Haiku hidden in Cipango
Sometimes, family, literature, and magic intersect in curious ways...
Jean-Marie Blas de Roblès is my father’s first cousin.
Jean-Marie is a novelist, poet, and philosopher. His work combines travel, erudition, and games with fiction. In 2008, his novel Where Tigers Are at Home won him the Médicis Award.
His new novel, Cipango, was published on August 20, 2026. While reading it, I came across a wonderful surprise! Part of Cipango takes us to sixteenth-century Japan. At one point in the story, a character performs an effect you may recognize:
“At the end of the recital, Inari came onstage to perform a divination trick intended to entertain Tokitsugi, but which impressed everyone present.
He pulled from his sleeve a very narrow booklet whose pages were bound at the top:
— Here is a little book in which I have gathered about a hundred haikus, he said, handing it to Tokitsugi. Please open it at random, choose a poem, and show it to the noble ladies around you. Very good — note that I have my back turned to you and cannot see anything you are doing. Read this haiku several times silently so that you can memorize it properly. Done? Then close the book and leave it in front of you.
Inari placed a sheet of paper on the floor, snapped his fingers, and made an inked brush appear in his right hand.
— Now, he said, turning back toward the spectators, imagine the painting that could illustrate this haiku. Concentrate; I am going to enter your thoughts.
He closed his eyes, waited a few seconds, then sketched a few quick brushstrokes on the paper. When he was done, he asked Tokitsugi to recite the poem he had been thinking of.
— From its water lily, said the young prince, the frog jumps into a large cloud.
Inari lifted the sheet to show him the drawing: finely executed, it depicted a water lily resting on a pond, and a frog diving into the reflection of a cloud suspended above the water.
Muffled cries of surprise, followed by laughter and applause! Inari bowed, then stepped forward to give his sketch to the child. He took the booklet back and opened it at random:
— That was a good choice, he said, but you might have landed on this one, for example: The bridge holds the banks of the river.
He carefully tore out the page and handed it to Lady O-fuji with a smile.
— Or this one, he continued: The scent of hair that overwhelms us. This page is for you, Lady O-kiku.
He leafed through the booklet one last time:
— Ah! Here is my favorite. You would swear it was about magic: I received a cherry blossom petal in my hand; opening my fist, I find nothing there. Allow me to give it to you, Lady Mitsuki.
Inari bowed again, then discreetly withdrew, not forgetting to take with him the materials he had used to captivate his audience.
Mitsuki reread the page she had been given, carefully folded it, and slipped it into her robe:
— You are very fortunate to have such an artist with you.”
This little nod is all the more fun because Jean-Marie and I have long shared an interest in Japan. I have traveled there several times, and those journeys have greatly influenced my imagination.
Haiku is obviously the most direct example: I built the entire effect around this Japanese poetic form and the mental image that a poem can evoke in the reader.
But this influence also appears in other routines and stories I have published, particularly in my books About Time, Mental Theater, and Your Mind Is My Playground, the first volume of my mentalism trilogy.
If you enjoy literary journeys through different eras and ideas, I invite you to discover Jean-Marie’s universe through his novels.
