The Great Passage by Shion Miura, translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter (Amazon Crossing)

Award winning Japanese writer Shion Miura has written a story about compiling the most comprehensive Japanese dictionary titled Dai Tokai which translates into English as The Great Passage. Originally published in Japanese as 船を編む （Fune wo Amu）in 2011 by Kobunsha Co. Her novel is once again translated into English by Juliet Winters Carpenter who also translated Miura’s books The Easy Life in Kamusari and Kamusari Tales at Night.

The novel was adapted into a major motion picture and released in 2013. It has won several awards including  the Japanese Academy Award for Best Film in 2013. It was selected as the Japanese entry for Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards but was not nominated. 

Kohei Araki had been fascinated by words ever since he was a little boy. He was amazed that one word could have so many different meanings. He received his first dictionary from his uncle when he started junior high school. He enjoyed opening his dictionary and leafing through it. He loved “the entrancing cover, the closely printed lines on every page, the feel of the thin paper. Most of all, he liked the concise definitions”. 

After he graduated high school, Araki found a job working for Gembu Books. He became an editor and for the next thirty-seven years, all he worked on were dictionaries with his mentor Professor Matsumoto. Araki is a lexicographer, a person who compiles dictionaries. He believes that a dictionary is “a boat to carry us across the sea of words” and the latest project in the Dictionary Editorial Department is to create The Great Passage, however, he is on the verge of retirement and wants to spend more time with his ailing wife. He is determined to find a suitable successor to take his place. 

Araki is tipped off by Masashi Nishioka, a salesman for the department,  that there is a likely candidate in the company. A person by the name of Mitsuya Majime in the Sales Department. Socially awkward, quiet and reserved. He had been with the company for only three years after finishing graduate school, has a background in linguistics and is a collector of antiquarian books. 

Mitsuya Majime joins the Dictionary Editorial Department and is introduced to the rest of the team - Professor Matsumoto, Masashi Nishioka, the person who gave the tip on Majime to Kohei Araki, and Mrs. Kaoru Sasaki whose job it is to keep track of index cards and classify them. 

Majime lives in a rooming house with his landlord, an elderly woman named Take. He is currently the only boarder and currently uses the rooms on the first floor of the building to store his immense collection of books. 

He meets Kaguya Hayashi, a new boarder at the house and is also the grandchild of Take. She has returned from studying cooking at a culinary school. Her presence flusters Majime. He is smitten with her but does not know how to talk to girls and has never dated one either. 

The Great Passage reads like two stories in one book. The first is the creation of the dictionary. The other is about the budding romance between Majime and Kaguya. The story is reminiscent of The Professor and the Madman, which is the story of the making of the English Oxford Dictionary. Majime and Araki may come off as madmen themselves, as dedication to their work knows no bounds. It’s a moving story of friendship, love, and romance, and about one thing that all bonds us together - words! ~Ernie Hoyt