Blue Buddha

Johanne Léveillé, Francis Abbott

Description

International romance, religious philosophy, Buddhism, gangsters, smuggling and taiko drumming all feature in this epic story of modern Japanese culture.
Curator Madame Françoise René de Cotret travels to Japan to procure loans of Buddhist sculptures for a forthcoming exhibition to be held at the Cernushi Museum in Paris. She is reunited with her Japanese friend Itsue and learns about her troubled romance with a Korean national, Françoise in turn becomes attracted to a Buddhist monk. Later as the two women travel around the Kansai area they are caught by leaders of a criminal syndicate when they discover stolen statues waiting to be exported.
Along with an appendix of factual information about temples in the Kansai area, a co-production of forty years experience in Japan, authors Abbott and Léveillé weave together a tale of suspense and romantic intrigue with actual historical and geographical locations.

Sujets

• Buddhist
• Folk Tales
• Fairy Tales
• Buda (desambiguación)
• Región de Kinki
• Buddhism
• Legends
• Kansai region
• Korean
• Mythology
• Gautama Buddha
• Japan
• Statues
• Françoise
• Blue
• Gangsters
• Taiko
• Région du Kansai
• Fiction
• Bouddha
• Culture
• Sculpture

Informations

• Publié par: iUniverse
• Date de parution: 19 mars 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781663251398
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

Blue Buddha
 
AN ADVENTURE IN JAPAN
 
 
 
 
 
 
Francis Abbott and Johanne Léveillé
 
 
 
 
 

 
BLUE BUDDHA
AN ADVENTURE IN JAPAN
 
Copyright © 2023 Francis Abbott and Johanne Léveillé.
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
 
 
 
iUniverse
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
ISBN: 978-1-6632-5138-1 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-6632-5139-8 (e)
 
Library of Congress Control Number: 2023904292
 
 
 
iUniverse rev. date:  03/14/2023
Contents
A Twelve-Day Sojourn in Japan
Dedication
Notes on Style
Part One
一     September 8th Paris
二     September 9th Kasanui
三     September 10th Tokyo
四     September 10th Nagoya
五     September 10th Yamato Yagi
六     September 11th Nagoya
七     September 11th Nagoya
Part Two
八     September 12th Sakakibara-Onsenguchi
九     September 12th Nagoya to Yamato-Yagi
十     September 12th Asuka
十 一     September 12th Kasanui
十 二     September 12th Tsuruhashi
十 三     September 13th Kasanui
十 四     September 13th Kasanui
Part Three
十 五     September 14th Ikaruga
十 六     September 14th Nara
十 七     September 15th Nagoya & Sakakibara-Onsenguchi
十 八     September 15th Nara to Kyoto
十 九     September 16th Uzamasa
二 十     September 17th Kasanui
二 十 一     September 17th Nagoya & Mie
Part Four
二 十 二     September 17th Kyoto
二 十 三     September 17th Kashihara
二 十 四     September 18th Nagoya
二 十 五     September 19th Nara, Mie, Osaka, Nagoya
二 十 六     September 19th Sakakibara-Onsenguchi
二 十 七     September 20th Tokyo & Paris
二 十 八     One Week Later September 26th Nagoya & Paris
Glossary : Japanese and Korean Terminology
Appendix : Museums Temples and Statues in this Book
二 十 九     Sometime Later
Biography : Francis Abbott : Johanne Léveillé
A Twelve-Day Sojourn in Japan
Curator Madame Françoise René de Cotret travels to Japan to procure loans of Buddhist sculptures for a forthcoming exhibition to be held at the Cernushi Museum in Paris. She is reunited with her Japanese friend Itsue and learns about her troubled romance with a Korean national, Françoise in turn becomes attracted to a Buddhist monk. Later, as she travels around Kansai, our heroin is caught by gangsters when she finds stolen statues waiting to be exported by a criminal syndicate.
Co-authors Abbott and Léveillé weave a tale of suspense and romance together with historical and geographical locations.
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the people of Japan, those who befriended and taught us much as well as those who exasperated and frustrated us. They have provided us with the very material of which we write. We also dedicate this book to you people of Korea, we hope and pray your country will one day be united once more.
We express thanks to associate Martin Nuttall for exhaustive help during the early stages of this novel. Sincere thanks to Barbara Jones for many valuable comments after an early proofread, to Christopher Sheen for proofreading a later draft, to Dr. Malcolm Parker for painstaking work on punctuation, and to Maya Miyazoe for creating the illustrations. Our gratitude also goes to friends and colleagues who checked the accuracy of various facts and locations.
Francis Abbott / Johanne Léve illé
Kyoto Japan / Ottawa Canada
January 2023
Notes on Style
Note I
The Chinese character for temple is represented in roman letters by the suffix ‘ji’, ( sometimes ‘tera’ or ‘dera’ ) which if written with no space can be mistaken as part of the temple name, e.g. ‘Todaiji’. On the other hand it is cumbersome to write it as ‘Todai Temple’. We have therefore separated the final syllable from the name of the temple with a hyphen so that it reads clearly but concisely, e.g. ‘Todai-ji’. Likewise the character for a Shinto shrine is represented in roman letters by the suffix ‘jinja’ or ‘sha’, we have separated the name of the shrine with a hyphen, e.g. ‘Yasaka-jinja’. The same style is used for suffixes of -kun -chan -san -sama -sensei after people’s names. Other definitions of Japanese and Korean words used can be found in the glossary.
Note II
B.C. Before Christ. & A.D. Anno Domini. B.C.E. Before Common Era. & C.E. Common Era. With or without periods seems to be a matter of choice. Complicating the issue is that AD is written before the date whereas BC, BCE and CE are all written after the date. Where it makes no sense to refer to Christianity many historians and curators now use the terms BCE and CE. However, following the lead of American journalist William Safire we have opted to use BC for years before the birth of Christ, but to omit notation for years in the current calendar.
Note III
In creating the character of Françoise we questioned what language she would use to express thoughts to herself. We presumed a French person who usually interacts in French would think to herself in her native tongue and decided to use French in certain places to give the story a certain finesse. For those who do not read French, utterances in French have been paraphrased so that no understanding of the story is lost. French and Japanese words have also been italicized for clarity.
Note IV
Disclaimer
Temples and sites mentioned in this novel are genuine and can be visited. Historical details are factual as are descriptions of sculptures. Characters, circumstances and events however, are products of our imagination. Any resemblance to people living or deceased, and to situations past or present is purely coincidental.
Part One

