A Sheep's Song: A Writer's Reminiscences of Japan and the World - Softcover

Katô, Shûichi; Chang, Chia-ning

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0520219791 ISBN 13: 9780520219793

Verlag: University of California Press, 1999

Inhaltsangabe

This critically acclaimed autobiography was an instant bestseller in Japan, where it has gone through more than forty printings since its first publication. Cultural critic, literary historian, novelist, poet, and physician, Kato Shuichi reconstructs his dramatic spiritual and intellectual journey from the militarist era of prewar Japan to the dynamic postwar landscapes of Japan and Europe. This fluid translation of "A Sheep's Song" captures Kato's unique voice and brings his insightful interpretation of modern Japan and its tumultuous relations with the outside world to English-speaking readers for the first time. Kato describes his youthful interest in the natural sciences as well as in Japanese and Western literatures - from the Man'yoshu to Akutagawa Ryunosuke, Baudelaire, Valery, and Proust. Turning to the rise of Japanese fascism in the late 1930s, he recalls his rebellion against the jingoistic political atmosphere of the time. The chapters on the war and its aftermath include experiences of Hiroshima shortly after the bombing and the often tragicomic encounters between the defeated Japanese nation and the American Occupation forces. Throughout, memories of his wide-ranging literary career and broad experiences in Europe as a student, traveler, and cultural observer are punctuated by his unique perspectives on the relation between imagination, art, and politics. A postscript written especially for the English-language edition discusses the Vietnam War, the subsequent transformation of Japan, the cultures and societies of Europe, the United States, and China, and the collapse of the Soviet Union.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Critic, novelist, literary historian, and dramatist Kato Shuichi is Guest Professor of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University. He is author of many works, including a three-volume History of Japanese Literature (1979-83) and Form, Style, Tradition: Reflections on Japanese Art and Society (1971) and coauthor of Six Lives, Six Deaths: Portraits from Modern Japan (1979). Chia-ning Chang is Associate Professor of Japanese Literature at the University of California, Davis.

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"No book in English so brilliantly and elegantly depicts what the post-war epoch felt like for the social and the literary activist."—Irwin Scheiner, most recently author of The Japanese Village: Imagined, Real, Contested

"This nuanced translation of Kato Shuichi's intellectual autobiography provides a trenchant and highly personal vision of the works and thought of a significant figure in Japan's postwar period. . . . [It] makes provocative reading for those interested in Japanese and comparative literature, intellectual history, and the arts." —J. Thomas Rimer, University of Pittsburgh

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"No book in English so brilliantly and elegantly depicts what the post-war epoch felt like for the social and the literary activist." Irwin Scheiner, most recently author of The Japanese Village: Imagined, Real, Contested

"This nuanced translation of Kato Shuichi's intellectual autobiography provides a trenchant and highly personal vision of the works and thought of a significant figure in Japan's postwar period. . . . [It] makes provocative reading for those interested in Japanese and comparative literature, intellectual history, and the arts." J. Thomas Rimer, University of Pittsburgh

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A Sheep's Song

By Kato Shuichi

University of California Press

Copyright © 1999 Kato Shuichi
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780520219793
1
Grandfather's House

Toward the end of the last century, the only son of a wealthy family in Saga became a cavalry officer in the Meiji army. Before he enlisted at the time of the Sino-Japanese War, he spent his family fortune on two horses and a groom and went on lavish sprees with the famous geisha Manryu*

in Tokyo's Shimbashi district.1 During his study tour of Italy, he visited Milan's La Scala and heard Caruso's renditions of Verdi and Puccini. This was my grandfather. Apparently during this time he acquainted himself with Western epicurean tastes and learned the etiquette for social interaction between the sexes. A colonel by the time of the Russo-Japanese War, he traveled to Australia to procure war horses for the Japanese Imperial Army.2 After he left the military at the end of the war, he started a trading business and made some profits during World War I. But the postwar depression wiped out most of his possessions, leaving him without much affluence in his remaining years.

His early marriage to the daughter of a Saga governor's concubine produced a son and three daughters. The son graduated from the Faculty of Medicine at the Imperial University but died soon afterwards. The eldest of the three daughters was sent to the Peer's School and was later married to the eldest son of a rich Saga family, a man who in time became a Seiyukai*

Diet member.3 The remaining two daughters were

Parts of old Shimbashi, such as Karasumori, had been known for their pleasure quarters since the Edo period.

