Handbook of Japanese Christian Writers 9789048558223

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Handbook of Japanese Christian Writers

Japan Documents Handbooks This series focuses on the broad field of Japanese Studies, aimed at the worldwide English language scholarly market, published in Tokyo in English. Each Handbook will contain an average of 20 newly written contributions on various aspects of the topic, which together comprise an up-to-date survey of use to scholars and students. The focus is on Humanities and Social Sciences. Titles in this series: Handbook of Higher Education in Japan (edited by Paul Snowden) Handbook of Confucianism in Modern Japan (edited by Shaun O’Dwyer) Handbook of Japanese Media and Popular Culture in Transition (edited by Forum Mithani and Griseldis Kirsch) Handbook of Japanese Christian Writers (edited by Mark Williams, Van C. Gessel and Yamane Michihiro) Forthcoming titles in this series: Handbook of Modern and Contemporary Japanese Women Writers (edited by Rebecca Copeland) Re-examining Postwar Japanese History: A Handbook (edited by Simon Avenell) Handbook of the Japanese Constitution: An Annotation (edited by Colin P.A. Jones) Handbook of Environmental History in Japan (edited by Tatsushi Fujihara) Handbook of Sport and Japan (edited by Helen Macnaughtan and Verity Postlethwaite) Handbook of Japanese Martial Arts (edited by Alexander Bennett) Handbook of Japanese Public Administration and Bureaucracy (edited by Mieko Nakabayashi and Hideaki Tanaka) Handbook of Crime and Punishment in Japan (edited by Tom Ellis and Akira Kyo) Handbook of Disaster Studies in Japan (edited by Paola Cavaliere and Junko Otani) Handbook of Contemporary Japanese Diplomacy: The 2010s (edited by Tosh Minohara) Handbook of Japanese Feminisms (edited by Andrea Germer and Ulrike Wöhr) Handbook of Japan’s Environmental Law, Policy, and Politics (edited by Hiroshi Ohta) Handbook of Japanese Games (edited by Rachael Hutchinson) Handbook of Human Rights and Japan (edited by Tamara Swenson) Handbook of Europe-Japan Relations (edited by Lars Vargö) Teaching Japan: A Handbook (edited by Gregory Poole and Ioannis Gaitanidis) Handbook of Russia-Japan Relations (edited by Kazuhiko Togo and Dmitry Streltsov) Handbook of Women in Japanese Buddhism (edited by Monika Schrimpf and Emily Simpson) Handbook of Japanese Security (edited by Leszek Buszynski) Handbook of Japanese Tourism (edited by Hideto Fujii) Handbook on Japanese Civil Society (edited by Simon Avenell and Akihiro Ogawa) Handbook of Japanese Labor Practices: Changing Perceptions (edited by Robin Sakamoto) The Advent of Sound in Japanese Cinema: A Handbook (edited by Sean O’Reilly) Handbook of Global Migration and Japan (edited by Shinnosuke Takahashi and Yasuko Hassall Kobayashi) Handbook of Work and Leisure in Japan (edited by Nana Okura Gagne and Isaac Gagne)

Handbook of Japanese Christian Writers Edited Mark Williams, Van C. Gessel and Yamane Michihiro

Amsterdam University Press

First published 2022 by Japan Documents, an imprint of MHM Limited, Tokyo, Japan.

MHM Limited gratefully acknowledges K.K. Nihon Bunken Shuppan, and its ownerpresident, Mr. Sumio Saito, as the originator of the imprint “Japan Documents” and declares here that it is used under license and with the kind permission of Mr. Saito. Cover design, layout, and typography: TransPac Communications, Greg Glover isbn 978 90 4855 821 6 e-isbn 978 90 4855 822 3 nur 617 © The authors / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2023 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book.

Table of Contents Contributors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Abbreviations. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xiii Preface Mark Williams, Van C. Gessel and Yamane Michihiro. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xv Introduction Yamane Michihiro, translated by Sachiko Hamada. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xix 1 Prophet of the Inner Life: Kitamura Tōkoku Michael Brownstein. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 2 Shimazaki Tōson and Christianity: When the Cherries Ripen in the Taishō Period Irina Holca. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 3 Arishima Takeo and Christianity Leith Morton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 4 Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: A Christian Life Miyasaka Satoru, translated by Mark Williams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 5 Incarnation of the Christian Faith in the Poetry of Yagi Jūkichi Yamane Michihiro, translated by Mark Williams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84 6 Hori Tatsuo: The Cross Dyed in Bloody Red and the Little Gods of Ancient Times Massimiliano Tomasi. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99 7 Nagai Takashi on Divine Providence and Christian Self-Surrender: Towards a New Understanding of hansai Anthony Richard Haynes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115 8 Dazai Osamu: His Wrestle with the Bible Nagahama Takuma, translated by Van C. Gessel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137 9 Shiina Rinzō: His Two Visages Nagahama Takuma, translated by Van C. Gessel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 154 10 From out of the Depths: Shimao Toshio’s Literary Response to Adversity Mark Williams. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170

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11 Yasuoka Shōtarō and Christianity: From Postwar “Emptiness” to Religious Longing Yamane Ibuki, translated by Van C. Gessel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189 12 Miura Ayako and the Human Face of Faith Philip Gabriel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 207 13 Endō Shūsaku and the Compassionate Companionship of Christ Van C. Gessel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 232 14 Ogawa Kunio: Renewal of Faith and Identity in His seishomono (Bible Stories) Ryōta Sakurai. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 262 15 Kaga Otohiko: In Search of What Lies Beyond Death Imai Mari, translated by Van C. Gessel. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 284 16 Sono Ayako: Amor Vincit Omnia Kevin M. Doak. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 300 17 Takahashi Takako: Drawing Closer to God Through Literature Sekino Miho. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 333 Index of titles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 343

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Contributors Michael Brownstein received his PhD in Japanese literature from Columbia University in 1981 for his dissertation on Kitamura Tōkoku. He is Associate Professor of Japanese in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures at the University of Notre Dame where he teaches courses on Japanese literature and culture. He has published essays on modern Japanese literature as well as translations of several modern Japanese short stories. His two most recent publication are “The ‘Devil’ in the Heart: Enchi Fumiko’s Masks and the Uncanny” in The Journal of Japanese Studies (2014) and “Sedge-hat Madness: A Translation of Chikamatsu Monzaemon’s ‘Onatsu Seijūrō Gojūnenki Uta Nenbutsu’” in Monumenta Nipponica (2016). He is currently writing a monograph on the domestic plays of Chikamatsu Monzaemon (1653–1724), and his translation of Kanadehon Chūshingura (The Treasury of Loyal Retainers, 1748) is under review at Hackett Publishing Company. Kevin M. Doak holds the Nippon Foundation Endowed Chair in Japanese Studies at Georgetown University where he is Professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures and an Affiliate Faculty member in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies. He has published widely on Japan and Catholicism, including “Beyond Endo: The Hidden Renaissance of Japanese Catholic Novelists” at https://benedictinstitute​.org/2019/07/beyond-endo/, as well as articles on Catholicism in Japan in Nova et Vetera, First Things, New Oxford Review and elsewhere. His major publications include Xavier’s Legacies: Catholicism in Modern Japanese Culture (University of British Columbia Press, 2011) and Tanaka Kōtarō and World Law (Palgrave Macmillan 2019), a study of Japan’s leading Catholic jurist. He translated Sono Ayako’s Kiseki (Miracles; MerwinAsia, 2016; republished by Wiseblood Publications, 2021). His current research involves a study and translation of Japan’s most important Catholic theologian, Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko (1904–1945). Philip Gabriel is Professor of Japanese literature in the Department of East Asian Studies, the University of Arizona. He is the author of Mad Wives and Island Dreams: Shimao Toshio and the Margins of Japanese Literature and Spirit Matters: The Transcendent in Modern Japanese Literature and he has translated many novels and short stories by the writer Haruki Murakami and other modern writers. He was recipient of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature (2001) for his translation of Senji Kuroi’s Gunsei (Life in the Cul-de-Sac), and the 2006 PEN/Book-ofthe-Month Club Translation Prize for his translation of Murakami’s Umibe no Kafuka (Kafka on the Shore). Van C. Gessel is Professor Emeritus of Japanese at Brigham Young University. During his 31 years on the BYU faculty, he served as chair of the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and as the Dean of the College of Humanities. Before moving to BYU in 1990, he taught at Columbia, Notre Dame, and UC Berkeley. His academic specialty is modern Contributors

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Japanese literature, particularly Japanese Christian writers, and he has translated eight literary works by the Japanese Catholic novelist Endō Shūsaku, including Samurai (The Samurai) and Fukai kawa (Deep River). He was literary consultant for Martin Scorsese during the production of the film adaptation of Endō’s Chinmoku (Silence). In 2016, he received a Commendation from the Foreign Minister of Japan and in 2018 was inducted into the Order of the Rising Sun (Kyokujitsu chūjushō) by the Japanese emperor. He was awarded the Lindsley and Masao Miyoshi Translation Prize for lifetime achievement as a translator of modern Japanese fiction in 2020. Anthony Haynes received his PhD in Christian ethics and practical theology from the University of Edinburgh in 2018. He wrote his doctoral thesis on the connection between art and mysticism in the life and thought of the French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain. He has since worked as an adjunct professor and visiting lecturer in philosophy and religious studies for several universities, including Lakeland University (Japan Campus) and the Pontifical and Royal University of Santo Tomas (Philippines). His academic research centers on the practical expression of religious belief and experience, particularly in fiction, visual art and ascetic ways of life. Irina Holca came to Japan to further her education after graduating from the University of Bucharest with a major in Japanese Studies and a minor in British Studies. She obtained her MA and PhD degrees in modern Japanese literature, from Nara University of Education and Osaka University, respectively. She joined Kyoto University’s Institute for Research in the Humanities as a senior lecturer in 2014 and went on to become an associate professor in UTokyo’s PEAK program in 2019. She specializes in modern and contemporary Japanese literature and is also interested in translation and media studies. In 2018, she published the Japanese monograph Shimazaki Tōson hirakareru tekusuto: media, tasha, jendā (The (re)opened text: Media, otherness, and gender in Shimazaki Tōson’s works; Bensei Shuppan). In 2020, she co-edited the volume Forms of the Body in Contemporary Japanese Literature, Society, and Culture (Rowman and Littlefield). Imai Mari is a literary critic who took both an BA and MA in Japanese Literature from Seishin Women’s University. Focusing mainly on pre-modern and modern Japanese literature, she is a member of the Japan PEN club, the Japan Society for Literature and Christianity and the Endō Shūsaku Research Association. Since 2007, she has been involved in a series of exhibitions devoted to the life and works of Endō Shūsaku, both at the “Kotobarando” section of the Machida City Literary Museum and at the Endō Shūsaku Literary Museum in Nagasaki. Her published monograph is entitled Sore demo kami wa iru: Endō Shūsaku to aku (And yet God exists: Endō Shūsaku and evil; Keio University Press, 2015); and her co-authored works include Endō Shūsaku kenkyū (Studies on Endō Shūsaku; Jitsugyō no Nihonsha, 1979); Endō Shūsaku: Chinmoku sakuhin ronshū (Collection of essays on Endō Shūsaku’s Silence; Kuresu, 2002). Her recent essays include “Sore demo ningen wa shinjirareru ka? Endō Shūsaku to Aushuvittsu” (Can humans believe in spite of everything? Endō Shūsaku and Auschwitz, 2006); “Aku no okonawareta basho: Umi to dokuyaku no hikari to kage” (The place where evil was carried out: Light and dark in The Sea and the Poison, 2006); “Bara to fukkatsu: Endō Shūsaku no gikyoku Bara no yakata o kangaeru” (Roses and the resurrection: Some thoughts on Endō Shūsaku’s drama The viii

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house of roses, 2013); and, “Aku no tobira: Endō Shūsaku to Sado” (The door to evil: Endō Shūsaku and Sade, 2003). She has also written a series of commentaries on Endō‘s work. Miyasaka Satoru is Professor Emeritus at Ferris University. He began his teaching career at Fukuoka Prefectural Women’s University before moving to Ferris University where he served as Assistant Professor, Professor, Dean of the Faculty of Letters and President. In 1998, he spent a year as a special research fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London. In 2006, he founded the International Society for Akutagawa Studies, where he remains an advisor. His published works include Sakuhin-ron: Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (The literary works of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke; Sōbunsha, 1990); Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: hito to sakuhin (Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: The man and his works; Kanrin Shobō, 1998); Akutagawa Ryūnosuke to Kirishitan-mono: Ōzei, kōsa, ekkyō (Akutagawa Ryūnosuke and his Kirishitan tales: Polyphony, intersections, border crossing; Kanrin Shobō, 2014). He also helped edit the 24-volume Akutagawa Ryūnosuke zenshū (Collected works of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke; Iwanami Shoten, 1998). Leith Morton is Professor Emeritus, Tokyo Institute of Technology, and has lectured in Japanese at many universities in Australia and overseas, including the University of Sydney (1979–1992), the University of Newcastle [Australia] from 1992–2003, where he was appointed to the Chair of Japanese, and later, to the Head of the Department of Modern Languages. He has written many books on modern Japanese literature and culture, including: Divided Self: A Biography of Arishima Takeo (Allen & Unwin, 1988); Modern Japanese Culture: The Insider View (Oxford University Press, 2003); Modernism in Practice: An Introduction to Postwar Japanese Poetry (University of Hawai’i Press, 2004); The Alien Within: Representations of the Exotic in Twentieth-Century Japanese Literature (University of Hawai’i Press, 2009); and The Writing of Disaster: Literary Representations of War, Trauma and Earthquakes in Modern Japan (Peter Lang, 2020); he also co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature (Routledge, 2016). Nagahama Takuma is Professor of Japanese literature at Kyoto University of Foreign Studies. His 1993 MA dissertation focused on the works of Shiina Rinzō. In 2000, he contributed a chapter to Sakuhin-ron: Endō Shūsaku (Sōbunsha) entitled “‘Kiiroi hito’: gyakusetsuteki na ‘onchō no sekai’ no teiji” (“Yellow man”: Depiction of the paradoxical “world of grace”) and, in 2016 he received his PhD from Kwansei Gakuen University with a thesis entitled “Endō Shūsaku kenkyū: rekishi shōsetsu o shiza toshite” (A study of Endō Shūsaku: From the perspective of his historical novels). Thereafter, with three additional chapters focusing on Konishi Yukinaga, he published his first monograph, Endō Shūsaku-ron: rekishi shōsetsu o shiza toshite in 2018 (Izumi Shoin). Building on his 2011 article “Nihon sengo bungaku to kirisutokyō: seisho no juyō to tenkai o chūshin ni” (Japanese postwar literature and Christianity: With a particular focus on the reception and dissemination of the Bible), in 2022 he published his Sengo bungaku to seisho (Postwar literature and the Bible, Kanyō Shuppan), a study spanning works from Kawabata Yasunari to Endō Shūsaku. In all this his focus remains on the connection between Japanese literature and Christianity. Ryōta Sakurai is a PhD student at International Christian University (ICU). Before starting his PhD, he was a Japanese cultural program coordinator at Colorado College (2017–2019). Contributors

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His research focuses on themes of writing about faith, particularly in the cultural context of postwar Japan. His publications include “Ogawa Kunio no seisho keiretsu sakuhin ni miru ‘aidentiti no kiki’ to saisei” (The identity crisis and recovery in Ogawa Kunio’s novels of biblical themes), Studies in Literature and Christianity (April 2021); “Uchinaru tasha no bungaku: sengo Nihon ni okeru ‘kaku koto’ to ‘shinjiru koto’ no kōsa no saikentō ni mukete” (A literature of internal others: Toward a reconsideration of the intersection of “writing” and “faith” in postwar Japan), The Annals of the Japanese Association for the Study of Puritanism (March 2022); and “Remembering and (Re)storing War Memories: The Postwar Fiction of Shimao Toshio”, Japan Review (forthcoming 2022). Sekino Miho was an Assistant at the Institute for East Asian Studies at Nishogakusha University and is currently teaching at Toho Junior and Senior High School. She has published numerous essays on the writings of Takahashi Takako and others, including “Takahashi Takako: Botsuraku fūkei oboegaki: Yamanouchi Shinko ni tsuite” (Thoughts on Takahashi Takako’s A Ruined Landscape: on Yamanouchi Shinko); “Yami kara no kōbō: Takahashi Takako Sora no hate made-ron” (Light out of the darkness: A Study of Takahashi Takako’s To the end of the sky) and “Kōfuku e no kibō to tsumi no denpa: Takahashi Takako Natsu no fuchi-ron (Hope for happiness and the propagation of sin: A Study of Takahashi Takako’s The abyss of summer). Massimiliano Tomasi (PhD Nagoya University). Professor of Japanese and Director of the Center for East Asian Studies, Western Washington University. His publications include Rhetoric in Modern Japan: Western Influences on the Development of Written and Oratorical Style (University of Hawai’i Press, 2004), The Literary Theory of Shimamura Hōgetsu and the Development of Feminist Discourse in Modern Japan (Mellen, 2008); The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature: Metaphors of Christianity (Routledge, 2018); and the edited volume Religion and Spirituality in Japanese Literature (Association for Japanese Literary Studies, 2016). Prof. Tomasi is currently working on a book manuscript that explores the intersections between Christianity and Japanese literature from the 1930s to the immediate postwar period. Mark Williams is Vice President for International Academic Exchange at International Christian University in Tokyo, Japan. Until 2017, he was Professor of Japanese Studies and Head of East Asian Studies at the University of Leeds, UK. He took his BA in Japanese Studies at the University of Oxford and a PhD in Japanese Literature at the University of California, Berkeley. He was Chair of the School of Modern Languages and Cultures at Leeds between 2006 and 2011 and President of the British Association for Japanese Studies, 2007–2011. Between 2011 and 2014, he was seconded to Akita International University, Japan, where he served as Vice President for Academic Affairs. His published works include Christianity and Japan: Impacts and Responses (co-edited with John Breen; Macmillan, 1996); Endō Shūsaku: A Literature of Reconciliation (Routledge, 1999); Representing the Other in Modern Japanese Literature: A Critical Approach (co-edited with Rachael Hutchinson; Routledge, 2007); Imag(in)ing the War in Japan: Representing and Responding to Trauma in Post-war Japanese Literature and Film (co-edited with David Stahl; Brill, 2010); The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Japan (co-edited with Hiroko Takeda; Routledge 2020); and Tenkō: Cultures of Political Conversion in Transwar x

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Japan (co-edited with Irena Hayter and George Sipos; Routledge, 2021). He is also the translator of Foreign Studies and The Girl I Left Behind, two novels by Endō Shūsaku. In 2017, he received a Commendation from the Foreign Minister of Japan. Yamane Ibuki is a PhD candidate in the Graduate School of Arts and Science, the University of Tokyo and a Research Fellow of the Japan Society for Promotion of Science. He is a contributor to the Endō Shūsaku jiten (Endō Shūsaku dictionary) and author of the following articles: “Endō Shūsaku Chinmoku ni okeru kon’in shinpi shisō: ‘Kirisuto no kao’ ni okeru ‘okikae shuhō’ o megutte” (The mystical marriage in Endō Shūsaku’s Silence: The technique of “transposition” in the “Face of Jesus”); “Endō Shūsaku Chinmoku ni okeru jakusha no sukui: muishiki ni okeru dōhansha e no ‘kawaki’ o megutte” (Salvation of the weak in Endō Shūsaku’s Chinmoku: The unconscious ‘thirst’ for a constant companion) and “Endō Shūsaku Shikai no hotori ni okeru shōseijin no tsūkō: Iigaru-shi no shōgen to jūsanshō no kōzō ni chakumoku shite” (The “Communion of Saints” in Endō Shūsaku’s Shikai no hotori [By the Dead Sea]: Focusing on the testimony of Ygal and the structure of chapter XIII). Yamane Michihiro is Professor in the Institute for Research of Christian Culture at Notre Dame Seishin Women’s University. He graduated from Waseda University and took his postgraduate degree in literature from Rikkyō University. He is currently President of the Endō Shūsaku Research Association. With a focus on the relationship between literature and Christianity, he has published widely, not only on the works of Endō Shūsaku, but also those of Yagi Jūkichi, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, Miyazawa Kenji, and others. Beginning in 1986, he worked closely with Endō’s dear friend, Father Inoue Yōji, in creating the “Pneuma no ie” (House of Wind) movement dedicated to the enculturation of Christianity into Japan and has helped edit its journal, Pneuma. Following Endō’s death in 1996, he was closely involved in the publication of the 15-volume Endō Shūsaku bungaku zenshū (Collected Literary Works of Endō Shūsaku, Shinchōsha, 1999–2000). Following the death of Inoue Yōji, he was in charge of editing the 11-volume Inoue Yōji chosaku senshū (Selected works of Inoue Yōji, Kyōbunkwan, 2018). On the 25th anniversary of Endō’s death, he was in charge of the editorial team for the Endō Shūsaku jiten (Endō Shūsaku dictionary; Kanae shobō, 2021). His main monographs include Endō Shūsaku: sono jinsei to Chinmoku no shinjitsu (Endō Shūsaku: His life and the truth behind Silence, Chōbunsha, 2005); Endō Shūsaku: Fukai kawa o yomu: Mazā Teresa, Miyazawa Kenji to hibiki-au sekai (Reading Endō Shūsaku’s Deep River: Parallels with the worlds of Mother Teresa and Miyazawa Kenji, Chōbunsha, 2010); and Endō Shūsaku to Inoue Yōji: Nihon ni nezuku kirisutokyō o motometa dōshi (Endō Shūsaku and Inoue Yōji: Two men who sought to root Christianity in Japan, Nihon Kirisuto Kyōdan Shuppankyoku,, 2019). He is also co-author of several works on the literature of Endō Shūsaku, as well as those dealing with the relationship between literature and Christianity more broadly.

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Abbreviations Akutagawa Ryūnosuke zenshū [The Collected Works of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke] (24 vols., 1995–1998). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. ATZ Arishima Takeo zenshū [The Collected Works of Arishima Takeo] (15 vols., 1979–1986). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. DOZ Dazai Osamu zenshū [The Collected Works of Dazai Osamu] (13 vols., 1998–1999). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. ESBZ Endō Shūsaku bungaku zenshū [The Collected Literary Works of Endō Shūsaku] (15 vols., 1999–2000). Tokyo: Shinchōsha. GNKBZ Gendai Nihon kirisutokyō bungaku zenshū [Anthology of Modern Japanese Christian literature] (18 vols., 1972–1974). Tokyo: Kyōbunkwan. HTZ Hori Tatsuo zenshū [The Collected Works of Hori Tatsuo] (8 vols., 1977– 1980). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. KDZ Kunikida Doppo zenshū [The Collected Works of Kunikida Doppo] (10 vols., 1964–1967). Tokyo: Gakushū Kenkyūsha. STZ Shimazaki Tōson zenshū [The Collected Works of Shimazaki Tōson] (12 vols., 1981–1982). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. ShTZ Shimao Toshio zenshū [The Collected Works of Shimao Toshio] (17 vols., 1980–1983). Tokyo: Shōbunsha. SRZ Shiina Rinzō zenshū [The Collected Works of Shiina Rinzō] (24 vols., 1970– 1976). Tokyo: Tōjusha. TZ Tōkoku zenshū [The Collected Works of (Kitamura) Tōkoku] (3 vols., 1950– 1955). Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. YJZ Yagi Jūkichi zenshū [The Collected Works of Yagi Jūkichi, 1982] (3 vols., 1982). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. ARZ

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Preface Mark Williams, Van C. Gessel and Yamane Michihiro

When the first Christian missionaries arrived in Japan in the late-16th and early-17th centuries, the response was dramatic. Indeed, a whole generation of scholars of Japan has been raised on the picture offered by Charles Boxer1 and others which suggests that the reaction to these westerners was rapid and enthusiastic. Equally well documented, however, was the success of the incoming Tokugawa shogunate in brutally suppressing this wave of foreign influence—and the extent to which its policy of sakoku (whereby Japan was “closed” almost entirely to the outside world) resulted in a curtailment of virtually all interaction with the foreign missions. With the return of imperial rule following the “restoration” of the Meiji emperor in 1867–1868, the western missions were able to return,2 and widespread efforts were made to make up for lost time in implementing a Christian infrastructure across Japan. The results of such evangelization were decidedly mixed, however, with scholars agreed that the subsequent century and a half of Christian proselytizing has led, at best, to the conversion of about one percent of the Japanese population. The impetus behind this volume is the fact that, for all this seemingly low rate of Christian affiliation in the country at large, the contribution of the Christian community in the fields of literature, education, medicine—even politics, where eight of the sixty-two 20th-century Japanese prime ministers have professed affiliation to the Christian faith3—has been disproportionate. In the sphere of literature, too, the proportion of writers who have either been baptized or significantly influenced in their work by Christian teachings is much higher than this one percent threshold. The trend is not entirely absent even in works of the Toku­gawa era where, for all the suspicion of any overt references to Christian affiliation, we can find a variety of important literary documents, including Kabuki plays, that touch upon Christian themes or subjects. It was, however, with the return of the Christian missions following the Meiji Restoration and the move towards greater religious freedom that we come to see the creation of a series of works dealing with specifically Christian material. The trend was initiated by the likes of Kitamura Tōkoku, Kunikida Doppo and Shimazaki Tōson, and continued into the 20th century, becoming particularly pronounced in the immediate postwar era as a small minority of those who were returning from the front or who had struggled in other ways to find spiritual solace during the years of hostilities sought to make some kind of sense of their experience by embracing literary activity. Indeed, a reading of these postwar works shows that some, at least, of these authors found themselves inspired by the hope that the Christian teachings offered. This volume examines the works of seventeen such authors, all of whom employed themes and imagery in their writings influenced by Christian teachings. For a few, such activity was inspired unashamedly by a desire to use their pen for the purpose of proselytization. For many, however, there was a clear determination not to subsume their literary endeavors to such ends, to ensure that their work would not be read simply through such a religious lens;

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even here, though, these works are the products of individuals for whom the Christian faith represents an important element of their identity and this, in turn, can influence our reading experience. In the Japanese context, it is arguably the postwar novelist, Endō Shūsaku, who has grappled most concertedly with the question of what we mean by the concept of “Christian literature.” Writing essays even before he made his debut on the literary stage, he was to argue, “Catholic literature involves not a literary portrayal of God and angels but must limit itself to scrutiny of human beings…. If, for the sake of creating a truly Catholic literature, or for the purpose of preserving or propagating the Catholic doctrine, the personalities of the characters in a novel are subjected to artifice and distortion, then the work ceases to be literature in the true sense of the word.”4 And it is this focus, not on saintly or angelic beings, but on the regular human beings whom these authors and all of us encounter in our daily lives that pervades the works of all the authors discussed in this volume. Yes, there are instances in these works of protagonists who defy our expectations of normal human behavior; indeed, there are examples of characters who quite literally lay down their lives to save others. (We are thinking here, for example, of Mitsu in Endō’s The Girl I Left Behind, who ends up being crushed by a truck in a desperate attempt to protect the eggs that have been raised at the leprosarium where she volunteers, or of Nagano Nobuo in Miura Ayako’s Shiokari Pass, who throws himself in front of a run-away train in order to save the lives of the passengers on board). There are others who endure trials and tribulations in their lives that would seem to render them outside any human ambit. (Here we have in mind Shimao Toshio’s protagonist, Toshio, who, having avoided inevitable death when his kamikaze mission was delayed by 24 hours on 14 August 1945, ended up devoting over two decades to caring for his wife whose psychiatric problems he attributed to his marital infidelity). These and other characters are certainly memorable. But this is not to detract from the fact that, in essence, they are portrayed, first and foremost, as human beings, fellow travelers whom their respective authors seek to depict without embellishment in an attempt to capture a certain essential humanity. Thus, for all her extraordinary self-sacrifice at the end of the novel, Mitsu has been painted throughout as an unspectacular “mii-haa” (country bumpkin); Miura’s Nobu is a little-known, nondescript figure who, for much of the novel, argues bitterly against Christian beliefs; and Shimao’s Toshio, for all his determination, at the end of The Sting of Death, to return to the living hell of his wife’s psychiatric ward, is depicted throughout the novel as a man struggling with his own inner demons. There is, however, one important distinction that emerges between the earlier generation of these authors and those writing more recently, particularly in the postwar era that requires acknowledgement: the gradual shift from a Protestant to a Catholic worldview. As Yamane Michihiro argues in his Introduction to this volume, those writing between the 1880s and the start of World War II were largely drawn to the Protestant emphasis on individual freedom, though many of them eventually rejected sectarian affiliation. Since 1945, on the other hand, Catholicism has nurtured the majority of religiously committed authors, led by figures such as Endō Shūsaku, the most popular and influential Christian writer in Japan to date. The authors discussed in these essays have contributed in a variety of ways to the indigenization of the imported religion. And, while all too often subsumed under a category of minority Christian authors, their overall contribution, not simply to the bundan, the literary scene of the era, but to the Japanese cultural scene more broadly cannot be overestimated. To be sure, some of the authors discussed here may not have made it into the pantheon of world xvi

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literature.5 There are others, however, including Shimazaki Tōson, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, Dazai Osamu and Endō Shūsaku, whose works are known well beyond the confines of Japan and which have contributed in a variety of ways to depictions of Japanese culture. And yet it is as a group of authors—and several others who might well have been included in this volume—committed in their literary oeuvres to the depiction of a series of human beings, created in the image of God and yet retaining their identities as “fallen” individuals, that this category of “Christian writers” is perhaps best encapsulated. In compiling a volume of this nature, one inevitably incurs a series of debts—and we are happy to acknowledge these here. In particular, we would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the willingness of so many scholars to write original pieces for this volume. Read as a whole, we feel that one of the salient features of the collection is the wide variety of approaches taken in the individual chapters—and this is, in no small measure, a consequence of having a good mix of Japanese and non-Japanese contributors. We would also like to offer our sincere thanks to Mark Gresham and his team at MHM Limited for believing in this project from the outset—and for their support throughout the editorial process. We are also painfully aware that, in devoting time to this work, we have been derelict in other duties; our particular thanks go to our colleagues and family members who have provided us with the space to complete this work. Finally, in the composition of this volume, we have decided on a series of conventions. The first is the decision to follow customary practice in listing Japanese names in the Japanese order (i.e., family name followed by given name); the one exception is in cases when Japanese have been writing directly in English where, again in accordance with convention, we have listed them as given name followed by family name. To assist those readers who do not have access to Japanese originals, we have tried to indicate those works for which an English translation is available; the translated titles of such works are followed by an asterisk. However, for those readers who are seeking more detail about works available in translation from the authors included in this volume (including for translations into languages other than English), we would refer you to the Japanese Literature in Translation Database compiled by the Japan Foundation. The homepage for this is available at https://jpf.org​.au​/japanese-studies​ /resources/japanese-literature-in-translation-database/ and individual items can be searched at https://jltransopac.jpf.go.jp/Opac/search.htm?s=1C9_d6JaCdalK1PL70dQQk8Nhhb. Finally, in light of the fact that so many of our citations are drawn from the (multi-volume) Collected Works of that author, we have adopted a series of abbreviations to reference these zenshū. A list of these abbreviations can be found on page xiii.

Notes 1

Boxer, C. (1951) The Christian Century in Japan, 1549–1650. Berkeley and Los Angeles: The University of California Press. 2 Strictly speaking the first missionaries returned even before the fall of the shogunate—with the story of the French priest, Fr. Petitjean, being approached in 1865 by a group of elderly Kakure (Hidden) Christians often cited as the moment when the attention of the world was first drawn to the existence of some tens of thousands of Kakure believers who had been obliged to practise their faith in complete secrecy over the previous centuries.

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https://www.news-postseven.com/archives/20120604_113430.html?DETAIL. The eight 20th-century prime ministers cited in this article are Hara Takashi, Yoshida Shigeru, Katayama Tetsu, Hatoyama Ichirō, Ōhira Masayoshi, Hosokawa Morihiro, Asō Tarō and Hatoyama Yukio. 4 “Katorikku sakka no mondai” (The Problems confronting the Catholic Author), in ESBZ 12: 18–56. 5 This is, in part at least, due to the vagaries of translation. 3

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Introduction Yamane Michihiro Translated by Sachiko Hamada Given that only about one percent of the Japanese population is Christian, how is one to account for the preponderance of “Christian authors”? Where did they come from? Here I examine the Protestant tradition that influenced so many prewar authors—and the Catholic tradition that was more influential on the postwar generation. In so doing, it offers a comprehensive examination and discussion of those authors who interacted with the faith.

Introduction: Where did Japan’s Christian writers come from? Included in the category of “Japanese Christian writers” here are writers who were baptized as Christians, along with those who, though never baptized, were deeply interested in Christianity and wrote works of literature influenced by the faith. This Introduction covers those authors who were baptized during their youth and yet whose faith and literature would gradually grow apart; those whose baptism generated a creative relationship between their faith and literature; and even those who kept their faith hidden in the innermost depths of their work and who came to baptism later in life. For each of these, the year of baptism will be noted alongside the dates of birth and death for each writer. In this sense, this Handbook will be dealing with a wide range of Christian writers who played an active role in modern Japan. From the beginning of the Meiji period (1868–1912), many missionaries came to Japan. This resulted in vigorous missionary work, and yet, to this day, the number of Christians in Japan has never exceeded one percent of the population. However, as Dazai Osamu, who remains one of the most popular modern writers in Japan, expressed in HUMAN LOST, “with the Bible alone, Japan’s literary history has unmistakably split into two with unprecedented clarity” (cited in Endō T. 1994, 363). That is, when we survey the more than one thousand years of Japanese literary history, it can be said without hesitation that, starting from the Protestant missions in early Meiji, the vibrant works of writers who engaged with the Bible held an important place within modern Japanese literary history. As for the sheer number of books written by writers who were influenced by Christianity in Japan, this can be observed from the existence of publications such as Kindai Nihon kirisutokyō bungaku zenshū (The Collected Works of Modern Japanese Christian Literature, 1974–1982), which comprises fifteen volumes, and Gendai Nihon kirisutokyō bungaku zenshū (The Collected Works of Contemporary Japanese Christian Literature, 1972–1982), comprised of eighteen volumes. As noted above, modern Japanese literary history embarked on a new relationship with Christianity during the Meiji period, and the critic Sasabuchi Tomoichi has offered a wideranging perspective by dividing modern Japanese literary history into four periods (see

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Sasabuchi 1963, 153–58). Building on his idea, in this Introduction, I will present a slightly modified version of this division into four periods. The first period (1868–1890) starts from the beginning of the Meiji era and ends in the twenty-third year of Meiji. During this period, translations of the New and Old Testaments were made and various Japanese hymnals were created, laying the foundations for Protestantism to influence Japanese literature. The second period spans the years from 1891 to the Great Kantō Earthquake of 1923, the twelfth year of the Taishō era (1912–1926). During this period, many writers were inspired by Protestant Christianity. The literary coteries, Bungakukai (Literary World, 1893–1898) and Shirakaba-ha (White Birch Society, 1910–1923) are representative of this influence. The former’s romantic ideology and the latter’s humanitarian vision were influenced by the formation of a modern individualism espoused by the new Christian missions. However, while these writers took inspiration from Christianity, as their literary works took form and matured, they gradually distanced themselves from the faith and began to embrace a more idealistic, humanist stance. The third period (1923–1945) begins after the Great Kantō Earthquake and concludes with the end of the Second World War. Faced with a distressing loss of optimistic faith in humanity and the downfall of idealism, the writers of this period began to take a deeper interest in Christianity as they pursued their literary endeavors. Despite this, Christianity had yet to become a definitive factor in saving those who had lost their way. The fourth period constitutes the postwar era. In contrast to the second period, this period saw a movement away from humanism towards Christianity and, at long last, in this period, Christianity played a vital role in the rebuilding of broken humanity. It was during this time that a fully-fledged “Christian literature”—one in which Christianity and Japanese literature creatively complemented each other at a fundamental level—was born. Whereas the writers who were involved in Christian literature before the War were mostly Protestant, these postwar Christian writers were mostly Catholic. Given this background, I would like to direct our attention to the question of where these Christian writers, many of whom represented the driving force of modern and contemporary Japanese literary history, came from. Unlike Christian writers in the Christian West, these Japanese Christian writers would not have been raised in Christian homes. In which case, when and where did these writers come into contact with, and find themselves influenced by, Christianity? By focusing on the Protestant tradition (spanning the first to the third periods) which influenced the writers before the War, and the Catholicism espoused by the postwar writers, let us briefly discuss the writers who engaged with Christianity from Japan’s Meiji period and thereafter.

Christian missionaries and literature at the dawn of the Meiji era For over 250 years until the early 1870s, Christianity was forbidden because it was regarded as a heretical religion that threatened to undermine the power of the shogunate. Here I will examine how Christianity was introduced to, and favorably received by, young people in the midst of Japan’s modernization. In the year following the Japan-US Treaty of Amity and Commerce signed in 1858 (which heralded the end of the Tokugawa shogunate), a group of French Catholic priests from the

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Paris Foreign Missions Society arrived in Japan, having been commissioned by the Pope. Unlike the earlier missions carried out by the Jesuits in the 16th and 17th centuries, which had focused on intellectual dialogue with the elite class and adaptation to the culture, the French Catholicism of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, which shared Rome’s opposition towards modern values, had little in common with the Meiji government. As a result, mission work focused on educational activities for young intellectuals was sidelined, while more effort was poured into charity work and social welfare services, which meant that their work was mostly carried out among the people of the lower classes. Many Protestant missionaries also came to Japan, taking advantage of the opening of the ports in the year following the signing of the Treaty, and, while they contributed to the cultural enlightenment of Japan through their teaching of foreign languages and the practice of medicine, they directed their mission, through education and translation of the Bible, towards young intellectuals who would lead the modernization of Japan. Many of the young men who discovered Christianity during the Meiji era were from the samurai class of the former so-called Sabaku group (supporters of the shogun who lost against the Satsuma-Chōshū powers). These were young men who, while feeling indebted towards their nation, resented the Satsuma-Chōshū powers taking office in the new government and hence studied western sciences in order to play an active role in politics and to devote themselves fully to their country. Therefore, rather than for the religion itself, they looked to the Christian missionaries for acquisition of knowledge of the western sciences, or the practical sciences, especially foreign languages, along with the culture, practices and customs of the West that they had come to highly esteem. Although it was for this purpose that they approached Christianity, nevertheless, in time, many were drawn to the teachings of Christianity, especially to the new perspective that viewed all human beings as equal before God, which stood in opposition to the long-established Japanese class structure. Eventually, Japanese Christian leaders emerged who, having committed themselves to the new faith, would aspire to serve their country by ushering in a spiritual renewal of Japan through religion and education. These leaders would have an immeasurable impact on the following generation of young intellectuals. Seen thus, it was the Protestant religious leaders who greatly influenced the birth of writers who were connected to Christianity. Of those leaders, Uemura Masahisa (1858–1925, baptized 1873) and Uchimura Kanzō (1861–1939, baptized 1878) were the most gifted in literary talent and both exerted monumental influence. Within the three major original groups of Japanese Protestants—the so-called Yokohama, Sapporo and Kumamoto “bands”—Uemura was an exponent of the Yokohama band and Uchimura represented the Sapporo band. The origins of modern Japanese Christian writers—Band 1: The Yokohama Band and Uemura Masahisa In Yokohama in 1859, an American Presbyterian medical missionary, James Hepburn, later recognized for working as a medical doctor and his association with the “Hepburn” system of Romanization of the Japanese language, arrived in Japan. In 1867, with the help of Samuel Brown, a missionary of the Reformed Church in America who arrived later, he published Wa-Ei rinshūsei (Japanese-English and English-Japanese Dictionary), which became the basis for today’s Japanese-English Dictionary, thereby substantially contributing to the study

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of English in Japan. Hepburn opened a clinic while his wife taught English in their home, founding the Hepburn School. This school was later relocated to Tokyo and developed into Tsukiji Daigakkō, the forerunner of Meiji Gakuin University. It fostered writers such as Shimazaki Tōson, Togawa Shūkotsu and Baba Kochō. These writers played their part as pillars of the pre-romanticism movement in the Bungakukai coterie. In addition, in 1872, some students who studied at a school founded in the Yokohama Foreign Settlement by James Ballagh, a missionary of the Dutch Reformed Church in America, were baptized after being inspired by Ballagh. These students formed a non-denominational group called the Nihon Kirisuto kōkai (Meeting of Christ in Japan), which was renamed the Yokohama Kaigan Church in 1975. Many of the members joined the Brown School and studied theology and English in the Christian missionary training class that was made available to them. Graduates from this class included various figures who played a large role in the formation of the Protestant church in Japan and in developing Christian education, including Uemura Masahisa, who laid the theological foundations for an orthodox evangelistic faith; Ibuka Kajinosuke, who served as president of Meiji Gakuin University; Honda Yōitsu, who served as president of Aoyama Gakuin University; and Oshikura Masayoshi, who served as president of Tōhoku Gakuin University. This Christian group, which was built upon the achievements of these Yokohama missionaries, is what is called the “Yokohama Band.” Most influential on modern Japanese writers among the members of this group was Uemura Masahisa. Uemura was the son of a vassal of the Tokugawa shogunal family, which had met its downfall at the start of the Meiji Restoration. Aspiring to restore his family name, Uemura sought to gain knowledge of English by studying at Shūbunkan in Yokohama and also at the school run by Ballagh. Inspired by Ballagh, Uemura was baptized by him in 1873. He then graduated from the school run by Samuel Brown and the Tokyo Union Seminary, the first seminary in Japan, and became a pastor, establishing Shitaya Church in 1879 and Ichibanchō Church in 1887. Ichibanchō Church developed into Fujimichō Church in 1906 and Uemura devoted the rest of his life to evangelism as a pastor there. Meanwhile, in 1880, along with Kozaki Hiromichi and others, he formed the Tokyo Young Men’s Christian Association, the Tokyo YMCA. And by making use of this as a platform, he began publishing the Christian general-interest magazine, Rikugō zasshi. With the goal of freeing Japanese Christianity from the clutches of the foreign missionary associations and securing its evangelical foundations, Uemura dedicated himself to training Christian evangelists through the newly founded seminary, Tokyo Shingakusha, and making literary contributions to Christian publications like Fukuin shinpō, ultimately reaching a large audience inside and outside of the church. Uemura especially excelled in the literary sphere, and his majestic and refined translations of the Psalms, the Song of Solomon, and the Book of Isaiah from the Old Testament (Kyūyaku zensho; The Complete Texts of the Old Testament, 1888) are regarded as masterpieces of translated literature from the early Meiji period. At the same time, the elegant lyrics for the new translation and newly composed hymns for Shinsen sanbika (The New Collection of Hymns, 1888) overflow with poetic sensitivity. The basis for Christianity’s influence on Japan’s modern literature was founded on such translations of the Bible and Japanese hymns, and these greatly influenced the lyricism of the new style of poetry, shintaishi, written in the Meiji period by such authors as Shimazaki Tōson and Kunikida Doppo. Furthermore, Uemura produced excellent introductions and analyses of European writers and poets, such as Browning, Wordsworth, Dante and Milton in journals such as Nippon xxii

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hyōron. As for the relationship between Christianity and literature, he asked writers to be reformers of life (Bungakusha to tokugi; Writers and Morality, 1890, cited in Endō T. 1994, 85) and, while allowing writers the freedom of imagination when creating and enjoying literature, he stood by his position that it was a mistake to assume that literature has nothing to do with ethics and morals. Touching upon the complementary relationship between literature and religion, he argued that to have these two sides turn their backs on each other would be “due to the lack of having no virtuous intermediary to understand the proponents of both religion and literature” (Shūkyō to bungaku; Religion and Literature, 1893, cited in Endō T. 1994, 86). Uemura was a lover of literature and a voracious reader, and many young men flocked to hear his sermons which were well informed by his wide-ranging education. Such was the case with literary young men such as Kunikida Doppo (1871–1908, baptized 1891) and Masamune Hakuchō (1879–1962, baptized 1897), both of whom came to Tokyo from the countryside, attended Tokyo Senmon Gakkō (modern day Waseda University) and were baptized by Uemura. Also emerging from under Uemura’s wings were prominent Christian English literary scholars, such as Saitō Isamu. In 1885, Uemura and his followers founded Meiji Jogakkō, the first High School for girls in Japan, with pastor Kimura Kumaji as the principal, assisted by his wife Tōko, who was baptized by Uemura. Kimura, another vassal of the former shogunate, went to study in the United States at the beginning of the Meiji period, became a Christian during his stay abroad, and returned to Japan in 1882 as a missionary. He took over the role of pastor of Shitaya Church from Uemura, where he baptized the prominent advocate of women’s education in Japan, Iwamoto Yoshiharu. Kimura went on to become the pastor for Daimachi Church, where he baptized Shimazaki Tōson. Those who taught at Meiji Jogakkō include Wakamatsu Shizuko (1864–1896, baptized 1877), who was baptized at Yokohama Kaigan Church and became Iwamoto’s wife, and, subsequently, Kitamura Tōkoku and Shimazaki Tōson. After Kimura, Iwamoto succeeded in the role of principal of Meiji Jogakkō. In 1885, he started publishing the magazine, Jogaku zasshi, one of the earliest specialist women’s magazines in Japan. These achievements demonstrate the significance of the role that Iwamoto played in advancing the recognition and social standing of women in Japan. Other graduates from Meiji Jogakkō include Nogami Yaeko, who later became a writer under Natsume Sōseki’s tutelage, Yamamuro Kieko, who was baptized by Uemura, worked as a social worker and married Yamamuro Gunpei, the first Japanese officer of the Salvation Army, and Hani Motoko, Japan’s first female journalist and the founder of Jiyū Gakuen (Freedom Academy). Of particular interest in this regard is Wakamatsu Shizuko, who contributed actively to Jogaku zasshi and translated Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy as well as numerous other works of British and American religious and children’s literature into an easy-to-understand and elegant colloquial Japanese. This made her the first female Japanese Christian writer. Furthermore, Kitamura Tōkoku (1868–1894, baptized 1888), who started his career as a critic by submitting his articles to Jogaku zasshi, surprised contemporary young readers with his Ensei shika to josei (Pessimistic Poets and Women, 1892), which opens with the memorable phrase, “Love is the secret key to human society” (cited in Endō T. 1994, 164). When Tōkoku fell into a state of spiritual crisis stemming from the failure of the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement, he was rescued by the love and guidance of Ishizaka Mina, a member of the Yokohama Kaigan Church, who led him to becoming a Christian. In 1893, in his article Introduction

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entitled “Jinsei ni aiwataru to wa nan no ii zo” (What Does “Relevant to Life” Mean?) published in Bungakukai, Tōkoku attempted to criticize the utilitarian literary theory that had been put forward by the critic, Yamaji Aizan, based on the philosophy of the Min’yūsha that had been founded by Tokutomi Sohō. Tōkoku further argued that literature was “a kind of undertaking that studies humankind and eternity” and that humankind “wanders about in between the finite and the infinite” (“Meiji bungaku kanken”; A Personal View of Meiji Literature, 1893, cited in Endō T. 1994, 165). That understanding enriched Japan’s spiritual soil, and presented literature with a new topos—that of opening up a new metaphysical horizon. But that task would be left unfinished, to be inherited by the postwar Christian writers such as Shiina Rinzō and Endō Shūsaku. The origins of modern Japanese Christian writers—Band 2: The Sapporo Band and Uchimura Kanzō In 1876, W. S. Clark, who was President of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, was introduced to the Japanese government by prominent Protestant educator, Niijima Jō, and was invited by the Japanese government to become the first vice-principal of the Sapporo Agricultural College (present-day Hokkaidō University), which was founded by the Hokkaidō Development Commission. When director Kuroda Kiyotaka asked Clark to provide the students with moral education, Clark asserted that instruction in Christian ethics taught through the Bible represented the only way to achieve such education. Thus, while the Sapporo Agricultural College was a secular, public school, the Bible was handed out to be used as the foundation of its moral education program. The first student intake of the Sapporo Agricultural College signed the pledge, “Iesu o shinzuru mono no keiyaku” (“covenant of those who believe in Jesus Christ”), that had been drafted by Clark. Even though Clark left Japan after his eight-month stay, in the following year, the new class of students, who were also influenced by Clark, signed the covenant, and these students were baptized by the Methodist Church missionary, Merriman Colbert Harris. In 1881, these members, influenced by Clark’s non-denominational attitude, established the non-denominational Sapporo Independent Christian Church. The members of this church were called the “Sapporo Band.” One member of the inaugural class was Satō Shōsuke, who would become the first President of Hokkaidō University. In the class of the following year were Uchimura Kanzō and Nitobe Inazō. Nitobe later took on significant roles, such as the principal of the First Higher School of Japan, professor at Tokyo University and the first president of Tokyo Woman’s Christian University, thereby exerting a huge impact on the younger generation. Furthermore, Nitobe, as Under-Secretary General of the League of Nations and as an internationally-minded Japanese citizen equipped with Christian faith and a cultivated mind with wide-ranging knowledge made significant contributions to world peace and Japan’s enlightenment. It should be noted that the author Arishima Takeo was another who, inspired by Uchimura Kanzō, came under the influence of Clark, graduated the Sapporo Agricultural College in 1901, and joined the Sapporo Independent Christian Church. Of the Sapporo Band members, it was, however, Uchimura Kanzō who had the greatest impact on Japan’s modern writers. Born in Edo (modern day Tokyo) the son of a samurai of the Takasaki domain, Uchimura pursued his English studies at the English Department of Arima Private School and at the Tokyo School of Foreign Studies and, in 1877, he entered

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the Sapporo Agricultural College as one of the college’s second class of students. He signed Clark’s “Covenant” and was baptized by Harris in the following year. When he graduated in 1881, Uchimura made an oath with his fellow classmates, including Nitobe, that they would dedicate their lives to the “two Js”: Jesus and Japan. After making his way to Tokyo, working at the Fishery Division of the Ministry of Agriculture and Commerce, Uchimura moved to the United States in 1884. He initially worked at the Elwyn Institute for mentally disabled children, after which he was admitted to Amherst College, where he underwent a religious conversion, having been inspired by President Seelye. When he graduated from Amherst College, he entered Hartford Theological Seminary but left without finishing and returned to Japan in 1888. On his return, Uchimura took the position of Vice President at a private school, the Hokuetsu Gakkan, but due to a dispute with a missionary, he left for Tokyo where he took up a part-time teaching position at the First Higher School of Japan. However, in 1891, he had to leave that post on account of causing a “lèse majesté” incident when he refused to participate in the ritual whereby students and faculty at all schools were required to recite the Imperial Rescript on Education. Thereafter, he worked as a teacher at Taisei Gakkan in Osaka, Kumamoto English School and Nagoya Eiwa School. While teaching, Uchimura published several of his representative works, such as Kirisuto shinto no nagusame (The Christian’s Consolation, 1893) and Kyūan-roku (A Record of Seeking Solace, 1893), Chirigaku-kō, later renamed Chijin-ron (A Geographical Analysis / A Geo-humanitarian Theory, 1894), alongside English-language publications such as Japan and the Japanese (1894) and How I Became a Christian (1895). Starting from 1897, he became the lead writer for the English column in the newspaper Yorozu chōhō. The following year, he started issuing, and became the lead writer for, Tokyo dokuritsu zasshi journal and provided social commentary and cultural critique from a Christian perspective. In 1900, he began publishing the monthly magazine Seisho no kenkyū (Studies on the Bible). After participating in the protest movement against the Ashio copper mine pollution incident1 and speaking out against the Russo-Japanese War in 1903, Uchimura resigned from his position at Yorozu chōhō. From that day on, Uchimura’s lifework consisted of publishing Studies on the Bible and holding Bible study sessions that adhered to the principles of his mukyōkai (Non-church) movement. What Uchimura aspired to achieve through Non-church Christianity, was the establishment of a brotherhood, an Ecclesia, akin to a home for those who did not have a church to which to belong. The movement aimed at developing a uniquely Japanese form of evangelical Christianity which focused solely on the Bible and faith in Christ’s atonement on the cross, emphasizing love of the “two Js,” thereby connecting Japan to Christianity and also to humanitarian and universal values. In this way, he succeeded in exerting an immense impact, not only on the Japanese Christian community but on the Japanese philosophical community at large. And his prophetic words and conduct, as evidenced in his many writings, his Bible study sessions, summer lecture events, alongside the summer camps and lectures hosted by the Young Men’s Christian Association, left a deep and wide-ranging impression on the hearts of the young men of the age. Among Uchimura’s students were a number of Christian urban intellectuals, including Yanaihara Tadao, who would later serve as President of Tokyo University, as well as the disciples he taught in rural areas. Uchimura possessed literary talent and the numerous works he wrote in Japanese and in English can, in a broad sense, be considered as “Christian literature.” Moreover, Uchimura’s interest in literature was specifically concerned with “Literature” with a capital “L.” In Introduction

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his 1895 treatise, “Naze ni daibungaku wa idezaru ka” (Why Great Literature Has Not Been Made), Uchimura argued that “Literature” could not be produced in Japan because there was no grand vision to serve as the foundation of Japanese literature, that writers in Japan were caught up in fostering narrow-minded patriotism and disinterested in world literatures that would cultivate a world-spirit, that creativity was considered dangerous, and that the members of the various literary circles were leading corrupt lives. Having made this point, Uchimura proposed methods for creating “great literature.” In order to build a foundation for the structuring of fine language, the nurturing of a rich mind, and attaining an expansive global sense, he proposed familiarizing oneself with some of the classics of world literature, such as the Bible, Homer’s two major works, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Shakespeare’s plays, Goethe’s Faust, and others. In “Ika ni shite daibungaku o en ka”(How are We to Attain Great Literature?; 1895), he also recommended observation of nature and cultivation of character. Due to his ethical standpoint on literature, Uchimura detested reading novels and watching plays, believing that they exerted a bad influence on families; and yet he embraced poetry. Indeed, he published Aigin (Selected Poems, 1897), in which he broke down the works of various western poets into easy-to-understand translations and introduced Walt Whitman to Japan as a religious poet. He also published works by Japanese poets, such as Kanbara Ariake, in Tokyo dokuritsu zasshi. This journal was read widely by young men all over Japan and, when it was discontinued, Uchimura held summer colloquia for its readers for the following three years. Osanai Kaoru, Shiga Naoya and Arishima Takeo—all of whom later became writers—participated in these sessions. In addition, in January and February of 1898, Uchimura conducted literary seminars every Monday. These lectures were later compiled and published as Getsuyō kōen, later republished as Shūkyō to bungaku (The Monday Seminars / Religion and Literature, 1898). The author Masamune Hakuchō, who did not miss any of these lectures, later commented that, with regard to Christian literature, he held Uchimura’s works in the highest regard and that, if one were to discuss Christian writers from the Meiji period onward, one only need mention Uchimura (“Meiji no kirisutokyō bungaku” (Christian Literature of the Meiji Era, 1926), cited in Ōnuki 2002, 37). There are many young writers who were drawn to Uchimura’s works and were thereby stimulated both in a religious and in a literary sense, but who ended up distancing themselves from Christianity as they entered into the world of literature. For all this, one can still observe from the works of these writers the traces of their ties to Uchimura. One such example is Osanai Kaoru (1881–1928) a producer and playwright who was a pioneer of modern Japanese theatre and is often referred to as “the father of new theater.” During his high school days at the First Higher School of Japan, Osanai attended Uchimura’s summer seminars, became an impassioned member of his Bible study group and helped in editing Studies on the Bible. However, despite his closeness to Uchimura, Osanai drifted away from Uchimura as he entered the Humanities Department of Tokyo Imperial University, choosing rather to focus on his plays and to immerse himself in the world of the theatre. His novel, Haikyōsha (The Apostate), serialized in the Asahi shinbun newspaper in 1923, tells the story of the young men who spent time together with Uchimura throughout the three years of summer colloquia. Arishima Takeo (1878–1923, baptized 1901), a representative writer of the Shirakaba (White Birch) society, was influenced by Uchimura from his time at the Sapporo Agricultural College. He attended the Sapporo Independent Christian Church, became a Christian, attended Uchimura’s summer colloquia, and was expected to become Uchimura’s successor; but, following his return from the United States, Arishima withdrew from the Christian xxvi

