Review: The Honorable Miss Moonlight by Onoto Watanna

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The Honorable Miss Moonlight by Onoto Watanna is about the kind of love that consumes your present life and promises to haunt you in the afterlife. I believe love to be the most exalted of human emotions. However, I am not so sure about the existence of the afterlife. But it’s not about what I believe. It’s about what the Japanese people believed in post World War I era. So let’s continue with the story.

Young Lord Saito Gonji is the sole heir of the noble Saito family of Japan. His family and relatives arranged his marriage with an orphan girl called Ohano. Most of her life she lived in the Saito household, therefore she was more like a daughter to Lady Gonji. Because of her noble birth, the relatives of Lord Gonji, especially the ones from his mother’s side, approved of this arrangement. Though Lord Gonji had played with her when he was a child, having her as a wife had never crossed his mind. He had the image of a perfect wife in his mind and Ohano came nowhere near it. Gonji looked upon the new, grown-up Ohano with some aversion.

Ohano was plump, with a round, somewhat sullen face, a pouting, full-lipped mouth, and eyes so small they seemed but mere slits in her face. She had inherited the inscrutable, disdainful expression of her lofty ancestors.

That’s when the that of Miss Moonlight, a.k.a. the Spider from the House of Slender Pines crossed his path. She was the most celebrated geisha in Kioto. She was called the Spider because of her peculiar dance style. She was invited to perform in the illustrious house of Saito. Here young Lord Gonji, who till now was troubled by the visions of Ohan, saw her. He was mesmerized.  

Every gesture, every slightest flutter of her sleeve, her hand, her fan, every smallest turn or motion of her bewitching head, was directed at the guest of honor, the son and heir of the house of Saito.

He proposed Moonlight. This created a great upheaval in the Saito family. A geisha, they said, was trained to entertain men, not to marry and bear children. Besides, it would bring disgrace to the honorable Saito family. Young Lord locked himself in his room and pined away for geisha Moonlight. The only person who sympathized with him was his father Lord Ichigo, who finally decided to take matters in his hand. He tried to convince the relatives. When that possibility looked dim, he exercised his authority. He loved his son. Miss Moonlight was married to Lord Gonji. That was when the bad things started happening. Lady Gonji and Ohan, who still lived there, never missed a single opportunity to make the life of Moonlight miserable. A year passed after their marriage without their having any children. That too became a cause of her suffering. There was little Lord Gonji could do to help her. She remained an alien in Saito house till one day, Lady Gonji decided it was time for the Spider to leave.

In The Honorable Miss Moonlight by Onoto Watanna, love was ceaselessly persecuted, repeatedly tested and then finally liberated. Miss Moonlight bore every torment with patience for the sake of the one person she loved. Gonji’s love for Moonlight stood the test of time. Though initially, he yielded to the family’s demand and married Ohan, it was impossible for him to forget his one true love. When the war broke out, Gonji willingly joined the force, as if to flee from the presence of Ohan, the memories of Moonlight and from his own helpless existence.

Onoto Watanna’s The Honorable Miss Moonlight has frequent references to prevailing Japanese culture. There are many Japanese words that the author deliberately left untouched. A proper translation could perhaps make the book more comprehensive, but that would definitely take away the essential cultural flavors from the story. It may be interesting to note that this book, though it may appear as a translated work, was written in English in its original form. This, along with the true identity of the author, I will discuss shortly. But first, let me point out the only thing I didn’t like about this book.

After returning from war, Gonji renewed his search for Moonlight. He scoured the disreputable neighborhood of Yoshiwara, scanned every face of its inmates hoping to find his lost love. He remembered the words of a certain American officer he had met in Manchuria.

“No nation,” the American had said, “can honorably hold its head erect among civilized nations, no matter what its prowess and power, so long as its women are held in such bondage; so long as its women are bartered and sold, often by their own fathers, husbands and brothers, like cattle.”

A realization dawned on him. Yoshiwara, he decided, should be abolished.