The Cernushi Museum in Paris
一
September 8th Paris
On the top floor of the Cernushi Museum in Parc Monceau the curator Françoise René de Cotret reaches down, pulls open the bottom drawer of her desk and rests her right foot on its front edge. A still incomplete report file is displayed on the computer monitor to her side. Françoise leans back from the cluttered desk and reflects on her recent trip to Japan. Having become impervious to the squeaks of the metal swivel chair her eyes stare upwards as she reviews in her mind the various scenes of her escapade. Just how is she to explain gallivanting around central Honshu with a Buddhist monk, hunting for missing statues, being threatened by gangsters and to cap it all falling in love?
Lost in another world when, from beyond the thin partitions of Françoise’s office the sonorous click of certain unmistakable footsteps coming down the hallway startles her into action. With the edge of her foot she briskly pushes the desk drawer back in, flips her seat forward straightens herself up and, anticipating raised eyebrows and probing questions, stares anxiously at the door as the director of the museum gives a perfunctory knock and strides into the room.
“Ah! You’re back,” the senior woman says. “At last.”
Françoise raises her hand as much to hide behind as to stall the flow of questions.
“Before you ask, I… I can explain,” she stammers. “I can justify everything.”
“I sure hope so. The Cernushi can’t afford to have its staff running around aimlessly on extended holidays. Put it all in the report,” her eyes narrow, “but give me the bottom line first. Did you acquire the pieces you were searching for?”
“There are complications. I found a number of sublime works that you’ll love but there are other sculptures that were, err… how shall I say… stolen? But even without them we should be able to put on quite an impressive show.”
“Then you’ll plan an exhibition for the summer of next year?”
“Yes. That should leave time enough to arrange things.”
“All right. I’ll convey your intentions to the trustees. We must make a decent return this time otherwise our jobs, indeed the Cernushi Museum itself, may be heading for extinction.” The woman drops more papers on top of the pile of documents already on Françoise’s desk and turns to leave. At the door she pauses and glances back over her shoulder, her stern face momentarily softer.
“Good to have you back,” she says.
“Thanks,” Françoise smiles.
Safely back in Paris, Françoise certainly felt relieved. Three weeks earlier, elated by the prospect of organising an exhibition of Buddhist Iconography, she proposed to her superior a display that would illustrate the changes in Buddhist art throughout the centuries. The museum director asked her to focus the show on explaining how artists of different countries modified their techniques to reflect the sensibilities of the times. To accomplish this task Françoise explained she would require a wide range of sculptures from the seventh century onwards and she knew just where to find them, for Japan possessed a rich collection of this type of work.
Cernushi administrators were aware that when the museum requested the Japanese Emb