The Navidad Incident
The Downfall of Matías Guili
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In this sweeping magical-realist epic set in the fictional south sea island Republic of Navidad, Ikezawa gives his imagination free rein to reinvent the myths of the twentieth century Japan. The story takes off as a delegation of Japanese war veterans pays an official visit to the ex-World War II colony, only to see the Japanese flag burst into flames. The following day, the tour bus, and its passengers, simply vanish. The locals exchange absurd rumors—the bus was last seen attending Catholic mass, the bus must have skipped across the lagoon—but the president suspects a covert guerrilla organization is trying to undermine his connections with Japan. Can the real answers to the mystery be found, or will the president have to be content with the surreal answers?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In the fictional island nation of Navidad, formerly a Japanese occupied territory, a bus containing a Japanese delegation vanishes without a trace, causing a diplomatic imbroglio. President Mat as Guili, the dictator of Navidad, favors the Japanese way of life and looks to Japan for inspiration. The people of Navidad are rather less friendly, however many of them remember the Japanese occupation and are worried about the Japanese proposal to anchor oil tankers over the island's coral reef. As Guili bumbles through his days, visiting his girlfriend's brothel, flattering Japanese diplomats, and taking long baths, a conspiracy forms against him from the mystical Navidad island of Melchor. Despite ghosts, mysterious disappearances, and magical priestesses, the book is as much a leisurely commentary on post-colonial dictatorships as it is a work of magical realism. Readers are treated to rambling digressions on topics like the importance of buses in Navidadian life or Guili's past history and love life. Still, Ikezawa's newest (after A Burden of Flowers) has its own strange, meandering charm, giving readers a glimpse into the legacy of colonization from a Japanese perspective.
Customer Reviews
Fiction, fantasy, or nonsense
Bursts of narrative poetry, characters with the potential to fascinate and a titillating undercurrent of the supernatural fail to elevate this novel to a level worthy of translator Alfred Birnbaum's great skills. There are points when the story begins to take shape and move along and then stalls and stutters like an old bus driven too many miles on old island roads. A good editor may have smoothed out some of the potholes in the plot but only a few of the minor characters were drawn with any depth and dimension.