This, and the revision of the inhuman and barbarous laws governing divorce, should be his life-work.

This is where I took an uneasy pause. I had nothing against the noble realization of Gonji. He took it upon himself to change the discriminatory laws. That was all very well. But why did he have to wait until reminded by an American officer? What happened to his own morality? To me, it was like a subtle comparison between American ethics and Japanese traditions, in my opinion, was not only unnecessary but also unfair. I am not saying it was a great failing or anything. I just found it kind of amusing.

Onoto Watanna, though her name may sound Japanese to most of us, was a Canadian author. Her real name was Winnifred Eaton. In America, in the year 1912, when The Honorable Miss Moonlight was published, women were not allowed to vote, own property or even work outside home if they were married. However, it was also the time when the Suffrage Movement started taking shape.

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Review: Tom Pagdin, Pirate by E. J. Brady

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It was settled. When Tom Pagdin became the captain of a pirate ship, Dave would be his first-mate.

The two thirteen-year-olds escaped the tyranny of their parents to pursue a career in piracy. They didn’t have a ship. As the pirate crew, they had only each other. Tom had found a stray boat and had hidden it somewhere along the riverbank. The two runaways decided to escape in that boat. Before they sailed off, they accidentally overheard two mysterious men hatching a plan to rob a bank. Seemed like their boat had been discovered by these robbers, who now wanted to ‘borrow’ it for the occasion. After the robbery was carried out, one of the criminals stabbed the other and threw the body into the river.

Tom Pagdin and Dave Gibson, hidden behind a bush, watched it all. Little did they know, the murderer was none other than the vicious, French outlaw Jean Petit, who had escaped from jail, had sailed across Pacific in a small boat. George Chard, the bank clerk was unjustly accused of having involvement in the robbery. Would the two teenage pirates be able to save George? Would Jean Petit, who had walked his way over dead bodies of innocent men, manage to escape once again?

Tom Pagdin, Pirate by Edwin James Brady is a wonderful book that is sure to entertain both a child and an adult alike. E. J. Brady was an Australian poet educated both in the United States and Sydney. In his early life, he had worked as a wharf clerk, a farmer, and a journalist. His familiarity with the landscapes of rural Australia has its unmistakable impressions on the pages of Tom Pagdin, Pirate. The major characters of Tom, Dave, and Jean Petit were made alive mainly through conversations. Tom had a thick, Australian rural accent,

“Pick up your swag an’ foller me,” ordered Tom. “I’ll take yer right away.”

while Jean Petit spoke the sibilant English of a Frenchman.

“Ah! Zen vere shall ve meet – you an’ I, eh?”

Some, especially today’s mentors of creative writing, recommend against using dialectical dialogues. The cluster of apostrophes, misspellings – they say – distracts readers away from the plot. In a prose laden with conversations, they probably do. However, there is a certain advantage of this style; the readers don’t just read the conversation, they can actually hear the characters talking among themselves.

Readers will probably notice that there’s a hierarchy of characters in Edwin James Brady’s Tom Pagdin, Pirate. Importance was given to individual characters according to their roles in the main plot. Jean Petit, the uber-villain, was like a shadow of a predator lurking behind the thicket. He was nowhere, at the same time everywhere. He appears and disappears from the scenes, leaving behind him a trail of blood. Though his identity was not revealed until much later, his evil presence was felt right from the beginning. Tom and Dave, being the main characters, lead the story to its destination. George Chard though he was one of the many who benefitted from Tom’s adventure, remained in comparative obscurity. Jacob and Maria, the farmer -couple, in whose house Tom had stayed for a few hours, appeared on the scene and then quickly passed by.  A similar thing happened with the character called Hans Holterman, the wine-maker. He fell in the way of Jean Petit and was disposed of. Jean Petit’s kissing the knife after he murdered the poor old man, however, left its mark. Jean Petit’s total absence of conscience, his ruthless efficiency in crime, and his treacherous tactics made him a formidable adversary of Tom Pagdin.

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