The war occurred in 19045.

Before 1945 children from the imperial family, the aristocracy, and even former samurai families were educated at the Peer's School (Gakushuin*

). TheSeiyukai (formally Rikken Seiyukai) was founded in 1900 by Ito*

Hirobumi, Saionji Kimmochi, and Hara Kei; the party formed five separate cabinets during the Taisho*

and early Showa*

period until internal dissension contributed to its dissolution in 1940.

sent to Saint Maur Girls' Higher School and were even baptized, though both later married non-Christians. The husband of the second daughter, my father, was the second son of a large landowner in Saitama Prefecture and a medical doctor by profession. The youngest daughter's husband, a company employee, came from an Osaka merchant family. As Grandfather's family fortune began to decline, so did the economic status of his daughters' marriage prospects. During the Minseito*

administration, the Diet politician found himself outside the arena of power and apparently spent his time drinking at home with his underlings.4 But when the Seiyukai*

seized political power, he was appointed as a prefectural governor, and suddenly he became a more influential figure. Before he was able to secure his political position, however, he died from a stroke on the way to a campaign speech. The physician did open a private practice, but since he sought no worldly success, he achieved none. Instead, he chose to lead a quiet life in Shibuya. On the other hand, the company employee in Osaka longed to make a name for himself and worked zealously, but tuberculosis overtook him before his ambitions were realized. These three sons-in-law were apparently not of much help in resurrecting Grandfather's declining fortunes.

All three daughters were married in the latter half of the 1910s, and immediately after World War I all of them gave him grandchildren. The eldest daughter had only one son, a future diplomat. The second daughter had a son and a daughter, myself and my younger sister. The youngest daughter also had a son and a daughter, who became a university professor and a company employee, respectively.

My childhood recollections do not extend beyond the Great Kanto*

Earthquake.5 Grandfather's house, as I remember it from about the late 1920s, was on the left-hand side midway up the Miyamasuzaka on the way towards Aoyama 7-chome*

from Shibuya Station. Granite pillars and an iron gate that opened sideways were erected a little further in from the Miyamasuzaka sidewalk. A straight gravel pathway with

The Minseito (formally Rikken Minseito) was formed in 1927. Along with the Seiyukai, it ushered in a brief period of party government that ended in 1940.

September 1, 1923.

plants on both sides continued for some distance from the gate to the vestibule at the end. The vestibule and a number of its "Western-style" rooms were modeled after the Victorian style popular during the Meiji and Taisho*

eras, with tall ceilings and narrow windows, and were furnished with heavy leather armchairs. There was a pair of antlers hanging on the wall, a rug made from a tiger's skin, an old-fashioned cut-glass lantern, an embroidered Egyptian camel, and a tablecloth from. Paris. In short, with the exception of the many framed photographs of horses to suggest something about Grandfather's past, these things were what any traveler might have brought back from the West and displayed like an antique shop's show window. These rooms did not seem to have any specific use. For everyday life, Grandfather and Grandmother, along with a student lodger and three maids, used only a few of the many Japanese-style rooms adjoining the Western ones at the back of the house.

It struck me as a child that all the events that took place at Grandfather's house had the air of a strange religious ceremony. Seating himself behind a large table in the living room, Grandfather would simply gesture with his chin, and Grandmother and two of the housemaids would instantaneously respond to his desire for things like cigarettes, tea, or the letter file. The kitchen maid and the student helper almost never appeared in the living room. A ridiculously large number of dishes were served at his meals, but not all of them were necessarily meant for consumption. They were often there just for Grandfather to poke with his chopsticks and brush aside. One time, he reportedly blurted out, "This is what you expect me to eat?" and hurled the dish out into the garden. But since I always went to his house in Mother's company, I never witnessed such a scene. In Mother's presence, Grandfather was always in a good mood, and even if something was bothering him, he tried to conceal it. I watched as the three intimidated women catered to the whims of the sole master of the house with unfailing attention, and I could sense the air of omnipotence emanating from Grandfather. I felt the same way about Mother for her ability to chitchat with a figure of such unapproachable authority, even though a small child like myself did not quite understand the nature of that omnipotence.

