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Amélie Nothomb: “What is most Japanese about me? I avoid conflict situations.

2023-04-18T17:08:07.860Z


The author immerses us in spirituality and Japanese myths in the podcast "Japan, the flowers of a floating world", on Audible. A trip that also looks back on his childhood memories.


As we know, Japan is Amélie Nothomb's favorite country.

This is where she spent her early childhood until she was 5 years old.

There, too, where she returned at the age of 21, to do an internship as an interpreter and find herself confronted with an ultra-rigid corporate culture, a stifling hierarchy and a good number of humiliations: an episode recounted in her novel

Stupor and Tremors

, published in 1999.

But despite the disillusionment, Amélie Nothomb has never stopped loving Japan, its myths, its legends, the creatures that inhabit its religions.

She takes us to meet them in

Japan, the flowers of a floating world

, a 10-episode podcast co-written with Laureline Amanieux, available on the Audible platform.

An immersive journey to the heart of Japanese spirituality, where her voice mingles with the sounds of a Zen garden or the sound of prayers, to tell stories of ghosts, gods and witches.

She also shares her memories of childhood and adolescence.

An intimate and passionate audio documentary.

In video, Amélie Nothomb takes us on a journey to the heart of Japanese mythology

Kamis and legends

Madame Figaro.- What relationship do you have with Japanese mythology?


Amélie Nothomb.-

Japanese mythology is the one that matters most to me because it was the first that was told to me.

When I was little, I was brought up by a nanny named Nichio-san: she was a very simple woman, without any scholarship, who taught me what we teach small Japanese children.

I am thinking of Yamamba, the mountain witch: in France, people would have spoken to me of the Carabosse fairy.

But Yamamba is much more important to me.

What do you like so much about this approach to spirituality?


What I love is how composite it is.

No myth, no religious revelation contradicts others.

This is how the myths of Stoicism rub shoulders with those of Buddhism or Zen interpretations, and it all goes together very well.

If someone arrived saying to the Japanese: “No, abjure all these mythologies, the only good religion is Christianity”, they would find that crazy barbarism.

Read alsoThe Japanese adventure of Charlotte Perriand, pioneer of design

You devote one of the episodes to kami, Shinto deities that we come across almost everywhere...


Shintoism is based on a great idea: all that is beautiful is God, and preferably, this beauty is in nature.

There are thus absolutely innumerable kami: the kami of the spring, the kami of the forest, the kami of the stones... I really like this vision of the world, this idea that everything is sacred there.

Do you have a favorite character in Japanese mythology?


It's quite difficult because there are a lot of them.

My answer may not be very mystical, but it is entirely in accordance with Shintoism: it is Yamamba, the famous mountain witch.

She's not a nice or lovable person at all: she has an annoying tendency to capture everyone she meets to make soup.

So if you don't want to end up in soup, don't walk alone in the Japanese mountains.

Read also“Do not accuse women”: held responsible for the collapse of the birth rate, the Japanese retaliate

Contemplate the moment

What are these

flowers of the floating world

”,

which give their title to the podcast?


It is an allusion to a haiku by Matsuo Bashō, the most famous haikist of all time.

This translates the idea of ​​the beauty of the ephemeral, that all the value of life is found in those fleeting moments that absolutely must be captured.

A bit like a Japanese transposition of our “carpe diem”.

Does it mean exactly the same thing?


No, "carpe diem", it's really a pleasure phrase.

In Japan, the flowers of the floating world are much more subtle, more evanescent: it's not necessarily about catching the thing and enjoying it, it's really about grasping it to contemplate it.

It can simply be, for example, the passing of a few drops of rain.

How can Shintoism help us to live better?

Especially for us Westerners, who don't know him well?


We need divinities to say very simple things: you take the metro, you come across an individual of great beauty, you are struck, it's been your day and you say to yourself: "Here, I met a God or a goddess in the subway”.

I think it's an idea that enchants life, that reveals its magic.

We must first keep in mind this basic idea of ​​Shintoism: all that is beautiful is God

Amelie Nothomb

You also mention the notion of purification in Shintoism.

Is it more easily affordable in this culture than in the West?


In the West, purification is always associated with guilt, with fault: you have to macerate in it to get out of it.

Whereas in Japan, that's how life is: you need to clean up regularly.

For that, the Shinto temples are nearby.

You go there, you take the small bamboo ladle which is near a fountain, you drink a few consecrated sips and there you are, you allow yourself to be purified.

It really does a lot of good.

What if you don't have a Shinto temple close at hand?


We can decide for ourselves where the sacred is.

One of the Shinto symbols is the torii, this big red door that you place absolutely in the middle of nowhere, and which signals that you are entering the sacred.

You don't necessarily have to build one in your garden, but you can have a sacred place in your home, or anywhere.

When we enter it, we begin a process of meditation and purification.

And nothing can touch us anymore.

Read alsoInspired by Japanese traditions, the Torii chair is already a bestseller two years after its release

A "failed Japanese"

In the podcast, you go back to your childhood memories and say that you are a

"

failed Japanese girl

"

...


I left Japan when I was 5 years old and at that time, believe me, I was completely Japanese.

When I went back there at the age of 21, it was a bit late.

I wanted to make up for lost time, it was a fascinating experience that brought me a lot, however I failed: this is what I tell in my novel

Stupeur et tremors

.

But a lot of things remain Japanese in me.

For example?


In a conflict situation, I am lost, whereas the French love it.

They disagree on their opinions, especially at the table: immediately, there is a controversy, the tone rises and everyone gives their little piece of eloquence.

In these cases, I am a real Japanese: I become very small because over there, what we are looking for is harmony.

If you notice that your neighbor at the table does not think like you, be careful not to offend him.

It has been observed that moving to Japan often leads people to adopt a new religion: it is not at all a question of abjuring the previous one, but if they discover, for example, that their new neighbor is catholic, they will convert so as not to hurt him

You explain, moreover, in the podcast, that one can completely adopt several different religions during one's life...


It is not even a question of changing them: it is a question of combining them.

For example, today, the Japanese are born in Shintoism, get married in Catholicism because they find it funnier, the big white dress, etc., and die in Zen Buddhism.

It is not at all a question of opposing the beliefs of his birth, of his marriage or of his death.

But to arrange them so that they do well together.

I think it's an example of tolerance that we should reflect on.

Arm yourself against violence

In the myths, both Eastern and Western, it is often the female deities who suffer much violence, incest, rape or other.

How does this affect our perception of these issues?


It is certain that the violence of the myths infuses the end and that all these founding stories, which we are told both in the West and in the Far East, influence us.

Unfortunately, I fear that these myths tell us the reality: it is still true today that life is particularly violent for women.

So faced with this violence, there are two schools: either we protect children from violence by telling them, “you will see, the world is wonderful, life is very beautiful”.

Either we adopt the other approach, more ancestral both here and in Japan: we tell stories to children to teach them that violence exists, and that there are great dangers.

Thus, they are armed at a very young age against those they risk encountering on their way.

It's cathartic.

A great genius of Japanese music, Ryūichi Sakamoto,

died on March 28.

Did you know and like his music?


The death of Ryuichi Sakamoto made me very sad.

Firstly because he is an immense musician.

But also because it is the so beautiful actor who played, in

Furyo

(1993)

,

the role of this Japanese soldier who lives a strange relationship with David Bowie.

It's a film that marked me very strongly when I was a teenager.

At the same time, the Japanese have a pretty healthy idea of ​​death.

And I tell myself that he is not inaccessible to us, where he is.

Source: lefigaro

All life articles on 2023-04-18

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