Mrs Tsk *

Why is a raven like a writing desk? And what does Yuichi Yokoyama have in common with a contemporary dance choreographer?


I can’t answer the first question, but I can tell you what I think Yokoyama has in common with a choreographer.


In books like Travel (I saw the original drawings in Osaka recently), Yokoyama elects to use a narrative-driven artform — the sequences of drawings making up manga books — in a totally non-verbal way.


Without using words, he manages to get an amazing amount of subtle detail across. Travel is about the things we casually notice on trains; the man next to us might be wearing a cable-knit sweater that reminds us of a telephone cable, for instance.


Things glimpsed from a train window resonate in our idle minds. I know how this is done in words — Larkin’s Whitsun Weddings describes “a greenhouse flashing uniquely”, for instance — but I really admire someone who can do it without words.


The Aspergers-like precision with which Yokoyama notes and organizes trivial passing details reminds me of early Nicholson Baker. But, like a choreographer with a proscenium to fill with gestures, Yokoyama has had to make up his own language, refusing the effective-but-stale genre conventions of his chosen medium.


Like dance, his work gains universality by jettisoning language; these are images which could potentially speak to anyone, in any country. Even a Martian would get little flashes of recognition — provided there were trains on his planet.