The Galactic Railroad
In April 1912, the Taitanic sank as everybody knows.
The news reached, of course, Japan. One 16-year old boy in Iwate Prefecture also heard this news. When he started to write one of his novels 12 years later, he put some elements related to the Taitanic tragedy in the story. Then the novel was made public after his death in 1933 under the title of Night on the Galactic Railroad (Ginga Tetsudo no Yoru). It was widely welcomed by Japanese people. Though it was after his death, Kenji Miyazawa became famous for his humanity and modern flavor in his works. If somebody identifying himself as a Japanese does not know author Kenji Miyazawa and his representative work "Night on the Galactic Railroad (Ginga Tetsudo no Yoru)," he is not a Japanese.
It was a fantasy about a poor boy who worked in a printing house while going to school. One evening he suddenly found himself in a train running in the starry sky. He met various people in the train, including his best friend who was to die by accident in the real world. The boy also met a young man accompanied by two children. The young man said that while he, as a teacher of the two children, was sending the two siblings to their father by sea the ship they boarded hit a big iceberg to sink. This episode implied that the galactic train was operated to send people to Heaven. After all, when the boy came back to himself in the night under the sky studied with stars and walked back to his town, he heard that his best friend died by drowning in a river just after saving a classmate troubled in a river.
On March 11, 2011, an M9.0 earthquake occurred in the north Pacific Ocean off the Iwate Prefecture. Subsequent big tsunamis took on more than 6000 lives in Iwate Prefecture. And, interestingly, Kenji Miyazawa is mysteriously bound to natural disasters.
When Kenji was born in 1896, the great Meiji Sanriku earthquake and tsunami occurred, killing 22,000 people. Sanriku is the name of the coastal area of Iwate Prefecture facing the North Pacific Ocean. When Kenji Miyazawa started to write the notable novel Night on the Galactic Railroad (Ginga Tetsudo no Yoru) in 1923, the Great Kanto Earthquake took place around Tokyo, taking on 100,000 lives. When he died in 1933, the great Showa Sanriku earthquake and tsunami occurred, claiming 3,000 lives. And, his best novel features a motif partly including an accident and a tragedy in a river and an ocean. It is said that after the 3/11 tsunami of this year some of Kenji's poems were recited in some gatherings all over the world.
In the story of Night on the Galactic Railroad (Ginga Tetsudo no Yoru), the poor boy was also checked in the train as to whether or not he had a ticket to ride. Every other passenger had a ticket to his or her destination in Heaven or so. When the galactic train reached their destinations, they disappeared. But, the poor boy's ticket is for an unlimited ride. He can travel in the train forever. Conversely, he had no destination. Accordingly, he could not go into the world of deaths or Heaven. He returned to this world to find himself standing on a hill near his home town under the starry night.
The author Kenji Miyazawa died at 37 in 1933. It is said that he loved his sister very much who died of illness 10 years earlier than Kenji's death while she learnt in a university in Tokyo. This tragedy might reflect on his work somehow.
(to be continued...)
*** *** *** ***
(Today access to this blog was mostly from the US, Russia, the Philippines, Mexico, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, Greece, South Korea, etc. )
Luk 11:16 And others, tempting him, sought of him a sign from heaven.
Luk 11:17 But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house divided against a house falleth.
Luk 11:18 If Satan also be divided against himself, how shall his kingdom stand? because ye say that I cast out devils through Beelzebub.