TWO-IN-ONE BOOKS: HHhH AND FOUR SEASONS IN JAPAN

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Most books tell you a story, but some books make you question who is allowed to tell that story, and by telling it, what changes within them.

HHhH by Laurent Binet and Four Seasons in Japan by Nick Bradley, are two completely different books on the surface, both thematically and from a genre perspective.

However, they both share what is slowly becoming one of my favourite literary devices; they are, in their own ways, two books in one. I’m not talking about different timelines, multiple POV’s, or alternative universes.

Rather these are books where a whole other story sits inside the mainline story, and as a reader we start to better understand the characters, the author, and even ourselves as readers. I love when books leave me asking questions like ‘what happens next’ or ‘was I being misled this whole time’, but recently I have found myself asking ‘who is telling this story, and why does it matter?’ Not in reference to the author, but the characters in the book.

Both books deliver that question, but in two very different ways: one through war, history, and authorial anxiety, while the other deals with translation, loneliness, and a human connection to the story being told.

Two two-in-one books

HHhH is an account of ‘Operation Anthropoid’ where two Czechoslovakian parachutists set out to assassinate Reinhard Heydrich, who was an infamous high ranking Nazi who controlled the Gestapo and was instrumental in the creation and execution of the Final Solution. The story weaves through each chapter demonstrating the high-stakes operations, the tense moments of two brave soldiers behind enemy lines, and glimpse into life in World War 2. Hidden within HHhH is another book, not set in 1942, but rather in the life of Laurent Binet himself. Binet will often stop what he is writing and interrupt his own book to argue with himself, question his ability to write historical fiction, and even question what a historical novel should look like.

We see Binet grapple with fact vs fiction and even his girlfriend comments on points she believes he is embellishing too far. This piece of historical fiction ultimately puts a magnifying glass on the genre of historical fiction by asking how truthful history can really be, what is the ultimate narrative, and who has the power to change that narrative.

In a huge contrast of genre, Four Seasons in Japan is based on Flo, an American translator living in Japan who translates Japanese fiction for a western audience. While she struggles to find a new piece to work on she comes across a novel titled Sound of Water after someone leave it behind on the train. She finds a story of a young boy called Kyo and the relationship he forms with his grandmother, Ayako. During alternating chapters we read the story of Sound of Water and follow Kyo through a tumultuous summer as he deals with the loss of his father, failing his end of year exams, his future career and life, girls, and his relationship with the traditional slow life his grandmother.

The other ‘book’ is about Flo and the story of her translating this book where not only does she worry about finding the right word or phrase in English to correctly convey to original Japanese, she also worries about the choices she has made in her own life up until now with friends, ex’s and family. As we read Four Seasons, the comparisons between the character of Kyo and the translator Flo become more apparent: two people who have built walls around them, but are ultimately broken down by a culture and society they may have previously rejected.

If you like books that make you question the art of storytelling, both of these are worth reading. While HHhH is restless and Four Seasons in Japan is reflective, HHhH asks whether stories can ever do justice of the dead, while Four Season in Japan asks whether stories can help the living understand themselves.

Both make the reader question what stories do to the people who tell, translate, read, and inherit them. Both ‘books within books’ showed me how powerful this literary device was. They made me stop and think about fiction, and non-fiction in a different way, a way that truly made me see how powerful storytelling is.

While I read these at two very different times in my life, 12 years apart, they were just what I needed at the time, to stop and reflect on my life, and the stories I wanted to tell.