Sensei mentioned Exaudi Nos in her afterword for Volume 15, and I realized that this was around the time when she published Exaudi Nos. I had wanted to translate the stories in chronological order, but the second main story in the volume, "Gold Winner", is probably going to end up AU given the events in the Karin (Fire Wheel) arc. In the story Chiaki mentions he's 21, which means Gold Winner is set in the autumn when Takaya's 19...so 7-9 months or so after the Karin arc? Yeah...
Exaudi Nos was my first attempt at translating Mirage of Blaze...almost 20 years back now. I made a ton of mistakes, and I recently went back and revised all the earlier chapters. It made me cringe a little, but I guess it also speaks to how much I've learned in the meantime. (Aaaagh, it's like reading stuff you wrote as a teenager...)
There was a question about the meaning of "Exaudi nos" on a different thread, so I'll add it here. It comes from the Latin ex+audiō (“hear”), meaning "I hear, discern, perceive clearly; I listen to, hearken, heed", etc. Nos = "us". Exaudī is the second-person singular present active imperative form, so Exaudī nos means "hear us".
From the Missa Solemnis / Missa Cantata (Roman liturgies):
Exaudī nos Domine sancte, Pater omnipotens, aeterne Deus = "Hear us O Holy Lord, Almighty Father, eternal God"
Having worked on the Karin arc, I realized that there is a clear thematic relationship between it and "The Burden of an Eternal Love", which I think is one of the most beautiful stories in the series, that also undermines its stated insistence that "martyrdom is beautiful" in interesting ways. It rather amuses me that despite being a Japanese writer, Kuwabara somehow manages to trip into the tired old trope of comparing her protagonist to Christ.
"Gold Winner" is a huge shift back to the old Naoe-Takaya + Yasha-shuu dynamic circa Volumes 1-5...which, while being a lot of fun, also feels wrenchingly anachronistic. This story rouses some very weird polar opposite feelings in me. For one, I have no idea how people who like horses can also like horse-racing. In fact, "putting down" horses due to racing injuries comes up regularly in the story itself. It's treated as matter-of-course in the horse-racing world. To wit: we make horses run for our entertainment, and when they get injured while doing so, we kill them because treating them would cost too much money (and then they wouldn't be able to go back to racing anyway, so keeping them would cost even more money). So, while I enjoy the hell out of parts of this story, all the love for horse-racing feels like sandpaper grating against my fingertips with every word I type. Ugh.
The funny thing is, I keep thinking of the game Red Dead Redemption 2, which, though you're playing as a big bad outlaw in the Wild Wild West, does horses perfectly. Horses were one of the things I loved best about the game, especially the wild horses you encountered while roaming around the countryside. You really got to feel how dependent you were on your horse for survival, and the game itself honored the bond you formed with your horse. So here's to you, my beloved Snow Orchid...(and ignore the idiot stable-master who didn't think your name was manly stallion enough, lol).
Kuwabara is generally pretty good about factual/historical statements in her work, but:
(From the Burden of an Eternal Love Chapter 4)
is wrong in two different ways. I was reminded of it after reading a small debate on whether dropping the bombs changed anything with regard to Japan's decision to surrender and whether US leaders knew it would change anything (a perpetually unresolvable debate, probably...).
It was the bomb over Hiroshima that killed 77,000 - 146,000 (up to 39% of the population). The bomb over Nagasaki killed 60,000 - 80,000 (up to 32% of the population). The majority of both were civilians. However, these numbers are not "instantly"--they include all people who died in 1945.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_bombings_of_Hiroshima_and_Nagasaki
Thanks for the correction on the atomic bombs. That's an injection of reality that makes me feel kind of... improper following it up with remarks on a fictional story, but I will because there's a lot of truth in Mirage too, yes?
First, an immense thank you! I truly thought Exaudi Nos would never be translated. It sounds like you'd done all of it previously, but I only found the prologue on the site? Maybe I was looking in the wrong place. Anyway, this was the best Christmas present ever!
