I went from dislike and distaste (primarily based on my reaction to some of the characters) to becoming more and more impressed as time has passed since I finished this. The story is simple: two men, one married and one single, fall in love with a young widow. The focus, however, is on the relationship of the widow to her mother-in-law, a relationship that appears to be unusually close. Enchi is brilliant at depicting the puzzle of that relationship: is the young widow truly independent, are the two women lovers, is the mother-in-law a superb puppet master? There are other plotlines which cast oblique light on this question as well. What makes the novel so extraordinary are the Noh masks alluded to in the title. Each section of the book is named after a particular Noh character (and its mask), implicating an entire Japanese subtext that can’t possibly be conveyed in any translation. The masks not only are significant for their place in Japanese drama but are also clearly indicative of the different faces women choose (or are forced) to wear as well as the feelings beneath those masks. The symbolism is inescapable, impossible to convey in its entirety, and notwithstanding the (I suspect) impenetrable wall to complete appreciation by non-Japanese readers, the work nevertheless strikes me as an intricately constructed, dazzling portrait of two women. ( )

Lo specchio rifletteva il volto della donna o, meglio, la maschera che copriva il suo volto…
il volto della donna era stato visto, un tempo, in un quadro oramai dimenticato…

Cosi’ come esiste un archetipo muliebre amato dagli uomini attraverso i secoli, nello stesso modo vi deve essere un genere di donna da essi eternamente temuto, possibile proiezione dei mali insiti nella natura maschile. (dalla copertina)
Tutto nella donna e’ enigma, e tutto nella donna trova una soluzione: essa si chiama gravidanza. (Delle donnine vecchie e giovani, Cosi’ parlo’ Zarathustra, Nietzsche)

Nel dire cio’ Mikame bruciava dal desiderio di provare a toccare con la punta di un dito, come per catturare un insetto, la fossetta che appariva e scompariva sulla bianca morbida guancia di Yasuko. (53)

In questo senso Fujitsubo e Murasaki sono donne che dissolvono tutto di se’ nel doloroso tormento di accettare gli uomini, facendo cosi’ sbocciare in loro il fiore dell’amore eterno; al contrario Rokujo e’ una Ryo no onna, una donna-spirito: si consuma nell’incapacita’ di annullare il proprio ego nell’amato, e solo attraverso l’inconscia facolta’ possessiva del suo spirito demoniaco trasmette agli altri la propria volonta’ senza ricorrere ad azioni vere e proprie. (94)

In quel momento Ibuki si accorse con meraviglia che, pur avendola vista molte volte, non ricordava in modo chiaro i suoi lineamenti. Non si erano mai incontrati da soli, vi era sempre Yasuko nelle vicinanze e forse questo ne era il motivo, oppure piuttosto perche’ del viso di Mieko nella memoria restava soltanto l’impressione che fosse circondato da un’aura di soave pallore. Se mai, lo si poteva definire un volto come quelli delle maschere del no, ma piu’ che altro dava una sensazione di vaghezza inafferrabile. (132-3)

… Ibuki continuava a pensare ai “fiori delle tenebre”, una espressione letta chissa’ quando in una composizione poetica di epoca Tang. Tra i fiori che emettevano i loro profumi nell’oscurita’, galleggiava non solo il viso di Mieko, ma anche quello di Yasuko, e persino quello di Harume. (134)

Sei tu giunto a me
o sono io venuta da te,
non ricordo,
e’ stato sogno o realta’,
dormivo o ero sveglia? (155)

Da allora sono immerso nel Poema del Mare
Che, lattescente e invaso dalla luce degli astri,
Morde l'acqua turchese, dentro cui, fluttuando,
Scende estatico un morto pensoso e illividito;

...

Dove, tingendo a un tratto l'azzurrità, deliri
E ritmi prolungati nel giorno rutilante,
Più stordenti dell'alcol, più vasti delle lire,
Fermentano i rossori amari dell'amore!

Io so i cieli che scoppiano in lampi, e so le trombe,
Le correnti e i riflussi: io so la sera, e l'Alba
Che si esalta nel cielo come colombe a stormo;
E qualche volta ho visto quel che l'uomo ha sognato!

…

Ma basta, ho pianto troppo! Le Albe sono strazianti.
Ogni luna mi è atroce ed ogni sole amaro:
L'acre amore mi gonfia di stordenti torpori.
Oh, la mia chiglia scoppi! Ch'io vada in fondo al mare!

Le Batteux Ivre (Il battello ebbro) - Rimbaud
( )

I think what I most enjoyed about this book was all the information about Japanese literature and culture. I keenly enjoy books written by foreign (to me) authors for the insights into different cultures I can gain from them - especially when the book is as entertaining as this one.

The story of Masks takes place in a post-WWII Japan and the characters though modern are rather strongly influenced by Japan's earlier dynastic culture. Elements of Japanese literature and Noh theater set the theme for this tale. In reading Masks I felt like a voyeur peering through a smudged window into that distant world and gaining a small, sometimes peculiarly shocking, insight into Japanese psychology.

I didn't understand the ending scene, and I wonder if it's from Japanese theater? Maybe someone could help me with that. ( )

I was surprised by the pace of this novel and the symbolic nature of the characters. Although I did not fully understand the allusions to the Tale of Genji and Noh masks, the story was excellent and compelling. It fit nicely with other reads I've completed recently that deal with women and the nature of childbearing. I think that to fully understand it, I'll need to reread it, but I look forward to it. Finished this short read in just a day. Mieko was somewhat mystifying, and by the end, I wasn't quite sure what had truly happened to her during her marriage to make her into the woman that she was. ( )

Masks is a tricky book to get to grips with, and I'm not sure that I really did it justice reading it during a long train journey. The present-day (i.e. 1950s) foreground middle-class adultery plot seems to be a reworking of an episode from The tale of Genji (the story of the Rokujō lady), as carefully explained in a scholarly essay by one of the characters, and there are all kinds of undercurrents of spiritualism and of shamanism-as-matriarchal-power going on.

I found the language of the book, as translated by Carpenter, flat and unappealing (tone-deaf, even), rather in the idiom of a very forgettable modern American novel, without much sense that this was Japan in the 1950s, and this made it harder to take the leap into engaging with the supernatural side of the story, which takes away a lot of the point of the book. But there obviously is a lot of interesting stuff to dig out if you can get past the dull language, in particular the complex characters of the two women at the centre of the story. ( )