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realm and immersed himself in the literary world. In Arishima’s novel, Aru onna (A Certain Woman,* 1919), Uchimura makes his appearance as a character named “Uchida,” and in Oshiminaku ai wa ubau (Love Freely Takes, 1920), Arishima expresses his sharply critical opinion of Christian theologians who viewed God as a tyrannical ruler. Shiga Naoya (1883–1971), a central figure of the Shirakaba society, often referred to as “shōsetsu no kamisama” (the god of the novel), participated in Uchimura’s summer colloquium when he was a student at Gakushūin Boys Junior High School, and thereafter, for the next seven years, he attended Uchimura’s Bible study group. Shiga wrote in his diary on 22 May 1904 that Uchimura’s Christianity “was truly mighty and, as frightening as it feels, it is pleasant” (cited in Endō T. 1994, 275). However, when Shiga was accepted into the Department of English Literature at Tokyo Imperial University, he began writing fiction and, as his path toward becoming an author began to open, he stopped living his life as a Christian under Uchimura’s tutelage. In “Uchimura Kanzō-sensei no omoide” (Memories of my Teacher, Uchimura Kanzō, 1941), Shiga states that, of all those who had influenced him, the one he considered as a mentor was Uchimura Kanzō. In his novellas Nigotta atama (Murky Mind, 1911) and Ōtsu Junkichi (1912) a character who is clearly based on Uchimura appears, along with another character, a young Christian, onto which Shiga projects his younger self; the latter struggles with bodily desires that come into conflict with the commandment against adultery. Nagayo Yoshirō (1888–1961), another writer and playwright of the Shirakaba society, was also deeply moved by Uchimura’s works during his days at Gakushūin Boys High School. He enthusiastically attended Uchimura’s Bible study group for a year; but, as his interest in writing grew and he joined the Shirakaba coterie, he turned his back on Uchimura, entered the Department of English Literature at Tokyo Imperial University, and ventured into the world of literature. Another writer, Masamune Hakuchō, whose unique brand of nihilism enabled him to create works depicting life in a cool-headed way, making him a central figure for naturalist literature, was poor in health from a young age and was filled with a deep fear of death from his childhood. When he was thirteen years old, he read the journal, Kokumin no tomo, and learned about Christianity, in which he sought salvation. He also became an ardent admirer of Uchimura’s works and, after entering Tokyo Senmon Gakkō, he enthusiastically participated in the summer schools and Monday seminars where Uchimura was the lecturer. On Sundays, Masamune would listen to Uemura Masahisa’s sermons and was subsequently baptized by him. However, by the time Masamune graduated university, he had decided to divest himself of his Christian faith for various reasons, including his perception that the religion he sought to be freed from the terror of death was, in fact, a cruel religion which would force its followers to become martyrs. He also acknowledged that he lacked the ability to love his neighbor, a core tenet of Christian teaching (while he was in fact full of hatred for his neighbor), and went on to become a prominent naturalist writer. Although Hakuchō felt conflicted and alternated between a state of disbelief and belief, in the last years of his life, in his essay “Bungaku hachijūnen” (Eighty Years of Literature, 1959), he stated that “ultimately, Christ embraces us much like a hen protects her chicks. I am constantly thinking about such things” (Masamune 1983–1986, 30, 137). However, he renewed his Christian faith just before his death. One can view this as an example of a life in which Hakuchō, in his youth, faltered in front of a terrifying God of staunch paternal principles; he seems to have cowered and run away from this situation, when in reality, he was not running away but rather, in the Introduction

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depths of his heart, ardently searching for a maternal God. Approximately fifty years after meeting Uchimura, Hakuchō wrote his critical biography, Uchimura Kanzō: Ika ni ikubeki ka (Uchimura Kanzō: How should One Live?, 1949). Yagi Jūkichi (1898–1927, baptized 1919), often referred to as the first and best Christian poet in Japan, also sought out faith due to the concerns he had surrounding life and death. He was greatly influenced by the Non-church branch of the faith and the view of God that evinced strong paternal principles, with which he came into contact by reading Uchimura’s works and by attending his lectures during his time as a student at the Tokyo Kōtō Shihan Gakkō. Under such influence, he wrote poetry while practicing his faith centered on the Bible within the confines of his own household. However, gradually, Yagi departed from Uchimura’s view of God with its intensely paternal principles and deepened his faith in a direction that supported his own view of a more maternal God. By combining his new view of God with his literary process, Yagi became a representative Christian poet in Japan. He only had four years of working on his poems, while teaching English on the side, before he departed this world at the young age of 29, leaving behind approximately three thousand drafted poems. Uchimura’s influence on writers who had a connection with modern Christianity does not end here. Prominent writers who are categorized into the third time period mentioned in the beginning of this Introduction, authors such as Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892–1927) and Dazai Osamu (1909–48), were also the recipients of Uchimura’s influence, albeit indirectly. In Akutagawa’s “Haguruma” (Cogwheels,* 1927), which he worked on until the very end of his life, we can see clear echoes of Uchimura in the depiction of the elderly Christian man who enters the great teacher’s house and goes on to lead an intense religious life under his guidance. On the other hand, Dazai was greatly influenced by Uchimura Kanzō zuihitsu-shū (The Collected Essays of Uchimura Kanzō) and subscribed to the journal, Seisho chishiki (Bible Knowledge), whose lead writer was Tsukamoto Toraji, a student of Uchimura. Unlike writers who were closely involved with Christianity in their youth but left Christianity as they immersed themselves in the world of literature, both Akutagawa and Dazai maintained their interest in Christianity throughout their lives as they continued their struggles with life; they read the Bible thoroughly as they pursued their writing endeavors and awakened in themselves a renewed spiritual interest in Christianity. However, Akutagawa expressed his conviction that “to believe in a God—to believe in a God’s love, that was impossible” (“The Life of a Fool,” * in Akutagawa 1987, 134), and Dazai stated that “I was frightened even by God. I could not believe in His love, only in His punishment” (Dazai 1958, 117). These are the words left in their posthumous works and, by considering these words—and the fact that both these writers took their own lives—we can come to an understanding that a Christianity that harnesses strong paternal principles was not able to play a crucial role in regard to the problems confronted by the souls of these tormented writers. The origins of modern Japanese Christian writers—Band 3: The Kumamoto Band and Dōshisha University In 1871, in response to Kumamoto falling behind the Satsuma and Chōshū domains as the Meiji Restoration progressed, the Kumamoto School of Western Studies, a boarding school aimed at educating young men for government service through western learning, was

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established. L. L. Janes, a retired American military captain, provided the young men, who had lost the focus of their loyalty following the dissolution of the feudal domain system, with an all-encompassing education to nurture them holistically. The students, moved by Janes’ passion and faith, found a new sense of purpose, and in 1876 they gathered at Mount Hanaoka, just outside Kumamoto Castle, where they signed the “Hōkyō shuisho,” their pledge to propagate the gospel of Christ in Japan, and became Christians. These members were called the “Kumamoto Band.” In response to these activities, an anti-Christian movement evolved, and the School of Western Studies was closed. At this point, Janes entrusted his students to Dōshisha English School, a school that had been opened by Niijima Jō in Kyoto the previous year. Dōshisha was inspired by the arrival of these students and the first class of graduates of the school in 1879 included the members of the Kumamoto Band. Dōshisha quickly fell under the influence of liberal theology and produced men such as Kozaki Hiromichi, who would become one of the pillars of the Japanese Congregational Christian Church, which argued for the autonomy of the church and valued the spirit of cooperation; Ebina Danjō and others who would become the Christian leaders who played important roles in Meiji Japan; and those who would actively contribute to Christian media, such as Rikugō zasshi, Shinjin and Kirisutokyō shinbun. An especially noteworthy figure in this regard is Ebina Danjō (1856–1937, baptized 1876), who established a unique Christian philosophy based on the particular religious experience he underwent during his youth. Alongside his mission work and educational activities, he published the magazine, Shinjin, and gained a reputation in the intellectual community in Japan; in this way, Ebina emerged as one of the representative thinkers in the early Japanese Christian community, alongside Uemura and Uchimura. The Christian critic, Tsunashima Ryōsen (1873–1907, baptized 1887), who had his faith restored through his relationship with Ebina, also exercised a huge impact on the younger generation when he published “Yo ga kenshin no jikken” (My Experiment in Perceiving God) in Shinjin. Abe Isoo (1865–1949, baptized 1882), who studied at Dōshisha and was baptized by Niijima Jō, went to the United States in order to study theology and social issues. After returning to Japan, alongside his educational activities at Waseda University, he worked as the lead writer of the journal Rikugō zasshi and started publishing a new Christian socialist magazine, Shin kigen, with Christian socialists such as Kinoshita Naoe, and promoted Christian socialism. Kinoshita Naoe’s novel, Hi no hashira (The Pillar of Fire,* 1904), which depicts a Christian socialist protagonist and is imbued with anti-war sentiment, appealed to many readers and came to be considered as one of the representative socialist novels of the Meiji period. Kagawa Toyohiko (1888–1960, baptized 1904), who read and was influenced by the works of Abe and Kinoshita, was sympathetic to the cause of Christian socialism and sought to become an evangelist. He graduated from the theological preparatory course at Meiji Gakuin and Kobe Theological Seminary, and worked in the Kobe slum area of Shinkawa in Kobe serving the poor by doing mission work among them. Based on his experiences there, he wrote his autobiographical novel, Shisen o koete (Beyond the Line of Death, 1920), which became a huge best seller. Thereafter, Kagawa continued to publish many novels and poems while dedicating himself to evangelism and the social movement, and used the manuscript fees and his considerable royalties to support the social movement. Kagawa became widely known around the world and was twice nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. So far, we have considered the origins of the modern Japanese writers who had a connection to Christianity in the first to third periods, delineating the three main backgrounds of such writers. It can be said that the emergence of these writers can be traced back to the Introduction

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process of modernization at the beginning of the Meiji period in which Protestant missionaries and educators moved the hearts of their listeners at a fundamental human level and planted the seeds from which several trees flourished in the Japanese spiritual soil. In this sense, it can be said that these writers, variously connected to Christianity, emerged as the branches of such trees. Unlike these three traditions, during the postwar period, the writers who found interest in Christianity turned overwhelmingly to Catholicism. Let us now turn our attention to where such Catholic Christian writers came from, and when and where they encountered and were influenced by Catholicism.

The origins of the postwar Christian writers: Focusing on Catholicism When examining the cultural terrain which facilitated the emergence of the Catholic writers who flourished after the War, it is important to note that, while the influence of the Japanese Catholic church on the spheres of higher education and the publication industry lagged considerably behind that of the Protestant church, following the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the monopoly of the Paris Foreign Missions Society began to unravel and a succession of missionary societies from countries such as Germany, Spain, Canada and Italy started to arrive in Japan, beginning with the Jesuits but followed in quick succession by other orders such as the Dominicans, the Society of the Divine Word, the Franciscans and the Salesians. As a result, Catholic influence on education, which until then had been limited largely to the primary and secondary sectors, also came to be seen in the field of higher education, leading to the founding of Sophia (Jōchi) University in 1913 and of Seishin Joshi Gakuin Kōtō Senmon Gakkō (Sacred Heart Professional Training College; now Seishin Joshi Daigaku (Sacred Heart Women’s University)) in 1916. Significant in this regard is the contribution of the prewar writer, Iwashita Sōichi (1889–1940) who was baptized in 1901 during his second year of middle school at the Catholic Gyōsei Junior High School. When he entered the First Higher School of Japan, Iwashita formed a group of fellow Catholic graduates of Gyōsei that developed into a Catholic youth association, thereby spawning an intellectual youth movement. This activity by Iwashita can be seen as the inspiration behind the emergence of a succession of Catholic authors in postwar Japan. Another prominent Catholic intellectual who succeeded Iwashita was the philosopher, Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko (1904–1945, baptized 1927). Yoshimitsu left Uchimura Kanzō’s group while studying at Tokyo University and, under Father Iwashita’s guidance, he converted to Catholicism, and studied abroad in France under the philosopher Jacques Maritain, who, through his interactions with writers and artists, spoke widely on the problems surrounding Christian writers. After returning to Japan, Yoshimitsu taught at Sophia University and Tokyo University, and became the warden at the St. Phillip’s dormitory, which had been renamed as the Shirohato (Dove) dormitory during the War. He also supervised the Catholic Students’ Union. In addition to writing for the publications he started, Sōseiki and Katorikku kenkyū, Yoshimitsu also made contributions to general magazines, and endeavored to ensure that Catholicism would gain credibility in the intellectual community of Japan as something that could overcome modernity and spread its influence among young intellectuals. Being well-versed in literature, Yoshimitsu enjoyed close relationships with literary figures such as Hori Tatsuo and, through the new publication of Gendai katorikku bungei sōsho (Library of

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Modern Catholic Literature) and his work, Shi to ai to jitsuzon (Poetry, Love and Existence, 1948), he argued for a Catholic literary philosophy in which religion and art/literature were interrelated. This argument greatly influenced young men such as Endō Shūsaku (1923–1996, baptized 1935), the poet Nomura Hideo (1917–1948, baptized 1943), the critic Tsujino Hisanori (1909–1937, baptized 1937), Ochi Yasuo (1911–1961, baptized 1953), and Katō Shūichi (1919–2008, baptized 2008), and thereby prepared fertile ground for postwar Japanese Christian literature to flourish. Most prominent among those who were influenced by Yoshimitsu was the most significant postwar Catholic writer, Endō Shūsaku. When Endō entered the preparatory course of the Literature Department of Keiō University in 1943, he moved into St. Phillip’s dormitory, where, as he notes in his essay “Yoshimitsu-sensei no koto” (About Professor Yoshimitsu, 1975), he was advised by his mentor that “you are more cut out for literature than philosophy” (ESBZ 13: 209) and was introduced to Hori Tatsuo. After this introduction, Endō studied under Hori, majored in French literature and, building on the Catholic philosophy focused on Jacques Maritain that he learned from Yoshimitsu, he wrote his senior thesis, “Neo-Tomizumu ni okeru shiron” (Poetics in Neo Thomism) and his first serious literary criticism, “Hori Tatsuo oboegaki” (Memorandum on Hori Tatsuo, 1948), which set him on the path of literary criticism. Endō was also the inheritor of Yoshimitsu’s literary philosophy as encapsulated by the latter during his participation in the Bungakukai symposium, Kindai no chōkoku (Overcoming Modernity), where he stated that “overcoming the modern spirit” was “a problem of the soul” and praised Dostoevsky’s work as “essentially a theological evaluation of the living human being.” 2 When Endō became a writer, he came to perceive exploration of the human soul as the ultimate mission for a writer and strove to create a literature that dealt with the problem of the inner being. In addition, because Yoshimitsu did not conform to the booming voice of Japanese nationalism during the War but argued for the need to recover medieval humanism which acknowledges both God and humans, Endō became intensely conscious of his identity as a Japanese who does not possess such a medieval history; this encouraged him to consider the theme “Nihonjin to kirisutokyō” (the Japanese and Christianity). It can be argued that the literary soil cultivated by Yoshimitsu’s Catholicism is what nurtured Endō’s creation of Christian literature, offering him the basis for his literary endeavours. And one by one, the writers became Catholic—the “Endō and Inoue Mountain Ranges” In 1950, Endō went to France with the aim of studying Catholic literature. And it was on the ship to France that he met his lifetime fellow comrade with whom he shared a common cause, Inoue Yōji (1927–2014, baptized 1948). From towards the end of his middle school days, Inoue suffered from a sense of emptiness and anxiety about death. When he read Thérèse of Lisieux’s autobiography, Chiisaki hana (L’histoire d’une âme / The Story of a Soul, 1898), he saw the light in the “childlike” nature of her spirituality and was baptized during his first year at Tokyo University. In 1950, he graduated from the department of philosophy and left for France in order to join the Order of the Brothers of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel, the same order as Thérèse. In the fourth-class cabin of the ship bound for France, he met Endō Shūsaku, and there they found a kindred spirit and became soul mates, praying for and supporting each other. During the summer following their arrival in France, Endō

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visited Inoue who was undergoing rigorous training, and, as he noted in his diary entry for 27 August 1951, he thanked God for his meeting with Inoue and prayed that he would also be bestowed with a rigorous faith (ESBZ 15: 134). Following this visit, despite feeling suffocated by his theological studies in Catholic universities in places such as Lyon, Rome and Lille, programs which had become rigidly rooted in western ethics, Inoue’s attention was drawn to the important role exercised by culture. At the same time, he discovered that the Eastern Orthodox church has its own understanding of Christianity different from the West—as can be observed in Russian Orthodoxy—and this led him to the belief that Japan should also be allowed to have its own understanding of Christianity. He subsequently left the Carmelite Order in 1957, and returned to Japan, transferring to a theological seminary in a Japanese parish. On his return, he immediately visited Endō. Upon meeting, the two discovered that they shared the same concerns regarding the issue of the Japanese approach to Christianity, and together they decided to devote their lives to tackling the important task of discerning the way forward—of providing stepping stones for the next generation. As Endō deepened his thoughts on this topic, first by focusing on the distance between the Japanese and Christianity and then on the issue of how to close that distance, his tuberculosis recurred in 1960, and he had to spend time in hospital, coming close to death. It was in this same year that Inoue’s ordination to the priesthood was confirmed, and Endō sent him the gift of a chalice from the hospital. As a newly ordained priest, Inoue supported Endō through prayer. In 1963, Inoue published his first essay “Kirisutokyō no Nihonka” (The “Japanification” of Christianity), and Endō, having recovered from illness, argued a similar line in his essay, “Watashi to kirisutokyō” (Christianity and I) where he wrote that the Japanese “are to continue to carry the culture of Japan with them and absorb Christianity” (ESBZ 12: 309). In his 1964 essay, “Sei-Terejia to gendai Nihon no kyōkai” (Thérèse and the Contemporary Church in Japan), Inoue wrote of “Christianity that has become one with western culture and western sentiments of everyday life,” arguing that it was like “someone else’s clothes that do not fit” the Japanese (Inoue 1981, 152). Two years later, Endō also used this analogy in his essays, “Watashi no bungaku” (My Literature, 1967) and “Awanai yōfuku” (Western Clothes that do not Fit, 1967). In 1965, Endō went on a trip to Nagasaki to research his novel, Chinmoku (Silence,* 1966), and he invited Inoue to accompany him. During this trip they had a discussion on Judas. Inoue shared his thought that Jesus Christ must have forgiven Judas and, upon hearing this, Endō expressed his earnest wish for Inoue to be a Catholic priest who would help those who are weak, like his fictional character, Kichijirō. Endō’s classic novel, Silence, represented a portrayal of a maternal Christ who shares in the pain of the weakling, and Inoue rejoiced at the publication of this first work aimed at the “re-tailoring of western clothes” and praised it as a superb masterpiece. The novel received much criticism from others in the Christian community in Japan, but this gave Endō the impetus to commit himself to gaining a deeper understanding of the New Testament. In 1976, Inoue published Nihon to Iesu no kao (The Face of Jesus in Japan*) in which he articulated his efforts, spanning over twenty years, to bring the Japanese cultural sensibilities to bear on recapturing the New Testament with a renewed focus on the love and forgiveness of the maternal Christ. At the time, Endō was struggling as his works seemed to go against the conventional theological orthodoxy, making him feel isolated; but Inoue’s unflinchingly supportive theological arguments gave him

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“enormous comfort” and “encouragement” (ESBZ 13: 255), and he eagerly introduced Father Inoue to his circle of literary friends. In his essay, “Tsugi-tsugi to yūjin ga jusen suru no o mite” (Watching My Friends Get Baptized One after Another, 1977), Endō recalls that, in the 1950s, when he began writing his novels, there were barely any Christians in the literary world and how specially moving it was to see his writer-friends, Takahashi Takako (1932–2013, baptized 1975) and Ōhara Tomie (1912–2000, baptized 1976), being baptized by Father Inoue. Following her baptism, Takahashi explored a new territory of spiritual literature that focused on an approach to God achieved by passing through the dark night of the human soul. In addition, Yasuoka Shōtarō (1920–2013, baptized 1988), one of the Daisan no Shinjin (Third Generation of Postwar Writers) who Endō had predicted would be baptized in his aforementioned essay, was also later baptized by Father Inoue, with Endō as his godfather. Furthermore, Endō and Inoue were surrounded by Catholic literary figures, such as the writer Miura Shumon (1926-2017, baptized 1963), the playwright Yashiro Seiichi (1927–1998, baptized 1969), and the literary critics Takeda Tomoju (1931–1991, baptized 1953) and Kazusa Hideo (1931–2001, baptized 1957). The religious scholar Toda Yoshio called this literary state of affairs “the Inoue Mountain Range” (Toda 1982, 17), but it is more accurate to call it the “Endō and Inoue Mountain Range.” In 1981, Endō, Inoue and others opened the Nihon kirisutokyō geijutsu sentā (The Japanese Center for Christian Arts), where writers, musicians, artists, religious people and theologians who were connected to Christianity could come together to discuss religion and art and learn from one another. Among the writers who gathered at the Center were Kizaki Satoko (1939– , baptized 1982), who wrote Aogiri (Bronze, 1984), a work dedicated to Father Inoue for which she received the Akutagawa Prize, and Kaga Otohiko (1929– , baptized 1987), a psychiatrist and writer who was baptized through the influence of Endō. Writers who received Catholic education and were baptized Beside these Catholic writers, it is worth mentioning the writers who were educated at Catholic mission schools where they were impressed by the clerics and religious who demonstrated an unchanging faith during and after the War; many of these were baptized following the War, when the value systems of the nation were dramatically changing, and went on to play active roles in the postwar period. First to be noted in this regard is Sono Ayako (1931– , baptized 1948), who began writing during her studies at the University of the Sacred Heart and who continues to write novels and essays, such as Kami no yogoreta te (lit. God’s Dirty Hands, 1979, translated as Watcher from the Shore*), inspired by her religious faith, as well as Suga Atsuko (1929–1998, baptized 1948), who was a graduate of the inaugural class of the same university and who was active as a scholar of Italian literature while searching for spirituality. Suga went on to win the “Joryū bungaku-shō” (Women’s literature prize, awarded by Chūō Kōronsha) for her Mirano—kiri no fūkei (Milan: City of Fog, 1990) in her later years, as well as producing a series of full-length essays. Also to be acknowledged here is Watanabe Kazuko (1927–2016, baptized 1945), who was Suga’s peer at Sacred Heart and who became a Catholic nun and authored essays underpinned by her faith, including the million-seller essay collection, Okareta basho de sakinasai (Bloom where you’re Planted, 2012). Also, there are writers such as Ariyoshi Sawako (1931–1984, baptized 1947), who graduated from Kōen Girls School, and wrote works such as Kōkotsu no hito (lit. The Enchanted Person, 1972;

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translated as The Twilight Years*), which focused on affirmation of humanity based on her Catholic faith; and Tsushima Yūko (1947–2016, baptized 1987), who graduated from Shirayuri Women’s University and who, through writings such as Hi no yama: Yamazaru-ki (The Mountain of Fire: Records of a Mountain Monkey, 1998), examined questions of life and death in depth. Many of these female writers who held Catholic values practiced social activism and were devoted to educational activities that were motivated by their religious faith. Men who belong to this group of writers include the writer and playwright, Inoue Hisashi (1934–2010, baptized 1950), who lived in, and was baptized at, Hikarigaoka Tenshien, run by the de la Salle Brothers, and graduated from Sophia University. Through his works, such as Mokkinpotto-shi no atoshimatsu (Settling the Affairs of Father Mockinpott, 1972), Inoue asserted the defiant spirit of the vulnerable, supported by the love of God. Another such writer is Moriuchi Toshio (1936–, baptized 1951), who studied and was baptized at the Meisei Catholic School, and who illustrated the soul’s yearnings through his writing of existential realism in works such as Hone no hi (Fire in the Bones, 1986) which questioned the possibility of human salvation from original sin. There are other notable Catholic writers who were active after the War, such as the playwright, Tanaka Sumie (1908–2000, baptized 1951), who wrote works such as Garashia Hosokawa-fujin (Lady Hosokawa, 1959); her husband and playwright, Tanaka Chikao (1905–1995, baptized 1988), who wrote such works as the play Maria no kubi (The Head of Mary,* 1959) which dealt with the atomic bombing of Nagasaki; the medical doctor and essayist, Nagai Takashi (1908–1951, baptized 1933), who was exposed to radiation in Nagasaki himself but continued to write while undergoing medical treatment, leaving such works as Nagasaki no kane (The Bells of Nagasaki,* 1949); the writer Shimao Toshio (1917–1986, baptized 1956), a suicide squadron leader who wrote works such as Shi no toge (The Sting of Death, 1960–1977) in which he depicted the pathway to redemption in the hope of his wife’s recovery from mental illness, which he attributed to his own sinful nature; and the writer Ogawa Kunio (1927–2008, baptized 1946), who wrote works such as Aru seisho (A Certain Bible, 1973) and other stories inspired by images of the Biblical world.

Postwar Protestant Writers So far, we have taken a brief look at Catholic writers and positioned them as the leaders of postwar Christian literature in Japan. However, there are some Protestant writers who cannot be overlooked when discussing postwar Christian literature, including Shiina Rinzō and Miura Ayako. Shiina Rinzō (1911–1973, baptized 1950), was arrested during the War for joining the Communist Party. During his imprisonment, he came across Nietzsche’s work and renounced communism. He then read Dostoevsky and aspired to become a writer, making his debut with “Shin’ya no shuen” (Midnight Banquet,* 1947), which has been seen as the first work of Japanese existentialist literature. Shiina is regarded as a representative writer of the first generation of postwar writers. However, he reached an ideological impasse, out of which he came to see no choice but to trust Dostoevsky and be baptized, placing all his reliance on “the light behind the contradiction” (cited in Endō T. 1994, 67). Through his works such as Kaikō (The Encounter, 1952) a work that focuses on a desperate Christian protagonist, his autobiographical novel, Jiyū no kanata de (In a Place Beyond Freedom, 1954), and Utsukushii

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onna (A Beautiful Woman, 1955), a novel for which he was awarded the “Minister of Education Award for Fine Arts,” Shiina portrayed in his own way the Christian freedom made possible by the resurrection of Christ. In addition, in 1960, Shiina formed the Protestant literary group Tane no kai (Seed Society) along with the critic, Sako Jun’ichirō (1919–2014, baptized 1948), the writer Abe Mitsuko (1912–2008, baptized 1926), and the playwright and essayist, Takamizawa Junko (1904–2004, baptized 1938) among others. The writer Mori Reiko (1928–2014, baptized 1947) and the playwright Takadō Kaname (1932–2001, baptized 1950) were also nurtured in this group. Miura Ayako (1922–1999, baptized 1952) was an elementary school teacher during the War. But with Japan’s defeat, Miura came to question Japan’s militaristic education, in which she had been complicit, and decided to leave her job. While suffering from the sense of meaninglessness, she contracted tuberculosis. In 1948, at the sanatorium, Miura had a chance meeting with her childhood friend, Maekawa Tadashi, a Christian, who led her to be baptized. Miura, who found salvation through Christ during her time of struggling with illness, started writing novels out of her desire to share the gospel. With her novel Hyōten (Freezing Point, 1964), which tackled the theme of original sin, Miura became a best-selling author, and thereafter she continued to write novels on the theme of faith, including Hitsujigaoka (1966) and Shiokari tōge (Shiokari Pass,* 1968). Through her autobiography, Michi ariki (lit. There is a Way, 1969, translated as The Wind is Howling*), which was her testimony of faith in Christ, and through her essays, Miura spread the gospel to many of her readers.

Conclusion In the aforementioned essay, “Watching my Friends Get Baptized One and Another,” Endō Shūsaku writes as follows: In Europe prominent Christian writers such as Mauriac and Bernanos have passed away, Graham Greene and Julien Green have grown old, and we don’t hear of notable achievements of Christian writers. In this sense, Christianity may be waning there. By comparison, in Japan, a place once considered far removed from Christianity, novelists and playwrights are converting one by one. There was a time in the Meiji period when many Japanese writers became Protestant Christians; but many of the writers converting today are becoming Catholic. Many of the writers of the past abandoned their faith after a time, but the Christian writers of today did not come to be baptized because of the atmosphere of the moment or on a momentary whim. They were baptized after having fully grasped the reasons why their forebears had abandoned their Christian faith. I cannot imagine a day when they will abandon their faith. (ESBZ 13: 264). These words of Endō can be understood as an expression of his appreciation of the emergence of a cadre of postwar writers who would create literature in which Christianity and Japanese literature were joined in a mutually reinforcing relationship. This was possible because they had received baptism as witness to the knowledge that Christianity had played a decisive role in restoring broken humanity, deepening their understanding of the synergies between faith and literary creativity. They were obviously different from those young

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Protestant writers of the Meiji and Taishō periods who had abandoned the faith as they continued to pursue their literary endeavors. In addition, it should be said that these postwar Japanese Christian writers were ideally situated to build on the contribution of authors like those already mentioned, including Mauriac, Bernanos, Graham Greene and Julien Green, i.e. the group of European (predominantly French) Christian writers, and the Russian Orthodox writers such as Dostoevsky who had given birth to a modern Christian literature in which faith and literature were established as mutually reinforcing pillars in the search for a deeper understanding of the inner workings of the human soul. Already in the prewar Shōwa period, those in the literary community who found themselves in ideological confusion as a consequence of the trend towards modern individualism that derived from the Protestantism that had prevailed from the Meiji period onwards, were beginning to turn their spiritual attention to Christianity. Influenced by French literature, while they may not have emerged as baptized Christians, many shared a strong affinity towards Catholicism. Significant in this regard are the following prophetic words left behind in his posthumous work, “Zoku Seihō no hito” (The Man from the West: The Sequel,* 1927), by one of the most prominent authors of the period, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: “People have had to take lessons from Mary, more so than Christ, to find the way that leads to peace” (Akutagawa 2011, 275). Akutagawa here seems to be suggesting that there was something in the maternal aspect of Catholicism born of the traditional veneration of the Holy Mother and to which these various artists gave expression that responded to the religious yearning of the Japanese. Among such writers who were drawn to Catholicism through their interest in French literature were Akutagawa and his pupil, the writer, Hori Tatsuo (1904–1953), the critics Kobayashi Hideo (1902–1983) and Kawakami Tetsutarō (1902–1980), and the poet, Nakahara Chūya (1907–1937). These writers and the previously mentioned Catholic philosopher, Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko, being of the same generation, would have been mutually stimulated by one another, thereby cultivating the literary soil of Japanese Catholicism from which the Catholic writers of the fourth postwar period were nurtured. Lastly, by way of overall summary of this discussion, I would like to return to the initial question: Where did Japan’s Christian writers come from? First of all, where did the Protestant writers, who were active from the second half of the Meiji period to the Taishō period, come from? During the first period, the early Meiji period, many young men from the former samurai class who were active in the context of education which was linked to the process of modernization received baptism, having come under the influence of the mostly Protestant American missionaries and educators. Within this group of young men were figures such as Uemura Masahisa and Uchimura Kanzō, who were blessed with literary talent and matured into Protestant leaders, and who built on these samurai spiritual foundations with their stringent paternal ethics. Through their writings and lectures, these leaders cultivated the soil for the next generation of young men under the influence of Protestantism. As such, in the period spanning the latter half of the Meiji period and the entire Taishō period, those who were touched by the Protestant influence of such leaders during their youth were nurtured as writers. However, having come under the sway of modern individualism as a result of their affiliation with Protestantism, when they ventured into the world of literature and deepened their search for the sense of self, these writers began to distance themselves from this vision of Christianity with its strict paternal ethics. The question that has to be asked next is: Where did the succession of writers who were baptized as Catholics and actively contributed after the War come from? In the prewar xxxvi

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Shōwa period, when respect for humanity was all but destroyed, a renewed spiritual interest in Christianity was awakened. In the search for an ideology that could serve to “overcome” the faltering progress towards modernity, as evidenced in the trend towards individualism, with the arrival of Catholic leaders of literary talent, scholarly knowledge and rich cultural accomplishments, such as Iwashita Sōichi and Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko, a Catholicism that would truly overcome such modern ideology was positively acknowledged by the Japanese intellectual community. The writings of these leaders helped prepare the way for the next generation of young men. And, after the War, Endō Shūsaku, who had been nurtured by these authors, combined with Inoue Yōji to further cultivate this terrain in a way that would appeal to the cultural sensibilities of the Japanese with their strong leaning towards an understanding of God as maternal principle. The Christianity prepared and cultivated in this way played a vital role in the endeavors of these writers to rebuild broken humanity. It was this development, in turn, that led to the birth of a generation of Christian writers who would produce a genuine Christian literature in which Christianity and Japanese literature stand in a mutually complementary relationship.

Notes 1 This was the site of Japan’s first major pollution disaster in the 1880s and the scene of the 1907 miners’ riots. The pollution disaster led to the birth of the Japanese environmental movement. 2 The original “Overcoming Modernity” debate was published in Bungakukai (October 1942). These quotations are taken from Yoshimitsu 1984–1985, 1: 184 & 205.

References Akutagawa, R. (1987). Hell Screen; Cogwheels; A Fool’s Life. Hygiene, CO: Eridanos Press. ———. (2011). “The Man from the West: The Sequel” (K. Doak and J. S. Matthews, trans.) Monumenta Nipponica 66:2, 272–80. Dazai, O. (1958). No Longer Human (D. Keene, trans.). New York: New Directions. Endō, S. (1999–2000). Endō Shūsaku bungaku zenshū [The Collected Literary Works of Endō Shūsaku] (15 vols.). Tokyo: Shinchōsha. (cited as ESBZ) Endō, T. et al. (eds.). (1994). Sekai/Nihon: Kirisutokyō bungaku jiten [World/Japan: Encyclopedia of Christian literature]. Tokyo: Kyōbunkwan. Inoue, Y. (1981). Iesu no manazashi [The gaze of Jesus]. Tokyo: Nippon Kirisutokyōdan Shuppankyoku. Masamune, H. (1983–1986). Masamune Hakuchō zenshū [The Collected Works of Masamune Hakuchō] (30 vols.). Tokyo: Fukutake Shoten. Ōnuki, T. et al. (eds.). (2002). Iwanami kirisutokyō jiten [Iwanami dictionary of Christianity]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Sasabuchi, T. (1963). Kirisutokyō to kindai Nihon bungaku [Christianity and modern Japanese literature]. Nihon no shingaku (August). Suzuki, N. (2017). Nihon kirisutokyō-shi [A history of Japanese Christianity]. Tokyo: Kyōbunkwan. Toda, Y. (1982). Nihon katorishizumu to bungaku: Inoue Yōji, Endō Shūsaku, Takahashi Takako [Catholicism in Japan and literature: Inoue Yōji, Endō Shūsaku and Takahashi Takako]. Tokyo: Daimeidō. Yasumori, T. et al. (eds.). (2002) Kirisutokyō bungaku o manabu hito no tame ni [For those who study Christian literature]. Tokyo: Sekai Shisōsha. Yoshimitsu, Y. (1984–1985). Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko zenshū [The Collected Works of Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko] (5 vols.). Tokyo: Kōdansha.

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Chapter 1 Prophet of the Inner Life: Kitamura Tōkoku Michael Brownstein Kitamura Tōkoku was a poet and essayist who played a key role in launching the Romantic Movement in modern Japanese literature. A political activist, he played an active role in the Jiyū minken undō (Freedom and People’s Rights Movement) during his short life and saw this as closely linked to his fascination with Christianity. Tōkoku’s most important literary essays appeared in Jogaku zasshi and its offshoots, Bungakukai and Hyōron. He was also a founding member of the Nihon heiwa-kai (Japan Peace Society) and served as editor of its journal Heiwa, where he published many of his essays on Christianity. His influence on the subsequent generation of authors who can be seen as marking out a Japanese Romantic movement—men such as Kunikida Doppo and Shimazaki Tōson—is hard to exaggerate.

Introduction On a Tuesday evening, 16 August 1887, Kitamura Tōkoku (1868–1894) left his parents’ home in Kyōbashi, a ward in the old commercial district south of the Imperial Palace, and went to the home of Ishizaka Mina in the more affluent suburb of Hongo ward north of the Palace. Tōkoku was just eighteen years old. Mina, the daughter of a prominent Jiyūtō (Freedom Party) leader, a recent convert to Christianity and three years older than Tōkoku, had been living at home since her graduation from a girls’ mission school in Yokohama a month before, and Tōkoku had visited her often since then. He usually entered the house without a word of greeting to anyone and went straight to her room, a habit that displeased her mother. Tōkoku thought Mina was “glorious.” She was cultivated and intelligent, and they shared the same convictions. She would, he believed, “illuminate the world” with her ideals. As they chatted that night, he could not bring himself to tell her how unhappy he really was. He had no prospects for the future, and his past failures made him feel unworthy of her. Worse yet, her parents had already arranged for her to marry a young doctor named Hirano Tomosuke. Tōkoku spent the following days struggling over his decision to break off with her, a noble gesture of self-sacrifice that would free her to carry out her mission to “save the Japanese people with the teachings of God.” Unable to resist the temptation to see her once

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more, he went to her home again on Friday and stayed up talking with her until three in the morning. When she saw his pained expression the next morning and asked him what was wrong, Tōkoku’s resistance finally collapsed. They talked again until four that afternoon; but, as he took his leave, Mina’s mother could not contain her annoyance any longer and harshly rebuked him. This spurred him to carry out his resolve to break with Mina. The following Sunday, 21 August, he went to hear a sermon at a lecture hall where he had earlier promised to meet her, but left as soon as it ended. Hours later, he wrote in a note to himself: Tonight I came to Yokohama. The effects of this break continue to grow, and I have begun to feel God’s grace. I have decided that henceforth I will be God’s loyal retainer. (TZ 3: 170–81)1 Tōkoku, the pen name by which he became known, was born Kitamura Montarō on 29 December 1868, the eldest son of an impoverished samurai family living in Odawara, about sixty miles from Edo, the shogunate capital. It was the year of the Meiji Restoration and the beginning of Japan’s modern era. Tōkoku spent his childhood in Odawara before moving to the two-story building in Kyōbashi. His mother ran a tobacco shop on the first floor and his father had secured a position in the Finance Ministry. Two years later, in 1883, Tōkoku enrolled in the newly-established Tokyo Senmon Gakkō (later Waseda University) as a political science major. As he later recalled, he hoped “to become a great philosopher and destroy the new thinking of survival of the fittest” in order to become “a great statesman” (TZ 3: 167–68). Darwin’s ideas had been avidly taken up by conservatives to attack supporters of the Jiyū minken undō (Freedom and People’s Rights Movement) agitating for reforms in the new Meiji government. Tōkoku, now fifteen years old, soon threw himself into the movement after meeting Ōya Masao, a twenty-year old elementary school teacher committed to overthrowing the government. Tōkoku and Ōya spent the summer of 1884 trying to rouse debt-ridden farmers to action: disguising themselves as itinerant vendors of household goods, they trudged up and down the back roads of Kanagawa west of Tokyo, pulling a cart from village to village, from Kawaguchi to Yokohama, wearing dark blue happi coats emblazoned with a message written in white Chinese characters meaning: “The Time is Nigh” (toki meguri kitaru) (Irokawa 1976, 54). As summer turned to autumn, however, farmers became more violent in pressing their demands for debt relief, egged on by zealots in the Freedom Party. On 29 October 1884, in an effort to distance themselves from the growing number of disturbances or “incidents” (jiken) perpetrated in their name, the leadership of the Freedom Party voted to dissolve themselves on the eve of the “Chichibu Incident,” when thousands of rioting farmers clashed with an overwhelming force of police and Imperial troops in the mountains of Saitama Prefecture north of Tokyo. Tōkoku later wrote: By the beginning of 1885, I had lost all hope and was at my wit’s end because of a nervous breakdown. When I recovered my health somewhat, I realized how wrong my previous ideas had been. Then I aspired to be a novelist, although I didn’t plan on being an artist. What I hoped for was to control the political movements with only the power of a slender pen, like Hugo of France. (TZ 3: 168) 2

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Victor Hugo died on 22 May 1885. A month after Hugo’s death, Itagaki Taisuke (1837–1919), the former leader of the Freedom Party, published a eulogy in which he wrote: “Hugo was a great man who truly towers above the rest. He corrected the vices of the age and exalted the truth of freedom with only the power of literature. Who can regard poetry and fiction as mere diversions with no benefit to society?” Itagaki went on to argue that it was wrong for Japanese to discount the importance of literature, because Hugo had shown that it could be more effective than politics in bringing about social reform (Yanagida 1965, 2: 300). Mina later recalled meeting Tōkoku for the first time, in June of that year: I first met Tōkoku through my father in 1885 at our home in Notsuda Village in Kanagawa. It seems he had visited the house even before this in connection with the Freedom Party, but that was the first time I saw him. He was eating with my brother, Masatsugu, and I was serving them. Tōkoku had long hair and wore a patterned kimono with a white background, rather like a woman’s. They spoke of books and, when my brother asked “What page is that on?” Tōkoku immediately came up with an answer. That made me think he must be very intelligent. I only spoke to him a little. At that time, many young activists were visiting our house, but I rarely talked to them at all because their rough behavior offended me. Compared to them, Tōkoku certainly gave the impression of being a thoughtful young man. (Kamizaki 1950–1955, 8) Mina’s father, Ishizaka Masataka, was a wealthy landowner who had once served as President of the Kanagawa Prefectural Assembly. A steadfast supporter of the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement, he assisted Freedom Party radicals by allowing them to use his home as a gathering place. Tōkoku became close friends with Mina’s brother, who had political ambitions of his own, but would eventually exile himself to California when his plans met with failure. A month later in July, Ōya asked Tōkoku to join him in a series of armed robberies to fund a group of radicals led by Ōi Kentarō (1843–1922); their plan was to go to Korea to provoke a democratic revolution there. Nothing could have been more difficult than refusing his political mentor and friend, but as Tōkoku later wrote: At this time my disgust with the unspeakable state of politics had become an obsession. My desire to go climbing mountains to the clouds was far greater than that of taking up the sword and joining my friend; so much so that I could talk of nothing else. Thus, painful as it was to lose a friend, I had already decided to put my conflicting feelings beyond the confused world of politics. (TZ 1: 390) Indeed, Tōkoku went on to climb Mount Fuji that summer, walking through a countryside afflicted with famine and suffering.2 But, while he ceased all further activities on behalf of the movement, Ōya was caught and imprisoned after committing a robbery, and the Korea plan itself failed when the rest of the group was arrested in Osaka on the eve of their departure (in what became known as the “Osaka Incident”). These experiences haunted Tōkoku for the rest of his life. The fate of those who challenged the power and authority of the Meiji government in one violent confrontation or another convinced Tōkoku that fighting force with force was futile: the argument over “survival of the fittest” versus “natural rights” had been settled in the mountains of Saitama Prefecture. He Chapter 1: Prophet of the Inner Life: Kitamura Tōkoku

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returned to Tokyo Senmon Gakkō, this time as a student in the English Department with the hope of becoming a writer, in his words, “like Hugo of France.” However, he withdrew after one semester, apparently for financial reasons. This so-called “dark age” in Tōkoku’s life—the two years following his break with Ōya Masao in the summer of 1885—ended in the summer of 1887, when he fell in love with Mina and converted to Christianity. Melodramatic as this sounds, it underscores the unique aspects of Tōkoku’s conversion. Unlike many others who converted under the influence of such American teachers as James Ballagh, E. B. Clark and Leroy Janes, or under the pressure of school upperclassmen who had already become Christians,3 Tōkoku had not met any charismatic missionaries and, by his own later admission, he had been too proud to convert. He was only one of more than five thousand who converted in 1887 (Ritter 1898, 153). Tōkoku’s newfound faith also provided him with an explanation for his previous failures. In a letter to his father, he listed pride and arrogance, covetousness, extravagance and “a scheming heart” among his own “countless” bad habits. He attributed these to ignorance of God, which in turn stemmed from the excesses of a “violent” nature. This same violent nature, however, had given rise to “the deepest faith” (TZ 3: 174). Tōkoku’s efforts to understand the cause and meaning of his own conversion informed much of his later writing, journeys inward into his own “violent” nature, and outward, toward critical essays on Japanese society, literature and history. Tōkoku spent less than ten days in Yokohama before returning to Tokyo, where he commenced the life of a tour guide to foreign visitors while Mina returned to the mission school in Yokohama to continue her studies of English literature. They still saw each other occasionally, apparently with the understanding that she was now free to marry Hirano, the man her parents had chosen for her. At the beginning of October, Mina notified Tōkoku that she was leaving school, and on the 16th he received a letter from her formally breaking off their relationship,4 a letter she may have been forced to write in view of her impending marriage. A short while later, on 4 March 1888, Tōkoku was baptized at Sukiyabashi Church near his parents’ home. By that time, nothing stood between Mina’s marriage to Hirano except Mina herself. But she prevailed: Tōkoku, now 19 years old, and Mina were married at the church in Sukiyabashi on 3 November, the birthday of the Meiji Emperor. Tōkoku’s mother bemoaned his refusal to pursue a more conventional career and never accepted Mina; she in turn regarded his family as boorish shopkeepers despite their samurai pedigree (Kitamura, M. 1903). His meager income forced him and Mina to live with his parents on the second floor over the tobacco shop in Kyōbashi ward.

The early years Tōkoku’s extant diary begins with a remarkable entry dated 1 April 1889, five months after his marriage to Mina: I was ill for a long time and lost interest in writing. I even stopped writing my autobiography. But these days, little by little, I’m beginning to feel like my old self again. I even got up the nerve to study, so I think I shall start writing my autobiography again.

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I’ve spent the last two or three years in chaos and confusion. Love, financial matters, illness—everything conspired to make me waste the past several years without accomplishing anything. Man’s life is but fifty years. Today’s youthful face turns into tomorrow’s white-haired head. Yesterday’s innocent boy will be today’s old man, full of sins and regrets. How true this is of one like me, with all my maladies! (TZ 3: 233) There is, unfortunately, no “autobiography” as such by Tōkoku. As the first entry in a diary, however, the passage as a whole suggests that he had reached a sort of philosophical vantage point from which he could look back over his past with a sense of having finished one phase in his life but had yet to begin another. The statement that he had been unable to accomplish anything, however, belies the triumphant tone of the following words, written the next Saturday, April 6: At last I wrote a poem! I boldly resolved to place it in the hands of a bookseller and even pass it around among friends and literary-minded acquaintances in Tokyo. But the fact is I hesitated. I have tried to write something like this for many years, but it proved very difficult and required many revisions. Thus, I was unable to publish it until now. (TZ 1: 3) These lines appear in the Foreword to “Soshū no shi” (The Prisoner), a poem consisting of sixteen irregular stanzas of from eight to thirty-nine lines each, published at his own expense on 9 April 1889. The narrator of “The Prisoner” refers to himself as the “bridegroom” and to his beloved as the “bride.” They and their three companions are all political activists (sōshi) who have pledged their lives to “serving the people.” In the first half of the poem, the bridegroom describes how he and his beloved traveled from their home west of Kyoto to Tokyo, where they were arrested before they could consummate their marriage or achieve their political goals. Prohibited from communicating with his confederates, he imagines their souls soaring once more over mountains and rivers, escaping together to a garden where they adorn each other with flowers. In the second half of the poem, the bridegroom awakes to find himself alone and his cell has become so small that he cannot take three steps without touching a wall. He sinks further into gloominess until “there is only solitude and quiet breathing / that echoes in the darkness between life and death” (TZ 1: 19). When a bat flies into the cell, he throws his cloak over it, thinking it is an incarnation of his beloved. When he tries to take hold of it, however, the bat cries out. Realizing he has robbed the creature of its freedom, he lets it go. He is then visited by a bird (an uguisu, a bird known for its beautiful voice), which he also takes to be an incarnation of his beloved, sent by God. He rejoices at hearing its song, but it too flies away. Convinced the prison will be his tomb, the bridegroom resigns himself to his fate. In the final stanza, however, he is released under a general amnesty. He leaves his cell to be greeted by his beloved, their companions, and finally the bird, who sings once more. “The Prisoner” owes much to Byron’s “The Prisoner of Chillon,” published in 1816. Tōkoku was quite capable of translating Byron’s poem and could have made a name for himself far more quickly as a translator of western literature than as a fledgling poet writing in a style that would not be naturalized for years to come. But Tōkoku had his own story to tell, and the importance of Byron’s influence lies in his showing Tōkoku how he might tell it. The happy Chapter 1: Prophet of the Inner Life: Kitamura Tōkoku

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ending, scholars argue, was inspired by the general amnesty granted to imprisoned political activists, including the leaders involved in the Osaka Incident, two months earlier, when the new Meiji Constitution was promulgated on 11 February. But Ōya Masao, who had been sentenced to six years in prison for armed robbery, remained behind bars. “The Prisoner,” however, is not really about them, but about Tōkoku himself: parting from Ōya, he later wrote, had plunged him into “a prison of pain” (TZ 1: 390). Byron’s poem provided him with an effective metaphor for his own state of mind following the collapse of the Freedom and People’s Rights movement, the “dark age” that ended with his marriage to Mina. “The Prisoner” proved to be a false start as it attracted little attention; in the meantime, Tōkoku began working as a translator for several Christian missionaries in Tokyo. Of these, George Braithwaite, an English Quaker who came to Japan in 1886 as an agent for the British and Foreign Bible Society, had the greatest impact on Tōkoku’s religious views. Tōkoku met Braithwaite in the summer of 1889 through an advertisement the latter placed seeking an interpreter and, that August, he helped Braithwaite arrange a lecture given by William Jones, a Welsh Quaker who had recently retired as Secretary of the British Peace Society. Jones was making a world tour to promote the cause of pacifism and spoke on the horrors of modern warfare. Three months later, Tōkoku joined with Braithwaite, Davidson MacDonald (the leader of the Canadian Methodist mission), Katō Kazuharu (a Japanese convert), and others in organizing the Nihon heiwa-kai (Japan Peace Society) (Katsumoto 1972, 241–50). Braithwaite soon introduced Tōkoku to the group associated with the Quaker mission at the Friends Girls’ School and the Tokyo monthly meeting of the Friends Church. The mission itself was headed by Joseph and Sarah Cosand, who arrived in Japan in 1885 under the sponsorship of the Women’s Foreign Missionary Association of Friends of Philadelphia.5 Cosand’s colleagues included Dr. Willis Norton Whitney, an American, his English wife Mary (Braithwaite’s sister), and Kaifu Chūzō, one of Cosand’s first and most devoted converts who served as the school’s first Principal. Dr. Whitney held the post of interpreter at the American Legation and operated a small private hospital for Tokyo’s poor and indigent. Apart from providing him with a means of livelihood, Tōkoku’s association with the Quakers reinforced concerns dating back to his involvement with the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement by providing them with a religious rationale. In essence, these concerns were for the plight of the weak, whether the common man in Meiji society or Japan itself in a world of predatory powers. The autumn of 1889 saw widespread failures in the rice crop. Prices soared and riots in various cities were reported in the major newspapers, along with accounts of the squalid conditions in the slums of Osaka and Tokyo. Tōkoku’s sensitivity to these events can be seen in his diary entries for the first months of 1890, where he noted his intention to write essays on hunger and charity. In an unfinished manuscript dating from this period, he argues for the establishment of relief societies and draws attention to the cost in human suffering of social progress by contrasting the outward splendor of the new Meiji buildings with the homeless and starving residents of the city (TZ 2: 342–48).6 These concerns were voiced more forcefully in three essays published in Jogaku zasshi7 in the first months of 1890: “Tōsei bungaku no ushio moyō” (Current Trends in Literature), “Jisei ni kan ari” (Impressions of the Times), and “Nakan ka warawan ka” (Shall I Cry or shall I Laugh?). In these essays, he used the pen name “Tōkoku” for the first time and his criticisms were directed, less at specific government failures to aid the unfortunate, than at the callousness of the popular writers of the day. As one convinced that social evils must be fought with

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the “lance of truth” rather than the “sword of violence,” Tōkoku called them “hedonists” and charged them with the worst of sins, indifference: They stand above the world and, looking down, see many hateful things caked with the red dust of life. “How contemptible, despicable they are—nay, better to flee! Yes, I shall build a sturdy fortress outside the world and seclude myself within. Nothing shall grieve me, nothing shall trouble me, …” Isn’t that what they think? I do not say write another Les Misérables or Divine Comedy, much less a Paradise Lost; but are there no poets or novelists who give any thought to the times? … Carlyle has said that you will rank with the greatest of heroes in the future. (TZ 3: 277, 280) Tōkoku refers here to “The Hero as Man of Letters” chapter in Thomas Carlyle’s On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History, a book that deeply influenced Tōkoku’s thinking about the role of the writer in society. These earliest essays also reveal how much Carlyle’s “prophetic” prose style influenced Tōkoku’s own. Tōkoku continued to work as Braithwaite’s interpreter for about a year, when Cosand hired him in November 1890 as a personal assistant to translate correspondence, interpret for him at morning and evening Sunday services and teach him Japanese. At the time, the Quaker mission was preparing a Japanese translation of the life and works of George Fox (1624–1691), founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers, or Friends. In view of Tōkoku’s references to Fox in a later essay,8 Tōkoku must have seen the differences between the “primitive” Quakerism preached by Fox, with its emphasis on the “Inner Light,” and the aggressive evangelical preaching of Cosand, a difference that would be reflected in his critical essays on the nature of faith two years later. In the spring of 1891, Tōkoku tried again with a far more ambitious literary work, again published at his own expense: Hōraikyoku (Mount Hōrai*), a closet drama in three acts with one, five, and two scenes (TZ 1: 42–174).9 As with “The Prisoner,” Tōkoku drew on Byron for inspiration, this time his 1817 play Manfred, but also on Goethe’s Faust. Mount Hōrai opens with the protagonist, a young nobleman named Yanagida Motoo, wandering through the woods accompanied by his servant and carrying a biwa, or lute. During the course of the play we learn that, some six years earlier, his hopes had been shattered by the realization that the world did not conform to his youthful ideals. Thus he looked to a realm “beyond forms” (140), where he found Tsuyuhime (Lady of the Dew). Their moments together briefly transformed a hellish existence into an earthly paradise: it was she who taught him tenderness and joy, and the pathos of life. Certain unspecified events, however, agitated him so much that the power of their love could not keep him from drifting away on the “stormy seas of life” (106). Parting from Tsuyuhime, he engaged the world in a bitter struggle with only her love to sustain him. When he heard of her death, life lost all meaning for him. His anguished wanderings have finally brought him to Mount Hōrai in search of consolation, though only death seems to offer release from his pain. Motoo and Tsuyuhime are fuller versions of the Bridegroom and Bride in “The Prisoner.” Although his worldly struggles might have been political in nature, Motoo does not refer to himself as a political activist; nor is there any mention of “saving the people.” As he soliloquizes on the circumstances of his fate, he is suddenly interrupted by a voice from above who declares himself to be the god of the mountain and bids him to climb it if he truly seeks Chapter 1: Prophet of the Inner Life: Kitamura Tōkoku

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enlightenment. Motoo parts from his servant, telling him that tonight he will die, but that death is a joyous “returning home” (62–63) and nothing to be feared. The whole of Act Two occurs on Hōrai Plain, a middle ground separating the world that Motoo left behind, from the “holy mountain” (45) rising up before him in the distance. The five rather loosely connected scenes present a series of encounters between Motoo and the denizens of the Plain. He first decides to play his biwa for the “gods and demons” (55) who live at the foot of the mountain, but then falls silent, not knowing what song to play. Motoo tries to play the biwa only twice on his journey, and both times he is interrupted by Yamahime (Lady of the Mountain), who bears a disturbing resemblance to Tsuyuhime. In Act Two, Scene Two, Motoo meets Kakuō (Master Kaku), a mountain ascetic. Motoo tells him that darkness was once a refuge from his enemies in the world of light, but that, after his gaze turned inward, into his own heart, he found a new world of darkness, alive with fierce and abominable creatures. Kakuō reminds him that suffering is man’s lot, but that his “Way” will cure Motoo’s anguish if he can but name what he wants. Motoo answers that nothing external can satisfy him because this lack lies within. Most difficult, by far, is ridding himself of a burdensome selfhood, “this Me” (kono onore), formed of memory and desire: “this thinking ‘Me,’ this enigmatic ‘Me,’ this ‘Me’ that never seems satisfied” (89). Kakuō argues that the self is impulsive, intractable and rash: it is the self that worships idols, drowns in wine and delights in beautiful women. His “Way” is to not go against nature, but to find self-oblivion by indulging the impulses of the self. Motoo rejects this as a false teaching: he wants to return to a selfless state, prior to memory and desire, to be “like the clouds racing across the skies” or a shooting star. In Act Two, Scene Three, Motoo meets Genroku the woodcutter, who points him to the Cave of Death. The sound rising from the Cave is the shuttle of a loom: a beautiful woman sings as she weaves, waiting for the lover who has forsaken her. The Cave is the way to hell, Genroku warns him, and those who enter never return. Motoo answers: “I am not afraid of Hell; it is the world I dread. Death is a return!” (100). When he ventures into the Cave of Death, the sound of the loom becomes an ear-splitting cacophony, full of bitterness and grief. Act II ends with Motoo’s second encounter with Yamahime. She invites him to her cavern, where the first scene of Act III begins. As he gazes on the sleeping Yamahime, Motoo describes her beauty and declares she is divine, a goddess; but she is not Tsuyuhime—a phantom perhaps, a product of the “vapors” of the plain, or of his own delusions (120–21). In the final scene, Motoo stands atop Mount Hōrai, the limits of an earthly existence that he hopes to transcend by “entering the divine” (132). In a moment of ecstasy, he asks whether he is God or man, and then declares, “I am not God: the God of heaven and earth is my father. I shall call my father, I shall pray to God” (134). He asks that the Spirit who created the sun and moon and fills the universe appear and listen to his plea for death. The King of Demons enters, and while claiming to know all about Motoo, asks to hear from his own lips the reasons for his suffering. Motoo consents, telling the King of his disillusionment, his love for Tsuyuhime, and his sorrows since leaving her. The King then shows Motoo a vision of the Capital in flames. All he ever knew turns to fire and smoke until the sky itself is scorched and the stars fall, a sight that leaves him heart-stricken. Though he had tried to leave the world, he now admits that he does not hate it after all. The King explains that he now rules the world, that it was he who kindled the flames of sin and, with that fire, had destroyed the world Motoo once knew. He threatens to destroy Motoo for refusing to submit to him, but Motoo continues to defy him until he leaves. As Motoo stands alone atop Mount Hōrai, the 8

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woodcutter reappears with the lute he left behind at Yamahime’s cavern. When Motoo flings the instrument off the summit, it is caught by the wind and makes a sound that seems full of sadness and joy. Urged on by the sound, Motoo tells Genroku that he dies to enter another life, and hurtles into the abyss below. Tōkoku originally intended Mount Hōrai to be a two-part work with the second part describing Motoo’s salvation. Instead, he added a sort of epilogue in which Motoo lies sleeping in a boat rowed by Tsuyuhime across the Lake of Salvation to the Western Paradise of Pure Land Buddhism. She awakens him by playing the lute and tells him that she was Yamahime after all, but could not reveal herself. Recalling his trials, Motoo realizes he has awakened from his “long dream” and now feels free to “return to life” with no fear of entering the “path of hungry ghosts” (171), Tōkoku’s Buddhistic euphemism for sexual desire (166–74). Tōkoku described Mount Hōrai, as “the child of my self-torment” (165), but the same could be said of “The Prisoner”; and, like “The Prisoner,” it too failed to garner much attention. The admixture of an idealized love object and political struggle point back to his decision to become a novelist in the belief that the goals of the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement would be better served through writing a new kind of political fiction rather than futile confrontations with the government. Mount Hōrai is remarkable by any standard. Considering the state of Japanese poetry at the time it was written, Tōkoku’s closet-drama emerges as a deeply personal and daring leap of poetic faith.

