I am a literary giant in Japan

"It turns out that my teacher Kitagawa, who was far away in Tsarist Russia, had not forgotten me, his last disciple!"

Kaoru gripped the stack of manuscript papers tightly, feeling a warm glow inside.

It had been more than two months since my last meeting with Professor Kitagawa, and we hadn't been in contact since.

Kaoru knew that Professor Kitagawa was busy with his new book, which was intended to slap the Nobel Prize committee in the face, so even though she missed him, she wisely refrained from bothering him.

Unexpectedly, time flies, and Kitagawa-sensei actually took some time out of his busy schedule to send her the manuscript of his new book!

It feels so good to be cared for silently by the person you care about!
Kaoru felt a sweet and warm feeling in her heart, and was happy for a long time before she calmed down and then opened the manuscript to read it carefully.

This is Kitagawa-sensei's upcoming new book, and I certainly wouldn't mail it to her without a reason.

Although Kitagawa-sensei only wrote some words of concern about her life and recent situation in the letter, and asked her to take a look at the new book and write a review, without mentioning anything about literary creation, Kaoru had already regarded reading the new book and writing a review as a test from Kitagawa-sensei!

Kitagawa-sensei once explicitly told her that among his five disciples, only Kaoru, who had not yet officially debuted, was most likely to inherit his mantle.

I can't let Kitagawa-sensei down!
With this in mind, Kaoru composed herself and immediately immersed herself in reading and studying "Childhood".

The version that Kitagawa Hide sent to Kaoru was in pure Japanese, but it was written in a translated style, giving it a Western literary feel and instantly evoking Kaoru's childhood memories.

Unlike their neighbors, the Japanese experienced a long period of American imperialist rule and military presence after their defeat in World War II. As a result, their postwar literature was deeply influenced by Western literature, and their early works were filled with a strong sense of translation.

Many of Japan's most popular manga works started by imitating Western fantasy works, and the dialogue between characters is also full of translated accents.

It wasn't until after the millennium, with the rise of Japanese light novels, that Japanese light fantasy gradually replaced Western fantasy and became the mainstay of the Japanese entertainment industry.

"This novel is so depressing!"

In mid-April, Japan has entered spring, and the cherry blossoms blooming everywhere are like warm sunshine, always able to warm people's hearts.

But at this moment, as Kaoru was engrossed in reading "Childhood" under the white light of the desk lamp, she felt a chill run through her body, as waves of inexplicable coldness invaded her.

"Childhood" mainly tells the story of what the protagonist Alyosha saw and heard at his grandfather's house.

Alyosha, who came to live with his maternal grandfather after accompanying his maternal grandmother, was initially an ignorant child, but he quickly matured in the harsh living conditions.

At my maternal grandfather's house, it seemed that everyone hated each other.

That lingering hatred constantly plagued everyone, and as Grandfather Kashilin's small dye shop business declined, the terrifying atmosphere brought by that hatred grew stronger and stronger.

Because of their defeat in the war, the Japanese have a very strong bias towards the United States and Tsarist Russia.

For decades, most Japanese people have never been to Tsarist Russia, but when they mention this once superpower that could rival the United States, their eyes are filled with longing and fear.

Nineteen-year-old Kaoru is no exception.

After watching "Childhood," Kaoru's romanticized view of Tsarist Russia was completely shattered.

Did the so-called superpower that claimed to be on par with the United States actually have such a dark history?
In his letter to her, Professor Kitagawa specifically mentioned that Tsarist Russia today is not much different from that of the 1870s and 1880s.

The suffering of the lower classes continues to this day, with countless Alyoshas still repeating their tragic childhood in Nizhny Novgorod!
"If Tsarist Russia was like this, and Japan was like this, then will the United States, which claims to be the world's number one power, be the same?"

Kaoru once believed that a wealthy nation would have a strong populace, and that a country that could draw nourishment from the world should also have a very comfortable life for its ordinary people.

Now, she has to start to doubt this "truth" that she has always firmly believed in!

"Childhood" tells the story of Alyosha from the age of three to ten.

The novel's setting shifts from Alyosha's hometown to a small dye house in Nizhny Novgorod, and later, after his mother remarries, Alyosha goes to live with his stepfather.

Unfortunately, her mother married the wrong person, and her stepfather beat and scolded her and Alyosha every day. Unable to bear the humiliation, Alyosha returned to his maternal grandfather's house.

However, this time, my maternal grandfather also went completely bankrupt.

As Kaoru read about Alyosha's life over the past seven years, she felt as if her own life as a dancer in northern Izu was being relived.

At that time, she followed her brother and mother as a young dancer in a touring troupe, playing the shamisen and performing geisha dances. She suffered all kinds of harassment and discrimination every day, much like Alyosha, who was constantly wandering around.

As she read, when she reached the last chapter of "Childhood" and read about Alyosha, who, in order to make a living, joined forces with the neighborhood children to collect and sell scraps after school, Kaoru burst into tears.

Because this storyline is practically a carbon copy of her childhood.

At the end of Childhood, Alyosha experiences friendship and compassion from his classmates.

However, their joint scavenging activities also drew criticism from the school.

Alyosha had no choice but to finish the third grade with excellent grades and then follow the principal's instructions to leave the school forever.

At the same time, Alyosha's mother passed away. After burying her, he finally made up his mind to go to the "human world" with his lonely grandmother to make a living.

"The second part of Alyosha's autobiographical trilogy is called 'My Childhood,' but judging from Kitagawa-sensei's description, it's clearly 'In Hell.'"

Kaoru slowly closed the manuscript, her heart filled with turbulent emotions that she found difficult to calm down.

It took her a long time to slowly emerge from Alyosha's "childhood".

She unfolded the prepared letter paper, first writing "Dear Kitagawa-sensei" at the top, then paused, feeling a pang of unease as if she had a bellyful of emotions but no way to put them into words.

After holding back for several more minutes, Xunzi sorted out all the thoughts about "Childhood" in her head before finally putting down the first line of text: "Alyosha's childhood made me truly feel the suffering of the lower classes in Tsarist Russia."

I wonder if you, Kitagawa-sensei, still remember the first time we met?

"Me back then"

The quiet dormitory room was filled only with the light of the desk lamp and the swishing sound of a fountain pen writing.

Before we knew it, the moon had risen above the treetops, and the sky was filled with stars.
"Finally finished!" At the same time, Junji Ito, who had been staying at home for many days, put down his paintbrush and breathed a sigh of relief.

He finally finished the black and white illustrations for "Ring 1: Bell".

Tomorrow is the final interview for "Kitagawa Library". Whether I can successfully get my desired position depends entirely on this picture of "Sadako crawling out of the TV"!
Junji Ito laid the drawing paper flat, put it back on the easel, and then stepped back to admire it carefully.

This painting is based on the scene in the latest chapter of "Ring 1: Bell" where the female ghost Sadako appears.

The original description in Kitagawa-sensei's novel is as follows:

A television set sits on a wooden table.

This is a rather old-fashioned 19-inch television with a channel knob, and the rabbit-ear-shaped indoor antenna sits on a wooden cabinet.

This is not a play within a play, but a television within a television.

There was no image on the television screen yet.

At this moment, it seemed to be plugged in. The indicator light next to its channel knob turned red, and the TV screen began to shake continuously. After a while, it returned to normal, and then it started shaking again.

The intervals between the shaking became shorter and shorter, and a blurry character appeared on the screen, which looked like the character '贞'.

The character '贞' was sometimes disordered, sometimes distorted, and sometimes it turned into the character '贝' before gradually disappearing.

It disappeared in the same way that someone wiped the chalk writing off a blackboard with a wet cloth.

As the character "贞" disappeared, the television screen began to flicker. Then the screen went dark, and Ando saw a woman dressed in white, crawling on the ground, her long hair obscuring her entire face.

She is Sadako Yamamura!

Ando heard a voice say this to him!
His eyes widened, desperately trying to escape, but his body seemed to be frozen in place by something, unable to move at all.

Sadako Yamamura slowly began to crawl out of the television set.

In this part of the novel's plot, Ando is the male protagonist Asakawa's best friend during his university years, and he is also a surgeon.

By a twist of fate, Ando also watched that terrifying videotape.

After learning that watching the videotape would result in death within a week, he decided to go with Asakawa to unravel the mystery hidden in the terrifying videotape.

So the two of them investigated all the way to Sadako's hometown and found out who this woman with superpowers was accidentally pushed into a well and killed.

