Finger Bone by Hiroki Takahashi, translated by Takami Nieda (Honford Star)

Hiroki Takahashi is a Japanese writer who was born in Towada City in Aomori Prefecture. Finger Bone is his first novel. It was first published in Japan with the title 指の骨 (Yubi no Hone) in 2015 by Shinchosha Publishing and was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize, Japan’s most prestigious literary award. Takahashi would win the Prize in 2018 for his book 送り火 (Okuribi).

Finger Bone is a war novel. Most war novels are often about battles or covert operations. The protagonist usually does something heroic and is rewarded for his efforts in helping to win the war. They are rarely told from the perspective of the losing country’s soldiers. This is a story told in the first person by an unnamed Japanese soldier. 

The soldier is stationed on the island of Papua New Guinea in 1942. The Imperial Japanese Army is on the retreat but since the soldier has no radio, he still believes that Japan is winning the war. In his pocket, he carries the finger bones of a dead comrade. However, on his march to his next destination he is wounded and sent to a field hospital. 

Before the soldier makes it to the field hospital, he was is to another facility built in a palm grove. There were men sleeping on stretchers suffering from the effects of malaria. Some of them might have been dead already. 

Once he makes it to the field hospital, he is witness to what he thought was kind of cruel. Whenever the medics did their rounds and one of the patients didn’t answer, the medic would slide a piece of wood under the dead soldier’s hand and cut off his finger.

Another soldier told him, “That’s a lucky man to have his finger taken for his family like that”. He was told, “Die in the jungle all alone, and all the family gets back home is three stones”. 

As the soldier recovered, he was able to walk around. Sometimes he and two other of his comrades would walk a little ways away from the hospital, always keeping an eye out for the enemy. They were confronted by a black man one time, but the man turned out to be a native and wasn’t hostile to the soldiers. One of his comrades was able to speak a bit of the native language and they were taken to the native’s village. 

However, the second time they saw one of the natives, they did not speak or exchange words. The unnamed soldier didn’t know why and shortly after that incident, the soldiers at the field hospital got their orders to move. That is when the unnamed soldier realized that Japan was losing the war and that most of the island was under Allied control.

The soldier wanted to keep his promise to his comrade and was determined to take the finger bone he had in his pocket to his friend’s home in Japan. Will the soldier survive the war? Will he be able to keep his promise? 

It’s often been said that “in war, no one wins”. This book illustrates that point. Those soldiers who died serving their country had families. Well, so does the enemy. It’s a sad fact that Japan’s militarism during World War 2 led to untold suffering for their soldiers, and for the soldiers fighting against them.

Unfortunately, as long as there are people with different values and ways of thinking, war seems to be inevitable. I wish it weren’t true but conflicts continue in places such as the Middle East and in Central Asia. North Korea testing their ICBM missiles is no light matter either. 

If only every country in the world could follow the message of John Lennon’s song “Imagine”, the world might be a better place. ~Ernie Hoyt