Towards the inner life On 15 January 1892 Tōkoku wrote in his diary: Finally heard from Mr. Cosand about being let go. I thought up a poem on my way home: Slippery and slimy, parted from its shell, —a snail. From now on I’m going to concentrate on getting into the literary circles. (TZ 3: 259) Tōkoku’s employment with the Cosands ended when the latter returned to Philadelphia. Though intimately connected with the Quaker mission since the fall of 1889, a period of over two years, Tōkoku never formally joined the Shiba Friends Church. By the end of the same month, he had been hired as an interpreter by the Rev. David Jones. A native of London with a thick Cockney accent, Jones emigrated to America and earned his theology degree from Elon College, North Carolina. In 1887, he came to Japan with his wife and two children under the sponsorship of the Woman’s Board of Foreign Missions of the American Christian Convention. He began his work at Ishinomaki, a coastal town north of Sendai in Miyagi Prefecture and, in a short time, created a network of small mission stations run by local converts. In the fall of l888, he moved to Tokyo and established Azabu Church in the Azabu ward of the city. Although Tōkoku continued to rely on interpreting positions for his livelihood, he found such work burdensome and, as the diary entry above suggests, he was

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more eager than ever to make a name for himself as a writer. This he accomplished with an essay entitled “Ensei shika to josei” (Pessimistic Poets and Women), published in two parts in Jogaku zasshi in February 1892. The first sentence of “Pessimistic Poets” may be his most well-known: “Love is the secret key to human society; once there is love, then there is human society” (TZ 1: 254).10 In the ensuing essay, Tōkoku argues for the importance of love in the life of the individual and for society as a whole. Indeed, for Tōkoku, there could be no society without love because the basic unit of society is not the individual but a man and a woman joined in married love. This union, for the man at least, is achieved after a terrible struggle between the “ideal world” (sōsekai) of youthful innocence and the “real world” (jissekai) of social order. The latter is characterized by its duties and morality, “complex and enigmatic mysteries” and “inconsistencies and irregularities” (258). By contrast, the ideal world of youth is formed in ignorance of the real world by one who, having begun to think for himself, aspires to the Good and the Beautiful. Thus, when the youth first takes notice of the real world, he reacts with disgust at how different it is from his ideals. What is worse, the youth must give up his ideal world and take his place in the real world. A terrible struggle ensues; but however much he may resist, he is doomed. Faced with imminent defeat, “the vanquished general of the ideal world, frustrated and heart-broken, seeks something to console him” (256), “an ally, a helpmate” (260). “It is then that he begins to toss and turn in bed, his mind racing across the heavens in search of a beautiful woman” (260). When he at last finds her, “his enemies vanish; and all dissatisfactions, all discord, relinquish their place to the angels of Truth and Beauty” (259). Once married, however, the individual becomes a prisoner of the real world, “bound by the ropes and nets of the social system.” But marriage “civilizes” (261) the individual by making him stand in his “proper place” and thus carry out his role as a member of society. Tōkoku cites Coleridge and Emerson, among others, to support his argument; but Coleridge’s comments on Romeo and Juliet in his Lectures on Shakespeare and Milton were particularly important in this regard. Love, Coleridge asserts, is “a desire of the whole being to be united with some thing, or some being, felt necessary for its completeness” (Coleridge 1897, 95). This desire gives rise to an idea; and “our imperfect nature, in proportion as our ideas are vivid, seeks after something in which those ideas may be realized” (Coleridge 1897, 116). The “cause and origin” of love, therefore, is not biological, but “that sense of imperfection” (Coleridge 1897, 98) as a moral being. As we grow up, Coleridge continues: The mind of man searches for something which shall add to his perfection— which shall assist him; and he also yearns to lend his aid in completing the moral nature of another. Thoughts like these will occupy many of his serious moments: imagination will accumulate on imagination, until at last some object attracts his attention, and to this object the whole weight and impulse of his feelings will be directed. (Coleridge 1897, 113) Marriage is the pivotal event in a Platonic ascent, in Coleridge’s words, “from sensuality to affection, from affection to love, and from love to the pure intellectual delight by which we become worthy to conceive that infinite in ourselves, without which it is impossible for man to believe in a God” (Coleridge 1897, 96). In a line that may well have inspired the beginning of Tōkoku’s essay, Coleridge remarks: “without marriage, without exclusive attachment, there could be no society” (Coleridge 1897, 107). 10

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These ideas, which Tōkoku cites almost verbatim in “Pessimistic Poets” and subsequent essays, formed the basis of his conception of ren’ai (love), the key term in the essay. Ren’ai was an idealized view of love that educated Japanese had encountered, especially in western literary works. Previous essays by other Christian writers had discussed ren’ai as the proper, moral ideal of relations between the sexes in the tone and rhetoric of a Sunday sermon. But Tōkoku made the term his own in “Pessimistic Poets” by couching his argument in the form of a narrative that dramatized ren’ai in terms of the anguish of adolescent males struggling with urges that, in the minds of most men, were usually satisfied by a trip to the pleasure quarters. “Pessimistic Poets’” was prompted in part by an editorial written by another prominent Christian journalist, Tokutomi Sohō (1863–1957) for his journal Kokumin no tomo in which he argued that love was incompatible with worldly ambitions, that it was one of the many things one must sacrifice to achieve success, wealth and power.11 Sohō’s essay had appeared six months before in July 1891 and had outraged Japanese Christian intellectuals. But Tōkoku was also criticizing Ozaki Kōyō (1868–1903) and his Ken’yūsha (Friends of the Inkstone) associates of young writers who found inspiration in the stories of Ihara Saikaku (1642–1693), most notably Kōshoku gonin onna (Five Women who Loved Love*), which centered on the follies of kōshoku, or carnal desire: To think only in biological terms, that a man yearns for a woman because he is a man and that a woman yearns for a man because she is a woman, lowers the value of human beings to the level of animals. To say love blossoms in the season of desire has been the vice of sham writers down through the ages: despising human existence, they reduced it to their own sordid ideals. (TZ 1: 256) For the “pessimistic poet,” by contrast, love and the joys of marriage cannot compensate for being imprisoned in a world he hates. However much she may embody his ideal, however ecstatic their union, the pessimistic poet’s ideal woman-in-the-flesh eventually comes to represent all the duties and obligations imposed on the individual by society. As a result, he comes to hate her and their marriage fails. The fault, however, lies not with women, love, the institution of marriage, or even society—but rather with the pessimistic poet himself: because he is congenitally incapable of feeling at home in the world, he is the exception that proves the rule, the truth of ren’ai. The examples of “pessimistic poets” cited by Tōkoku, however, are all western: Goethe, Milton, Shelley and especially Byron—the Byron of Childe Harold and Don Juan. The presence of the pessimistic-poet counter-narrative drives a wedge between the very things that, on the surface, Tōkoku is trying to reconcile: the individual and society, the ideal world and the real, love and marriage, men and women, a western ideal espoused by Emerson and Coleridge among others on the one hand, and its notable western exceptions as represented, above all, by Byron on the other. It is a divide that points perhaps to Tōkoku’s private doubts about what he was trying to argue. At the time, Mina was pregnant12 and Tōkoku had fallen in love with a young woman of seventeen named Tomii Matsuko, a student at the Friends Girls’ School, where he had been employed until just the month before. Matsuko was Sarah Cosand’s Bible class interpreter and personal assistant, much as Tōkoku had assisted Joseph Cosand, duties that doubtless brought them into almost daily contact. Matsuko seems to have been a continuing reminder Chapter 1: Prophet of the Inner Life: Kitamura Tōkoku

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of an ever-distant ideal of love, as far from his grasp as the stars, in contrast to the harsh realities of his own marriage. In a poem published in Jogaku zasshi the month before “Pessimistic Poets,” he wrote: Through a break in the thinning clouds overhead a star appears, just one, full of meaning. Even grief disperses in thoughts suddenly clear. In the night you come, image of my love, when people sleep and the world is quiet. (TZ 1: 256) Tōkoku’s essay profoundly affected younger readers. The novelist Kinoshita Naoe (1869–1937) later recalled: “Love is the secret key to human society.” This line was like something shot from a cannon. These words, so earnestly consecrated to love, were, I believe, the first such ever uttered in our country. Until then, love—the relationship between men and women—had seemed somehow sordid. No one had ever spoken out against that attitude so explicitly. (Kinoshita 1972, 273) Even so, the figure of the pessimistic poet that emerges here is profoundly negative and all the more powerful in that it anticipates the careers of later writers whose disastrous love lives were the subject matter of their novels. The editor of Jogaku zasshi, Iwamoto Yoshiharu (1863–1942), was principal of Meiji Girls’ School and a leading figure among Christian intellectuals. With Iwamoto’s encouragement, Tōkoku continued attacking the “Saikaku revival” through the pages of Jogaku zasshi by elaborating on the meaning of ren’ai in reviews of contemporary fiction, arguing for stories that depicted “platonic” love. At the same time, Tōkoku had remained close to George Braithwaite and the Japan Peace Society even as he continued working for David Jones of the Azabu Church. Since its formation more than two years earlier, the Peace Society had attracted few sympathizers. In March 1892, Tōkoku helped Braithwaite launch a monthly journal simply titled Heiwa (Peace) with Tōkoku as editor. At first, three hundred copies were printed each month and later two hundred copies, but only fifty copies or less were sold each month; the others were given away. Nevertheless, Heiwa was a labor of love that provided Tōkoku with a separate forum to voice ideas that meant as much to him as those he wrote about in Jogaku zasshi. The summer of 1892 marks a turning point in Tōkoku’s thinking, first signaled in the opening lines of “Isshu no jōi shisō” (A Type of Xenophobia), published in Heiwa on June 15: There is a great river that has flowed for three thousand years. It originated with the gods, who let it take its own course. Along the way, it was shaped by the arts and learning of T’ang and Sung China, and fed by the mysterious philosophical religion of India. But, gathering all streams and rivulets, it flowed on as before, enriching the land, nurturing the people, down to the present. How could this great river ever be buried by the Meiji revolution? (TZ 1: 336)

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The “great river” is a metaphor for what he would later call “native genius” (kokumin no genki). By considering various historical influences on Japanese thought, the essay criticizes two extremes, namely those who readily embrace or reject anything western simply because it is western, and those who treat anything Japanese in similar vein simply because it is Japanese. The movement from feudalism to more democratic forms of government, Tōkoku argued, is not a western innovation, but an irresistible historical development. Buddhism and Confucianism had, however, turned the Japanese into a listless and diffident race by blocking this movement and fostering an outlook that viewed man simply as a creature of appetites and denied the existence of his divine nature. This view Tōkoku characterizes as “nihilism” (kyomushugi). On the other hand, he also singled out the Christianity of bigoted missionaries, Russian nihilism and even French liberalism as deleterious western influences on the Japanese mind in the post-Restoration period. For Tōkoku, the course of native genius manifested itself, above all, in a succession of cultural ideals. Tōkoku pursued this line of thought further in “Tokugawa-shi jidai no heiminteki risō” (Commoner Ideals in the Age of the Tokugawas), a three-part essay published in Jogaku zasshi in July l892. The main influences here were Carlyle and Hippolyte Taine’s History of English Literature. Taine described Carlyle’s view of history as “a German theory, but transformed, made precise, thickened after the English manner” (Taine 1895, 2: 597). Much of what Tōkoku knew about German Idealism, especially Johann Gottlieb Fichte, came from Carlyle’s On Heroes; but he acquired more direct knowledge in these months through English translations of other philosophers, most notably Friedrich Schiller’s “On the Sublime” and Wilhelm Von Schlegel’s “Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature.” Both these works influenced essays he would write in the months to come, starting with “Takai ni taisuru kannen” (The Idea of Another World), a two-part essay published in Tokutomi Sohō’s Kokumin no tomo in October. The following January, Tōkoku published his only work of prose fiction, “Shukkonkyō” (The Magic Mirror) in a supplement to Kokumin no tomo. Like his earlier efforts at fictional narrative, “The Prisoner” and Mount Hōrai, “The Magic Mirror” failed to attract much attention and, as Kenneth Strong has pointed out, Tōkoku himself regarded it as a “an utter failure” (Strong 1966, 393). Tōkoku’s essays for Jogaku zasshi had attracted the attention of Tokutomi Sohō. In the five years since it first appeared, Sohō’s Kokumin no tomo had outstripped Iwamoto’s magazine as the most popular forum for liberal ideas, and writers like Uchida Roan (1868–1929) and Yamaji Aizan (1865–1917) soon joined Sohō’s Min’yūsha publishing company after first serving their literary apprenticeship at Jogaku zasshi. Tōkoku perhaps expected Sohō to invite him to join the Min’yūsha as well, but his path lay with the friends he had made at Jogaku zasshi—Hoshino Tenchi (l862–l950), Shimazaki Tōson (l872–l943), and the other young men in Iwamoto’s orbit who would break with Iwamoto at the end of l892 to launch their own journal, Bungakukai.13 For Iwamoto, literature would always be of secondary importance, subordinate to his larger concerns of elevating the status of Japanese women through education and social reform. For the members of the Bungakukai coterie, however, literature was of primary importance as a means of self-expression. Baba Kochō (1869–1940), who later joined the Bungakukai coterie, recalled: These people had all been Christians at one time, but after they began writing, their ideas gradually began to go beyond the realm of Christian faith or Christian morality. When their writings, that is, works that contained assertions Chapter 1: Prophet of the Inner Life: Kitamura Tōkoku

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tinged with almost anti-Christian ideas, were published in Jogaku zasshi, they clashed with the position of Iwamoto, who was a prominent figure in Christian circles. (Baba 1936, 246) It was through the pages of Heiwa that, beginning in the autumn of 1892, Tōkoku began in earnest to define his religious views against Protestant Christianity as he saw it practiced. Taken as a whole, these essays trace his journey “beyond the realm of Christian faith” to what, in March 1893, he called “simple religion” (tanjun naru shūkyō): “Simple religion … means reading the Scriptures with one’s spirit and thereby allowing one’s spirit to draw closer to God. … Even the Scriptures will shackle those who cannot enter them and emerge from the other side” (TZ 2: 136). This journey began with “Kakujin shinkyūnai no hikyū” (The Secret Temple within the Temple of Each Person’s Heart), published in September 1892. The title of the essay comes from a comparison of the heart with the Temple of Jerusalem and its Holy of Holies: “There is a temple in the heart, and within the temple stands another, secret temple” (TZ 2: 9). The first or outer temple is a place of false gods, relative truth, conventional morality and institutionalized religion. It is in the outer temple that the words of the Gospel rather than their spirit are venerated. By insisting on a rigid interpretation of the Scriptures, however, missionaries have hindered salvation: “opening wide the gates of the first temple, they shut fast the gates to the second,” the Holy of Holies, wherein lies our hidden divine spirit. “Today’s Christian missionaries,” Tōkoku declared, “believe there is divine power in the words of the Scriptures. They rashly declare that salvation lies in the teachings of the Bible. But they explain words, not the Gospel; they claim to bear Christ, but it is the devil hidden behind Christ whom they bear” (TZ 2: 10). “The Secret Temple” was the first of a series of essays that included “Moku no ichiji” (The One Word “Silence”), “Kokoro no shikatsu o ronzu” (On the Life and Death of the Heart), “San’an zakki” (Notes from a Mountain Hut) and “Shinchiren” (The Lotuses in the Pond of the Heart). Tōkoku’s criticisms of Protestant missionaries, however, were but the starting point of a more far-reaching exploration of the nature of spirituality. One of Tōkoku’s favorite lines in English literature was Hamlet’s “What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven?” These words epitomized for Tōkoku the human condition as a terrible intermediacy: we are caught between heaven and earth because we contain elements of both in constant conflict, a divine spirit within that is a fragment of the divine beyond the world of the senses. Interposed between the divine within and without is our corporeal body. Our fundamental contentiousness and dissatisfaction are due to our inner spirit seeking reunification with the divinity beyond while our bodies seek the satisfactions of the flesh in physical reality. This strife, however, not only separates humans from animals, but also vitalizes the spirit and urges it toward perfection. A key element in Tōkoku’s analysis is repentance (kuiaratame), which Tōkoku believed had become a mere formality in the churches of his day. Repentance, he argued, is not a single act, the “feeling of a moment,” but a process of “continuous purification” (renzoku shitaru kiyomeyuku koto) whereby we confront or “remember our sins one after the other.” The process ultimately results in “love of humanity, love of country, sacrificing oneself for love or a just cause—natural expressions of our divine spirit untainted by selfish motives” (TZ 2: 142–44). We can never become absolutely good, Tōkoku maintains; but, within the limits of our own power, we can attain the redemptive state of the Great Man (shijin). The Great Man is beyond fear, life and death, enlightenment and delusion, good and bad, for he 14

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dwells in “the truth and beauty of nature” (TZ 2: 13). This man leads a simple life, but at the center of his simplicity is a strong belief in himself and a deep sincerity. Tōkoku’s “Great Man” owes much to Carlyle’s chapter “The Hero as Prophet” in On Heroes. Tōkoku still believed that faith in God was essential, but only because, with that faith, we can achieve salvation through our own efforts by eradicating our sins through a life of repentance. Thus, Tōkoku denied the necessity of baptism and other church rituals, and disdained outward acts of piety. Nowhere, however, is the self-reliant character of his religion more apparent than in his interpretation of Christ’s meeting with Nathanael: Later commentaries discuss only Christ’s power, not Nathanael’s meditation. It was Christ who knew Nathanael, but what made Nathanael the kind of man he was had nothing to do with Christ. Thanks to his own strength, Nathanael’s heart was pure and he had nothing to be ashamed of. Whether Christ would save him or not was beyond Nathanael’s control, but whether he would become the kind of man who must he saved was a matter of his own strength. Although it is very easy to discern this kind of truth, people today often put all their faith in the power of another without relying in the least on their own. To consider prayers to God as the only way to salvation is no different from what those fools practice in Buddhist prayer services. (TZ 2: 11–12) At the time of his own conversion, Tōkoku remarked in a letter to Mina that he had become “a child of God.” The essays, published in Heiwa, suggest that, in the four years since then, he had moved to a more independent and self-reliant conception of Christian spirituality. Given the magazine’s small audience, moreover, the impact of these writings on intellectual circles was no doubt negligible. Nevertheless, they laid the groundwork for his debate with Yamaji Aizan (1864–1917) through the pages of Bungakukai in the spring of 1893. Aizan was four years older than Tōkoku, a convert to Methodism, and was writing for Jogaku zasshi when Tōkoku first met him in the autumn of 1891. The two quickly became friends. After joining the Min’yūsha publishing company in 1892, Aizan began writing a series of essays on the commoners of the Tokugawa period. These include three published in the last months of 1892: “Heiminteki tanka no hatten” (The Development of Commoners’ tanka Poetry), “Santō Kyōzan-den” (Santō Kyōzan: A Biography), and “Kinsei busshitsuteki no shinpo” (Material Progress in the Tokugawa Period).14 The titles alone indicate that Aizan was covering the same ground as that covered by Tōkoku the previous July in “Commoner Ideals in the Tokugawa Period.” Tōkoku disagreed with many of the points Aizan made in these essays, but he did not challenge him until January 1893, when Aizan published “Rai Noboru o ronzu” (On Rai Noboru). This essay concerns the Tokugawa historian otherwise known as Rai San’yō (1780– 1832) whose book, Nihon gaishi (An Unofficial History of Japan, 1826), played an important ideological role in the events leading to the Meiji Restoration. Aizan’s essay begins: Literature is an enterprise. The writer wields a pen in the same way that a warrior wields a sword, not to strike at the air but because there is something to be done. Ten thousand bullets or a thousand swords are useless if they do not benefit the world. Flowery words are also useless if they are not relevant to life, even if one writes hundreds of volumes. Literature should be venerated because Chapter 1: Prophet of the Inner Life: Kitamura Tōkoku

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it is an enterprise. To discuss Rai Noboru is to discuss his enterprise. (Yamaji 1983, 296)15 Tōkoku wrote an impassioned critique of Aizan’s views for the second issue of Bungakukai entitled “Jinsei ni aiwataru to wa nan no ii zo” (What Does “Relevant to Life” Mean?), an essay which focused, as the title suggests, on the meaning of jinsei, or “life.” It was this piece that sparked the debate. For Aizan, the term jinsei was synonymous with “society,” which in his view is created by man in his struggle with nature. As a member of society, the individual has an obligation to improve it through “enterprise” (jigyō). Aizan understood enterprise in its usual sense, as an industrialist is said to engage in an enterprise that results, for example, in railways or factories. The value of such endeavors lies in their “relevance to life,” that is, their usefulness to society. Similarly, literature must also be an enterprise if it is to have any value. For Aizan, “literature” meant social criticism or inspiring biographies of great men, an enterprise comparable to the heroic deeds of warriors of the past, as opposed to lyrical reflections on “the moon, snow and flowers.” Aizan’s views were representative of a group of prominent liberal journalists and political figures, men such as Tokutomi Sohō and Ozaki Yukio (1858–1954), whose concern for Japan’s position in the world had led them to denounce popular fiction as puerile. In their eyes, the promise of a modern literature had been ruined by the advent of titillating love stories that focused on man’s weaknesses instead of his strengths. Tōkoku was no less concerned than they about Japan’s future and had been equally harsh in his own criticism of contemporary fiction. However, as he stated during the debate, “literature is the mirror of the age”; that is, the problem lay, not with the popular fiction of the day, but with what he perceived as the spiritual emptiness of his time. Between February and June, Tōkoku published five more essays in response to the four that Aizan wrote. Although minor concessions were made on both sides, they remained sharply divided. For Tōkoku, however, the stimulus of the exchange was particularly beneficial as it forced him to develop a line of thought he had been pursuing in his essays for Heiwa; but here the direction was outward rather than inward, toward society and the writer’s place in it. Even after they stopped addressing each other in print, Tōkoku continued to wrestle with questions raised by the debate. In contrast to Aizan’s jinsei (life) Tōkoku deployed the word seimei, which can also be translated as “life” but has the sense of “life-force,” and the phrase naibu seimei, or “inner life” (innaa raifu) to designate the divinity within man. It is the “wellspring of religion” and what separates man from other animals. Trapped in the limiting reality of jinsei, man’s inner seimei yearns to be reunited with the Divine (shin). In a previous essay penned in April 1892, “Matsushima ni oite Bashō-ō o yomu” (Reading Bashō at Matsushima), Tōkoku had argued that beauty in nature is a manifestation of the Divine, that art is a product of moments of “inspiration” (insupirēshon) in which the artist loses himself in the “labyrinth” of the Divine, and that the aim of art is to somehow depict the outward appearance of nature so as to reveal the divinity within.16 He developed this point further in “Relevant to Life,” using the term jitsu (the real) instead of nature: “Jitsu is one side of nature, but there is another side that illuminates jitsu” (TZ 2: 122). Tōkoku defined literature as a spiritual enterprise, and described the struggles of Japanese poets like Saigyō (1118–1190) and Bashō (1644–1694) as far more heroic than the deeds of warriors. A poet recognizes that all human beings at all times are subject to 16

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what Tōkoku called, borrowing from Schiller’s essay on the sublime, “nature-as-force.” This is not, Tōkoku points out, the more obvious “forces of nature,” which man can fight against by building shelter against the wind and rain, but rather what he characterized as a sort of centripetal force that holds reality together. Internally this force manifests itself as the physical needs of the body while externally, nature’s ever-changing appearance dazzles our eyes. Tōkoku argues, however, that human beings are subject to another force, one that opposes the centripetal pull of nature, namely the yearning of our inner seimei, or “inner life,” to be reunited with that larger spiritual reality beyond the constraints of jinsei. In his view, each individual constitutes his own field of battle, where nature-as-force vies with his inner seimei. More than anyone else, the poet is best suited to engage in this struggle, which Tōkoku described using images of war. That is, desire and illusion are the “invisible enemies” of natureas-force against which the “sharp sword” of the traditional warrior is useless. Rather, the poet must forge the “sword of his soul.” When, in the course of his battle with nature-as-force, all seems lost, an opening appears—not a path of retreat but a way through, because nature itself provides what Tōkoku calls “escape routes” (katsuro) that enable his spirit “to grasp in that great autonomous world of spirit the freedom he lost as flesh” (TZ 2: 120). In “Naibu seimei-ron” (On the Inner Life*), Tōkoku identifies these escape routes with moments of “inspiration,” which he defines as “a kind of response on the part of the spirit of the universe, that is, God, to man’s spirit, that is, his inner seimei” (TZ 2: 248). In moments of “inspiration,” the writer leaves the field of battle, transcending it to make contact with the Divine that he also termed the Idea (sō, aidea) and the Sublime (saburaimu). “The sublime,” he wrote in “Relevant to Life,” “is not limited by physical shapes; its domain is the Idea” (TZ 2: 123). Idealist writers (risō-ha) should try to embody the Idea in the form of an image created by the imagination, while Realists (shajitsu-ha) should seek the various manifestations of the Idea in the world of phenomena. These victories, however, are only temporary, for ultimately nature will claim the individual through death. By preserving his glimpse of the Divine in his art, the writer not only validates his own calling, but can also restore his readers to their own lost spirituality. Although Tōkoku’s view of the writer owes much to Carlyle’s On Heroes, his Schillerinspired vision of the poet’s struggle with nature-as-force—the poet who, pressed to the extreme, then finds a way out in a moment of self-transcendence—is another version of the idealistic youth’s struggle with the Real World presented in the “Pessimistic Poets” essay. The Real World, of course, meant Meiji society, and, in Tōkoku’s nature-as-force, we see the Meiji government as force, a government that derived its moral authority from a hidden divine center (the emperor). Excluded from that hidden divine center, the politically marginalized poet finds a greater moral authority for his words in a spiritual reality that lies behind, or beyond, the phenomenal world. Tōkoku continued as editor of Heiwa until it ceased publication in May 1893. That same month, he became editor of Seisho no tomo. This periodical was the house organ of “Seisho no Tomo” (Friends of the Bible), a non-denominational Bible reading society started by Dr. Willis Whitney’s daughter, Adelaide, in 1883.17 Tōkoku had known the Whitneys since 1889 through his association with the Quakers at the Friends Girls’ School. While continuing to work for David Jones of the Azabu Church, Tōkoku had become close friends with Jones’ assistant, Ōta Toshio. In October, Rev. Alonzo D. Woodworth arrived to assist Jones. It appears that Tōkoku did not like Jones, or at least his theological views, but got along well with Woodworth. Owing to a difference of opinion with his sponsors on Chapter 1: Prophet of the Inner Life: Kitamura Tōkoku

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baptismal procedures, however, Jones submitted his resignation in January 1893, and Tōkoku and Mina formally joined the Azabu Church in April, a month after Jones had left for China. During the latter half of that year, Tōkoku also taught and served as an interpreter at a small seminary run by the Azabu Church, and every Sunday morning he lectured at the church on the literature of the Bible. Between writing for Hyōron and Seisho no tomo, teaching English literature at Meiji Girls’ School, and his work for the Azabu Church, Tōkoku was, in his own words, “like a pitiful snail who takes his shell upon his back and vainly turns away, ignoring the tidings of the flowers” (TZ 2: 190). To recuperate from his labors, Tōkoku made a solitary journey in July to Maegawa, a village some five miles from Odawara on the coast of Sagami Bay. As a child he had often accompanied his parents on trips to Chōzenji, a Buddhist temple where the family graves were located. This quiet interlude was not completely free of care, however. In his notes, he wrote of his concern for Tomii Matsuko, who had contracted tuberculosis and was bed-ridden at the time (TZ 2: 288). Tōkoku left Maegawa at the end of July for Ishinomaki to help the Azabu Church with their missionary activities there. A month later he received an angry letter from Mina accusing him of lacking true love and respect for her. Tōkoku fired off an angry letter of his own, reminding her in essence that she knew what was in store for her when she married him. Portions of this letter reiterate his arguments in “Pessimistic Poets and Women” telling her that, unhappy as she may be, such was the fate of women who marry poets.18 It is not clear whether Mina’s letter mentioned the death of Tomii Matsuko on 14 August, or whether Tōkoku learned of it after hurrying back to Tokyo. By the end of that month, he had moved his family into Chōzenji temple in Maegawa. Tōkoku seems to have vacillated between belief and doubt, his belief on the one hand that union with a divine Other was still possible through love, or in self-transcending moments of “inspiration,” and his doubts on the other that such unions were delusions or hallucinations, or that modern life made such transcendence impossible. In his essays, at least, he argued his beliefs, but it seems his doubts overtook him with the sudden death of Matsuko, an event which marked the beginning of a downward spiral both mentally and physically, as if her death signified the death of the Divine Idea itself. That Matsuko’s death devastated Tōkoku is evident from an entry in his diary for 4 September, written at Maegawa while he struggled with a eulogy later published in Hyōron: I am distressed by my inability to be at peace even after moving here. When I look at myself these days, I must admit that I have been on the verge of a crisis for a long time. I get very tired when I read for even one hour, and don’t know what to do. It is the same with thinking. Ever since I came here I have spent four or five days trying to write something for Hyōron. It has never been like this before; I know this is making me lose hope. And yet, inevitably, everything, all my years of toil, have finally come to nothing. I haven’t been able to save any money. In vain I labor at tasks that will not make me independent. Thus, my spirit cannot but be chaotic. I certainly know why I am not at peace, and that ultimately there is nothing I can do about it. I have been deceived by many things; by life, by hope, everything has brought me pain.

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I am now determined to destroy everything that I was content to endure before— the ties with my wife, my wife’s family and my own, even my work. From now on, I will rid myself of patience for everything and do only what I want, write only what I want to write. For the sake of my independence, I must sacrifice even love. If this means becoming a wandering beggar, so be it. Ah, how could a man consider a life of discretion the only thing? (TZ 3: 269–70) Tōkoku’s resolve to sacrifice everything and live a new life free of all entanglements was certainly drastic. But a poem published a month later suggests that even this was filled with a terrifying uncertainty: When I look behind, the fields are desolate, Looking ahead, the wind is cold. Last spring is only a dream. Where has my wandering path brought me? (TZ 1: 223) That autumn, Tōkoku commuted once a week to teach English literature at Meiji Girls’ School. At the end of October, Ōta Toshio was forced to resign from the Azabu Church, and Tōkoku felt he had no choice but to withdraw from the Church as well. At the same time, he resigned as editor of Seisho no tomo. Tōkoku wrote his last essays at Maegawa, including “Netsujō” (Earnestness), “Banbutsu no koe to shijin” (The Voices of Creation and the Poet), “Issekikan” (The View One Night) and the manuscript of his ambitious study of Emerson.19 These works show that he continued to develop his ideas, as if reaching for a new and ever more personal vision. But he could not stop his downward slide into despair as his creative powers failed him. In December, he moved his family back to his parents’ home in Tokyo, where he tried to cut his throat on the twenty-eighth. Tōkoku was briefly hospitalized and, when released in January, moved into a house near Shiba Park. Among his visitors during this period was Iwamoto, who later recalled that he tried to talk to Tōkoku about faith; but Tōkoku candidly admitted that his was gone. In the early hours of the morning of 16 May 1894, Tōkoku walked out into the yard and hanged himself from a tree. The novelist Kinoshita Naoe (1869–1937), a Christian socialist, recalled in 1934: When I read about his death in the newspapers … I was struck by the feeling that he who represented us had become a sacrifice on the cross. Of course, I cannot say he was a spokesman for all youths, but he was for some of us. Indeed, it was because we were redeemed by his death that we lived beyond thirty. Even now, when I feel lonely, I read his essays. Because of the sadness and sensitivity that comes out in the whole of his works, however, I cannot read them all. (Kinoshita 1972, 283)

Conclusion Tōkoku’s last writings as a whole were driven by his conviction that the feudalism of the past and the materialism and pragmatism of his own time had blinded the Japanese to the spiritual dimension of life as individuals and their native genius as a people. It has been

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argued that Tōkoku’s conception of the “inner life” derived from the Quaker doctrine of the Inward Light (Sasabuchi 1959, 1: 186–90). Certainly Tōkoku’s emphasis on man’s inner life as a God-given divinity that enables the individual to apprehend the divinity without, his denial of the necessity of baptism and other outward sacraments, and his arguments for a liberal interpretation of the Bible, all echo beliefs that are found in Quakerism. But, however congenial Tōkoku may have found their religion, his essays present neither a simple restatement of their views nor a patchwork of eastern and western religious ideas; rather they are an attempt to forge a synthesis based on his own spiritual struggles. The point can perhaps be better illustrated with the following passage from “On the Inner Life”: I believe there is a life force [seimei] in man. I would rather speak of the war between seimei and non-seimei thought than of the competition between Christianity and Buddhism. I wish to offer my meager talent to intellectual circles, not to replace Buddhist terminology with Christian terminology, nor to overthrow Buddhist culture with the outward forms of Christian culture, nor to destroy Buddhist learning with Christian learning, but to annihilate non-seimei thought with seimei thought. Terminology, culture, learning—these externals have evolved through natural selection and do not concern me here. The great conflict between East and West is between non-seimei thought and seimei thought. (TZ 2: 239–40) These lines epitomize Tōkoku’s position with respect to Christianity and Buddhism. In Tōkoku’s opinion, the principal benefit of Christianity was that it “planted the tree of life in man’s heart”; in other words, it taught man the divine nature of his innermost being. He also believed that, although Christianity taught this truth, the divinity itself was not the exclusive possession of Christianity, and all the “externals” of Christian practice were superfluous and open to criticism. Similarly, he criticized the Buddhist doctrine of emptiness and the accompanying doctrines of reincarnation, impermanence and self-annihilation, as “non-seimei thought.” Thus, he did not wish to replace the evils of one culture with those of another, only to defeat a teaching that did not reveal the divinity of man with one that did. This, he believed, was the key to recovering Japanese spirituality, which in turn would serve as the basis for a new set of ethics, a new literature, and a new society.

Notes 1 The events as I have described them here are based on a note Tōkoku wrote to himself the night of his conversion and an undated letter to his father probably written several days after the note. 2 Irokawa notes that, according to the Tokyo-Yokohama mainichi shinbun newspaper, seven out of ten people in the Tama region of Kanagawa Prefecture had inadequate food supplies. This was partly due to the economic recession created by the government’s deflationary economic policies, but also to crop damage caused by typhoons that struck the area in the autumn of 1884. 3 John F. Howes profiles the typical Meiji period convert in “Japanese Christians and American Missionaries,” in Marius B. Jansen (ed.) Changing Japanese Attitudes Toward Modernization, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1965, 346–77. 4 Mina’s letter is not extant. Tōkoku describes the circumstances in a note to himself entitled “Hiku no seiki” (A Century of Sorrow and Pain), in TZ 3: 187–88.

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5 A Kansas Gurneyite Friend, Joseph Cosand, did not wear the broad-brimmed hat and lapel-less dark coat still worn by conservative (Wilburite) Friends in Philadelphia, nor did he represent their views or have their support. The mission was supported only by the more liberal Gurneyites in the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting (Orthodox), but had no official status. 6 The essay, entitled “Jizen jigyō no shinpo o nozomu” (In Search of Progress in Philanthropic Enterprises), was published on 5 June 1894, following Tōkoku’s death. 7 Literally translated, the title Jogaku zasshi means “magazine for women’s education”; but it carried an English table of contents with the title “The Woman’s Magazine.” All issues were reprinted in 26 volumes by Rinsen Shoten, Kyoto, 1966–67. 8 Tōkoku published an essay on Ninomiya Sontoku (1787–1856) in the autumn of 1891. A famous agrarian reformer from Tōkoku’s home province, Sontoku had been posthumously granted a court rank by the Meiji Government on 16 November. Tōkoku used the occasion to write a commemorative essay in which he compared Ninomiya to George Fox. 9 Subsequent references to Hōraikyoku are cited as page number only. 10 Subsequent references to this essay are cited as page number only. 11 See, for example, Earl H. Kinmonth’s The Self-made Man in Meiji Japanese Thought: From Samurai to Salary Man, Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981, 147–48. 12 On 1 June, Mina gave birth to their first child, Fusako, a girl. 13 Iwamoto decided to divide Jogaku zasshi into alternating issues: starting in June, one week’s issue had white covers and was devoted to literature and social reform with Hoshino Tenchi as editor, the following week’s edition had red covers and was devoted to jogaku or “women’s education,” with Iwamoto as editor. Toward the end of the year, Iwamoto took control of both issues so that Tenchi could launch Bungakukai. The following June of 1893, Iwamoto changed the name of the “white covers” edition to Hyōron. Tōkoku, who considered himself a kyakuin, or “contributing” member, of the Bungakukai coterie rather than a dōjin or full-fledged member, wrote for Iwamoto’s Hyōron as well as for Bungakukai. 14 “Heiminteki tanka no hatten” appeared in Kokumin no tomo from 23 September through 13 October, 1892; “Kinsei busshitsuteki no shinpo” in Kokumin no tomo from 23 October through 13 December, 1892; and “Santō Kyōzan-den” in Kokumin shinbun on 30 October, 1892. Aizan’s writings have been collected in Yamaji Aizan-shū (1983). The essays cited above appear in vol. 1, 257–64, 264–76, and 280–81, respectively. 15 Yamaji Aizan-shū, 296. 16 For a close reading of this text, see my “Tōkoku at Matsushima”, in Monumenta Nipponica 45, 3 (Autumn 1990), 285–306. 17 Loosely affiliated with the Children’s Special Service Mission in England, the Japan Scripture Union had a membership of some fourteen thousand in 1889. Members of the Union received a weekly leaflet with a list of the “daily portion”—passages from the Bible to be studied each day. Scripture Union Magazine, on the other hand, contained about a dozen pages with commentaries on the daily reading, essays on Christianity, and news of the Japanese Christian community. 18 Mina’s letter is not extant. Two versions of Tōkoku’s letter appear in TZ 3: 223–30. 19 Tōkoku paraphrased passages from Emerson’s essay “Love” in “Pessimistic Poets and Women,” but according to his diary, he did not turn to a serious study of Emerson until the autumn of 1893, four months before his first suicide attempt, and did not finish the manuscript of his proposed book. Mina gave the manuscript to Shimazaki Tōson, who prepared it for publication, but there is some question as to how much of Emaruson (Emerson) is Tōkoku’s and how much is Tōson’s. It was published under Tōkoku’s name by Sohō’s Min’yūsha in 1894. See Katsumoto’s discussion in TZ 3: 636–44.

References Baba, K. (1936). Meiji bundan kaiko [Remembrances of the Meiji literary world]. Tokyo: Kyōwa Shoin. Coleridge, S.T. (1897). Coleridge’s Lectures and Notes on Shakespeare and Other English Poets, collected by T. Ashe. London: George Bell & Sons. Irokawa, D. (1976). Shinpen Meiji seishinshi [A spiritual history of the Meiji period, new edition]. Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha. Kamizaki, K. (1950–1955). Kitamura Minako oboegaki [Notes on Kitamura Minako], in supplement to Tōkoku zenshū [Collected Works of Tōkoku], vol. 1. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten.

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Katsumoto, S. (1972). Nihon heiwashugi undō no reimei [The dawn of the Japanese peace movement]. In Nihon bungaku kenkyū shiryō kankōkai (comp.), Kitamura Tōkoku. Tokyo: Yūseidō. Kinoshita, N. (1972). Fukuzawa Yūkichi to Kitamura Tōkoku [Fukuzawa Yūkichi and Kitamura Tōkoku]. In Nihon bungaku kenkyū shiryō kankōkai (comp.), Kitamura Tōkoku. Tokyo: Yūseidō. Kitamura, M. (1908). Haru to Tōkoku [Spring and Tōkoku]. Waseda bungaku (July); reprinted in Kitamura, T. (1950–1955), supplement to vol. 3(9). Kitamura, T. (1950–1955). Tōkoku zenshū [Collected Works of Tōkoku] (3 vols.) Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. (cited as TZ) Ritter, H. (1898). A History of Protestant Missions in Japan (George E. Albrecht, trans.). (revised by D. C. Greene). Tokyo: Methodist Publishing House. Sasabuchi, T. (1959). Bungakukai to sono jidai [Bungakukai and its age], 2 vols. Tokyo: Meiji Shoin. Strong, K. (1966). The Magic Mirror. Monumenta Nipponica 21(3–4), 392–409. Taine, H.A. (1895). History of English Literature (H. Van Laun, trans.). 2 vols. Chicago & New York: Donohue Bros. Yamaji, A. (1983). Yamaji Aizan-shū [Collection of writings by Yamaji Aizan], 2 vols. In Oka Toshiro (ed.) volumes 2–3 of Min’yūsha shisō bungaku [Min’yūsha ideological literature], 6 vols. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō. Yanagida I. (1965). Meiji shoki bungaku shisō [Ideology in early Meiji literature], 2 vols. Tokyo: Shunjūsha.

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Handbook of Japanese Christian Writers

Chapter 2 Shimazaki Tōson and Christianity: When the Cherries Ripen in the Taishō Period Irina Holca Shimazaki Tōson’s novel When the Cherries Ripen is the story of Kishimoto Sutekichi and his experience of Christianity during the second half of the Meiji period (1890s). The novel was first published in installments between 1912 and 1918 in Bunshō sekai, a popular readercontribution magazine of the Taishō period. Thus, young Sutekichi’s struggles to find his own path combining faith and poetry are given as an example of growth, and resonate with the dilemmas of the young audience of the magazine, who were looking for self-cultivation and spiritual enrichment through reading and writing.

Introduction As many Christians experience it, Christianity is not only a matter of believing in a specific doctrine, but also, and in some cases even more prominently, one of participating in communal ritual practices. Oftentimes, these practices might be only loosely connected to Christian precepts; they can be intertwined with non- or pre-Christian customs, and will vary according to the local material culture, but also according to the changing socio-political climate in which they exist and function. For example, in Romania, my home country, babies are baptized shortly after birth, in line with the superstition that baptism will make them calmer, grounding them firmly in “this world.” Also, in many families, church baptism is followed by “house” baptism, a pre-Christian ritual in which the baby is washed in water with rice, flowers, gold and other ingredients that will ensure health, wealth and good fortune. At any rate, receiving God and being baptized into Romanian Orthodoxy is not a choice for the new Christian, and requires no deep understanding of the precepts of Christianity—not even on the part of the parents. This is perhaps the reason why religious rituals such as baptism were allowed to continue during the communist decades, while regular churchgoing was discouraged and many spiritual leaders (priests, theologians) were persecuted and forbidden from openly discussing Christian doctrines. The negative attitude towards Christianity as

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anything more than a set of rituals comes from an over-emphasis on the Marxist idea that religion can make people ignorant to the realities around them and, as a result, stand in the way of the socialist revolution. Such a reading of Marx’s famous proclamation that “religion is the opiate of the masses” pushes into the background other possible connections between Christianity and socialism, such as the direct involvement in elevating the common man and emphasis on equality among all—tenets shared by both ideologies. In modern Japan, too, Christianity took the shape of the successive vessels into which it was poured, from the initial growth stemming from the fervent missionary activities of the early Meiji period to the more veiled efforts to survive in the face of the adversity brought about by the rise in nationalistic sentiment and policies in the following two decades. Towards the end of the Meiji and during the Taishō period, it resurfaced and continued to develop to include aspects of Christian socialism in step with the humanistic and democratic tendencies of the time (Asao 2013). Originally, it stood in stark contrast with the native systems of beliefs, but along the way it forged a more or less peaceful coexistence, at least with native practices and rituals if not their underlying ideologies, molding itself to respond appropriately to the successive developments within Japanese society. During the first decades of Japan’s modernization, a number of young Japanese—most of them from former samurai families and/or the upper middle class (Morioka 1970)—converted to Christianity, mainly to Protestantism; many were guided by the ambition to become politicians or, if this failed, men of letters. Attending mission or other types of schools where they could study foreign languages and western culture, they received Christianity as faith in a new God, but also as a modern system of ideas, a path to understanding the exciting new world that lay beyond the borders of Japan. They were attracted to Christianity, both because it offered a way of knowing oneself as an individual, and because it offered avenues that were completely different from those prescribed by native (“traditional”) systems of beliefs for interacting with other individuals. As Tomasi notes (2018), Christianity in the Meiji period was associated with political and social reforms, and shared with the Freedom and People’s Rights Movement (Jiyū minken undō) the belief that all men are created free and equal; it duly provided the emerging intellectual elite with a framework through which to reflect on the purpose of life and to probe the complexities of human existence that were shaping the identity struggle of the “modern man.” And yet, it is also a fact that many of the literati who converted to Christianity during the Meiji era—well-known names such as Kitamura Tōkoku, Kunikida Doppo, Arishima Takeo, Shiga Naoya and others are worth mentioning here—either renounced the faith or drifted away in a matter of years after their baptism. Some of the reasons for this can be found in the conflict between religion and literature and the question of sexuality, with its destabilizing effects on the process of constructing modern selfhood. On the other hand, the encounter with Christianity and the ensuing “dilemmas of faith” (Tomasi 2018) were forces that continued to shape the literary output of the writers mentioned above—and many more—well after they had distanced themselves from the Church and/or its doctrines. Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that the complicated dynamics between sexuality and identity would not have come to occupy the central place they do in Japanese Naturalist literature (among others) without the tension added by discussions about sin and morality, or about the duality of soul and flesh, which stemmed from the early Meiji understanding of Christian doctrines. As Karatani argues, Naturalist writers worked to “liberate the body and sexuality from Christianity,” (1993,

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79) but they did so from within the framework of a prior repression, mostly one of their own doing. Naturalism was also shaped by ideas from the natural sciences, including the theory of evolution, which can be said to stand in opposition to what some Christians believe. Nevertheless, as Takeda (1979) and Godart (2018) argue, many early Japanese Christians, including faith leaders such as Uchimura Kanzō and Uemura Masahisa, did attempt to reconcile their faith with some aspects of evolution, regarding it as the process of “growth” or “maturation” of God’s creation, and presenting it as part of God’s plan. The next generation of Christians, to which Shimazaki Tōson (1872–1943) belongs, lived and wrote at the intersection of such apparently conflicting new ideas; as a result, heredity and the environment often feature as elements exacerbating the characters’ identity struggles, side by side with their spiritual tribulations with regard to sin, morality and inner life. The puritanical worldview of early Meiji Christianity, which condemned sexual desire, was the very framework that gave birth, towards the end of the Meiji period, to the Japanese brand of Naturalist literature that gradually came to focus on a type of confessional writing that exposes the innermost thoughts and desires of the individual. Thus, Tomasi identifies the “act of confession as a means to overcome the impasse brought about by these internal conflicts, signaling a religious posture within the literary world that would become a major trait of mid- to late-Meiji and Taishō intellectual discourse” (2018, 15).

Christianity in Tōson’s life and literature Shimazaki Tōson was sixteen years old and a student at Meiji Gakuin when he was baptized, on 16 June 1888, by his former teacher Kimura Kumaji, at the Takanawa Church in Tokyo. Upon graduation, he started publishing translations in Iwamoto Yoshiharu’s journal, Jogaku zasshi, and briefly taught English at Meiji Jogakkō (Meiji Women’s School). However, he left the school after falling in love with one of his students. He relinquished his church membership in January 1893, before departing on a semi-ascetic pilgrimage through Kansai. On this trip, metaphorically following in the footsteps of the medieval poets Saigyō and Bashō, Tōson also took along a copy of the Bible, as he himself acknowledges in his essay “Katatsumuri” (The Snail, 1896). While distancing himself from the church, Tōson did not renounce his faith; indeed, he continued to explore the issue of humanity and human existence through the mediation of Christianity in most, if not all, of his subsequent works (Sasabuchi 1960). Clear traces of Tōson’s engagement with the Christian vocabulary of faith are to be found in his poetic creation, from his first collection of poetry, “Wakanashū” (Collection of Young Herbs, 1897), with its frequent citations from the Bible and Christian hymns, to his last, “Rakubaishū” (Collection of Fallen Plums, 1901). As Hosokawa points out, in Tōson’s poetry collections, the use of Christian motifs shifts from constructing a bright world of hope and salvation through the discovery of love and natural beauty, to a dark one shadowed by an awareness of sin, paralleled by the awakening of sexual desire. These themes, informed by Tōson’s encounter with, and personal interpretation of, God and Christianity (Hosokawa sees it as a “deviation from Christianity proper,” (Hosokawa 2013, 129)) are revisited time and again in his autobiographical prose, from Haru (Spring, 1908) to Shinsei (New Life, 1919); they are, indeed, shared struggles of the modern “self ” found at the core of many works by Naturalist writers, as mentioned above.

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A slightly different engagement with Christian ideas can be seen in Tōson’s first fulllength novel, Hakai (The Broken Commandment*, 1906). Inoko Rentarō, the character who speaks publicly about his origin, and against the discrimination directed at people who, like him, belong to the burakumin class of social pariah,1 is depicted as a Christlike figure, while the protagonist, Segawa Ushimatsu’s denial of Inoko is reminiscent of “Christian motifs and symbolism” (Tomasi 2018, 72). It should be noted here that, while Tomasi reads The Broken Commandment as a celebration of “Christian-inspired Meiji romantic desire to overcome socially and historically imposed boundaries and to establish a new covenant of freedom and self-determination,” (Tomasi 2018, 76) Marran (2013) sees in Tōson’s novel one of the many Meiji examples in which the Buddhist notion of sange/zange is secularized and used as a narrative device for writing about the self.2 As Marran points out, the zange concept is central to a wide array of works, from the confessional memoir of ex-convict and former Buddhist nun Shimazu Omasa (1891), to Futabatei Shimei’s essay, “Yo ga hansei no zange” (Confessions of Half My Life, 1908). In Tōson’s own New Life, published in installments in Asahi shinbun from 1918, and in book form in 1919, the writer-protagonist Kishimoto Sutekichi refers to the novel he is serializing in the newspaper as his “zange no kō” (confessional manuscript). Sakura no mi no juku suru toki (When the Cherries Ripen, serialized in Bunshō sekai between 1914 and 1918, published from Shun’yōdō in 1919) is the story of the young Sutekichi’s years as a student,3 and then briefly as a teacher at a women’s school: his encounter with the Christian faith and western literature, his spiritual dilemmas, the friends he makes, the infatuation he develops for one of his students and the ensuing inner conflict that leads him to determine to leave on a pilgrimage to Kansai—in short, a fictionalized account of Tōson’s own life experiences. For the most part, it was written in parallel with New Life, a novel that focuses on the main character’s affair with his niece, Setsuko, that results in her pregnancy; his subsequent flight to France; the experience of the First World War, but also of a religious awakening of sorts in the French countryside; his return to Japan, followed by a rekindling of his relationship with his niece; and finally, his family’s breaking off relations with him and sending Setsuko to Taiwan in the wake of the publication of the above-mentioned “confessional manuscript.” Significantly, New Life, based on the mature Tōson’s experiences, contains quotes from the earlier When the Cherries Ripen, as the protagonist Sutekichi touches on the difficulty he has writing this manuscript in a foreign land, and on the troubles he encounters in sending it back to Japan (one installment gets lost on the way during the War, for example). As such, the two novels are intricately entangled, and it is not surprising that researchers have often pointed out that When the Cherries Ripen, completed almost three decades after the events described therein, is deeply influenced by subsequent experiences that shaped Tōson’s life, both personally and professionally, and especially the so-called “Shinsei incident” (his affair with his niece) (see Yabu 1991; Takahashi 1994; Tomasi 2018; Hosokawa 2013, for example). Among these, several scholars have analyzed the religious dimension of When the Cherries Ripen in close relation to Tōson’s reconnecting with Christianity at the St. Etienne Cathedral in Limoges, drawing parallels with Sutekichi’s experiences as described in New Life (Itō 1976; Shimoyama 1997; Hosokawa 2013). These are, of course, important elements to take into consideration when discussing the novel; of equal importance, however, is the socio-historical context of its publication, which is very different from that of the actual events, as well as the characteristics of the medium through which the novel reaches its audience, the reader contribution journal Bunshō sekai. Such research already exists, to a certain extent: Takahashi (1997) has analyzed the focus of 26

Handbook of Japanese Christian Writers

When the Cherries Ripen on spirituality as synchronous with the shift in interest from the public to the private domain experienced by the youth of the Taishō period. In a subsequent study (2002), she discusses how Tōson’s novel could serve as an educational tool, whereby the author is seeking to provide his young readers with an exemplar reading of Meiji period literature. In the same vein, I have focused on When the Cherries Ripen and its publication in Bunshō sekai, analyzing the emerging modes of reading of the Taishō period, and the ways in which contribution magazines were used to bridge—or to simulate bridging—the gap between “writer” and “reader.” In this context, Tōson’s When the Cherries Ripen offered readers a young protagonist modelled after the writer himself, one with whom they could identify but also look up to as a role model, while simultaneously superimposing Sutekichi’s personal story of struggle and growth on “the young Meiji period,” which Bunshō sekai’s young readers could only experience as “history” at the time (Holca 2018). In the following discussion, I will revisit Tōson’s novel in relation to the medium of Bunshō sekai and its original (intended) audience, analyzing Sutekichi’s encounter with Christianity as part of his coming-of-age during the Meiji period against the background of the new developments in Christianity/religiosity during the early Taishō period. In so doing, I intend to shed light on the manner in which the socio-cultural milieu in which When the Cherries Ripen was written and published shaped its form and content so that it would better resonate with the needs and interests of its audience. After all, Tōson did include the following comment on the inner cover of his novel: “Among my works, this is indeed the one that I would like to recommend to young readers.”