The strange ritual reached its apex when Grandfather was about to leave home on some business. Drawing her small frame close to Grandfather's huge upright body, Grandmother would help him dress in the undergarments and the Western clothing the two maids passed out piece

by piece. Grandfather would put a folded white cambric handkerchief in his breast pocket, scrutinize himself in a big mirror, and fix his thinning hair. He would then spray on some imported perfume from a large bottle with a golden nozzle. Watching all the goings-on, Mother would say something like, "It looks like Father is going to have a good time again." Grandfather would respond with something humorous, his hands still preoccupied with his perfume bottle. Meanwhile, Grandmother would give out orders to the maids: "Are the shoes ready? No, these won't do for today. Quickly, go get another pair!" It was a boisterous scene. I could not understand at that time why so many people had to make such a fuss just to prepare one man to leave his house.

Grandfather did not put on his shoes in the vestibule. Instead, he preferred to do it on the stepping-stone at the porch facing the garden. From there he could walk straight down into the garden, stand before the shrine for the god of harvests at the corner, and clap his hands in worship. All these had become an indispensable part of the ceremony. Although he had sent two of his daughters to a Catholic girls' school, Grandfather would ask a Shinto*

priest to preside over such ceremonies as marriages, funerals, and memorial services. If he ever had any religious faith, he probably pledged his most heartfelt allegiance to the god of harvests in his own garden.

The shrine was situated in the shade of some small trees and was not visible from the porch. A flight of stone steps lined with plants led to a small red torii . The shrine was built on a stone pedestal about shoulder height with a stone fox on each side. I remember they were crafted by the fine hands of an artisan. The shrine was always in good repair with offerings in place. No one in the family except Grandfather believed in the deity, but everybody, even a confirmed atheist like my father, or a child like myself, knew how serious Grandfather was about his rituals. In his later years, every morning before he left home, he would go there to pray for the success of his business, for peace in his family, and, presumably, for the women he loved as well.

Grandfather had many female friends, one of whom was a Westerner. Sometimes, undeterred by our presence, Grandfather would pick up the telephone and speak with her in French. Since nobody else in the family understood French, he would explain away such conversation as a business call or something else. My mother would see through all his pretense and say, "Even though Grandma may not know what is going on, it's awful of him to do this right in her face!" This did not mean,

however, that Mother was totally on "Grandma's" side. She once remarked that the linguistic barrier was not the only reason why Grandma had no idea what her husband was doing in her presence; rather, she did not want to know in the first place. Grandma considered debauchery as something natural for men, and this thinking of hers had something to do with the fact that she herself was a concubine's child. But as far as Grandfather's telephone conversation was concerned, she simply convinced herself that it was just a business call. This was what Mother told us. I have never met the Western woman in question, but I did meet another one of Grandfather's lady friends.

At that time, Grandfather owned a small Italian restaurant in the West Ginza district. A bar occupied the first floor, from whence a narrow and steep stairway led up to the dining area on the second floor. Sometimes Grandfather would bring his grandchildren to the restaurant for meals. He would announce something like "Here, I brought my family today," and then call out to his friends at the other end of the bar or crack jokes with his male acquaintances. They spoke Italian or French, with expressive intonations and dramatic body gestures. At these times I got the impression that Grandfather was an entirely different person from the one we knew at home surrounded by his family members. To me, it was like watching a scene in a play whose plot I could not understand. In it, there was no bond between the grandfather and the children. As we stood at the bottom of the stairway leading up to the second floor, I realized that the main character had momentarily forgotten our existence, and the children's role in this short scene was reduced to that of mere spectators.

The proprietress of the restaurant was already waiting for us on the second floor. In a voice somewhat ostentatiously cheerful, she would say something like, "Oh, my, what a rare pleasure it is to see you! Welcome!"

"Well. I guess I could say the same to you."

"Really, it's been a while, hasn't it?"

"You know my work has been keeping me busy."

"I wonder what kind of work that might be," she laughed teasingly.

"It isn't what you're thinking. I just returned from Osaka yesterday." Grandfather's tone of voice changed.

"How were things over there?" The woman's tone also changed abruptly.

"Oh well, they're still the same . . . "

"Hmm, you never say anything more than that!" She cast a sidelong

glance at him with a coquettish manner impossible to describe. At least that was how it struck me.

