French Review of SNOW AT 5 PM
SNOW AT 5 PM receives a really engaged and engaging review in French on Amazon! (English translation follows.)
Snow at 5 M est sans doute la fiction la plus intéressante que j’ai pu lire depuis très longtemps. Mais est-il possible de parler de fiction ? C’est bien plus que cela. Le dernier ouvrage de Jee Leong Koh est assez inclassable. C’est de la poésie en premier lieu mais c’est aussi un livre engagé notamment contre les discriminations (raciales, sociétales, basées sur le genre, etc.) et un regard très incisif sur la société américaine depuis les années 40 jusqu’à 2066. Oui, il faut mentionner que ce livre est également une œuvre d’anticipation aux tonalités dystopiques. Si les haïkus sont superbes, si les sujets abordés sont sérieux, il n’en est pas moins que l’auteur ne néglige pas l’humour, y compris l’auto-dérision, et certains passages sont pour le moins croustillants.
L’originalité demeure en ce que Jee Leong Koh s’imagine avoir découvert une liasse de 107 haïkus légèrement brûlés dans la cheminée de l’appartement de New York où il emménage en 2011. Il s’imagine aussi les avoir traduits du japonais vers l’anglais alors que l’on ne retrouvera jamais l’original ce qui laissera planer des doutes sur leur auteur réel (Jee Leong Koh ou un poète japonais insignifiant ?). Mais pour ajouter à cette construction digne de poupées russes, le livre est constitué d’une série de commentaires de chaque haïku publiée en 2066 par un critique littéraire, Sam Fujimoto-Mayer, dont la personnalité est aussi riche que son imagination.
Les haïkus font notamment des allusions à Central Park - ses fleurs, ses arbres, ses animaux, ses monuments et points d’eau - et sont tous des merveilles de poésie. Jee Leong Koh confirme en cela qu’il n’est pas le « poète majoritairement mineur » que Sam Fujimoto-Mayer prétend. Mais ce dernier prévient le lecteur dès la préface en indiquant que chaque verset doit être découvert et expliqué en référence à la justice sociale.
Chaque commentaire est une réussite en soi en ce qu’il nous fait découvrir les différentes règles propres aux haïkus et à la poésie en général mais aussi aborder des sujets comme les discriminations dont ont eu à souffrir les Japonais et américano-japonais après l’attaque de Pearl Harbour en 1941. Le fait que Sam Fujimoto-Mayer soit juif de par sa mère, japonais de par son père et qu’il ait « hérité » d’un membre viril de la part d’un de ses amants (là aussi, la construction est cocasse) mène ce dernier à aborder des rapports assez intéressants entre le sort des Juifs et celui des Japonais (et des asiatiques plus généralement) tout comme celui des personnes LGBTQ. Il n’est pas difficile de s’imaginer que Sam Fujimoto-Mayer résiste aux dérives du pouvoir en place même si son appartenance à « une résistance souterraine » est peut-être une autre fiction dans la fiction.
Quand j’ai ouvert le livre pour la première fois, j’ai cru que je pourrai le lire très rapidement. Mais la richesse des informations qu’il contient m’a poussé à de très nombreuses digressions pour lire d’autres poèmes, consulter des articles d’histoire, parcourir des biographies ou regarder des vidéos. Mais je suis persuadé, qu’à la fin de votre lecture, vous ne regarderez plus les forsythias, étourneaux, ou autres écureuils de Central Park de la même manière. Je souhaite également à Je Leong Koh une autre fin que celle qui est décrite dans ce livre.
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"Snow at 5 pm" is probably the most interesting fiction I've read in a very long time. But is it possible to talk about fiction? It's much more than that. Jee Leong Koh's latest book is not really classifiable. It is poetry in the first place, but it is also a book committed in particular to fighting discrimination (racial, societal, gender-based, etc.) and a very incisive look at American society from the 1940s to 2066. Yes, it should be mentioned that this book is also a work of anticipation with dystopian tones. If the haikus are stunning, if the subjects covered are serious, the author does not neglect humor, including self-derision, and some passages are juicy to say the least.
