吉澤嘉代子さんの本棚をきっかけに興味を持った作家，いしいしんじさんの作品をまた読みました。「ぶらんこ乗り」です。これは，いしいさんの長編第1作で，前回紹介した「トリツカレ男」よりも前に書かれた作品とのことです。
高校生の「わたし」には，かつて弟がいました。今では「あの子」と呼ぶ大好きだったその弟のノートを，「おばあちゃん」が数年ぶりに発見します。そして「わたし」がそのノートを読みながら弟についてのエピソードを語っていく，という形でお話は進んでいきます。
I read a work of Ishii Shinji again, the author I got interested in after I saw Yoshizawa Kayoko’s bookshelves on TV. The work is “Buranko Nori” . This book is the first one as a long work for Ishii and was written earlier than “Toritsukare Otoko” which I mentioned last time.
‘I’ who is a high school girl now had once a younger brother. The story is told by ‘me’ reading notebooks written by her brother called ‘dear boy’ who she loved so much. The notebooks were found by her ‘Grandma’ after a long time.
いわゆる一人称小説のこの物語は，その時点で主人公と読み手が同化し，エピソードを追体験できるよう仕組まれています。そこで読者が目の当たりにする世界は…。実に美しい世界でした。可愛くて不思議で痛快なエピソードを通じて，懐かしく，切なく，憧れに満ちた気持ちにさせてくれました。また，そこに弟がいないことを始め，欠如感を抱かせるいくつかの要素が，読者の欲求を高め，先を読みたい気持ちにさせていきます。
This is a so-called novel written in the first person, that way readers are already set to be tricked so that they can feel as if they are the main character itself and experience the same thing as the main character does. The world which readers can see there is like…, really beautiful one. Going through some episodes, some is cute, other is curious or thrilling, I had feelings of nostalgia, sweet sorrow, or longing for something. Plus, some factors like absence of her brother makes readers feel an aching void, and at the same time it makes us strongly feel like knowing about how the story goes.
誰かに，自分が大好きな作品を好きにさせてやろうと意気揚々と話し始めるも，躍起になってそのよさをつたえようとすればするほど，相手が引いてしまうことがあります。ピーターパンがまさにいい例です。子どもの頃に絵本でみて全く興味が持てませんでした。けれども，初めてビデオで観たときに，思い切り笑って泣ける作品と分かって大好きになりました。勢い込んで人にそのよさを伝えようとストーリーを話してもやっぱり相手の表情はさえません。そうした作品は物語の姿を借りた大きな1つの詩なのかもしれません。ストーリーというより，そこにある世界，そして文体，ちょっとした言い回しといった創り手の意図や個性を楽しむべきものなのだと思います。「ぶらんこ乗り」に示されたいしいしんじさんの世界，とても好ましいものでした。何故か，昔よく読んでいた漫画家，岩館真理子さんの作品を思い出しました。
I sometimes try to tell someone about how good the work I love is, but in some cases the harder I try to, the less the person feel interest in it. Peter Pan is a good example. I was not interested in it at all when I read the picture book version as I was a little boy. But I was surprised when I saw the movie on video, and I was really glad to find It making me laugh and also cry very much. The momentum of my joy led me into trying to tell someone how it was good but ended up disappoing at the other's expression. I think those works like that are long poems that assume the appearance of a tale. We should enjoy the intention or unique character of the creator like the world created by the author, the author’s style, and a skillful way of putting something rather than the story. The world expressed in “Buranko Nori” by Ishii Shinji was really good for me. It somehow reminded me of some works of Iwadate Mariko who is a cartoonist I used to read her works before.
