Netsuke Carvings in Ascension: Seeds of Memory

In Nicholas Binge’s Ascension, the small hand-carved figures called netsuke appear as a quiet but powerful symbol of memory, grief, and the human need to hold onto the past. These carvings—initially turtles made by Naoko Tanaka, later figures of a woman and child carved by Harold Tunmore—recur across the novel’s letters and frame story, each time carrying a slightly different weight. This analysis examines what netsuke are, where they appear, how their meaning shifts, and how they connect to the book’s central characters and themes, including absurdism, time, guilt, and redemption.

What Are Netsuke?

Netsuke are traditional Japanese miniature carvings, originally used as toggles to fasten pouches to a kimono sash. In Ascension, the term is used more loosely: Naoko carves small wooden turtles, each identical, as a ritual act of remembrance for her mother, who drowned while scuba diving. The word itself, as Harold learns, combines ne (root) and tsuke (attached)—a fitting etymology for objects that root a person to their past and attach them to memory.

Where Netsuke Appear in the Novel

The symbol first emerges in Harold’s letter from Friday, 25th January 1991 (Chapter 7). He recalls watching Naoko carve in their London flat, bent over her work with complete focus. The same letter recounts how Harold and their adopted son Santi later carved a netsuke for Naoko after a visit to a Giacometti exhibition. The second key recurrence is in Chapter 18, where Naoko, in a cave on the mountain, urges Harold to talk about Santi and uses the netsuke as a metaphor for embracing the past. Finally, in the Afterword (Chapter 22), Harold’s brother reveals that throughout his decades in a psychiatric hospital, Harold would occasionally carve a small sculpture of a woman and a child from a bar of soap—a netsuke to keep his family’s memory alive.

How the Meaning of Netsuke Changes

1. Naoko’s Turtles: Private Grief and Ritual

For Naoko, carving the same turtle over and over is a form of ritual—a way to keep her mother present. She tells Harold that in Japan, mastery comes from repetition, not novelty: “There are chefs who devote an entire lifetime to making one specific type of sushi.” Her netsuke are seeds that allow memory to grow. Unlike Harold, who tried to flee his grief, Naoko actively returns to her pain through the act of carving. The turtles are identical because the memory never changes—it must be carried forward unchanged.

2. Santi’s Netsuke: Love and Connection

When Santi and Harold carve a netsuke for Naoko, the gesture transforms the symbol. Santi says, “I made it like those wooden Mapuche sculptures in those books you read me. So you won’t forget me.” Here the netsuke becomes a token of mutual love, a promise of remembrance. Naoko’s tears show that the act of being remembered by another person is deeply meaningful. This netsuke is unique, not a repetition, and it marks a moment of family unity.

3. Harold’s Soap Figures: Survival of Memory

The Afterword reveals that after being found near the lake where Santi drowned, and after years of institutionalization, Harold continued to carve netsuke. Using a plastic knife and a bar of soap, he would carve a woman and a child—Naoko and Santi. His brother interprets this as a sign that Harold never forgot his family and that “some part of Harold is still alive on that mountain.” The material changes (from wood to soap, from turtle to family figures) but the ritual endures. Even in madness, the netsuke keep him tethered to love and loss.

Connections to Characters

• Naoko Tanaka: Netsuke are her primary mode of processing grief. She cannot start fresh without erasing her past, so she repeats the carving as an honest acknowledgment of loss.
• Harold Tunmore: He initially tries to bury his guilt about Santi’s death. Only after Naoko’s intervention in the cave does he begin to speak of Santi—and later, the soap carvings show he has internalized her lesson.
• Santi: Though he appears only in flashback, his gift of a netsuke shows his intuitive understanding of Naoko’s need for memory. He uses the form to express his own fear of being forgotten.
• Sir Roger Bettan and others do not directly relate to netsuke, but the mountain expedition as a whole is about confronting the past—a theme the netsuke crystallize.

Connections to Themes

• Time, Memory, and Guilt: The netsuke are physical anchors for memory in a novel where time is nonlinear and guilt distorts recollection. Naoko carves to keep her mother alive; Harold carves to keep his family near even when his mind has fractured.
• Absurdism and the Struggle for Meaning: The epigraph from Camus’s Myth of Sisyphus tells us to imagine Sisyphus happy. The repeated act of carving—always the same turtle, always the same figures—echoes Sisyphus pushing his boulder. Meaning comes from the struggle, not the outcome. Naoko’s netsuke are never completed in the sense of a finished product; they are a process of perpetual remembrance.
• Alien Evolution and the Fate of Humanity: The mountain itself tests humanity’s capacity for growth through suffering. Netsuke represent the human need to hold onto identity and love even when facing cosmic forces that make individuals feel insignificant.
• Sacrifice and Redemption: Harold’s final soap carvings are a quiet form of penitence. He cannot undo Santi’s death, but he can keep the boy’s memory alive—a small, sacrificial act of attention.
• Trust, Paranoia, and Deception: In contrast to the lies and hidden agendas on the mountain, the netsuke are symbols of unguarded vulnerability. Naoko’s carving is a private ritual she does not perform for an audience; Harold’s hospital carvings are done in solitude.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does Naoko carve the same turtle every time? What does this reveal about her character?

Naoko carves the same turtle because her mother drowned while they were scuba diving together, and the turtle was a guide. Repeating the act is not reliving the trauma but ritualizing it—keeping her mother’s memory alive. It reveals that she refuses to “move on” in the sense of forgetting; she believes that identity is built from the past, not by escaping it. This aligns with her line: “There’s no such thing as starting fresh: new beginnings all contain the old ones bundled up inside of them.”

2. How does Harold’s understanding of netsuke change from the London flat to the hospital?

In London, Harold sees Naoko’s carving as a puzzling, even painful, compulsion. He asks, “Why remind yourself?” Later, in the cave, Naoko tells him he must talk about Santi, using the netsuke metaphor. After her death, Harold adopts the practice himself, carving soap figures of Naoko and Santi. His understanding shifts from intellectual curiosity to lived practice: he learns that memory must be actively maintained, not suppressed.

3. What is the significance of Santi making a netsuke for Naoko?

Santi’s netsuke is a turning point because it transforms a solitary ritual into a shared act of love. He tells Naoko, “So you won’t forget me.” The netsuke here becomes a promise of mutual remembrance—an antidote to the loneliness that permeates the novel. It also shows that Santi has absorbed his mother’s values; he understands that memory requires tangible expression.

4. How does the epigraph from Camus’s Myth of Sisyphus relate to the netsuke motif?

The epigraph says that the struggle toward the heights is enough to fill a person’s heart, and urges us to imagine Sisyphus happy. The netsuke carvings are a similar kind of repetitive labor that yields no permanent satisfaction—Naoko never stops, Harold never stops—but the act itself is meaningful. Carving is their Sisyphus-like struggle: a daily choice to remember, to grieve, and to affirm love in the face of absurdity.