Reading When the Cherries Ripen in a reader-contribution magazine The journal in which Tōson’s novel appeared, Bunshō sekai, was issued monthly between 1906 and 1920 by Hakubunkan; as a literary and reader-contribution magazine (bungei tōkō zasshi), it functioned as a venue both for Naturalist writers to publish their work, and for young readers to have theirs judged by famous authors. Among the contributors who went on to become men of letters themselves, Kimura Ki confessed in Watashi no bungaku kaikoroku (My Literary Memoir, 1979; cited in Kōno 2003, 92) that, when he was growing up in Okayama, “Bunshō sekai was the basis of my entire education” and “looking from afar at the literary world, I nevertheless felt very close to them.” Bunshō sekai’s readership mainly comprised youths like Kimura, between fifteen and twenty years of age and living outside of the capital, often in remote areas of the countryside; as Kimura writes, the magazine played a great role in educating ambitious young men from the provinces, while also allowing them the illusion of communicating with their elders in the central literary coterie, or bundan. According to Kōno, Hakubunkan’s—and Bunshō sekai’s—original strategy had been to publish, alongside modern literary texts, essential information about economics, history, geography, religion and culture, in order to properly educate the youths who represented the future of the nation; also, at the outset, readers were encouraged to contribute non-literary texts, such as letters or essays. Nevertheless, in time, the initial penchant for “practical” writing was alleviated and, under the editorial supervision of Tayama Katai and Maeda Noboru, literature became something that the young readers would not only consume passively, but also produce actively. In Kōno’s words, one of the most noteworthy features of Bunshō sekai is the fact that it functioned as a “device to reduce the distance between emitter and receiver,”

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making obvious “the link between reading and writing, and hinting at the possibility that readers themselves can become writers” (Kōno 2003, 114). Expanding on Kōno’s insightful analysis, which focuses on the late Meiji period development of contribution magazines, I have previously looked into how Bunshō sekai worked to reduce the distance between readers and writers around the time When the Cherries Ripen was published, during the first half of the Taishō period (from 1912 until 1918). I find one characteristic of Bunshō sekai during this period to be of particular interest for my discussion here—namely the abundance of retrospective articles about Meiji literature and the Meiji bundan, paired with pieces that focus on the life and work of Meiji men of letters.4 Some typical examples of the former are articles such as “Meiji bungaku no gaikan” (An Overview of Meiji Literature) by Tayama Katai (October 1912) and “Ryūdokai tsuisōroku” (Remembering Ryūdokai) by Kanbara Ariake (April 1915). The latter category is exemplified by articles such as “Bungakusha no seikatsu” (The Life of a Man of Letters) by Nakamura Seiko (April 1913) and “Sōsakusha no kokochi” (The Feelings of the Creative Man) by Maeda Noboru (June 1918). Series like “Jōkyō tōji no kaiso” (Memories from the Time I First Came to Tokyo, monthly from March to July 1914) or “Shojosaku no omoide” (Remembering my Debut Work, March 1915), in which multiple established writers from different generations and literary movements (e.g., Nakamura Seiko, Morita Sōhei, Ogawa Mimei, Masamune Hakuchō, Kitahara Hakushū, Suzuki Miekichi) share experiences from their youth are also worth mentioning as pieces focusing on the connection between the personal life of writers and their oeuvre. Bunshō sekai thus offered its readers a re-evaluation of Meiji period literature, while also pointing out its direct connection to the state of affairs in the Taishō period. Such information about literature and literary history was provided as a necessary part of one’s education— or kyōyō, the new humanistic ideal of the masses, who at the time were slowly turning away from previous ideals of “character building” (shūyō) for the sake of the nation, instead pursuing self-cultivation (jinkaku no kansei) for its own sake (Tsutsui 1995). The articles in Bunshō sekai focusing on individual writers’ struggle-and-success stories functioned to directly connect their work to their life, “identifying not only their writing style, … but also their experiences as possible models for the young readers,” (Holca 2018, 59) many of whom perceived the shared process of reading-writing literary texts as a way of attaining a spiritual enlightenment that would help them overcome daily hardship. Tōson began serializing his novel, originally entitled Sakura no mi (Cherries), in January 1913; in February, Tokuda Shūsei commented in his article “Shinnen no sōsaku” (Novels of the New Year) that Tōson’s text elegantly avoids troublesome details from his models’ lives, and praised his “mature and powerful” suggestive style. Tōson interrupted publication after only two installments, as, following revelation of his affair with his niece, he prepared to leave for France—but not before writing a short “letter” to his readers in Bunshō sekai, in which he promises to pick up where he left off as soon as he reached Paris. However, he was unable to keep his promise, and wrote again to apologize; his text, inserted in the January 1914 issue of the magazine, contains the renewed promise to finish the novel by the end of the year. The third installment was published in April, under the new title “Sakura no mi no juku suru toki,” and Tōson would subsequently send installments four through seven from France. He then took another break in order to travel back to Japan in 1916. Before resuming publication, he addressed a third “letter” to his readers, published in the magazine in May 1917, in which he summarized the previous episodes of the novel, with a long quote reminding them of the protagonist’s situation: he is young, enjoys being surrounded by boys and girls of his own 28

Handbook of Japanese Christian Writers

age, learning English at school, freely interacting at church, hoping to become a Japanese Disraeli in the future. He is not necessarily from a “good family” but is doing his best to keep up, together with many others arriving from the provinces and trying to succeed in the new modern world. Serialization finally restarted in November 1917, and the novel was completed in June 1918. Especially during Tōson’s absence, Bunshō sekai made sure to keep its readers informed on his activities and whereabouts—including his postal address in France (April 1915 issue); it also published a photograph of the novelist and two of his children in front of his house, upon his return from France, in May 1916. As mentioned above, Tōson himself interacted actively with his readers, addressing them repeatedly in Bunshō sekai and offering updated information about his personal life as well as the progress of his novel. He was likely quite familiar with his audience, as he had actually been in charge of selecting and reviewing novels submitted to the magazine in 1910 and 1911. Taking a close look at the magazine’s “Dokusha tsūshin” (Readers’ correspondence) and “Dokusha rondan” (Readers’ criticism) columns will help us understand the way in which When the Cherries Ripen was received by Bunshō sekai’s typical readers, those Tōson is addressing. Based on the reader profile discussed below, it is not hard to imagine that the main character Sutekichi’s growing pains, both physical and psychological, as well as his experience with faith (Christianity), resonated with many of the spiritual and economic struggles of the Taishō youth towards whom the novel was geared. First of all, it should be noted that mention of Tōson himself, or of the novel in either of the readers’ columns is fairly rare; in the “Readers’ correspondence” I could identify a few that decry the interruption of the serialization, or that rejoice at being able to read “Tōsonsensei’s” texts in the journal, and one that named Tōson as the best judge for readers’ contributions after Tayama Katai’s departure. The fact that readers would refer to Tōson as sensei shows a degree of respect for his position in the bundan, if not necessarily a preference for his writing. As a matter of fact, the young contributors could be quite harsh in their judgments of their seniors’ work: one example is the “miscellaneous” article published in “Readers’ criticism” in December 1915, in which Ōyatsu Tomekichi states that “I had high expectations of When the Cherries Ripen, but it was surprisingly boring”;5 furthermore, readers seem to express more interest in Tōson’s travelogue “Umi e” (To the Sea), which fictionalizes his trip to France. Going over the messages exchanged in the “Readers’ correspondence” column in the first half of the Taishō period, one notes that many of the readers refer to Bunshō sekai as “my only consolation,” “my salvation” or even “my lover.” A common motif is that of living a “boring’” and “lonely” life, either in the provinces (the furusato, or hometown), or after relocating to the capital for study/work. The latter situation often triggers intense longing for one’s family, which further prompts readers to ask for companionship and guidance (face to face or through letters) from their “older brothers and sisters, friends of the journal.” Poor, young and working class, contributors often talk about trying to continue their education by reading the magazine, and then by finally having their own texts published in it. A surprising find was the fact that the readers’ column seems to contain a number of letters from young women, and free exchange between the sexes on this platform appears to be fairly common. Overall, the column makes comparatively rare reference to the actual literary texts published in the magazine and is mainly a forum for young people to talk to each other and share similar “growing pains.”

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The other, more structured reader’s column, “Readers’ criticism,” is populated with submissions from young readers containing keywords such as humanism and idealism in literature (Fujimoto Chōfū, May 1917), the democratization of the arts (Yamada Hitoha, October 1917), socialism and the Russian Revolution (Matsushita Issui, October 1917), or the issue of free love/marriage and morality, as advocated by Ellen Key (Umimura Kasshiji, February 1917).6 My sampling of topics of interest for the contributors to this column has focused here, for practical reasons, on the year 1917; but the tendency to engage with serious topics in the world around them would hold true for the entire period. In a nutshell, the young men and women participating in the community around Bunshō sekai show a clear desire for selfcultivation and intellectual growth, regardless of gender and social class, of geographical or material limitations. They share these aspirations, as well as their overall characteristics as a group, with Sutekichi and his friends, with whom they are indirectly encouraged to identify in spite of the decades that separate them. And, while Sutekichi’s dilemmas described in When the Cherries Ripen are informed by the Christian values with which he came into contact during the third decade of the Meiji era, their description resonates with many of the realities faced by youths in the Taishō period, as well as the new face of Christianity during the same period. The changes undergone within Christianity from early Meiji to Taishō are numerous and vary depending on the denomination. It is impossible to summarize them here, but I would like to point out a few of the developments relevant for the discussion of the readership of When the Cherries Ripen. First, I should mention Uchimura Kanzō’s Non-church (Mukyōkai) movement, which he initiated around the turn of the 20th century: this eschewed Christian rituals, focusing only on the study of the Bible as the basis of Christianity, and also did not rely on monetary donations from believers. As such, it proposed an intellectual (as opposed to “mechanical” or gestural) engagement with the Scriptures, and encouraged the financial independence of believers, who were thus able to freely criticize the evils of society and government (Kurokawa 2004). Uchimura’s Bible study was preeminently a spiritual endeavor, which likely also spurred the development of more academic approaches to religion and could be seen as sowing the seeds of Taishō intellectuals’ preoccupation with philosophical discussions of right and wrong, beauty and morality, etc., as exemplified by the popularity of Tetsugaku sōsho (Philosophy Series).7 Yet another attempt to renew Christianity and expand its reach further into Japanese society is the movement that brought all Protestant denominations together towards the end of the Meiji period as the Alliance of Japanese Christian Churches (Nihon Kirisuto kyōkai dōmei, 1912). This culminated with joint missionary efforts during the early years of the Taishō period (Zenkoku kyōdō dendō, 1914–1917), which were carried out in the cities as well as in the countryside, in the metropole as well as in Japan’s colonies, and resulted in a doubling in the number of churches and a sharp increase in the number of converts (Kurokawa 2004). Kurokawa points out that the influence exerted by the Alliance’s mobilization on the spread and development of the so-called “Taishō democracy” should not be ignored: “We may say that this new socio-political movement came in the wake of this movement for religious renewal” (Kurokawa 2004, 61). It is thus no coincidence that Christian thinkers, such as Ebina Danjō, Yoshino Sakuzō and others, were also among the leaders of Taishō period movements advocating, inter alia, for democracy, gender equality, free education and workers’ rights (Hisayama et al. 1956). Such preoccupations can be observed among the Bunshō sekai readers too, and frame their reading of Tōson’s novel, which I will analyze below. 30

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Kishimoto Sutekichi’s faith in God and poetry As already mentioned, When the Cherries Ripen dramatizes Tōson’s early adult years against the background of Meiji’s own “twenties” (the 1890s). The omniscient narrator, from the vantage point of the present (the novel’s time of publication), looks back with nostalgia on the novelty of everything that was being introduced into Japan after the Meiji Restoration, from clothes and architecture to ideas and customs, while also noticing that during “the early Meiji period … trains weren’t running in downtown Tokyo” (25)8 and “city water didn’t yet exist” (32). With regard to this new age, from the very beginning the reader’s attention is repeatedly directed to elements of modernization/westernization that directly connect to Christianity, such as the “relationships between young Christian men and women” (13) “that did not exist in old Japan” (6)—an emphasis that highlights one of the main inner conflicts Sutekichi will confront throughout the novel. The peculiar atmosphere at Sutekichi’s Christian school is also described in detail in the opening chapters: its American-style buildings, the big schoolyard, the adjoining church with its “pointed steeple, adorned with a cross” (16). Here students can be seen “rehearsing an English speech they had learned by heart,” (13) or “walking across the big garden singing English hymns” (15). At one point, Sutekichi hears someone passing beneath his window in the dorm “singing a familiar English song” and he joins in (15). Furthermore, on a Sunday morning, parishioners gathered near the church are shown passionately “brandishing old leather-covered Bibles, worn with use” (17) while talking about a miracle that had saved a dying girl; next, they listen to a sermon delivered by Asami-sensei (a figure based on the Christian pastor and educator, Kimura Kumaji), punctuating it with “hallelujahs” and “amens,” (20) and pressing their foreheads in prayer against the wood of the church pews. The mixture of religious and secular uses of the English language described in the first chapters hints at another source for Sutekichi’s identity struggles: his education is giving him access both to the word of God and to the words of foreign literati and intellectuals—and these two types of discourse often come into conflict. We shall return to this topic later. Finally, one is also reminded that, unique as it may be, the world of English speeches and songs, American-style buildings and Christian hymns and ideas exists within the Japanese city of Tokyo, and is not completely divorced from it; as Sutekichi notices, “the bells announcing the service started tolling at the neighborhood temple. That meant that dinner time would come soon [at his school’s cafeteria]” (13). This episode introduces yet another one of the contrasting factors shaping the malleable young protagonist and his identity struggles. Sutekichi is introduced to the reader at a time when his enthusiasm for learning new things and meeting new people—but also for trying new (western) fashions—has started to wane; when thinking back on his first two school years, he remembers feeling like “a small bird who had left its cage and was able to fly around as it pleased” (11) and gleefully adopting “the style of sons from good families” (12). At the same time, he was also involved in activities in and around the church and interacting with young men and women “like a true Christian” (13). One other detail worthy of mention here is that the narrator repeatedly draws our attention to the fact that, just like Sutekichi, many other students at the school were from the provinces and spoke and thought fondly about their furusato (hometown) and the family they had left behind there; at the same time, again, just like Sutekichi, many were kugakusei, those who often had to work hard to put themselves through school.

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While surrounded by young people with whom he should otherwise have much in common, Sutekichi is shown as starting to feel different; one of the reasons for his change of heart, which is only hinted at, is the rumor about his relationship with an older Christian woman, Shigeko. Sutekichi is disenchanted with the fact that, in spite of his having behaved like a “true Christian” and enjoyed the “free interactions between men and women” vouched for by Christian ideas of individual freedom, his intentions had been interpreted as impure. As a result, he begins to distance himself from Shigeko, but also from the Church, the place that had mediated their encounter. He still attends church services, but “stands up and sits down mechanically” (19) while the parishioners are singing and praying. His overall disenchantment is further detailed as follows: He remembered how he was baptized together with four more youths from his school—here, at this very church, with Asami-sensei officiating, Shigeko playing the organ, and the other believers singing. He plunged himself, as if in a dream, only half knowing what he was doing, into everything—the youth association, the social gatherings, Christmas; but now it was all gone.… Everything he thought would elevate his spirit and turn it into something glorious had disappeared like an illusion. (19) The vague initial desire to belong to something bigger that would help elevate himself has dissipated, and what had started as a half-dream (hanbun muchū) ended as an illusion (maboroshi). Nevertheless, it is not God that Sutekichi is renouncing, as we shall soon see; indeed, he is only moving away from the system through which he has received the faith, starting to recognize its contradictions, among which his rushed baptism is seen as particularly mistaken: If one were to ask Sutekichi “Are you a Christian?”, he wouldn’t be able to answer, as he was no longer the same person as when he had received his baptism from Asami-sensei. He was now quite far from the image of the proper believer, who feels as if he must go to church every Sunday and sing hymns. He had even stopped praying before eating. On the other hand, if one were to ask him, “Do you believe in God?”, he would answer that he is indeed looking for God, as immature as his search might be. He wanted to say that he had been baptized by accident, and that, if he were to be truly baptized, he should do it from now on. (67–68) As illustrated by Sutekichi’s self-analysis in the above quotation, what he has ceased is his commitment to the small—or big, depending on one’s perspective on the matter—ritual gestures that allow him to show his faith to the community of like-minded believers, while also inscribing it into his body through daily routine. On the other hand, he admits that he still feels the need to find God, and it is this search that might finally qualify him as a candidate for baptism and for receiving God within him. Sutekichi’s distancing himself from the various things and people that shaped his identity as a Christian is predicated on the radical change which he undergoes, a change that is, first and foremost, of the body, but which ultimately triggers mental changes too. The universal young desire to be one’s own person and forge one’s own path, combined with (sometimes 32

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subtle, sometimes violent) rebellion against one’s seniors, is well illustrated in the following depiction: Gloom—this feeling came over Sutekichi, making him see everything in a different light, around the same time that he started soiling his bedclothes. … That which had started sprouting within him was overflowing with terrible force. His hair grew thicker. His cheeks were burning. His face was covered in pimples, swollen, suppurating, bleeding. The unstoppable tides of puberty had taken over his body. (45) This excerpt describes in minute detail the bodily changes that Sutekichi is going through, containing metaphors of sexual awakening, such as “sprouting,” which recur several times throughout the novel, but also references to the “gloom” that accompanies his physical growth. The same physical process is shown as occurring in all the young people around Sutekichi, as in the following excerpt: While everyone still thought of him as a child, shoots of a new life were growing inside him, raising their head like young bamboo shoots. … He realized that, unawares, he had started walking down a path unknown to his elders. … He could see this unexpected growth—his body getting suddenly taller, limbs getting suddenly longer—not only in himself, but also at his benefactor’s house and in the neighborhood, in the people his age who were all growing up just like him. He was especially surprised to see how little girls had turned into young women, almost overnight. (24–25) The coming-of-age of young people is described, overall, as a harbinger of hope: “There was something good waiting for them in the distant future. This feeling of anticipation was the source of their present joy (25). Such optimism is frequently reiterated in the novel, and associated with the fact that many of Sutekichi’s childhood friends and acquaintances in the neighborhood had started working: “all of them, looking like proper shopboys now, were busy in the shop,” wearing aprons, sorting products and talking to customers; it is for this very reason that the atmosphere around them is hopeful, as if “a light and happy breeze were blowing from the future” (114). By contrast, for Sutekichi, growing up brings with it “gloom,” fear and guilt—caused, not only by the disenchantment with school and the Church, nor the unstoppable bodily changes he undergoes, but also by the expectations of those around him, which he will likely betray, as “he had started walking down a path unknown to his elders” (24). The inner conflict that Sutekichi experiences is complicated by his increasing awareness of the very different, down-to-earth version of “modernity” that the Tanabes, his benefactors, inhabit—one of new business opportunities and money making, in the shitamachi (downtown) area of Kodenma-chō—a distant world that contrasts with the westernized environment at his school: Changing carriages at Shinbashi, Sutekichi came all the way to Nihonbashi Kodenma-chō. Tiled rooves reflecting the sun, black kura-style houses with blue shop curtains, new and old, fluttering in the wind, could be seen everywhere. …

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[Uncle Tanabe], dressed in a thin yukata, was sitting cross-legged, smoking his amber pipe; he looked like a perfect man of the shitamachi. (26–28) After moving to the capital from the countryside at a very young age, Sutekichi had supported his board and lodging by doing menial tasks in the Tanabe household, and has been given the chance to pursue higher education by his benefactors. Uncle Tanabe’s choice of school has been very practical, as we can glean from his discussion with his mother-in-law: Grandma Tanabe shook her head and said, “This school that Sutekichi is going to, I hear it’s Christian. I don’t really like this; you know I hate their ‘amen’ this, ‘amen’ that!” To this, Uncle Tanabe replied, “If we all worried as much as you do, we wouldn’t get anywhere… There’s no other school better for learning English! All the teachers are American, it’s English from morning till evening!” (41) Uncle Tanabe does not perceive the Christian beliefs taught at the school as a threat and downplays the old woman’s worries. For him, the contact with the West represents not so much an opening to potentially subversive western knowledge and ideas, as the possibility of an expanding market and new profits. Tanabe tries to lure Sutekichi in with such prospects of future prosperity: [Uncle Tanabe] told Sutekichi about his intention to build another reception room on the land near the house; he also told him he was planning to manage the Yokohama shop with the head of Daikatsu. … “Sutekichi, wouldn’t you like to own a house like this, with a garden like this? … You think nothing of the stones and gold that shine on my fingers? Why won’t you follow in my footsteps, Sutekichi?” (36–37) Also, as he reveals later, Tanabe intends to send Sutekichi abroad to learn about the manufacture of needles, and later welcome him as a successor in the business. As such, the English language education—divorced from both the intellectual and spiritual meanings it carries for Sutekichi—is once more emphasized as simply representing a path towards new business opportunities. Indeed, in preparation for his future duties, during the summer after graduation Sutekichi works in his uncle’s Yokohama shop, where his English proficiency is put to work when he is tasked with communicating with foreign customers. Here, Sutekichi, who has otherwise been described as able to read and even translate complex books in English, such as Morley’s English Men of Letters, struggles to come up with the proper words to ask and answer simple, practical questions. His education has mainly prepared him to write and discuss about philosophical issues of art, faith, beauty and the meaning of life and, as a result, his interaction with the customers is stilted and out-of-register; “What sort of articles do you wish to have?” he asks on one occasion (140). Moreover, this type of “strange conversation” is the only situation where Sutekichi feels he can make himself even marginally useful; throughout the two long months he helps out at the shop, he continuously compares himself with the other shopboys, all of them adroitly and enthusiastically working, while he feels his own motivation “wither like a young leaf getting too much sun” (151). For Sutekichi, taking over from the Tanabes is a question of repaying his moral as well as his material debts, and his reluctance to do so, instead following his own “selfish path”—be it 34

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in the practicing of the Christian faith or other intellectual pursuits—is hinted at as the reason behind his “gloom” and contrasted with the joyfulness surrounding the young apprentices working in the shop. Sutekichi’s reluctance stems from the unease he feels regarding the issue of money and material possessions. At the same time, his difficult financial situation is repeatedly brought up in the novel: There was a time when he didn’t even have a proper umbrella to use for going to school. … Sutekichi thought that if he ate only twice a day, instead of three times, that could help out somehow. (121) Sutekichi is described as a poor youth saving up his small allowance to buy books and surrounded by other kugakusei (self-supporting students). On the other hand, the world of the Tanabes is shaped by an entirely different logic: Uncle Tanabe belonged to one of the old samurai families who had left the forested mountains when the post road system was abandoned and moved from the provinces to make a living in the capital. Around him, those still attached to the old ways were slowly withering away. Or, if not, they were scrambling to make up for their delay in catching up with the world of business. “Look at my relatives—nowadays, it’s business or nothing!” … As a matter of fact, the wretched state of those around Tanabe who had chosen to dedicate their lives to learning or religion was proving his point ten times over. (117) Theirs is the logic of business, which contrasts sharply with that of faith: Grandma Tanabe’s rhetorical question, “Is there anything else in this world more useful than money?” (75) directly voices her mistrust of the missionary couple, the Tamakis, who seem to live by prayer alone and are untouched by desire for worldly possessions. While uncomfortable with the Tanabes’ preoccupation with money, Sutekichi is more disturbed to discover this outside the world of merchants; in the excerpt below, he identifies it as shaping one of the many contradictions of Christianity: Why did God create such a strange world? … Why did He bestow such endless secret strife on His own house, the Church, setting the rich presbyter against the poor deacon? Sutekichi kept thinking. Thou shalt not commit adultery, thou shalt not taint a virgin, thou shalt not steal your brother’s wife, and many others: these are Jehovah’s commandments against immorality. Byron’s life can by no means be said to have accepted God’s teachings. … And yet, he felt immensely drawn to Byron’s poetry, and the latter’s pessimistic view of everything under the sun. Why was that? His behavior may very well have made clergymen scowl, but who can ever say that his art is not beautiful? (93–94) As seen above, Sutekichi’s strife originates in his inability to reconcile the contradictions that shape God’s “strange world”: beauty and ugliness, richness and poverty, morality and artistic value, and so forth. While he finds a solution to some of these contradictions, or at least gradually comes to consider them as less relevant (by distancing himself from the Church), Sutekichi, having decided to dedicate himself to literature, is increasingly tormented by the Chapter 2: Shimazaki Tōson and Christianity: When the Cherries Ripen in the Taishō Period

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tension he feels between moral Christian values and the beauty of poetry such as Byron’s—in other words by the relationship between an artist’s life and his or her work. He continues to mull over this problem, which becomes his focus after leaving his “unbecoming job” in the Tanabe shop and starting to work for Yoshimoto’s magazine, Jogaku zasshi, a job for which, much to his uncle’s surprise, he is paid nine yen a month. While broadening his horizons to include occupations more in tune with his ambitions, Sutekichi also encounters different models of Christianity and Christian relationships, such as the one between Yoshimoto (a character based on Iwamoto Yoshiharu, the early and prominent advocate of women’s education in Meiji Japan) and his wife Kayo (based on Wakamatsu Shizuko, the famous Meiji educator, translator, and novelist), whose intimacy and mutual respect is described as “quite likely the normal state of affairs in a Christian family” (160). Furthermore, through Jogaku zasshi he encounters Aoki (based on Kitamura Tōkoku)’s writing on love, marriage and poetry, and becomes interested in meeting him: The more he read, the deeper young Sutekichi was moved by the unusual passion of Aoki’s words. … He thought about asking Mr. Yoshimoto, the editor of the magazine, to introduce him to the author of this text. He wanted to meet him, to see him with his own eyes. Thinking about Aoki’s appearance, his age, his education, Sutekichi’s imagination took flight. (164) Here too Sutekichi is shown dwelling on the relationship between the artist’s life and work; he goes on to link Aoki’s “view of love, so full of unbridled passion” with his early marriage (170). When finally meeting Aoki in his house, he notices the even closer relationship between the spouses: Yoshimoto’s wife was called “Kayo-san,” but Aoki’s is referred to with the more intimate “Misao.” Throughout his friendship with Aoki, Sutekichi will continue to both read his work and discuss it with him and their mutual friends. He also continues to observe Aoki’s domestic situation and financial difficulties rumored to have been caused by his early “love marriage”: the union of two individuals that stems from the free interaction encouraged by the Church, but which often means going against family wishes and spells future hardship. Hardship is also something that awaits Sutekichi—as he decides to move further away from the future that had been planned for him by the Tanabes and accepts a position offered him by Yoshimoto: teaching at the women’s school, Meiji Jogakkō: Young and poor as he was, Sutekichi could finally leave his benefactor’s house and, like a small bird leaving its old nest, build a small nest all on its own. … Using his knowledge, limited as it might be, as his capital, he had to start the difficult job of teaching the young women Grandma Tanabe was so skeptical about—while other people his own age were still studying, still dependent on their parents. (184) Sutekichi sees his knowledge as the only “capital” (shihon) he can use to start a new life; at the same time, he seems to realize that it is not sufficient, and contrasts his “young and poor” independence with the advantages of other people his age who can further their education while depending on their family’s support. The quote above also shows Grandma Tanabe voicing her skepticism towards the “teaching of young women,” which can be read as her 36

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opposition to the “modern” Christian ways that give equal opportunities to men and women and allow for their free interaction, and as a premonition to the troubles Sutekichi will face in future. Before that happens, however, Sutekichi attempts one more time to reconnect with the Church and with God. But he is turned away from the former for the same reason as before: money. While listening to the sermon, Sutekichi’s mind moved between the minister’s vague words and his own imaginary world. In his opinion, his youthful faith was a childish combination of religion and poetry, very different from the adult’s deep devotion. His Christ was too much like the vision of a poetic personality, and this felt insufficient even to him. … Nothing could shatter one’s daydreaming more than the call for money that resounded, as usual, at the end of religious services, in the quiet church. (190) The jarring sound of the collection plate resounding at the end of services shatters his daydreaming about Christ’s “poetic personality” (shiteki na jinkaku), but Sutekichi will continue to hold a “youthful faith,” different from the “adult’s deep devotion” or the image of the Holy Trinity he hears about from priests and missionaries—until it is replaced with something stronger: desire. Leaving Sutekichi’s lips now is not a pure hymn like those he used to sing morning and evening to console his heart, but the song of that beautiful girl. The loud voices of the frogs he had heard in Kamakura were still ringing in his ears. That night-long mating call, like an echo in his head, made Sutekichi feel strangely uneasy and despondent… The God in Sutekichi’s young heart was not the one about whom the priests and missionaries preached: the Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. … To him, God was older, perhaps around fifty or so, like a friendly teacher or a strict father; He had a body and was half human, half divine. … Sutekichi kneeled in front of this God, who knows everything; but, in his mind’s eye, instead of aweinspiring Jehovah, he saw his student [Katsuko]’s figure. … Try as he might, he could not pray. (197–98) Sutekichi’s God, “a friendly teacher or a strict father,” “half human, half divine”—which can be interpreted as a projection of the father figure that had been taken from him when he was sent to Tokyo at a very young age—fades into the background as the image of Katsuko, one of his students, takes center stage. Sutekichi is described as feeling the pangs of love, which is not as pure as the hymns he used to sing, but is instead tinged with madness.9 This new experience comes with excruciating torment, but Sutekichi finally takes comfort in seeing it mirrored in the behavior and writings of both Christians and non-Christians who had lived before him: He tried to imagine not only his friends and seniors, but also the Buddhist priests of old who had left behind widely-praised poetry collections and essays; all must have experienced, in their youth, this kind of passion for the opposite sex... He

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seemed to detect the scent of a hidden passion in the poems of Bashō, who had otherwise made tranquility his friend; his imagination even had room for the passion of that woman who, in the New Testament, washed Christ’s feet with perfumed oil. (202) While he acknowledges “passion for the opposite sex” as a universal rite of passage, Sutekichi does not want to “treat love without due respect” (214) by engaging in a forbidden relationship with a student. As a result, he decides to resolve his torment by following in Bashō’s footsteps, going on a “pilgrimage” to Kansai, and thus putting physical and psychological distance between himself and the cause of his torment: He kept reading out loud. As he read, he felt courage filling his heart. … The second school term was almost over. Sutekichi reached a sad decision. He repeated Bashō’s phrase from The Narrow Road to the Deep North: “Many a man of old died during his travels.” (214–15) And in a subsequent passage, Sutekichi hoped that his leaving home wouldn’t be seen as ungrateful, that his family and benefactors would realize that he had decided to leave everything behind like the pitiful convert who takes to the road in black robes. (228) As the excerpts above show, Sutekichi’s pilgrimage is not necessarily described in Christian terms; if anything, words such as “leaving home” (iede) and “someone who has taken the path to enlightenment” (hosshinsha) have strong Buddhist undertones. Moreover, the first sight to draw Sutekichi’s attention along the way are the statues of the 500 arhats—enlightened followers of Buddha—at the Seiken Temple, which he superimposes on to the friends he has left behind: Next to the old Main Hall … there were the statues of the 500 arhats. They looked like living people: sitting, standing, ready to say something. As he was looking at the many statues, Sutekichi started to see familiar faces: here’s Aoki, and Okami; over there, Seinosuke, Ichikawa, and Suge too. … Among the 500 arhats, some looked like women; he seemed to recognize Isoko, Ryōko, and even Shigeko. (229–30) On the other hand, it is significant that the night before Sutekichi begins his solitary journey is spent among some of the same fellow Christians whose faces he sees in the statues of the arhats: Okami, Seinosuke and Ryōko, who all come together to pray for him: “Let’s pray for Kishimoto-kun,” said Okami, kneeling on the tatami floor. Seinosuke, Ryōko and Sutekichi kneeled with him. Okami began his passionate prayer to God: “Dear Lord, who reigns over us all! Dear Lord, who, before bestowing upon us great joy, tries us with great difficulties and sorrow, only you can know what lies before this young friend of ours whom we are sending away today.” Next Seinosuke too prayed quietly for his friend’s safe travels. (225) 38

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It should be noted here that this prayer is something Sutekichi seems to be participating in without second thoughts, and not mechanically. It starts organically, in simple settings—in one of the Japanese-style rooms at Okami’s villa in Kamakura—and everyone joins in naturally, addressing God directly, without the mediation of the Church with whom Sutekichi has become so disenchanted. As Sutekichi continues his journey, leaving “burning footprints” on the “spring snow,” it is perhaps reasonable to assume that he will also continue to look for (motomeru) spirituality and the divine. Moving away from Tokyo, the center of Christianity during that time, and towards the provinces, his image of God will likely be further infused with nature and poetry. This development is announced early in the novel by one significant episode in which Sutekichi’s intellectual and spiritual excitement after attending a Christian summer school overflows onto the nature around him, merging divinity with poetic beauty: After the organizer’s speech, the participants sang a hymn in unison, and then a missionary said the final prayer... Before leaving, Sutekichi walked around Gotenyama one more time. … All of a sudden, a great vista opened before his eyes. The colors of the sky had started to change. Sutekichi had never seen such a beautiful sunset in his entire life. … As he walked back to the dorm along the quiet street with his friend, Sutekichi’s heart was filled with a joy impossible to put into words. (60–61) As such, When the Cherries Ripen can be read at a humanist level, as a timeless comingof-age story with a poor but ambitious protagonist striving for a better education in the capital, while reminiscing about his hometown and his family. Sutekichi is described as becoming disenchanted with the Church, taking aim at the contradictions between the spiritual and the material within it, while trying to keep looking for a more “personal” God. He also sometimes subtly hints at the lack of harmony among various denominations, which seems to be temporarily resolved in the widely intellectual context of the summer school in which he participates. He gradually becomes skeptical of the various ritual practices of the faith, such as his (and others’) rushed baptism, attending services on Sundays or praying before meals. However, this process of distancing himself from the Church can paradoxically be said to mark the beginning of a deeper, more intellectual engagement with Christian teachings and doctrine, which replaces the initial mechanical performance of superficial gestures. His final decision to leave on a pilgrimage is triggered by his struggle with carnal temptation and shaped by similar experiences undergone by both his Christian and nonChristian predecessors; the departure itself is prefaced by Christian prayers for safe travels offered by his friends, but also described with words such as iede and hosshinsha, Buddhist concepts explained earlier. In When the Cherries Ripen, Tōson proposes his Meiji period experience with Christianity in particular and spirituality in general as a potential life model for the Taishō youths who are facing similar issues. He does this by emphasizing the fact that Sutekichi’s search for God coincides with his search for self, but also for beauty and poetry; he describes the process as one with deep intellectual and humanist valences, not necessarily constrained to a certain religious denomination, or social class, or gender or geographical location. As a result, while the Christian faith was not, as far as I have been able to verify, among the obvious preoccupations of the Bunshō sekai readers, Sutekichi’s experiences likely resonated Chapter 2: Shimazaki Tōson and Christianity: When the Cherries Ripen in the Taishō Period

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with many of them, perhaps even offering the “consolation” or “salvation” which they were seeking in the magazine’s pages.

Notes 1 This classification was officially abolished in the Meiji period, but continued to affect the members of the community de facto many decades afterwards. 2 Marran refers to Inoko Rentarō’s Zange-roku (Record of a confession), which Ushimatsu reads in the novel, as one such example of zange/sange that is no longer associated with Buddhism. It should also be mentioned here that the pre-modern (and Buddhist) reading of the Chinese characters was sange, while zange was used to translate the Christian idea of penitence in modern Japan. The distinction between the two fades away after Meiji, when the common reading becomes zange, and the term is used, as Marran points out, to refer to a wide array of confessional texts, with or without religious undertones. 3 Spring, New Life and When the Cherries Ripen all share the same characters, starting with the protagonist Kishimoto Sutekichi (Tōson’s fictional alter ego), Aoki (based on Kitamura Tōkoku), Adachi (based on Baba Kochō), Suge (based on Togawa Shūkotsu), etc. The names in When the Cherries Ripen were changed to match those in the previous novels when it was published in book form in 1919. 4 It is worth mentioning here that this characteristic is also present in similar reader-contribution magazines, such as Bunshō kurabu (published from 1916–1929 by Shinchōsha), but not in literary or general interest magazines. 5 The readers are using pennames; my transliterations are approximate. 6 Honma Hisao’s Japanese translation of Key’s The Morality of Woman appeared in 1913. 7 The series, published by Iwanami Shoten between 1915 and 1917, included works such as Rinrigaku no konpon mondai (The core problem of ethics) by Abe Jirō, and Shūkyō tetsugaku (Philosophy of religion) by Ishihara Ken. These works, along with similar ones published from Iwanami Shoten by the same authors, laid the spiritual foundations of Taishō humanism/ liberalism (Hisayama et al. 1956). 8 Page numbers are from the 64th Shinchō bunko edition of the novel (May 2018). All translations are my own. 9 See, for example, “the song of that beautiful girl,” a reference to Ophelia’s song in Hamlet, and the overtones of sexual desire (hinted at by the frogs’ mating calls).

References Asao, T. (2013). Kindai Nihon no kirisutokyō o meguru gensetsu kūkan no keisei to tenkan ni kansuru shiron [An approach to the formation and development of the discursive space of modern Japanese Christianity]. Rekishi chirigaku 54(3) (June), 20–35. Godart, C. G. (2017). Darwin, Dharma, and the Divine: Evolutionary Theory and Religion in Modern Japan. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Hisayama, Y. et al. (1956). Kindai Nihon to kirisutokyō: Taishō Shōwa-hen (Modern Japan and Christianity: The Taishō and Shōwa periods). Tokyo: Sōbunsha. Holca, I. (2018). Shimazaki Tōson, hirakareru tekusuto: media, tasha, jendā [Shimazaki Tōson, the (re-) opened text: Media, otherness, gender]. Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan. Hosokawa, M. (2013). Shimazaki Tōson bungei kenkyū [A study of Shimazaki Tōson’s oeuvre]. Tokyo: Sōbunsha Shuppan. Itō, K. (1976). Sakura no mi no juku suru toki ronkō [A discussion of When the Cherries Ripen]. Tōyō daigaku daigakuin kiyō 12 (March), 107–31. Karatani, K. (1993). Origins of Modern Japanese Literature (Brett de Bary, trans.). Durham: Duke University Press. Kurokawa, T. (2004). Nihon ni okeru kirisutokyō senkyō no rekishiteki kōsatsu, III [A historical discussion of Christian missionary activities in Japan, III]. Aichi kyōiku daigaku kenkyū hōkoku 53 (March), 59–68. Kōno, K. (2003). Tōki toshite no bungaku: katsuji, kenshō, media [Venturing into literature: print, prizes, and the media]. Tokyo: Shin’yōsha.

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Marran, C. (2013). Zange/Confession. Review of Japanese Culture and Society XXV: Working Words: New Approaches to Japanese Studies (December), 33–42. Morioka, K. (1970). Nihon no kindai shakai to kirisutokyō [Modern Japanese society and Christianity]. Tokyo: Hyōronsha. Sasabuchi, T. (1960). Bungakukai to sono jidai (ge) [Bungakukai and its times, part 2]. Tokyo: Meiji Shoin. Shimazaki, T. (2018). Sakura no mi no juku suru toki [When the Cherries Ripen (64th edition)]. Tokyo: Shinchōsha. Shimoyama, J. (1997). Shimazaki Tōson. Tokyo: Hōbunkan Shuppan. Takahashi, M. (1994). Shimazaki Tōson: tōi manazashi [Shimazaki Tōson: A distant perspective]. Osaka: Izumi Shoin. ———. (1997). “Jigyō” to “jitsugyō” no aida: Haru kara Sakura no mi no juku suru toki e [Between “enterprise” and “business”: From Spring to When the Cherries Ripen]. Shimazaki Tōson kenkyū 25 (September), 19–31. ———. (2002). Sakura no mi no juku suru toki no dokusho: “shōgai” no mohō kara “bunshō” no mohō e [Reading When the Cherries Ripen: From imitation of “life” to imitation of “style”]. Kokubungaku kaishaku to kanshō: Shimazaki Tōson seitan hyakusanjū-nen tokushū (October), 129–34. Takeda, K. (1979). Shinkaron no juyō hōhō to kirisutokyō [The reception of evolutionism and Christianity]. Bungaku 47(3), 199–208. Tomasi, M. (2018). The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature: Metaphors of Christianity. London: Routledge. Tsutsui, K. (1995). Nihongata “kyōyō” no unmei: rekishi shakaigakuteki kōsatsu [The fate of Japanese-style “cultivation”: A socio-historical approach]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Yabu, T. (1991). Tōkoku, Tōson, Ichiyō. Tokyo: Meiji Shoin.

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Chapter 3 Arishima Takeo and Christianity Leith Morton Arishima Takeo’s first encounter with Christianity took place in the late 1880s, the beginning of a deep attachment to Christian ideas. The connections between Arishima and Uchimura Kanzō, the most influential Japanese Christian of his day, were complex. Arishima’s break with Christianity came about because of his experience of working at a Quaker asylum in Pennsylvania, which gave rise to Arishima’s later apostasy. Several of Arishima’s most famous works contain Christian themes, especially his 1919 play, A Triptych.

Introduction Arishima Takeo (1878–1923) was a significant Japanese author, whose most famous novel Aru Onna (A Certain Woman,* 1919) has been acclaimed as one of the most important Japanese works of fiction written in the 20th century.1 However, Arishima also wrote a large number of other works of fiction, which gained high praise among his contemporaries and, in addition, he was a social reformer, producing a large number of polemical essays on matters of social concern.2 Arishima’s Christian faith was such that the famous Christian writer and educator Uchimura Kanzō (1861–1930) declared that “I and others thought that [Arishima] would succeed me as the advocate of independent Christianity in Japan” (cited in Morton 1988, 42). This chapter will outline Arishima’s relationship with Christianity, and its influence on several of his writings. Arishima’s first encounter with Christianity Arishima was born in Tokyo as the eldest son of a prominent Satsuma domain samurai family. After his father Takeshi became head of the Yokohama Customs Office, Arishima spent the ages from four to fourteen with his family in Yokohama. The “chronology” of his life, written when he was forty and published in March 1918, records his education in English, which was to prepare him for his three years at the Yokohama Eiwa Gakkō (a Christian mission school) from 1884 to 1887.3 The “chronology” states that Arishima had his first contact with Christianity here: this record shows that he attended Sunday school here, so Bible readings and the catechism were presumably part of the curriculum. This experience is crucial

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to an understanding of Arishima’s life and work. Long before he declared his Christian faith at the Sapporo Agricultural College (Sapporo nōgakkō), he was schooled in the basic tenets of Christianity. His early contact with the faith may go some way towards explaining his deep attachment to the religion—for Arishima held on to Christian values in one form or another long after most of his literary compatriots had abandoned them. On 7 October 1887, Arishima finally enrolled in the preparatory course of the elite Gakūshuin (Peers School), where he remained for the next nine years (Morton 1988, 11–23). Arishima graduated from Gakushūin in July 1896 and, soon after, set off to Hokkaidō to enroll in the Sapporo Agricultural College. When Arishima enrolled in September 1896, the staff included such famous scholars as Nitobe Inazō (l862–1933). Arishima lodged with the Nitobe family and, to some extent, Nitobe assumed the role of spiritual father to Arishima. It was through Nitobe that Arishima was introduced to Quakerism, the form of Christianity which he found most attractive. Nitobe achieved prominence as a student at the Sapporo Agricultural College when he became one of the first converts to Christianity. The band of Christians which he joined was known as the “Covenant of Believers in Jesus.” It later formed the nucleus of the Sapporo Independent Church (Sapporo dokuritsu kyōkai). In 1896 Arishima recorded his “immersion” in the religious life of the Nitobe family. Every Sunday, Nitobe held a Bible class at his home for a group of students who are said to have filled two rooms. But Arishima was as much interested in Zen Buddhism at this time as in the fervent Christianity of Nitobe and his wife (Morton 1988, 25–46). Morimoto Kōkichi and the discovery of sin Born in Maizuru, Morimoto Kōkichi (1877–1950) was the third son of Masuyama Jun’ichirō but was later adopted by Morimoto Katsuzō (Morton 1988, 28–29). However, throughout his youth and when he first appears in Arishima’s diary, he was known as Masuyama. A year older than Arishima, he entered Sapporo Agricultural College one year earlier. His name first appears in Arishima’s diary on 21 May 1897, and their meeting is graphically described in Arishima’s “Preface” to the Libingusuton-den (Life of Livingstone, 1919): It was then that Morimoto suddenly entered my life… He confessed to me that he had been observing me for some time; something unexpected that I had done made him choose me as a friend. He asked me then to join him in a religious quest. I was fired by his enthusiasm. I resolved to do so and, from that day on, my religious life underwent a complete change. Morimoto had studied at a Christian school in Tokyo, so he already believed in God; but, although baptized, he still suffered terrible agonies of uncertainty. After hearing his confession, I understood why, even when so thin and melancholy, he had become rebellious. In his eyes, I was completely carefree. Although I am just a dull plodder, my nonchalance irritated him. I continued my temple attendance through force of habit, though no longer really believing in it. How Morimoto strove to fire the tinder of my heart! How he heaped agony on agony, until it was unbearable! (ATZ 7: 366) At the Sapporo Agricultural College Arishima established many enduring friendships but none so intense and important as the one with Morimoto. His diary becomes largely a

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record of what he and Morimoto did and said together. Their discussions range over a large number of subjects, but increasingly religion comes to occupy center stage. For example, in the entry for 15 June 1897, he wrote: Today Masuyama and I discussed various things. It seems that his beliefs have a fairly solid foundation. Everything he says touches on something important. He is a perfect Christian. He explained to me how, recently, he had come to acknowledge God. I could see that he was pouring out his innermost feelings to me in all truth and sincerity. He often presses me to study Christianity. … If I walk in the path of righteousness, an unbidden friend will be by my side. Lately, I feel this very strongly. (ATZ 7: 44) Despite Morimoto’s pressure, Arishima continued with his Zen meditation for a time. However, Morimoto proved irresistible and, on 23 September 1897, Arishima promised to join him in his search for truth, that is, Christian truth. Morimoto pitched his appeal in these terms: “Despite constant struggles to comprehend the God of the Universe, I cannot even approach Him. I cannot contain this feeling of powerlessness. Not a single friend sympathizes” (ATZ 7: 66). Arishima’s agreement to share Morimoto’s quest was, then, a direct response to an appeal for a “congenial friend” willing to “advance towards truth, in defiance of all obstacles … Many of my hopes reside in you,” exclaimed Morimoto (ATZ 7: 66). Arishima’s commitment to Christianity at this early stage was perhaps more an act of devotion to Morimoto than to the religion itself. The guilt that Morimoto experienced over sin also did much to engage Arishima’s sympathy. It struck a chord in Arishima himself, though anguish over his youthful sexuality and his conflict with Confucian ethics was nothing like as harrowing as Morimoto’s mental torture. Morimoto’s agonies resulted in his receiving the lowest mark awarded on graduation from the introductory course (Morton 1988, 29). Arishima found it very difficult to understand Morimoto’s faith and to change his own religion. His uncertainty, doubts and fears are expressed in a number of diary entries dating from late 1897. On 10 December that year Arishima wrote, “To whom, oh whom, can I talk about such things but Morimoto? Of course, we are set on different paths, but both of us have the same desire to reach our necessary destinations” (ATZ 10: 84). As ever, the problem of sin was the greatest obstacle. Morimoto too, agonized more and more about this. As he told Arishima on 8 March: “I have always believed in the existence of God and wanted to obey his laws with all my soul, but I have made little progress towards this. In God’s eyes I am utterly sinful” (ATZ 10: 92–93). The Christian sympathies that Arishima shared with Morimoto became intertwined with their personal relationship. Their deep affection for one another appeared to them as sinful; so much so that they both contemplated suicide. But after going to a hot springs resort in Jōzankei, southwest of Sapporo in December 1898 and January 1899, they decided to choose life over death. As Arishima’s diary entry for 21 February 1899 records: What can we say now? We will not die. We must live resolutely … after having resolved to die, my view of life underwent a great change. I feel that I understand something of the differences and powers that separate God, man and Satan. … 44

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[…] We must first abandon this world, seek God with all our heart and strive to obtain the knowledge necessary to purge our consciences. … We must fight Satan; we must fight death.4 (ATZ 10: 127)

Arishima and Uchimura Kanzō Uchimura Kanzō was one of the first and most celebrated graduates of the Sapporo Agricultural College and was the most influential Japanese Christian of his time. Arishima first met him in July 1897 when he returned to Tokyo after completing his first year at the college. After their first meeting, Arishima began to read Uchimura’s articles in the Yorozu chohō, a newspaper begun in 1892. In his diary entry for 15 July 1898 he gives a frank assessment of Uchimura: Most of the deeds that he accomplished while studying in the United States are truly moving and admirable. He worked at a home for retarded children and after helping with everything from cleaning to their daily life had no resentment even when they struck and spat at him. Were it not for his high ideals how could he have arrived at such a state? He suffered many other hardships. When he quit the church he was reviled as a Satan, and as an immoral, traitorous spy when he refused to bow to the portrait of the Emperor. He experienced life’s uncertainty, losing his beloved. In his travels overseas he was despised as a foreigner and in the children’s home he undertook work that not even a slave would do. (ATZ 10: 101–2) The scholar Sako Jun’ichirō believes that it was Uchimura who was chiefly responsible for Arishima’s conversion, arguing that two works in particular had a decisive influence on his faith: Kyūanroku (Search After Peace, 1893) and Kirisuto shinto no nagusame (Consolations of a Christian, 1893) (Morton 1988, 40). Again, it was due directly to Uchimura’s prompting that Arishima was formally accepted into the Sapporo Independent Church on 24 March 1901. From an examination of Search After Peace, the work to which Arishima constantly refers at Jōzankei, we can see how far the attitudes to sin of both himself and Morimoto are inspired by Uchimura. As Kamei Katsuichirō has observed, “His [Uchimura’s] preoccupation, in Shinkyō zadan (Religious Discussions, 1900) and, to an even greater degree, in his other writings, was with the problems of sin and forgiveness. It was around these two central issues that his thought took shape” (Morton 1988, 40). By 1903 Arishima was determined to leave Japan to travel abroad; Morimoto had been contemplating such a journey since 1901. Morimoto’s example must have added strength to Arishima’s desire to leave Japan for new and unexplored landscapes. He first discussed the matter directly with Uchimura on 5 January 1903, but the latter flatly rejected Arishima’s arguments and tried to dissuade him from going. Two days later, with Morimoto, Arishima went to see Nitobe Inazō, who recommended that Arishima attend Haverford College, a

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Quaker University founded in 1833 by the Society of Friends near Philadelphia, and that Morimoto go to Cornell University. Arishima left Japan by steamship on 25 August 1903. He parted company with Morimoto in Baltimore. Morimoto had finally settled upon Johns Hopkins University as his choice of college. Arishima arrived in Philadelphia on 24 September, where he traveled to Haverford College. However, the only formal practice of religious worship at the College was the meditation held every Thursday in the college chapel (Morton 1988, 52–53).

The Friends’ Asylum for the Insane Arishima spent the summer of 1904 living and working at the Friends’ Asylum for the Insane in Frankford, a small town in Pennsylvania. He stayed there from 19 July to 16 September. He had visited the asylum earlier in the year with Morimoto. After a discussion with one of the committee members at Haverford College, Arishima decided to spend two months at the asylum working as an attendant. Perhaps he needed time to think, time to ponder on the unexpected problems he had encountered in the United States. He was obviously influenced by the example of Uchimura, who had acted similarly while in America. Uchimura had endured his ordeal partly in imitation of Christ, and Arishima might have wanted to do so too. However, Arishima’s biographer, Senuma Shigeki, believes that Arishima’s first misgivings about Christianity may well have begun from his conversations with Morimoto earlier that winter (Morton 1988, 59). But his interest in American society and in helping those weaker than himself was the more immediate stimulus. Arishima was employed as a male nurse or attendant on a wage of eighteen dollars a month, including food and lodging. Arishima took his duties at the asylum seriously and worked very hard. His concern for the patients grew out of his faith; consequently, he did not shirk from shouldering their burdens when necessary. His solicitude was reciprocated in their respect for him, a respect frequently referred to with pride in his letters and diary. The patients for whom he cared were not violent, but among them were alcoholics and those who had attempted suicide. One of these patients was Dr J. B. Scott, a physician who had been admitted as a result of a nervous breakdown brought on by the suicide of his brother. Scott was obsessed with his brother’s death, feeling that it was in some way his own fault. Arishima became extremely friendly with Scott and they spent many hours in conversation together. Scott considered that his brother’s suicide (over financial failure) was divine punishment for his neglect. Finally, after Arishima left the asylum, Scott hanged himself, overcome by grief. The impact that this suicide had on Arishima can be gauged from his diary entry for 26 September 1904, the day after Scott’s death: In the morning I opened the Evening Bulletin which I had bought the night before and began to read when I came to the column where the heading “Physician hanged himself ” caught my eye immediately. What struck me straight away, not leaving me time even to be surprised, was: “Dr. J.B. Scott, Friends’ Asylum”… […] Just at the time I left the asylum he had said to me, gripping my hand tightly, his voice choking with tears: “You have been truly kind to me. I well know how

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much it cost you to comfort me. That I could not overcome my anguish despite your many kindnesses towards me is due to my lack of strength. God long ago condemned me to eternal damnation because of my sins. However much I try, I cannot become the man I once was. For those who have become Christians there is nothing in this world so dreadful as sin. Because I know you are a Christian, I say this especially to you. Never sin!” (ATZ 10: 507–8) There are other references to Scott’s unburdening of his feelings of guilt to Arishima. For example, he reports Scott as saying on 16 August, “To sin even once is irredeemable,” and comments, “Oh how sad you are!” (ATZ 10: 482–83) He and Morimoto had contemplated suicide, but here was a man who had actually taken that final, irrevocable step. The injustice, the needlessness of Scott’s death preyed on Arishima’s mind. In the interpretation of scholars like Senuma and Miyano Mitsuo, a Christianity which could produce that kind of unnecessary guilt was inhuman, so his thinking went (Morton 1988, 60). And, as Kenneth Strong remarks, Arishima turned against those “bloodless” theologians who seemed to him responsible for Scott’s guilt and thus his death (Arishima 1978, 9). The beginning of Arishima’s reaction against Christianity can be dated from that day: from then on, he began to perceive inconsistencies and contradictions in the practice of this religion by those who professed to know it best. Once again, his own belief in Christianity is called into question. There is no doubt that his faith was emotional and volatile, the faith of a man driven by an overwhelming sense of guilt. Most scholars agree that the view he expresses in the Preface of his experience at the asylum is more an expression of conclusions he reached later than 1904. Nevertheless, they present a summation from a later vantage point of the eventual effect these experiences had on him. Arishima himself lists these conclusions in the following way: 1. I became aware that I have never had any direct contact with the personal God who is the center of the universe. 2. I became aware that the Christian concept of sin and its corollary, redemption, are incompatible with my thinking. 3. I have begun to doubt the Christian view of the future life. (ATZ 7: 371)

Arishima’s theodician doubt and apostasy To conclude that Arishima rejected Christianity completely is dubious. Scholars like Sasabuchi Tomoichi, Kawa Shizuo and Miyano Mitsuo claim that Arishima always had reservations about certain cardinal tenets of the Christian faith, rendering his conversion doubtful (Morton 1988, 42, 92). His chief reservation, they argue, concerns the doctrine of atonement. If Arishima had never really accepted this, then his obsession with guilt, sexual guilt in particular, is explained. Arishima’s problem stemmed from the paradox of free will and obedience. If man has free will then is he not responsible for sin? Most commentators interpret Arishima’s confusion over these questions and his obsession with guilt as arising from a misunderstanding of Christian doctrine. His failure to comprehend the doctrine of saving grace is implicit throughout his diary. In 1908 he admitted the apparent absurdity of the resurrection (ATZ 11: 197; cf. also ATZ 15: 474). This, the central paradox of the Christian faith, eventually proved too much for Arishima to accept. A vital passage occurs in the diary entry for 21 April 1903:

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Sins that are questionable, objectively speaking, are for me subjective realities that I cannot deny. Eternal damnation also, which objectively speaking is totally unacceptable, governs my thought and is in subjective terms, a totally certain judgment. … I cannot possibly believe that even one other human being who has the same body and soul as myself should be condemned to eternal damnation and separated from God for all time, for eternity. However, when I look at myself I am, without doubt, eternally damned; if I continue to live knowingly in the midst of sin I fully realize I will be punished. How can I reconcile these seeming contradictions? This problem pains and threatens me most. (ATZ 10: 338) The use of the words “objective” and “subjective” here is confusing. In addition to its usual meaning, “objective” seems to imply the Quaker conception that the “inner light” dwelling within all renders their sin invisible so that they may be saved. On the other hand, “subjective” stresses notions of sin and guilt. The conflict represented here eventually drove Arishima to apostasy: he did not, could not, it seems, accept the doctrine of atonement. The issue also relates to the problem of evil, or, in theological parlance, the theodicean problem: how can an all-powerful God permit evil to exist? This is the approach to Arishima’s Christianity taken by many Japanese scholars, especially Kawa Shizuo (Kawa 1998, 21–43). This summary above encapsulates the nub of objections by certain scholars to classifying him as a Christian at all and is a persuasive explanation of Arishima’s apostasy. Guilt of the magnitude that he suffered cannot be rationally reconciled with the orthodox concept of a loving God. Some scholars argue that his God was a pantheistic, mystical construct deriving more from Wordsworth and Carlyle than the Bible. Certainly, his dissatisfaction with the established church is clear. Basing their conclusions on diary evidence, most commentators date Arishima’s disillusionment from 1903, but all argue that America was the turning point. Arishima himself makes this clear in the novel Meiro (Labyrinth,* 1917).5 By this stage, Arishima’s sexual frustrations and his guilt had grown to the stage where they could not be contained. The church itself, it seemed to him in America, was hypocritical, tainted by the imperfect society which surrounded it. Back in Japan, he developed a similar distaste for his “spiritual birthplace,” the Sapporo Independent Church. He wrote in English in his diary on 28 January 1908: Independent Church! You stand most conspicuously among hundreds of churches established in Japan with your zealously guarded principle “independence of thought and money, fusion of all of sects into one whole mass.” I cannot but admire your perseverance to have undergone every sort of privation and test. But your life seems to me come to end. To my impression we don’t any more need the “church” in the sense used until to–day. The future church must be broader, namely, to include all religions in it. (ATZ 11: 171–72E) Three months later, after listening to an address by Galen Fisher, the secretary of the Japanese YMCA, Arishima commented: “Christianity is corrupted unto the bottom” (ATZ 11: 220E). This time it was the conservatism of the church that disgusted him. As he had discovered in the United States, socialism provided a far more effective social conscience. By 1910 his alienation from the church and from orthodox Christianity was complete. Returning to the

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“Preface,” we see how Uchimura, who saw Arishima as one of his potential successors, responded to Arishima’s apostasy: When Uchimura came to Sapporo my close friends invited me to appear before him; they made my position clear and they used their good offices so that I could hear his opinion. … He replied, “Well, you’d best do what you must.” Even now I cannot forget the sad expression on his face when he said that. In this way I parted from Christianity. I then became spiritually isolated. At the age of thirty-four I became a baby again. Turning my eyes inward I came to see myself for the first time. For the first time I saw myself with my own eyes. Like a wild beast released from its cage I did not know what to do… I could not believe in God, nor in man, nor in myself. Why was I living? For the world, for myself? Where was the cornerstone of life, where should I put it? I simply did not know. (ATZ 7: 379–80) This was written in 1919, nine years after his decision to break with the church and Christianity. In reality, the cut was not so clean. Traces of Christian influence lingered long after his final break with Uchimura and the church. He acknowledges as much in a letter to Takesaki Yasoo, an old friend and pastor from the Sapporo Independent Church, dated 11 March 1920: “I left the Christian church; but I don’t think I have left Christ… From the standpoint of your belief in Christ I may be someone completely cut off from Him, but I think that is going a bit too far, don’t you?” (ATZ 14: 169).

