Imperium chmur

A century and a half ago, the world was already entranced by the beauty of Japan – by its kimonos, swords, kanji. This mostly resulted in appropriation of the culture or imitation without proper understanding: the founding of more ‘martial arts schools’ or the aping of tea-rewing ceremonies. Incomparably harder was penetrating the sources of Japanese spirituality and creating a work of art that is not simply a clone, but a complement and development. Yet this is precisely what Empire of the Clouds is – a novel so powerfully rooted in Japanese aesthetics, sensibility and values that its reception is not easy at first. Making the effort, however, allows the reader to experience the reality of the Meiji era more fully and tangibly.

The intention of Jacek Dukaj, an author with philosophical flair and unbelievable imagination, is not however to create a novel of social criticism whose action takes place in the Far East at the turn of the twentieth century. This is merely the stage set for the first act, against which Dukaj develops a breath-taking plotline. An emissary from a faraway country arrives at the imperial court proposing an alliance based on an unusual invention, while the unfolding of events is seen through the eyes of a young Japanese woman named Kiyoko. Here the point of departure is one of mankind’s perennial dreams – that of a ‘metal lighter than air’. Having dared to undertake this experiment in the realm of physics, Dukaj extracts from it every possible consequence for his plot and poetics. He keeps a tight rein on his fantasy, however, thanks to which does not become another piece of cyberpunk science fiction: no, the belle epoque persists in its forms and rules, except that high up in the air there ‘rotate enormous angular hearts of steel’, reproduced multiple times over as if in a picture by Magritte. Out of a single idea, out of a single paradox arise rusty dew, metallic rains and jellyfish blooms floating above the ocean, as well as a sword that hangs over the Valley at a height of ten jō. And yet what remains with us longest after reading is not a vision of a different world order or the beauty of metallic metaphors – but only the idea of a spirituality wherein the boundary between ‘I’ and ‘not-I’ has been erased, only tenderness in the face of transience, only a silver shaving of sadness.