To the center

Like many in my generation, I grew up knowing the works of Jules Verne primarily through Hollywood adaptations — mostly bad ones — and comic books. About fifteen years ago, when I read Journey to the Center of The Earth in a well-regarded recent translation, I was underwhelmed. That the geology was implausible was the least of it. The expected dramatic payoff when the travelers finally arrive as close to their destination as they manage to get (they never actually get anywhere near "the center" at all) just didn't seem to pack much of a punch. Reading it now in French, though (my very imperfect French), it seems like a much more considerable book. True, some of it remains very silly. Verne mangles Icelandic names and thinks that a medieval Icelandic manuscript could have been written in a runic alphabet (highly unlikely), and the whole climactic ascent through an erupting volcano is cartoonish and absurd, but on the other hand the trek across Iceland is vivid and evocative, the descent is tautly narrated, and the dreamlike depiction of an immense underground, vaulted sea — illuminated by some obscure electrical phenomenon — is beautiful and psychologically potent. It lacks the epic character of Vingt mille lieues sous les mers, but on the other hand you don't have to struggle through page after page of abstruse 19th-century natural history jargon along the way.

There have been many adaptations and imitations of Verne's underworld tale, and there's something instinctively appealing about the whole idea of burrowing down into the underworld. One version that remains elusive, to English-language readers at least, is Hikaru Okuizumi's The New Journey to the Center of the Earth, published in Japan some fifteen years ago. It is untranslated, but we do have Tatsuro Kiuchi's lovely and mysterious illustrations from the original serialization in the Asahi Shimbun to ponder over.

Kiuchi in monochrome

A solitary figure stands silhouetted at the bottom of an expanse of gray, its back turned. Directly beyond, seemingly floating in space but presumably drifting through the waters of an aquarium, is an immense, languid whale shark, also solitary, whose shadow glides beneath. The architecture of the enclosing tank -- if a tank there is -- is barely suggested. There are no rocks or reefs looming behind the shark, and no clusters of fish circling past. Here and there patches of white stippling appear, and there is a suggestion of a diagonal band of white, a reflection on the glass, perhaps, or just a stream of light falling through the waters, but that's all. Nothing distracts from the stillness of the scene and from the lone figure's silent contemplation, or perhaps, from the mutual contemplation of man and beast.


The artist and graphic designer Tatsuro Kiuchi has issued a paperback volume, entitled Pen Still Writes, that is entirely composed of monochrome illustrations originally created to accompany serialized works, by several writers, that appeared in various Japanese magazines and newspapers. The book has no text, other than a brief description and biography (in English and Japanese) on the jacket flaps, as well as captions on the facing page (Japanese only) indicating where the illustrations first appeared. According to the flap copy all of the artwork was done in Photoshop.


Kiuchi is a versatile artist who has worked on a wide variety of commercial projects, ranging from children's books to postage stamps to ads for Starbucks, and he is perfectly capable of being warm and accessible when the occasion demands. But these serialized illustrations, especially when removed from their original contexts and viewed as a body, have an appealing mysteriousness. The human figures we see in them tend to be remote, their faces turned away or their features left blank; likewise the stippling effect adds a layer of distance between subject and viewer. Many of the pictures have a distinct retro feel, recalling vintage artwork from, perhaps, the old Highlights magazine of a few decades back, though they are far more subtle and ambiguous. I wonder just who is being caged in -- or out -- in the picture below?


Pen Still Writes is only available direct from the artist, who can be contacted through his website. I have written earlier about Kiuchi's fascinating (color) artwork for Hikaru Okuizumi's The New Journey to the Center of the Earth, which can be seen in a Flicker slideshow. More examples of his monochrome work, including several images not reproduced in the book, can be found at illoz.

Tatsuro Kiuchi

Following up on my last post about Rafe Martin's Mysterious Tales of Japan, with pictures by Tatsuro Kiuchi, here are some samples of two of Kiuchi's other projects, both of which use a very different palette and approach from the more conventionally "painterly" (but very appealing) illustrations he created for that book.

The first group are from a series of 294 color illustrations Kiuchi created to accompany Hikaru Okuizumi's novel The New Journey to the Center of the Earth, which was serialized in the Asahi Shimbun in 2002-2003.








The whole set can be viewed as a Flicker slideshow online.

At least one of Hikaru Okuizumi's other novels, The Stones Cry Out, has appeared in translation in the US, but this one apparently hasn't; in fact I'm not even sure it's been released in bound format in Japan. [Update: according to Tatsuro Kiuchi, the book has been published, but sadly without his illustrations.] The little information I've been able to turn up, from the Japanese Literature Publishing Project, seems promising, though:

Okuizumi is known for his parodies of the Meiji-period literary giant Natsume Soseki, but the model he chose for his full-length novel Shin chitei ryoko (New Journey to the Center of the Earth) is the Jules Verne classic. Always full of literary schemes, Okuizumi here recasts the original story as the historical record of an actual journey which he retells in a pseudoclassical style reminiscent of Soseki, transposing the action to early twentieth-century Japan. In late Meiji, a scientist who believes the Earth is hollow disappears, along with his beautiful daughter. He has apparently traveled to the center of Mt. Fuji to prove his theory, but there is another possibility: some say he is really after a secret cache of gold hidden by a feudal warlord. Hooked by his friend's promise to let him use a highly advanced camera, the main character, a painter named Roshu Nonomura, accompanies his friend and two other amateur explorers on an adventurous expedition deep within Mt. Fuji. Along the way, they encounter a cat that glows in the dark, a monster that seems to be a living relic of the dinosaur age, and a race of underground humans. This amply realized work of fantasy, laced with delicious humor, is written on a scale surpassing the original in grandeur.

This could make a hell of a nice volume if it were published here with the original illustrations, but I have a feeling it's not going to happen anytime soon. I'd settle for a Japanese edition -- if one exists -- just to be able to thumb through the pictures at leisure.

The remaining images are from a set of illustrations Kiuchi executed for a Folio Society edition of Iris Murdoch's The Sea, The Sea.




Kiuchi's website, which has both Japanese and English versions, has a biography and a generous selection of his other work, including some animated spots he created for Starbucks.

Late note: a post on the blog of the Heflinreps Illustration Agency has several Kiuchi illustrations for a Japanese children's book called Let's Go Out for a Ride!

Mysterious Tales of Japan

There are countless illustrated versions of Lafcadio Hearn's Japanese ghost stories, but I have a fondness for this one, which was published in 1996 by Putnam and is apparently already out-of-print, though secondhand copies are readily available. A couple of the tales are from sources other than Hearn, but the volume includes three of the four stories on which Masaki Kobayashi's magnificent film Kwaidan was based, lacking only "In a Cup of Tea."





The retelling is by storyteller and author Rafe Martin, the illustrations by Tatsuro Kiuchi, a prolific artist who has worked in a variety of styles both here and in his native Japan. Among his other projects is a series of nearly 300 images to accompany a serialized novel by Hikaru Okuizumi, The New Journey to the Center of the Earth.