Arishima’s death and legacy Arishima committed suicide with Hatano Akiko, his young lover and a married female journalist, on 9 July 1923. Two days later in the Tokyo Asahi newspaper a columnist mused on how he would report the deaths abroad if he were an overseas correspondent stationed in Japan. He came up with the following cable: Arishima Takeo, one of Japan’s leading writers with a bent toward socialism, died at Karuizawa in a love suicide with a demonic married woman. Japanese society is greatly shocked, and a number of voices have been raised in criticism. However, among young men and women, voices of praise ring louder than criticism. Even in newspapers which mirror public opinion, at this point in time little overt or harsh criticism has appeared. (Morton 1988, 1–2) Arishima left a legacy of fiction that is still controversial to this very day. In his fiction, the self is defined firstly by narrative technique, and then more closely defined by his thematic explorations of the sexual impulse which reach into the deepest recesses of the psyche. Christian ideas influenced many of his writings, but here I will focus on only a few select works.

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Christianity and Arishima, 1917: Kain no matsuei and Kurara no shukke The year when Arishima announced his presence on the Japanese literary scene at large was 1917. This was the year when he abandoned his career as an academic (he had accepted a post as an English teacher at Tōhoku Imperial University in 1907) and made the decision to become a full-time writer (Morton 1988, 111–12). Also, from 1910 to 1918, Arishima was an active member of the Shirakaba-ha, or White Birch society; however, in 1918, he had a falling out with the author Mushanokōji Saneatsu (1885-1976), the founder of the coterie and, as a result, his interest in the group began to wane (Morton 1988: 96–99, 135–38). In 1917 a number of significant works of fiction by Arishima were published, including Kain no matsuei (The Descendant of Cain*) and Kurara no shukke (Clara’s Consecration). In the three years that followed, virtually all of his most important literary works appeared. Christianity left echoes in many of these works, but not all. For example, such works as Kankan mushi (RustChippers, 1906), Sengen (The Declaration, 1917) and A Certain Woman can be read as texts where only faint echoes remind readers of Arishima’s Christian history. Kain no matsuei As the famous critic Eguchi Kiyoshi declared, 1917 was the year when Arishima made his name in the literary world (Morton 1988, 112). The Descendant of Cain drew immediate acclaim from the critics of the time and so is often considered as marking his true literary debut. The story was first published in July 1917 in the magazine Shinshōsetsu. It was later republished with several additions in volume three of his Collected Works in February 1918. The principal character is Hirooka Nin’emon, an itinerant laborer who, with his wife, horse and baby, arrives at K village in the midst of a fierce Hokkaido winter. The Hirooka family is to work as tenant farmers on the Matsukawa estate. Nin’emon buys a horse, a plough and harrow and begins to cultivate wheat. A big powerful man, he acquires a reputation for surliness and belligerence in his refusal to co-operate with Matsukawa’s agent. The mean and solitary nature of his character is revealed in an affair he has with the wife of a neighbor, Satō Yojū, where he ends the relationship by beating up her husband and children. When his child dies of dysentery and he loses all his money through gambling, Nin’emon becomes even more unpopular and alienated from the community as a whole. His decline continues when his horse is crippled in a racing accident and he is accused of the rape of the young woman (tutor to the landlord’s children and daughter of a neighbor) who was partially responsible for the accident. When animosity in the community against Nin’emon reaches a peak, he tries to enlist the aid of the other tenant farmers by challenging Matsukawa, the landlord, over the issue of exorbitant rents. Nin’emon fails even in this: he destroys his lame horse, and then abandons his hut after setting fire to it, striding into the icy winter with only his wife at his side (ATZ 3: 87–128). This work has its share of social criticism. Arishima’s powerful description of the harsh and arbitrary working conditions of the tenant farmers was a stern indictment of the economic system that spawned such exploitation:

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Completely crushed, Nin’emon returned to his own small hut. He could feel the landlord’s big massive hand reaching out even to the skies over the estate. The snow-laden clouds pressed down on his head so as almost to suffocate him. “Fool!” That voice seemed to reverberate in his ears. How different their lives were! If the boss is a human being, then I am not. If I am a human being, then the boss is not. That was what he felt. Stunned, he was lost in silent brooding. (ATZ 3: 125) Nin’emon’s protest expresses his sense of alienation from humanity. Hence his loneliness is more fundamental than that imposed by class conflict. His grievance is deeply personal, for his independence isolates him from his natural allies, the other tenant farmers. Nin’emon is truly a “descendant of Cain.” He seems to exemplify the spirit of arrant selfishness expressed in Cain’s remark, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” But in Nin’emon’s case it is not an evasion of guilt but a gesture of defiance, an expression of his individuality. He is, by way of Arishima’s ironic biblical metaphor, turned into an archetypal anti-hero. Hence, he appears more human and realistic than, presumably, an “Abel” type would. Nin’emon’s appeal lies in his fierce determination and lust for life. Many of the scenes in the early part of the story are devoted to a celebration of Nin’emon’s strength and passion, qualities in which he seems to take an intense pride. The irrational, instinctual element in Nin’emon reveals itself explicitly in his sadistic brutality towards Satō’s children. The same sadism is exposed in his display of frenzied passion for Satō’s wife. In the following extract, Arishima’s interest in the sexual impulse and its relation to sadomasochism is also clearly in evidence: Out of the hushed silence of the night he heard the provocative giggle of a wanton woman. Noticing that there had been some trouble, she had hidden herself there. Nin’emon realized that it was the familiar smell of the woman that had alerted his nostrils. “A four-legged beast!” He cried and leapt into the clearing. For two or three steps his straw sandals, never removed except to sleep, grated on the spiky shrubbery, but the fourth step fell on a soft, plump body. His immediate impulse was to take the weight off his foot, yet in the same instant, driven by an insane urge, he released the full weight of his body upon her. “That hurt!” Just what he wanted to hear. At one stroke oil began to feed the flame of his flesh and he grew giddy in time with the pulse of his rising blood. Suddenly he pounced on her, thumping her, kicking her, regardless of where the blows landed. Screaming with pain she wrapped herself around him, then sunk her teeth into him. Finally, he took a firm grip on her and carried her out onto the track. She buried her sharp, rigid nails into his face in an attempt to escape. … Giving full vent to their passions, they pummeled and clawed at each other. Pulling her by the hair, he dragged her along the track. When they came to the meeting hall

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both were covered in scratches. The woman was in ecstasy. Her flesh had turned to fire. She collapsed onto the floor, trembling uncontrollably. He stood in the darkness, swaying in the grip of a burning excitement. (ATZ 3: 104–5) At the time, the unvarnished naturalism of his description of both Hokkaido and the tenant farmers, and the raw dialect of the characters heralded a fresh, realistic approach to fiction. More than this, Arishima’s vivid description of the perverse sexuality and the almost bestial passions of Nin’emon and the other characters seemed to have left an indelible impression on contemporary critics (Morton 1988, 120). Nin’emon in his fierce defiance seems to become one with nature. Nin’emon’s kinship with nature and his ultimate insignificance in the face of it are caught perfectly in Arishima’s closing image: A forest of fir trees lay ahead of them. Amidst all the trees which had been stripped bare, these alone had not lost their melancholy olive leaves. Their straight trunks thrust up into the heavens as far as the eye could see, taking with them the sound of the winds raging like the angry sea. The man and the woman approached the forest together, as tiny as ants, and finally were swallowed up within. (ATZ 3: 127–28)

Kurara no shukke In September 1917, a mere two months after the appearance of The Descendant of Cain, once again Arishima grappled with the theme of female sexual psychology that he had first explored in his 1914 story “Osue no shi” (The Death of Osue).6 Clara’s Consecration was first published in the magazine Taiyō and later republished in the same volume as The Descendant of Cain in his Collected Works. Arishima begins by saying that the story is founded on fact. It is the morning of Palm Sunday, 18 March 1212. Clara Sciffi, the eighteen-year-old heroine, is dreaming. In her dream she blends episodes from her past with fantasy. She relives the experience of receiving a gold bracelet from a handsome aristocrat, Paulo Monterossori. They embrace, and in her excitement, Clara faints; but when she recovers, the aristocrat has disappeared. Clara’s secret fears are realized. She is falling down into hell for breaking a promise to offer herself to Christ. As she falls, she calls on the Holy Mother and, in a twinkling of an eye, she is transported to her window overlooking the moonlit town square and the Cathedral of San Rufino. She is ten. A band of young jongleurs appears, led by a young aristocrat, Francis Bernardone. He steps out from his companions and, in a fit of annoyance, rips his cloak and fine clothing into pieces. He throws himself down in front of the locked entrance to the cathedral, rolling over and over like a dog, weeping tears of bitter regret. As she watches on, Clara grows up and becomes a young woman again. A man emerges from the darkness inside the open doors of the cathedral and seizes Francis by the collar; but when his clothes are lifted up Francis has vanished. The clothing in the man’s hand turns into Clara’s father and mother and, between them, her fiancé, Ottaviano Fortebraccio, appears. All three are sinking into a black marsh

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below the bank of grass on which Clara is standing. Clara is hurled into a burning light. Transfixed by the Archangel Gabriel’s sword, she awakes in bed beside her sister, Agnes. On the day Clara has promised to profess her vows, she goes to the cathedral in the morning and falls into a reverie, a second dream, in which she recalls Francis’ later life. He left Assisi and in the summer of her sixteenth year received permission from Pope Innocent III to lead a life of poverty preaching the word of God. The previous autumn, Clara had gone to hear him preach naked in the same church she is in that morning. After confessing to Francis her secret love for him, she had decided to take vows. Her reverie is broken by Agnes’ voice and she awakens once again to the sight of her parents and her betrothed Ottaviano. On that night she has received word from Francis to steal away to the convent. One and a half years after confessing to Francis, their secret plan is put into operation. She flees Assisi in the darkness to the Portiuncula Chapel. In the Taiyō version, Arishima added a brief postscript to the effect that Clara and Agnes both triumphed over their obstacles and became nuns (ATZ 3: 131–48). “Francis Bernardone” is the name of the famous St. Francis of Assisi, and the historical connection between Francis and Clara forms the basis of the story. Arishima’s interest in 13th-century Italy and St. Francis goes back to his visit to Assisi in September and October 1906. He wrote that he was first encouraged by Uchimura Kanzō when a student at the Sapporo Agricultural College to read Paul Sabatier’s Vie de St. Francois d’Assise (Paris, 1894) (Morton 1988, 123). No doubt his interest in St. Clare (Clara) was originally stimulated by Sabatier’s chapter on her, but his story is by no means a carbon copy of Sabatier, nor is it merely a retelling of the St. Clare legend. The most important parts of the story—Clara’s dreams—originate entirely in Arishima’s imagination. The story dwells on Clara’s religious sensitivity, her sexuality, and her Christian mysticism. From the first we are plunged into the fantasy realm of dream. Clara is pursued by images of opulent carnality. Her encounter with Paulo thrills, then threatens her: As his graceful, elegant body approached her Clara was struck by a sweet pain in her breast. … The skin of her breast tingled, her flesh grew tauter and her blood began to pump stronger, faster. … Her palms greasy with perspiration grew as cold as ice, losing all power to repulse or embrace him, they hung limply. … Her flustered, quivering heart, raging like the tide, went out towards him. At last she felt his supple hand on her neck. When both his hot fingertips and the cold metal of the necklace he held touched her skin, her self-control vanished completely. … At that moment of embrace the old Clara should have disappeared. (ATZ 3: 131–32) But she did not disappear; instead, Paulo did. Clara is assailed by a sudden pang of guilt; she thinks she is falling into hell, punished for forgetting the promise she had made when sixteen to become the servant of Christ. The sexual sublimation that underlies much of the characterization of Clara is perceived most transparently in two dream sequences that dominate the narrative. In the climax to the first one, Clara, confronted by the horrible vision of her parents and fiancé sinking into a black marsh, undergoes a transfiguration:

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Oblivious of all else, Clara went to step out into the marsh to save them. At that moment she was hurled into a glittering beam of the purest yellow light. The grass, the sea of mud, was no more. Blinded by the light Clara struggled to pick herself up. Something was gripping her breast, not letting her rise. She knew it was the Archangel Gabriel. She seemed to hear his voice crying out, “You are to be purified to become the bride of Heaven” when Gabriel thrust his flaming sword deep down between her breasts. The burning sword-tip penetrated to her bowels. In the midst of her agony Clara raised her eyes and looked about. In a dazzling light, the severe figure of Christ hanging on the cross appeared, shimmering, before her. Clara was in ecstasy. … At that moment Clara awoke. (ATZ 3: 136) In the second dream, the exact nature of Clara’s devotion, the origin of her decision to profess vows, is revealed. Clara recalls the occasion when Francis preached naked to the citizens of Assisi. Clara “had, before she was aware of it, forgotten that she was looking at a man’s naked body, and continued to gaze at Francis” (ATZ 3: 140). Francis’ nakedness is compared by the narrator (echoing Clara’s thoughts) to “the haggard, pitiful body of Christ naked on the Cross” (ATZ 3: 140). Clara felt as if her eyes were afire. That day she decided to confess to Francis. In her dream she recalls her repentance in the soft light of the apse at the rear of the church: “Daughter of God!” She could not shift her gaze. “Your repentance has reached God. He approves of it. Amen…” Instinctively moving forward when she touched Francis’ toe he quietly withdrew his foot and, as if in pity and benediction, placed his hand lightly on her head and began to whisper in stops and starts. … Suddenly Francis whispered, trying to calm his trembling voice. “You love me.” Clara cast a startled glance at the saint. Moved by violent emotion… […] For the first time Clara then knew the secret she had hidden even from herself. “My God, my all!” […] “I command you in the name of God. Virgin, you are to be the eternally pure, beloved child of God. Girdle your waist and rise!” (ATZ 3: 140–42) The development of the story outside the dream sequences is quite prosaic. In them, Clara is more alive, more impassioned than in the remaining narrative. All the dramatic tension and

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energy emanates from the relationship between the two narrative structures: between Clara’s dream-self and her conventional self. A third dream sequence serves to resolve Clara’s doubts about the religious life. However, this sequence, in reality a daydream, only foreshadows an obvious conclusion. The contrast between the third and last dream sequence and the two dominating dream sequences preceding it shows that Arishima’s chief concern was with the dream Clara, rather than any version of the historical figure: Clara’s psyche, not her fate, fascinated him most.

Christianity and Arishima, 1919: Sanbukyoku Arishima wrote three plays on Christian themes that were collectively titled Sanbukyoku (A Triptych) and were published in December 1919 in volume 10 of Arishima’s self-edited Collected Works. The three plays were Daikōzui no mae (Before the Deluge), Samuson to Derira (Samson and Delilah), and Seisan (The Last Supper). Samson and Delilah was first published in September 1915 and Before the Deluge in January 1916; both were significantly revised for the trilogy. The Last Supper was composed in 1919, especially for the Triptych, and first appeared in print there (ATZ 5: 587–89). In an interview in the Yomiuri newspaper dated February 1921, Arishima wrote of the Triptych that: The Last Supper is the last of my triptych based on biblical sources; it was my intention [in this drama] to make a conceptual connection between the three plays. The spiritual torment of being unable to create harmony between humanity and Jehovah in Before the Deluge is partially resolved in Samson and Delilah, but in an unsatisfactory manner. In the third play, The Last Supper, the torment is brought to a mutually acceptable outcome; at least that was my plan. In addition, the relationship between men and women in the first play, which results in a catastrophic breakdown in the second play, achieves a righteous accord in the third drama. (ATZ 5: 589)

Daikōzui no mae (Before the Deluge) Before the Deluge is primarily based on Genesis chapters 4–10 but goes beyond the biblical account of Noah’s flood. The characters in the play are introduced at the beginning and include Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth; Noah’s father Lamech; his wife Adah; and Noah’s grandsons, Jabal and Jubal. Zillah, who is Lamech’s second wife, also appears. Naamah is mentioned as the daughter of a fallen angel, Samyaza (based on phonetic reconstruction) who had sexual intercourse with Zillah.7 However, the relationship between Zillah and the angel is not a part of the biblical account, which simply lists Naamah as Zillah’s daughter. The play has Japheth in love with Naamah, but this is also absent from the biblical narrative. Naamah believes she is not worthy of Japheth’s love, so she accepts Samyaza’s love for her in order to secure eternal life for herself. In the end, she is killed by her half-brother, Jubal, by mistake. Japheth was prepared to die with Naamah, but now that she is gone, he finally returns to the ark. It is possible that Arishima’s narrative was influenced by the Book Chapter 3: Arishima Takeo and Christianity

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of Enoch, an ancient Hebrew apocalyptic religious text, which also emphasizes the theme of Noah cleansing the earth of the evil wrought by the fallen angels. In the biblical narrative, all perished in the flood save for Noah and his three sons, their wives and their children. Thus, we can conclude that God has determined that all of Noah’s relatives, save for his sons and their wives and children, are evil. In God’s own words in Genesis 6: 7: “This race of men whom I have created, I will wipe them off the face of the earth … I am sorry that I ever made them” (NEB 1970). This theme frames Arishima’s rewriting of the Noah story. Some commentators believe that Japheth’s love for Naamah, which ends in tragedy, constitutes the heart of the play and reveals Arishima’s critique of God (who places the Law above love) as portrayed in the Old Testament. In support of this reading, they offer the argument that the romance is entirely invented by Arishima, being absent from any biblical source and, incidentally, also absent from the Book of Enoch (ATZ 5: 590). One of the most important scenes comes in Act 4 when Japheth has to decide whether to remain on earth and perish in the flood with Naamah or to join his father and his brothers in the ark: Noah’s Wife: Japheth! My youngest son! Won’t you come back to your mother’s breast? If God permits it, I want to cut out my heart from my chest which cannot stop weeping. All the happiness I have experienced until now is but dust before the calamity I am facing. Noah: Wife of mine! A lost lamb shall be cast out. … […] Noah: (seeing where Japheth is) Japheth! The wives of Noah, Shem and Ham: Japheth! Japheth! Noah: Shem! Ham! Move the ark there (where Japheth is)! Quick, quick. Women too, prepare yourselves and help the men. In the name of Jehovah. Please rescue Japheth. Shem: A lost lamb shall be cast out. Noah: You don’t know the value of tears. Shem: I think I know the weight of Jehovah’s promise. Ham’s Wife: Ah the land is sliding. Shem’s Wife: Ah the muddy water engulfed the sinners. Noah: Japheth! Japheth! Noah’s Wife: Japheth! Japheth! (ATZ 5: 53–54) In the end, Japheth does join his family on the ark; but the play ends with Japheth’s regrets over the path he has taken, choosing God over love: I have my life. An empty life… (After a moment of quiet meditation, strolling towards the middle of the ark) The world of the ancients. Are you saying this

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is the path I am to walk? Am I a lump of crumbling earth? (Looking directly in front, as if he is staring at something in the distance) Naamah! … Jehovah! Noah’s wife silently embraces Japheth. (ATZ 5: 56) With this touching and tragic scene the play ends. Samuson to Derira (Samson and Delilah) Samson and Delilah is a three act play based on chapters 13–16 of the book of Judges in the Bible. The Bible story tells the famous tale of the mighty warrior Samson who is betrayed by his lover Delilah to the Philistines, Samson’s enemies, but who gains his revenge before he too dies by collapsing the pillars of their pagan temple (NEB 1970). The play differs from the Bible story in several respects. Perhaps the most important difference is that the play revolves around love, unlike the biblical narrative that focuses on Samson’s faith in God whose commandments he struggles to accept. Nonetheless, Samson’s faith is graphically demonstrated in his final act. Another possible source for Arishima’s drama is Samson et Dalila, a grand opera in three acts and four scenes by Camille Saint-Saëns (1835–1921) to a French libretto by Ferdinand Lemaire. It was first performed in Weimar, Germany on 2 December 1877 in German translation. Over the next three decades the opera was performed to wide acclaim throughout the western world and is still popular today (Locke 1991, 261, 298). The opera was first introduced into Japan in 1912 in two articles by Sen’oo Kōyō (1891–1961) in the journal Ongakukai (Mori 2008, 7–8). Similar to Arishima’s play, but unlike the biblical narrative, the opera focuses on the relationship between Samson and Delilah. In Act One of Arishima’s drama, Delilah is questioned by the Philistine priests as to whether she truly loves Samson: Philistine priest: You have been too kind to Samson. Delilah: I hate him! He did not permit me to live in the lovely place where I was born; in addition, Samson forced me to live as a rebel, I hate him! Philistine priest: So Samson is still madly in love with you (ATZ 5: 65–66). In Act Two, which takes place in Delilah’s dwelling, Samson has a long discussion with his mother about Delilah. At that point, he is confronted by a maiden who is the younger sister of the wife, a Philistine, whom Samson took from Timnath so as to kill more Philistines—a stratagem that succeeds and eventually leads to the death of the woman and her father. The maiden claims that her father ordered her to become Samson’s wife. This enrages Delilah, who declares: “’Do you want to see Samson’s wife? Then behold!’ (She proudly steps in front of the maiden and embraces Samson)” (ATZ 5: 84–85). We see here that Delilah has mixed feelings about Samson. Love is revealed as a more complex and unpredictable emotion than even Delilah has bargained for. As Delilah declares, in John Milton’s (1608–1674) long dramatic poem Samson Agonistes (1671), one of the most celebrated poems in the English-language canon, and which may have influenced Arishima also,

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And what if Love, which thou interpret’st hate, The jealousie of Love, powerful of sway In human hearts, nor less in mine towards thee, Caus’d what I did? (Milton 1952, 356–57). Samson’s relationship with Delilah dominates Act Two, and the following expostulation from Samson and Delilah’s response reminds us of the sado-masochism of Nin’emon’s relations with his wife in The Descendant of Cain: Samson: Woman! You must kneel before me as if you are nothing. (Delilah obediently kneels and embraces his legs) Are you prepared to kiss the grime under my feet? (Obediently Delilah sucks his toes) Good! Even this is too much a blessing for the likes of you. Where did the maiden go? (Not replying, Delilah sobs silently) Stop crying! Smile! (Still weeping, Delilah looks up at Samson and smiles) Oh Delilah. (Unawares, his heart almost melting, once more Samson erupts into a fury and starts kicking her) You are the descendant of Eve, eternally cursed by Jehovah, spawn of Satan. … […] Delilah: For the sake of love I will happily become your slave, your dog. Rather than being your queen or lion, I believe that this is my most cherished desire. You are trampling on my heartfelt feelings because of just one glance at the maiden. To love for the sake of love is my whole being. (ATZ 5: 85–87) In Act Three, after Delilah’s betrayal, Samson is taken to the temple of Dagon, blinded and his head shorn, but his hair grows back and once again he regains his strength. The last scene enacts Samson’s collapsing of the pillars of the temple and the deaths of all within. Delilah’s gloating, which are her last words, ends in an expression of sympathy—or is it loss? Hate me! Curse me! Beat me! Trample me underfoot! I betrayed you! I made you blind! Remember that! Look upon me here! … You are so pitiful. Oh, your eyes… (As if she has gone mad, Delilah crawls towards Samson. Exploding, Samson knocks her to the ground.)” (ATZ 5: 102)

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From Delilah’s words, it is possible to ascertain a hint of regret and sadness at her actions. Arishima portrays Samson’s regaining of his strength as a renewal of his faith in God; but, as demonstrated here, the drama is surely more concerned with the tortured and twisted enigma of love and desire than any lesson in theology. Seisan (The Last Supper) This is the only play in the Triptych in which the figure of Christ appears directly and the only one that was actually performed on stage, although Arishima was deeply disappointed by the performance presented in Tokyo by the Taiyōza company (closely associated with Tokyo Imperial University) over three days in January 1921 (ATZ 5: 595). As he wrote to his brother, Ikuma, on 26 January that year: “The Taiyōza performance was a complete failure” (ATZ 5: 595). Arishima then organized a second performance of the play, with professional actors rather than students, in the Yūrakuza Theater in Tokyo; but he was equally dissatisfied with this performance. Jesus Christ makes his first appearance in Arishima’s writing about two thirds of the way through Act One of the drama. He meets Judas Iscariot who is among the crowd awaiting him in the main square in Jerusalem. Earlier in the play, while Judas waits, we witness a number of conversations that Judas had with Pharisees and others about the teachings of Jesus. From this, it is apparent that Judas hates women, whom he describes as the “descendants of Eve … vipers” (ATZ 5: 113). His ire is especially reserved for Mary Magdalene, whom he characterizes as a prostitute who has vilely seduced some of Christ’s disciples to abandon their faith (ATZ 5: 113). Jesus preaches to the crowd, and his sermon (as Arishima writes it) is clearly based on passages from the Gospels: Jesus: …The birds in the heavens have their nests. The foxes in the fields have their holes. But I, the son of Man, have nowhere to make my pillow. Yet my yoke is easy and my burden is light. I wish to share my joy among you. God is within me, and I am within God. That is all that is needed. I have no possessions but possess all things. (ATZ 5: 119–20) In this sermon, Jesus’ self-characterization reminds us of the Quaker notion of divinity where the Inner Light dwells within all people and which, in the words of Nitobe Inazō, the Quaker mentor of Arishima, “is given other names, such as the seed, the voice, the Christ” (Morton 1988, 35). Act Two, situated a year after the previous Act, is mainly based on the Gospel of John, chapter 11, telling of how Jesus raised Lazarus to life from the dead, and recounts events in Bethany, where Lazarus lived. In the conversations between Jesus and His disciples, the raising of Lazarus from the dead is used as a touchstone to explore the most contentious of Jesus’ teachings, and the one that troubled Arishima most: the conundrum of resurrection. The notion that “one has to once die [to the flesh] in order to be reborn in heaven” (Morton 1988, 147, 151) is discussed repeatedly by the characters in the drama to determine what Christ could mean by this somewhat enigmatic statement.

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Mary Magdalene is clearly identified as being Martha and Lazarus’ sister. However, the biblical narrative makes a clear distinction between Mary, the sister of Martha, and Mary Magdalene, so here Arishima departs from the biblical account (Douglas 1980, 792–93). Judas reveals his disillusionment with Jesus, who, he believes, has failed in His main task of fomenting rebellion against the rule of Rome. Jesus reveals to Mary His impending fate, and entreats her not to reveal this to His disciples: Jesus: I am passing through the valley of Gehenna on my way to the land of death. (Resenting and fearing that what Mary had secretly feared will happen, she does not reply, inching closer to Jesus). Jesus: (with a quiet dignity) I will return to my Father’s bosom in heaven. … Do not be shocked. And do not be saddened. After I have gone, one will be sent from heaven to comfort you. … Do not let either your elder brother Lazarus or your sister Martha know this. And above all do not tell my disciples. … […] Mary: I want to go with you, Lord, to the valley of Gehenna. Please take me with you. (ATZ 5: 156–57) The final Act is set in Simon’s house in Bethany where the Last Supper takes place. In his description of events, Arishima relies on the Gospel accounts of the feast attended by Jesus and His disciples. Prior to this, Jesus has a long conversation with Mary Magdalene, who plays a prominent role in proceedings—something not attested to in the Gospel accounts. He reveals to Mary His impending fate and entreats her not to reveal this to His disciples. The drama ends after conclusion of the Last Supper, with the final words of Mary Magdalene: “Oh the world has grown dark…” (ATZ 5: 169). Arishima long held something of a fascination with Mary—as we can see from a lengthy diary entry dated 24 November 1901, in which he discusses Mary, identifying her as Mary Magdalene, but also referring to her as the Mary who perfumed Jesus with nard in Bethany. In this diary entry, Arishima describes Mary as the “poetic woman” and notes that she felt great love for Jesus (ATZ 10: 212–13). Of the three plays, this drama is the most moving, full of theatrical possibilities. Most impressive is the realization of the character of Jesus. He is depicted as vulnerable, compassionate and utterly human, caught in the dilemma of knowing His ultimate fate and the terrible suffering that entails, while simultaneously dedicated to following the commands of His Father in Heaven. Nevertheless, it is easy to see why the play was not successful in performance. One problem is the language, which at times is clumsy and unnatural, perhaps an inevitable result of transposing the names and culture of 1st-century Palestine into modern conversational Japanese. It is equally difficult to see the earlier two plays as being successful in performance for much the same reasons. The three major female characters in these plays, namely Naamah, Delilah and Mary, all occupy an important place in the dramas as women portrayed either as femmes fatales or as sympathetic loving beings, reflecting Arishima’s deep concern with women’s issues in the latter half of his life.

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Conclusion I have concluded this study with a detailed discussion of Arishima’s Triptych because, in these three dramas, Arishima clearly grapples with many of the problems he encountered as someone who initially embraced Christianity, and then rejected it, at least in part. No doubt his embrace of the Christian faith is problematic and open to criticism from an orthodox Christian standpoint (which is why his contemporaries in Japan were so disappointed by his decision to cut his ties to the Sapporo Independent Church). But, given the time and the circumstances, such a conflict may well have been inescapable. Another reason for my examination of the Triptych is that it typifies, more than most of his works, Arishima’s exploration of Christian ideals and ideas in his writing. In this respect, his engagement with Christianity is central to much of his fiction, as it was to his life. If Arishima were an apostate, then he was an apostate in quite a complex sense. It is obvious that his concern with, and his attachment to, Christianity lasted most of his life. Therefore Christian themes and ideals appear and reappear in many of his works, including those written at the very end of his life (Morton 1988, 207–10). Takeda Kiyoko has argued persuasively in a number of books for a special category for Japanese apostates, seeing these authors and intellectuals as pioneers attempting to create a version of the Christian doctrine suited to Asian sensibilities, which she felt differed significantly from those inherent in the western reception of Christianity (Takeda 1954; 1967; 1976). Uchimura Kanzō was a leader in this regard, and, even though Arishima broke with him and the Church he founded, Uchimura’s influence on Arishima (as well as the influence of the Quaker faith) was long-lasting. In summary, it may be fair to say that Arishima rejected the trappings associated with the established church, as he made clear in a number of the diary entries cited above. The essential teachings of Jesus Christ, save for the doctrine of atonement, are nevertheless reflected in many of his novels and stories. The ideal of love survived his apostasy because, in a sense, it was most antipathetic to it. Love was the most pantheistic, the most pagan of all those values that Arishima distilled from Christianity and yet, paradoxically, it springs from that most vital of all Christian doctrines, atonement. Arishima was not alone in his search for a mode of Christianity that could accommodate Japanese value systems. This may have been an impossible or, certainly, improbable journey for a Japanese to undertake at this historical moment. But Arishima was far from being alone in this endeavor, as we can see from various of the other writers examined in this volume.

Notes 1

Aru onna has been translated into English by Kenneth Strong; see Arishima, A Certain Woman. A useful single-volume compendium on Arishima is Arishima Takeo Kenkyūkai (ed.) Arishima Takeo jiten. A number of Japanese-language studies scrutinize Arishima’s interactions with Christianity; see especially Miyano, Arishima Takeo no bungaku; Uesugi, Arishima Takeo; Arishima Takeo Kenkyūkai (ed.) Arishima to kirisutokyō and Kawa, Arishima Takeo to kirisutokyō narabi ni sono shūhen. In English, Paul Anderer’s study of selected works of Arishima, Other Worlds, is a most useful text, as is Massimiliano Tomasi’s volume The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature, which has a chapter on Arishima (pp. 107–27). 2 For details of Arishima’s life, see Morton, Divided Self, which is the chief source for the biographical information here. In addition to Senuma Shigeki’s biography (published separately in article form), there are

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two Japanese biographies: Sadoya, Hyōden and Yasukawa, Higeki no chishikijin. Yamada’s study of Arishima’s development as a novelist, Arishima Takeo, also supplies important biographical material. 3 An important source for Arishima’s life (referred to from here on as the “chronology”) is a chronological history written by the author himself in collaboration with a journalist on the magazine Shinchō, published in March 1918. This personal account, written by Arishima when he was 40, is the major source for much of his early life, as noted above. 4 After Arishima’s death, Morimoto went on to hold a number of academic and teaching positions in colleges and schools in Hokkaido and, in collaboration with his wife, became a strong advocate of women’s issues, particularly in regard to education. 5 Labyrinth is available in English translation; see Goldstein & Shinoda, Labyrinth. 6 For a translation of this story, see Morton, Seven Stories of Modern Japan, 1–28. 7 The name Samyaza is taken from the Book of Enoch, ascribed by tradition to Enoch, the great-grandfather of Noah. The Book of Enoch explains the origins of demons and giants, why some angels fell from heaven, and provides an explanation of why the Deluge was morally necessary: to rid the earth of the evil offspring of fallen angels, like Samyaza, and humans. Some elements of the Ethiopian Orthodox (Christian) Church consider the Book of Enoch as canonical. Translations into various languages date from the 18th century and earlier and, by Arishima’s time, the book and its contents were widely known. See the Wikipedia entry for the Book of Enoch (accessed 11/7/20). See also The Book of Enoch, trans. R.H. Charles.

References Anderer, P. (1984). Other Worlds: Arishima Takeo and the Bounds of Modern Japanese Fiction. New York: Columbia University Press. Arishima, T. (1978). A Certain Woman: A Novel by Arishima Takeo. (Kenneth Strong, trans.). Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press. Arishima, T. (1979–1986). Arishima Takeo zenshū [The Collected Works of Arishima Takeo] (15 vols.) Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. (cited as ATZ; the letter “E” indicates Arishima’s own English.) Arishima Takeo Kenkyūkai (ed.) (1995). Arishima to kirisutokyō [Arishima and Christianity]. In Arishima Takeo kenkyū sōsho [Studies on Arishima Takeo, vol. 7]. Tokyo: Yūbun Shoin. Arishima Takeo Kenkyūkai (ed.) (2010). Arishima Takeo jiten [Arishima Takeo dictionary]. Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan. Charles, R.H. (trans.) (1917). The Book of Enoch. London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge. Douglas, J.D. (ed.) (1980). The New Bible Dictionary. Leicester, UK: Intervarsity Press. Goldstein, S. & Shinoda, S. (trans.) (1992). Labyrinth by Arishima Takeo. Lanham, NY: Madison Books. Kawa, S. (1998). Arishima Takeo to kirisutokyō narabi ni sono shūhen [Arishima Takeo and Christianity and its environment]. Tokyo: Kasama Shoin. Locke, R.P. (1991). Constructing the Oriental “Other”: Saint-Saens’s “Samson et Dalila.” Cambridge Opera Journal 3(3), 261–302. Milton, J. (1952). John Milton [Great Books of the Western World, vol. 32]. Chicago: Encyclopedia Britannica. Miyano, M. (1974). Arishima Takeo no bungaku [The literature of Arishima Takeo]. Tokyo: Ōfūsha. Mori, K. (2008). Meiji Taishō jidai no ongaku zasshi to opera juyō—Guno (Fausuto) o rei ni [Music journals of the Meiji and Taishō periods and the reception of opera: Gounod (Faust) as an example]. Nichi-Ō Nichi-A hikaku engeki sōgō kenkyū purojekuto seika hōkokushū [Report of the composite research findings on comparative theater in Japan and Europe, Japan and Asia]. Waseda Daigaku engeki hakubutsukan (May), 98–111. Morton, L. (1988). Divided Self: A Biography of Arishima Takeo. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Morton, L. (ed.) (1991). Seven Stories of Modern Japan. Sydney: Wild Peony Press. New English Bible: New Testament (1964). Harmondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin Books (cited as NEB). New English Bible: Old Testament (1970). Cambridge, Great Britain: Oxford University Press/Cambridge University Press (cited as NEB). Sadoya, S. (1978). Hyōden Arishima Takeo [Critical biography of Arishima Takeo]. Tokyo: Kenkyūsha Shuppan. Senuma, S. (1962). Arishima Takeo-den 1: futatsu no chi [Biography 1: Two bloods]. Bungei 12. ———. (1963a). Arishima Takeo-den 2: shōnen jidai [Biography 2: Adolescence). Bungei 7.

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———. (1963b). Arishima Takeo-den 3: nire no kokage [Biography 3: In the shade of the elm]. Bungei 11. ———. (1964). Arishima Takeo-den 4: ryūgaku zengo no Arishima. [Biography 4: Before and after studying abroad]. Bungaku 32: 10. ———. (1967). Arishima Takeo-den 5: kekkon zengo no Arishima Takeo [Biography 5: Before and after marriage]. Bungaku 35: 9. Takeda, K. (1954). Haikyōsha no keifu [A genealogy of apostasy]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. ———. (1967). Dochaku to haikyō [Indigenization and apostasy]. Tokyo: Shinkyō Shuppansha. ———. (1976). Seitō to itan no aida [Between orthodoxy and heresy]. Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppansha. Tomasi, M. (2018). The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature: Metaphors of Christianity. London: Routledge. Uchida, M. (1996). Arishima Takeo: kyokō to jitsuzō [Arishima Takeo: Fictitious and real images]. Tokyo: Yūseidō. Uesugi, Y. (1985). Arishima Takeo: hito to sono shōsetsu sekai [Arishima Takeo: The man and the world of his fiction]. Tokyo: Meiji shoin. Yamada, S. (1998). Arishima Takeo: sakka no seisei [Arishima Takeo: The creation of a writer]. Tokyo: Ozawa Shoten. Yasukawa, S. (1983). Higeki no chishikijin: Arishima Takeo [A tragic intellectual: Arishima Takeo]. Tokyo: Shintensha.

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Chapter 4 Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: A Christian Life Miyasaka Satoru Translated by Mark Williams Akutagawa Ryūnosuke was born in an area adjacent to the foreign residents’ settlement in Tsukiji. In accordance with tradition both his parents were deemed to have been born in “unlucky” years, so he found himself abandoned on the steps of the church diagonally opposite the family home. He ended up taking his own life at the age of 35, with his final works including The Man from the West, which represented his personal views on Christ. At the same time, he left a copy of the Bible by his pillow as he died. In this sense, Christianity can be seen as pervading his entire life. However, because Akutagawa himself claimed to love Christianity “artistically,” this element of his writing has been largely ignored in critical discussions. There is no disputing the profundity of the influence that Christianity exercised on Akutagawa and this chapter will seek to capture the full extent of the author’s interaction with the faith by examining the numerous stories that betray the shadow of Christianity, including more than a dozen so-called Kirishitanmono. The chapter ends with an attempt to summarize the issue of Christianity as it impinges on Akutagawa’s life and literature.

Introduction: The life of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892–1927) stands as one of the representative authors of modern Japanese literature. Having begun his literary career at the outset of the Taishō era (1912– 1926), he ended up taking his own life in 1927, some eight months into the ensuing Shōwa era. Having lived through the Taishō years, he was only 35 years of age. His relationship with Christianity is filled with fascinating details. In keeping with the local custom with regard to children born in so-called unlucky years, he was abandoned as a baby—only to be discovered in front of the church diagonally opposite his home. He may have taken his own life; but his final work, “Seihō no hito” (The Man from the West,* 1927) can be seen as depiciting his own personal views on Christ; equally noteworthy is the fact that the last book that he looked at was the Bible. Akutagawa was born on 1 March 1892 in the Irifune district of the Kyōbashi suburb of Tokyo (what is now known as Akaishi-chō in Chūō-ku in central Tokyo), the eldest son of

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Niihara Toshizō (born 1850) and Fuku (born 1860). He had an older sister, Hatsu, who had died the previous year at the age of six and another older sister, Hisa. Since he was born at the hour, the day, the month and the year of the dragon, he was given the name of Ryūnosuke, literally “Dragon Boy.” Moreover, because at the time of his birth, his father was, by Japanese reckoning, 43 years old (the so-called “late unlucky age”) and his mother was 33 (the socalled “most unlucky age”), he was considered to be an unlucky child and, in accordance with long-standing tradition, he was abandoned on the steps of the nearby church which had been erected on a plot of land designated for foreigners. His father, Toshizō, had been born in the village of Nukumi in Suō province (present day Yamaguchi Prefecture) and he busied himself with a series of enterprises aimed at the foreign residents in the area (there were only three Japanese households in the vicinity). Fortunate enough to find favor with Shibusawa Eiichi, the famous Japanese industrialist widely seen as “the father of Japanese capitalism,” Toshizō was an entrepreneur who managed a series of farmhouses and a business selling milk. When he was about eight months old, Akutagawa’s mother, Fuku, suffered a sudden mental breakdown and the boy was taken in by her family, the Akutagawas, in what is now Ryōgoku in the Sumida district of Tokyo. Thereafter he was raised by Fuku’s brother, Akutagawa Michiaki (head of the Tokyo civil engineering department at the time) and his wife, Tomo (the niece of Hosoki Kōi, a poet and playwright who achieved celebrity status in preRestoration Japan) along with Akutagawa’s aunt, Fuki (though he was not formally adopted by them until he was ten years old). Fuki sought to provide him with maternal support and, for better or worse, exercised a considerable influence on him for the rest of his life. Toward the end of his life, Akutagawa described her as “the unrivalled benefactor who has made my life miserable” (ARZ 3: 93). The Akutagawas were a traditional family that had served for generations as tea masters at Edo castle and, as such, they were deeply imbued with Edo traditions and Edo culture. This in turn was to exercise a considerable influence on Akutagawa’s subsequent personality and his art. The two mental images—that of the foreign compound (symbol of the West that had suddenly emerged in his life as an alternative space) and that of the Akutagawa family (symbol of the residue of the earlier Edo culture in Tokyo)—represent constants in Akutagawa’s life and his literature. Apart from being left on the steps of a church as an infant, Akutagawa’s relationship with Christianity began with the interest in artistic aestheticism that he developed at junior high school. Like other intellectual youths of his age, he also read the Bible with avid interest. In 1910, he entered Tokyo First Senior High School, where several of his peers were steeped in the faith. Influenced by friends such as Tsunetō Kyō, Nagasaki Tarō, Yanaihara Tadao, Mitani Takanobu and Fujioka Zōroku, he started to read the Bible in earnest. And from about 1912, he began to attend services at various Protestant churches, including Ichigaya Church that Nagasaki attended. In a letter of the time sent to his friend, Yamamoto Kiyoshi, uncle to his future bride, Tsukamoto Fumi, we find comments such as the following: I do not really understand why I am alive. God is becoming increasingly distant from me. There are even times when I find myself wondering whether the truth of the matter is that life is lived simply for the purpose of producing the next generation—for the purpose of propagating future generations. (ARZ 17: 68)

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In September 1913, Akutagawa entered the English Literature Department of Tokyo Imperial University. His peers included the likes of the educator, Toyoda Minoru. He received lectures from such notable professors as Saitō Takeshi (English) and Hatano Seiichi (ancient Greek philosophy). In February of the following year, he collaborated with contemporaries such as Kume Masao, Matsuoka Yuzuru, Yamamoto Yūzō, Tsuchiya Bunmei, Toyoshima Yoshio and Kikuchi Kan to publish the first volume in the third series of the journal Shinshichō. On 19 May of that year, in a letter to Tsunetō Kyō, he can be seen making such claims as “I occasionally feel love growing in my heart. But we are talking of an unfocused love, as if I were dreaming” (ARZ 17: 192). This particular comment was a reference to Yoshida Yayoi, a woman the same age as Akutagawa who had graduated from the English Department of Aoyama Women’s College the previous year. But the following year, in 1915, this relationship ended in disaster following the objections of his adoptive family. As he reported in another letter to Tsunetō, dated 28 February 1915: I had known a certain woman for some time. That woman became engaged to be married. It was only then that I realized that I loved that woman. But I knew nothing at all about the other man. And, apart from a few wild conjectures, I had no idea how she felt about me. But I gradually came to understand more. Eventually, realizing that this other proposal was not exactly firmly decided, I decided to propose to her. … and I informed my family. But I was met with deep resistance. My aunt cried all night long. And so did I. The following morning, with a pained expression, I announced my intention to rethink my decision. (ARZ 17: 250) As is well known, this calamity was to exercise a profound influence on Akutagawa’s subsequent life—and on his art in particular. It was through his reading of fin de siècle literature and this experience of unrequited love that Akutagawa became persuaded of the “impossibility of selfless love.” In November of that year, he placed great hopes on publication in the journal Teikoku bungaku of his novella, “Rashōmon,*” a story born of his broken love. But the story elicited little critical acclaim. Shortly thereafter, however, on the 18th of the same month, wondering whether to give up on his dream of a literary career, he was invited by a friend to attend Natsume Sōseki’s “Thursday Club” 1 meeting. This led him to start studying his art again. The year 1916 was a particularly impressive year for Akutagawa. In February, he helped launch the fourth series of Shinshichō and published his short story “Hana” (The Nose*) in the opening edition. This was met by the following words of strong encouragement from Sōseki, penned on 19 February 1916: I read the stories by you, Mr. Kume and Mr. Naruse in the recent edition of Shinshichō. I think that yours is very interesting. You have a relaxed style and there is something refined about the way in which you combine seriousness with natural humor. Furthermore, I am struck by the freshness of your materials. Your style is clear and your sentences carefully crafted. I respect you for that. I recommend that you try producing some twenty or thirty such stories. You can emerge as a unique author. (Natsume Sōseki, 510–11) 66

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Akutagawa was duly inspired to continue his writing career by such praise from Sōseki. In July, he graduated from Tokyo Imperial University second in his class (first was Toyoda Minoru). In September of that year, at the encouragement of Suzuki Miekichi, he published “Imogayu” (Yam Gruel*) in the journal Shinshōsetsu and was welcomed into the literary coterie; and in October, publication of “Shukin” (The Handkerchief*) in Chūō kōron secured him a reputation as a new and emerging author. In short, his debut on the literary stage was meteoric. In December of that year, he was commissioned to serve as an English teacher at the navy school at Yokosuka and moved to live in Kamakura. But four days after starting to teach, on the 9th, he learned of the death of Sōseki. At the start of 1917, Akutagawa published in a series of special New Year editions of journals and quickly consolidated his position as an emerging young writer. He subsequently extended his knowledge of literature, regardless of country of origin, era or whatever, and made full use of this newfound authority to publish stories derived from a series of differing literary traditions. Over the next few years, he serialized a number of stories, many of which would come to be seen as his classic works. These included: “Gesaku zanmai” (Absorbed in Letters;* Osaka Mainichi shinbun, 20 October–4 November 1917); “Jigokuhen” (Hell Screen;* Osaka Mainichi shinbun, 1–22 May 1918); “Kumo no ito” (The Spider’s Thread;* Akai tori, July 1918); “Hōkyōnin no shi” (The Death of a Martyr;* Mita bungaku, September 1918); “Karenoshō” (Withered Fields;* Shinshōsetsu, October, 1918); “Butōkai” (The Ball;* Shinchō, January 1920); “Aki” (Autumn;* Chūō kōron, April 1920); “Nankin no kirisuto” (The Christ of Nanking;* Chūō kōron, July 1920); and “Toshishun” (Tu Tze-chun;* Akai tori, July 1920). In 1918, Akutagawa married Tsukamoto Fumi. And in March of the following year, he resigned his post at the navy school and took up a position with the Osaka Mainichi shinbun, a role that did not require him to commute to the office on a daily basis. He subsequently returned to Tabata in Tokyo and devoted himself to the composition of literary works. From March to July 1921, he was sent by his newspaper to China; but his health suffered and he was obliged to return to Japan. Back home, he continued to push himself to produce more stories. But this led to a further rapid deterioration in his health with this reflected in a changed style in his later works. Early in 1922, he published a series of classic works, including “Yabu no naka” (In the Grove;* Shinchō, January), “Kamigami no bishō” (Smiles of the Gods;* Shinshōsetsu, January), “Torokko” (The Truck; Taikan, March) and the last of his stories about the imperial court, “Roku no miya no himegimi” (The Lady, Roku-no-miya;* Hyōgen, August). Even though he was assailed with insomnia as he wrote, these works provide clear evidence of his changed style. The following year he began writing his “Yasukichi works,” a series of stories dominated by Horikawa Yasukichi, Akutagawa’s doppelgänger from his days at the naval academy, that included “Yasukichi no techō” (Yasukichi’s Notebook; Kaizō, May), “O-jigi” (The Greeting;* Josei kaizō, October), and “Ababababa” (Granny; Chūō kōron, December). This particular enterprise continued on into 1924, when he published “Hitokure no tsuchi” (A Clod of Soil;* Shinchō, January), “Bunshō” (A Letter; Josei, April), “Samusa” (The Cold; Kaizō, April) and “Shōnen” (The Youth; Chūō kōron, April and May). All these works belie the various health problems that Akutagawa was experiencing at the time and reinforce the sense of the author experimenting with a new style of writing. By 1925–1926, Akutagawa was mentally and physically exhausted. His creative juices had dried up and the shadow of death became ever more prominent. During this period, he Chapter 4: Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: A Christian Life

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published stories such as “Daidōji Shinsuke no hansei” (Daidōji Shinsuke: The Early Years;* Chūō kōron, January 1925), a story that includes the figure of Daidōji Shinsuke as Akutagawa’s doppelgänger; “Umi no hotori” (At the Seashore;* Chūō kōron, September), a story written in the style of the so-called shinkyō shōsetsu (mental state novel); “Nenmatsu no ichinichi” (A Day towards the End of the Year; Shinchō, January 1926); and “Tenkibo” (Death Register;* Kaizō, October 1926). Akutagawa was well known for not wishing to introduce autobiographical details into his literary works; but, following his return from China in 1921, as his style changed and his suffering intensified, these become increasingly prominent. This in turn spawned a series of “retroactive works” that can be seen as “Akutagawa-style I-novels.” This began with the doppelgänger characters, Yasukichi and Shinsuke, and culminated with “Death Register,” in which he finally confronts the issue of his “mother” that had never been far beneath the surface. In this work, Akutagawa makes a final effort to probe the depths of the founding principles of his life; but this failed to lead to any new vision. From around the Spring of 1926, Akutagawa began confiding his suicidal thoughts to his friends. Vacillating between life and death, in April of that year, he, his wife Fumi and his third son, Yasushi, left the home of his adoptive family and moved to Kugenuma in Fujisawa, where he embarked on a “second honeymoon.” This was an act born of the deepest respect for his wife Fumi, who had for so long devoted herself to serving three elderly relatives and her three children; it also embodied his vague hope that he could reset his life. At the same time, due in large part to the intercession of Muroga Fumitake (a servant from his father’s farmhouse management days who went on to apprentice himself to the prominent theologian, Uchimura Kanzō, and who represents the model for the old man in the short story “Haguruma” (Cogwheels;* Bungei shunjū, October 1927)), he found himself increasingly drawn to the tenets of Christianity. In October of that year, he alighted on the issue of his “mother” as he sought to rebuild his own life through composition of “Death Register”; but this ended up with Akutagawa merely reconfirming his own destiny. With only one option left to him, the end of the year was full of pain as he continued to write in the face of his impending death. Early in 1927, Akutagawa was caught up in a suspected arson incident instigated by his brother in law, the new husband of his older sister, Hisa, and he became incredibly busy once again. And in the midst of all this, he became embroiled in the so-called “plotless novel” controversy with his fellow author, Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, a feud that threatened to deny the validity of Akutagawa’s creative work. In the face of Tanizaki’s advocacy of the structural aesthetic of the novel, Akutagawa defended the concept of the plotless novel that resembled poetry. This aesthetic was encapsulated in works such as “At the Seashore,” “A Day towards the End of the Year” and “Shinkirō” (Fujin kōron, March 1927). At the same time, Akutagawa devoted his energies to composition of other works, including “Genkaku Sanbō” (Genkaku’s Mountain House; Chūō kōron, January–February 1927), “Shinkirō” and “Kappa” (Kappa; Kaizō, March). On April 7, having completed the sixth and final chapter, entitled “Airplane,” of “Cogwheels,” a story with the working title of “Sodomu no yoru” (A Night in Sodom), he bid farewell to his wife, headed for the Imperial Hotel, which served as one of his work spaces at the time, and made an unsuccessful attempt at double suicide with Hiramatsu Masuko, a childhood friend of his wife. (He made a second foiled attempt in May of the same year). On both occasions, Hiramatsu struggled to dissuade Akutagawa from his suicidal thoughts. Both attempts were unsuccessful, the first time because Hiramatsu failed to appear at the 68

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hotel, the second because Hiramatsu gave Fumi prior warning of Akutagawa’s intentions. As Fumi wrote in her subsequent memoir: At that time, for the first time in my life I experienced a profound sense of anger and I scolded my husband vociferously. At which point, my husband was reduced to tears—a most rare occurrence, and apologized to me profusely. My anger was painful and overbearing. I think that was the first and last time that I showed such anger. (Akutagawa Fumi 1975, 231) Akutagawa responded to his wife’s rebuke with a respite to his mental turmoil and came to appreciate the severity of the situation. And while coolly confronting his own mortality, he penned “Aru aho no isshō” (The Life of a Fool;* Kaizō, October 1927) in which he sought to encapsulate his entire life as a “purveyor of letters.” He then turned to composition of “The Man from the West” (Kaizō, August–September 1927), a story that can be seen as depiciting Akutagawa’s personal views on Christ—a work in which Christ’s life is portrayed as torn between the Holy Spirit, “that which eternally seeks transcendence,” and Mary, “the one who eternally protects us” (Akutagawa 2011, 258). Having penned a sequel to this story, “Zoku: Seihō no hito” (The Man from the West: The Sequel*), Akutagawa took his own life around dawn on 24 July 1927. At his pillow lay an open Bible. The newspapers the following day included headlines such as “Deathbed—With an Open Bible” (Tokyo shinbun) and “Reading the Bible till the Last Moment” (Tōō nippō). Akutagawa’s death wrought confusion throughout the land.

