văn hóa với một tình yêu thương bàng bạc xuyên thấm, khiến ta xúc động
"...Ngài không duyên dáng, không oai vệ
Ngài bị khinh khi, và là đồ phế bỏ của người đời,
con người đớn đau và những ốm o xo bại,
như một kẻ có gặp chúng tôi thì lo giấu mặt
bị khinh khi, và chúng tôi đã chẳng đếm xỉa
Trái lại, chính các bệnh tật của chúng tôi, Ngài đã mang
chính các đau khổ của chúng tôi, Ngài đã vác..."
(Isaiah 53:2-4)
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S.
5 books · 66 followers
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December 13, 2013
it's been reported in literary papers or sections that an unofficial "twenty-year rule" applies to the Nobel Prize in Literature-- that is, every twenty years or so (unless it was every twenty-five years, and I'm misremembering), the Nobel Literature Prize committee "has" to award the prize to a Japanese writer. such would not be unvelieable. if I remember the WP entry on the NPL correctly, the first twenty years of the prize were entirely Sweden or Sweden-Norway specific, until the realization slowly dawned that the entire world was watching what was then the only true international prize, and a large cash bonus to boot. Japan is 10% of the world economy and possibly that percentage of major world literature in sales, and perhaps more importantly to the publishing world at large, it highly respects copyright and will even invest in projects requiring half of all royalties be sent abroad.
the first big postwar duel apparently erupted between YASUNARI KAWABATA (the master of elegiac, short little pieces capturing Japanese uniqueness and intricate social minueting) and his protégée YUKIO MISHIMA (who wrote longer, more ambitious plot-filled novels about grief and longing). literary scholars, after decades of scholarship on both, probabliy feel the Prize was mis-awarded-- MISHIMA, despite his vainglorious death, is more highly referenced and influential; more writers fifty years on list him as "influence," whereas Kawabata, while known to the entire community, is more the origami-expert of the intricate fold.
today of course the central Nobel story is HARUKI MURAKAMI vs. HARUKI MURAKAMI. as in, will the Nobel Prize award the medal to HM or will it fail to act in time. no other name is seriously floated in contention.
the 1980s battle is interesting on a different level. both KENZABURO OE (the eventual winner) and ENDO SHUSAKU are a bit less read today and considered a step down from the KAWABATA-MISHIMA showdown. OE represented secular sociality and ENDO heretical Christianity. but aside from this issue, there is the overall sense of aesthetics in each's work, and of course the philosophy.
this is a book about five Japanese pilgrims to the Ganges and the "case" of each, describing the spiritual concerns and life events that bring them all to India for a brief trip. it begins "on the airplane" and then explores the background and history of each.
endo's other work I've read although a 3/5 non-fiction/fiction piece (literary analysis and just literature), always inspires rounds of conversation in artistic dinners.
this work is more just a very solid 5/5 lit work
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Huy
731 reviews
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December 23, 2018
Mình là một người không tin vào Tôn giáo, không tin vào những đấng linh thiêng hay tối cao. Và mình lúc nào cũng thấy thắc mắc khi gặp những người sùng đạo và tin tưởng vào những bậc cao hơn, và mãi không bao giờ hiểu được, một người vô thần như mình đọc những cuốn sách kiểu này, dĩ nhiên là sẽ không thấy thích.
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George
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December 12, 2022
3.5 stars. An original, intelligent, character based novel about Japanese tourists undergoing varieties of life crisis, visiting the river Ganges, at Varanasi, India, during the week of the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister. All the characters seek reconciliation, self acceptance or fulfillment.
One character is a World War 2 veteran haunted by memories of his experiences in Burma, another, Isobe, is coming to terms with his wife’s death from cancer and her comments on reincarnation. Otsu, a Japanese Catholic, never fully accepted by the church elders, has followed his faith in God, to India. Misuko is a woman seeking forgiveness for once seducing Otsu in a frivolous attempt to undermine his faith when she was a student.
This book was first published in 1993.
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David Rush
333 reviews · 30 followers
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December 17, 2017
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5
Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles 1 Corinthians 1:22-25
I wonder at the faith and Christianity of Shusaku Endo a thoughtful, reflectfull Japanese Christian. Did he feel as at odds with his faith and heritage as the central character, Otso, of Deep Rivet?Did he feel himself as outcast as Otsu who identified with the lowest caste of India?
I will draw a conclusion that Endo found the essence of Christ in the suffering sacrifice rather that the victorious resurrected champion of the prosperity gospel. I think Endo saw “true” Christianity in the comfort of the poor and meek.
I think more people would NOT like this book than do. In Endo's world the avenues of success only bring a hollow happiness. In my (American) world the general feel I get is that the Christianity brings a victorious uplifting life full of prosperity. Endo would have none of that. For him you only get to the truth by embracing the poor and outcast.
So....do you think this life is a project of empirical pluses and minuses and the point is to end up with a positive when you die? And the “authentic” life is one that discounts anything that is not measurable, and religion is at best an illusion and at worst the bane of humanity?
If so, this book will be nonsense to you.
Are your religions beliefs secure and do they provide reason and stability that explains everything? If so, this book will be nonsense to you.
There are a number of “themes” involving connecting with something. First, for Otsu, is the notion that Christ is found most clearly in the rejected. Which leads him, as a Catholic priest, to be shunned by his order and end up adopting the clothes of a Hindu untouchable who's only task is to carry other discarded, poor, and dying people to the river Ganges just before they die.
And then there is this idea that our existence is actually a river of humanity and we are all trying to connect with it. I think Endo is saying we use most of our energy avoiding the very things that really do give us the connection to everything else we need.
For Miss Naruse she wants to experience actual love, not the kind that is actually a role that people adopt with enthusiasm.
For Mr Kiguchi it is honoring his fellow Japanese soldiers who suffered a burtal retreat in WWII in Burma.
For Mr Numada it is a mystical connection with nature embodied by a Myna bird.
And finally for Mr Isobe, he is only recognizing his connection with his wife after she dies after telling him to look for her to be reborn somewhere in the world.
If I were to write a high school report about it I think I would come up with something about the Deep River of the the Ganges is much like life itself. And that the road of death Mr. Kiguchi was on is also much like life itself. In that we will all die sometime.
If you are sure of yourself, in your belief or non-belief...then you will think this book is nonsense. But for those of us you inexplicably think what the world tells us about itself is most likely wrong...well, you might end up loving this book.
Quotes...
After living nearly five years in a foreign country, I can't help but be struck by the clarity and logic of the way Europeans think, but it seems to me as an Asian that there's something they have lost sight of with their excessive clarity and their over abundance of logic, and I just can't go along with it....in the final analysis, the faith of the Europeans is conscious and rational, and these people reject anything they cannot slice into categories with their rationality. Pg117
But an Asian like me just can't make sharp distinctions and pass judgment on everything the way they do. Pg118
Every time I look at the River Ganges, I think of my Onion (Christ). The Ganges swallows up the ashes of every personas it flows along, rejecting neither the beggar woman who stretches out her finger-less hands for the murdered prime minister Gandhi. The river of love that is my Onion flows past, accepting all, rejecting neither the ugliest of men nor the filthiest. Pg 185
The Onion had died many long years ago, but he had been reborn in the lives of other people. Even after nearly two thousand years had passed, he had been reborn in those nuns, and had been reborn in Otsu. And just as Otsu had been taken off to a hospital on a litter, the nuns likewise disappeared in the river of people. Pg 215
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Chinook
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January 24, 2018
For a short book, Deep River covers a lot. It’s interesting to be gazing through a window at the lives of these Japanese men and women as they themselves gaze through a window at Europeans (mostly French) and Indians. The main themes of the book are religion and grief - characters contemplate rebirth, Japanese Buddhism, the differences between Japanese Christianity and European Christianity, Hinduism and a few personal constructions, like the man who thinks of God as being in communion with nature and a woman who eventually decides that humanity is all connected in their river of sorrows.
But the book also touches on the horrors of war, on marriage, of generational gaps in Japan, on sex and love, on work and its discontents, on travel and being respectful of new cultures. It is heavily influenced by two books, Moira and Thérèse Desqueyroux, which influence and mirror one woman’s choices.
Japanese novels tend, for me, to be somewhat hard to understand at a fundamental level - there always seems to be something presented as a universal feeling or action that baffles me. In this novel it’s the bullying of Otsu, which seems to the students to be inevitable and amusing. The tour guide later takes a similar attitude towards the tourists, one of wanting to have revenge against them for no reason that makes sense to me. It’s also sometimes hard to wrap my mind around the male-female relationships presented in Japanese novels.
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Tereza
139 reviews · 13 followers
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February 1, 2020
Moje první seznámení s Endóem (paradoxně s jeho poslední knihou) a hned láska na první začtení. Příběh o ztrátách a hledání, pošetilých tužbách srdce, o pomíjivosti času - to všechno na pozadí uměřeného Japonska, pořádkumilovné Francie a barevné, nespoutané a neuchopitelné Indie. Přečtěte si ji!
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Brennan
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November 13, 2021
Endo's infamous final novel, that had many quibbling over whether he finally abandoned the strict perimeters of Catholicism for a more generous pluralism/ecumenism. After all the reading I did for thesis, it seems inconclusive. His wife Junko indicates in a reflection a few years after his death that the pluralist beliefs of Otsū in Deep River are Endo's own. But a 1994 interview (the year of the novel's publication) with his close friend (and translator) William Johnston, Endo is recorded as saying "I have no doubt that dialogue is a very fine thing. But it has its limits. After all, when we Christians talk to Buddhists and learn from them, we must know where to draw the line. I would like to hear something about that." All that to say we can't really know. Nor should we.
I enjoyed the novel, but its cast of characters fell flat for me. I did not find them meticulously drawn or movingly real. Their monologues and dialogues were stilted. I always wonder what is lost in translation. Certain decisions by Gessel are odd--words like "pendulous" and "pestilential" stick out sorely. I did find the novel's cliffhanger ending reminiscent of Mark's gospel, an indication that Endo's spirituality remained Christocentric. Better than Volcano, worse than The Sea and Poison.
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Nguyet Minh
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August 22, 2021
Sông Hằng - một dòng sông linh thiêng của người Ấn giáo, là nơi mà dòng chảy của nó đón nhận tất cả những sinh mệnh bất kể đẳng cấp hay địa vị, là nơi mà dù xa đến đâu, dù bằng nhiều phương tiện khác nhau, người Ấn giáo nhất định phải tìm về để chết, để chờ chết hoặc để ngụp lặn tắm rửa trong đó với niềm tin sâu sắc rằng dòng nước thiêng ấy sẽ rửa sạch mọi tội lỗi và nghiệp chướng, tro của người qua đời được rải xuống sông sẽ giúp họ thoát khỏi kiếp luân hồi.
Nhóm du khách Nhật với những nghề nghiệp, hoàn cảnh và câu chuyện khác nhau cùng tham gia một tour du lịch đến Ấn Độ với những mục đích riêng nhưng có vẻ như đều liên quan đến việc kiếm tìm. Đó là ông Isobe mất đi người vợ và lời trăn trối của vợ về việc sẽ tái sinh và mong muốn ông hãy đi tìm bà. Đó là Mitsuko, nữ hộ lý vô thần dù đã kết hôn nhưng chưa bao giờ tìm thấy cảm xúc hoặc tình yêu đích thực của đời mình, cô là người đàn bà mà “ngọn lửa ân ái chẳng bao giờ cháy lên được.” Trong sự trống rỗng đó, cô luôn nghĩ đến Ootsu, một người bạn cũ với đức tin to lớn với Chúa và chỉ mong trở thành linh mục để tận hiến cho đức tin ấy. Cô đi tìm anh tại một tu viện ở Vasanari. Đó là ông Numata, một người chuyên viết chuyện đồng thoại, thế giới đồng thoại ông tạo ra sẽ dẫn ông thoát khỏi những mâu thuẫn và sự tàn bạo của cuộc sống với bệnh tật và mất mát. Đó là ông Kiguchi - một cựu chiến binh ở chiến trường Miến Điện năm xưa với ám ảnh khôn nguôi về đồng đội đã chết, về việc chứng kiến cảnh ăn thịt người của nhau để tồn tại và có sức giúp kẻ khác. Và đó là cặp vợ chồng nhiếp ảnh gia Sajou, tiêu biểu cho lớp trẻ chuộng chủ nghĩa thực dụng. Họ chỉ đơn giản đến Ấn Độ vì tò mò và mua sắm vài thứ kỷ niệm với thái độ khinh miệt nền văn hoá này.
Trưởng đoàn là anh chàng hướng dẫn viên Enami, người gắn bó với Ấn Độ nhiều năm và am hiểu văn hoá của nó đủ để bảo vệ nó khỏi sự khinh miệt từ khách Nhật. Anh có một khái niệm lạ lùng về thiên nhiên Ấn Độ, đó là vẻ “dâm tính” của nó, luôn “có cái gì đó cứ kích thích dục tính, âm ỉ trong cái không khí nóng bức của xứ Ấn”, xứ mà thiên nhiên mang hai mặt: sáng tạo và phá hủy. Khi sống lâu trong một nền văn hoá nào đó, người ta dễ trở nên sùng bái nó và định kiến với những quan điểm khác.
Tất cả họ tìm đến Vasanari, một thành phố rất Ấn Độ trong lòng Ấn Độ để trải nghiệm không gian thánh địa linh thiêng, nơi các dòng chảy giao nhau nhưng cũng là nơi mà tín ngưỡng và thực tế tạo thành những mảng đối lập của sạch sẽ và dơ dáy, từ bi và tàn nhẫn. Người ta tìm về Ấn Độ bởi hy vọng khám phá khởi nguồn của Phật giáo nguyên thuỷ nhưng những âm hưởng và tàn dư còn sót lại đã bị che lấp bởi Ấn giáo khổng lồ. Vậy nên, những vị khách ấy đã trở nên thất vọng và thờ ơ. Ông Isobe không ngừng thầm gọi vợ trong niềm mong mỏi gặp lại “tái sinh” của bà dọc bờ sông Hằng. Mitsuko vô tình gặp lại anh bạn linh mục trong một hình hài khác như một người Ấn giáo thực thụ với những xác chết vác trên vai đưa họ về dòng sông Ấn giáo, về với Chúa trong tâm thức của riêng anh. Những đám người ăn xin bị bệnh phong cùi, những xác động vật trôi sông, sự nóng bức ngột ngạt từ những giàn thiêu lộ thiên cùng mùi người sống, mùi tử khí tạo nên một bức tranh hỗn độn không thể tìm được ở nơi nào khác trên thế giới khi mà sự trật tự và ngăn nắp đã trở thành tiêu chuẩn.
Ông Numata chưa bao giờ cho rằng thiên nhiên là tàn bạo, ngược lại nó hẳn là cầu nối sự sống và con người. Ông đi tìm mua một con nhồng hoang để phóng sinh nó trở về với tự nhiên, là cách ông trả ơn cho việc giữ được sinh mệnh của mình qua bệnh hiểm nghèo. Còn Kiguchi chỉ mong mỏi tìm đến một ngôi chùa để cầu siêu cho các chiến sĩ tử trận năm xưa. Với tín đồ Ấn giáo, hữu ngạn sông Hằng mới chính là nơi linh thiêng nhất, còn tả ngạn biểu tượng cho sự dơ dáy.
Xuyên suốt câu truyện là những quan điểm tôn giáo và trăn trở về thần học trái ngược nhau của những người cùng dân tộc. Trong đó có cả Kito giáo, Phật giáo, Ấn giáo và cả vô thần. Đức tin như một tấm thảm được trải ra cho tất cả mọi người. Có kẻ chọn đi lên nó, có kẻ thích đi ở bên ngoài bằng đôi chân trần của mình. Niềm yêu kính một tôn giáo là thứ tình cảm tự nguyện và bền chặt của một cá nhân với đức tin đó, còn kẻ vô thần là một vị khách đứng bên ngoài quan sát bằng đôi mắt khách quan. Cũng có lúc, khi cuộc sống vắng bóng tâm tình hay chẳng còn gì để bấu víu vào nữa, người ta định hướng lại lối sống, chọn cách quay về với nơi họ từng thờ ơ, để tìm những kết nối tâm linh lấp đầy lại cảm giác cô đơn trống rỗng.