Asakawa brought Sadako's remains out of the well, and the two brought the murderer to justice.

Ando originally thought that Sadako's curse would end at this point.

Unexpectedly, on his scheduled death day, he was watching the news on TV when he was killed by Sadako Yamamura, who climbed out of the TV screen!
The female ghost who calls "Midnight Bell" crawls out of the TV on her predetermined death day to kill people. This is the most famous and recently discussed classic scene in "Ring 1: Bell"!
Without a doubt, every illustrator who chose to illustrate this novel could not avoid this scene.

But how well it can be presented depends on the artist's skill.

Junji Ito was very satisfied with his work. Looking at the painting, he felt as if he had become Ando, ​​and Sadako in the painting seemed as if she might crawl out at any moment.

"Damn it. I reckon that after the last 'Ringu' incident, the meme of Sadako crawling out of the TV will soon be popular on the internet again."

Junji Ito looked at his own painting and felt a chill run down his spine. While he was looking forward to "Ring 2: Spiral", he couldn't help but criticize Kitagawa-sensei in his heart.

It was supposed to be a science fiction novel, so why did it get so scary?
At this time, Kitagawa Hide, who was still far away in Kazan experiencing the different customs and culture of the lower classes in Tsarist Russia, had no idea that this classic scene from "Ring 1: Bell" had become a nightmare for countless Japanese people.

For him, who had lived through the era of information explosion, the famous scene of Sadako crawling out of the TV was nothing special. He was probably still a little scared when he first saw it, but over time, it became a meme and a source of laughter.

If Kitagawa Hide is not mistaken, some internet enthusiasts from the neighboring country later used this meme to create a short drama, I think it was called "The People's Sadako"?
In short, he didn't think it was anything terrifying. The novel is essentially a mystery and science fiction, which will become more and more apparent in the later three or four books.

The "Ring Series" didn't hold a high place in his heart; it was mainly for exploring new avenues and accelerating the development of light novels and e-reading.

Kitagawa Hide's main focus is still on copying Gorky's autobiographical trilogy.

As his trip to Kazan was coming to an end, during his time as an apprentice at the icon workshop, he began to handwrite "In the World" in his spare evenings.

The second part is still set in Nizhny Novgorod, but the main stage has moved from the grandfather's house to the bustling city center.

To write "My Childhood," Hideya Kitagawa spent a few days in Nizhny Novgorod, doing all the jobs Alyosha had done.

Because this kind of low-level work was tiring and time-consuming, he had no time to write books when he was an apprentice. So Kitagawa Hide could only write his experiences in a diary and look at it when he needed it.

Looking through this thin diary, Kitagawa Hide could hardly believe that he had written it in just a few days.

Indeed, rich life experience is the most valuable asset of writers!
read more, walk more.

The true meaning of this sentence is not that it is a synonymous sentence, but a coordinate sentence.

To become a top-tier writer who can enter the halls of literature, one must not only read ten thousand books but also travel ten thousand miles!

And so, in mid-to-late April of 1999, Kitagawa Hide wrote a brand new version of "In the World" in an unprecedented state of rapture.

This time, he rewrote the work based on Gorky's original text and his own real experiences. Some questions about the original text that had troubled him for a long time were also answered in the writing process.

This is Gorky's journey "in the world" after he turned ten, and also Kitagawa Hideki's journey "in the world" after he came to Nizhny Novgorod, Tsarist Russia!
On the morning of May 18, 1999.

Today, Moscow was bitterly cold, as if the last vestiges of winter had returned to sweep over the city. Igor, who had just stepped out, had to go home to put on a coat before cycling to St. Petersburg State University.

At the same time, Alexei, the editor-in-chief of "New World," drove his luxury car at top speed to the nearest bookstore, ready to buy the April issue of "New World" serialized with "Childhood" as soon as possible.

Meanwhile, Yevgeny, whose novel will also be published today, was filled with anxiety. He drove to Kazan early in the morning, hoping to escape the silent war between "The New World" and "The Modern Man," as well as his "Expulsion" and "Childhood," and also to pick up Kitagawa Hide, who had finished his research trip.

Meanwhile, in faraway Tokyo, Japan, Kitagawa Hide's "Childhood" was also published in the April issue of "Bungei" magazine! (End of Chapter)