Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1379741 in Books
• Published on: 1992-10-29
• Format: Illustrated
• Original language: Japanese
• Binding: Paperback
• 132 pages

Customer Reviews

"one bird book and a buzzard and a crow..."
Solitude of Ravens was published first in 1986, sold out swiftly, was reprinted in 1991, sold out, and now re-emerges as a third edition from Rathole in Japan, alas already sold out. It's not a happy book, but relentlessly dark and cold, and not surprisingly so because it originated as an outlet for the emotional turmoil experienced by Fukase following divorce from his wife. Apparently, soon after its publication Fukase fell down a flight of stairs and has been comatose ever since. Although obviously a personally very unfortunate incident, it had the curious consequence of transforming the man to myth and his work to cult status.

In essence Solitude of Ravens is a book of black and white photographs of ravens in a cold climate. In these images the only black seems to be raven, the only white is snow. Accounts vary in their detail but the ravens represent harbingers of doom, reluctantly delivering bad news to all humans incarcerated on this sorry earth. Some of these ravens themselves are slain and in a number of images dead ravens are spreadeagled in the snow, victims of the biting cold, keen-eyed cats or capricious powers beyond our comprehension.

Fukase uses photography to conjure mood and he abandons visual clarity and gentle contrast whenever necessary. For example some images could be charcoal sketches, so blurry, smudged, and indiscernible are they in parts. Graininess, murky over-exposure of the print and a sense of half-seen things are integral parts of his method, and evoke the despair and alienation implicit in the human condition. One notable image is a raven, wings spread, lying flat in the snow. Much of the frame is taken over by snow - a powerful use of space so adroitly employed by the best Japanese painters.

Before purchasing this book I'd read numerous favourable reviews pontificating on the importance of the work to Japanese photography and praising Fukase's ambitious vision. So surprisingly I found the book an anti-climax. Its main failing is repetition. We are presented with picture after picture of ravens in various locations, many at night as dusky silhouettes on branches, some in the steely skies of day. Obviously Fukase's ploy of repetition drives home the bleak message, but it also robs the book of interest and variation, and I found myself flicking the pages, becoming irritated at the cost of a book with such a limited visual and thematic perspective. With few exceptions, the composition is poor; the images plead for metaphysical interpretation to compensate for poverty of composition. It is of course unfashionable to speak this way about a book lauded by so many commentators, especially when it hails from Japan. But try this thought experiment: you casually shoot twenty or thirty films of wolves prowling around a snowy wasteland or metropolis, print the images darkly, and call the resulting book Solitude of Wolves. Would similar cult status be achieved? I believe the chances would be fairly good - irrespective (or perhaps because of) any deficiency in composition, and especially if a tale of personal woe accompanied your book's release.

Deeper meaning is certainly evident in the book and dark forces are seen to be at work. But unfortunately those same dark forces are forcing me forcefully close the book and reach for something else. Even with the book closed questions tug at my sleeve. Why is the slipcase of this edition brown? Had I missed a significant brown raven somewhere among the hundreds of black ones? Should I go back and check? Why did Rathole choose to present the images with a broad white border when the atmosphere of the book would benefit from full page presentation? Is the price tag justifiable for the relatively small size of this reprint, even taking account of a print run of just a 1000 copies?

No doubt Solitude of Ravens is collectible; indeed it's already dramatically appreciated on the secondary market. And when you're in the right mood, you can understand why, because it is a satisfying and visionary work. But pick it up in the wrong mood and you'll just see a bunch of badly printed bird photos all looking very similar.