Cuộc đời đã sắp xếp sẵn mọi việc một cách thứ tự mà người sống trong đó chẳng thể biết trước được. Người rời bỏ thế gian sẽ không bao giờ có cơ hội được biết người còn sống sẽ phải đối diện với điều gì. Ý vị thâm sâu của đời sống chỉ có thể đến khi có nhiều đánh đổi và mất mát. Chỉ tình yêu son sắt mới khiến người ta chôn sâu ước nguyện được tái sinh để gặp lại người thương, để tiếp tục tha thiết và gắn bó.
Dọc bờ sông Hằng, họ ném đi ảo ảnh và tìm thấy thực tế chồng chất lên nhau, “tái sinh” hay hoàn toàn biến mất đều là thứ trực cảm tâm linh nằm trong sâu thẳm mỗi người. Vợ chồng nhiếp ảnh gia Sajou không đại diện cho bất cứ hình thức tâm linh nào, bất chấp mất mát đau buồn của người khác để thỏa mãn cho những đòi hỏi tầm thường của bản thân, vô tình đưa chàng linh mục Ootsu cận kề cái chết khi vừa phải bảo vệ sự trong sạch cho người chết đến thói hám danh của kẻ sống. Cuối truyện là sự kiện bà tổng thống Indira Gandhi bị ám sát đẩy niềm tin tôn giáo lẫn thực tế xã hội với bất đồng, bất bình đẳng lên đỉnh điểm. Dẫu là người đàn bà ăn xin rụng hết ngón tay hay bà thủ tướng bị ám sát cũng đều trở về với dòng sông Hằng, nơi đón nhận cả điều tốt đẹp lẫn nhơ bẩn.
Và hành trình tìm kiếm của nhóm khách Nhật ấy cũng khép lại. Điều họ tìm thấy chính là việc phải tiếp tục tồn tại với một tâm thế khác.
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Emilia P
1,705 reviews · 49 followers
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August 9, 2012
Dang, yo.
Shusaku Endo wrote this book I read called SILENCE. It's about Catholic missionaries to Japan in like the 1600s and it's kinda boring and pretty one-note but also well written and about an important culture clash. Shusaku Endo, a Japanese Catholic, is an intriguing character himself, and so one is impelled to read more of his work. Especially since it's featured in Season 6 of Lost. And with good reason.
Silence was written in the 60s and Deep River was written in the 90s. The openness and full-heartedness of the latter belies a man with the wisdom and sadness and understanding of a whole life between these books - but it's still very clearly the same dude -- a person who cares about faith and the soul, in a way that is very Japanese and un-Japanese at the same time.
I tried to explain this to my cooly-Japanophile husband - to say this book was about how Japanese people are so focused on appearing calm and collected on the surface but are tumultuous and sad and beautiful underneath, and that perhaps that calm exterior itself signals, hints at, a profundity of soul which we openly emotional Westerners can only dream about. So that's what I thought this book captured really well -- everyone suffers, and here is a story about how four or five (or six or seven!) emphatically Japanese people suffered, in their own cultural context, mostly in silence and bitterness, and how they dealt with it by tapping into the life-force which connects us across cultures, ages, faiths (there's a Japanese Catholic priest who dresses up like a Hindu to carry bodies to the creamation grounds, to wit) , etc, while on a trip to the Ganges, the river of rebirth, in India. It sounds hippy-dippy, but it isn't. It's about how big our small little lives are -- it's a character study above all, no big sweeping things happen in it, in the end. It's about accepting and bearing suffering, and trying to love. It's kind of sad. But it's sweet.
There's a quote on the back about how Endo is unsentimental, yet sympathetic, and that's a mark of great writing. I have to agree. This is a wonderful book. Read it, yo.
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real-books
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Nick
489 reviews · 36 followers
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November 22, 2011
A group of Japanese tourists travel to India to visit historic sites from the life of the Buddha, without realizing that there are few modern Buddhists there. They wind up in Varanasi, by the side of the sacred, polluted Ganges, where people go to die. The group includes Isobe, who is looking for his reincarnated wife, who he ignored when she was alive and Mitsuko, who has found emptiness in a series of personae: hedonistic student, wife, volunteer at a hospital. Least affecting is Numada, a author of children's books and haunted by the fate of animals. Kiguchi's story is riveting, as he struggles not just with the memories of surviving the war in Burma, but of the soldier who sacrificed everything to save him. A thoughtful, meditative book, focussed on the struggle to define what truly matters, but not without a sly humor, as the fastidious Japanese try and mostly fail to cope with the overwhelming mass of humanity that is India, along with the comic foils, a pair of married tourists, her wishing to be in France, he trying to establish himself as a photographer. A book that lingers in the mind.
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A.K. Kulshreshth
7 books · 54 followers
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April 27, 2020
This is a great work. I listened to the audio book and will also read the print version.
Four very diverse characters, all Japanese, end up on a visit to the holy city of Varanasi, on the banks of the sacred river Ganga. Each of them has a different motive. In my interpretation, they get what they wanted to varying degrees, with none of them finding easy answers.
This is a book that works at many levels - from its range of settings in India, Japan, France, Burma and Manchuria, to its chronicling of events from Second World War Burma to Indira Gandhi's assassination and its characters and story arch. Two of its characters - Mitsuke and Otsu - are particularly fascinating.
It is necessary to mention that there are plenty of bloopers in this work. For example, the harmonium is not similar to a harmonica, contrary to Mr. Endo's assertion (assuming the translator is not to blame). In the audio book, Ganga is pronounced Gaan-Jaa. That is wrong, which is bad enough, but Gaanjaa also has a meaning. It means Opium in Hindi (and in other Indian languages)...
I put down the bloopers to poor quality control, and still rate this work highly because of its many strengths.
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Aubrey
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December 18, 2015
There is death. Yet, there is also life. There are long emotionally dead passages. Yet, there are also moments so charged with feeling they consume all in their path, carry them along for a bit and then leave behind ones willing to do anything to catch up. You have the search for reincarnated love ones, the search for emotional fulfillment, the search to reconcile death with life, the search for atonement, each person ever searching for something omnipresent in its never clearly defined state. And on it goes, this one period of time accepting all parts of life into its midst; the river mentioned in the pages embodies this, and will take everything in without spitting out any straightforward conclusions of its own. This is definitely a novel that won't get very far with a reader without some interpretation on their part; it is only fully enjoyed if one can see their own life experiences within the pages, and leave with a new understanding of just what it means to exist.
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Kristel
1,503 reviews · 40 followers
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December 7, 2019
This is the second book that I have read by Roman Catholic, Japanese Author Shūsaku Endō. His books, Silence and Deep River are both included on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list. Endō explores religion, especially Catholicism and the Japanese culture in his writings. In this book, set during the time period when Indira Ghandi, prime minister of India, was assassinated examines the lives of 4 Japanese who are on a tour to India to visit Buddhist sites.
1. Osamu Isobe, a man looking for his reincarnated wife.
2. Mitsuko Naruse, a former housewife who takes a trip both as a pilgrimage and to see her ex-boyfriend Otsu as atonement for mistreating him
3. Numada, a bird watcher who wants to set a bird in his possession free.
4. Kiguchi, a former WWII Imperial Japanese Army soldier.
These characters are on a journey, a pilgrimage and it is the story of their individual pilgrimage. The deep river is the Ganges where all peoples are taken in and flow together.
This was an interesting book and look at both Japanese and Indian culture. One point the author makes; I think, is that all Gods are the same God and that in seeking God, no matter which God, that Jesus is born again in that person. Another point in the book is that peoples, cultures, and religions are at odds with each other and in the best circumstances, conflict remains. I personally did not enjoy the descriptions of the river but also believe that the author did an excellent job of painting the picture of the river bank and of India (without using the camera). This book did not inspire me to want to visit India.
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Pip
428 reviews · 7 followers
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January 11, 2018
I found this novel so much more powerful that Silence, which was about a group of Portuguese missionaries who were tortured in Seventeenth Century Japan. Endo, a practising Catholic, returns to the theme of forcing a Christian to deny one's faith, an idea which seems quaintly anachronistic now, but which he must feel strongly about to reintroduce it again. This time he tracks a group of Japanese on a pilgrimage to Buddhist Holy Sites in India. One of them had ignored his wife until her dying plea for him to look for her reincarnated self allowed Endo an opportunity to explore the idea of reincarnation. Another protagonist is a children's novelist with an affinity for animals who believes that a mynah bird sacrificed himself so that the author could live. Although he is not Christian the sacrifice of Jesus is mirrored in his story. A third pilgrim had suffered atrociously in Burma. His life was saved by a comrade who ate human flesh in order to survive (another Christian symbol) but became an alcoholic because his guilt was terrible. The fourth protagonist is a woman who believes she has no capacity for love. She seems to be following a student friend whom she had seduced and then dumped after forcing him to deny his faith. That he should also be in Varanasi, striving to live a meaningful life by helping the Untouchables carry bodies to the Ghats, and that he should die saving a clueless tour member who is insensitively trying to photograph the funeral pyres, stretches coincidence to the limits, but the whole works because it is a nifty way to talk about contrasting religious beliefs.
I listened to an Audible version, read by David Holt. He was a pleasure to listen to, my only carp being that when he spoke as the clueless Japanese tourist he used an English dialect which seemed forced to me, but that was a minor quibble. The Deep River of the title was the Ganges, of course, but it also was the river of humanity, flowing on, absorbing individuals ceaselessly despite their various beliefs and idiosyncracies.
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Wen Cof
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November 17, 2014
Shusaku Endo’s book Deep River is about a journey to the river Ganges with a collection of tourists immersed in their own private spiritual struggles. Each character presents a face of spirituality as a whole. The characters face uncomfortable spiritual questions that aren’t always neatly answered. I loved the book because it brings together ideas of Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism.
Not only are the questions uncomfortable, so are the characters. The young woman Mitsuko, is so cruel, I almost stopped reading the book. But I’m glad I continued, because I realized that what she displays on the outside, so many of us are really hiding on the inside. She comments that the chaos and disorder of India is comforting to her, while the neatly organized gardens of Paris are disconcerting. There is something comforting about the chaos of India to Mitsuko, and there is something comforting about the chaos of the book to the reader. It jangles and fits together at odd angles. The ending is not a neat bow on a package, but is left open the reader to write their own conclusion.
So why did I love this book with ugly characters and an inharmonious plot? Because it didn’t try to explain or mollify their questions – it just took me on a journey as a reader through their process, and allowed me to draw my own conclusions about right, wrong, good, evil, life and death. It allowed me to also travel to the Ganges and observe and reflect.
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Christopher
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July 23, 2012
Another book I started with high hopes which failed to live up to my expectations. Endo's characters all end up seeming contrived and sometimes ridiculous in their actions and dialogue as the stories progress and they make their pilgrimages to the Hindu and Buddhist holy sites along the Ganges. I was hoping for some insight into Christianity as it is viewed and experienced in Japan and the Orient but was instead treated to an individual's ecumenistic dreams. And I think maybe he sets up some of his characters as straw men to let us all know what he thinks of modern materialistic Japan. The character's backgrounds are all somewhat interesting and I think Endo writes very well (or has been translated very well). However, no great events happen, no deep thoughts are offered, no great revelations are found, and ultimately, the book ends up being a rather boring read. I saw another review somewhere before I started reading this that said: "Deep River, Shallow Story" - I agree. It's not your everyday pulpish junk, so I bumped up the 2.5 stars to 3. I can't imagine spending time on another Endo work again.
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Long On Air
104 reviews · 37 followers
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January 31, 2020
Một quá trình cuốn hút bằng đậm đặc câu chuyện, đậm đặc trải nghiệm. Cái kết hay cụ thể hơn là câu trả lời cho trường hợp của từng nhân vật đều rất hay, ý nghĩa nhưng có phần hơi ngắn gọn. Khi đọc về cuối, thoáng qua mong muốn tác giả sẽ viết kĩ hơn, sâu hơn về tâm lí, cảm xúc từng nhân vật như ở phần đầu.
Nhưng có thể đấy là dụng ý của Endo Shusaku. Nhiều khi cách mà chúng ta đi qua mỗi trải nghiệm đã là một câu trả lời rồi, nên đến cuối cùng không cần phải diễn giải quá nhiều chăng?
Đặc biệt yêu thích cấu trúc của cuốn sách. Cách tác giả sắp xếp để từng nhân vật, từng câu chuyện xuất hiện rất thú vị. Các giá trị văn hoá, tôn giáo, tâm linh được truyền tải tinh tế, vừa vặn, không gây sự choáng ngợp hay cảm giác khó tiếp nhận cho độc giả.
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Melissa
1,067 reviews · 72 followers
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January 30, 2018
A very interesting study in faith as seen through the eyes of a group of Japanese tourists to India as they recall pivotal moments of their lives, experiences, and their personal struggles as they try to reconnect with past acquaintances, past loves, and reconcile past traumas through the lens of different faiths and depths of faith as they visit the intersection of Asian faith, with Buddhism, Catholicism, and Hinduism.
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Book Wormy
1,340 reviews · 18 followers
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December 26, 2019
For me this book was an interesting exploration of religious beliefs and how they are more alike than different when you break it down and look into it. We start by exploring Christianity and the idea of sacrificing yourself for a higher good before moving on to look at Buddhism and the ideas of reincarnation eventually we end up in India with Hinduism and the caste system which while there is a strict hierarchy kept in life in death everyone is equal and the River Ganges accepts all souls with no questions asked.
The Japanese tourists on the pilgrimage all have different reasons for going to India and while some personal quests are successful others (on the surface are not) everyone in the group is changed by the experience.
I liked the way the back stories of everyone on the trip are slowly revealed and how they all have subtle connections to each other. India is also beautifully bought to love in all her beauty and all her ugliness
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Joanne Fate
318 reviews · 3 followers
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January 22, 2021
This isn't my first Shusaku Endo book, and it won't be my last. The book starts with chapters that could be short stories in and of themselves. The main characters are all Japanese. Endo brings most of them to India on a tour. There's a lot about religions in this book. Endo was Roman Catholic, living in a mostly Buddhist country. When they travel to India they tour many religious places.
Parts of this book are sad. There's talk of death and the afterlife. The writing transcends all that. It is beautifully written and profound.
I'll stop there. I'm listening through the alphabet, partly to try to get to some books that have been in my library for a while.
I loved the narration as well. It suited the book.
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Emma Much
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April 15, 2022
very nice
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Ana Rita Ramos
140 reviews · 2 followers
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December 28, 2021
Lindíssimo.
Pessoas com motivações e histórias de vida muito diferentes partem para a Índia para se encontrarem dentro de si mesmas e/ ou para buscarem alguém. É-nos feita através dos seus olhos uma visita à Índia pobre e ao rio Ganges onde todos os indianos anseiam terminar a sua existência.
Um livro forte no conteúdo e no significado cheio de mensagens profundas e ensinamentos.
Quando terminei fiquei com a sensação de querer mais.
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Brent
91 reviews · 1 follower
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June 18, 2020
Unreliable narrator is a term many people are probably familiar with from literature class. It doesn't quite cover what is happening in this novel though, as it is written in third person. So the narrator is giving you, the reader, a (fairly) accurate view of the thoughts and actions of the characters (or at least an accurate view of the thoughts and the actions that each character finds to be important), but the characters in the story are, to varying degrees, rather unreliable.
