One Hundred Million Hearts

World War II is vexatious. It vexes those of us who lost much in that horrific carnage. It vexes a current generation of youth who have been de-historicized from that period. It is difficult to write about the first war that ravaged Earth on a worldwide scale. Many have tried, some have succeeded. It is conscientious of Kerri Sakamoto to base her second novel on aspects of that war. A central site that serves various narrative functions in One Hundred Million Hearts is the Yakisuni Shrine in Tokyo. It is an enormous park in memory of Japan’s “war heroes.” Years ago, on my first visit to Japan, I had no clue about the shrine’s significance. I remember spending an agreeable afternoon by myself in that huge park, eating noodles and other Japanese snacks. After the fact, when I found out the significance of the park, I had much more to reflect on. Those enduring reflections are now bouncing off my reflections on Sakamoto’s discourse. One Hundred Million Hearts invokes the shadows of modern infernos, the infinite shattering of Nagasaki and Hiroshima from American atomic bombs, the minds of the Japanese pilots who carried out bombing missions from Asia to Pearl Harbour, and the devastated psyches of survivors in Japan and Ontario. One of the survivors, Miyo Mori, travels to Japan on a quest to come to terms with the vexations of her past and that of her father, Masao, a kamikaze pilot in Japan’s WWII Air Force. In the end, what I got from Sakamoto’s novel is that the apocalyptic never quite ends, for the truly grotesque cannot really be resolved. Hence, World War II is not quite past. The aftermath of WWII is in a hundred million pieces, and somehow it is associated with the colour red, as signified by the ever-moving red cravat of another kamikaze pilot in the novel, who is alive long after the official ending of the War.