Grandfather's scene with the proprietress belonged to yet another world, one different from his exchanges with the men at the bar. The woman and Grandfather seemed to speak a secret language, with unpredictable shifts from awkward seriousness to familiar chattiness, producing a mood that swung from the subdued to the light-hearted. It was immediately apparent to me that the relationship between Grandfather and this woman existed on a different level of intimacy than the one between him and Grandmother or my mother. I could also sense the unmistakable immediacy of this intimacy, as if it were a tangible object into which outsiders could scarcely hope to intrude. But at any moment at their discretion, they could always allow my sister, my cousin, or myself to merge into their dialogue as an excuse to change the direction of their conversation.

"What fine children you have!" the proprietress would say.

"You must be joking. They're my grandchildren."

"Well, I bet anyone would believe they were your children."

I couldn't comprehend why Grandfather should feel pleased when he was told he looked younger than his age, but I could tell he was happy even though he knew it was mere flattery. That was the grandfather I was so fond of. To be sure, he might clap his hands in worship before the shrine at one moment, exchange jokes with his Italian friends at another, or berate Grandmother even without any particular provocation on her part. And yet for all his amazing inscrutabilityI thought at moments like thisthere was at least one side of him I could understand. And this comprehensible aspect of his personality emerged only when he was with his female friends.

My father was no fan of Grandfather's and was often critical of his "licentiousness." For Father, any intimacy with women other than one's wife was the vice of all vices. Mother, educated as she was in a Catholic school, would probably concur with Father in denouncing licentiousness, but she tended not so much to criticize Grandfather's behavior as to rationalize it. Had it not been for the premature death of his eldest son in whom he had placed so many hopes, so she reasoned, Grandfather would not have spent his later years in such excesses. Or if only Grandmother had not acted against Grandfather's wish at every turn, he surely would have spent more time at home. Abhor the sin but not the sinner. But I

wonder if it could really be called a "sin." For a long time I couldn't accept the logic of associating the Grandfather I knew with the notion of "the vice of all vices." But I was not even conscious of this incongruity, to say nothing of trying to resolve these irreconcilable associations by determining for myself when and how licentiousness was or wasn't a sin. I was a child. On the one hand, I accepted the idea of sin as it was imparted to me by my parents. On the other, I just had an inkling, nothing more, that maybe I could understand Grandfather the next time he was with his lady friends, even though in fact I never did. It was only years later that this inkling was realized within myself, after I looked into the eyes of a woman and found everything, after I experienced that flashing moment which was more valuable than the entire world: how completely meaningless it was to speak of such experiences in terms of good or evil . . .

I thought back about Grandfather, and I wondered who could say that Grandfather himself had not come to the same realization. It was apparent to me that the arbitrary application of the label "licentious" could shed little light on the person in question. The word means different things to different people, just as different well behaved children from good families all lead different lives. But our age difference was far too great for me to grasp the substance of Grandfather's life, assuming it could be known. Perhaps his "licentiousness" did not mean much, but then perhaps it did. It is just that there is no reason now for me to think that it did not. Have I indeed inherited Grandfather's blood? Yet I am totally skeptical about this business of blood lineage beyond the acquisition of certain physical traits through heredity. Other determinants might be involved, but if they are impossible to verify, one must be compelled to obliterate the possibility. Surely, what is more meaningful to me is the fact that a man described as "licentious" existed in my childhood, and even though one might think of his many failings, it is difficult to imagine that he did anything evil.

With his grandchildren, Grandfather was indulgent and generous with money. He was somewhat capricious but sincere in his own way. He would not lightly break a promise he had made, even with the children. For example, one time after he told me he would buy me anything I wanted, as he often did, I said I wanted a live horse. Surprised, Grandfather explained to me that live horses were not for sale, that even if he could manage to get one it was not something a child could han-

dle, that when he promised to buy me anything I wanted what he meant was anything he could buy at a shop. Tirelessly, he went on and on, trying his best to reason with me. What moved me above and beyond the desire for a live horse was Grandfather himself, for sparing no effort in his earnest attempt to convince a mere child. And I held on even more tightly to my hope for a live horse, if only for the sake of reaffirming that experience.