I was also really impressed by "The Burden of an Eternal Love," and I agree it has lovely resonance with the Karin arc. I have often joked to myself that Naoe is a "closet Catholic," but this story helped me understand better where that sense was coming from. His feelings for Kagetora (with Kagetora in the role of Christ) match Christianity better than they match Buddhism. Christianity has a paradigm for that kind of eternal devotion, martyrdom, etc. It can call it virtuous and "true faith," and the like. Buddhism just says it's messed up (which it is). This story really helped me understand why Naoe is so eager to lean into the "Kagetora is Jesus" and "Minako is Mary" imagery.
I feel, in a way, my own life experience has a cultural inversion of this. In some of my own struggles, I suffered a lot from not being able to find a paradigm that made sense of them, until I realized that the paradigm I needed was karma. I had to go outside my culture for it, and having that click in was a great relief. I do think Naoe gets some relative relief, too, from a notion that validates him.
(I had hoped, though, for more Naoe and Haruie. I feel a gap in Mirage, as far as I have read it, is how they pieced their relationship back together after Minako.)
"The Burden of an Eternal Love" was the first thing up on this site way back in the day, but I'm kinda glad you only read the new version? Heh.
Thank you for your insight on Naoe--fascinating as always!
I'm not sure if the Yasha-shuu ever patch up their relationships--it feels like more of a dysfunctional family-type, "Well, at the end of the day we're still stuck with each other, what are you gonna do?" On the other hand, I'm not sure there was anything to patch up between Haruie and Naoe after Minako. I mean, Nagahide wanted to murder her; Haruie may very well have sympathized with Naoe instead of Minako. Minako must be the most objectified character in the series--I never get the sense that she's an actual person with needs, wants, and goals of her own. I have to say the way she leaps from "Kagetora's replacement for me" to "saint" in Naoe's mind is pretty gross; it feels like he absolves himself without ever coming to terms with the enormous harm he dealt to another human being.
So Chapter 4: The Grand Stage of Dreams is the final chapter in the "Gold Winner" story (there's one more short story in this book which I'll post soon), and I have to say that authorial obtuseness was seriously cringe-worthy here. I gritted my teeth through this latter part.
First: Takaya. He expresses his disgust towards gambling several times: it's filthy; he can feel the money-lust in the air, and it's vile; he has trauma from his father doing it; it creates a literal monster that hurts people and horses. And yet he wants to do it himself. Um, what? The cognitive dissonance is unbelievable.
Takaya again, though this is more of a nitpick: he doesn't know horses? As a son of illustrious warlords, Kagetora didn't get any training about what to look for in good horses?
Third: this story's use of anthropomorphization to justify the cruelty of horse-racing is absolutely horrendous. Horses want to "burn up their souls" to run in a circle for human entertainment, really? I mean, it's not even internally consistent. Why the hell is Ohara whipping Deer River--just for the dramatic flourish?
Finally: not only are the winners of the race entirely predictable, but leaves you with questions like: is there any meaning to Deer River winning? I mean, it's a spirit. It could probably have floated across the finish line if it'd wanted. Spirits are usually depicted as having more power than regular flesh-bound modern beings anyway, so even if it was governed by the same laws of gravity, friction, inertia, etc. as everyone else, was there any possible way for it to lose?
I was looking forward to this story because I like "Exaudi Nos" a lot (and it was sorta marketed as a salve for the Takaya-Naoe separation in Volumes 15-19), and it left me disappointed.
Thanks for these thoughts and for ALL your translating! I haven't had a chance to finish this story yet, so I can't comment on most of what you've said. (I'm looking forward to a big Mirage catch-up soon.) But re. horses, I have this impression this takes place before Takaya has many of his memories of being Kagetora back? So maybe it's just Takaya qua Takaya who hasn't been around horses much?
Chiaki says he's 21 in this story, which makes Takaya 19, which places it after the time jump... I agree that tone-wise it fits much better with volumes 1-5, so I don't really know?
Hope you enjoy the catch-up!
I was initially tempted to use "he" pronouns for Deer River, but purposely changed to "it" as a protest against the anthropomorphization I mentioned above.