Author Topic: PC452: Hibakusha  (Read 3208 times)

Ocicat

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on: January 24, 2017, 08:51:47 AM
PodCastle 452: Hibakusha

by L.P. Lee

read by Setsu Uzume

hosted by Peter Wood

First published in Eastlit.

Rated R.

The closer I get to the island, the more of a dream Tokyo becomes. The obelisks of high glass, the polished people, their nails and shoes so clean. The neon canopies, the subtle dishes, the cab drivers with white gloves on their hands. I leave it behind on the train ride down. Down to the fishing town with its immaculate streets and kindly grandmother, who hosted me in her ryokanand made me a breakfast of rice and fish. Now the fish scatter before my boat, clean waves break against the hull, and the green island looms ahead, rising from the horizon like an old god.

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L. P. Lee's short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies including Popshot Magazine, Litro and The British Fantasy Society. Her work is forthcoming in The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror (Volume 27), Scrutiny and The Singularity.



Setsu Uzume did not write this. To be fair, the axe thing only happened once, and it was a hatchet and a gut knife. No further questions will be answered on Twitter.


For more links and information on butoh see here:

Sankai Juku – Clips from Umusuna.

Interview with Ushio Amagatsu (Artistic Director of Sankai Juku) and Theater Critic Tamotsu Watanabe

Tatsumi Hijikata – Hosotan (part 1)

Kazuo Ohno – The Written Face

Hisako Horikawa & Min Tanaka, 1988 Performance


Listen to this week’s PodCastle!



VranaCat

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Reply #1 on: January 25, 2017, 04:13:59 AM
I loved the imagery in this one.  It's an absolutely gorgeous piece.  I initially was really struggling to figure out why it was a fantasy, but then the lead was able to put together a poetic narrative out of a language they did not know using google translate.  Wow.  Talk about a fantasy.  All joking aside though, this was a gorgeous piece, but it kind of reminds me of another that I can now not remember the name of which people complained about seeming not to be fantastic enough in the feedback.  That one was a slice of life going through the entire life of its female heroine who had a ribbon holding her head on which is occasionally referenced, but which only is shown as a fantastic element in the very last paragraph of the story.  I didn't have an issue with that one actually, but this one made me sympathetic to the grumbling in the feedback on the earlier piece. I loved the story, but I don't see that the dancer climbing out of the photograph in the final couple paragraphs of the work added anything to it other than almost seeing to be there so that the piece could be submitted as a work of fantasy.



Devoted135

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Reply #2 on: February 03, 2017, 04:11:20 AM
I'm afraid I have to agree with VranaCat about the fantasy element. It falls more into the magical realism camp for me, just farther afield than something I could imagine hearing on Selected Shorts. Also, WHY is he apparently conjured by her investigation? I need a thread to grasp onto here.

That aside, this was a beautiful story. The description of the survivor's dance was so evocative that I felt like I was actually watching it. And the scene where she flees the house all the way to the boat had me holding my breath as well. Wonderful writing.