The originality remains in that Jee Leong Koh imagines himself having discovered a wad of 107 lightly burned haikus in the fireplace of the New York apartment, where he moved in 2011. He also imagines having translated them from Japanese into English whereas the original will never be found which will leave doubts about their real author (Jee Leong Koh or an insignificant Japanese poet?). But to add to this construction worthy of Russian dolls, the book consists of a series of commentaries of each haiku published in 2066 by a literary critic, Sam Fujimoto-Mayer, whose personality is as rich as his imagination.
The haikus include allusions to Central Park; its flowers, trees, animals, monuments and water points, and are all marvels of poetry - and Jee Leong Koh confirms in this that he is not the "majorly minor poet" that Sam Fujimoto-Mayer claims to be. But the latter warns the reader in its preface that each verse must be uncovered and explained with reference to social justice.
Each commentary is a success in itself in that it makes us not only learn about the different rules of the haikus but also address topics such as the discrimination that the Japanese and Japanese-American suffered after the attack on Pearl Harbour. The fact that Sam Fujimoto-Mayer is Jewish by his mother, Japanese by his father and endowed with a male organ by one of his lovers (here again, the construction is funny) leads the latter to approach some rather interesting relations between the fate of Jews and that of Japanese (and Asians more generally) as well as that of homosexuals. It is not difficult to imagine that Sam Fujimoto-Mayer resists the drifts of power even if his affiliation to an underground resistance is perhaps another fiction within fiction.
When I first opened the book, I thought I would be able to read it very quickly. But the wealth of information it contains has led me to digress a great deal to read other poems, consult history articles, browse biographies or watch videos. But I'm sure that at the end of your reading, you won't be looking at the forsythias, starlings, or other squirrels in Central Park in the same way. I also hope a better ending to Mr. Koh than the one described in the book.
"Snow at 5 pm" is probably the most interesting fiction I've read in a very long time. But is it possible to talk about fiction? It's much more than that. Jee Leong Koh's latest book is not really classifiable. It is poetry in the first place, but it is also a book committed in particular to fighting discrimination (racial, societal, gender-based, etc.) and a very incisive look at American society from the 1940s to 2066. Yes, it should be mentioned that this book is also a work of anticipation with dystopian tones. If the haikus are stunning, if the subjects covered are serious, the author does not neglect humor, including self-derision, and some passages are juicy to say the least.
The originality remains in that Jee Leong Koh imagines himself having discovered a wad of 107 lightly burned haikus in the fireplace of the New York apartment, where he moved in 2011. He also imagines having translated them from Japanese into English whereas the original will never be found which will leave doubts about their real author (Jee Leong Koh or an insignificant Japanese poet?). But to add to this construction worthy of Russian dolls, the book consists of a series of commentaries of each haiku published in 2066 by a literary critic, Sam Fujimoto-Mayer, whose personality is as rich as his imagination.
The haikus include allusions to Central Park; its flowers, trees, animals, monuments and water points, and are all marvels of poetry - and Jee Leong Koh confirms in this that he is not the "majorly minor poet" that Sam Fujimoto-Mayer claims to be. But the latter warns the reader in its preface that each verse must be uncovered and explained with reference to social justice.
Each commentary is a success in itself in that it makes us not only learn about the different rules of the haikus but also address topics such as the discrimination that the Japanese and Japanese-American suffered after the attack on Pearl Harbour. The fact that Sam Fujimoto-Mayer is Jewish by his mother, Japanese by his father and endowed with a male organ by one of his lovers (here again, the construction is funny) leads the latter to approach some rather interesting relations between the fate of Jews and that of Japanese (and Asians more generally) as well as that of homosexuals. It is not difficult to imagine that Sam Fujimoto-Mayer resists the drifts of power even if his affiliation to an underground resistance is perhaps another fiction within fiction.
When I first opened the book, I thought I would be able to read it very quickly. But the wealth of information it contains has led me to digress a great deal to read other poems, consult history articles, browse biographies or watch videos. But I'm sure that at the end of your reading, you won't be looking at the forsythias, starlings, or other squirrels in Central Park in the same way. I also hope a better ending to Mr. Koh than the one described in the book.
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