FINGER BONE by Hiroki Takahashi

Translated by Takami Nieda

Few songs give me so visceral a reaction as Brothers In Arms by Dire Starits. Sure, I’m a diehard punk, and it’s a bit embarrassing to admit, but that song still gives me goosebumps. Reading Hiroki Takahashi’s stunning novella, Finger Bone, I felt a familiar crawl of my skin and looked down to see that, yep, my arm looked like a plucked chicken.

As with all the best art about war, Finger Bone is not really about war at all. Rather, it is a deeply humane, quietly angry story of friendship, loyalty, and hopelessness; an interrogation of the grunt’s legacy. The unnamed narrator, a Japanese soldier, is treking through the forest in Papua New Guinea, fleeing the field hospital in which he was recuperating. The allies are attacking. The front is lost.

In a small box, he carries the finger of his friend, Sanada, who succumbed to his wounds. He is intent on returning it to Sanada’s family. It’s a gruelling endeavour, during which he recalls the horrors of battle, the rank boredom of deployment and the friendships that sustained him. As his quest grows ever more grim, he dreams beyond his certain death.

Seriousuly, goosebumps.

Finger Bone by Hiroki Takahashi (Tr. Takami Nieda)
Honford Star, 2023
123 pages