Akutagawa and Christianity Akutagawa’s interaction with Christianity permeated his entire life. Abandoned on the steps of a Christian church as a baby, his final work was “The Man from the West,” which depicted his personal views on Christ, and the last work that he saw before he took his own life was the Bible. The following passage has become a sine qua non in all discussions of Akutagawa’s connection with Christianity. About ten years ago, I was artistically in love with Christianity, especially Catholicism. Even today, I have a vivid memory of Japan’s temple of the Blessed Mother in Nagasaki. … Then several years ago I developed a certain fascination with Christians who had been martyred because of their Christianity. I took a pathological interest in the mentality of the martyr, which seemed to me just like the mentality of all fanatics. But then finally, in more recent days, I began to love the Christ as handed down to us in the four Gospels. (“Ecce homo,” in Akutagawa 2011, 257) At the same time, though, we might add the following comment offered in this regard by the critic, Sako Jun’ichirō: This section encapsulates very succinctly Akutagawa’s lifelong psychological relationship with Christianity. As we can see from this passage, this relationship

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embraced three distinct phases. Let us call these i) exoticism, ii) the aesthetics of martyrdom and iii) Christ’s invitation. (Sako 1956, 145) More specifically, the first of these three stages—the period when he “was artistically in love with Christianity, especially Catholicism”—was inspired by his “artistic” and “aesthetic” interests and led to the first installments of his Kirishitanmono (works dealing with the era of Christian persecution focusing largely on the 17th century), “Tabako” (subsequently published as “Tabako to akuma” (Tobacco and the Devil;* Shinshichō, November 1916) and “Samayoeru Yudaijin” (The Wandering Jew; Shinchō, June 1917). The second period, when he “developed a certain fascination with Christians who had been martyred because of their Christianity,” found Akutagawa drawn to the psychology of the martyr, which he saw as the embodiment of “selfless love,” and led to publication of works such as “The Death of a Martyr” and “Kirishitohoro shōnin-den” (The Legend of St. Christopher; Shinshōsetsu, March and May 1919). The third period, when he “began to love the Christ as handed down to us in the four Gospels,” comprises the final period when Akutagawa wrote works such as “The Man from the West.” For years, this interpretation has represented the conventional wisdom concerning Akutagawa’s relationship with Christianity. Such an argument relies on textual discourse; but it fails to capture the reality—the true essence—of this relationship. In the 1970s, I came to place a renewed focus on the significance of Akutagawa’s childhood attendance at church services and his close relationship with the Bible (see Miyasaka 1970) and, as studies have evolved, so scholars have concluded that one cannot ignore the significance of Akutagawa’s childhood interactions with the faith. In short, by focusing the spotlight on Akutagawa’s relationship with Christianity before he took up his pen, the religious element of his work is corroborated, the question of the relationship between the author and Christianity is modified and the extent of Akutagawa’s connection with Christianity in his final years is seen as more profound. At the same time, even though no clear line of distinction was drawn, one should not overlook the duality that exists between his fascination with Catholicism, born of his artistic and aesthetic interests, and his attraction to Protestantism, born of his reading of the Bible and of his existential interest in the figure of Christ. Although this was no smooth process, with the passing of time, this duality was gradually subsumed into Akutagawa’s interest in Christianity. The Akutagawa archive (housed within the Library of Modern Japanese Literature) retains two copies of the Bible. One of these is the one that was found at Akutagawa’s bedside following his suicide. Published in 1914, this edition represents a traditional translation of the Old and New Testaments and was used in the composition of the “Man from the West.” Bound in leather, this appears to be an expensive Bible. But when one considers that Akutagawa first started to attend church services during his time at high school, one can assume that this was not the first Bible he acquired for personal use. The other copy is an English language version of the New Testament, given to him as a high school student by Tsunetō Kyō. It should also be noted that, in March of the year before his suicide, Akutagawa received a Bible from Muroga Fumitake and a letter of thanks was sent. (We shall return to this point later). From all of this we can deduce that Akutagawa had at least four Bibles for his own personal use. It may be unclear when he first came into contact with the Bible; but we can see that he was in possession of at least one copy before he entered junior high school and that, at high school, he developed a deeper understanding of the Bible and a greater interest in both the Christian faith and the Kirishitan, those who clung to the faith during the era of persecution. 70

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As noted above, Akutagawa entered the First Senior High School (which was then under the tutelage of Nitobe Inazō, the famous Christian educator) in 1910 where he was surrounded by several peers with a profound interest in the faith. In the final term of his final year there, along with his friends Tsunetō, Nagasaki, Fujioka and others, he began lodging at the home of Emil Schroeder, pastor at the German embassy who had come to Japan in 1908 and founded the Japan-Germany Educational Institute (this is mentioned in some of Akutagawa’s writings). In particular one should note that his life-long relationship with his closest friend, Tsunetō, rested very much on the latter’s personality, steeped as it was in the Christian faith. Unfortunately, I do not have space here to enumerate the countless references to this that can be found in Akutagawa’s letters to Tsunetō. A postcard sent to Yamamoto Kiyoshi on 24 July 1911 depicts a fumie, a religious icon used during the era of persecution to elicit confessions of faith in the proscribed religion. Inscribed above the picture on the back of the card are the words “Les chansons du Kirishitan,” despite there being no reference to this topic in the text itself. The year before, he had avidly read the novel, Thais, by Anatole France. Indeed, he would subsequently describe this as “the most interesting work in all French literature” (ARZ 17: 25). One can assume that it was at about this time that Akutagawa began to immerse himself in western literature and to read the Bible as a means of satisfying his interest in Christianity. Moreover, he began attending Protestant church services from around the following year. This was actually not particularly unusual amongst intellectual youths of his generation, even if their commitment did not match that of their forebears from the earlier Meiji era. Nevertheless, it bears repeating that this cannot be attributed simply to his artistic interest or his desire to adopt a cultured stance in public. In “Rōkyūjin” (A Mad Old Man), an unfinished manuscript believed to have been written while Akutagawa was still at junior high school, Akutagawa introduces an old man who, while ruminating on various “profound recollections” of his childhood, had once “been a Christian who had rebelled at all the various severe religious prohibitions that had proliferated in pre-modern Japan.” Here, he is clearly evidencing a fascination with the Christian faith. There is an unfinished manuscript from this period titled “Kirisuto ni kansuru danpen” (Fragments about Christ), which includes sections on Mary Magdalene, the dawn, Pietà and Saul, and his letters contain phrases from the Bible. In September 1913, Akutagawa entered the English Literature Department of Tokyo Imperial University. In keeping with his lifelong fascination with Dostoevsky, a few days later, on 3 September, he finished reading the English translation of Crime and Punishment. Two days later, he wrote to Fujioka Zōroku: I remember how moved I was the very first time I read Dostoevsky—how I was particularly touched by the scene where the murderer Raskolnikov and the prostitute Sonya sit there beside the smoldering candle reading the biblical depiction of Lazarus being raised from the dead. Unfortunately few of his works are translated into English and so I am not able to keep reading his other novels. (ARZ 17: 131–32) The scene that Akutagawa is citing here as the most impressive and moving in the entire novel is that where Raskolnikov and Sonya are seated reading by candlelight the account in John’s Gospel of Lazarus being raised from the dead. This comes in section 4 of chapter 4 of Chapter 4: Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: A Christian Life

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Crime and Punishment; but it is not hard to realize that, in order for this scene to resonate, a fair degree of familiarity with the Bible is necessary. In a letter to Tsunetō dated 21 March 1914, Akutagawa made the following comment about two of their mutual friends at University, Yanaihara Tadao and Toyoda Minoru: I met Yanaihara two or three times to discuss the commemoration event, but I grew tired of him. … There was this wild guy in the kendo club called Mizuno who was in my class. For three years he had probably been the best at English. He was a Christian and lived with some westerners. A graduate of the English Literature Department of Aoyama Gakuin, he seemed like a linguist, a model graduate of an English Department. He was a good man and the only one in my peer group I would bow to. (ARZ 17: 188–89) Although there is no note to this effect in the new Collected Works of Akutagawa, the older brother of Mizuno referred to here is Toyoda Minoru. In his chapter entitled “My time in the English Literature Department of Tokyo Imperial University” included in his work, Watashi no aruite kita michi: jinsei to shinkō (The Path I have Followed: My Life and Faith), Toyoda writes that “this Mizuno, as I have mentioned before, was my younger brother who was adopted into the Mizuno family in Kurume and moved from the First Senior High School to the French Law Department at Tokyo University. During his time at the First Senior High School, he was known for his prowess in kendō” (Toyoda 1973, 57). He continues that he and another friend were “invited to eat at Akutagawa’s house in Tabata—an experience I shall never forget” (Toyoda 1973, 58). This offers us further evidence of the close relationship between Akutagawa and Toyoda at that time. The youthful Akutagawa was not satisfied by the lectures at University. In a letter to Tsunetō dated 21 January 1914, Akutagawa gave voice to his internal anguish: There is no need to seek faith in God. Whether one has faith or not becomes an issue when one attempts to accommodate faith within the rigid dogma about God. For my part, I have faith in “this.” And the “this” to which I am referring here is “art.” I do not believe that the exultation I derive from my faith in art is in any way inferior to that afforded by faith in religion or anything else. In everything one needs to have faith, as otherwise there cannot be any exultation. Not just religion and art, but everything requires faith in order to find life in it. (ARZ 17: 175) However, two months later, on 19 March 1914, he was to write: No matter how hard I try, “serendipity” always intervenes to move my direction beyond my own volition with an even greater power. In fact, I have doubts regarding the strength of my own willpower. Sure, I move my arms and legs with my own volition; but since there is the volition of another that directs my volition, I am forced to conclude that my volition is weak, hardly worthy to be described as such. … Maybe what we describe as freedom is only attainable by means of some absolute “external power.” (ARZ 17: 186)

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We cannot ignore phrases such as “there is no need to go out of one’s way to seek faith in God”; “one only starts to live when everything becomes a matter of faith” or “maybe what we describe as freedom is only attainable by means of some absolute ‘external power’.” Even by that Autumn, Akutagawa’s life had still not settled down, but new signs are in evidence. In correspondence with Hara Zen’ichirō on 14 November 1914, he argued: I am still attending classes at university, but please don’t get me started on how boring the lectures are! In recent weeks I have started skipping my literature classes and, instead, I have been attending Hatano’s ancient Greek philosophy classes faithfully. Ōtsuka and Hatano are the two professors I respect the most. (ARZ 17: 236) On the one hand, Akutagawa is here acknowledging his total lack of interest in lectures delivered by anyone except Professors Hatano Seiichi and Ōtsuka Yasuji, Professor of Aesthetics. At the same time however, he was arguing: My favorite artist is Henri Matisse. … I believe that he is a truly great artist. It’s that kind of art that I’m seeking. The kind of art overflowing with a real life force—like grass reaching for the sky in response to sunlight. In this sense, I disagree with the notion of art for art’s sake. (ARZ 17: 236) Two weeks later, on 30 November 1914, he was writing the following to Tsunetō: Every now and then I feel really lonely, but I guess that can’t be helped. Instead, I have found myself drawn to things that are the complete opposite of that which attracted me before. Recently, I have come to be interested in the rough and the powerful. I’ve no idea why, but it is just that I feel less lonely when reading such works. In this sense, I have become more puritanical than I was when I was at high school. (ARZ 17: 240–41) From this, we can see that, as a sophomore, Akutagawa came to find a degree of spiritual peace and to feel somewhat uplifted. And it was at this moment of emotional turmoil that he experienced his first love and subsequent rejection. These experiences would not simply serve as the starting point for his literature; they would also leave an indelible mark that would remain with him for the rest of his life. As he wrote on 9 March 1915: I am unsure whether there is such a thing as love devoid of egoism. Egoistical love is not in a position to enable one individual to transcend that which separates them from another. It is powerless to soothe the loneliness rooted in the existential pain that afflicts all people. If one accepts that there is no such thing as love devoid of egoism, then there is nothing more painful than the life of an individual. The world surrounding us is awful. We too are awful. And it is painful having to live confronting that reality. And what’s more, we are forced to live like that. If one ascribes everything to the workings of God, then the workings of God are a mockery that we should detest. I doubt whether there is such a thing as love devoid of egoism. And there are times when I feel as if I can’t go on. I find Chapter 4: Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: A Christian Life

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myself wondering why I have to go to such efforts to continue living like this. And I end up feeling that revenge against God would entail losing my own life. (ARZ 17: 252) If one considers the circumstances in which he found himself at the time, then it is no exaggeration to claim that this notion of “love devoid of egoism” is a biblical concept. This idea of the “non-existence of selfless love” has long been cited as the motivation behind composition of the short story “Rashōmon.” However, in this regard one should also not forget his comment, made only three days later to Tsunetō, that “I want to grow older just as I am. I want to grow stronger just as I am … And I would like to ease my existential pain through loving, even if this remains unrequited” (ARZ 17: 255). Akutagawa continued to read the Bible even as he was going through the trauma of broken love. In a letter to Fujioka Zōroku, penned on the same day as his letter to Tsunetō, he included a twelve verse tanka. Several of these are well known for the manner in which they interlink with the world of the Bible. Examples include poems such as: “Only now have I come to realize how painful it is; lost in the valley of tears”; “After soothing my aching heart a bit, I read the Psalms. The tears flow.” (ARZ 17: 253–54) Considering Akutagawa’s circumstances at the time, this is clearly far removed from his earlier focus on a broad spectrum of knowledge. The Bible is here seen as a means of restoring inner peace. In this sense, one cannot ignore a reading of “Rashōmon” as inspired by the Bible. This was the year in which Akutagawa experienced broken love, publication of “Rashōmon” to a muted reception, the search for a new critical direction, and his meeting with Sōseki. But it was the following year, 1916, that saw his full emergence on the literary stage. As already noted, 1916 marked a turning point in Akutagawa’s life. With the appearance of “Rashōmon” in the autumn of the previous year, he had succeeded in restoring his waning confidence in his own literary prowess. But it was publication of the first of his “Kirishitanmono,” “Tobacco and the Devil,” that is of particular significance here in that it represents a precursor to this group of works that address the issue of Christianity and the Japanese ethos, a motif that would haunt him for the rest of his life. Had he not encountered Christianity, he would surely not have focused so much on this theme. Following this success, in 1917, Akutagawa published “Ogata Ryōsai oboegaki” (Dr Ogata Ryōsai: Memorandum;* Shinchō, January), a short story in which Christianity is reported to the shogunal authorities as a heretical tradition, and “The Wandering Jew,” which draws on documents surrounding the western legend of the wandering Jew dating back to the last decade of the 16th century. Then, in September 1918, he published “The Death of a Martyr,” one of his representative works. This work can be traced back to the story of St. Marina as outlined in Michael Steichen’s translation of Seijin-den (Hagiography, 1893, republished 1903), which in turn is rooted in the 13th century Legenda Aurea (Golden Legend). The style of this work relies heavily on that seen in the Kirishitan edition of Heike monogatari (Tales of Heike) and, in terms of structure, it assumes the guise of an elaborate “nested story,” whereby one story is embedded within a larger narrative. This activity was followed, in turn, by “Akuma” (The Devil; Seinen bundan, June 1919); “Rushiheru” (Lucifer;* Yūben, November), 74

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a work that introduces a Japanese devil derived from an ancient manuscript in the possession of the protagonist; and “Jashūmon” (Heresy;* Osaka Mainichi shinbun, 23 October–13 December; and Tokyo Nichinichi shinbun 14 October–18 December), a story often cited as a sequel to “Hell Screen.” In March 1919, having resigned his post at the naval academy, Akutagawa became a staff member at the Osaka Mainichi shinbun, returned to his adopted home in Tabata and devoted himself to his writing. On 16 February, half a month before leaving the naval academy, Akutagawa’s father, Niihara Toshizō, was one of the some 380,000 Japanese to succumb to the Spanish flu pandemic. Akutagawa himself contracted the disease and drafted his will. He subsequently published “The Legend of St. Christopher” which, like “The Death of a Martyr,” is sourced in the Golden Legend. And in May of that year, he made his first visit to Nagasaki, the city of his dreams. Akutagawa only visited Nagasaki twice, in 1919 and 1922. This was a holy city, replete with memories of the Kirishitan and so-called “southern barbarian” culture that the early Portuguese pioneers had brought with them to Japan and in which Akutagawa retained such a deep fascination. So these trips to Nagasaki can be seen as answers to prayer. Equally significant however is the timing of these visits. As already noted, 1919 marks the period when Akutagawa had just made the transition to focus on his literary career full time. The second of these trips, in 1922, occurred following another epoch-making event in his life—when he had just returned from his trip to China as special correspondent and his health was deteriorating rapidly. In other words, one should not overlook the fact that, for Akutagawa, these trips to Nagasaki marked periods when he sought spiritual calm and rejuvenation in Christianity. On 4 May 1919, Akutagawa embarked on a one-week trip to Nagasaki. He arrived on the 5th and the following day he visited the cathedral at Ōura that would subsequently appear in the guise of the “Japanese temple to the holy mother” at the beginning of “The Man from the West.” (He visited the same cathedral twice during his 1922 trip to Nagasaki). On entering the cathedral, he spent “nearly half a day” talking with Father Léon Gracy (1875–1945). Father Gracy had come to Japan in 1888. From 1909 he was professor at the Catholic Seminary of Nagasaki and, between 1910 and 1929, he served as its fourth principal. The seminary was located directly next to the Ōura cathedral. His pupils from that time would variously describe Fr. Gracy as “an openhearted man,” “a cleric who abhorred artifice or fabrication,” “a really cheerful tennis player.” Akutagawa met him when Father Gracy was principal of the seminary. On the day of his visit to the cathedral, Akutagawa sent the following tanka poem to Kojima Masajirō and Nanbu Shūtarō: The light of the sky is dazzling as I gaze on the temple of Our Lady of Japan. (ARZ 18: 284) On the 8th of May, Akutagawa revisited the cathedral with the novelist, Kikuchi Kan, who had arrived in Nagasaki a few days after Akutagawa. It is clear that he enjoyed Nagasaki to the full. In the three years between his two visits to Nagasaki, Akutagawa penned four stories related to the place: “Juriano Kichinosuke” (Shinshōsetsu, September 1919), a work that belongs to his “holy fool” corpus of stories and which concludes with the assessment that, “of all the Japanese martyrs, this holy fool was amongst those whom I loved the most”; “Kokui seibo” Chapter 4: Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: A Christian Life

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(Black Robed Mary;* Bunshō kurabu, May 1920), a story about the Maria Kannon statues that his friend liked to collect; “The Christ of Nanking”; and “Hōonki” (Returning a Favor;* Chūō kōron, April 1922), a story reminiscent of “In the Grove” in which, one by one, Amakawa Jinnai and his band of robbers express their penitence before a Portuguese priest. From March 1921, Akutagawa was sent to China by his employer, the Osaka Mainichi shinbun. It was during the course of this trip that his health took a turn for the worse and this resulted in a change in his literary style. At the beginning of the following year, he published “Smiles of the Gods,” a work clearly identifiable as inspired by this trip. With its clear focus on the East-West binary, this work would come to be cited in a variety of contexts transcending the literary realm. (This same theme can be seen carried over into Endō Shūsaku’s classic novel, Silence). Thereafter, Akutagawa published fewer Kirishitan stories, but the treatment of this issue in these works intensified. In May 1922, Akutagawa made his second visit to Nagasaki, staying there from the 10th until the 30th. Compared to his earlier one-week trip, this three-week visit offered him ample scope to satisfy his fascination with the city’s Christian and Kirishitan heritage. From the outset, he busied himself exploring the temple district and antique shops and went to see the collections of Chinese and Japanese art and other artefacts in the possession of various friends and acquaintances. On the 16th, he acquired the Maria Kannon statue that would come to adorn the cover of “The Man from the West” and that would have pride of place on his desk for the rest of his life. On Saturday the 20th, he attended early morning mass at Ōura cathedral along with Watanabe Kurasuke and Kamohara Haruo and purchased a rosary and a prayer book. In the wake of this second trip to Nagasaki right up until his suicide, Akutagawa continued producing Kirishitan stories, albeit fewer in number than before. These include “Nagasaki shōhin” (Nagasaki Trinkets; Sunday Mainichi, June 1922), a short story that focuses on a discussion about a series of foreign artefacts lying in a glass repository; “Ogin*” (Chūō kōron, September 1922), a work depicting the apostasy of a believer in the era of Christian persecution; “Oshino*” (Chūō kōron, April 1923), the story of a young girl who feels intimidated by what she hears from one of the missionaries and ends up leaving her temple residence; and “Itojo oboegaki” (The Diary of Maid Ito;* Chūō kōron, January 1924), a work offering a biographical portrait of Gracia Hosokawa, one of the Christian converts during the early period of persecution. The final work in the Kirishitan series is “Yūwaku: aru shinariō” (Temptation: A Certain Scenario; Kaizō, April 1927), a study, divided into 74 parts, of the myriad temptations that assailed San Sebastian. During the final years of his life, Akutagawa experienced the great Kantō earthquake of 1923, was afflicted by severe issues with his royalty payments, and encountered ever more stringent “life” trials. From around 1925, he experienced decline both physically and mentally, his creative juices dried up and he found himself frequently confronted by the shadow of death. And from around the beginning of 1926, he was confiding to his diary that “there are times when I find myself sitting aimlessly at the brazier wondering whether I am experiencing the first delusions of madness,” (“Byōshō zakki”: Miscellaneous Notes from my Bedside; Bungei shunjū, January) and in a letter to Sasaki Mosaku dated 20 January 1926, he confided that “I’ve been suffering from insomnia for nearly two months; if I don’t sleep for two nights then I am so exhausted that I do tend to sleep on the third night, but then again on the fourth night I find myself wide awake” (ARZ 20: 209).

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In the midst of all these tribulations, Akutagawa obtained a new Bible through the good offices of Muroga Fumitake. On 5 March 1926, he wrote to Muroga, “The Bible arrived today. Thank you very much. I have just finished reading the Sermon on the Mount. I have read that passage so many times before, but it seemed to have a particular resonance for me today. Please accept my profound gratitude” (ARZ 20: 227). The Bible referenced here is probably not the one translated during the Meiji era that was used for the citations in “The Man from the West” that was found by his pillow following his suicide, but rather the copy of the New Testament that was issued in a new translation in 1917. This is the same Muroga Fumitake who appears as the model for “a certain old man” in “Cogwheels.” An extremely important figure in any discussion of Akutagawa and Christianity, he also appears as Také in “Sobyō sandai” (Three Sketches). Akutagawa’s wife, Fumi, acknowledged: “my husband too was fond of the slightly eccentric Mr. Muroga and used to call him ‘Fumi’ … he even described him as the best person who ever visited our house” (Akutagawa Fumi 1975, 176). Muroga was also a haiku poet, the composer of the two-volume collection “Shunjō kushū” (Shunjō Anthology). Born in Yamaguchi prefecture, he dreamed of becoming a politician and traveled up to Tokyo to seek the assistance of Akutagawa’s birth father, Niihara Toshizō, and he found himself helping to manage various farmhouses and look after Ryūnosuke who was one year old at the time. Before long, however, he had abandoned his secular ambitions and, at the instigation of the novelist, Tokutomi Roka, he ended up paying a visit on the prominent theologian, Uchimura Kanzō, who encouraged Muroga to enter his mukyōkai (Non-church) denomination. In 1919, when the American Bible Society found itself moving premises to the Ginza and in search of someone to guard the premises, those around Uchimura recommended Muroga, who remained faithful in his attendance at mukyōkai meetings, for the position. Muroga was re-introduced to Akutagawa when the latter was at high school whereupon Muroga became Akutagawa’s soulmate in discussions about haiku and Christianity. Akutagawa devoted himself wholeheartedly to publication of Muroga’s “Shunjō Anthology” and penned a foreword to that edition. Towards the end of Akutagawa’s life, Muroga lent him various works by Uchimura, including his Shūkyō to gense (Religion and the Secular World, 1914) and Shokan jūnen (Ten Years of Sensations, 1914) and offered him the strongest possible encouragement to commit himself to Christianity. On reading the latter work, Akutagawa apparently remarked to Muroga as follows: “I can now believe in the various miracles depicted in the Bible” and “I wish I had learned from Uchimura earlier.” However, things did not turn out as Muroga had hoped, with Akutagawa continuing to vacillate between faith and doubt until his death. Another seeming alter ego of Muroga appears in “Cogwheels.” One night when a strong east wind was blowing—a good omen for me—I went through the cellar into the street to call on an old man. He lived alone as a caretaker in the attic of a Bible society where he devoted himself to prayer and reading. We sat, our hands around the brazier, under a cross which hung on the wall, and talked of various things.… “How have you been recently?” “Nerves jumpy as usual.” “Medicine won’t help that. Haven’t you any wish to become a believer?”

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“If someone like me could become a believer…” “Oh, that’s not difficult. Just believe in God, just believe in Christ, the Son of God. If only you believe the miracles that Christ performed …” “Though I can believe in the devil.” “Then why don’t you believe in God? If you believe in the shadow, you cannot help believing in the light, can you?” “But there is darkness without light, isn’t there?” “What do you mean by that?” I had nothing to say; he, like me, was walking in darkness. Our logic differed at only this one point. But for me at least it was a ditch I could not cross. (Akutagawa 1982, 34–36) The first person protagonist visits “a certain old man” with certain expectations. But what he ends up reconfirming there is his own presence standing in a world of “darkness without light.” However, we can tell from the fact that he borrowed a copy of Crime and Punishment to read from the “certain old man” that he had not abandoned his interest in foreign literature. But “Cogwheels” concludes as follows, “Nothing’s the matter. Nothing, really. It was just that I thought you were about to die.” That was the most terrible experience in my life. I have no strength to write any more. To go on living in the midst of feelings like this is intolerable. Isn’t there someone who will be good enough to strangle me while I sleep? (Akutagawa 1982, 43) I have already noted that “Cogwheels” was another of Akutagawa’s final works. After that, in the wake of his failed double suicide attempt, he devoted his final energies to composing his personal views on Christ, which can be described as Akutagawa’s “fifth gospel account.” Akutagawa’s final meeting with Muroga occurred a week before his suicide—on 16 July 1927. As Muroga would later confide, in “Sore kara sore,” (This after That) “various close friends visited Akutagawa that night, but Akutagawa made an excuse to have them leave and the two of us were left alone chatting” (ARZ, monthly bulletin 5: 5). He had already completed his draft of “The Man from the West,” but we can assume from this that their conversation that night entailed an in-depth discussion of Christianity. During the course of their conversation, Muroga had to excuse himself to return to his night shift in the Ginza. Muroga notes that “as usual, I was worried about missing my train and so I left the conversation hanging.” Apparently at that point, Akutagawa told Muroga that he was “planning to have [him] read the draft of ‘The Man from the West’ before it was completed, but because there was no time, he had finished it off ”; he went on to ask him to read it “once it was out.” Muroga’s response to publication of this work was one of “great disappointment”; this was totally different from what Muroga had been expecting to read. Even then, it seems, Akutagawa was unable to break free from the shackles he wore as a “purveyor of words.” As far as he was concerned, it

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was through writing “The Man from the West” that he discovered a new modus vivendi; but, at the same time, it was in this way that he succeeded in severing the pathway that might lead to life as a Christian. Therein lies one of the tragedies pertaining to Akutagawa. Around dawn on 24 July 1927, Akutagawa competed his draft of “The Man from the West: A Sequel,” placed a Bible by his pillow and took his own life with an overdose of barbitone. The newspaper headlines the following day caused considerable shock among their readers. Various of his works were published posthumously, including “The Man from the West” and “The Man from the West: A Sequel”; “Anchū mondō” (A Dialogue in the Dark, Bungei shunjū, September); “The Life of a Fool”; and “Cogwheels.”

Akutagawa’s literature and Christianity “A Mad Old Man” was an unfinished manuscript from 1910(?), written while Akutagawa was at junior high school. A retired tōfu shop owner, known as “crazy Hidé,” is widely believed to have been driven crazy following punishment for having burnt a talisman distributed by a prominent local Shinto priest, an act attributed to his membership of the Kirishitan sect. The story describes how the protagonist and his friend smirk as they happen to catch Hidé, “one of the Christians who opposed all the severe religious prohibitions from Japan’s past,” shrieking as he offered up “a highly emotional prayer.” “How funny!” I scoffed at the time. But now I cannot help but feel a profound sense of respect for that “funny man.” Even now, I am heartily ashamed at the way in which, at that time, I mocked those prayers and shrieking of that mad old man, and am all too aware now of how this represented a mocking of the loyal passion shown by those who opposed the feudal regime. (ARZ 23: 213) At much the same time, Akutagawa wrote his unfinished “Kirisuto ni kansuru danpen” (Fragments about Christ); and, in discussing the issue of Akutagawa’s relationship with Christianity, one cannot overlook the sentiments pervading “A Mad, Old Man.” Some major Kirishitan stories “Tobacco and the Devil,” published in 1916, represents Akutagawa’s first Kirishitan story, and it is important to note in this regard that this story appeared shortly after his debut on the literary scene. And it is impossible to exaggerate the significance of the fact that the author chose at this stage in his career to focus on the theme of the irreconcilability—the disharmony—between East and West, albeit he did this in a journal committed to publication of works by like-minded authors. It is not difficult to visualize Akutagawa warming to this theme as he grew in confidence as an author. As the story opens, the devil who had been brought to Japan by St. Francis Xavier is struggling to find a target for his temptations: The time was early spring, when the air is heavy with dew, and as the devil worked, he could hear the sleepy boom of a bell carried gently over the floating mist from some distant temple. The sound was quite unlike that of the western church bells, to which he had become accustomed, and which had seemed to him Chapter 4: Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: A Christian Life

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so unpleasantly piercing. But even in such a restful atmosphere, he could not feel at peace. Every time the distant bell sounded, the devil would grimace, as though it gave him greater displeasure than the bells of St. Paul’s, and would set himself to work harder than before. For he found that, what with the soothing sound of the bell and the warm sunshine, he was lapsing into a state of pleasant lethargy. He did not mind being too lazy to do good, but he saw that if he was not careful, he would lose all desire to do evil. (Akutagawa 1957, 82) This passage is instantly recognizable as drawing on the Book of Revelation 3: 15–16. It is also one of the most memorable passages in Akutagawa’s oeuvre and offers a vivid example of the author’s literary talent. Its beautiful prose is here deployed to skillfully encapsulate the all-important issue of the East-West divide. It is a story depicting the arrival of tobacco into Japan—with the devil portrayed as “drawing the [tobacco] seeds out of his ears, and planting them” in order to avoid “failing in his mission” (Akutagawa 1957, 82). To be sure, the story betrays some of the pedantic excesses of a youthful writer; but the theme is a powerful one.2 He would pick up and develop his thinking on this theme—along with a focus on the tropes of monotheistic vs. pantheistic cultures, and of the Middle Ages and the modern in his story, “Smiles of the Gods.” “The Death of a Martyr” relates the story of Lorenzo, who was raised in a church in Nagasaki and is seen as “a heavenly guardian appearing in the guise of a child” (Akutagawa 2007, 115) However, one day it transpires that the daughter of a local umbrella maker is pregnant and the rumor is that Lorenzo is the father. Chaos ensues, Lorenzo is driven out of the church and commits himself to an austere lifestyle. One year later, a great fire ravages the vicinity and Lorenzo risks his own life to rescue the baby. The dying “Lorenzo” is saved from the flames—only for “the holes in his burned upper garment [to reveal] two pure, pearl-like breasts” (Akutagawa 2007, 115). With this, [his] innocence is clear, but Lorenzo then breathes [his] last. I have heard it said that this is all that is known about her life. But what of it? That which is most precious in a human life is indeed found in such an irreplaceable moment of ecstasy. (Akutagawa 2007, 115) The focus here is on the “irreplaceable moment of ecstasy,” the tale concluding with a commentary explaining that this story is contained in the Legenda Aurea volume. It is this that accounts for the reputation of “The Death of a Martyr” as the greatest of Akutagawa’s Kirishitan stories, as the epitome of the tradition of “art for art’s sake” for which the author is renowned. In “The Christ of Nanking,” Chinhua, or Gold Blossom, is a kind-hearted prostitute committed to the Catholic faith, who plies her trade simply to enable her father to drink even one more cup of his favorite sake. One day she succumbs to syphilis and, out of fear of infecting others, she stops working and falls into dire poverty. Despite being reassured that, even if she were to transmit the disease, it can be cured, she finds herself unable to heed this advice and continues to shun all clients. However, one evening, she is enraptured by the entreaties of a man who is neither clearly western nor eastern in origin, and the two spend

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the night together. In her dream, she realizes that the man is Christ. The next morning, both the man and her money are gone; but, just as the man had predicted, her illness is cured. The following spring, a visiting Japanese man hears this story and is unable to decide whether to tell her the story he had heard of the mixed-race journalist who had spent the night with a prostitute, left without paying—but ended up contracting syphilis. This story can be seen as an expression of skepticism towards the Christian faith, but equally, one should not overlook the fact that the Japanese tourist has no proof of the accuracy of this claim; this can be seen as Akutagawa’s way of leaving ample scope for a variety of readings of this story. “Smiles of the Gods” represents the first of Akutagawa’s Kirishitan stories penned after the time he spent as a special reporter in China. In the eyes of the protagonist, Padre Organtino, “the scenery of this country is beautiful [and] so is the climate” and yet, despite the fact that “the natives … are mostly friendly” and the number of “Christian believers is increasing to tens of thousands,” (Dykstra 2006, 39 (adapted)) he is overcome by an indescribable sense of profound melancholy. On one occasion, an old man appears in front of him, claiming to be “one of the spirits of this land” (Dykstra 2006, 42) and argues: Surely, numbers of them may be converted to your teachings, just as the majority of the natives have already been affected by the Buddhist teaching. But that is not the issue here. What I am talking about is their power, the ability of transforming and adapting [what has been imported]. (Dykstra 2006, 43) In short, the underlying resilience latent within Japanese culture possesses the “power to transform and adapt.” In this way, this story succeeds in probing the depths of the East-West dichotomy and thereby transports the reader beyond the world of literature—as a result of which it is cited in a wide variety of cultural settings. “Ogin” is the story of a young girl who is arrested along with her adoptive parents and sentenced to be burned at the stake. However, just before the sentence is implemented, she apostatizes, explaining that I have given up the Teachings. That was because I realized something while watching the tips of the canopy-like pine trees. My deceased parents buried under these trees were ignorant of the Teachings, and probably have fallen now into the inferno. On the contrary, I might be going to paradise by myself. How can I do that without my real parents? Therefore, I have decided to go to hell to join my deceased parents. So, please, Father and Mother, go to the place of Lord Jesus and Virgin Mary. Now that I have left the Teachings, I will not live anymore. (Dykstra 2006, 56) With that, Ogin’s adoptive parents also apostatize. Akutagawa can here be seen addressing the wall that separates eastern and western ethos. “The Man from the West” and its sequel were published posthumously and feature a protagonist who, on finding himself “in more recent days no longer [looking on] Christ as a stranger (kōro no hito)” (Akutagawa 2011, 257), attempts to map out a life of Christ. This life is depicted in 37 installments ranging from Christ’s birth to His death on the cross. But throughout the focus is on Christ’s struggle with the binary tension embroiled in his origins as the child of the Holy Spirit, “that which eternally seeks transcendence,” and Mary, “the one Chapter 4: Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: A Christian Life

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who eternally protects us” (Akutagawa 2011, 258). Akutagawa may have found himself unable to put the Christian religion into practice, but, as a “poet” and as a “journalist,” Christ was able to use His genius to laugh at life even while discarding it. And yet Akutagawa continues to assert that the life of Christ would continue to exercise the power to move humankind. It is often claimed that Akutagawa was here using Christ as an analogy of his own life. To be sure, there is an element of analogy in evidence here. But the fact that this was Akutagawa’s final work is of considerable significance here: one cannot overlook the author’s intent gaze on the figure of Christ, “the dōhansha” (constant companion figure), his determination to look on Christ in the moments leading up to his death. The sequel story, penned the night before Akutagawa took his life, closes as follows: “We are, just like the travelers on the road to Emmaus, unable to live without seeking Christ, who sets our hearts on fire” (Akutagawa 2011, 279). In addition to these stories, one should not overlook other Kirishitan stories by Akutagawa, including “Shiro” (White), and “Cogwheels.” At the same time, one can trace the origins of the story “The Spider’s Thread” to the chapter entitled “My Lord and St. Peter” in Legends of Christ by the Nobel Prize-winning author, Selma Lagerlőf.

Christianity in the person and literature of Akutagawa He envied the people of medieval times who could entrust themselves to the power of God. But belief in God … Belief in the love of God was for him utterly impossible—a belief that even Cocteau possessed. (“The Life of a Fool” also translated as “The Life of a Stupid Man*”; Akutagawa 2007, 170) Akutagawa’s life remained closely entwined with Christianity from the moment of his birth right up until his suicide. He ended his life still straddling the divide between faith and doubt. For one determined to live his “life” with faithfulness and sincerity, this comes as no surprise. What is required to these ends is steadfastness and a commitment to the truth. Since as humans, we live with a constant awareness of our distance from this reality, even as believers we are torn between these twin poles of faith and doubt. We cannot understand and evaluate a person merely by focusing on one of these two elements. Indeed, to seek to make such evaluations is to encroach on the territory of God. All that is possible for us as humans is to determine the extent to which the actions of that individual were inspired by an adherence to Christian values. The same holds true for literary artists. Torn between such binary divides as East/West, medieval/modern, global/local, Catholicism/Protestantism and faith/doubt, Akutagawa nevertheless lived his life with sincerity. Without taking such tensions into consideration, one is in danger of being blinded by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke the author, and failing to appreciate the true essence of his art. It is only then that one comes to discern the true contours of Akutagawa, the author who grappled head-on with the issues confronting modern Japanese culture. Without his understanding of Christianity, his greatest of works would probably never have come to fruition.

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Notes 1 The “Thursday Club” was a weekly gathering initiated by Sōseki at which he sought to encourage the next generation of authors. 2 In this regard, it should be noted that, the following year, Akutagawa entitled his second short story collection (following the success of Rashōmon) as Tobacco and the Devil.

References Akutagawa, F. (1975). Tsuisō: Akutagawa Ryūnosuke [Recollections of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke]. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. Akutagawa, R. (1957). The Devil and Tobacco (E. McClellan, trans.). Modern Age (Winter), 81–84. ———. (1982). Cogwheels and Other Stories (H. Norman, trans.). Ontario, CA: Mosaic Press. ———. (1995–1998). Akutagawa Ryūnosuke zenshū [The Collected Works of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke] (24 vols.) Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. (cited as ARZ) ———. (2007). Mandarins: Stories by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (C. de Wolf, trans.). New York: Archipelago Books. ———. (2011). The Man from the West and The Man from the West: The Sequel (K. Doak and J. S. Matthews, trans.). Monumenta Nipponica 66:2, 257–80. Dykstra, Y. & Dykstra, A. (intro. & trans.) (2006). Kirishitan Stories by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke. Japanese Religions 31(1), 23–65. Miyasaka, S. (1970). Akutagawa Ryūnosuke sakkazen-shi: seinenki ni okeru kirisutokyō [Akutagawa Ryūnosuke before he became an author: The role of Christianity during his youth]. Jōchi kokubun (Feb.). ———. (1973). Akutagawa Ryūnosuke to kirisutokyō [Akutagawa Ryūnosuke and Christianity]. In Sasabuchi T. (ed.), Kirisutokyō to bungaku [Christianity and literature] vol. 2. Tokyo: Kasama Shoin. Natsume, S. (1997). Natsume Sōseki zenshū [The Collected Works of Natsume Sōseki], vol. 24. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Sako, J. (1956). Akutagawa Ryūnosuke ni okeru geijutsu no unmei [The destiny of art in the literature of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke]. Tokyo: Ikkodō Shoten. Sasabuchi, T. (1970). Akutagawa Ryūnosuke to kirisutokyō shisō [Akutagawa Ryūnosuke and Christian ideology]. In Sasabuchi T. (ed.), Meiji Taishō bungaku no bunseki [An analysis of Meiji and Taishō era literature]. Tokyo: Meiji Shoin. Satō, Y. (1974). Bungaku: sono uchi naru kami: Nihon kindai bungaku ichimen [Literature: The God within— one aspect of modern Japanese literature]. Tokyo: Ōfūsha. Sekiguchi, Y. (1988). Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: jitsuzō to kyozō [Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: Reality and fiction]. Tokyo: Yōyōsha Tomasi, M. (2018). The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature: Metaphors of Christianity. Abingdon: Routledge Toyoda, M. (1973) Watashi no aruite kita michi: jinsei to shinkō [The path I have followed: My life and faith]. Tokyo: Shōhakusha

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Chapter 5 Incarnation of the Christian Faith in the Poetry of Yagi Jūkichi Yamane Michihiro Translated by Mark Williams A representative Japanese poet, Yagi Jūkichi, succeeded in overcoming the vision of a paternal god that caused so many of his peers in the literary world to renounce the faith, and to create for himself a poetic world that represents the embodiment of a faith rooted in a maternal vision of God. Elements of his faith are reflected in his poems, through which the characteristics of this unique form of Christianity took root, and blossomed, in the hearts of the Japanese.

Introduction The vast majority of Japanese literary figures since the Meiji period (1868–1912) who came under the influence of Christianity as youths ended up renouncing their Christian affiliation and devoting themselves to literature before they were in a position to give full expression to their faith. As an exception to this generalization, however, one can cite the figure of Yagi Jūkichi (1898–1927), whose poetry was born of his desire to give full expression to his faith. In his Preface to a collection of Yagi’s poetry, the renowned sculptor and poet, Takamura Kōtarō, wrote as follows: The poems of Yagi Jūkichi are eternal. Such pure and heart-wrenching poetry will never die, regardless of the age. And no matter how poetic techniques may change with the times, Yagi’s poems will surely continue to strike at the heart of those who live and read them. … Those who read these quiet poems will find themselves visibly moved; those who read these gentle poems will be infused with an unquenchable power; they will find themselves feeling as though imbued with an infinite warmth derived from these innocent words. (Takamura 1984, 124)

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And just as Takamura had predicted, even today, more than ninety years after Yagi’s death, his poetry is still loved by many and continues to bring relief to the parched souls of so many in contemporary society. It was the poet, Kusano Shinpei, who noted the presence of this power in Yagi’s poetry when he remarked: When it comes to Christian poetry in Japan, I think Yagi Jūkichi’s is the best. He is by no means the first in this regard, but all the earlier examples were overly conceptual and give voice to little more than secular reasoning and simple emotions. It is as if the most important poetic element is missing from such poetry. It was Yagi who first managed to capture the essence of Christ’s incarnation, His sensibilities in his poetry. Without Christ, Yagi’s poetry would not have come into being. (Kusano 1984, 133) As Kusano suggests, the power of Yagi’s poetry is derived from the fact that it strikes at the “physiology, the sensibilities” of the Christian faith, that it represents one facet of the incarnation, of the cultural flowering of Christianity. In keeping with the words of Christ, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them” (John 7: 37–38, NIV), Yagi’s poetry is the incarnation of the Christian faith; and is it not for this very reason that “living water” flows forth from these poems and that, regardless of the age, they continue to quench the reader’s soul? In this chapter, I hope to shed light on the manner in which Yagi overcame those obstacles that caused so many Japanese authors who became embroiled with Christianity to stumble in their faith and how he managed to give flesh and blood to his faith; and, by examining the elements of his faith evidenced in his poetry, to shed light on one example of the gospel story taking root in the hearts of the Japanese and flowering beautifully.

Yagi’s early life: God as a strong, paternal principle Yagi was born the second son of a farmer in 1898 in what is now the Aihara-machi district of Machida city in Tokyo. In 1919, at the age of 21 when he was a student at Tokyo Higher Normal School, “worried by the question of life and death” and “troubled by the issue of good and evil” (YJZ 2: 401), he requested, and received, baptism from Pastor Tominaga Tokuma, of Komagome Christian church. However, two months later, unable to endure the “lukewarm atmosphere of the church” (YJZ 3: 193), he found himself leaving the church. At around the same time, however, inspired by the writings and lectures of the prominent theologian, Uchimura Kanzō, he began to quietly read the Bible every day and, from then on, he lived out his life as an ardent believer. On graduating from Tokyo Higher Normal School in 1921, he took up a position as an English teacher at Mikage Normal School in Hyōgo Prefecture and the following year, at the age of 24, he married Shimada Tomiko, a Christian for whom he had served as a part time tutor during his time at high school. From around this time, as if keeping a diary, he established the daily habit of writing poetry that would culminate in his Tamashii no fūkei (Visions of the Soul). In 1925, he transferred to Higashi Katsushika Junior High School in Chiba prefecture and relocated to the city of Kashiwa. One can divide Yagi’s poetic journey into two halves: the first encompassing his time in Mikage and the second

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comprising the period when he lived in Kashiwa. His first collection of poetry, Aki no hitomi (Autumn Eyes, 1925), can be seen as representative of the poetry of his first period. However, the following year he contracted tuberculosis and he died in 1927 at the age of 29, leaving behind some three thousand poems penned over a period of a mere four years. At this point, mention should be made of Uchimura Kanzō as one of the figures who inspired Yagi on his Christian journey. In his Kirisuto shinto no nagusame (Consolations of a Christian, 1893), Uchimura depicts his emotional turmoil following his decision to leave his church as follows: I have turned to the Non-church movement. I now have no church built with human hands. There are no voices of praise to comfort me, no priests to pray for blessings upon me; but does this mean that I have no church building where I can worship God and draw close to Him? When I climb the western mountain and survey the vast fertile plain beneath my eyes, as I transcend the world of secular concerns and find myself at one with the infinite world of nature, the gentle breeze reverberates as hymns in the pine trees at my back, and the eagles and hawks flying overhead spread their wings and confer on me heavenly blessings. As the sun begins to set and the purple of the western mountain and the deep red of the clouds in the west are reflected on the surface of the flowing water, I walk alone beside the waters and join in communion with the departed saints; on such occasions, the rock of Bethsaida, the “great altar” of St. Mark preach to me in silence. … That’s it. I am not devoid of the church. (UKZ 2: 36–37) There is little doubt that this vision of a faith whereby, even though divorced from the church building shaped with human hands, one can create a natural church where one can worship God in heaven and receive blessings was highly influential on Yagi’s approach to Christianity. Furthermore, in his Bushidō to kirisutokyō (Bushido and Christianity, 1916), where Uchimura preached the strong, paternal God of the Old Testament, he described Christianity as “the greatest artefact in the world” that had been grafted on to the roots of Bushido, “the greatest artefact in Japan” (UKZ 22: 161–62). And elsewhere, in an article of the same name, he was to write that “If there is a feminine Christianity in this world, then there is also a masculine Christianity. Our Savior Jesus Christ was not a weak man who simply took pity on sinners, forgave them their sins and sought to bring them to redemption”; instead, citing the biblical passage where Jesus expelled the merchants from the temple, Uchimura supported his argument for a “masculine Christ” by placing emphasis on the fact that “this is not a gentle Jesus, but a fearsome and frightening Jesus; Jesus is different from the Buddha” and drawing attention to the “samurai-like temperament of Jesus” (UKZ 31: 292–97). It is also important to note that the period around 1919, when Yagi began to interact with Uchimura coincided with the period when the latter’s “Second coming of Christ” movement was at its peak. With the outbreak of World War 1 and the mad rush to enter hostilities displayed, not only by so many European countries but also by America, Uchimura came to despair at the state of European Christianity and, from 1918, convinced that world peace could never be established by this-worldly efforts (including those of the church) and that this could only be accomplished through the intercession of Christ, he began preaching a faith founded on a belief in the second coming of Christ (cf. e.g., Suzuki 1984).

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A careful look at Yagi’s complete oeuvre reveals a large number of poems from his earlier corpus that depict God and Christ as stern, paternal beings, suggesting that he was indeed susceptible to the view of God and of the second coming as expounded by Uchimura. For example, as exemplified in his verse “Jesus, will you come with anger, indignation and fire?”, there are a number of his early poems that focus on the image of Christ as returning to this world to judge with anger, indignation and fire those who fail to adhere to his commandments. Or, as seen in the poem “Tsurugi o motsu mono” (A Man with a Sword*), which contains the line “There is no knowing when he will cut his way in” (Moritani 1984, 28), there are several poems in this group that touch on the tense notion of living with the uncertainty of not knowing when Christ will return in judgment. This sense of urgency pervades the poetic world of Yagi’s earlier works, especially those in his first collection, Autumn Eyes. This mood is clearly evidenced in the opening poem in this collection, “Iki o korose” (Hold your Breath*), which starts with the refrain, “Hold your breath; hold your breath. My baby beholds the sky, Ah, it beholds the sky” (Moritani 1984, 25). Subsequent poems include the stanzas, “A white twig; a thin, stinging twig. In my soul, I see a white twig” (Moritani 1984, 25) in “Shiroi eda” (A White Twig*), and “Sad are the trees pointing to the sky. Painful are their twigs” (Moritani 1984, 29) in “Sora o sasu kozue” (Twigs Pointing to Sky*). Both poems comprise depictions of the natural world which are then juxtaposed onto the backdrop of the author’s own soul searching: the poet here longs for heaven, but weighed down by gravity, he is unable to leave the human world. As such, his thoughts alone are focused on heaven and, like the treetops, they reach out to heaven, but are ultimately unable to arrive there. It is this axis reaching from the world of human concerns up to heaven that pervades Yagi’s early poems. Also in Yagi’s early poetry collections, we find comments such as the following that appears in “Shizuka naru fūkei” (The Silent Landscape): I am as yet unable to see Jesus with His eyes of compassion; the Jesus in my heart is always a lonely Jesus, a Jesus prone to anger, a Jesus who always appears to be frustrated as He walks. Things are painful for me. Why are you staring at me so intently? Oh, those eyes! Those eyes! The gaze you cast on me as you stop and stare. Such sad-looking eyes. Such terrifying eyes! (YJZ 3: 96) And, in “Dorufuin no uta” (The Song of the Dolphin), he writes: Because I find myself unable to divest myself of everything, I am by no means perfect. I am drawn to pursue all that is beautiful, but because I remain far from the way of Christ, how sad I feel. (YJZ 1: 136) As evidenced by these verses, Yagi was devoted to his search for Christ, desperate to encounter that gentle gaze; but he ultimately found himself angered by his own inability to follow His teachings unequivocally. In all this we are left with the impression of a man who, painfully aware simply of Christ’s frightening eyes looking on him with a hint of frustration, is ultimately left with his own grief and sadness. In “Kami o omou aki” (Thinking of God in Autumn), one of the latter poems of this first stage of Yagi’s writing, we encounter the following, “Loving God. If it is unrequited, the pain is simply overwhelming” (YJZ 1: 274). And, in “Junjō o shitaite” (Yearning for a Pure Heart), Chapter 5: Incarnation of the Christian Faith in the Poetry of Yagi Jūkichi

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we find “Occasionally, I feel as though God’s gentle-looking gaze is enveloping me just as I am. But at other times, He comes to appear as a much more severe being. I feel as though He were trying to kill me and the grief is unbearable” (YJZ 1: 303). Here too we can see Yagi yearning for God and we see a man who, while seeking a maternal God who would envelop him in His tender embrace, finds himself acutely aware that he is confronted by a vengeful, paternal God who has come to exercise judgment on him for his inability to obey God’s mandates and reduced to insufferable melancholy. What we encounter in these poems is not so much the stern paternal figure of Christ seamlessly linked with the spiritual foundations we see as inherent in the case of Uchimura (whose faith was deeply rooted in Bushido and Confucian principles); rather, Yagi appears to be suffering as a result of something standing in stark conflict with the religious underpinnings that inhabit his own deep-level conscious. Normally, as we see in the case of so many of the authors of the modern era who ended up drifting away from the Christian faith, such a conflict represents an insurmountable stumbling block. But, in the case of Yagi with his passionate yearning for God, it would seem that he found himself unable to renounce his search for God no matter how distant He might seem. And this only added to the spiritual suffering experienced by Yagi as he found himself confronted by the stern paternal God. The extent of this suffering is clearly evidenced in the following poem: At times, I grow tired of following. Even my creaking bones and the groans of my flesh are audible. But I must go. I must go. If I am wounded, I shall wrap my wounds and go. If I am alone, I will carry on alone. (YJZ 3: 158) The poem offers a graphic portrayal of Yagi’s soul as, while searching for God, he comes to appreciate that the more he searches, the more he will have to experience pain, suffering and loneliness. In the collection entitled Osanaki ayumi (Childlike Steps), he acknowledged “I think on death, I think on God, I think on life with all its hardship and exhaustion” (YJZ 3: 312); and in Mono-ochitsuita fuyu no machi (The Quiet Town in Winter), he was to suggest, “It would be easier to die; it would be more beautiful to die” (YJZ 3: 369); such stanzas reveal the extent to which Yagi had tired of seeking God, how he constantly found himself yearning for the peace that death can bring, and how he was lured into thinking on death. The Christianity to which he had found himself attracted in the hope of finding a solution to issues of life and death—in search of the joy and peace of life—brought him only constant pain and suffering, caused him to grow tired of life and lured him towards thoughts of death. As he desperately sought to follow the God and Christ who felt so distant from him, Yagi’s poems of the time offer evidence of his sense that the atmosphere surrounding his workplace was unrefined and to be scorned and that even his family—the wife and children whom he loved—felt like a restricting bond. But when we think upon this aspect of Yagi’s faith, we are reminded of the distinction that the Catholic critic, Ochi Yasuo, draws in his study, On Reading de Rougemont’s Love in the Western World, between “agape” as the embodiment of Christian love, and “eros,” which Ochi likens to the love displayed by Tristan in the Arthurian legend, The Romance of Tristan and Iseult. (Ochi 1970, 91–92). Ochi here distinguishes between eros, which represents a “yearning for something distant,” and agape, which he sees as a “love of something near” and argues that, for those who live only with a “yearning 88

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for something distant,” all things “near” are experienced merely as a sense of bondage or a burden and they remain oblivious to the pain and tears of those living for love of something near. This in turn is far divorced from the spirit of Christianity; and it is the other form of love—Christian agape love—that leads to the rediscovery of that “love of something near.” Seen in this light, one has to acknowledge that the searching undertaken by Yagi during this earlier period belongs to the “yearning for something distant” category of eros-type love, and had yet to reach the stage of Christian agape, that “love of something near.” However, as has been pointed out by the prominent Carmelite priest and fellow author who led so many contemporary Japanese authors to Christianity, Inoue Yōji, such eros-type soul-searching should not be rejected out of hand; it embodies the energy that represents the driving force behind art and learning; and, in the realm of faith, “as revealed in the words of St. Augustine in his Confessions, where he argues, ‘My God, until I find repose in your embrace, I shall have no respite for my heart,’ when we seek God, seek beauty or seek another, we have no choice but to start from an attitude of eros whereby we search for those values that are lacking in ourselves” (Inoue 1976, 154). In this sense, this approach can be cited as a prerequisite for all faith. The important thing to remember here, however, is that this remains but the first step of faith; to cite Inoue again, it is that first self-centered step when “one is seeking God for one’s own purposes” and, in order to enter the world of religion for its own sake, as opposed to the world of art, learning and morality, one needs to reach that altruistic stage whereby “one is relativized before God, is subordinated to Him and God appears on a pedestal” (Inoue 1987, 36); only then can the individual enjoy true religious salvation and peace. If this be the case, then it is clear that the spiritual searching that is evidenced in Yagi’s work of this period remains at the level of that first self-centered step when “one is seeking God for one’s own purposes”; he had yet to reach the altruistic stage that leads to religious peace. As a consequence, it can be argued that the world of religious peace is not commonly manifest in the poetry of this period; all we have here is evidence of Yagi engaged in a desperate search for the transcendental, but one that remains at the level of eros.

