A Little Prince, Weird Eggs and a Journey to Another World
The Little Prince (or Le Petit Prince, to give him his original, French name) gets around a bit. He’s the star of what people say is a children’s book, but, like the greatest stories, it’s not exclusively for younger readers. Katy didn’t meet the little wanderer until she was well into her teens. The moment she did, she fell in love. The story of a little boy whirling around the universe on the back on an asteroid, marvelling at the variety and complexity of life – gardening all the while – had her hooked from the very start.
The wee man first visited me at roughly the same time, hundreds of miles away, during a French class at school. Le Petit Prince remains the only book I’ve ever read in that language, perhaps because it was such a challenge. It may be a nominal children’s book, but the big ideas and outlandish descriptions were impossible for 15-year-old me to translate. I dare say it’d be even harder now.
Anyway, years later Katy bought me a copy, in English, which I finally read and enjoyed. A bit like the work of Studio Ghibli, there’s something magical in it that straddles time and translation. The story has been released in over 200 languages (the most of any French book). One of them is Japanese.
So maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise to have bumped into the little explorer so far away from home. Here in Hakone, there’s an entire museum dedicated to author Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s novel and its eponymous hero. And although it seemed odd at first, the more time we spent in and around Hakone, the more it seemed like exactly the kind of place the Little Prince would end up. Transport is a big thing here: ropeways and trains and boats and funiculars – he’d no doubt be fascinated by all that. There’d have been a lot of questions.
Following the route we imagined he’d have taken, we jumped on a funicular, then onto a cable car, and passed high into the clouds, towards the top of a mountain. On a different day the views would likely have been fantastic, but to us it was a great ocean of grey. Higher and higher we climbed, beyond our world and, when the cloud cleared, we were in another reality altogether. We had passed through a worm hole – no wonder the Little Prince came round these parts.
Beings stood around in a fierce wind, eating blackened eggs (which, they claimed would add years onto their lives), and ebony buns. There was sorcery everywhere; the very ground we stood on seemed unsteady, spitting foul-smelling liquid and vast plumes of smoke into the air. Somewhere, an alien language read: Owakudani. The place was weird, make no mistake.
And yet no one here seemed concerned by any of it. Some actually seemed to be having fun, despite the horror. Noxious fumes filled the air, we read signs warning of cataclysmic explosions 3,000 years ago, and thought it’d be better to reboard the cable car and hope it’d take us back to our own realm.
Which it did, down and down, over volcanic streams, and past signs advertising other museums, and world-class art collections, all the way back to our hotel. Something strange had happened, but we weren’t quite sure what. We decided not to trust our senses. As the Little Prince himself was told: ”One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”
Our time in Kanagawa prefecture was made possible by:
The enormous generosity of the obscenely luxurious Gora Kadan, who have pulled of the trick of feeling extremely traditional and being forward facing and amazingly modern. You can read more about them here.
Itoh Dining by Nobu, which has only been open for six months, but no doubt has a long future ahead of it. A licensed kobe beef restaurant, it has a limited but incredibly rich menu of food of the highest quality. Besides, as long as they keep serving such colossal measures of sake, it seems unlikely anyone will be complaining.
皆さんは『星の王子さま』を読んだ事があるだろうか?
これは児童文学ではあるのだが、その優れた内容から、大人が読んでも十分に楽しめるものだ。現にケイティはある程度の年齢になってから初めて読んだそうだ。そして読んだ瞬間に、小惑星の王子が他の世界を見るために旅をして、いろいろな事に直面して行くというストーリーのファンになってしまった。
私がその本にはじめてであったのは同じく10代の頃だった。学校のフランス語の授業でその原作を読まなければならなかったのだが、それは児童文学とは言え、とても奥の深い内容で、フランス語で読解するには難しすぎ、未だにそれが唯一フランス語でよんだ書物になっている。15歳の私には不可能にも思える程難しい内容だったが、今は更に難しく感じる自信がある・・・。
そして時は流れ、ケイティがその英語版をプレゼントしてくれたことでやっとその面白さを理解することができた。スタジオジブリの作品にも見られるように、多くの人に受け入れられる内容になっており、今では200以上の言語に訳されている。もちろんその一つは日本語だ。
だからフランスから遠く離れたここ箱根で『星の王子さまミュージアム』をみつけてもさほど驚きはしなかった。この博物館は『星の王子さま』の作者とその作品についての全てが分かる場所になっている。もちろん驚きはしなかったとは言え、やはり日本のしかも箱根という場所にこの博物館がある事に最初は若干の違和感を感じたが、箱根と言う街を知るにつれて、この場所が“選ばれた”のだと感じるようになった。
ここにはロープウェイ、電車、ボート、ケーブルカーなど様々な交通手段があり、彼はこの場所を楽しんだに違いない。
私達は彼ならどう箱根を楽しんだだろうかということを考えながら、まずはケーブルカーに乗り、ロープウェイで雲の中をくぐり抜けて山頂に向かった。ここは普段は最高の景色を楽しめる場所らしいのだが、私達の目の前には灰色の海が広がるだけだった。
更に上を目指すと、雲を突き抜け、まるで別世界に到着した。
激しい風の中、長寿に効くと言う黒たまごとまっ黒のロールパンを食べた。そこはまるで黒魔術の世界だった。足元はぐらぐらとし、硫黄の匂いと煙がたちこめている。そしてそこには見た事のない言葉でOWAKUDANIと書かれている。うーん、なんだか怖い。
が・・・ここにいる人たちはそんな事お構いなしのようだ。むしろ楽しんでいるようにさえ見える。ガスがたちこめるなかその説明を読んでみると、地殻の激変が起こったのは3000年以上前のことらしい・・・。どちらにしても早くケーブルカーに乗って“現実”の世界に戻ったほうがよさそうだ。
博物館や美術館の案内を横目に、少しずつ山を下って宿に戻る途中、なんだかちょっと奇妙な感覚に襲われたのだが、それは気にしないことにした。なぜなら『星の王子さま』にもあるように“心で見なくちゃ、ものごとはよく見えないってことさ。かんじんなことは、目に見えないんだよ”とあるからだ・・・
神奈川県の滞在でお世話になった皆様
素晴らしいおもてなしをいただいた強羅花壇さん。日本の伝統的なおもてなしの心と機能性などのモダン面を融合させた素晴らしいお宿でした。詳しくは昨日のブログで・・・
本当にお世話になりありがとうございました。
ITOH DINING by Nobuさん、素晴らしいお食事をありがとうございました。
ここはまだオープンして6ヶ月しか経っていないそうですが、今後多くのお客様に愛されるレストランになること間違えないと思います。極上の神戸牛と、グラスいっぱいの日本酒。これ以上の贅沢はありません!本当にありがとうございました。
5 Comments
Sanders
October 22, 2011I want to know more about these black eggs?!?
Katy & Jamie
October 23, 2011Actually they’re just regular eggs cooked in the volcanic water. There’s a chemical reaction that turns the shell black. The legend says that eating one egg will add 7 years to your life, but at £4.50 for five eggs, I thought: “I’m alright, ta.”
Kavey
October 22, 2011Another wonderful post, I shall have to get a copy of The Little Prince for somehow I have reached the ripe age of 40 without having read it. From the descriptions and quote you provided, clearly this is a monumental lack, and one I must rectify tout de suite.
Enjoying your unusual and personal insights to Japan through your visit.
cdb
October 24, 2011Blackened eggs and ebony buns, adding that to my list of things to eat in Japan. What are the japanese name for these items?
kinanenko
December 12, 2011They’re “Onsen Tamago(→acronym:On Tama)”,tasty & gelatinous eggs.