Light Rains Sometimes Fall A British Year Through Japan’s 72 Seasons By Lev Parikian
Paperback published by e and t books 19th May 2022
Pages 272
ISBN-13 : 978-1783966387
See the British year afresh and experience a new way of connecting with nature through the prism of Japan’s seventy- two ancient microseasons.
MY REVIEW
Light Rains sometimes Fall is fresh A British year through Japan’s 72 seasons.
The calendar was rewritten and adapted for the Japanese climate in 1684. The mircoseasons referred to in this book were established in 1874, the year after Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar.
Every chapter will have a title of the British theme with the date, with what the title means in Japanese.
This book is in the names of seventy two miroseasons that we see elements specific to Japan’s island climate. The miroseasons have haiku like names east wind melts the ice, frogs start singing, cotton flowers bloom . This book takes us through spring, summer, autumn and winter, and when daffodils, cherry blossom grow. With great tits, swallows, and butterflies and much more.
Lev Parikian has open my eyes with getting me to watch and listen more about everything to do with nature that is around me. I’m going to do just what Lev does, write about what I can hear from my own garden.
It touched me how Lev Parikian, feels privileged to have a garden, with his binoculars.
I found this book very fascinating as the author observed everything around him during lockdown, from his garden, the streets around his house and his local cemetery where he takes his regular exercise, the nearby common and its associated small wood.
My favourite theme was
FIRST CHIFFON SINGS
21 – 25 March
Spring equinox ( Shunbun)
Sparrows start to nest
( Suzume hajimetesuku )
Lev Parikian on one of his walks stops by a tree, listens and writes.
Great tit ( TEEEEE chun TEEEEE chun )
Motorbike, roaring
Footsteps – light, regular
Child – distant, complaining
Blue tit ( TSEE – TSEE tsabbadabbadabba )
Dog – small, barking
Police siren, far away
Wind, ocean- like, moving in waves through the trees
Parakeet, squawking into a wind lull
Boy admonishing dog
Robin – mid distance, silvery
Tennis ball bouncing
Dog bell jingling
Nuthatch pock-pock pecking
Wind in my ears
The rustle of shoulder on tree trunk
Man , whistling come here dog
My own breathing
Footsteps – irregular, clumping
The shh shh shh of my hand as I write in the notebook
The snap of my glasses as I fold them shut
Next time you are in your gardenor take a walk take a pen and paper, write down everything you can hear!
ABOUT AUTHOR LEV PARIKIAN
Lev Parikian is a writer, conductor and hopeless birdwatcher. His first book, Waving, Not Drowning, was published in 2013. His numerous conducting credits include the re-recording of the theme tune for Hancock’s Half Hour for Radio 4. As a birdwatcher, his most prized sightings are a golden oriole in the Alpujarras and a black redstart at Dungeness Power Station
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