Abe Kazushige
Nipponia nippon

I don't have a great fondness for birds, but more specifically what convinced me to read this short novel by the Japanese author Abe Kazushige (born in 1968, one of the most well-regarded contemporary authors from his country internationally) was the idea of lucid determination briefly described in the "back cover" where it states that "Nipponia nippon" is the story of a seventeen-year-old named Toya Haruo who plans to travel to the protected oasis of Sadogashima with the aim of eliminating the last rare specimens of the crested ibis, aka Nipponia nippon, in order to step out of anonymity.

It might seem, told in this way, a compelling story and, however exotic, not far from news stories that are in various forms recurring even in Western society and can nonetheless be explained in the growth and formation of an individual in different ways, but in which there are nonetheless common traits: profound existential discomfort, loneliness, and the inability to truly communicate with others. If I told you that every teenager, and indeed every man or woman, has this type of problem, I wouldn’t be lying, because as frightening as it may be, these are characteristics that are deep-rooted and then clearly faced and elaborated and/or re-elaborated differently depending on individual capabilities and possibilities. But also on circumstances.

What drives Haruo to plan this kind of no-return mission? A meticulous planning and a long preparation, following years of study and gathering information on this species, practically extinct in Japan and of which the last specimens exist only in China. Practically, in concrete terms, the only case of international collaboration between the two Asian powers with Japan's specific aim to bring back to life one of its national symbols. But then, will these ibises be Japanese or Chinese? And Haruo, whose surname contains the Chinese character meaning "crested ibis" and who cannot find, however, a specific origin concerning his geographic provenance, to the point of doubting whether he himself is fully Japanese because according to a whole series of reconstructions, he believes he descends from an area called Tohoku in the north, at the border between the prefectures of Niigata and Yamagata, which was once the boundary of ancient Japan, making things increasingly confusing until the only answer he finds within himself is that those birds must die. Perhaps because he wants to make history. Perhaps because he has identified with those birds so much that he has come to hate them, as much as he hates himself, and so perhaps instead of wanting to enter history, he just wants to exit it. But when one wants to exit a story in such a violent way, it is known, they then drag everyone along. Or that's what they try to do.

"Nipponia nippon" is a short novel, as easy to read as it is brilliant. It can be read in a single evening and can simply be considered the story of the determination of a maladjusted boy enacting his megalomaniac and criminal plan (as per the back cover), or else delve into the thousand and more aspects recalled and addressed by this author with a subtlety that not only demonstrates great technical and narrative skills but also rare intelligence and the ability to condense into a work that evidently speaks much of the discomfort of one generation as well as of those before, but that also crosses the boundaries of his country (Japan, the real one, the one outlined on maps and which then would also be subjects of international disputes) and becomes universal and a sort of cyclical and primordial allegory like the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. This here is the story of the son. One only, because Cain and Abel were ultimately the same person.