Sakyo KomatsuJapan Sinks (Dover Doomsday Classics)

I feel like this should be a more well-known book. Komatsu works through the implications of what would happen to Japan if they knew that the islands are sinking, and how the people would react to it. It is a beautiful speculation of mass psychology and the disparate reactions of individuals in the face of crisis. The blurbs talk about its importance in the face of the earthquake and tsunami a decade ago, but the better analogy for me is how we deal with a more slow – moving crisis, that of climate change. It was this growing tsunami of change that was hovering over me as I read the text, and it shook me to the bones. I don’t think we’re going to do well with that as Miami sinks and New Orleans disappears.

Japan Sinks delivers everything you would want in a disaster novel. It lays out the destruction of a world in comprehensive detail, while also present well developed characters that make you care about what's happening. Moreover, it presents enough scientific detail to enable suspension of disbelief. If you enjoy it, I heartily recommend watching the 1970s Japanese film adaptation, which is superb.

The following first few lines were added as of Summer of the year 2012: It is very sad for me to state this, but the author of this science fiction novel, Mr. Sakyo KOMATSU passed away in July, 2011: only a few months after the Great Thohoku Earthquakes and Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant's accidents in March of 2011. I would like to express my most sincere condolences to one of the biggest loss in the Japanese science fiction writers' community and to the Japanese literature cluture as a whole. Please find his ovituraries on any decent international magazines and news papers. It was such a loss for all of us here in Japan. RIP Komatsu Sakyo.Now, please note and understand that the following review was written and placed before my knowledge of the author's passing away happened in July of the same year.As most of you have already known, Mr. Sakyo KOMATSU has been a leader of the very best of those Japanese Science Fiction writers for the last fifty years and is still going strong. This particular master piece has probably been the most wellknown novel of his to Japanese fans. It has sold more than four million, thus 4,000,000 copies in not only in his native country of Japan but also in eleven other nations and languages, including this English translated version, in the world. What amazing things about this novel are: This entier novel of Japan's geological, topo-graphical, social, and historical fate was writen almost fourty years ago, when nobody knew about the real geophysical phenomenon of highly scientific subjects of plate-techtonics and geophyics; in fact, becasue of this science fiction by Sakyo Komatsu every single layman here in Japan know what the mantle crrents or the theory of the continental drifts by Weggener. These ideas were not mentioned or discussed about even in highschool textbooks then. This novel is just that much important to Japanese people's real concerns and knowledge on its erthquekes and tidal waves: The warnings raised herein the novel are still alive and they all seem so real. I do recomend to read this novel and feel how Japanese people felt in 1972 and then how hopeless or helpless we are in front of the great power of the mother nature, yet there are still some selected individuals, who are wise enough and good enough to forseen the changes and movements, would try to save their people and to survive through all these difficlulties their were placed. Just one another interesting, or in a sense, spine-chilling sensation about this novel is that much of its content are still readable and significat after all those years when we try to look at Japan's recent tsunami and nuclear desasters: Unfortunately what Mr.Komastu had wanted Japanese government to know and act on the natural national desasters were not followed or at least those early warnnings were not utelized fully by the real Japanese government. I believe there are only limited or few copies left on the market, so please get one while you can and see and experiance for yourself what they must have gone through for the past few months. I strongly recomend this novel to everyone who likes good and meaningful sciense fiction. Thank you.

This book is interesting in the view of a cultural experience. The book is a classic in disaster literature but the translation is rough in places. I found myself skimming sections that did not translate in a smooth manner. The book is a good read if you are interested in geological disasters and are tired of zombie novels.