“Calling on His name”: The experience of prayer If one reads through his poetic oeuvre, which was written like a diary, the next moment in which Yagi evidences a change of direction in his spiritual search can be seen as occurring on 18 June 1924 when his eldest daughter, Momoko, had just turned one year old. On this occasion, during the course of one night Yagi penned “Mari to buriki no koma” (The Ball and the Tinplate Top), a collection of some fifty poems in the form of a series of nursery rhymes. In his Afterword to this collection, Yagi remarked, “It is only children and God who truly inhabit the world of nursery rhymes” (YJZ 1: 181). The collection contains stanzas such as “Let’s make our way back slowly to childhood” (YJZ 1: 182) and “If one is worshiping Christ and at one with the children, then all will be well” (YJZ 1: 182); in all this, Yagi’s search for a return to the world of childhood is conspicuous. One is here reminded of the childlike searching of Thérèse de Lisieux. Thérèse was a French Carmelite nun who, as shown by her claim that “little children will never fall into hell” (Geneviève de la Sainte Face 1960, 46), lived her life without fearing God and remained steadfast in her pursuit of a faith whereby she could entrust herself to God’s loving embrace by assuming a childlike love and trust; she died in 1897 at the tender age of 24. Even in Japan, during the Taishō era (1912–1926), the

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Japanese translation of Thérèse’s autobiography, entitled Chiisaki hana (Little Flowers), was widely read, especially in Catholic circles, serving as an influential text on a variety of artists, including such significant figures as Miyazawa Kenji (1896–1933). We do not know whether Yagi knew of Thérèse; but it can certainly be argued that his faith matured naturally in a manner very similar to that of her childlike searching. It should be noted at this point that a youthful encounter with this book written by St. Thérèse led the aforementioned Inoue Yōji to overcome his doubts and to seek baptism. Needless to say, the direction assumed in Yagi’s faith journey was far removed from that of Uchimura Kanzō, whose stern ethical dogma can be seen in his belief, cited from another theologian of his day that “those who do not repent, even be they a small child, will end up in hell” (UKZ 25: 182). As Yagi wrote in the second volume of his Ketsuraku shigun (Collection of Missing Poems), I am superficial, pathetic, weak; but if that is the case, then surely that is the way I was born. I am convinced that, one day, these various facets of my being will serve as an inimitable catalyst to help transport me to that other world. (YJZ 1: 236) Verses like this offer clear evidence that that for which Yagi was thirsting from the depths of his being was not the paternal God who would punish his weakness and awkwardness, but rather a maternal God who would use the very existence of such weakness and awkwardness as the motive leading him to Himself. Later that year, Yagi’s daughter Momoko was joined by a son, Yōji, and in December of that same year, Yagi was to write the following in “Mazushiki mono no uta” (Poem of a Pitiful Soul), Truly on days when my poetry flows forth naturally, I feel as if I myself am precious. I come to feel as if I am truly alive. I become a window onto God’s heart and my poems flow from the same height as that I perceive to be occupied by God (YJZ 1: 345). Elsewhere in the same collection he was to write, When one becomes father to another, is that not God enabling us to appreciate the fact that He is Father of all mankind? As soon as we learn that God is our Father, all power seems to well up within us (YJZ 1: 346). We find clear evidence of the poems flowing forth from “the same height as that he perceived as occupied by God” that lay at the heart of Yagi’s desire to give expression to the sense of “God as father” in more than ten of the poems included in the collection Mi-na o yobu (Calling on His Name), penned in March 1925 towards the end of the first half of Yagi’s poetic life. This collection opens with the words, “From February 17, 1925, I experienced the true resurrection,” a clear indication of just how epochal this experience was in the formulation of Yagi’s faith. In another (untitled) verse in this collection he notes, “I call out to my Father in Heaven. With my every inhalation I worship Him. With my every exhalation I worship Him. All I can 90

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do is call out His name” (YJZ 1: 384); and, in yet another he confesses, “I can only cry out to Him; since I know not the words of prayer, like a suckling child crying out to its mother, if I call out the name of my Father in Heaven, how strange it is, how unworthy I feel. But my Father looks down on me” (YJZ 1: 385). And, in keeping with the verse, I call upon the Father and, at the same time, there is a voice calling upon me; when I contemplate the heart of that voice, how grateful I am for the miracles of Christ. (YJZ 1: 385) this can be seen as a religious experience whereby Yagi entered the true presence of God and was reborn into a new “life.” There is no question that, when he “called on God’s name” like a suckling child at its mother’s breast, the image of God in Yagi’s heart was not a harsh paternal God who sought to punish him, but a maternal God who sought to welcome him into His tender embrace just as he was. And the gaze of God as He “looked down on him” was surely that of the mother lovingly gazing on the child at her breast. And since this was something that Yagi had always been longing for in his heart, he penned the poem, How unworthy I am. All I can do is call upon the name of the Father. I am devoid of strength, devoid of achievement. I simply follow that path. (YJZ 1: 385) as testimony to the fact that he had discovered the path of Christ that he was to follow. The image of God depicted here can be seen as far divorced from the paternal image embraced by Uchimura and as encapsulating, rather, the essence of Yagi’s unique maternal image of God. The poet Tanaka Kiyomitsu sums up this quality thus: Yagi came to write of his own poetry: “My poetry, may it serve as a calling on the divine name.” But this can be seen as linked to the secular, rural tradition involved in calling on the name of the Buddha in which Yagi had been nurtured. … One is surely justified in arguing that, in this sense, Yagi’s Christian faith evolved along unique lines, far removed from that espoused by Tominaga Tokuma and Uchimura Kanzō and from the Christian traditions of the day. (Tanaka 1988, 420) It is undoubtedly true that at the heart of Yagi’s religious consciousness lies a religious foundation nurtured in the Jōdo Buddhist tradition that is itself deeply rooted in the spiritual climate of Japan; but that is not to say that it is non-Christian. To be sure, it may be very different from the “samurai Christianity,” the “male Christianity” espoused by Uchimura; but, if one looks on the world of Christianity from a broader perspective, it becomes clear that this prayer of Yagi, this “calling on His name,” owes much to the “prayer to Jesus,” in which the holy name is intoned with each breath that lies at the heart of eastern Christian traditions, including Russian orthodoxy.1 It is also noteworthy in this regard that Yagi’s religious experience of prayer whereby he “called on the name of the Father” is closely connected to the prayer offered by Jesus Himself Chapter 5: Incarnation of the Christian Faith in the Poetry of Yagi Jūkichi

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whereby He prayed to God the Father using the term “Abba,” a term of intimacy in Aramaic usually reserved to children calling upon their father. The theologian, Joachim Jeremias, who is fluent in Aramaic, has written extensively on the topic of Jesus’ “Abba” prayer and his argument can be summarized as follows.2 We have confirmation that Jesus directed all his prayers to “Abba,” not just from the record of His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane as recorded in Mark 14: 36 and further records in Romans 8: 15 and Galatians 4: 6, but also from an analysis of the relationship between the original Greek of the gospel accounts and the Aramaic that underlies them. There is no equivalent of the use of the familiar term “Abba” in any prayers in the Jewish tradition; instead, it represents a new and unique development that breaks the mold of Jewish convention. And, as expounded in Matthew 11: 27, we know that Jesus viewed this term of endearment, reminiscent of a child calling tenderly to its father, as a term that gave expression to His vision of the absolute God and of the total authority imbued in Him by His one and only Father; this verse also reveals that it was this term “Abba” that lay at the heart of the relationship between Jesus and God and that represents a manifestation of the ultimate mystery of Jesus being sent to earth. At the same time, in providing His disciples with the Lord’s Prayer and calling on them to follow Him in praying to “Abba,” Jesus hereby offered His disciples the status of a child imbued with absolute faith in speaking to his Father in Heaven. As evidenced in Matthew 18: 3, it is only those who can assume the total childlike trust, like that incorporated in the expression “Abba,” who can enter the kingdom of heaven; and, as the apostle Paul mentions on two occasions, calling on the name of “Abba” is a sign that one has humbled oneself to the status of a child and received the Holy Spirit. Viewed in the light of Jeremias’ explanation, the act of calling on God as “Abba” with a childlike trust derives from Jesus’ vision of an absolute God that He in turn had inherited from God. And Jesus’ vision of God that led to an all-encompassing faith in which God was seen as the parent who pours forth unconditional love on their child can surely be seen as a highly maternal vision. Jeremias further notes that, from ancient times in eastern societies, the word Father was used to refer, not just to kings, ancestors of the nation and other figures of authority, but also to God, “the compassionate and merciful Father figure who held the life of the entire nation in His hands”; in short, characteristics more typically attributed to the maternal figure in the western tradition. As for the Old Testament, the practice of referring to God as Father was first developed by the prophets—in reference to the need, a need surpassing all human understanding, for the compassionate forgiveness of God the Father to be delivered in response to the sins of the people of Israel, His children. Thereafter, in the teachings of Jesus, we see the emergence of the word “Abba” as a new way of calling upon God and we encounter the likes of sinners and tax collectors authorized to call upon God as “Abba” and using constant intoning of this one word to gain entrance into the kingdom of God. Comparison of our intimate and childlike heartfelt prayers to “Abba” with those offered by Jesus provides us with an index of the extent to which we have accurately captured the Father figure of whom Jesus preached. If we can even begin to return to the heart of the child calling upon its father or mother with absolute trust and call out “Abba” in our prayers to God the Father, then surely our experience of God, author of joy and peace, that we experience at that moment draws us closer, however marginally, to Jesus’ experience of God at one with the Father. And this in turn will surely lead to an understanding of God as the strong maternal principle born of childlike faith in the “Abba” God. The child’s path as reflected in 92

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Yagi’s stanza from “The Ball and the Tinplate Top”, “Let us walk back to our childhood” (YJZ 1: 182) is surely an expression of his desire to draw even slightly closer to that world. Seen thus, we can see just how important was Yagi’s experience of drawing close to God by means of the aforementioned prayer to God the Father that imitates the suckling child calling out for its mother in his formulation of a realistic image of the “Abba” God of whom Jesus spoke. In this sense, it can be seen that the experience of coming under the maternal embrace of God through prayer represented for Yagi an overwhelming religious experience that blew new breath through the very core of his being, one so powerful that he experienced it as a sense of “resurrection.” It was Jeremias’ belief that, unfortunately, the sense of joy and awe that could be derived from intoning the Lord’s Prayer as a child calling on the father that existed in the early church had been lost; and it is surely true that, when contemporary Christians come to pray the words “Our Father who art in Heaven,” the words are overly familiar and they tend to forget the “gratitude,” the sense of being “unworthy” of the blessing enveloped with those words, that comes with being able to call upon God as Father as would a child. As we see Yagi, on numerous occasions, expressing his gratitude, combined with his sense of being unworthy even as he called upon God as “Father,” can we not detect a fresh sensation of joy and awe linking him to the Christians of the early church who, through the mediation of Christ, found blessings in their childlike calling on God as “Abba?”

The latter stage: God as powerful maternal principle In the month following this experience of “calling on the holy name,” a change of job entailed a move for Yagi from Mikage to Kashiwa; and it was here that he commenced the latter half of his poetic life. The poetry of this latter period stands in marked distinction to that of the earlier period. And the stanzas included in Mazushiki shinto (A Humble Believer, 1927), his second anthology comprising poems that Yagi himself selected as he lay on his deathbed, depict a poetic world that, in many ways, stands in stark contrast to those in his first collection Autumn Eyes. The poems of the earlier Autumn Eyes depict serene skies, the birds and the clouds that traverse them and those on this earth who gaze up at them: beyond that lies the search for God, the “yearning for something distant,” based on the spirit of eros, as the poet dreams of soaring up to heaven from his earthly home. By contrast, A Humble Believer carries no references to such a poetic world and, instead, the focus is on a “love for those nearby”: Yagi himself, his wife and children and the surrounding world of nature, all bathed in the light pouring down from heaven. This suggests an evolution, a deepening of Yagi’s faith—from that egocentric level in which he was engaged in a desperate search for God who seemed so distant to that altruistic level where, in the light of God’s love, God is the main focus and Yagi came to see himself as His disciple. This can be attributed in large measure to the religious experience depicted in “Call upon His Name” towards the end of the first period of his writing whereby, following his move to Kashiwa, he was free to relax in the vast expanse of the natural landscape that stretched out before him; but the experience of sensing himself relaxing in the warm embrace of God offers clear evidence of his move to a greater selflessness and of the fact that it was there that he discovered a sense of religious peace. The majority of the poems from the latter half of Yagi’s career offer visions of the poet who, in the light of

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God’s love, looks down on himself lamenting the fact that he is unable to follow Christ’s path or his inability, in spite of all his efforts to the contrary, to love others; at the same time, there is clear recognition of the poet suffering illness and acknowledging his own weaknesses and imperfections. Take for example the following extract from the poem “Ishi” (The Stone*) in The Humble Believer collection: As I had been ill for so long, and walked along drooping, I found a pebble wrapped in the light of the setting sun. (Moritani 1984, 61) This stanza evidences none of the sadness seen in the poem “Ishikure” (A Stone*) from the earlier collection Autumn Eyes, where the verse “I picked up a stone, at which I stared all eyes—as if about to cry” (Moritani 1984, 32), gives voice to Yagi’s tears inspired by the juxtapositioning of the solitary roadside pebble with his own loneliness. Walking along the road, struggling with his health and seemingly in the throes of a deep depression, the poem shows Yagi gazing at the evening light enveloping the solitary pebble by the roadside and this in turn leads him to realize that, for all his own travails and loneliness, he, too, is gripped in the warm embrace of God’s love; in so doing, the warmth of the evening sunlight at his back adds to his sense of being enveloped in God’s loving embrace. Moreover, in The Humble Believer, we can find the following two poems: Light is spilling: Light of Autumn falls and spreads on the earth; (Shall I play here?) I will play in the light. (“Aki no hikari” (Light of Autumn*) Moritani 1984, 67) As the moon shines on me, I feel like playing; Shedding tears softly, Dancing, smiling. (“Tsuki” (The Moon*) Moritani 1984, 68) In these verses, we can see Yagi enveloped in the light flowing from heaven to earth, like a child laughing and crying as it relaxes in its mother’s tender embrace. And this in turn gives expression to Yagi’s spiritual search as, relaxed under the tender gaze of the love of “Abba,” he seeks to emulate a child laughing and crying. With this, we are reminded of the following words of the psychologist, Shimoyama Tokuji: A child can continue to play with passion and to experience life in all its fullness. The reason that, unlike an adult experiencing a succession of days of profound weariness and nights of extreme fatigue, a child can succeed in this is because it plays in an atmosphere where it is protected by “trust.” In general, the establishment of “faith” is seen as linked to positive human development. And because the child is blessed with the confidence that it will never be abandoned by the adult in whom it has faith, it relaxes as it plays, and succeeds in gaining what it desires. (Shimoyama 1975, 41)

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As noted earlier, the fact that Jesus, who cried out to God as “Abba,” like a child full of trust, enabled us, too, to cry out to God as Abba can be seen as a sign that, like the mother who never abandons her child but protects it come what may, God, whom we call on as “Abba,” is a figure in whom we as His children can place absolute trust. This can be seen explicitly rendered in the passage where Jesus compares the figure of God receiving the sinner into His tender care with the loving shepherd who abandons his entire flock to search for his one lost sheep (Luke 15: 4–7) and the episode, in John 14: 18, where, despite knowing that he is about to be betrayed by His disciples as a result of their weakness, Jesus nevertheless reassures them, “I will not leave you as orphans.” In which case, in “believing” in the “Abba” God figure, who Jesus taught us will “never abandon us,” we learn that we can experience true and meaningful life, like a child in the warm protection of its mother; and these poems surely offer evidence of Yagi himself living life to the full, like a child under the warm and tender maternal gaze of “Abba.” At this point, I cannot help but feel that, in keeping with the shepherd who spares no effort in his search for his one lost sheep, to experience the unquestioning childlike faith in Abba, reminiscent of the mother who never abandons her child, is to embody the spirit that lies at the heart of the Christian faith. And is it not precisely because of this that we can experience the true joy, freedom and peace of the gospel of Christ? For example, if one simply looks at whether this is truly what lies at the heart of the Christian faith, our response to some of the stern, paternalistic teachings of Jesus may differ considerably. Thus, if one confronts the stern teachings of Jesus without a belief in the maternal figure of “Abba” as the source of our faith, this is likely to lead to the sense of pain and suffering evidenced in Yagi’s early period poems where he found himself too weak to obey Christ’s teachings and fearing the consequent punishment of God. It is surely this that ultimately caused so many of the Japanese authors of the modern era who experimented with Christianity to stumble. Moreover, even for those who did not stumble but remained steadfast in their determination to adhere to the strict teachings in the face of fear of God’s punishment, they were devoid of the joy and freedom of living the gospel of Christ and were in danger of emulating the Pharisees in their legalistic condemnation of those too weak to obey the teachings. By contrast, for those whose entire faith is based on the childlike belief in “Abba,” the maternal God, even on occasions when they struggle with the stern teachings of Christ, this only serves to remind them of their own inadequacy; and the more they are confronted with this realization, the more they come to appreciate the enormity of the love of God who will never abandon them and whose love for them remains unconditional. And, like the tax collector who prayed “God, have mercy on me, a sinner” (Luke 18: 13), the more they come to appreciate the love of “Abba,” the more they are surely drawn to bring their hands together in prayer in the light of God’s love—to apologize for their inadequacies, to pray to be in a position to respond, however feebly, to the love of the God who offers them forgiveness and to strive to develop as individuals worthy of such grace. Thérèse de Lisieux, whose faith in God was premised on a childlike love of “Abba,” was unstinting in her determination to respond to His love by “giving pleasure to God.” What we see here is surely not so much the fear and sense of weakness that comes when standing before the strict paternal God, but rather the image of one who, when bathed in the tender gaze of “Abba,” finds peace and determines to walk with confidence the path that Christ has prepared for them.

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In Yagi’s poem “Asobi” (Play) found in the collection Shinkō shihen (Psalms of Faith), we find the following stanza: When I give myself to Christ, my own purposes disappear. All I need to do is to give myself over to my beautiful feelings— to playful feelings. (YJZ 2: 282) We can see here the parameters of a faith that is reminiscent of Thérèse’s search, whereby the poet suggests that, provided one believes in the overwhelming love of God and fully embraces it for oneself, one has only to follow the path prepared by God with the innocence of a child playing under the tender gaze of its mother. Viewed in the light of such an understanding of Yagi’s faith, we can read the following poem that is seen as his representative work as the embodiment of Yagi’s mature faith: A harp being put in the brightness will play of itself, Not enduring the autumn’s beauty. (“Soboku na koto” (A Naïve Harp*) Moritani 1984, 65) In this poem, the act of taking out the naïve harp and placing it in the Autumn sunlight can be likened to the offering up of oneself to God’s warm embrace like a child, free from all doubts and ostentation, possessed of an all-encompassing faith. In which case, just as any joy that a child may feel cannot but find expression in its whole being, so the joy of being enveloped by the boundless love of God which can be compared to the beautiful serene sky of Autumn inevitably finds expression in our whole being. We can surely describe this poem as offering a perfect expression of the true joy, the freedom and the peace that inevitably comes when one finds oneself following the path of Christ with a childlike faith and trust.

Conclusion As noted above, we need to appreciate that, in order for Yagi to be in a position to depict in his poetry a world in which his faith is embodied in this way, what was required was a deepening of his faith whereby he removed himself from the vision of the fierce, paternal God standing in harsh judgment over his weak self and instead evoked a vision of a maternal being who would never abandon him, one who would watch over him warmly. Only thus could Yagi give expression to an all-encompassing and childlike faith in God. When one considers that the majority of modern Japanese authors who encountered Christianity found themselves stumbling and distancing themselves from the faith, then the trajectory of Yagi’s faith surely offers a possible answer to the question of what is required in order to overcome such stumbling and to give flesh and blood to the Christian faith. To conclude with a final word on the respective faiths of Yagi and Uchimura, I have focused in particular on that element of Yagi’s faith that most distinguished him from Uchimura. It should be noted, however, that the two men were linked by a fundamental approach to faith that valued simple, intuitive experience over a modern, intellectual approach, and one can assume that it is this that accounts for Uchimura’s appeal to Yagi. Based on this approach, both men distanced themselves from the existing approach to the Christian faith that had

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been introduced from the West and determined in their daily experience to faithfully follow the path of Christ as delineated in the Bible in their daily experience. However, since this was a faith founded on living out the gospel in one’s every action, theirs was a heartfelt acceptance of the gospel that inevitably led to the flowering of a unique form of Christian searching that conformed with the native Japanese spiritual foundations that lay deep within the hearts of both men. In this sense, the similarities between both men are clear: the proximity to nature evident in the faith of both men can be ascribed to the cultural underpinnings that lie at the heart of the Japanese spirituality. And yet there is a fundamental difference between the two men, a difference that can be attributed to the roots in Bushido and Confucianism evidenced by Uchimura, the oldest son of a feudal lord of the Takasaki domain, contrasted with the agricultural, more down to earth roots of Yagi who wrote of his origins “My father was a peasant; I am the son of a peasant” (YJZ 1: 301). Seen thus, one can argue that, for all the similarities, the two were ultimately distinguished in arriving at a paternal image of God, in the case of Uchimura, and a more maternal image, in the case of Yagi. I personally feel that it is Yagi who was closer to that fundamental state of mind that can be described as a more deeply rooted Japanese cultural unconscious. And this is the same agricultural, spiritual climate that can be equated with the cultural underpinnings seen in the process whereby Buddhism was accepted into Japan over the centuries and took deep root and flowered in the hearts of the Japanese.3 To me, the path trodden by the Christian poet, Yagi Jūkichi, as his faith became his own, provides us with one vision of how, when the seeds of Christianity are planted deep in the hearts of the Japanese, the flower of faith can blossom.

Notes 1

For more detail on Yagi’s similarities with eastern Christianity, see Yamane 1989. Here I seek to summarize Jeremias’ discussions of “The Lord’s Prayer” and “Abba” as expounded in Jeremias 1966. 3 Much has been written on the down to earth, agricultural basis to the reception of Buddhism into Japan. But for the Catholic viewpoint, see Onodera 1983. Here Onodera argues that “there can be no place for the seeds of the Christian gospel to take root” apart from this “down to earth spirituality.” 2

References de Rougemont, D. (1983). Ai ni tsuite [Love in the Western World]. (Suzuki Kenrō, trans.) Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. Geneviève de la Sainte Face (1960). Osanaki Iezusu no Sei-Terejia no kyōkun to omoide [Lessons and memories of St. Thérèse of the Child Jesus]. (Carmelites, trans.) Tokyo: Chūō Shuppan. Inoue, Y. (1976). Nihon to Iesu no kao [The Face of Jesus in Japan*]. Tokyo: Hokuyōsha. ———. (1987). Kirisuto o hakonda otoko [The man who carried Christ]. Tokyo, Kōdansha. Jeremias, J. (1966). Shin’yaku seisho no chūshinteki shishin [The Central Message of the New Testament] (Kawamura Akinori, trans.) Tokyo: Shinkyō Shuppan. Kusano, S. (1984). Oboegaki [In memoriam]. In Tanaka S. (ed.), Yagi Jūkichi bungaku arubamu [The literary album of Yagi Jūkichi]. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. Moritani, M. (trans. & intro.), (1984). Selected Poems of Jukichi Yagi. Kyoto: Shion Publishing Co. Ochi, Y. (1970). Kōshoku to hana [Love and flowers]. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. Onodera, I. (1983). Daichi no tetsugaku [A philosophy of the earth]. Tokyo: San’ichi Shobō. Shimoyama, T. (1975). Ningen no genkai [The limits of humanity]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho.

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Suzuki, N. (1984). Uchimura Kanzō. Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho; Takamura, K. (1984). Jobun [Preface]. In Tanaka S. (ed.), Yagi Jūkichi bungaku arubamu [The literary album of Yagi Jūkichi]. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. Tanaka, K. (1988). Kaisetsu: Tamashii no koe no hyōshutsu e: Aki no hitomi no zengo [Commentary: Towards an expression of the voice of the soul—before and after The Autumn Eye]. In Kusano S., Tanaka K., and Yoshino T. (eds.), Yagi Jūkichi zenshishū [The Complete Anthology of the Poetry of Yagi Jūkichi, vol. 1]. Tokyo: Chikuma Bunko. Uchimura, K. (1980–1984). Uchimura Kanzō zenshū [The Complete Works of Uchimura Kanzō, 40 vols.]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. (cited as UKZ) Yagi, J. (1982). Yagi Jūkichi zenshū [The Collected Works of Yagi Jūkichi] (3 vols.). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. (cited as YJZ) Yamane, M. (1989). Yagi Jūkichi o megutte [On Yagi Jūkichi]. In Inoue Y. and Yamane M., Kaze no naka no omoi: Kirisutokyō no bunka-nai kaika no kokoromi [Memories within the wind: An attempt at flowering within Christian culture]. Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyō Shuppankyoku.

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Chapter 6 Hori Tatsuo: The Cross Dyed in Bloody Red and the Little Gods of Ancient Times Massimiliano Tomasi Hori Tatsuo is not typically thought to be a writer with significantly overt Christian ties. His fascination with Christianity was however real and distinctive. Although he technically never converted, his writings were dotted with religious signifiers, mostly of a Catholic imprint, and in fact his life-long flirtation with Catholicism would become a significant trait pervading his entire oeuvre. Hori’s personal negotiations with native religious sensibilities and his efforts to pursue a dialogue between these sensibilities on one side and his Catholic inclinations on the other represented his most tangible contribution to the literary discourse that shaped the interwar years.

Introduction Although included in the Kindai Nihon kirisutokyō bungaku zenshū (Collected Works of Modern Japanese Christian Literature) series, next to authors like Kitamura Tōkoku (1868– 1894), Kunikida Doppo (1871–1908), Shimazaki Tōson (1872–1943) and Arishima Takeo (1878–1923) who all had meaningful Christian experiences as reflected in their works, Hori Tatsuo (1904–1953) is not typically thought to be a writer with significantly overt Christian ties.1 The pieces included in the series—his 1930 story “Sei kazoku” (The Holy Family), his 1940 short essay “Emao no tabibito” (The Travelers on the Road to Emmaus) and his 1946 work “Yuki no ue no ashiato” (Footprints in the Snow)—may not even be known to the nonspecialist, as they are seldom cited by scholars, particularly overseas, in connection with this topic. In addition, the vast majority of Meiji (1868–1912) and Taishō (1912–1926) authors who were influenced by the Christian faith exhibited a number of shared traits in their process of conversion—such as an early infatuation with politics and the desire to uphold the ideals of freedom and self-determination—that cannot be detected in Hori’s oeuvre, and the tensions and motifs typical of Meiji Christian discourse—the debate on the awareness of sin and that epistemological urge to be true to the self—never seemed to concern his artistic output. There was no true confrontation between man and God in Hori’s literature and, compared to his own, the literary voices of Meiji Protestantism were merely echoes from a distant past,

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even though they had been heard only a few decades prior. Nevertheless, Hori’s ties with the Christian religion were real and distinctive. Although he technically never converted, his writings were dotted with religious signifiers, mostly of a Catholic imprint, and in fact his life-long flirtation with Catholicism would play a critical role in the literary developments that were to follow. Certainly, there were also traits in his experience that were not unlike the spiritual journey of the earlier generations. The most apparent element of similarity lay in his personal negotiations with native religious sensibilities, and the resulting effort to pursue a dialogue between these sensibilities on one side and his Catholic inclinations on the other represented his most tangible contribution to the literary discourse that shaped the interwar years. The clash between Christianity and the Japanese spiritual tradition had been a recurring theme among earlier writers and intellectuals. In “Kamigami no bishō” (Smiles of the Gods,* 1922), one of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s most celebrated Kirishitanmono (stories about the Kirishitan, the early Christian converts in 16th- and early-17th-century Japan), for example, “one of the spirits of this land” appears to Father Organtino and states: So, you have to be cautious. You cannot say your God will necessarily win. Your Catholic teachings will not necessarily win, no matter how much they spread in this country. … Even your God may change into a native god of this land, just as those from China and India have changed. We are in the trees, in the shallow streams, in the breeze over these roses, and in the evening glow reflected on the temple wall. We are anywhere and anytime. So be careful. (Dykstra 2006, 44) This same tension would be explored again more than forty years later in Endō Shūsaku’s 1966 best-selling novel Chinmoku (Silence*), as exemplified by Father Ferreira’s famous warning to his fellow priest Rodrigues that “This country is a swamp … Whenever you plant a sapling in this swamp the roots begin to rot; the leaves grow yellow, and wither. And we have planted the sapling of Christianity in this swamp” (Endō 1989, 237). Many Meiji writers experienced first-hand the dichotomies caused by this encounter, as they struggled to mediate between newly imported notions of an absolute God and ancestrally rooted beliefs that were diametrically opposite. In some cases, however, the encounter between these polarities was not necessarily as conflictive as that seen in Akutagawa’s or Endō’s fiction. In fact, it engendered an organic process of self-introspection that led to unexpectedly syncretic, if not symbiotic, outcomes. Kitamura Tōkoku’s elaboration of the concept of “Inner Life” and his belief in an intimate connection between man and the Spirit of the Universe—a reflection of his exposure to the teachings of Quakerism—was one such example; and Kunikida Doppo, who built upon some of Tōkoku’s deliberations, formulated notions of God and nature that, while admittedly mutually indistinguishable, were also the result of painful negotiations with the Christian faith. In an entry dated 11 September 1893 that appeared in his Azamukazaru no ki (A Record of My Soul), for example, Doppo wrote: When I think of how infinite nature is and compare it to the brevity of human life, I feel terror, and I cannot withstand the grief. When I think of the essence of nature, of human feelings and then of life, faith comes, and with it hope and courage. You have to think of nature like Wordsworth does! (KDZ 6: 277)

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Shimazaki Tōson similarly developed a panentheistic notion of God that could not be separated from nature. But even in his case, the discovery of the natural world, through the experiences of his fictional alter ego Sutekichi, took place, not necessarily as a disavowal of faith, but rather as a result of his reflections and doubts about its mysteries. Although seen by many as a sine qua non farewell to the Meiji Christian experience, his 1919 novel Sakura no mi no jukusuru toki (When the Cherries Ripen), a fictionalized account of his Meiji Gakuin years, was more a recalibration of that journey of faith rather than a negation of it. Thus, thinking of his conversion, Sutekichi stated: “Why did God create such a strange world? Why did he make some things beautiful and some ugly? Why did he place a hawk next to a sparrow, or a wolf next to a lamb, or a snake next to a frog?” (STZ 5: 486–87). It is within this context that he also became aware of the beauty and sensuality of the natural world: Suddenly, an unexpectedly beautiful scene opened up in front of Sutekichi’s very eyes. … The sky was as red as a sea of flames. That world that somehow he had managed to live without knowing opened up in front of him, and was talking to him about its existence. (STZ 5: 464)2 Hori Tatsuo placed substantial emphasis on the delicate balance between these two opposites—the Christian God and the pantheon of nature—tackling a dualism that was, in fact, at the roots of his spiritual turmoil. In “Jūgatsu” (October), for example, a work that chronicled his journey to Nara in 1941 at the peak of his fascination with Japan’s ancient world, he first wrote: It’s another beautiful autumn day, today. Yesterday morning I read Claudel’s The Annunciation of Mary. I had been wanting to read it again under the autumn bright sky of the roads of Yamato just as I read it years ago during the lonely winter I spent in the snow-covered mountain hut in Shinano. That day has finally come. Back then, when I was young, surrounded by snow, I really came to love the theme portrayed in this drama—the sudden arrival of the divine in the human world. … I finished reading at around 3 pm. I couldn’t stay still, so I went out. Now that I find myself walking in the pine forest surrounding the Kaidan-in with no one in sight, I finally feel at ease and think again about Claudel’s play. (HTZ 3: 121–22) Later, however, as the end of his trip neared, inspired by a stroll in the woods surrounding the Hōrin and Hōki temples, he added, I would love to write a story about the retreating lonely figures of the little gods of ancient times who have continued to wander aimlessly to the farthest places of this countryside, gradually pushed out by the new religions since the arrival of Buddhism. I would like to write of a young nobleman, of his sadness and longing for these little gods, as he embraces his new faith. (HTZ 3: 134) The exploration of the intersections between Christianity, or rather Catholicism, and Japan’s ancestral world was thus an important aspect of Hori’s literature, and a critical element of similarity—and continuity—between him and the earlier generations that lay precisely Chapter 6: Hori Tatsuo: The Cross Dyed in Bloody Red and the Little Gods of Ancient Times

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in his efforts to challenge the boundaries of Japan’s past vis-à-vis the legacy of Meiji Protestantism. Most notably, it lay in his close connection to the repository of that legacy—his mentor Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892–1927)—from whom he inherited highly consequential religious themes.

The influence of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke In 1923 Hori was introduced by the principal of his high school to the poet Murō Saisei (1889–1962). Saisei was very impressed by the young Tatsuo and invited him that summer to spend some time together in Karuizawa, the resort town in Nagano Prefecture that would feature in many of Hori’s works. Later that year, Saisei also introduced him to Akutagawa. This was a life-changing event for Hori, as the relationship with this celebrated writer would reinforce, if not dictate, the trajectory of his future artistic pursuits. After the introduction, Hori wasted no time and without delay asked for feedback on a collection of poems he had composed. Akutagawa responded immediately, lavishly praising his work and suggesting that he “push forward with resolve.” 3 In 1925, the relationship between the two deepened further: that summer Hori, now a student at Tokyo Imperial University, rented a room in Karuizawa from July to September and met Akutagawa “on a daily basis,” spending a considerable amount of time with him and his friends.4 Their mentor-student relationship lasted for about four years in total and was seemingly fruitful and rewarding for both: Akutagawa likely enjoyed interacting with someone who showed so much promise and was in so many respects similar to him. In a piece entitled “Boku no tomodachi no ni-sannin” (Two or Three Friends of Mine) that appeared in May 1927, two months before he took his life, Akutagawa wrote: Hori Tatsuo is much younger than me. However, his works are special. Like me, he is from Tokyo, he is a spoiled brat, he is a poet and loves books. But he doesn’t belong to the old guard like I do. I read the works of those writers blessed with “new sensibilities,” but he is not inferior to them. … Like the poem I just quoted, his fiction also has special qualities. Surely more young writers will soon appear in the literary world, but he is already part of that group that cannot be imitated. (Akutagawa 1977–1978, 8: 465) Hori for his part repeatedly acknowledged Akutagawa’s influence, most notably in the opening chapter of his graduation thesis. Still deeply shocked by his mentor’s suicide, he wrote: “Discussing Akutagawa is for me extremely difficult. The reason is that he is deeply rooted within me. In order for me to look at him objectively, I have to look at myself in the same way” (HTZ 4: 559).5 Akutagawa’s presence in his life was still vivid, he stated, and the goal of his thesis was not exactly to assess his literary accomplishments—a task that would be best left to future generations— but rather to explain the influence of his art and how such art had at the same time led the man to his tragic demise. Hori believed that a crucial interpretive key could be found in the author’s last works, especially “Haguruma” (Cogwheels*), which he called “[Akutagawa’s] true masterpiece” (HTZ 4: 601). Although those who praised Akutagawa’s early writings typically saw in his late literary production the mere reflection of

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an emaciated man in distress, Hori wrote, he himself saw in it the unraveling of a new world and an important point of departure for future artistic quests.6 Hori discussed “Cogwheels” in the final sections of his thesis. A work without a clear narrative plot that, Hori believed, like Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal, had given birth to “a new shudder,” this work chronicled the nervous breakdown of the protagonist as he was steadily led to the brink of collapse by an “unknown something” to which the protagonist himself referred as the God of revenge. Each episode in this work, Hori noted, was linked by an overwhelming feeling of terror that closely resembled the fear experienced by August Strindberg in his novel Inferno. The substantial difference was, he pointed out, that, whereas in Strindberg’s case, religion had saved the man, in Akutagawa’s it had not. Hori cautioned, however, that “Cogwheels” was not only a narrative about a mentally ill and distraught person, and it was certainly not only to the psychological description of the main character that attention should be paid. Rather, the task at hand was “to probe that unknown something that is haunting him … to probe how he is being pushed into the agonies of hell, as he challenges that unknown something out of anger for the sorrow and unjust fate that have been bestowed on human beings” (HTZ 4: 603). Hori thus saw in “Cogwheels” the unfolding tragedy of a man in pain, being pushed to the limit, as he fought an uncontrollable fate that he felt was trying to take him down. Believing himself to be in hell for the sins he had committed in the past and the ones of which he was not aware, Hori wrote, this man eventually cried out to God for help. However, unlike Strindberg who could bring himself to believe, this man ultimately could not. The exchange the protagonist had with “the fervent Christian in the attic”—Hori noted, quoting the passage— epitomized the nature of the man’s predicament: “How have you been lately?” he asked. “Same as always, a bundle of nerves.” “Drugs are not going to help you, you know. Wouldn’t you like to become a believer?” “If only I could …” “It’s not hard. All you have to do is believe in God, believe in Christ as the son of God, and believe in the miracles that Christ performed.” “I can believe in the devil. (HTZ 4: 604)7 Struggling to believe, and “although capable of believing in God’s hatred,” the protagonist of “Cogwheels,” Hori concluded, was “ultimately unable to believe in his love” (HTZ 4: 604–5). In his thesis Hori also discussed “Seihō no hito” (The Man from the West*) and “Zoku Seihō no hito” (The Man from the West: A Sequel*), underscoring his belief in these latter works’ similarly highly consequential content. “The Man from the West”—Akutagawa’s own portrayal and interpretation of the figure of Christ, completed the night before his suicide— essentially superseded earlier views that placed excessive emphasis on man’s innate depravity—a recurring trait of Meiji Protestantism—positing, among other things, the importance of the interceding role of Mary and recasting the question of salvation within the perimeters of the New Testament. Hori was deeply touched by this work: its lasting influence on his

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thought would be confirmed by his short newspaper article entitled “The Travelers on the Road to Emmaus” that he published in the Tokyo nichi nichi shinbun a full decade later, on 25 January 1940. In that article, whose title drew from the work’s very last line—”We are, just like the travelers on the road to Emmaus, unable to live without seeking Christ, who sets our hearts on fire,” Hori noted how the words uttered by the travelers who had unwittingly met Jesus—”Stay with us, for it is nearly evening, the day is almost over”—continued to move him in a mysterious way. Only now, he stated, did he truly understand how every single word Akutagawa had uttered profoundly touched him. “The Travelers on the Road to Emmaus” appeared at a clearly meaningful juncture in Hori’s engagement with Catholicism: his story “Ki no jūjika” (The Wooden Cross), a piece that confirmed his fondness for the Catholic Church of St. Paul in Karuizawa, was published around the same time, and both pieces were thus likely a reflection of Catholic sensibilities he had inherited from his mentor.8 Although he did not have a direct exposure to Christianity during his formative years, through his relationship with Akutagawa, Hori was nonetheless exposed early to questions on God, fate and the existence of an overriding force in control of human destiny. He was cognizant of the presence of such pressing themes in his mentor’s inquiry, and his statement in a short piece of 1930 entitled “Geijutsu no tame no geijutsu” (Art for Art’s Sake) that “a true disciple should not try to imitate his teacher but rather start from where the teacher left off ” (HTZ 3: 204) leaves little doubt that he first saw in the exploration of these themes and their eschatological ramifications the point of departure for his own artistic pursuits.

“Our life is always larger than our fate” and the Christian blueprint behind the narrative structure of “Kaze tachinu” Critics agree that Kōno Henri, an extension of Hori and the main character of “The Holy Family,” the 1930 story that brought him recognition, was the first embodiment of that process of exploration. Henri represented the reverse side of his mentor Kuki, the celebrated writer and a projection of Akutagawa who had surrendered to the tragedy of his fate. In fact, this equation was clearly articulated within the work itself by Mrs. Saiki—Kuki’s lover. When, towards the beginning of the story, she and Henri meet again after many years on the occasion of Kuki’s funeral, Henri realizes he does not have a business card with him and uses an old one given to him by his mentor to write his name on the back side of that card. It is at this time, wondering what made the two men so similar, that Mrs. Saiki suddenly thinks of the young man as the reverse image of Kuki. Although Kuki and the dark shadow of his death continue to be present within Henri, the latter is able to pivot his mentor’s demise into a transforming experience that helps him conquer the temptation of death and to live on. “The Holy Family,” whose title is a reference to Raphael’s homonymous painting at the center of the story, became the springboard for a recurring leitmotif in Hori’s literature (likely borrowed from Rainer Maria Rilke’s The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge), that “our life is always larger than our fate.” 9 This motif resurfaced, for example, in one of Hori’s most acclaimed works, “Kaze tachinu” (The Wind has Risen*). Based on true events experienced by Hori and his fiancée Yano Ayako, who died of tuberculosis on 6 December 1935, the work narrates their story of love as they spend the last months of her life in a sanatorium. It is written in the form of a diary and divided into five parts: “Prologue,” “Spring,” “The Wind has Risen,” “Winter” and the concluding chapter “The Valley of the Shadow of Death.” Beginning

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with an epigraph from Paul Valéry’s Le Cimitière marin (The Graveyard by the Sea)—“The wind has risen! We must try to live!”—the Prologue introduces the narrator as he reminisces the summer days he has spent with his beloved Setsuko. In the next section, “Spring,” the two are now engaged and, following the worsening of Setsuko’s condition, it is decided that they would spend some time in the mountains, and they leave in April. “The Wind has Risen” then chronicles their stay at the sanatorium: upon arrival, Setsuko is examined by the doctor, and it becomes clear that her condition may be worse than expected. The narrator nevertheless calls this the beginning of “our extraordinary life of love”: he watches over her daily, as her health deteriorates, often questioning the ephemerality of life, the essence of happiness, fate, but always with a strong sense of resilience that is accompanied by the resolution to enable her to live the moments left to the fullest. As the end of their stay nears, in light of little improvement, it is decided that they would prolong their sojourn, and “Winter,” which begins on 20 October 1935, becomes the chronicle of their last few weeks together. As the premonition that something may be threatening their happiness becomes more tangible, the narrator is confronted with “the image of a young man and a young woman, their heads bowed quietly before a fate that was hard to contest, but standing together and sharing the warmth of their heads and bodies” (Rimer & Gessel 2005, 398–99). The section ends with the suggestion that the couple may be returning home soon. The final chapter, “The Valley of the Shadow of Death,” resumes on 1 December 1936, one year after Setsuko’s passing. The narrator has rented a cabin in the mountains near Karuizawa. The first paragraphs describe his arrival: as he settles in, he immediately realizes that the area known to most locals as “The Valley of Happiness” is actually, for him, “The Valley of the Shadow of Death,” since he is “going to live a lonely widower’s life here in the midst of winter” (Rimer & Gessel 2005, 406). After a first few days of snowstorms and strong winds, on 5 December, “the weather was indescribably fine,” and he decides to go for a walk around the snow-covered village. It is at this time that he passes in front of a church he has never seen. It is the Church of St. Paul: In the afternoon I went down from the hut and walked around the snow-covered village for the first time. I had known this town only from summer into fall … Walking along the road I used to like to walk on, the road with the waterwheel on it, I found that a small Catholic church had been built without my knowing it. The beautiful plain wooden structure, with already-blackened wooden siding under a snow-covered peaked roof, was a striking sight. The whole neighborhood was unfamiliar to my memory. I waded into the deep snow in the woods where I often took you walking. There I saw a silver fir tree that I thought I remembered. As I approached staring at the tree, I heard the shrill cry of a bird from its midst. (Rimer & Gessel 2005, 408–9) Over the next few days, feeling that all has been lost, the narrator tries to alleviate his sadness by including long walks in his daily routine. During one of these walks he finds himself muttering from the Psalms: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me.” However, “the verse leaves [him] with an empty feeling” (Rimer & Gessel 2005, 409). On 12 December he passes by the small church again. As he learns from the caretaker that the church is going to close in a few days, he meets the priest who invites him to come to Mass the following day, a Sunday. The narrator attends Chapter 6: Hori Tatsuo: The Cross Dyed in Bloody Red and the Little Gods of Ancient Times

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Mass, albeit “without a specific purpose.” He is not a believer, he writes in his diary, and just sits down in a corner as the priest celebrates the service. He then spots a middle-aged woman dressed in black crouching in the very front row, and noticing “that she continued to kneel there, [he] suddenly felt the piercing cold of the church interior.” After Mass is over, he leaves and finds himself walking around aimlessly and with an ongoing feeling of dissatisfaction. Yet, once at the hut, sitting down on the veranda, he begins to feel the presence of his beloved: “Suddenly in my fretful state I felt you close to me. Pretending not to notice, I rested my chin on my hands. You were livelier than ever before—indeed, so lively that I thought I could feel your hand on my shoulder” (Rimer & Gessel 2005, 410). That evening the priest stops by to invite him for a visit back to the church. The entries for the following day, 14 December, a Monday, relate the events of the previous evening—his visit with the priest with whom he talked for about an hour and the arrival of a package with a copy of Rilke’s work, Requiem. Over the remaining days, Rilke’s poetry helps the protagonist overcome his inability to let go of his beloved. One day, as he tries to make his way through the woods back to the cabin, he happens to recite to himself “with a heart-wrenching feeling” the last lines of that work: “Do not return. If you can bear to, stay dead with the dead” (Rimer & Gessel 2005, 412), thereby signaling that the time to emotionally move on may be approaching. Then, on Christmas Eve, on his way back from the village where he has been invited to celebrate the festivity, he has an epiphany: walking through the shadowy valley, he notices “a lone, dim gleam of light from somewhere falling on a snow-covered thicket by the side of the road.” He soon realizes that the light visible through the whole valley is actually from his own cabin. And yet once he is back, he finds out that the light “reached only a little way beyond the cabin.” A thought suddenly occurs to him: “The lights surrounding my life are no more than this … but like the light reflected from my hut, aren’t there more lights to my life, too?” (Rimer & Gessel 2005, 413). These are the lights that, he says, have helped him survive. Almost one week later, in a last ideal farewell to his beloved and now at peace with his loss, as the wind howls incessantly from far away, he finally comes to the realization that he, too, can now call the place “The Valley of Happiness.” Critics agree that “The Wind has Risen” is a powerful story of human resilience. The theme of life and death that had characterized Hori’s earlier writings, like “The Holy Family,” emerge again in this work with increased intensity and unprecedented lyricism. The natural setting that provides the backdrop to the story has an especially powerful therapeutic effect for the protagonist as he confronts existential questions on happiness and love, constantly immersed in contemplation of his physical surroundings and the changing seasons. The seasons, in particular, themselves a metaphor for the inexorable passing of time, constitute a roadmap towards a long healing process culminating in the last and conclusive chapter—as it is there, after a whole year of grief and sorrow, that he is able to come to peace with his beloved’s passing. The final chapter is notably replete with overt religious symbols—the Catholic church, Mass, the priest and the Bible—that were not present in the previous sections and that reveal the existence of a Christian blueprint behind the narrative structure of the work. Certainly, the importance of these symbols may seem inconclusive or ambiguous at first: the narrator attends Mass “without a specific purpose,” states that he is not a believer and at one point suddenly feels “the piercing cold of the church interior” as if to stress the unfamiliar setting of his surroundings. After church he walks around aimlessly experiencing a sense of discontent; earlier, reciting the Psalms had brought him no comfort. St. Paul’s does, nevertheless, 106

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represent a soothing presence for him. Although attending Mass does not bring him immediate solace, it does lead to a feeling of closeness to the departed when, back at the cabin later that day, he feels as if she were “livelier than ever before—indeed so lively that I thought I could feel your hand on my shoulder.” It also leads to yet another meeting with the priest later that evening, a one-hour “strange conversation… running at cross-purposes,” during which he cannot help but feel how the priest’s casually spoken words “touch [his] heart” (Rimer & Gessel 2005, 411). Most importantly, the literary appropriation of Psalms plays a central role in the fabric of the entire work. “The Valley of the Shadow of Death” is a metaphor for the dark reality of the protagonist’s pain and, concurrently, a stark contrast between this and what is known by the locals to be a happy place. However, it is also a symbol of the protagonist’s desire to overcome his sorrow through one of the most well-known verses in the Christian faith. That he finds a guiding light on Christmas Eve, when the Good Shepherd of the Psalms is about to come into the world, may not be coincidental. Indeed, it is while on his way back walking through the shadowy valley that the protagonist spots a single light shining through the woods; and it is after reaching this place, which transpires to be his own hut, that his belief that “our life is larger than our fate” becomes real. There are additional elements that confirm the presence of a deliberate Christian imprint to this work. “The Wind has Risen” was published in several installments, and although the first four appeared over a period of four months—from December 1936 to April 1937—it took almost a whole year before the final chapter was published in March 1938. During that year Hori met his future wife, Katō Taeko, and wrote letters to her from Karuizawa—letters edited in a work entitled Nanatsu no tegami (Seven Letters, 1938)—that significantly overlapped with the gestation period of the final draft of the work. In one of these letters, dated 25 November 1937, Hori asked Taeko to send him a copy of Yashiro Yukio’s Jutai kokuchi (The Annunciation of Mary), a work he had shown to her that summer. “The sudden intrusion of the angel Gabriel into the human world” (HTZ 3: 68) was a topic he found fascinating, he wrote, and he was interested in perhaps using Karuizawa as the background for a story along the same lines. The book promptly arrived, and in a letter dated 1 December, Hori wrote: I took the book, went upstairs and locked myself in the bedroom. I took a quick look at it, and I am now writing this letter to you. Until now, the only book I have always had by my side is the Bible that I borrowed from my previous lodging. I thought this would be a good time to read this kind of stuff, so I have also been reading Rilke’s favorite Book of Job. (HTZ 3: 70) He continued: By the way, on Sunday I went to church with Nomura. When the other day, after so much snow, the two of us went to look at the church’s beautiful roof covered with snow, we bumped into the priest, and he told us to come to Sunday Mass. As you know it’s a building by Antonin Raymond, a small church with a statue of St. Paul standing in the entrance like those you would be able to find in any mountain village in Switzerland. There was also a middle-aged woman, probably German, wearing a black coat. We thought we would go in just for a little bit, but in the end, we ended up staying for about an hour, sitting still in the cold Chapter 6: Hori Tatsuo: The Cross Dyed in Bloody Red and the Little Gods of Ancient Times

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in the corner. When Mass was over, we saw the lady go into what looked like a confessional. We stood up and went to greet the priest, and later that evening he came to see us at the cabin. We were surprised. Just as we thought, he is German; he says he came to Japan two years ago. He doesn’t seem to understand Japanese and, after an almost unintelligible conversation, he left. He will be moving to Matsumoto in two or three days. It is a real pity that the church will close, but I am relieved. If that beautiful church were to stay open during Winter, I would want to go there often and then I would have to become a Catholic or something! (HTZ 3: 71) In a subsequent letter dated 9 December, Hori wrote about his fascination with Paul Claudel’s drama rendering of the Annunciation, L’Announce faite à Marie, reiterating his desire to explore the theme of “the intrusion of the divine into the human domain” in a story possibly set in his current surroundings. Finally, in yet another letter, dated 31 December, he shared the news that he had completed “The Wind has Risen,” adding that his manuscript had taken an unexpected turn after reading Rilke’s Requiem. As these letters indicate, Hori was reading the Bible on a daily basis during his stay in Karuizawa. He attended Mass with his friend and poet Nomura Hideo, who would actually convert to Catholicism in 1943, and was seemingly disappointed that the church would close soon. It appears then that the Christian signifiers present in the final chapter of “The Wind has Risen” were not a random occurrence but rather a deliberate choice that reflected the author’s increased engagement with Catholicism. The chapter reflected, in fact, events and feelings that he had actually experienced during his stay in Karuizawa, and the Church of St. Paul came to represent a safe space where he perhaps hesitantly explored the possibilities of his religiosity. The timing of Hori’s fascination with Claudel’s The Annunciation of Mary with its poignant theme of God’s intrusion into the human world is also extremely significant, as this same motif would re-emerge years later in his work “October,” confirming a continuity of personal inquiry that became a distinctive trait of Hori’s spiritual journey. “The Wooden Cross,” a piece written only a few years later and at a time of intense fascination with Japan’s ancestral world and classical literary tradition, would cement the place of the Church of St. Paul as a sacred space within which Hori could explore and reaffirm the religious polarities existing within him.

Spaces of spiritual respite: The Church of St. Paul and the Roads of Yamato Written in memory of friend and poet Tachihara Michizō (1914–1939), who had just passed away one year earlier, and against the backdrop of a looming World War, “The Wooden Cross” is a piece comprised of four untitled fragments that appeared in July 1940. The first fragment opens with the narrator’s description of the church itself: That church is the St. Paul’s Catholic Church in Karuizawa, in the Shinshū area of Japan. Built five years ago (in 1935), it was designed by Czechoslovakian architect Antonin Raymond. A simple wooden structure, like you would be able to find in any mountain village in Switzerland, it is a building of indescribably

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unsophisticated beauty … The moment you get on to the road with the waterwheel, you can spot the wooden cross shining against the setting sun, with a forest of larches behind it, standing in between five or six squalid dirty houses. (HTZ 3: 78) The narrator then goes on to explain what the church has meant for him lately: I have spent two winters in a row in a neighboring village (Oiwake) and whenever I felt restless, I would get on a train, in the deep snow, and come to Karuizawa. … As I got on the road with the waterwheel on it, I would always take my time to stand in front of the Church of St. Paul, stare in admiration at its beautiful towers, and let my heart be soothed by it. (HTZ 3: 78–79) At times, Hori would be reminded of that old village church in one of his favorite stories, Mauriac’s Le Fleuve de Feu (The River of Fire*), and the scene, in particular, of the young woman unwittingly receiving Holy Communion in front of the man who has come all the way from Paris to see her. With this image in mind, he would lean towards the fence in a trance, imagining something similar taking place inside the very church now standing before him. The middle sections are almost entirely flashbacks of the events leading to the most recent past: the narrator—Hori himself—and his fiancée were just about to be married in the Spring of 1938, when Tachihara presented them with two records—one of church songs by the children’s choir of the Catholic Church of Croix du Bois in France and the other a composition by Claude Debussy entitled “Christmas of the Children Who No Longer Have a Home.” The protagonist explains that he had not had the opportunity to listen to the music until after his friend had passed away, and for this reason these had become special mementos of their friendship. The fourth and final fragment narrates how those mementos came to intersect the historical events of late summer 1939 and the ramifications that these in turn had for those who worshipped at the Church of St. Paul. The political situation had recently escalated in Europe, and tension was now being felt in Karuizawa, too. Even St. Paul’s was affected; whereas in the past the energy and joyfulness of the choir’s singing compelled passers-by to stop and listen, no sound other than the organ could now be heard. One day towards the end of that summer, the protagonist joined a group of friends who had decided to attend Sunday Mass. He had attended only once in winter and was eager to see what summer service would look like. When the group arrived, they noticed cars from the Italian and Norwegian embassies parked in front of the fence. They then saw two young women who appeared to be from the Polish embassy arrive by bicycle. It was the day after Germany had declared war on Poland. The narrator was deeply touched. Once inside the church he sought out the girls within the congregation and found them in the front rows kneeling and praying next to their mother. He then recalled one of the recordings he had received from his friend. It was the one by Debussy who, in 1915, in condemnation of Germany’s invasion, had composed a song for the lonely children now facing Christmas without a home. The lyrics of that song—“Noel! Petit Noel! N’allez pas chez eux, N’allez plus jamais chez eux, punissez-les!”—reverberated in his heart, as he imagined the young Polish women wanting to sing them at the tops of their voices. It was a strange twist of fate, he thought, that he had come across that song at this time. As he was absorbed in these and other thoughts, he spotted what seemed to be a German Chapter 6: Hori Tatsuo: The Cross Dyed in Bloody Red and the Little Gods of Ancient Times

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family, their child making silly faces to other children sitting not far from him. Then, when Mass was ended and the foreigners began to leave and chat outside the church, he continued to be concerned for the Polish girls who had stayed inside. On the way home with his friends, reflecting upon what he had witnessed, he became overwhelmed by a feeling of nostalgia as, for the first time, he realized that his friend Tachihara was no longer with them. As had been the case in “The Wind has Risen,” the Church of St. Paul is here portrayed as a place of spiritual respite within which to explore the possibilities of one’s religiosity. It represents for Hori an alternative spiritual dimension to nature, a preferred locus of religious introspection for him, where he was free to probe personal experiences that delve deeply into the meaning of existence, the ephemerality of life, fate and historicity. There is of course no denying that his fascination with this was mediated by literature and a romantic longing for art and, as such, the feeling of elation transpiring, for example, from its description in the opening fragment of the piece was strongly evocative of the idyllic and exotic atmosphere experienced by Kunikida Doppo and Shimazaki Tōson on the occasion of their first visits to church in the late 19th century. Hori’s emotional attachment, however, seems to transcend the exoticism that had at first driven these Meiji writers’ experience, to encompass instead motifs that had been the focus of his artistic pursuit for some time—among them, the intrusion of the divine into the human world. But the presence of another element, unusual in Hori’s writing, confirms that the church was more than just the source of an aesthetic experience: the references to the political situation in Europe. Hori is known as one of the few authors to stay completely aloof from the political developments of the 1930s and 40s, and it is revealing that he chose to deliberately address the issue of aggression within a piece that, in a typically nostalgic vein, celebrated the existential themes of life and friendship. St. Paul’s became then a physical space where the lives and fate of real people intersected, people whose existential “footprints” could not be easily erased. Thus, the surreal atmosphere surrounding the foreign community with the scene of the two Polish girls arriving on their bikes and then taking a seat not far from the German family set in motion another formidable dichotomy. On the one hand, the Church of St. Paul, a symbol of Catholicism and one of the competing polarities within him, offered the potential to transcend nativist and perhaps limiting religious sensibilities, ultimately prompting questions on the viability of a global religious community; on the other, that same space displayed the reality of its own idiosyncrasies with peoples at war with each other paradoxically worshipping the same God. Ultimately, “The Wooden Cross” did not as such provide evidence of Hori’s belief in the Catholic faith; but it did confirm his profound fascination with its religious symbols. It also confirmed the existence of polarities within the author that would resurface with full strength in the following years. After publishing his full-length novel Naoko, in fact, Hori went on a solo trip to the Yamato region—an experience that, as mentioned earlier, he recorded in his work “October,” where he visited several places of both religious and historical interest.10 During his sojourn in the area he once again fell under the spell of Claudel’s The Annunciation of Mary, captivated by its theme of the divine intrusion into the human world. At the same time, however, (in a passage cited above that bears repeating here) finding solace and inspiration in the woods that surrounded the Hōrin and Hōki temples, he also began to harbor the strong desire to write about the retreating lonely figures of the little gods of ancient times who have continued to wander aimlessly to the farthest places of this countryside, gradually pushed 110

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out by the new religions since the arrival of Buddhism. I would like to write of a young nobleman, of his sorrow and longing for these little gods, as he embraces his new faith. (HTZ 3: 134) It is when withdrawing to the vestiges of the classical world and while in close contact with nature that Hori was able to experience the cathartic effect of a symbiotic reunion with the gods of the past. It is important to note, however, that these gods were not as grandiose and powerful as those who had pestered Father Organtino in Akutagawa’s “Smiles of the Gods,” nor did they seem as confident and commanding as the ones that helped make Japan a “swamp” in Endō Shūsaku’s Silence. They were, instead, “the retreating lonely figures of the little gods,” doomed to be displaced by the arrival of new religions. “October” fully captured the internal schism at play in Hori’s spiritual journey: on the one hand a contemplative nostalgia for a religious feeling that spoke of an atavistic past, with, on the other, the desire to probe the contours of a new spiritual dimension at the very least akin to Christianity and dotted with a plethora of Catholic signifiers. This dualism would be explored once again in “Footprints in the Snow.”