They have incorrect knowledge that informs their thinking and decision making. They have prejudices and desires, and these prejudices and desire color the events they chose to focus on in the story. Many of the reviews have comments as, "Endo says..." or "the author is saying."
Endo is not saying anything in this book the way the statement, "Endo says..." would imply. Yes he wrote the story, and collected sections out of the lives of his characters, but it is his characters that are saying and doing things. Endo means something and it is our job as a reader to try and understand what he means by selections of events and thoughts that he choose to weave into a story.
For example, characters make statements about the various religions in the book, that as far as their knowledge and understanding goes, they believe to be true. Some of these statements are true and some of them are demonstrably false. As a reader you can choose two options, Endo didn't bother to do his homework and made some mistakes (or some variation there of), or he knew the statement was false, but allowed his character to say it because it was something his character believed.
Depending on which option you choose, it will change how you interpret the book. There is also a risk involved because if you the reader does not know that the character is mistaken, you are less likely to ask further questions of the text.
In the story there is one, and possibly two, character(s) who believe that Mary is a Goddess in the Roman Catholic Church. This is a common confusion that many people have, even other non-Roman Catholic Christians can misunderstand who Roman Catholics believe.
But Endo was a Roman Catholic and he knew what he believed. So why would his characters state the Mary was a Goddess? If it is something that other Christian misunderstand about Roman Catholics, think how confusing it must be for someone who doesn't come from a Christian background (as most of his characters don't) to try to understand Mary's place in Roman Catholic theology.
That is just the Christian misunderstanding his characters have. Some of them make equally incorrect statements about Hinduism and Buddhism. And here is where part of the problem may be, Western readers are probably as ignorant of Hinduism and Buddhism as Asian readers are likely to be of Christianity. So when someone is reading along, and they come to a Hindu goddess named in the work, they are likely to think, "Oh okay, that is how it is. Good to know," and keep reading. But a large part of the story is the incongruity of the beliefs his characters hold (what they think Catholics believe about Mary), and what is true (what Catholics really believe about Mary). What the characters believe cause them to misinterpret many of the actions of others in the book. One of the characters, a Japanese tour guide in Indian, even muses on how his fellow Japanese probably don't understand what the meaning of religious practice is to Hindus, while he is (if I am reading the text properly) misunderstanding the practice himself.
So if you think Endo was a sloppy writer, you may come to the conclusion that the book is about all religions lead to the same place and we should all get along. But if you think Endo was purposeful in his craft, then that leads to some more interesting questions.
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booklady
2,200 reviews · 65 followers
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September 9, 2019
After reading my friend Dhanaraj Rajan's review of this book I knew I wanted to read this.
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Thiên Di
71 reviews · 56 followers
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May 7, 2019
một cuốn sách Người đã gửi tới cho tôi để trả lời cho câu hỏi mà tôi luôn canh cánh trong lòng và luôn hỏi Người. và hệt như cách nghĩ khi đó ai hỏi tôi vì sao tôi yêu Người: bởi vì Người là một người đau khổ, đau khổ hơn tất cả chúng ta, và đau khổ như thế nhưng Người luôn yêu tôi.
cuốn sách hay ở chỗ tác giả kết nối mọi nền văn hóa với một tình yêu thương bàng bạc xuyên thấm, khiến ta xúc động
"...Ngài không duyên dáng, không oai vệ
Ngài bị khinh khi, và là đồ phế bỏ của người đời,
con người đớn đau và những ốm o xo bại,
như một kẻ có gặp chúng tôi thì lo giấu mặt
bị khinh khi, và chúng tôi đã chẳng đếm xỉa
Trái lại, chính các bệnh tật của chúng tôi, Ngài đã mang
chính các đau khổ của chúng tôi, Ngài đã vác..."
(Isaiah 53:2-4)
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S.
5 books · 66 followers
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December 13, 2013
it's been reported in literary papers or sections that an unofficial "twenty-year rule" applies to the Nobel Prize in Literature-- that is, every twenty years or so (unless it was every twenty-five years, and I'm misremembering), the Nobel Literature Prize committee "has" to award the prize to a Japanese writer. such would not be unvelieable. if I remember the WP entry on the NPL correctly, the first twenty years of the prize were entirely Sweden or Sweden-Norway specific, until the realization slowly dawned that the entire world was watching what was then the only true international prize, and a large cash bonus to boot. Japan is 10% of the world economy and possibly that percentage of major world literature in sales, and perhaps more importantly to the publishing world at large, it highly respects copyright and will even invest in projects requiring half of all royalties be sent abroad.
the first big postwar duel apparently erupted between YASUNARI KAWABATA (the master of elegiac, short little pieces capturing Japanese uniqueness and intricate social minueting) and his protégée YUKIO MISHIMA (who wrote longer, more ambitious plot-filled novels about grief and longing). literary scholars, after decades of scholarship on both, probabliy feel the Prize was mis-awarded-- MISHIMA, despite his vainglorious death, is more highly referenced and influential; more writers fifty years on list him as "influence," whereas Kawabata, while known to the entire community, is more the origami-expert of the intricate fold.
today of course the central Nobel story is HARUKI MURAKAMI vs. HARUKI MURAKAMI. as in, will the Nobel Prize award the medal to HM or will it fail to act in time. no other name is seriously floated in contention.
the 1980s battle is interesting on a different level. both KENZABURO OE (the eventual winner) and ENDO SHUSAKU are a bit less read today and considered a step down from the KAWABATA-MISHIMA showdown. OE represented secular sociality and ENDO heretical Christianity. but aside from this issue, there is the overall sense of aesthetics in each's work, and of course the philosophy.
this is a book about five Japanese pilgrims to the Ganges and the "case" of each, describing the spiritual concerns and life events that bring them all to India for a brief trip. it begins "on the airplane" and then explores the background and history of each.
endo's other work I've read although a 3/5 non-fiction/fiction piece (literary analysis and just literature), always inspires rounds of conversation in artistic dinners.
this work is more just a very solid 5/5 lit work
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Huy
731 reviews
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December 23, 2018
Mình là một người không tin vào Tôn giáo, không tin vào những đấng linh thiêng hay tối cao. Và mình lúc nào cũng thấy thắc mắc khi gặp những người sùng đạo và tin tưởng vào những bậc cao hơn, và mãi không bao giờ hiểu được, một người vô thần như mình đọc những cuốn sách kiểu này, dĩ nhiên là sẽ không thấy thích.
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George
2,116 reviews
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December 12, 2022
3.5 stars. An original, intelligent, character based novel about Japanese tourists undergoing varieties of life crisis, visiting the river Ganges, at Varanasi, India, during the week of the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister. All the characters seek reconciliation, self acceptance or fulfillment.
One character is a World War 2 veteran haunted by memories of his experiences in Burma, another, Isobe, is coming to terms with his wife’s death from cancer and her comments on reincarnation. Otsu, a Japanese Catholic, never fully accepted by the church elders, has followed his faith in God, to India. Misuko is a woman seeking forgiveness for once seducing Otsu in a frivolous attempt to undermine his faith when she was a student.
This book was first published in 1993.
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David Rush
333 reviews · 30 followers
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December 17, 2017
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5
Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles 1 Corinthians 1:22-25
I wonder at the faith and Christianity of Shusaku Endo a thoughtful, reflectfull Japanese Christian. Did he feel as at odds with his faith and heritage as the central character, Otso, of Deep Rivet?Did he feel himself as outcast as Otsu who identified with the lowest caste of India?
I will draw a conclusion that Endo found the essence of Christ in the suffering sacrifice rather that the victorious resurrected champion of the prosperity gospel. I think Endo saw “true” Christianity in the comfort of the poor and meek.
I think more people would NOT like this book than do. In Endo's world the avenues of success only bring a hollow happiness. In my (American) world the general feel I get is that the Christianity brings a victorious uplifting life full of prosperity. Endo would have none of that. For him you only get to the truth by embracing the poor and outcast.
So....do you think this life is a project of empirical pluses and minuses and the point is to end up with a positive when you die? And the “authentic” life is one that discounts anything that is not measurable, and religion is at best an illusion and at worst the bane of humanity?
If so, this book will be nonsense to you.
Are your religions beliefs secure and do they provide reason and stability that explains everything? If so, this book will be nonsense to you.
There are a number of “themes” involving connecting with something. First, for Otsu, is the notion that Christ is found most clearly in the rejected. Which leads him, as a Catholic priest, to be shunned by his order and end up adopting the clothes of a Hindu untouchable who's only task is to carry other discarded, poor, and dying people to the river Ganges just before they die.
And then there is this idea that our existence is actually a river of humanity and we are all trying to connect with it. I think Endo is saying we use most of our energy avoiding the very things that really do give us the connection to everything else we need.
For Miss Naruse she wants to experience actual love, not the kind that is actually a role that people adopt with enthusiasm.
For Mr Kiguchi it is honoring his fellow Japanese soldiers who suffered a burtal retreat in WWII in Burma.
For Mr Numada it is a mystical connection with nature embodied by a Myna bird.
And finally for Mr Isobe, he is only recognizing his connection with his wife after she dies after telling him to look for her to be reborn somewhere in the world.
If I were to write a high school report about it I think I would come up with something about the Deep River of the the Ganges is much like life itself. And that the road of death Mr. Kiguchi was on is also much like life itself. In that we will all die sometime.
If you are sure of yourself, in your belief or non-belief...then you will think this book is nonsense. But for those of us you inexplicably think what the world tells us about itself is most likely wrong...well, you might end up loving this book.
Quotes...
After living nearly five years in a foreign country, I can't help but be struck by the clarity and logic of the way Europeans think, but it seems to me as an Asian that there's something they have lost sight of with their excessive clarity and their over abundance of logic, and I just can't go along with it....in the final analysis, the faith of the Europeans is conscious and rational, and these people reject anything they cannot slice into categories with their rationality. Pg117
But an Asian like me just can't make sharp distinctions and pass judgment on everything the way they do. Pg118
Every time I look at the River Ganges, I think of my Onion (Christ). The Ganges swallows up the ashes of every personas it flows along, rejecting neither the beggar woman who stretches out her finger-less hands for the murdered prime minister Gandhi. The river of love that is my Onion flows past, accepting all, rejecting neither the ugliest of men nor the filthiest. Pg 185
The Onion had died many long years ago, but he had been reborn in the lives of other people. Even after nearly two thousand years had passed, he had been reborn in those nuns, and had been reborn in Otsu. And just as Otsu had been taken off to a hospital on a litter, the nuns likewise disappeared in the river of people. Pg 215
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Chinook
2,242 reviews · 19 followers
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January 24, 2018
For a short book, Deep River covers a lot. It’s interesting to be gazing through a window at the lives of these Japanese men and women as they themselves gaze through a window at Europeans (mostly French) and Indians. The main themes of the book are religion and grief - characters contemplate rebirth, Japanese Buddhism, the differences between Japanese Christianity and European Christianity, Hinduism and a few personal constructions, like the man who thinks of God as being in communion with nature and a woman who eventually decides that humanity is all connected in their river of sorrows.
But the book also touches on the horrors of war, on marriage, of generational gaps in Japan, on sex and love, on work and its discontents, on travel and being respectful of new cultures. It is heavily influenced by two books, Moira and Thérèse Desqueyroux, which influence and mirror one woman’s choices.
Japanese novels tend, for me, to be somewhat hard to understand at a fundamental level - there always seems to be something presented as a universal feeling or action that baffles me. In this novel it’s the bullying of Otsu, which seems to the students to be inevitable and amusing. The tour guide later takes a similar attitude towards the tourists, one of wanting to have revenge against them for no reason that makes sense to me. It’s also sometimes hard to wrap my mind around the male-female relationships presented in Japanese novels.
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Tereza
139 reviews · 13 followers
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February 1, 2020
Moje první seznámení s Endóem (paradoxně s jeho poslední knihou) a hned láska na první začtení. Příběh o ztrátách a hledání, pošetilých tužbách srdce, o pomíjivosti času - to všechno na pozadí uměřeného Japonska, pořádkumilovné Francie a barevné, nespoutané a neuchopitelné Indie. Přečtěte si ji!
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Brennan
178 reviews · 2 followers
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November 13, 2021
Endo's infamous final novel, that had many quibbling over whether he finally abandoned the strict perimeters of Catholicism for a more generous pluralism/ecumenism. After all the reading I did for thesis, it seems inconclusive. His wife Junko indicates in a reflection a few years after his death that the pluralist beliefs of Otsū in Deep River are Endo's own. But a 1994 interview (the year of the novel's publication) with his close friend (and translator) William Johnston, Endo is recorded as saying "I have no doubt that dialogue is a very fine thing. But it has its limits. After all, when we Christians talk to Buddhists and learn from them, we must know where to draw the line. I would like to hear something about that." All that to say we can't really know. Nor should we.
I enjoyed the novel, but its cast of characters fell flat for me. I did not find them meticulously drawn or movingly real. Their monologues and dialogues were stilted. I always wonder what is lost in translation. Certain decisions by Gessel are odd--words like "pendulous" and "pestilential" stick out sorely. I did find the novel's cliffhanger ending reminiscent of Mark's gospel, an indication that Endo's spirituality remained Christocentric. Better than Volcano, worse than The Sea and Poison.
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Nguyet Minh
168 reviews · 95 followers
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August 22, 2021
Sông Hằng - một dòng sông linh thiêng của người Ấn giáo, là nơi mà dòng chảy của nó đón nhận tất cả những sinh mệnh bất kể đẳng cấp hay địa vị, là nơi mà dù xa đến đâu, dù bằng nhiều phương tiện khác nhau, người Ấn giáo nhất định phải tìm về để chết, để chờ chết hoặc để ngụp lặn tắm rửa trong đó với niềm tin sâu sắc rằng dòng nước thiêng ấy sẽ rửa sạch mọi tội lỗi và nghiệp chướng, tro của người qua đời được rải xuống sông sẽ giúp họ thoát khỏi kiếp luân hồi.
Nhóm du khách Nhật với những nghề nghiệp, hoàn cảnh và câu chuyện khác nhau cùng tham gia một tour du lịch đến Ấn Độ với những mục đích riêng nhưng có vẻ như đều liên quan đến việc kiếm tìm. Đó là ông Isobe mất đi người vợ và lời trăn trối của vợ về việc sẽ tái sinh và mong muốn ông hãy đi tìm bà. Đó là Mitsuko, nữ hộ lý vô thần dù đã kết hôn nhưng chưa bao giờ tìm thấy cảm xúc hoặc tình yêu đích thực của đời mình, cô là người đàn bà mà “ngọn lửa ân ái chẳng bao giờ cháy lên được.” Trong sự trống rỗng đó, cô luôn nghĩ đến Ootsu, một người bạn cũ với đức tin to lớn với Chúa và chỉ mong trở thành linh mục để tận hiến cho đức tin ấy. Cô đi tìm anh tại một tu viện ở Vasanari. Đó là ông Numata, một người chuyên viết chuyện đồng thoại, thế giới đồng thoại ông tạo ra sẽ dẫn ông thoát khỏi những mâu thuẫn và sự tàn bạo của cuộc sống với bệnh tật và mất mát. Đó là ông Kiguchi - một cựu chiến binh ở chiến trường Miến Điện năm xưa với ám ảnh khôn nguôi về đồng đội đã chết, về việc chứng kiến cảnh ăn thịt người của nhau để tồn tại và có sức giúp kẻ khác. Và đó là cặp vợ chồng nhiếp ảnh gia Sajou, tiêu biểu cho lớp trẻ chuộng chủ nghĩa thực dụng. Họ chỉ đơn giản đến Ấn Độ vì tò mò và mua sắm vài thứ kỷ niệm với thái độ khinh miệt nền văn hoá này.
Trưởng đoàn là anh chàng hướng dẫn viên Enami, người gắn bó với Ấn Độ nhiều năm và am hiểu văn hoá của nó đủ để bảo vệ nó khỏi sự khinh miệt từ khách Nhật. Anh có một khái niệm lạ lùng về thiên nhiên Ấn Độ, đó là vẻ “dâm tính” của nó, luôn “có cái gì đó cứ kích thích dục tính, âm ỉ trong cái không khí nóng bức của xứ Ấn”, xứ mà thiên nhiên mang hai mặt: sáng tạo và phá hủy. Khi sống lâu trong một nền văn hoá nào đó, người ta dễ trở nên sùng bái nó và định kiến với những quan điểm khác.
Tất cả họ tìm đến Vasanari, một thành phố rất Ấn Độ trong lòng Ấn Độ để trải nghiệm không gian thánh địa linh thiêng, nơi các dòng chảy giao nhau nhưng cũng là nơi mà tín ngưỡng và thực tế tạo thành những mảng đối lập của sạch sẽ và dơ dáy, từ bi và tàn nhẫn. Người ta tìm về Ấn Độ bởi hy vọng khám phá khởi nguồn của Phật giáo nguyên thuỷ nhưng những âm hưởng và tàn dư còn sót lại đã bị che lấp bởi Ấn giáo khổng lồ. Vậy nên, những vị khách ấy đã trở nên thất vọng và thờ ơ. Ông Isobe không ngừng thầm gọi vợ trong niềm mong mỏi gặp lại “tái sinh” của bà dọc bờ sông Hằng. Mitsuko vô tình gặp lại anh bạn linh mục trong một hình hài khác như một người Ấn giáo thực thụ với những xác chết vác trên vai đưa họ về dòng sông Ấn giáo, về với Chúa trong tâm thức của riêng anh. Những đám người ăn xin bị bệnh phong cùi, những xác động vật trôi sông, sự nóng bức ngột ngạt từ những giàn thiêu lộ thiên cùng mùi người sống, mùi tử khí tạo nên một bức tranh hỗn độn không thể tìm được ở nơi nào khác trên thế giới khi mà sự trật tự và ngăn nắp đã trở thành tiêu chuẩn.
Ông Numata chưa bao giờ cho rằng thiên nhiên là tàn bạo, ngược lại nó hẳn là cầu nối sự sống và con người. Ông đi tìm mua một con nhồng hoang để phóng sinh nó trở về với tự nhiên, là cách ông trả ơn cho việc giữ được sinh mệnh của mình qua bệnh hiểm nghèo. Còn Kiguchi chỉ mong mỏi tìm đến một ngôi chùa để cầu siêu cho các chiến sĩ tử trận năm xưa. Với tín đồ Ấn giáo, hữu ngạn sông Hằng mới chính là nơi linh thiêng nhất, còn tả ngạn biểu tượng cho sự dơ dáy.
Xuyên suốt câu truyện là những quan điểm tôn giáo và trăn trở về thần học trái ngược nhau của những người cùng dân tộc. Trong đó có cả Kito giáo, Phật giáo, Ấn giáo và cả vô thần. Đức tin như một tấm thảm được trải ra cho tất cả mọi người. Có kẻ chọn đi lên nó, có kẻ thích đi ở bên ngoài bằng đôi chân trần của mình. Niềm yêu kính một tôn giáo là thứ tình cảm tự nguyện và bền chặt của một cá nhân với đức tin đó, còn kẻ vô thần là một vị khách đứng bên ngoài quan sát bằng đôi mắt khách quan. Cũng có lúc, khi cuộc sống vắng bóng tâm tình hay chẳng còn gì để bấu víu vào nữa, người ta định hướng lại lối sống, chọn cách quay về với nơi họ từng thờ ơ, để tìm những kết nối tâm linh lấp đầy lại cảm giác cô đơn trống rỗng.
Cuộc đời đã sắp xếp sẵn mọi việc một cách thứ tự mà người sống trong đó chẳng thể biết trước được. Người rời bỏ thế gian sẽ không bao giờ có cơ hội được biết người còn sống sẽ phải đối diện với điều gì. Ý vị thâm sâu của đời sống chỉ có thể đến khi có nhiều đánh đổi và mất mát. Chỉ tình yêu son sắt mới khiến người ta chôn sâu ước nguyện được tái sinh để gặp lại người thương, để tiếp tục tha thiết và gắn bó.
Dọc bờ sông Hằng, họ ném đi ảo ảnh và tìm thấy thực tế chồng chất lên nhau, “tái sinh” hay hoàn toàn biến mất đều là thứ trực cảm tâm linh nằm trong sâu thẳm mỗi người. Vợ chồng nhiếp ảnh gia Sajou không đại diện cho bất cứ hình thức tâm linh nào, bất chấp mất mát đau buồn của người khác để thỏa mãn cho những đòi hỏi tầm thường của bản thân, vô tình đưa chàng linh mục Ootsu cận kề cái chết khi vừa phải bảo vệ sự trong sạch cho người chết đến thói hám danh của kẻ sống. Cuối truyện là sự kiện bà tổng thống Indira Gandhi bị ám sát đẩy niềm tin tôn giáo lẫn thực tế xã hội với bất đồng, bất bình đẳng lên đỉnh điểm. Dẫu là người đàn bà ăn xin rụng hết ngón tay hay bà thủ tướng bị ám sát cũng đều trở về với dòng sông Hằng, nơi đón nhận cả điều tốt đẹp lẫn nhơ bẩn.
Và hành trình tìm kiếm của nhóm khách Nhật ấy cũng khép lại. Điều họ tìm thấy chính là việc phải tiếp tục tồn tại với một tâm thế khác.
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Emilia P
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August 9, 2012
Dang, yo.
Shusaku Endo wrote this book I read called SILENCE. It's about Catholic missionaries to Japan in like the 1600s and it's kinda boring and pretty one-note but also well written and about an important culture clash. Shusaku Endo, a Japanese Catholic, is an intriguing character himself, and so one is impelled to read more of his work. Especially since it's featured in Season 6 of Lost. And with good reason.
Silence was written in the 60s and Deep River was written in the 90s. The openness and full-heartedness of the latter belies a man with the wisdom and sadness and understanding of a whole life between these books - but it's still very clearly the same dude -- a person who cares about faith and the soul, in a way that is very Japanese and un-Japanese at the same time.
I tried to explain this to my cooly-Japanophile husband - to say this book was about how Japanese people are so focused on appearing calm and collected on the surface but are tumultuous and sad and beautiful underneath, and that perhaps that calm exterior itself signals, hints at, a profundity of soul which we openly emotional Westerners can only dream about. So that's what I thought this book captured really well -- everyone suffers, and here is a story about how four or five (or six or seven!) emphatically Japanese people suffered, in their own cultural context, mostly in silence and bitterness, and how they dealt with it by tapping into the life-force which connects us across cultures, ages, faiths (there's a Japanese Catholic priest who dresses up like a Hindu to carry bodies to the creamation grounds, to wit) , etc, while on a trip to the Ganges, the river of rebirth, in India. It sounds hippy-dippy, but it isn't. It's about how big our small little lives are -- it's a character study above all, no big sweeping things happen in it, in the end. It's about accepting and bearing suffering, and trying to love. It's kind of sad. But it's sweet.
There's a quote on the back about how Endo is unsentimental, yet sympathetic, and that's a mark of great writing. I have to agree. This is a wonderful book. Read it, yo.
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Nick
489 reviews · 36 followers
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November 22, 2011
A group of Japanese tourists travel to India to visit historic sites from the life of the Buddha, without realizing that there are few modern Buddhists there. They wind up in Varanasi, by the side of the sacred, polluted Ganges, where people go to die. The group includes Isobe, who is looking for his reincarnated wife, who he ignored when she was alive and Mitsuko, who has found emptiness in a series of personae: hedonistic student, wife, volunteer at a hospital. Least affecting is Numada, a author of children's books and haunted by the fate of animals. Kiguchi's story is riveting, as he struggles not just with the memories of surviving the war in Burma, but of the soldier who sacrificed everything to save him. A thoughtful, meditative book, focussed on the struggle to define what truly matters, but not without a sly humor, as the fastidious Japanese try and mostly fail to cope with the overwhelming mass of humanity that is India, along with the comic foils, a pair of married tourists, her wishing to be in France, he trying to establish himself as a photographer. A book that lingers in the mind.
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A.K. Kulshreshth
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April 27, 2020
This is a great work. I listened to the audio book and will also read the print version.
Four very diverse characters, all Japanese, end up on a visit to the holy city of Varanasi, on the banks of the sacred river Ganga. Each of them has a different motive. In my interpretation, they get what they wanted to varying degrees, with none of them finding easy answers.
This is a book that works at many levels - from its range of settings in India, Japan, France, Burma and Manchuria, to its chronicling of events from Second World War Burma to Indira Gandhi's assassination and its characters and story arch. Two of its characters - Mitsuke and Otsu - are particularly fascinating.
It is necessary to mention that there are plenty of bloopers in this work. For example, the harmonium is not similar to a harmonica, contrary to Mr. Endo's assertion (assuming the translator is not to blame). In the audio book, Ganga is pronounced Gaan-Jaa. That is wrong, which is bad enough, but Gaanjaa also has a meaning. It means Opium in Hindi (and in other Indian languages)...
I put down the bloopers to poor quality control, and still rate this work highly because of its many strengths.
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Aubrey
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December 18, 2015
There is death. Yet, there is also life. There are long emotionally dead passages. Yet, there are also moments so charged with feeling they consume all in their path, carry them along for a bit and then leave behind ones willing to do anything to catch up. You have the search for reincarnated love ones, the search for emotional fulfillment, the search to reconcile death with life, the search for atonement, each person ever searching for something omnipresent in its never clearly defined state. And on it goes, this one period of time accepting all parts of life into its midst; the river mentioned in the pages embodies this, and will take everything in without spitting out any straightforward conclusions of its own. This is definitely a novel that won't get very far with a reader without some interpretation on their part; it is only fully enjoyed if one can see their own life experiences within the pages, and leave with a new understanding of just what it means to exist.
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Kristel
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December 7, 2019
This is the second book that I have read by Roman Catholic, Japanese Author Shūsaku Endō. His books, Silence and Deep River are both included on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list. Endō explores religion, especially Catholicism and the Japanese culture in his writings. In this book, set during the time period when Indira Ghandi, prime minister of India, was assassinated examines the lives of 4 Japanese who are on a tour to India to visit Buddhist sites.
1. Osamu Isobe, a man looking for his reincarnated wife.
2. Mitsuko Naruse, a former housewife who takes a trip both as a pilgrimage and to see her ex-boyfriend Otsu as atonement for mistreating him
3. Numada, a bird watcher who wants to set a bird in his possession free.
4. Kiguchi, a former WWII Imperial Japanese Army soldier.
These characters are on a journey, a pilgrimage and it is the story of their individual pilgrimage. The deep river is the Ganges where all peoples are taken in and flow together.
This was an interesting book and look at both Japanese and Indian culture. One point the author makes; I think, is that all Gods are the same God and that in seeking God, no matter which God, that Jesus is born again in that person. Another point in the book is that peoples, cultures, and religions are at odds with each other and in the best circumstances, conflict remains. I personally did not enjoy the descriptions of the river but also believe that the author did an excellent job of painting the picture of the river bank and of India (without using the camera). This book did not inspire me to want to visit India.
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Pip
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January 11, 2018
I found this novel so much more powerful that Silence, which was about a group of Portuguese missionaries who were tortured in Seventeenth Century Japan. Endo, a practising Catholic, returns to the theme of forcing a Christian to deny one's faith, an idea which seems quaintly anachronistic now, but which he must feel strongly about to reintroduce it again. This time he tracks a group of Japanese on a pilgrimage to Buddhist Holy Sites in India. One of them had ignored his wife until her dying plea for him to look for her reincarnated self allowed Endo an opportunity to explore the idea of reincarnation. Another protagonist is a children's novelist with an affinity for animals who believes that a mynah bird sacrificed himself so that the author could live. Although he is not Christian the sacrifice of Jesus is mirrored in his story. A third pilgrim had suffered atrociously in Burma. His life was saved by a comrade who ate human flesh in order to survive (another Christian symbol) but became an alcoholic because his guilt was terrible. The fourth protagonist is a woman who believes she has no capacity for love. She seems to be following a student friend whom she had seduced and then dumped after forcing him to deny his faith. That he should also be in Varanasi, striving to live a meaningful life by helping the Untouchables carry bodies to the Ghats, and that he should die saving a clueless tour member who is insensitively trying to photograph the funeral pyres, stretches coincidence to the limits, but the whole works because it is a nifty way to talk about contrasting religious beliefs.
I listened to an Audible version, read by David Holt. He was a pleasure to listen to, my only carp being that when he spoke as the clueless Japanese tourist he used an English dialect which seemed forced to me, but that was a minor quibble. The Deep River of the title was the Ganges, of course, but it also was the river of humanity, flowing on, absorbing individuals ceaselessly despite their various beliefs and idiosyncracies.
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Wen Cof
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November 17, 2014
Shusaku Endo’s book Deep River is about a journey to the river Ganges with a collection of tourists immersed in their own private spiritual struggles. Each character presents a face of spirituality as a whole. The characters face uncomfortable spiritual questions that aren’t always neatly answered. I loved the book because it brings together ideas of Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism.
Not only are the questions uncomfortable, so are the characters. The young woman Mitsuko, is so cruel, I almost stopped reading the book. But I’m glad I continued, because I realized that what she displays on the outside, so many of us are really hiding on the inside. She comments that the chaos and disorder of India is comforting to her, while the neatly organized gardens of Paris are disconcerting. There is something comforting about the chaos of India to Mitsuko, and there is something comforting about the chaos of the book to the reader. It jangles and fits together at odd angles. The ending is not a neat bow on a package, but is left open the reader to write their own conclusion.
So why did I love this book with ugly characters and an inharmonious plot? Because it didn’t try to explain or mollify their questions – it just took me on a journey as a reader through their process, and allowed me to draw my own conclusions about right, wrong, good, evil, life and death. It allowed me to also travel to the Ganges and observe and reflect.
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Christopher
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July 23, 2012
Another book I started with high hopes which failed to live up to my expectations. Endo's characters all end up seeming contrived and sometimes ridiculous in their actions and dialogue as the stories progress and they make their pilgrimages to the Hindu and Buddhist holy sites along the Ganges. I was hoping for some insight into Christianity as it is viewed and experienced in Japan and the Orient but was instead treated to an individual's ecumenistic dreams. And I think maybe he sets up some of his characters as straw men to let us all know what he thinks of modern materialistic Japan. The character's backgrounds are all somewhat interesting and I think Endo writes very well (or has been translated very well). However, no great events happen, no deep thoughts are offered, no great revelations are found, and ultimately, the book ends up being a rather boring read. I saw another review somewhere before I started reading this that said: "Deep River, Shallow Story" - I agree. It's not your everyday pulpish junk, so I bumped up the 2.5 stars to 3. I can't imagine spending time on another Endo work again.
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Long On Air
104 reviews · 37 followers
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January 31, 2020
Một quá trình cuốn hút bằng đậm đặc câu chuyện, đậm đặc trải nghiệm. Cái kết hay cụ thể hơn là câu trả lời cho trường hợp của từng nhân vật đều rất hay, ý nghĩa nhưng có phần hơi ngắn gọn. Khi đọc về cuối, thoáng qua mong muốn tác giả sẽ viết kĩ hơn, sâu hơn về tâm lí, cảm xúc từng nhân vật như ở phần đầu.
Nhưng có thể đấy là dụng ý của Endo Shusaku. Nhiều khi cách mà chúng ta đi qua mỗi trải nghiệm đã là một câu trả lời rồi, nên đến cuối cùng không cần phải diễn giải quá nhiều chăng?
Đặc biệt yêu thích cấu trúc của cuốn sách. Cách tác giả sắp xếp để từng nhân vật, từng câu chuyện xuất hiện rất thú vị. Các giá trị văn hoá, tôn giáo, tâm linh được truyền tải tinh tế, vừa vặn, không gây sự choáng ngợp hay cảm giác khó tiếp nhận cho độc giả.
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Melissa
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January 30, 2018
A very interesting study in faith as seen through the eyes of a group of Japanese tourists to India as they recall pivotal moments of their lives, experiences, and their personal struggles as they try to reconnect with past acquaintances, past loves, and reconcile past traumas through the lens of different faiths and depths of faith as they visit the intersection of Asian faith, with Buddhism, Catholicism, and Hinduism.
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Book Wormy
1,340 reviews · 18 followers
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December 26, 2019
For me this book was an interesting exploration of religious beliefs and how they are more alike than different when you break it down and look into it. We start by exploring Christianity and the idea of sacrificing yourself for a higher good before moving on to look at Buddhism and the ideas of reincarnation eventually we end up in India with Hinduism and the caste system which while there is a strict hierarchy kept in life in death everyone is equal and the River Ganges accepts all souls with no questions asked.
The Japanese tourists on the pilgrimage all have different reasons for going to India and while some personal quests are successful others (on the surface are not) everyone in the group is changed by the experience.
I liked the way the back stories of everyone on the trip are slowly revealed and how they all have subtle connections to each other. India is also beautifully bought to love in all her beauty and all her ugliness
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Joanne Fate
318 reviews · 3 followers
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January 22, 2021
This isn't my first Shusaku Endo book, and it won't be my last. The book starts with chapters that could be short stories in and of themselves. The main characters are all Japanese. Endo brings most of them to India on a tour. There's a lot about religions in this book. Endo was Roman Catholic, living in a mostly Buddhist country. When they travel to India they tour many religious places.
Parts of this book are sad. There's talk of death and the afterlife. The writing transcends all that. It is beautifully written and profound.
I'll stop there. I'm listening through the alphabet, partly to try to get to some books that have been in my library for a while.
I loved the narration as well. It suited the book.
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Emma Much
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April 15, 2022
very nice
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Ana Rita Ramos
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December 28, 2021
Lindíssimo.
Pessoas com motivações e histórias de vida muito diferentes partem para a Índia para se encontrarem dentro de si mesmas e/ ou para buscarem alguém. É-nos feita através dos seus olhos uma visita à Índia pobre e ao rio Ganges onde todos os indianos anseiam terminar a sua existência.
Um livro forte no conteúdo e no significado cheio de mensagens profundas e ensinamentos.
Quando terminei fiquei com a sensação de querer mais.
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Brent
91 reviews · 1 follower
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June 18, 2020
Unreliable narrator is a term many people are probably familiar with from literature class. It doesn't quite cover what is happening in this novel though, as it is written in third person. So the narrator is giving you, the reader, a (fairly) accurate view of the thoughts and actions of the characters (or at least an accurate view of the thoughts and the actions that each character finds to be important), but the characters in the story are, to varying degrees, rather unreliable.
They have incorrect knowledge that informs their thinking and decision making. They have prejudices and desires, and these prejudices and desire color the events they chose to focus on in the story. Many of the reviews have comments as, "Endo says..." or "the author is saying."
Endo is not saying anything in this book the way the statement, "Endo says..." would imply. Yes he wrote the story, and collected sections out of the lives of his characters, but it is his characters that are saying and doing things. Endo means something and it is our job as a reader to try and understand what he means by selections of events and thoughts that he choose to weave into a story.
For example, characters make statements about the various religions in the book, that as far as their knowledge and understanding goes, they believe to be true. Some of these statements are true and some of them are demonstrably false. As a reader you can choose two options, Endo didn't bother to do his homework and made some mistakes (or some variation there of), or he knew the statement was false, but allowed his character to say it because it was something his character believed.
Depending on which option you choose, it will change how you interpret the book. There is also a risk involved because if you the reader does not know that the character is mistaken, you are less likely to ask further questions of the text.
In the story there is one, and possibly two, character(s) who believe that Mary is a Goddess in the Roman Catholic Church. This is a common confusion that many people have, even other non-Roman Catholic Christians can misunderstand who Roman Catholics believe.
But Endo was a Roman Catholic and he knew what he believed. So why would his characters state the Mary was a Goddess? If it is something that other Christian misunderstand about Roman Catholics, think how confusing it must be for someone who doesn't come from a Christian background (as most of his characters don't) to try to understand Mary's place in Roman Catholic theology.
That is just the Christian misunderstanding his characters have. Some of them make equally incorrect statements about Hinduism and Buddhism. And here is where part of the problem may be, Western readers are probably as ignorant of Hinduism and Buddhism as Asian readers are likely to be of Christianity. So when someone is reading along, and they come to a Hindu goddess named in the work, they are likely to think, "Oh okay, that is how it is. Good to know," and keep reading. But a large part of the story is the incongruity of the beliefs his characters hold (what they think Catholics believe about Mary), and what is true (what Catholics really believe about Mary). What the characters believe cause them to misinterpret many of the actions of others in the book. One of the characters, a Japanese tour guide in Indian, even muses on how his fellow Japanese probably don't understand what the meaning of religious practice is to Hindus, while he is (if I am reading the text properly) misunderstanding the practice himself.
So if you think Endo was a sloppy writer, you may come to the conclusion that the book is about all religions lead to the same place and we should all get along. But if you think Endo was purposeful in his craft, then that leads to some more interesting questions.
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George
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December 12, 2022
3.5 stars. An original, intelligent, character based novel about Japanese tourists undergoing varieties of life crisis, visiting the river Ganges, at Varanasi, India, during the week of the assassination of the Indian Prime Minister. All the characters seek reconciliation, self acceptance or fulfillment.
One character is a World War 2 veteran haunted by memories of his experiences in Burma, another, Isobe, is coming to terms with his wife’s death from cancer and her comments on reincarnation. Otsu, a Japanese Catholic, never fully accepted by the church elders, has followed his faith in God, to India. Misuko is a woman seeking forgiveness for once seducing Otsu in a frivolous attempt to undermine his faith when she was a student.
This book was first published in 1993.
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David Rush
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December 17, 2017
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. Matthew 5:5
Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles 1 Corinthians 1:22-25
I wonder at the faith and Christianity of Shusaku Endo a thoughtful, reflectfull Japanese Christian. Did he feel as at odds with his faith and heritage as the central character, Otso, of Deep Rivet?Did he feel himself as outcast as Otsu who identified with the lowest caste of India?
I will draw a conclusion that Endo found the essence of Christ in the suffering sacrifice rather that the victorious resurrected champion of the prosperity gospel. I think Endo saw “true” Christianity in the comfort of the poor and meek.
I think more people would NOT like this book than do. In Endo's world the avenues of success only bring a hollow happiness. In my (American) world the general feel I get is that the Christianity brings a victorious uplifting life full of prosperity. Endo would have none of that. For him you only get to the truth by embracing the poor and outcast.
So....do you think this life is a project of empirical pluses and minuses and the point is to end up with a positive when you die? And the “authentic” life is one that discounts anything that is not measurable, and religion is at best an illusion and at worst the bane of humanity?
If so, this book will be nonsense to you.
Are your religions beliefs secure and do they provide reason and stability that explains everything? If so, this book will be nonsense to you.
There are a number of “themes” involving connecting with something. First, for Otsu, is the notion that Christ is found most clearly in the rejected. Which leads him, as a Catholic priest, to be shunned by his order and end up adopting the clothes of a Hindu untouchable who's only task is to carry other discarded, poor, and dying people to the river Ganges just before they die.
And then there is this idea that our existence is actually a river of humanity and we are all trying to connect with it. I think Endo is saying we use most of our energy avoiding the very things that really do give us the connection to everything else we need.
For Miss Naruse she wants to experience actual love, not the kind that is actually a role that people adopt with enthusiasm.
For Mr Kiguchi it is honoring his fellow Japanese soldiers who suffered a burtal retreat in WWII in Burma.
For Mr Numada it is a mystical connection with nature embodied by a Myna bird.
And finally for Mr Isobe, he is only recognizing his connection with his wife after she dies after telling him to look for her to be reborn somewhere in the world.
If I were to write a high school report about it I think I would come up with something about the Deep River of the the Ganges is much like life itself. And that the road of death Mr. Kiguchi was on is also much like life itself. In that we will all die sometime.
If you are sure of yourself, in your belief or non-belief...then you will think this book is nonsense. But for those of us you inexplicably think what the world tells us about itself is most likely wrong...well, you might end up loving this book.
Quotes...
After living nearly five years in a foreign country, I can't help but be struck by the clarity and logic of the way Europeans think, but it seems to me as an Asian that there's something they have lost sight of with their excessive clarity and their over abundance of logic, and I just can't go along with it....in the final analysis, the faith of the Europeans is conscious and rational, and these people reject anything they cannot slice into categories with their rationality. Pg117
But an Asian like me just can't make sharp distinctions and pass judgment on everything the way they do. Pg118
Every time I look at the River Ganges, I think of my Onion (Christ). The Ganges swallows up the ashes of every personas it flows along, rejecting neither the beggar woman who stretches out her finger-less hands for the murdered prime minister Gandhi. The river of love that is my Onion flows past, accepting all, rejecting neither the ugliest of men nor the filthiest. Pg 185
The Onion had died many long years ago, but he had been reborn in the lives of other people. Even after nearly two thousand years had passed, he had been reborn in those nuns, and had been reborn in Otsu. And just as Otsu had been taken off to a hospital on a litter, the nuns likewise disappeared in the river of people. Pg 215
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Chinook
2,242 reviews · 19 followers
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January 24, 2018
For a short book, Deep River covers a lot. It’s interesting to be gazing through a window at the lives of these Japanese men and women as they themselves gaze through a window at Europeans (mostly French) and Indians. The main themes of the book are religion and grief - characters contemplate rebirth, Japanese Buddhism, the differences between Japanese Christianity and European Christianity, Hinduism and a few personal constructions, like the man who thinks of God as being in communion with nature and a woman who eventually decides that humanity is all connected in their river of sorrows.
But the book also touches on the horrors of war, on marriage, of generational gaps in Japan, on sex and love, on work and its discontents, on travel and being respectful of new cultures. It is heavily influenced by two books, Moira and Thérèse Desqueyroux, which influence and mirror one woman’s choices.
Japanese novels tend, for me, to be somewhat hard to understand at a fundamental level - there always seems to be something presented as a universal feeling or action that baffles me. In this novel it’s the bullying of Otsu, which seems to the students to be inevitable and amusing. The tour guide later takes a similar attitude towards the tourists, one of wanting to have revenge against them for no reason that makes sense to me. It’s also sometimes hard to wrap my mind around the male-female relationships presented in Japanese novels.
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Tereza
139 reviews · 13 followers
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February 1, 2020
Moje první seznámení s Endóem (paradoxně s jeho poslední knihou) a hned láska na první začtení. Příběh o ztrátách a hledání, pošetilých tužbách srdce, o pomíjivosti času - to všechno na pozadí uměřeného Japonska, pořádkumilovné Francie a barevné, nespoutané a neuchopitelné Indie. Přečtěte si ji!
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Brennan
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November 13, 2021
Endo's infamous final novel, that had many quibbling over whether he finally abandoned the strict perimeters of Catholicism for a more generous pluralism/ecumenism. After all the reading I did for thesis, it seems inconclusive. His wife Junko indicates in a reflection a few years after his death that the pluralist beliefs of Otsū in Deep River are Endo's own. But a 1994 interview (the year of the novel's publication) with his close friend (and translator) William Johnston, Endo is recorded as saying "I have no doubt that dialogue is a very fine thing. But it has its limits. After all, when we Christians talk to Buddhists and learn from them, we must know where to draw the line. I would like to hear something about that." All that to say we can't really know. Nor should we.
I enjoyed the novel, but its cast of characters fell flat for me. I did not find them meticulously drawn or movingly real. Their monologues and dialogues were stilted. I always wonder what is lost in translation. Certain decisions by Gessel are odd--words like "pendulous" and "pestilential" stick out sorely. I did find the novel's cliffhanger ending reminiscent of Mark's gospel, an indication that Endo's spirituality remained Christocentric. Better than Volcano, worse than The Sea and Poison.
endō
religious-fic
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Nguyet Minh
168 reviews · 95 followers
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August 22, 2021
Sông Hằng - một dòng sông linh thiêng của người Ấn giáo, là nơi mà dòng chảy của nó đón nhận tất cả những sinh mệnh bất kể đẳng cấp hay địa vị, là nơi mà dù xa đến đâu, dù bằng nhiều phương tiện khác nhau, người Ấn giáo nhất định phải tìm về để chết, để chờ chết hoặc để ngụp lặn tắm rửa trong đó với niềm tin sâu sắc rằng dòng nước thiêng ấy sẽ rửa sạch mọi tội lỗi và nghiệp chướng, tro của người qua đời được rải xuống sông sẽ giúp họ thoát khỏi kiếp luân hồi.
Nhóm du khách Nhật với những nghề nghiệp, hoàn cảnh và câu chuyện khác nhau cùng tham gia một tour du lịch đến Ấn Độ với những mục đích riêng nhưng có vẻ như đều liên quan đến việc kiếm tìm. Đó là ông Isobe mất đi người vợ và lời trăn trối của vợ về việc sẽ tái sinh và mong muốn ông hãy đi tìm bà. Đó là Mitsuko, nữ hộ lý vô thần dù đã kết hôn nhưng chưa bao giờ tìm thấy cảm xúc hoặc tình yêu đích thực của đời mình, cô là người đàn bà mà “ngọn lửa ân ái chẳng bao giờ cháy lên được.” Trong sự trống rỗng đó, cô luôn nghĩ đến Ootsu, một người bạn cũ với đức tin to lớn với Chúa và chỉ mong trở thành linh mục để tận hiến cho đức tin ấy. Cô đi tìm anh tại một tu viện ở Vasanari. Đó là ông Numata, một người chuyên viết chuyện đồng thoại, thế giới đồng thoại ông tạo ra sẽ dẫn ông thoát khỏi những mâu thuẫn và sự tàn bạo của cuộc sống với bệnh tật và mất mát. Đó là ông Kiguchi - một cựu chiến binh ở chiến trường Miến Điện năm xưa với ám ảnh khôn nguôi về đồng đội đã chết, về việc chứng kiến cảnh ăn thịt người của nhau để tồn tại và có sức giúp kẻ khác. Và đó là cặp vợ chồng nhiếp ảnh gia Sajou, tiêu biểu cho lớp trẻ chuộng chủ nghĩa thực dụng. Họ chỉ đơn giản đến Ấn Độ vì tò mò và mua sắm vài thứ kỷ niệm với thái độ khinh miệt nền văn hoá này.
Trưởng đoàn là anh chàng hướng dẫn viên Enami, người gắn bó với Ấn Độ nhiều năm và am hiểu văn hoá của nó đủ để bảo vệ nó khỏi sự khinh miệt từ khách Nhật. Anh có một khái niệm lạ lùng về thiên nhiên Ấn Độ, đó là vẻ “dâm tính” của nó, luôn “có cái gì đó cứ kích thích dục tính, âm ỉ trong cái không khí nóng bức của xứ Ấn”, xứ mà thiên nhiên mang hai mặt: sáng tạo và phá hủy. Khi sống lâu trong một nền văn hoá nào đó, người ta dễ trở nên sùng bái nó và định kiến với những quan điểm khác.
Tất cả họ tìm đến Vasanari, một thành phố rất Ấn Độ trong lòng Ấn Độ để trải nghiệm không gian thánh địa linh thiêng, nơi các dòng chảy giao nhau nhưng cũng là nơi mà tín ngưỡng và thực tế tạo thành những mảng đối lập của sạch sẽ và dơ dáy, từ bi và tàn nhẫn. Người ta tìm về Ấn Độ bởi hy vọng khám phá khởi nguồn của Phật giáo nguyên thuỷ nhưng những âm hưởng và tàn dư còn sót lại đã bị che lấp bởi Ấn giáo khổng lồ. Vậy nên, những vị khách ấy đã trở nên thất vọng và thờ ơ. Ông Isobe không ngừng thầm gọi vợ trong niềm mong mỏi gặp lại “tái sinh” của bà dọc bờ sông Hằng. Mitsuko vô tình gặp lại anh bạn linh mục trong một hình hài khác như một người Ấn giáo thực thụ với những xác chết vác trên vai đưa họ về dòng sông Ấn giáo, về với Chúa trong tâm thức của riêng anh. Những đám người ăn xin bị bệnh phong cùi, những xác động vật trôi sông, sự nóng bức ngột ngạt từ những giàn thiêu lộ thiên cùng mùi người sống, mùi tử khí tạo nên một bức tranh hỗn độn không thể tìm được ở nơi nào khác trên thế giới khi mà sự trật tự và ngăn nắp đã trở thành tiêu chuẩn.
Ông Numata chưa bao giờ cho rằng thiên nhiên là tàn bạo, ngược lại nó hẳn là cầu nối sự sống và con người. Ông đi tìm mua một con nhồng hoang để phóng sinh nó trở về với tự nhiên, là cách ông trả ơn cho việc giữ được sinh mệnh của mình qua bệnh hiểm nghèo. Còn Kiguchi chỉ mong mỏi tìm đến một ngôi chùa để cầu siêu cho các chiến sĩ tử trận năm xưa. Với tín đồ Ấn giáo, hữu ngạn sông Hằng mới chính là nơi linh thiêng nhất, còn tả ngạn biểu tượng cho sự dơ dáy.
Xuyên suốt câu truyện là những quan điểm tôn giáo và trăn trở về thần học trái ngược nhau của những người cùng dân tộc. Trong đó có cả Kito giáo, Phật giáo, Ấn giáo và cả vô thần. Đức tin như một tấm thảm được trải ra cho tất cả mọi người. Có kẻ chọn đi lên nó, có kẻ thích đi ở bên ngoài bằng đôi chân trần của mình. Niềm yêu kính một tôn giáo là thứ tình cảm tự nguyện và bền chặt của một cá nhân với đức tin đó, còn kẻ vô thần là một vị khách đứng bên ngoài quan sát bằng đôi mắt khách quan. Cũng có lúc, khi cuộc sống vắng bóng tâm tình hay chẳng còn gì để bấu víu vào nữa, người ta định hướng lại lối sống, chọn cách quay về với nơi họ từng thờ ơ, để tìm những kết nối tâm linh lấp đầy lại cảm giác cô đơn trống rỗng.
Cuộc đời đã sắp xếp sẵn mọi việc một cách thứ tự mà người sống trong đó chẳng thể biết trước được. Người rời bỏ thế gian sẽ không bao giờ có cơ hội được biết người còn sống sẽ phải đối diện với điều gì. Ý vị thâm sâu của đời sống chỉ có thể đến khi có nhiều đánh đổi và mất mát. Chỉ tình yêu son sắt mới khiến người ta chôn sâu ước nguyện được tái sinh để gặp lại người thương, để tiếp tục tha thiết và gắn bó.
Dọc bờ sông Hằng, họ ném đi ảo ảnh và tìm thấy thực tế chồng chất lên nhau, “tái sinh” hay hoàn toàn biến mất đều là thứ trực cảm tâm linh nằm trong sâu thẳm mỗi người. Vợ chồng nhiếp ảnh gia Sajou không đại diện cho bất cứ hình thức tâm linh nào, bất chấp mất mát đau buồn của người khác để thỏa mãn cho những đòi hỏi tầm thường của bản thân, vô tình đưa chàng linh mục Ootsu cận kề cái chết khi vừa phải bảo vệ sự trong sạch cho người chết đến thói hám danh của kẻ sống. Cuối truyện là sự kiện bà tổng thống Indira Gandhi bị ám sát đẩy niềm tin tôn giáo lẫn thực tế xã hội với bất đồng, bất bình đẳng lên đỉnh điểm. Dẫu là người đàn bà ăn xin rụng hết ngón tay hay bà thủ tướng bị ám sát cũng đều trở về với dòng sông Hằng, nơi đón nhận cả điều tốt đẹp lẫn nhơ bẩn.
Và hành trình tìm kiếm của nhóm khách Nhật ấy cũng khép lại. Điều họ tìm thấy chính là việc phải tiếp tục tồn tại với một tâm thế khác.
tác-giả-nhật
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Emilia P
1,705 reviews · 49 followers
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August 9, 2012
Dang, yo.
Shusaku Endo wrote this book I read called SILENCE. It's about Catholic missionaries to Japan in like the 1600s and it's kinda boring and pretty one-note but also well written and about an important culture clash. Shusaku Endo, a Japanese Catholic, is an intriguing character himself, and so one is impelled to read more of his work. Especially since it's featured in Season 6 of Lost. And with good reason.
Silence was written in the 60s and Deep River was written in the 90s. The openness and full-heartedness of the latter belies a man with the wisdom and sadness and understanding of a whole life between these books - but it's still very clearly the same dude -- a person who cares about faith and the soul, in a way that is very Japanese and un-Japanese at the same time.
I tried to explain this to my cooly-Japanophile husband - to say this book was about how Japanese people are so focused on appearing calm and collected on the surface but are tumultuous and sad and beautiful underneath, and that perhaps that calm exterior itself signals, hints at, a profundity of soul which we openly emotional Westerners can only dream about. So that's what I thought this book captured really well -- everyone suffers, and here is a story about how four or five (or six or seven!) emphatically Japanese people suffered, in their own cultural context, mostly in silence and bitterness, and how they dealt with it by tapping into the life-force which connects us across cultures, ages, faiths (there's a Japanese Catholic priest who dresses up like a Hindu to carry bodies to the creamation grounds, to wit) , etc, while on a trip to the Ganges, the river of rebirth, in India. It sounds hippy-dippy, but it isn't. It's about how big our small little lives are -- it's a character study above all, no big sweeping things happen in it, in the end. It's about accepting and bearing suffering, and trying to love. It's kind of sad. But it's sweet.
There's a quote on the back about how Endo is unsentimental, yet sympathetic, and that's a mark of great writing. I have to agree. This is a wonderful book. Read it, yo.
lost
real-books
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Nick
489 reviews · 36 followers
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November 22, 2011
A group of Japanese tourists travel to India to visit historic sites from the life of the Buddha, without realizing that there are few modern Buddhists there. They wind up in Varanasi, by the side of the sacred, polluted Ganges, where people go to die. The group includes Isobe, who is looking for his reincarnated wife, who he ignored when she was alive and Mitsuko, who has found emptiness in a series of personae: hedonistic student, wife, volunteer at a hospital. Least affecting is Numada, a author of children's books and haunted by the fate of animals. Kiguchi's story is riveting, as he struggles not just with the memories of surviving the war in Burma, but of the soldier who sacrificed everything to save him. A thoughtful, meditative book, focussed on the struggle to define what truly matters, but not without a sly humor, as the fastidious Japanese try and mostly fail to cope with the overwhelming mass of humanity that is India, along with the comic foils, a pair of married tourists, her wishing to be in France, he trying to establish himself as a photographer. A book that lingers in the mind.
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A.K. Kulshreshth
7 books · 54 followers
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April 27, 2020
This is a great work. I listened to the audio book and will also read the print version.
Four very diverse characters, all Japanese, end up on a visit to the holy city of Varanasi, on the banks of the sacred river Ganga. Each of them has a different motive. In my interpretation, they get what they wanted to varying degrees, with none of them finding easy answers.
This is a book that works at many levels - from its range of settings in India, Japan, France, Burma and Manchuria, to its chronicling of events from Second World War Burma to Indira Gandhi's assassination and its characters and story arch. Two of its characters - Mitsuke and Otsu - are particularly fascinating.
It is necessary to mention that there are plenty of bloopers in this work. For example, the harmonium is not similar to a harmonica, contrary to Mr. Endo's assertion (assuming the translator is not to blame). In the audio book, Ganga is pronounced Gaan-Jaa. That is wrong, which is bad enough, but Gaanjaa also has a meaning. It means Opium in Hindi (and in other Indian languages)...
I put down the bloopers to poor quality control, and still rate this work highly because of its many strengths.
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Aubrey
1,287 reviews · 731 followers
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December 18, 2015
There is death. Yet, there is also life. There are long emotionally dead passages. Yet, there are also moments so charged with feeling they consume all in their path, carry them along for a bit and then leave behind ones willing to do anything to catch up. You have the search for reincarnated love ones, the search for emotional fulfillment, the search to reconcile death with life, the search for atonement, each person ever searching for something omnipresent in its never clearly defined state. And on it goes, this one period of time accepting all parts of life into its midst; the river mentioned in the pages embodies this, and will take everything in without spitting out any straightforward conclusions of its own. This is definitely a novel that won't get very far with a reader without some interpretation on their part; it is only fully enjoyed if one can see their own life experiences within the pages, and leave with a new understanding of just what it means to exist.
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Kristel
1,503 reviews · 40 followers
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December 7, 2019
This is the second book that I have read by Roman Catholic, Japanese Author Shūsaku Endō. His books, Silence and Deep River are both included on the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list. Endō explores religion, especially Catholicism and the Japanese culture in his writings. In this book, set during the time period when Indira Ghandi, prime minister of India, was assassinated examines the lives of 4 Japanese who are on a tour to India to visit Buddhist sites.
1. Osamu Isobe, a man looking for his reincarnated wife.
2. Mitsuko Naruse, a former housewife who takes a trip both as a pilgrimage and to see her ex-boyfriend Otsu as atonement for mistreating him
3. Numada, a bird watcher who wants to set a bird in his possession free.
4. Kiguchi, a former WWII Imperial Japanese Army soldier.
These characters are on a journey, a pilgrimage and it is the story of their individual pilgrimage. The deep river is the Ganges where all peoples are taken in and flow together.
This was an interesting book and look at both Japanese and Indian culture. One point the author makes; I think, is that all Gods are the same God and that in seeking God, no matter which God, that Jesus is born again in that person. Another point in the book is that peoples, cultures, and religions are at odds with each other and in the best circumstances, conflict remains. I personally did not enjoy the descriptions of the river but also believe that the author did an excellent job of painting the picture of the river bank and of India (without using the camera). This book did not inspire me to want to visit India.
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Pip
428 reviews · 7 followers
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January 11, 2018
I found this novel so much more powerful that Silence, which was about a group of Portuguese missionaries who were tortured in Seventeenth Century Japan. Endo, a practising Catholic, returns to the theme of forcing a Christian to deny one's faith, an idea which seems quaintly anachronistic now, but which he must feel strongly about to reintroduce it again. This time he tracks a group of Japanese on a pilgrimage to Buddhist Holy Sites in India. One of them had ignored his wife until her dying plea for him to look for her reincarnated self allowed Endo an opportunity to explore the idea of reincarnation. Another protagonist is a children's novelist with an affinity for animals who believes that a mynah bird sacrificed himself so that the author could live. Although he is not Christian the sacrifice of Jesus is mirrored in his story. A third pilgrim had suffered atrociously in Burma. His life was saved by a comrade who ate human flesh in order to survive (another Christian symbol) but became an alcoholic because his guilt was terrible. The fourth protagonist is a woman who believes she has no capacity for love. She seems to be following a student friend whom she had seduced and then dumped after forcing him to deny his faith. That he should also be in Varanasi, striving to live a meaningful life by helping the Untouchables carry bodies to the Ghats, and that he should die saving a clueless tour member who is insensitively trying to photograph the funeral pyres, stretches coincidence to the limits, but the whole works because it is a nifty way to talk about contrasting religious beliefs.
I listened to an Audible version, read by David Holt. He was a pleasure to listen to, my only carp being that when he spoke as the clueless Japanese tourist he used an English dialect which seemed forced to me, but that was a minor quibble. The Deep River of the title was the Ganges, of course, but it also was the river of humanity, flowing on, absorbing individuals ceaselessly despite their various beliefs and idiosyncracies.
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Wen Cof
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November 17, 2014
Shusaku Endo’s book Deep River is about a journey to the river Ganges with a collection of tourists immersed in their own private spiritual struggles. Each character presents a face of spirituality as a whole. The characters face uncomfortable spiritual questions that aren’t always neatly answered. I loved the book because it brings together ideas of Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism.
Not only are the questions uncomfortable, so are the characters. The young woman Mitsuko, is so cruel, I almost stopped reading the book. But I’m glad I continued, because I realized that what she displays on the outside, so many of us are really hiding on the inside. She comments that the chaos and disorder of India is comforting to her, while the neatly organized gardens of Paris are disconcerting. There is something comforting about the chaos of India to Mitsuko, and there is something comforting about the chaos of the book to the reader. It jangles and fits together at odd angles. The ending is not a neat bow on a package, but is left open the reader to write their own conclusion.
So why did I love this book with ugly characters and an inharmonious plot? Because it didn’t try to explain or mollify their questions – it just took me on a journey as a reader through their process, and allowed me to draw my own conclusions about right, wrong, good, evil, life and death. It allowed me to also travel to the Ganges and observe and reflect.
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Christopher
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July 23, 2012
Another book I started with high hopes which failed to live up to my expectations. Endo's characters all end up seeming contrived and sometimes ridiculous in their actions and dialogue as the stories progress and they make their pilgrimages to the Hindu and Buddhist holy sites along the Ganges. I was hoping for some insight into Christianity as it is viewed and experienced in Japan and the Orient but was instead treated to an individual's ecumenistic dreams. And I think maybe he sets up some of his characters as straw men to let us all know what he thinks of modern materialistic Japan. The character's backgrounds are all somewhat interesting and I think Endo writes very well (or has been translated very well). However, no great events happen, no deep thoughts are offered, no great revelations are found, and ultimately, the book ends up being a rather boring read. I saw another review somewhere before I started reading this that said: "Deep River, Shallow Story" - I agree. It's not your everyday pulpish junk, so I bumped up the 2.5 stars to 3. I can't imagine spending time on another Endo work again.
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Long On Air
104 reviews · 37 followers
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January 31, 2020
Một quá trình cuốn hút bằng đậm đặc câu chuyện, đậm đặc trải nghiệm. Cái kết hay cụ thể hơn là câu trả lời cho trường hợp của từng nhân vật đều rất hay, ý nghĩa nhưng có phần hơi ngắn gọn. Khi đọc về cuối, thoáng qua mong muốn tác giả sẽ viết kĩ hơn, sâu hơn về tâm lí, cảm xúc từng nhân vật như ở phần đầu.
Nhưng có thể đấy là dụng ý của Endo Shusaku. Nhiều khi cách mà chúng ta đi qua mỗi trải nghiệm đã là một câu trả lời rồi, nên đến cuối cùng không cần phải diễn giải quá nhiều chăng?
Đặc biệt yêu thích cấu trúc của cuốn sách. Cách tác giả sắp xếp để từng nhân vật, từng câu chuyện xuất hiện rất thú vị. Các giá trị văn hoá, tôn giáo, tâm linh được truyền tải tinh tế, vừa vặn, không gây sự choáng ngợp hay cảm giác khó tiếp nhận cho độc giả.
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Melissa
1,067 reviews · 72 followers
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January 30, 2018
A very interesting study in faith as seen through the eyes of a group of Japanese tourists to India as they recall pivotal moments of their lives, experiences, and their personal struggles as they try to reconnect with past acquaintances, past loves, and reconcile past traumas through the lens of different faiths and depths of faith as they visit the intersection of Asian faith, with Buddhism, Catholicism, and Hinduism.
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Book Wormy
1,340 reviews · 18 followers
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December 26, 2019
For me this book was an interesting exploration of religious beliefs and how they are more alike than different when you break it down and look into it. We start by exploring Christianity and the idea of sacrificing yourself for a higher good before moving on to look at Buddhism and the ideas of reincarnation eventually we end up in India with Hinduism and the caste system which while there is a strict hierarchy kept in life in death everyone is equal and the River Ganges accepts all souls with no questions asked.
The Japanese tourists on the pilgrimage all have different reasons for going to India and while some personal quests are successful others (on the surface are not) everyone in the group is changed by the experience.
I liked the way the back stories of everyone on the trip are slowly revealed and how they all have subtle connections to each other. India is also beautifully bought to love in all her beauty and all her ugliness
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Joanne Fate
318 reviews · 3 followers
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January 22, 2021
This isn't my first Shusaku Endo book, and it won't be my last. The book starts with chapters that could be short stories in and of themselves. The main characters are all Japanese. Endo brings most of them to India on a tour. There's a lot about religions in this book. Endo was Roman Catholic, living in a mostly Buddhist country. When they travel to India they tour many religious places.
Parts of this book are sad. There's talk of death and the afterlife. The writing transcends all that. It is beautifully written and profound.
I'll stop there. I'm listening through the alphabet, partly to try to get to some books that have been in my library for a while.
I loved the narration as well. It suited the book.
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Emma Much
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April 15, 2022
very nice
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Ana Rita Ramos
140 reviews · 2 followers
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December 28, 2021
Lindíssimo.
Pessoas com motivações e histórias de vida muito diferentes partem para a Índia para se encontrarem dentro de si mesmas e/ ou para buscarem alguém. É-nos feita através dos seus olhos uma visita à Índia pobre e ao rio Ganges onde todos os indianos anseiam terminar a sua existência.
Um livro forte no conteúdo e no significado cheio de mensagens profundas e ensinamentos.
Quando terminei fiquei com a sensação de querer mais.
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Brent
91 reviews · 1 follower
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June 18, 2020
Unreliable narrator is a term many people are probably familiar with from literature class. It doesn't quite cover what is happening in this novel though, as it is written in third person. So the narrator is giving you, the reader, a (fairly) accurate view of the thoughts and actions of the characters (or at least an accurate view of the thoughts and the actions that each character finds to be important), but the characters in the story are, to varying degrees, rather unreliable.
They have incorrect knowledge that informs their thinking and decision making. They have prejudices and desires, and these prejudices and desire color the events they chose to focus on in the story. Many of the reviews have comments as, "Endo says..." or "the author is saying."
Endo is not saying anything in this book the way the statement, "Endo says..." would imply. Yes he wrote the story, and collected sections out of the lives of his characters, but it is his characters that are saying and doing things. Endo means something and it is our job as a reader to try and understand what he means by selections of events and thoughts that he choose to weave into a story.
For example, characters make statements about the various religions in the book, that as far as their knowledge and understanding goes, they believe to be true. Some of these statements are true and some of them are demonstrably false. As a reader you can choose two options, Endo didn't bother to do his homework and made some mistakes (or some variation there of), or he knew the statement was false, but allowed his character to say it because it was something his character believed.
Depending on which option you choose, it will change how you interpret the book. There is also a risk involved because if you the reader does not know that the character is mistaken, you are less likely to ask further questions of the text.
In the story there is one, and possibly two, character(s) who believe that Mary is a Goddess in the Roman Catholic Church. This is a common confusion that many people have, even other non-Roman Catholic Christians can misunderstand who Roman Catholics believe.
But Endo was a Roman Catholic and he knew what he believed. So why would his characters state the Mary was a Goddess? If it is something that other Christian misunderstand about Roman Catholics, think how confusing it must be for someone who doesn't come from a Christian background (as most of his characters don't) to try to understand Mary's place in Roman Catholic theology.
That is just the Christian misunderstanding his characters have. Some of them make equally incorrect statements about Hinduism and Buddhism. And here is where part of the problem may be, Western readers are probably as ignorant of Hinduism and Buddhism as Asian readers are likely to be of Christianity. So when someone is reading along, and they come to a Hindu goddess named in the work, they are likely to think, "Oh okay, that is how it is. Good to know," and keep reading. But a large part of the story is the incongruity of the beliefs his characters hold (what they think Catholics believe about Mary), and what is true (what Catholics really believe about Mary). What the characters believe cause them to misinterpret many of the actions of others in the book. One of the characters, a Japanese tour guide in Indian, even muses on how his fellow Japanese probably don't understand what the meaning of religious practice is to Hindus, while he is (if I am reading the text properly) misunderstanding the practice himself.
So if you think Endo was a sloppy writer, you may come to the conclusion that the book is about all religions lead to the same place and we should all get along. But if you think Endo was purposeful in his craft, then that leads to some more interesting questions.
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Daniel Warriner
18 books · 57 followers
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March 16, 2020
Shusaku Endo's 1993 novel Deep River (深い河, or Fukai Kawa) follows a group of Japanese tourists on a tour of Buddhist sites in India. Each is searching for some form of spiritual understanding or healing. Isobe lost his wife years before and ruminates on reincarnation. Mitsuko, my favorite character in the novel for her type and how well Endo developed her, is a cynical nurse who believes she's incapable of love, and who mocks the priest Otsu for his devotion to Christianity and its "Onion," the name she feels more comfortable calling its god. Kiguchi seems forever stuck in painful memories of the war and Japanese withdrawal from Burma. While Numada, a writer who seeks salvation from nature, is certain that a myna died in his place so that he could live.
The novel pits a number of themes and philosophies against each other, such as East and West, Hinduism, Buddhism and Christianity, and egotism and compassion. We're also given a wide array of perspectives, carefully laid out to us as the characters recount their pasts and question who they are. The tour takes place during the final days of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, and Endo's rich descriptions of the atmosphere during that time, the Ganges, the religious sites, relics, and gods, as well as various strata of Indian society will leave lasting impressions. He's been called by some the Japanese Graham Greene, and I could see why as I read this book; it's more evident in Deep River than in other Endo novels. Overall, it's an exceptionally well-crafted story that'll make you think about humanity, love, death, devotion, and spiritual paths.
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Linda
4 books · 20 followers
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March 2, 2017
I found this to be a powerful book. The four main characters each have intriguing back stories and travel to India searching for freedom from grief and emptiness. Isobe, in a typical Japanese marriage of "usefulness," loses his wife and discovers a need to find her. Alientated Numada recovers from near death with the help of a mynah bird and wants to repay his debt. Kiguchi looks to the land of Buddha to heal his trauma from WWII and the death of the friend who saved his life during the war but could not stand to live afterwards. The empty-hearted Mitsuko and the steadfastly spiritual Otsu pull the story forward, though, with Mitsuko both drawn to and repelled by pierrot Otsu and his struggle with his beloved "Onion" God. The stories interconnect in clever ways using symbols and metaphor. Each character finds an end to his own story, although may not seem to realize it, and some readers may not be satisfied by the Mitsuko-Otsu story ending that seems to be hanging.
Maybe due to translation, I was surprised by the emotion and poetry of the writing, something I haven't seen from other Japanese authors I've read. The Sanjo newlyweds are one-dimensional representatives of shallow modern society, and other characters tend to be mouthpieces for Endo's messages, but I thought expressed well through the tragic stories. Atheists probably will hate this book, though. Descriptions of India and the Ganges are colorful and philosophical. I felt the pathos of the characters and the current of the Ganges.
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Kenji
137 reviews · 3 followers
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April 16, 2018
A melancholic and beautiful book. Amidst a backdrop of the heaviness of the human experience, Shusaku Endo remains delicate. His message is gentle and compassionate; not at all like the heavy-handedness of most spiritual literature. In this book, a random group of heavy-souled Japanese tourists come to India and discover facets of their spiritual journeys. This book is about grief. It is about shame. It is about pantheism. It is about seeing Jesus from western and non-western perspectives. It is about mercy. It is about the pain and the beauty of living. This book is not for everybody. I recommend this book for people who are interested in general spirituality, the Japanese mind, and non-western perspectives of Christianity. I think students of world cultures would love this book too. I do not recommend this book for people who have trouble viewing another culture or worldview on its own terms or for people that are not accustomed to picking up subtleties in literature. I especially do not recommend this book for people who are uninterested in getting their paradigms of Christianity sincerely challenged or questioned.
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Andrew
1,975 reviews · 689 followers
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January 29, 2018
Having written Silence, it's hard to come back and write something just as stunning, but Deep River isn't far off. It's hard to pin down -- Shusaku Endo is writing heavily in the vein of forgotten French Catholic writers, like those who get name-checked in the story, Francois Mauriac and Julien Green.
And indeed, Endo got a lot of comparisons to writers like that, as well as Graham Greene, but that's missing a large part of the picture. For example, a lot of the coincidences and reunion moments that come off as cloying, forced efforts in Western novels (Hesse's Narcissus and Goldmund, prime example) somehow work in a Japanese context -- much in the same way I didn't find myself questioning the motif of the reborn soul in Mishima's Sea of Fertility, the consistent reappearance of Otsu, the sad-sack nonconformist priest in Deep River didn't bother me either (although Mitsuko declaring that she wants to destroy his faith, that made my eyes roll). Somehow the mystical tone that Endo sets makes everything work.
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Jim
2,029 reviews · 666 followers
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February 13, 2015
Shūsaku Endō is that rarity: a Japanese Catholic -- but with a difference. In Deep River, he looks at the members of a Japanese tour group that visits North India. The beginning of the book takes most of the characters in turn, showing how there is some lack in their lives that they hope to remedy by the side of the Ganges.
In the end, the various members of the group take baby steps. Only Ohtsu, a renegade Catholic priest that one of the group knew in Japan, has found himself. Dressed in a dhoti, he carries the dying to the ghats along the river where there bodies will be burned.
I found Deep River to be a sincere attempt to study the need for a spiritual dimension in this life, but Endo takes a difficult route to this end and comes up wanting. Still, I like Endo and I like his book.
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Anna
110 reviews · 54 followers
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January 11, 2018
*Zero stars* Deep River was quite possibly the worst book I have ever read in my life. To make it worse it was assigned in my English class so I couldn't just return it to the library like I've done with other bad books. The characters were bland and the plot was non-existent. People tell me this book is about spiritual journeys but I saw no journey. Confrontation maybe, but there was no journey. There was no conclusion to the book. If the author had died mid sentence and so the editors had to finish the sentence and then immediatley print that might explain the unfinished ending. Even still, I want to pettition the school to have the students read a better book for this unit. There are so many good religious commentary books out there and yet we are subjected to this torture. The students deserve better from our English department. Nothing has made me less excited to learn about other religions, and to read more assigned books, than Deep River has.
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Jordan Tomeš
147 reviews · 9 followers
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March 14, 2018
It would be easy to criticize Endo for pushing his religious views on the reader too much in this book. I personally choose to be thankful for this. In terms of function, it has been a long time since a book touched me and affected me so deeply (maybe the cans of IPA's I drank while reading this helped, too).
I loved the backstories of all the characters. Endo's writing style is rich, vivid, and powerful. It really made all the characters stand out for me. Yes, the characters sometimes did something that seemed a little off to me, and the ending was sweeter than Charlies Chocolate Factory on its best day. But overall -- I really enjoyed this and feel like returning to this book again.
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Jamie Barringer (Ravenmount)
859 reviews · 35 followers
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February 14, 2017
This book reminds me of the Canterbury Tales (Chaucer), and of The Bridge of San Luis Rey, by Thornton Wilder. Like those books, Deep River is a collection of character sketches tied together by a situation, in this case a group of Japanese tourists on a tour of India. The author explores themes of death and rebirth, faith and religions(especially Christianity and Buddhism), and suffering in its various forms.
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Gloria Chen
144 reviews · 4 followers
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December 24, 2016
I really liked Deep River. On the surface, it's just a story about a Japanese tourist group. There is a tour guide, schedule and some annoying passengers. But the tour group is also in India, and is there during the assassination of Indira Gandhi. The different stories of the main protagonists were all interesting (and sad) to me, and the more I thought about them the more impressed I was by their hidden similarities. Would definitely read again!
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Sue Dix
520 reviews · 20 followers
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January 15, 2018
This book tells the stories and backstories of a group of Japanese tourists in India and centers around the river Ganges and the varying views of religion by the tourists and the peoples of India. It is an intriguing and enfolding novel with vivid depictions of disease, war, poverty, and the ways in which the characters are affected by what they see and experience.
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Dani
137 reviews
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August 28, 2014
It was amazing. I will need to buy this for my own collection.
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Brian Wilcox
1 book · 649 followers
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June 24, 2018
Favorite novel I've read. Profound.
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X_g_xi
31 reviews · 2 followers
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August 10, 2021
Là một người “vô thần”, nhưng đối với mình quyển sách này khá thú vị, nhẹ nhàng, chậm rãi . Mình có thể hiểu thêm một vài kiến thức về các tôn giáo, cũng như tín ngưỡng của một vài nhân vật. Mặc dù có vài ba luồng kiến thức mình không thể thông suốt được.
Câu chuyện là sự chuyển đổi từ bối cảnh của Nhật Bản u buồn sang hình ảnh Ấn Độ hỗn độn. Theo bước chân của đoàn khách Nhật mình được du lịch Ấn Độ một cách hay ho qua từng trang sách. Thật ra hiểu biết của bản thân mình đối với Ấn Độ rất mơ hồ, ngoài cái kiến thức toán học từ thời xa xưa của mình “Ấn Độ là nước dùng chữ số 0 đầu tiên trên thế giới”, thì thật sự khi nói đến Ấn Độ mình chẳng nghĩ đến được điều gì cả, tất nhiên là mình vẫn biết sông Hằng hay đạo Bà La Môn nhưng những khái niệm này như ở chiều không gian nào khác trong đầu mình í… Sau khi đoàn du khách đi đến sông Hằng thì mình cũng lên google để chiêm ngưỡng con sông một cách trực quan nhất, nhưng đáng buồn rằng toàn hình ảnh sông mùa covid với quá nhiều thi thể được thả sông và sự ô nhiễm ở mức báo động. Thật sự nếu không có Enami - người hướng dẫn viên cho đoàn khách Nhật thì mình chắc cũng như cô vợ của Sanjou chê bai và thảng thốt trước những việc lạ lùng ở nơi đây quá, mình có chăng sẽ trở thành loại du khách đáng chán nhất của anh chàng này - một người Nhật đem lòng mến mộ một Ấn Độ đau thương và hỗn độn. Ừ thì mỗi người có một đức tin riêng.
Qua trang sách, Ấn Độ còn đọng lại trong tâm trí mình là cái nóng hầm hập của mùa hè, sự nhầy nhụa của mồ hôi bên dưới lớp áo, mùi con người đầy ắp trong không khí và sự u minh tịch mịch của những khu rừng, của những lớp bóng đêm chất chồng lên nhau hết lớp này đến lớp khác, như những khổ sở cùng cực chất chồng lên số phận của người mang thân phận tiện dân sống trong đất nước này vậy.. Những khổ sở, đau thương đó sẽ được dòng sông sâu thẳm nhận vào mình, sẽ mang đi hết? (này cũng do tác giả dẫn đi đâu thì mình đi đó :3)
Thêm một điều nữa là các nữ thần trong Ấn giáo không phải đúng như nghĩa của từ “nữ thần” mà ta có thể hình dung “đầy mẫu tính và dịu dàng”, đó là những người phụ nữ với gương mặt dữ dằn, mang trên mình đau thương, bệnh tật, họ gầy gò ốm yếu, trơ xương, nhưng vẫn “ cho loài người những giọt sữa từ bầu vú héo hon”. Hóa ra có một cách gọi khác của các nữ thần Ấn Giáo trong tiếng Việt, thay vì gọi nữ thần Chamunda, có thể gọi là Bà Chằng Chamunda :v Thì ra từ bà chằng còn mang sắc thái ý nghĩa như vậy :3
Sau tất cả, Mitsuko thật là một người phụ nữ khó hiểu, và mình cũng thấy rằng, không có một sự nhiệt tình, không có một sự yêu thích đặc biệt với bất cứ gì, không hiểu rằng mình muốn gì cũng là một loại đau khổ nhở?
Ừ thì sống trên đời, ai ai cũng cần một cái gì đó, một ai đó để nương tựa, để bấu víu, để tin tưởng và để yêu thương, dù đó là bất cứ điều gì đi nữa. Mình tin vậy!
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Erin
107 reviews · 4 followers
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December 13, 2008
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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Heather
1,245 reviews · 52 followers
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January 6, 2016
Shusaku Endo’s novel Silence is my favorite book. I’ve read his short stories in Stained Glass Elegies, which got kind of repetitive, and his novel Scandal, which had some similar themes, but was harder for me to get into.
I like Silence more than Deep River—the scope is epic, the plot is faster-paced, and it bowled me over with its ultimate revelation. Deep River, however, helped me to get the themes in Silence more, and in my opinion is also an excellent book. There are books that people understand, but Silence and Deep River are books that understand me.
Deep River takes us through several chapters covering the background of each character, then unites them all in a tourist group visiting the Ganges River in India. Some reviewers found the novel to be boringly optimistic, or only saw a theme of all religions being one, but there is more here. All of the characters experience some sort of emptiness (Isobe with his wife dying of cancer, Mitsuko trying to fill her life with relationships with men, Numada who’s never been able to confide his deepest problems to another human being, Kiguchi who lived through the Highway of Death in Burma and his friend Tsukada who survived by eating human flesh, Otsu who is rejected by his peers both in college and in seminary and seeks God).
First, there is that theme of emptiness and seeking. We see each character seeking and trying to fill themselves, then see what each of them ultimately finds as they meet up in India. It makes for a slow pace, but is an interesting structure that works.
Then there is what the characters find. Mitsuko finds meaning in a statue of the Hindu goddess Chamunda, with her withered breasts and diseased body, who somehow still manages to feed people with her milk. She contrasts her with the Virgin Mary, whom she sees as a sort of mother goddess of the Western world, perfect and immaculate. To me, this is symbolic of what love has to look like in the real world versus the ideal love in “religion,” which on the outside can look like supposedly more “perfect” people deigning to help those “other people.” In reality, however, we are all suffering. We suffer because we’re alive. In order to love others, we have to put aside our own suffering long enough to focus on them.
Otsu confronts this in his religious peers who are so focused on what is the “right” doctrine that they refuse to advance him further in his seminary program. At one point, Otsu says something about other religions being valid, but that he still follows Christ. Sometimes this is exactly how I feel. I don’t pretend to know exactly how God deals with people or what is going to happen to whom after we die, or whether there isn’t some truth in other religions. I just know that there is something about Jesus above other religious figures that draws me.
The jist of this theme is that putting others above oneself is contrary to human nature. Human nature is to fight over who’s right and over each other’s basic resources. Otsu’s “Onion,” as he calls God so as not to offend Mitsuko in the book, flips that upside-down. Otsu discovers that the only way to fight the horror of our world is to cast himself into it, and, if necessary, to let it swallow him whole. Is that hopeful? I guess so. Is that sweet? As a Christian and a human being, I find it pretty horrific actually, but also true. Will I actually ever be in a situation requiring me to sacrifice myself for someone else? The human in me says, “God, I hope not.”
Another theme is the consumption of human flesh, which is a metaphor for the Last Supper and the acceptance of Christ’s sacrifice. Kiguchi’s friend Tsukada suffers horribly over having eaten human flesh to survive in Burma and only feels better when abusing alcohol. It’s only on his deathbed that he’s absolved. A foreign hospital volunteer named Gaston tells him a story of some plane crash survivors whose dying companions begged them to eat their bodies. They did, and lived because of it. Knowing that he is not the only one to have committed what he sees as such an abomination brings Tsukada peace at last before he dies. The tourists’ visit to the Ganges also reflects this theme in a sense. The Japanese people are appalled at the Hindus coming to the Ganges to die, and their ashes being scattered in the river where people bathe to purify themselves. Towards the end of the book, Mitsuko also bathes in this river full of the ashes of human corpses and finds meaning in it.
Isobe and Numada’s stories are more subtle. Isobe’s wife dies begging him to find her reincarnated self, which leads him to India. He doesn’t find her—he only finds this river that carries away so much humanity and wonders if she was reborn. Numada remembers a myna bird who saved his life in the hospital by listening to him talk about his suffering, which then died when his wife accidentally left its cage on the roof. He buys a myna bird in India and releases it into the forest, considering this payback for the original bird’s sacrifice and thinking that he will continue to write his lighthearted animal stories as a way of combating the darkness of life.
Sanjo, a photographer, and his wife don’t get their own chapter, but Sanjo plays the part of the unworthy asshole whom Otsu jumps in the way of a mob to save. Otsu imitates his Onion to the end, and his ultimate survival is doubtful.
All of that, ultimately, is my only understanding of true Christianity—to accept the fact that a long time ago, a person was brutally murdered by the very evils of the world that we often find ourselves engaging in (desire for power, status, wealth, and being right). In that sense, we too killed him and continue to do so (a.k.a. sin, or doing and thinking things with selfish motivation). If we honestly accept that, then the only appropriate thing to do is to do our best to renounce those things, which can quite possibly mean our own social, material, and in some places in the world, physical destruction. Really accepting Christ in this way yields no prospect of fame, fortune, or personal happiness, but Endo reveals in his writing that this strange love can save individuals and the world, even if it’s in the futile-seeming act of carrying one corpse at a time to burn and dump into a river flowing as deep as the human spirit.
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Hang
2 reviews
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September 12, 2020
Những con người đến bên dòng sông Hằng để tìm kiếm một điều gì đó mà chính họ cũng không cất thành lời được. Gấp cuốn sách lại tôi cũng tự hỏi: Điều mình mong mỏi nhất là gì? Mình sẽ tìm thấy nó chứ?
Cuốn sách như một buổi trà đạo kiểu Nhật, không dành cho những người dễ sốt ruột và vội vã. Bạn không nên đọc cuốn sách này nếu không cảm thấy thiết tha với việc ngồi xuống và đọc sách một cách thư thái.
Phần tôi thấy mình như bị cuốn vào từng trang sách, đi quanh vài nơi ở Nhật Bản hơi sắc u buồn rồi chu du qua Ấn Độ nhộn nhịp, lộn xộn mà đầy sức sống.
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Hải
263 reviews · 61 followers
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April 13, 2022
Với những cuốn sách nghiêng về tâm linh, huyền bí như vầy, mình đọc chủ yếu chỉ vì thói quen thích đọc. Những câu chuyện, sự kiện... được viết và giải thích theo kiểu: "à, như thế, ai tin thì tin...". Sở dĩ mình cho điểm 3/5, không phải vì mình không tin nên đưa ra điểm thấp thế, mà vì, tuy có những đoạn tác giả gây cho mình sự hứng thú, tò mò, nhưng nhìn chung kết cấu truyện khá rời rạc, lỏng lẻo.
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Kathleen
133 reviews
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October 31, 2020
I love Endo’s writing and storytelling. What else can I say.
Dhanaraj’s review, on the other hand, says it all. ❤️
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Anh Vũ
16 reviews
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January 19, 2023
a rich story
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RayleneD
58 reviews · 1 follower
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June 28, 2022
This book was so good!
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Anh Nguyen
64 reviews · 3 followers
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March 29, 2023
Một quyển sách khá hay. Mình thích những đoạn miêu tả về Ấn Độ và Sông Hằng lắm lắm lắm. Ước gì tác giả viết nhiều hơn về Sông Hằng!
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Laurel Hicks
1,161 reviews · 96 followers
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July 5, 2019
Amazing writer.
2019-7
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Quỳnh Giang
108 reviews
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April 10, 2021
Đúng kiểu văn học Nhật, chầm chậm nhẹ nhẹ. Cũng không quá ấn tượng bởi cả kiểu hình nhân vật hay cấu tứ nội dung khá quen thuộc.
Cho 4* vì thích Ootsu.
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Maru
441 reviews · 50 followers
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October 21, 2019
Há há đọc xong không hiểu sao lại được nhiều người khen như vậy luôn đó =))
Mình thích câu chuyện của Ottos nhất. Hành trình đi tìm bản ngã của Mitsuko đang gắn liền với Ottos. Đúng hơn thì Ottos là người dẫn đường, là kim chỉ nam mà Mitsuko vô định đang dựa vào. Cũng có thể là Củ Hành trong Ottos.
Còn có thể đã chai lì, nên câu chuyện của những con người khác không đủ sức khiến mình ngẫm nghĩ.
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John Benson
1,251 reviews · 11 followers
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February 6, 2021
Shusaku Endo was a Japanese Christian novelist, known best for his book, SILENCE. Like that book, he once again explores religious issues. This book tells the story of four Japanese spiritual searchers who end up on a tour to visit the Ganges River at the time of Indira Gandhi's assassination. Each of their spiritual backstories are brought out well and all are very different, seldom falling into the confines of one religion. While he brings out some Christian spiritual issues, the other major religions of India and Japan are also explored, but mostly he uses these four people to explore the intertwining of religions. This is a good book about humanity's search for spiritual ideals within the lives of these different characters.
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Edward
150 reviews · 8 followers
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December 14, 2016
Maybe it's because I just read "The Sea and Poison," and re-read "Silence" (both of which are amazing novels), but I found this later work by Endo somewhat dissatisfying. I had no issue with the subject matter; a story blending ideas and beliefs from different religions, mainly Christianity, Hinduism, and Buddhism. There are frequent references to reincarnation, and the Ineffable Spiritual Quest that drives many humans. It's just that Mishima already wrote this story much more effectively in the "Sea of Fertility" books (particularly "Temple of Dawn").
I'm not trying to be a snob. I still enjoyed this book, and many of themes from Endo's other stories reappear here. Endo spent his entire life wrestling with the incongruity of his Catholic faith and his Japanese cultural background. The character of Otsu is a stand-in, I suspect, for Endo himself. Through his dialogue it's possible to identify the evolution of Endo's beliefs as he approached the end of his life ("Deep River" was published in 1993, three years before he died). The message is one of tolerance and acceptance of all faiths--that every religion partakes in the divine to some degree, and that your relationship with other human beings matters more than your relationship with a god or gods. Rather, your relationship with other human beings IS your relationship with the sacred.
I agree with the conclusion, but the narrative tried too hard to enforce it. Instead of the gracefully effective, indirect presentation of his earlier novels, it felt clumsy and unfinished. Some of this might be attributable to poor translation, but not entirely. The story really shines when it focuses on Otsu and his wanderings, his struggle to reconcile a "western" faith with his "eastern" mind. Are religious beliefs determined mostly by place of birth, by what one's parents and surrounding society believe? If so what does that say about the supposed universality of truth?
Endo's perspective on these issues is unique since his religion, Christianity, is a minority within Japan. As Christianity continues to erode in the West, where it once reigned supreme, Christians of European/American background would do well to read his works and consider these same questions. What is it about Christianity that is true once all the trappings of power and influence are stripped away?
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Derek
26 reviews · 9 followers
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December 14, 2014
Deep River is an existential and theological exploration through the stories of the lives of four Japanese tourists to India. The stories are straight forward and compelling, but the existential conflicts are almost overwhelmingly complex. These stories all converge in Varanasi, a Hindu holy spot on the sacred Ganges; the "Deep River" of the title.
The book drips with symbolism, and the deep river seems to be a place deep enough for the Hindu, the Buddhist and the Christian to find comfort there. "There are many different religions," Endo quotes Mahatma Gandhi, "but they are merely various paths leading to the same place. What difference does it make which of those separate paths we walk, so long as they all arrive at the identical location?"
If the commonality of religions is a significant theme, then I think too many pages dote on Christianity. The Pierrot/clown that signifies Christ (Endo so much as tells us this) shows up as the priest-candidate Otsu, as Gaston the hospital volunteer, and as Namuda's treasured pet bird. This leads to the cringe-worthy comparison between Jesus and Namuda's bird because of the nuisance "Jesus had been to the rabbis of his day." There are a lot of awkward moments like this and a lot of heavy-handed coincidences and symbols, but it becomes easier to accept as you realize that this book is often more symbolic portrait than literal narrative.
But, you really see that Endo has done something masterful as the stories converge at Varanasi. Within four simple and straight-forward stories, Endo has introduced many complicated moral and theological conflicts and concepts. In Varanasi, those conflicts begin to mix and swirl with the traditions of Buddhism, Christianity and Hinduism, like the swirling tributaries to The Ganges. At the foot of the ghats, Endo blends the questions and answers to our deepest mysteries with the vast array of colors, odors, and sounds that make up the unlimited aspects of humanity.
It should be noted that while Endo's book is a colorful tapestry of three religions, it is not an exhaustive comparison. Most notably Islam is not included. Even so, Endo has done much here, and Deep River is bold, enlightening and often beautiful.
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Tranhieu0410
137 reviews · 25 followers
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April 7, 2019
Những con người với những hoàn cảnh và câu chuyện khác nhau cùng đi trên một chuyến hành hương đến đất nước Ấn Độ và đặc biệt là thành phố Varanasi với con sông Hằng chứa đựng đầy bí ẩn. Những người Nhật mang trong mình những bí mật khác nhau trải qua các thế hệ của Nhật. Như tượng trưng cho sự bí bach, u ám của xã hội Nhật. Nhưng ở tác phẩm này mình thấy nhẹ nhàng hơn vẫn có một chút gì đó ánh lên ở cuối truyện.
Tác giả kể truyện hay và dễ cảm nhận các nhân vật nhưng cảm giác vẫn thấy thiếu một chút, cần đi sâu hơn nữa vào các nhân vật theo cảm cảm nhận của mình.
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Jahn Kuiper
18 reviews
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March 27, 2019
There is such a divisive spirit to Endo's books, and never has that been more the case than in Deep River. You can tell the man has held the question, seeping from every pore, how can I reconcile my Christian faith with my Eastern identity. To explore this, the book shares characters deeply and maniacally at odds with faith, characters deeply steeped in other faiths of the world, and characters who don't give a thought to faith. But with each of these sects, known or unkown there is a deep, deep river calling them to something they cannot describe, something viscerally felt amiss in their lives. While there are very brutal portrayals of Christianity here, it would be wrong to think it is subversive of Christ. Some might say it's tolerance or even admiration of Buddhism and Hinduism pushes some universalism agenda, but that is a very poor and shallow reading. Most characters are Japanese travelers to India, each making their journey for a different reason. For each, we can see how God meets them where they are at, the spirit giving words through language they can puzzle through. In fact, it is this challenge to the status quo of normalized Christianity which is at the heart of Endo's question: how can I reconcile my Christian faith with my Eastern Identity. The result of which is a richer, more diverse way of thinking about our relationship with God--a way that should help give voice to those on the fringes of faith looking for where they might fit in.
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Jukka
305 reviews · 5 followers
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September 10, 2016
This month i've got a twin read:
Deep River (1993) - Shusaku Endo
-AND-
Deep Rivers (1958) - José María Arguedas
When you pair reads you can never be sure what will result, but it never has failed to add dimension.
These two with same name (OK almost), have a certain surface similarity. Both are from writers from outside of Europe and North America. They are also outside the dominant cultures where they grew up.
Endo born 1923 of Japanese parents lived until age 10 in Japanese controlled northern China, when his parents divorced and he returned to Japan and became Catholic.
Arguedas (b 1911) was of Spanish and Quechua descent raised in large part by Quechuan family servants. Arguedas strongly identified with the indigienous Peruvian culture, and wrote in his own idiosyncratic style where he mixed the two languages freely.
Deep River is set in India and follows a group of Japanese tourists.
Deep Rivers looks at the conflict in a young boy between his Indian and the Spanish cultures.
This should be fun.
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