Not so far fetched add not to bring chills to the heart of anyone that has known a home. A celebration of human courage and love that i wish was more evident in this world.

just what I wanted

book looks good - gift for friend

This is an enjoyable but radically abridged -- and ultimately misleading -- version of an excellent book. The Japanese original of this work comes to about 800 pages in the Japanese equivalent of a paperback. The English translation, first published in 1975 and re-issued in 1995, comes in at under 240 pages (in the Kodansha International printing). A tremendous amount of substance has been sacrificed, and unfortunately it entirely changes the nature of the story.I first read this book 10 years ago, after it had gone out of print in English a second time. The version I'd read was in French, and it struck me as a very political novel. This year I had to re-read the book in connection with a politics class I was teaching, and in the belief I'd save time I picked up my university library's English-language version. This time it read more like a science fiction novel with a lot of oceanography and geology, and very little politics. Once I compared the two, the reasons became clear: both the French and English versions are severe abridgements, but aside from a few key passages, the respective translators chose almost entirely complementary chunks of the original to put between the covers.Broadly speaking, Michael Gallagher's version follows in the tradition of action- and FX-filled disaster movies. (That's a little surprising, since Gallagher is perhaps more famous as a translator of highbrow 20th Century Japanese literature, including Endo and Mishima.) It's rich in visual descriptions, and relishes scenes in which submersibles have mechanical problems or the scientific principles of plate tectonics are explained with holograms and other gadgets, as well as scenes where stuff goes up in smoke, pillars of flame, etc. Gallagher is also much more generous about the anatomical details of the few female characters in the book, including the hero's supposed love interest and fiancée, who is portrayed mainly as his sex toy (or actually, he as hers -- she is a Western-educated Japanese woman, and therefore, by the author's logic, aggressive). Most key scenes involving the deliberations of the Prime Minister and his cabinet or the inner musings of the PM and several other characters are either severely clipped or eliminated entirely; the same is true of some scenes involving the mysterious and pivotal character of Watari-san, a wheelchair-bound centenarian with the ability to pull strings all over the world.In contrast, the French version (roughly the same length as Gallagher's, by the husband-and-wife team of M. and Mme. Shibata Masumi) presents the disasters are a pretext for a novel of ideas. It tends to summarise the scientific arguments (and the sex) and to include just enough visuals of the disaster to give the reader some flavour. But it's much more generous in showing the political and journalistic side, including Komatsu's very sardonic view of how Japan is seen by foreigners, as well as his expectation that the patriotic thing to do would be to conceal information from the prying eyes of the United States. (The one big exception is in the counterpart to Gallagher's Chapter 23, where the two translations include almost no overlapping passages. While the French mention that the PM speaks with both the financial community and opposition politicians, they only show the dialogue with the financiers, while Gallagher omits the money guys but does present the opposition's political wrangling.) We also get to see more of various characters' internal musings in French. And while the Shibatas' version doesn't exactly make the leading female character 3-dimensional, at least they make it clear why the hero was introduced to her, why the characters developed some feelings for each other, and some crucial things the hero told her before they were separated by natural events. That wasn't the only aspect of character motivation I found clearer in the French version, either.While I don't yet read Japanese well enough to hack through all 800 pages of the original, those I know who have read it maintain that the novel of ideas was more what the author intended, a point he also apparently mentioned in interviews. In particular, Komatsu wondered whether the Japanese could be like the Jews, holding onto their identity even when deprived of a homeland (a point that comes up a couple of times in the French abridgement, especially). For this reason, as well as for Komatsu's subtle exploration of the many ethical and diplomatic dilemmas a government would face in dealing with the disappearance of a country and a cultural homeland, I think the Gallagher version really isn't adequate.Unfortunately, Komatsu is no longer among the living, and the fragmentation of copyright that often follows an author's death, coupled with the conservative customs of the Japanese publishing industry, make it unlikely that an unabridged translation will appear soon, if ever. Some might even argue that Komatsu endorsed Gallagher's translation when he wrote a preface to its 1995 re-issue, expressing hope that the book could help readers understand the plight of the victims of the Kobe earthquake earlier that year. Since Gallagher's is the best that's available in English, and is certainly an entertaining read, I give it four stars. Just be aware that this is definitely the Hollywood version.

I bought Japan Sinks when I read "good used", thought it would be a recent copy, but it isn't. It's pages are fairly yellowed l, which is fine as it's still a book. The think that irritated is that it still has the library sleve from 2010 stuck to the front and a stamp. Ontop Paid ~£10 for the copy and the sleeve has a RRP of £5. So it seems I've been upsold a with a possibility that it could have been stolen out of a library in 2010.

good book

Fué para mi nieta que quiere iniciar el aprendizaje del idioma y quedó muy complacida

About the earthquake area in Japan but it takes time to get into