The food at Grandfather's Italian restaurant was superb. Before I knew it, however, Grandfather sold the restaurant, and now not a trace of it remains. Even in today's so-called Western restaurants in Tokyo, I don't believe there is any food quite so delicious. Perhaps it is because when I was a child I knew nothing about any other delicacies. In any case, Grandfather preferred only the best in everything, and in this respect he treated the children no differently. He would order us the same Italian dishes he ordered for adult guests, and he also taught us table manners. Whether we understood it or not, he spoke to us as if we were grown-ups. For instance, once after taking my sister and me to a movie, he asked what we thought about it. Though I was already attending elementary school, I did not even understand what the story was about. Frightened by the noise and tumult in the movie, my sister had burst into tears. All I could do was to keep reminding myself that what was happening on the screen wasn't real; this was the only way I could endure my emotional turmoil in the darkness of the cinema. When Grandfather asked us about the movie, it was apparent that he did not appreciate our frightened confusion. But it was also true that his failure to show empathy for our feelings was no more than a somewhat impetuous expression of his desire to seek some common ground for communication with us. While I thought of him as inconsiderate, I was also drawn to a certain charm he had. If I had been older, I might even have been able to appreciate why certain women were attracted to him.

When I was a child, I found "the West" in his Italian restaurant. It was not because of the men at the bar or the foreign language Grandfather spoke. It was because of the delicate flavor of the food as well as the tunes from the Italian operas Grandfather hummed along with when he was in a good mood. The food there was unlike any I tasted at home, and the Italian melodies were radically different from those of the koto or the shakuhachi I heard at home or even from the songs we sang at my elementary school. There was a different sensory order at work. The next

time I encountered the same sensory experience with the same intensity was twenty years later, when I first saw with my own eyes the purple tides of the Mediterranean and cities laid out in marble. In an old office in London's financial district, I found the leather armchair of Grandfather's room; in the streets of Rome I discovered the intonations and body gestures of the men in Grandfather's bar; and in the opera houses in Salzburg, songs sung by the guest singers from Italy reminded me of some of the tunes Grandfather hummed to himself. I rediscovered my long-forgotten childhood world in the Europe I saw for the first time. Western Europe in my first impression was not a destination reached after a long journey, but a place to which I returned at the end of a long vacation. But that was merely my first impression. Later, when I lived in Paris and managed to speak French perhaps more fluently than Grandfather, I came to realize how "the West" I had known as a child was only a small piece in a huge jigsaw puzzle. I also learned where my own piece fit into the overall canvas of "the West." I was beginning to learn about the origins of my origin.

I often visited Grandfather's house with Mother, with Father coming along occasionally. Grandfather's house was not far from where we lived, and it was also almost the only place where I had the opportunity to meet with the children of my other relatives. Grandfather had many excuses for calling family gatherings. One day it was a marriage ceremony or an anniversary, another day a farewell party or a memorial service. I looked forward to all these occasions. His big garden was a perfect playground and had everything the children needed. We would run around the yard, which was bordered by a hedge planted where the incline grew steeper. Immediately below the hedge was a low stone wall. Along a narrow road running parallel to the stone wall was a row of tenement houses with outward-facing doorways. The people therewomen in front of their doorways cradling their babies or boys about our age kicking stones along the roadlived in a different world. They were so close to us that we could almost touch them, but there was no interaction of any kind between us. As a matter of fact, we could not even imagine having any possible interaction with them. I did not find anything at all strange about this until one day I learned that in fact Grandfather owned all the tenements, and that almost all the small shops along the left-hand side of Miyamasuzakafrom where it rises to just below Grandfather's front gatewere his rental properties. I was deeply shocked. And so it was not true that the people in the ten-

ements were unrelated to us; we had a direct relationship whenever Grandfather's agents went around every month to collect rent from them. It was just that I didn't know the details of that relationship, nor its wider implications. The existence of people with whom we had a close relationship and yet no connection at all was not something I could explain to myself. I suppose this question represents a big black spot in my otherwise bright and transparent sky. Before I knew it, I was beginning to form the habit of not looking at the tenement dwellers whenever I went to Grandfather's house.

Continues...

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Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: University of California Press
• Erscheinungsdatum: 1999
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0520219791
• ISBN 13: 9780520219793
• Einband: Tapa blanda
• Anzahl der Seiten: 508
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar