Kenji Miyazawa
"The Cellist Gauche" Interpretatoin Summary
I believe that Gauche was named after"Global Spirit."
The bandmaster is hard on Gauche,who represents the earth (globe)
suffering from natural calamities although blessed with sunlight.
The bandmaster is compared to the sun, while the band members
sitting in a circle, to the solar syatem.
Apprentices to a horseshor smith or sugar seller can be
interpreted as a shoemaker (shoe man) and a beet seller (vendor),
which imply shoe man -> Schumann and beet vendor -> Beethoven respectively.
On the first a cat comes in. The Gauche plays a piece titled
"Tiger Hunting in India (the god of thunder / light and sound,thunder).
On the second night "Cuckoo" represents soul of the one
leaving for a foreign country (the other world).
It is having ahard time going out of the window.
What it suggests is a painful conflict of Gauche (Global Spirit) with
the dying.
On the third night comes a little raccoon dog. The second string
is "a thread", signifying lifeline.
The fact that the earth hesitates to see off the dying makes
the raccoon dog say, "When you strum on the second strig,
you tend to be behind what's expected."
On the fourth night comes afield mouse with her little child.
They are small and weak as if they are easy tobe vanished by an eraser.
An eraser suggets to die of a disease.
It goes that when he plays the cello, he feels so good with his blood
circulating well.
What it mens is oxygen. That is Cello -> Zero -> 0 -> Oxygen.
It signifies that the earth is releasing oxygen which is indispensable
for living by photosynthesis.
The night of resuscitation is the earth's desire.
Then the sixth night. That is the new moon.
The novel says that the Symphony played the light of festival.
It's an annular eclipse of the sun.
Gauche played the lighting.
The fourth movement of the Sixth Symphony, allegro "Thunderstorm".
The time lag with which the visitors come from the first night to the dawn.
That is the relationship between the moon and the earth.
The line in a last scene goes,"Oh, Cuckoo, I'm sorry about that time.
That was not because I was angry though."
It is the mourning for the dead and sorrow he felt.
1998/3 setsuko.