“Footprints in the Snow” and the cross dyed in bloody red After the end of the War, Hori’s health began to deteriorate, and “Footprints in the Snow,” which appeared in the journal Shinchō in 1946, represented his last major work. The piece describes a conversation between a teacher and his student, which takes place on a February evening near Karuizawa. It begins with the student coming back from a walk in the woods surrounded by snow: the beautiful scenery, he states, has reminded him of a poem by Tachihara Michizō which the teacher recognizes as having been written seven or eight years earlier, when the poet had paid him a visit in the resort town. The student then shares a story he had recently read that has apparently deeply moved him: Chekhov’s “The Student.” The protagonist, he recounts, is a religious young man who is returning home for Easter; he is overwhelmed by feelings of sadness thinking about the tragedies that must have taken place in the past on similarly cold and windy nights. He comes across two women in a neighboring village. He joins them around their fire and, recalling that Peter must have also warmed himself up in this fashion, begins to recount the story of his betrayal of Jesus. The women listen and are profoundly moved and, after wondering why they would be so deeply touched, the student surmises that the reason must lie in the fact that Peter’s story is somehow relevant to them and their lives. In so thinking, he is reassured about the beauty of life, feeling how the past and present are connected by a universal truth. The teacher is impressed by the story and invites the student to pick up the Bible lying nearby. The two read the passage in question from the Gospel of Luke, and the student is prompted to acknowledge that, be it the story of Peter’s betrayal or the one about the travelers on the road to Emmaus about which the teacher had written in the past, there was something about these stories that moved him deeply. In comparison, he notes, the Japanese tales of ancient times, albeit beautiful, lacked this powerful pathos, and could only boast a fatalistic element that rendered their readers helpless. The conversation then moves on to a different topic, and the teacher asks his student which literary works the current sunset evokes for him. The student’s response is conclusive: the solemn beauty of the sunset portrayed by

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Shaku Chōkū in his Shisha no sho (The Book of the Dead*), and the majesty of the setting sun casting a bloody red hue on the cross in the field described by Francis Thompson in his Ode to the Setting Sun.11 Of the two, the student adds, “in this snowy field, I feel like I am yearning for that single cross standing in sorrow, dyed in bloody red, as it bathes in the last beams of the setting sun” (HTZ 3: 195). The teacher, for his part, shares a verse by haikai poet Nozawa Bonchō (1640–1714): “The sun has entered the dead branches of the camphor tree where the eagles’ nest stands” (HTZ 3: 195). At the same time, he recalls the nostalgic memory evoked by it: that of a solitary old camphor tree he once saw in the middle of a pasture. In the remainder of the exchange, the teacher recounts the details of his old dream of moving to Karuizawa, a dream that has now come true, and the piece ends with a paragraph in which he recalls with deep nostalgia the time when his friend Tachihara was still alive. “Footprints in the Snow” is a work replete with symbolism, and its importance cannot be overstated. Hori himself referred to it as a piece full of personal recollections and a perfect postscript to his lifetime work, and its narrative format—a conversation between a teacher and his student—seems to validate the author’s intention to create a fictional setting in which he could share his final deliberations with posterity. Several elements in the text—the references to Tachihara Michizō and the essay “The Travelers on the Road to Emmaus”—confirm the autobiographical nature of the work, leaving no doubt, for example, that the teacher and Hori are the same person; critics have debated at length, on the other hand, whether “the student” should be considered a split version of the author or rather a symbolic representation of the younger generation of writers—perhaps even Endō Shūsaku—who orbited around him.12 The debate around the identity of the student is important, but it does not seem to alter the dialectics at work in this piece, most notably that the exchange between the two protagonists is predicated upon, not only a common affinity for literature, but also a familiarity with the Bible. Without this shared biblical knowledge—a copy of the Bible is even readily available in the room—the story of Peter’s betrayal could not be fully appreciated. The conversation that follows similarly draws from shared religious sensibilities: the student’s fascination with both Shaku Chōkū’s Book of the Dead, a tale set in 8th–century Japan and as such evocative of an ancestral world, and Francis Thompson’s Ode to the Setting Sun, a poem with strong Catholic overtones, is juxtaposed onto the teacher’s choice of Bonchō’s poetry, whose imagery, both agree, is superb. There is however a meaningful final tweak: the student clearly states that, among these two favorite works, he is “yearning for that single cross standing in sorrow, dyed in bloody red”: what began as a casual conversation about the sunset in literature evolves into a potential affirmation of the Cross. While the student’s longing for the Cross dyed in bloody red does not diminish the depth and importance of the teacher’s spiritual sensibility, it does feed into a deliberate binary representation of Hori’s own religious sentiments, speaking of a latent delicate balance between competing religious identities that had already manifested themselves, with utmost strength a few years earlier in “October.” At that time, it will be recalled, Hori was thinking of a story about a young nobleman ready to embrace his new faith while still longing for the retreating little gods of ancient times. Within this tension, Hori’s choice to reaffirm a preference for a lonely cross that is dyed in bloody red signals the presence of a deliberate and thoughtful process at play reflective of internal religious inclinations that should not be overlooked.

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Conclusion Beyond its rich symbolism and the lyricism that gained him the praise of critics and readers alike, “Footprints in the Snow” succeeded in recasting a theme that had been at the center of Hori’s inquiry since his formative years—the tension between an ancestral pantheistic world and the monotheism of Christianity. This theme had already been addressed by other writers, including Akutagawa in his Kirishitanmono, but never with the same lyricism, and, in particular, within a modern narrative setting. Cognizant of the Christian themes that had preoccupied his mentor throughout his life— sin, fate, salvation—Hori chose to explore the part of Akutagawa’s legacy that best mirrored the unresolved life-long negotiations within himself, namely the dualism between the meaning of the Cross on the one hand and the leitmotifs of Japan’s ancestral past, on the other. Certainly, unlike the Meiji and Taishō writers who were exposed to Christianity and wrote at length about sin, Hori rarely wrote about this topic. In fact, as literary critic Jinzai Kiyoshi (1903–1957) has pointed out, he was completely detached from it.13 His works, however, remarkably combined a native religious awareness with Christianity’s most endearing and dramatic symbols: the Annunciation of Mary and the Immaculate Conception, the birth of Jesus, Peter’s betrayal, the Cross, the Eucharist and the Resurrection. Hori seemingly inherited many of the Catholic sensibilities displayed by Akutagawa in his “The Man from the West” and, according to his wife Taeko, he actually often spoke about the possibility of converting to the Catholic faith as well as the need to reach God through a devotion to Mary rather than Christ—a conviction strongly reminiscent of Akutagawa’s words (Hori 1971, 172). It was in tackling those very religious sensibilities and the apparently incompatible longing for a nostalgic pantheistic past that a young Endō Shūsaku first made a name for himself in the literary world. Endō studied with Hori and was deeply influenced by him, and his renowned essays, “Kamigami to kami to” (The Gods and God) of December 1947 and “Hori Tatsuo oboegaki” (A Memorandum on Hori Tatsuo) of the following year, were the direct outcome of his negotiations with his mentor’s ideas. Endō would go on to become a key intellectual figure of the postwar period, particularly with respect to the interface between Christianity and literature, and Hori played a crucial role in his development. Meanwhile, in 1950, a collection of works by Hori was awarded the Mainichi Culture Prize. The reviewer Aono Suekichi noted that, amidst the crudeness and loudness of postwar literature, one could easily lose sight of the human spirit; to Aono, Hori’s works dealt exactly with the human spirit and, as such, they could be easily read as a literature of salvation (Nagahama 2012, 223).

Notes 1 Hori, whose first publication in 1929 was a translation of selected poems by Jean Cocteau, is generally remembered for a literary oeuvre heavily influenced by contemporary European authors and Modernism. This was not however the only strain in his writing, which was in fact complex and multifaceted. Beginning in the late 1930s, for example, he became increasingly interested in Japan’s ancient world, and some of the works he wrote later in life were inspired by the classics of the Heian era. For a discussion of these aspects of Hori’s literature, see Keene 1998, 685–708. 2 For a comprehensive study of these and other late 19th-century authors, see Tomasi 2018. 3 Letter of 18 October 1923; quoted in Ikeuchi 1981, 12.

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4 Among them was poet and translator Katayama Hiroko (1878–1957). Known by her pen name, Matsumura Mineko, she is the protagonist’s “intellectual match” in section thirty-seven of Akutagawa’s 1927 work Aru ahō no isshō (The Life of a Fool*). 5 Hori wrote his thesis in 1929, two years after Akutagawa’s death. The title was “Akutagawa Ryūnosuke-ron: geijutsuka to shite no kare o ronzu” (An analysis of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke as an artist). See HTZ 4: 559–608. 6 Written in 1927 and published posthumously, “Haguruma” is a collage of hallucinations and ominous premonitions that lead the protagonist to a nervous breakdown. 7 The English translation of the passage is from Rubin 2006, 227. 8 For a discussion of this point, see Tomasi 2018, 140–49. On “The Man from the West” see also Doak 2011. 9 Nanatsu no tegami (Seven Letters); see HTZ 3: 63. 10 The work first appeared in two installments in the journal Fujin kōron in January and February 1943. It was later reprinted more than once in different collections, including Hana ashibi in 1946. 11 Shaku Chōkū was the pen name of the renowned ethnologist, linguist and novelist, Orikuchi Shinobu (1887–1953). 12 For a discussion of this debate, see Sugino 1996. 13 Quoted in Endō’s “Hori Tatsuo oboegaki.” See ESBZ 10: 44

References Akutagawa, R. (1977–1978). Akutagawa Ryūnosuke zenshū [The Collected Works of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke] (12 vols.). Tokyo: Iwanami. Doak, K. (2011). The Last Word?: Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s “The Man from the West.” Monumenta Nipponica 66(2), 247–55. Dykstra, Y. & Dykstra, A. (intro. & trans.) (2006). Kirishitan Stories by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke. Japanese Religions 31(1), 23–65. Endō, S. (1989). Silence (William Johnston, trans.). Tokyo: Kodansha International. Endō, S. (1999–2000). Endō Shūsaku bungaku zenshū [The Collected Literary Works of Endō Shūsaku] (15 vols.). Tokyo: Shinchōsha. (cited as ESBZ) Hori, T. (1971) Bannen no Tatsuo. In Nihon bungaku kenkyū shiryō sōsho (ed.), Hori Tatsuo. Tokyo: Yūseidō. ———. (1977–1980). Hori Tatsuo zenshū [The Collected Works of Hori Tatsuo] (8 vols.). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. (cited as HTZ) Ikeuchi, T. (1981). Hori Tatsuo. In Ikeuchi T. (ed.), Kanshō Nihon gendai bungaku [Appreciation of modern Japanese literature] (vol. 18). Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten. Keene, D. (1998). Dawn to the West. New York: Columbia University Press. Kunikida, D. (1964–1967). Kunikida Doppo zenshū [The Collected Works of Kunikida Doppo] (10 vols.). Tokyo: Gakushū Kenkyūsha. (cited as KDZ) Nagahama, T. (2012). Hori Tatsuo “Yuki no ue no ashiato”-ron: sengo bungaku to kirisutokyō [A discussion of Hori Tatsuo’s “Footprints in the Snow”: Postwar literature and Christianity]. Kyōto gaikokugo daigaku kenkyū ronsō 79, 221–31. Rimer, T. & Gessel, V. (eds.) (2005). The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature, vol. 1. New York: Columbia University Press. Rubin, J. (trans.) (2006). Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories. London: Penguin. Shimazaki, T. (1981–1982). Shimazaki Tōson zenshū [The Collected Works of Shimazaki Tōson] (12 vols.). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. (cited as STZ) Sugino, Y. (1996). Yuki no ue no ashiato [Footprints in the Snow]. Kokubungaku: kaishaku to kanshō 61: 9, 140–44. Tomasi, M. (2018). The Dilemma of Faith in Modern Japanese Literature: Metaphors of Christianity. Abingdon: Routledge.

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Chapter 7 Nagai Takashi on Divine Providence and Christian Self-Surrender: Towards a New Understanding of hansai Anthony Richard Haynes Nagai Takashi used the biblical concept of hansai (a burnt sacrifice) in describing the atomic bombing of the Catholic Urakami district of Nagasaki and regarded the bombing as an event guided by setsuri (divine providence). His use of hansai is a pastoral device for the Catholics of Urakami, aimed at encouraging one’s surrender to divine providence. Situating his conception of hansai in a theologically orthodox conception of divine providence demonstrates the ways in which Nagai seeks in his poetry and artworks to convey for Urakami Catholics a similetic or symbolic resemblance between a burnt offering and the atomic bombing of Urakami.

Introduction This chapter explores the encounter with Catholic Christianity and issues of Christian discipleship in the life and work of the Catholic convert, radiologist and atomic bomb survivor Nagai Takashi (1908–1951). Among western scholars, Nagai is best known for his reference, in his book Nagasaki no kane (The Bells of Nagasaki,* 1949), to the biblical concept of hansai, or a “burnt sacrifice,” in describing the atomic bombing of the largely Catholic Urakami district of Nagasaki and for regarding the bombing as one manifestation of the ineluctable operations of setsuri, or divine providence. Nagai’s use of the concept of hansai in conjunction with setsuri has in fact been taken by the vast majority of scholars to constitute a theologically heterodox explanation or theodicy of the atomic bombing of Urakami. Here I aim to challenge this conventional interpretation of Nagai’s use of the concepts of hansai and setsuri and to lay the foundations for what will be argued is a theologically consistent and orthodox interpretation of Nagai’s use of hansai as a unique pastoral device for assisting the Catholics of Urakami—the center of Christianity in Japan at the time of the atomic bombing—to gain some semblance of peace and comfort through self-surrender to divine providence. Essential in this task is laying out the historical, biographical and

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theological contexts in which Nagai developed his conception of setsuri and deployed the concept of hansai.

“Hansai-setsu” and atonement As already noted, Nagai’s best-known reference to hansai features in the final chapter of his first book, The Bells of Nagasaki. Here we find an edited form of the funeral address Nagai gave, in November 1945, for the victims of the bomb in front of the ruined Urakami Cathedral. Just before the edited address, however, Nagai relates how he explained the dropping of the atomic bomb on Urakami to his friend Ichitarō as “a great act of Divine Providence,” and we then read in the address that the death of Urakami Catholics (this included his beloved wife, Midori) in the bombing served as the sacrifice that was needed to “obtain God’s pardon” for the sins humankind committed in the waging of the Second World War and for God to end it (Nagai 1987, 106–8). The primary reason which Nagai gives for why he believed this to be the case was that it was only after the second atomic bomb exploded over Urakami that the Japanese Emperor made the proclamation of surrender and the War came to an end (Nagai 1987, 107). Nagai also draws attention to the fact that the day on which the bomb fell on Urakami was the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary, and that Urakami Cathedral, which was completely destroyed by the bomb, was dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Other salient facts, he writes, are that the bomb was intended for another location (the city of Kokura) and that the last-minute attempt to bomb Nagasaki was hampered by weather conditions, such that the bomb did not explode over militarily relevant targets, but rather over the Urakami valley (Nagai 1987, 107). In describing the death and destruction in detail, Nagai likens the fiery, sacrificial death of the Catholics in Urakami to a burnt offering (hansai) to God (Johnston’s translation uses the word “holocaust” from the Greek holokauston) (Nagai 1987, 108). In The Bells of Nagasaki and other works, Nagai also uses the more generic word gisei, translated as “sacrifice” to refer to both the hansai of Urakami Catholics in the atomic bombing (hansai and gisei thereby being interchangeable) and the self-sacrificial work that the Urakami Catholic community has to undertake in order to rebuild their home and, as survivors of what is hoped will be the second and last atomic bombing in human history, cultivate a more peaceful world (Nagai 1987, 109). Using gisei in the former manner, he boldly states: [T]he American pilots did not aim at Urakami. It was the providence of God that carried the bomb to that destination. Is there not a profound relationship between the destruction of [the Urakama district of] Nagasaki and the end of war? [The Urakami district of] Nagasaki, the only holy place in all Japan—was it not chosen as a victim, a pure lamb, to be slaughtered and burned on the altar of sacrifice to expiate the sins committed by humanity in the Second World War? (Nagai 1987, 109) The bomb decimated the Urakami community, and compounding the suffering entailed by this loss of life was the claim by some non-Christians of Nagasaki, rooted in the longstanding religious division between the northern Christian district of Urakami and the larger, southern part of the city, that the bomb exploded over Urakami as a punishment by

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the traditional Japanese kami of the Shinto tradition for the Christians’ worship of a foreign god (Treat 1995, 305–6; Diehl 2018, 71). Furthermore, despite the horrors of radiation sickness and keloid scarring inflicted by the new weapon, it took until 1957 for the government to acknowledge that survivors were in need of dedicated financial assistance for medical treatment and for improving their quality of life (Diehl 2018, 125). In this context of mass destruction, mass loss of life and communal ostracization, Nagai’s words resonated with his audience at the funeral mass because they provided some meaning to the horrific events which had occurred and were still being endured at the very heart of Christian Japan. In refutation of the claim that Urakami Catholics were being punished by the Japanese gods, Nagai’s assertion that the community had been chosen as a sacrifice for bringing peace to the world was both consoling and liberating. Nagai had been asked to give the funeral address because he was respected in the Urakami community. Immediately after narrowly escaping death in Nagasaki University when the atomic bomb exploded, he worked tirelessly to find other survivors, tend to the wounded and provide relief to those suffering from radiation sickness. While Nagai’s children—Makoto and Kayano—were safe because they were staying with their grandmother in Ōmura, his wife Midori was killed by the bomb. He painfully describes finding her bones in the ruins of his home (Nagai 2014, 144). Wracked with guilt, he began a period of fasting and penance. With the help of his friends he built a small wooden hut, which he called Nyokodō,1 where he lived with his children until his death at the age of forty-three. Having been diagnosed with leukemia earlier, in June of 1945, Nagai’s health soon took a turn for the worse, and his condition rapidly deteriorated, such that from that time until his death some six years later, he was bedridden and utterly dependent on others for his survival and the care of his children. Nevertheless, from his sickbed in Nyokodō, Nagai wrote voluminously, painted and welcomed visitors who sought his advice. He donated much of the money from his books towards the rebuilding of Urakami, and set up a small library for children called Uchira no honbako (Our Bookcase) (Diehl 2018, 85–86). Nagai’s deep Catholic faith, ascetic lifestyle, charitable works and written works, of which The Bells of Nagasaki was the first, won him the admiration, not only of the Urakami Catholic community—in which he became known as the “saint of Urakami”—but also the Japanese nation. However, despite the fact that Nagai’s remarks concerning the bomb were originally given in the context of a funeral mass for the victims of the bomb in Urakami and directed primarily to the relatives of the victims, his words—specifically his use of hansai and reference to “divine providence,” or setsuri—have been taken in isolation from his subsequent works and read as constituting a theological explanation, or theodicy, of the atomic bombing of Urakami. Representative of this interpretation of Nagai’s account of why the bomb exploded over Urakami is Takahashi Shinji’s reference to it as “hansai-setsu,” or “the hansai theory” (Takahashi 1994, 193), which most scholars of Nagai writing in English take at face value as the definitive meaning of Nagai’s address. Hansai-setsu takes this reference to divine providence to mean that the bombing was an intentional act performed by God, manipulating the weather, using the American military personnel involved and guiding the bomb to hit Urakami in order to satisfy divine justice by providing the only sacrifice that could atone for the sins of humankind committed in the waging of the Second World War. Scholars advocating this interpretation of Nagai have also drawn attention to the wider communal context in which Nagai gave the address: the historical persecution of the Chapter 7: Nagai Takashi on Divine Providence and Christian Self-Surrender

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Catholics of Urakami to which Nagai refers. The persecution of Japanese Catholics, which began in 1597 and slowly dissipated after 1873, with the lifting of the prohibition on Christianity, had, in the case of Urakami, included the exile of thousands, the demolishing of homes, and repeated dislocation of the community (Miyamoto 2011, 115–19, 128). After their return to Urakami, the Catholics built what was, upon completion in 1914, the largest cathedral in East Asia. However, it was not long after, in 1945, that their cathedral was destroyed by the atomic bomb. The periods of persecution endured by Urakami Catholics were interpreted as tests of faith, or shiren, sent by God (McClelland 2018, 250–51). In this connection, in both the funeral address and in a later work, Kono ko o nokoshite (one English translation being Leaving My Beloved Children Behind*), Nagai frames the approach which Urakami Catholics ought to take to the horrific suffering inflicted by the atomic bomb in terms of trustful surrender to God in the face of shiren: A great many martyrdoms, constant persecution, and the atomic bomb. These are tests [shiren] which have come to reveal the glory of God … and for which Urakami has been chosen as holy ground. (Nagai 2014, 73) Scholars on Nagai writing in English have tended to focus on the socio-political dynamics of hansai-setsu, understood as being presented by Nagai through the narrative lens of shiren. More recently, scholars have focused on how hansai-setsu so dominated discourse surrounding the atomic bomb among the Nagasaki hibakusha (atomic bomb victims) and their children that they felt unable to express alternative perspectives on it—due, in part, to Nagai’s saintly image. Consequently, interpreting Nagai’s use of hansai as a “theory” or “explanation” of the bomb has been counter-productive for some in the Nagasaki Catholic community.2 Indeed, until recently, it was felt that, if the bombing of Nagasaki was in fact a deliberate act of divine providence, performed according to God’s infinite wisdom, there would be no further need for discussing it, for that would reveal a weakness of faith in God’s plan (McClelland 2018, 237). In this connection, given that, according to hansai-setsu, the atomic bombing of Urakami was God’s own doing, scholars have also been keen to point to the problematic relationship between hansai-setsu and John Paul II’s proclamation, when visiting Nagasaki in 1981, that “War is the work of man” (John Paul II, 1981).3 However, even with this recognition of both the wider communal context of persecution in which Nagai addressed his remarks to his Catholic audience and the apparent suppression of discussion and alternative interpretations of the atomic bomb which were spawned by hansai-setsu, scholars of Nagai seem to have missed a point of crucial hermeneutic significance. This is that Nagai’s references to hansai and divine providence were made in the specific context of the funeral mass, the purpose of which was to provide consolation and hope to survivors, relatives of the deceased and the Catholic community as a whole, rather than to set out a theory explaining why the bomb exploded over Urakami. However, it seems that scholars have also neglected to consider how Nagai’s own Catholic formation, both before and after he joined the Urakami Catholic community, influenced his own views on divine providence, under which all events—not only the atomic bombing of Urakami—occur and can be understood. While there exists a plethora of studies on the communal aspects of hansai-setsu, including the communal memory of persecution which Nagai imbibed, there is a paucity of studies on the biographical, theological and pastoral factors in which Nagai’s understanding of hansai and setsuri is grounded. 118

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What exactly were the conceptual resources which led Nagai to use the Old Testament concept of hansai in this address? And what was his broader conception of divine providence, in which he placed the atomic bombing of Urakami? There has been virtually no research on the role Nagai’s key philosophical and theological influences played in his own understanding of God’s providential work in the world and the place of suffering for Christians. Such a lack of reflection on the origins and intended purposes of Nagai’s use of hansai has indeed led to the suppression of alternative interpretations of the bomb, scholarly focus on what has been rendered as a theodicy, and the neglect of Nagai’s wider theology and its pastoral application, of which hansai represents a part. In December of 2019, I took this issue to Nagai’s grandson, Nagai Tokusaburō, and asked him the following question: “Nagai’s ‘hansai’ theodicy is perhaps the most well-known thing about Nagai for westerners. It is featured at the end of his book, The Bells of Nagasaki. Who and what influenced Nagai’s ‘hansai’ theodicy the most?” 4 Nagai Tokusaburō’s reply is illuminating, and deserves to be quoted at length: Let’s say, for example, that even though you are in a sorrowful state, you are given the responsibility of delivering a eulogy which rightly comprises both “words of mourning” and “words of farewell” at the funeral of a family member or a dear friend. However, you later discover that the remarks you made at the event have been taken up as if they expressed a kind of “philosophy” or a definite set of “ideas?” What if such a misunderstanding spread far and wide, even around the world? How would you feel if you had not intended your words of farewell to express anything like a philosophy or set of ideas? And remember that at this time, Takashi would have been 37 years old. I feel that this would have been too early for him to comprehend such developments in how his remarks at the funeral were being interpreted… If there was something in his work which could be referred to as a “theology of burnt sacrifices,” or a “theory’ pertaining to God’s intentions,” it was Takashi’s Catholic faith that contributed to those appellations. Takashi was only thinking of those who have lost their families and family members, who wanted to believe and proclaim that those family members will live forever with God—that they will have been called to God. I think he wanted to encourage and console those people. That was his main purpose. Three main points can be derived from Nagai Tokusaburō’s reply. The first is that Nagai Takashi’s words were specifically intended for those “in mourning” and, as such, were also primarily intended to console. The second point is that, contrary to this purpose, Nagai Takashi’s message was interpreted by some as a theory, and Nagai would have regretted this development. Thirdly, Nagai would have been too young to construct such a theory, which would itself have required that Nagai develop a highly unusual and heterodox theological position: Nagai would not have had the religious experience or theological training needed to challenge and, in the end, contradict what he would have learned in the Urakami Catholic community. I shall elaborate on this point later. However, suffice it to say at present that when Nagai Tokusaburō says that his grandfather’s Catholic faith played a role in this interpretation of his words as a theory, he is insisting that the vocabulary that Nagai had specifically

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employed for the Urakami Catholic community and intended for pastoral application was construed by others theologically and universalized for the construction of a theodicy. Nagai Tokusaburō’s remarks confirm the hermeneutic problem alluded to earlier: the hansai-setsu interpretation of Nagai’s funeral address neglects Nagai’s pastoral intentions and the wider, theologically orthodox conception of divine providence which Nagai imbibed from the Urakami community, in and according to which his own understanding of hansai must be situated. This can only be done by delving beyond The Bells of Nagasaki. The text, written in the immediate aftermath of the bomb, has been over-relied upon by western scholars, and a more holistic understanding of Nagai’s broader approach, in which his use of hansai can be situated, requires an examination of Nagai’s biography, theological formation and his treatment of the concept of divine providence and human suffering in his other works. In what follows, I argue that, contrary to the conventional understanding of Nagai’s use of hansai as being intended for a theodicy, Nagai employed the concept as a pastoral device, intended to have hortatory, heuristic and consoling effects. In support of my argument, I first advance soteriological reasons pertaining to the nature of salvation and Christ’s atoning sacrifice. I then provide theodical reasons pertaining to God’s essential goodness. Finally, I provide practical examples in which Nagai uses hansai as a pastoral device in other works and in other media, such as his paintings.

Hansai and atonement A soteriological analysis of hansai-setsu requires that we return for a moment to Nagai’s initial presentation of the sacrifice of the Urakami Catholic community as depicted in The Bells of Nagasaki: The human family has inherited the sin of Adam who ate the fruit of the forbidden tree; we have inherited the sin of Cain who killed his younger brother; we have forgotten that we are children of God; we have believed in idols; we have disobeyed the law of love… But in order to restore peace to the world it was not sufficient to repent. We had to obtain God’s pardon through the offering of a great sacrifice. (Nagai 1987, 108) What is particularly noteworthy in this passage for our purposes is the causal relationship between the sacrifice of Urakami and God’s pardoning of the sins committed in the waging of the war. Bearing in mind that William Johnston’s translation replaces Urakami with Nagasaki, it is worth quoting what Nagai adds to this: “Only when [the Urakami area of] Nagasaki was destroyed did God accept the sacrifice. Hearing the cry of the human family, He inspired the emperor to issue the sacred decree by which the war was brought to an end” (Nagai 1987, 108). What is noteworthy in the second quote is the causal relationship between God’s acceptance of the sacrifice and the ending of the War. The causal relationships identified above are (1) that the sacrifice of Urakami allowed for God’s pardoning of the sins committed during the War, and (2) that God’s acceptance of the sacrifice necessitated action by the emperor to end the War. These causal relationships themselves suggest, either a relationship of identity between God’s pardon and His ending of the War, or that God’s pardon was necessary for His ending of the War. In this connection,

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at the end of the funeral address, Nagai says: “Let us give thanks that [the Urakami area of] Nagasaki was chosen for the sacrifice. Let us give thanks that, through this sacrifice, peace was given to the world and freedom of religion to Japan” (Nagai 1987, 109). The implication is that even if God’s pardon and His ending of the War are not logically identical, they occur simultaneously. The overall soteriological implications of these points are threefold: that only the sacrifice of Urakami was sufficient to atone and provide propitiation (appeasement of God for having offended His honor by violating His law) for human sin in the waging of the War, that this atonement “satisfied” divine justice so that God could forgive humankind and thereby redeem His creation, and that this redemption is identical to, or occurs at the same time as, God’s ending of the War. These are the fundamental soteriological elements of what has been referred to as hansai-setsu, derived from a literalistic application of Nagai’s use of the concepts of hansai and gisei alongside the sequence of events described in The Bells of Nagasaki. All three elements are at odds with orthodox Catholic soteriology. Let us consider each in turn. The notion that only the sacrifice of Urakami could provide sufficient propitiation for the sins of humankind committed during the War runs counter to the New Testament understanding of the Passion of Christ as the “unique and definitive” sacrifice that redeems humankind. This is because, as the eternal Son of God and as Head of the Church, the mystical body which encompasses all human beings, Christ provides the only sacrifice that can provide both propitiation and “atonement,” or expiation, for the “sins of the whole world” (1 John 2: 2 NIV), in turn granting an “eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9: 12). In other words, Christ’s sacrifice universally and permanently atones for the sins of humankind and thereby provides the universal and permanent redemption of humankind. The implication is that, with such redemption having already obtained in and through Christ, no other sacrifice— even that of thousands of people, as hansai-setsu would posit—is necessary. Therefore, the ending of the War cannot be due to, or identical with, God’s acceptance of a sacrifice in the form of the atomic bombing of Urakami. The New Testament is clear that no other sacrifice can universally and permanently serve to redeem human sin. According to the Letter to the Hebrews, even with the continual sacrifices in the temple in Jerusalem, human sin remained (Hebrews 10: 2–4). It was therefore imperative that Paul’s readers understand that “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10: 10). Quoting Jeremiah, the Letter ends by saying that “And where these have been forgiven, sacrifice for sin is no longer necessary” (Hebrews 10: 18). Christ’s sacrifice, which has universal and eternal redemptive scope, means that there is no longer any need for animal sacrifices. However, even if Christ’s Passion obtains propitiation for our having violated the laws of divine justice, what of expiation of the sin and the transformation of individuals? Here we must stress the other element which marks Christ’s own sacrifice as utterly different from the sacrifices of goats and sheep at the temple in Jerusalem and which, by logical extension, also marks it as utterly different from the “sacrifice” of the victims of the atomic bomb in Urakami, if we render Nagai’s uses of hansai and gisei literally. What makes Christ’s own sacrifice soteriologically different is His own conscious desire to sacrifice Himself for humankind (Hebrews 9: 14). As Mauro Gagliardi explains, it is Christ’s own willingness to sacrifice Himself that makes His sacrifice an expression of God’s love and not only of His justice. Consequently, the willing self-sacrifice of Christ provides both propitiation and “expiation” for the sins of humankind, since His sacrifice provides Chapter 7: Nagai Takashi on Divine Providence and Christian Self-Surrender

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reparation for humankind’s violation of God’s law and also purification of sinners as individuals for whom Christ was sent (Gagliardi 2020, 4.3.3–4.3.4).5 In this connection, as J. Denny Weaver explains in outlining the medieval thinker Abelard’s thoughts on atonement, the Father’s sending of the Son to be crucified willingly on behalf of humankind is an act of infinite love so profound as to make sinners not only aware of God’s justice and punishment of sin, but also of His love for human beings as individuals. In this, Christ’s sacrifice not only provides for the propitiation and expiation of sins, but also the necessary “moral influence” on sinners for them to respond to God’s love, repent and refrain from committing sin in the future (Weaver 2001, 18). The animals sacrificed at the temple in Jerusalem could not make such a conscious decision to be willing sacrifices. Neither could the victims of the atomic bombing of Urakami if (in line with hansai-setsu) we regard them also as “sacrifices.” This renders the notion that their death provided atonement for the sins committed by humankind during the War unbiblical and soteriologically erroneous. We must also remember the God of Israel’s strict prohibition of human sacrifice in the Bible, except for the self-offering of the god-man, Jesus of Nazareth. Nowhere in the Bible does God require that humans sacrifice one another; rather, He denounces it as “detestable,” (Deuteronomy 12: 31) chastizing those who practice it as profaning God’s name (Leviticus 20: 3) and therefore as committing that which is “detestable to the Lord” (Deuteronomy 18: 12). The nearest example of God’s requiring of a human sacrifice is His initial command to Abraham that he sacrifice his son Isaac. But God prevents Abraham from doing this and commands him to sacrifice a ram instead. The story has been understood in the Catholic tradition as a trial or test of faith (shiren, in Japanese), a point to which we will return later in relation to the shiren of the Urakami Catholic community. With an understanding of the pastoral context in which Nagai used the biblical concept of hansai, and having established that hansai-setsu is soteriologically and morally erroneous, we are now in a position to reconstruct a theologically orthodox conception of divine providence in which Nagai’s employment of hansai can be situated. With reference to Nagai’s biography, I identify Blaise Pascal, the Urakami Catholic community, and the Franciscan order as Nagai’s primary influences that helped shape his conception of divine providence and his conception of self-surrender to God’s will. With this biographical context, I then provide a theodical reason as to why Nagai does not use hansai for a theodicy but rather as integral to his pastoral approach. In short, when such an interpretation of hansai is considered theologically in the light of the essential goodness and of what Jacques Maritain calls the “innocence” of God with respect to evil and suffering, hansai-setsu presents us with a God who intentionally wills and commits evil. Needless to say, according to Catholic orthodoxy, this is theologically incomprehensible. As we shall see, the conceptual framework implicit in Nagai’s work is provided by the French philosopher, Jacques Maritain, perhaps the most significant Thomist philosopher of the 20th century, a figure much lauded by the Catholic Church, especially by Pope Paul VI. With an understanding of Nagai’s primary theological influences and by employing the conceptual tools provided by Maritain, I reconstruct Nagai’s understanding of providence as a pastoral term for self-surrender to divine providence and of trust in God’s ability and intention to extract good out of terrible events, events which He does not necessarily will but nevertheless permits. This enables us to understand why Nagai never uses hansai or setsuri systematically, as the centerpiece of a theodicy, but rather expresses their emotional and

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pastoral significance in personal reflections, paintings, poetry and calligraphy, in a move that perhaps marks him as more of an artist than a theologian.

Providence and Nagai’s Catholic formation While Nagai came from a family steeped in Shinto tradition, the young Nagai was a physicalist, writing that during the Taishō period (1912–1926), the physical sciences were believed to have a monopoly on truth. A decisive factor in Nagai’s conversion was the death of his mother, for he writes that, in watching her as she passed away, he intuited the reality of the soul and its survival after bodily death (Nagai 2014, 15–16). This experience led Nagai to read the Pensées of Blaise Pascal, who had been gaining popularity among Japanese intellectuals. Nagai was impressed that Pascal was both a scientist and a Catholic, and found in Pascal’s writings the truth for which he had been searching. The soul, eternity, and God—what a surprise that the great physicist Pascal, one of our predecessors, believed in such concepts! Pascal, this unprecedented genius, believed them! What was this Catholicism that made the scientist Pascal believe them so thoroughly, yet without abandoning his scientific knowledge? (Nagai 2014, 17) Konishi Tetsurō identifies Nagai’s encounter with Pascal’s work as the defining moment which led Nagai down a specifically Catholic religious path (Konishi 2012, 77, 83). Indeed, afterwards, he would decide to move to the Urakami district of Nagasaki and board with a Catholic family, the Moriyamas, to observe how Catholics prayed and how their faith influenced their daily lives. The Moriyama family’s ancestors had been Kakure (Hidden) Christians during the period of Christian suppression in the Tokugawa period (1603–1867). Impressed with how the Catholics of Urakami worked hard, shared the fruits of their labor, prayed, and attended mass every Sunday, Nagai wrote that “the life of the people of Urakami was prayer from dawn till dusk. Life was prayer. There was no life without prayers” (Nagai 1996b, 19). Becoming a part of this community, and eventually marrying Midori, would have a huge impact on Nagai’s Catholic formation. As we have already seen, Nagai would frame the atomic bombing of Urakami within the community’s narrative of shiren, in order to comprehend and appropriately respond to it. We shall return to this point later. While we do not have records of how Nagai came to Pascal, which translation of the Pensées Nagai found, or whether he read Pascal’s letters or minor works, it is likely that he was at least aware of Pascal’s other religious and scientific writings through references to them in the many collections and English translations of his work, including the first that came to Japan, a study on Pascal’s Pensées by Alexandre Vinet, brought to public attention through the work of the Japanese Protestant, Uemura Masahisa (Suzuki 2019, 2).6 For that reason, while we know that Nagai first encountered Pascal through the Pensées, it is reasonable to suppose that, as with any scholar who finds an engrossing line of research, Nagai may have sought out Pascal’s other writings as he pursued his study of Catholicism. In the Pensées, Pascal’s primary concern was, not to theologize, but to show people the glory of the Christian faith in terms of its interior power of self-transformation. Colored by Pascal’s Jansenism, which emphasized the depravity of human nature, this consisted, not in a

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theoretical understanding of the designs and operations of a deistic God, or even the God of Descartes’ philosophical theism, but in an awareness of one’s utter dependence on grace and in doing God’s will (Moriarty 2020, 280): The God of Christians does not consist of a God who is simply the author of mathematical truths and the order of the elements: that is the job of the pagans and Epicureans. He does not consist simply of a God who exerts his providence over the lives and property of people in order to grant a happy span of years to those who worship him: that is the allocation of the Jews. But the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of the Christians is a God of love and consolation; he is a God who fills the souls and hearts of those he possesses; he is a God who makes them inwardly aware of their wretchedness and his infinite mercy, who unites with them in the depths of their soul, who makes them incapable of any other end but himself. (Pensées 47)7 Here, Pascal makes it clear that one is neither to regard God as the merely distant, noninterventionist source of the order of the world, nor to judge the validity of the Christian faith merely by external signs of favor by God, as in pagan religions. Rather, one is to judge the validity of the Christian faith primarily by the internal peace and change of character in believers (Pensées 278–89). Just as the Buddha regarded questions pertaining to reincarnation as only serving to distract one from inner transformation, Pascal’s approach to divine providence is to cease attempts to comprehend it intellectually and instead, to begin the hard work of self-transformation. Yet the self-transformation that Pascal prescribes does not consist in reliance upon one’s own efforts, for human nature has been corrupted by original sin, and so one can only submit oneself to the divine will by denying one’s own will in imitation of Christ. As Pascal writes in Pensée 465, “Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.” 8 And in Pensée 466, Pascal says that the way to truth “is the way of willing what God wills. Jesus Christ alone leads to it: Via, veritas.” 9 As we shall see, this is perhaps the core of Nagai’s pastoral theology. The relationship between faith and reason in Pascal’s understanding of Christian selfsurrender to divine providence is another important element for us to consider. According to Marvin O’Connell, Pascal “would not deny rationality but would confine rationality to its proper sphere, just as he had always done in his scientific researches” (O’Connell 1997, 111): as Pascal says when it comes to reaching a position of faith, “It is the heart which experiences God, and not the reason. This, then, is faith: God felt by the heart, not by the reason” (Pensées 278).10 However, the epistemological division between the heart and reason extends, not only to Pascal’s approach to faith, inner transformation in God and divine providence, but also to his treatment of miracles, which he also takes to be an essential proof of Christianity (see, for example, Pensées 808, 813, and 815). Pascal believed miracles to have occurred to people close to him, including his niece (Rogers 2003, 17). As a scientist-turned-religious writer, Nagai takes the same epistemological approach as Pascal, and this applies in a crucial manner to his approach to divine providence. The initial spiritual insights that Nagai believed he had at the time of his mother’s death—that his mother’s soul had left her body and would remain in existence, immortal (Nagai 1996b, 15–16)—were not gained from reasoning, but rather an emotional intuition (Konishi 2012, 124

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77). He also relates that, when the atomic bomb exploded, a piece of glass severed his right temporal artery, which resulted in his lapsing into a coma and near death. He writes of hearing a voice suggesting that he drink the water from the local Lourdes Grotto and pray for the intercession of the Conventual Franciscan friar Father Maximilian Kolbe, upon which he miraculously recovered (Nagai 1996b, 41–47).11 Nagai justified his belief in the possibility of such miracles by reference to God’s omnipotence and the limits of human intelligence (Nagai 1996b, 40–41), but, as in the case just cited, it also has its roots in Nagai’s deep Marian piety. Dedication to the Virgin Mary and praying the rosary were extremely important in Nagai’s life as a Catholic. Both seem to have their origin in his involvement with the Conventual Franciscans in Nagasaki, who were led by Father Kolbe. In Leaving My Beloved Children Behind, Nagai writes: They have dedicated everything to the Holy Mother, living for her, living with her, and living through her. These are men who thank God when it rains, when the sky is clear, and even when their toilet water is frozen. They are poets who praise God when they are healthy, when they have a toothache, and when they hurt themselves. They are happy when they sit down to a hearty meal, they are happy when they are hungry. (Nagai 2008, 42) Here Nagai indicates that the friars take Mary’s surrender to, and trust in, God’s will as their model for their own lives. In describing the friars’ efforts to house and feed the many orphans in Nagasaki during the War, despite their lack of resources, Nagai also writes that “they left the accounting up to the Holy Mother,” (Nagai 2008, 43) which suggests a reliance upon the intercession of Mary as according to God’s will. The Marian piety and reliance upon divine providence as exemplified by the friars was significant for Nagai’s religious formation even before the composition of The Bells of Nagasaki; for example, he writes that at the end of the War, after his house was destroyed, he “cloistered himself in that friary… to seek enlightenment,” and that one result of his discussions with others at the friary was that his faith came to be more and more polished (Nagai 2008, 43–44). In Pascal, in the Urakami community’s communal narrative of shiren, and in Nagai’s devotion to Mary, we have the ingredients of Nagai’s pastoral (in contradistinction to theoretical) approach to divine providence: self-surrender to the divine will as the only way to retain faith and peace in the face of suffering. Nagai’s theoretical conception of divine providence remains implicit in his work. Nevertheless, a complete picture of both his pastoral approach and his theoretical conception of providence is required in order to situate his use of hansai in its appropriate context and to recognize the ways in which Nagai uses it as a pastoral term in his writings and art. However, building up such a picture of Nagai’s understanding and pastoral use of hansai requires that we find and employ appropriate conceptual tools with which to uncover and reconstruct Nagai’s conception of divine providence. Moreover, due to both the universal nature of divine providence and the pastoral salience of any given understanding of it which is used to explain and handle events in one’s daily life as a Christian, our analysis of Nagai’s conception of it will also require a theoretical understanding of the precise relationship between God, evil and suffering. For these purposes, I will borrow conceptual resources from Jacques Maritain. Both Nagai and Maritain were converts to Catholicism, laymen and academics writing in the same period (though Maritain would live far longer than Nagai). Both men became Chapter 7: Nagai Takashi on Divine Providence and Christian Self-Surrender

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widowers (Maritain’s wife Raissa died of illness long before Maritain would die at the age of ninety), both worked tirelessly to help build a more peaceful world after the Second World War, and both men wrote on divine providence and suffering. Nagai writes poignantly in Leaving My Beloved Children Behind: “A dying father, two young children soon to be orphans: this is how we live in Nyokodō. I have been searching for the right way to live. I have been tormented by the search, and I have prayed to God for help” (Nagai 2008, 176). In Maritain’s case, the problem of evil and suffering haunted him throughout his life. He wrote that considerations about how evil can be theoretically understood “made him tremble, because they lead us to an immense problem which theologians … have taken pains to put aside rather than to scrutinize” (Maritain, cited in Doering 1985, 38). Nevertheless, the source of evil, the relationship between God and evil, and the role of evil in God’s eternal plan for creation are “questions,” Maritain wrote, “about which I have thought all my life” (Maritain 1966, viii). We have seen that the problem of evil and suffering was a consistent theme in Nagai’s own religious considerations, and so the two men share this pressing theological and pastoral concern. Maritain can therefore provide the theologically orthodox and systematic approach, or “theodicy,” which remains implicit in Nagai’s writings. Finally, both Nagai and Maritain were heavily influenced by Pascal, and this is another reason why it is appropriate to put Nagai’s work in constructive dialogue with Maritain’s. While Maritain is critical of Pascal’s Jansenist pessimism regarding the corruption of human nature and reason, he admired his spiritual insight and ability to impress upon his readers the need to give God primacy in their lives (Maritain 1984, 163–84). This suggests similarities between the pastoral approaches of Nagai and Maritain in their application of a theologically consistent account of providence and evil.

Providence and the absolute innocence of God Nagai begins the chapter “Setsuri” (Divine Providence) in Leaving My Beloved Children Behind with a quote from Job and a remarkable declaration of his complete dependence upon the wisdom of divine providence and upon God’s own goodness. “Health, talent, position, property, family and so forth—none of these belonged to me at the outset,” he writes. “Therefore, if God were to take these things from me at any time at any place, it would not be my loss nor my gain” (Nagai 2008, 25). How is Nagai able to place such trust in the wisdom of providence? It is because he believes that God is essentially good and loving: God created a person God loved, and that person is me. God created me because God wanted to love me; there is no malicious creation by God. God always loves me, and constantly wishes me to be happy. Just as God gives as an act of love, God takes as an act of love. Everything that takes place around me is an expression of God’s providential love. (Nagai 2008, 25) Why would Nagai say that everything that happens to him is an expression of God’s love if that also encompassed the mass killing of innocent civilians, including his wife, and his own imminent death due to leukemia, leaving his children as orphans? Compounding this problem is Nagai’s assertion, made after describing the destruction of two Catholic middle schools and the death of the students and nuns, that “we who survived and saw this scene

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thought that the atomic bomb was not a divine punishment, but had to be the expression of a divine providence with some deep plan” (Nagai 2008, 26). Stated plainly, to believe that God directly willed the atomic bombing of Nagasaki would be to believe that He directly willed the slaughter of tens of thousands. As we have already seen, not only is there no biblical precedent or soteriological basis for such an action by God, as human sacrifice on a mass scale, it would also be morally reprehensible—to the extent that any subsequent faith in God’s goodness seems truly baffling. In this sense, hansai-setsu bears a strong resemblance to the Holocaust theodicy of the 20th-century Jewish theologian, Ignaz Maybaum. Maybaum claims that God sent Hitler to perpetrate the Holocaust as the means by which the Jews served as a necessary sacrifice for the sins of the western world in ghettoizing and persecuting the Jews (what he describes collectively as the retention of the “Middle Ages” even up to the mid-20th century) (Maybaum 2001, 164–65). According to Maybaum, “Hitler was an instrument, in itself unworthy and contemptible. But God used this instrument to cleanse, to purify, to punish a sinful world” (Maybaum 2001, 165). According to hansai-setsu, God used the atomic bomb on Urakami in order to sacrifice the purest of souls and thereby atone for the sins of humankind committed in the waging of war and to bring an end to the Second World War. In strikingly similar manner, according to Maybaum, God used Hitler as a weapon to sacrifice God’s chosen people in the Holocaust and thereby atone for the sins of European civilization and bring about permanent emancipation for the Jewish people. As Dan Cohn-Sherbok rightly argues, Maybaum’s image of God using Hitler as an instrument to commit genocide is “terrible and grotesque,” and the notion that God would decimate millions of innocents in so horrific a manner as a sacrifice for bettering western civilization makes a mockery of God’s alleged moral goodness, omnipotence and love (CohnSherbok 1990, 286). Bearing these considerations and the key influences in Nagai’s own theological formation in mind when approaching what Nagai says about the atomic bombing of Urakami, we seem morally and theologically compelled to conclude that, when Nagai says that the atomic bombing was an ingredient in God’s “plan,” this cannot be understood from a narrow perspective as a direct act on God’s part, deliberately performed in order to provide propitiation for human sin and to “satisfy” divine justice. We have already seen that, according to the New Testament, divine justice has already been satisfied by the sacrifice of Christ in His Passion. And according to orthodox Catholic theology, God willed Christ’s Passion to provide such propitiation and redeem humankind out of love for humankind and in full knowledge of the evil and sin which its members would perpetrate. According to Maritain: [T]he motive of the Incarnation is Redemption; it is to redeem sinful man. But why … did God permit the sin of Adam, if not for Christ, for the Incarnation and for redemptive grace? And then one could say that, just as the sin of Adam was permitted for the sake of the redeeming Incarnation, so freedom that can err was created for the love of charity between God and creature. (Maritain 1942, 13–14) The orthodox Catholic position which Maritain is laying out here is that evil actions—including the atomic bombing of Urakami—must be understood within a broader perspective, not as willed by God, who is perfectly good, but as permitted by God for the sake of a greater good. Maritain says that this “greater good” is the “love of charity between God and creature,” Chapter 7: Nagai Takashi on Divine Providence and Christian Self-Surrender

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which suggests that such a relationship can only be possible if human beings are created with the capacity to make free decisions and to be mistaken in those decisions. It also suggests a strict distinction between the being or essence of God as perfectly good (rendering God incapable of erring) and the being or essence of humans as created by God and as free agents (and therefore liable to err). The final, resulting implication is that, if God is incapable of erring while human beings are capable of doing so, then evil has its origin in the latter agent and their mistaken acts. According to Thomistic thought, of which Maritain is a modern representative, God is ipsum esse subsistens (that which subsists or exists by itself), and all created things receive their existence from God because He upholds them in existence (Aquinas 1949, 47). This is understood by Maritain as participation in God’s infinite act of existence in accordance with His own will. Maritain writes that God is Being itself, with His essential properties of goodness, truth and beauty (the “transcendentals”) and, in participating in God’s infinite act of existence, all that God creates manifests and reflects the transcendentals to some degree (Maritain 2011, 30). God is understood to be the source of all goodness, and because actuality and goodness are one in God, as are actuality and truth, and actuality and beauty, whatever God actuates to participate in His own actuality retains this goodness. In other words, everything that God creates and permits to continue to exist is good insofar as it shares in the reality—the actuality and goodness—of God (Maritain 1948, 95–96). This is because of God’s essential goodness. For the same reason, all morally good actions have as their source of activation and preservation the divine will as transcendent First Cause. But what of morally evil actions? Because God is Being and Goodness, He cannot will the occurrence of an evil action, either directly as divine act, or indirectly as a moral evil committed by a creature. Consequently, moral evil cannot have its origin in God, and because God is Being itself, whenever moral evil occurs, it has its origin in the will of the creature and consists in a willful negation of the divine influx of being (this influx being essentially good). Evil, then, is classically understood as a “privatio” of being, a vacuum (Maritain 1942, 32–34; Maritain 1948, 90), or, as Maritain also describes it, “nihilation,” “nothingness” or “non-being” (Maritain 1966, 96–97). God’s essential goodness and love, Maritain makes clear, render Him “absolutely innocent of evil” (Maritain 1966, 5). Following Aquinas, Maritain argues that God’s essential nature renders it impossible for Him to be either the direct or indirect cause of evil, and so His permission of evil does not amount to an indirect willing of evil by virtue of a foreknowledge of the evil that will be committed by His creatures and an acceptance of it for the sake of the aforementioned greater good. Rather, God’s permission of evil is to be understood in terms of His benevolent use of His creatures’ willful negations of His good initiatives for the sake of that good. One implication of both metaphysical and moral significance of the conception of evil as described above is that, wherever there is good in the world, there will be a parasitic evil. And yet, as Maritain writes, quoting Augustine, “God would never permit evil if He was not strong enough and good enough to draw good even from evil” (Maritain 1966, 87). As transcendent First Cause, God sees and knows all the evil that His creatures will commit, but as free negations of His initial influx of being, and while allowing creatures such free play by virtue of the dignity of their freedom and intelligence, God nonetheless ensures, by virtue of His omnipotence and perfect goodness, that His purposes and the greater good win out in the end. Maritain elaborates: 128

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The creature’s liability to sin is thus the price paid for the outpouring of creative Goodness, which in order to give itself personally to the extent that it transforms into itself something other than itself, must be freely loved with friendship’s love and communion, and which to be freely loved with friendship’s love and communion must create free creatures, and which in order to create them free must create them fallibly free. Without fallible freedom there can be no created freedom; without created freedom there can be no love in mutual friendship between God and creature; without love in mutual friendship between God and creature, there can be no supernatural transformation of the creature into God, no entering of the creature into the joy of his Lord. Sin—evil, is the price of glory. (Maritain 1942, 18–19) We see here then, that Maritain offers a classic “free will defense” theodicy: God permits evil because, if human beings are to enjoy freedom of will, they must be able to choose between good and evil of their own accord. There is, however, another element of Maritain’s theodicy, to which we have already alluded, which is that the decision to choose the good also renders human beings capable of entering into an eternal and loving relationship with God. This relationship lies not in the material order but in the supernatural order of grace, which unceasingly works to establish a new heaven and a new earth, and the relationship between God and humans which grace fructifies is the “person-to-person love which unites created agents with God … where … these evils can be compensated and super-compensated by a good incomparably greater in the line of good than they are in the line of evil” (Maritain 1966, 88). This is not, however, to exclude a kind of greater good achieved with the help of grace in temporal history, in human civilization being perfected by grace over time. As Maritain writes, “human history will emerge not only with the cessation of these evils but with an increase of goods for humanity, so that the spirit may gain ascendancy, that the unification of the human race may come about under the sign of liberty” (Maritain 1966, 89). This is the missing soteriological element of hansai-setsu: the moral change which occurs in human beings and human society over the course of history in the light of ever-greater human awareness of Christ’s loving sacrifice. As well as providing “propitiation” or “satisfaction” of divine justice, Christ’s sacrifice provides “expiation” of human sin and, more importantly here, “moral influence” on the part of God for the interior change of sinners. I will discuss such potential personal and societal transformation in connection with Nagai’s pastoral application of hansai and gisei in the final part of this chapter. The key point for us to consider here is that the moral freedom that God grants to human beings enables them to have a share in the divine life. This is a greater good that justifies and allows for the redemption of the pain and struggles which humans endure in the world. For, as Maritain writes: [I]f God wills that we engage ourselves headlong in the battle, it is because He Himself has first engaged in it the glory of His name, nay more, because He has engaged Himself in it completely, by sending us His Son, one with Him in nature. (Maritain 1966, 85)

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For Maritain, as long as the material world exists, evil will always emerge as the corruption or nihilation of the good. However, precisely insofar as evil depends on the good, and the good emanates from God as infinite Good, evil will always be weaker and less sustainable than the good (Maritain 1966, 86). God therefore constantly heals the world of the evil which occurs, and while there will be “real losses—all too real,” those losses will be compensated by God in eternity—intimations of which we witness in the actions of saints on earth (Maritain 1966, 85–91; Maritain, cited in Doering 1983, 239). With these considerations in mind, we can therefore say, with Joseph: “you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good” (Genesis 50: 20). It is only in this broader framework in which providence and evil can be conceptualized in a consistent and orthodox fashion that Nagai’s remarks on setsuri, hansai and gisei can be understood. Again, it must be remembered that Nagai’s primary concern was not to make fine philosophical and theological distinctions for the purpose of creating a theodicy. Rather, it was to surrender to the will of God and whatever is entailed by it as the only way for him, his children, and the Urakami Catholic community to regain some semblance of peace and comfort following the atomic bomb. This is why he writes that, “just as God gives as an act of love, God takes as an act of love,” and that “Everything that takes place around me is an expression of God’s providential love.” Reading such a statement in isolation from the theologically orthodox Catholic tradition which Nagai himself inhabited, however, runs the risk of collapsing the divine permission of evil—manifested, in this case, in the specific event of the atomic bombing of Urakami—into a willing of such evil on the part of God, even if for the purpose of achieving a greater good. I have argued here that such an interpretation— what hansai-setsu amounts to—makes God the author of evil and nothing less than a moral monster. Nagai speaks from a position of awareness of God’s greater purposes which will be achieved in spite of the evil in the world, and this trust in God’s love and providence allows him also to say “God constantly wishes me to be happy” (Nagai 2008, 72).

The pastoral application of hansai According to the theologically orthodox position which has here been derived from the writings of Nagai and Maritain, whatever happens in the world ultimately serves the greater good which God has established in His infinite wisdom. This includes instances of moral evil, such as the atomic bombing of Urakami, which God ultimately permits out of His respect for the dignity of the freedom and intelligence of His creatures, and with full knowledge and certainty that He can use even those instances of moral evil for His good purposes. Knowing this allowed Nagai to perceive the workings of divine providence both within and beyond his immediate circumstances and to surrender to the wisdom of divine providence as always, ultimately intending and bringing about good for each human soul. As already mentioned, Nagai’s approach to such self-surrender to divine providence derives from his reading of Pascal, the Urakami Catholic community’s communal narrative of shiren, and his experience of Marian devotion and Marian piety through the example of the Conventual Franciscans. Let us look at how these influences are exhibited in Nagai’s pastoral approach. For Pascal, as we have already seen in his Pensées, it is submission to the will of God, regardless of one’s external circumstances, which represents the way for a Christian to find happiness. Pascal’s “Prayer to Ask of God the Proper Use of Sickness” is particularly clear

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on this point, and one sees remarkable similarities in Pascal and Nagai’s perspectives. For example, in the “Prayer,” Pascal says: I know not which is more profitable to me, health or sickness, wealth or poverty, nor of all the things of the world. This is a discernment that exceeds the power of men or of angels, and that is hidden in the secrets of thy providence which I adore, and which I wish not to fathom. (Pascal 1910, 373) In similar fashion, Nagai writes: When we feel lonely, we must thank God because that loneliness is his Divine Providence and we must accept it; when we hurt, we must know that that is precisely a manifestation of necessary providence and suffer the pain with gratitude. (Nagai 2008, 72) Pascal repeats his wish that God assist him in using his sufferings as an opportunity to unite his sufferings with Christ, rededicate himself to God and glorify Him by whatever means remain at his disposal: Make of them an occasion for my salvation and my conversion. Let me henceforth desire health and life only to employ them and end them for thee, with thee, and in thee. I ask of thee neither health, nor sickness, nor life, nor death; but that thou wilt dispose of my health and sickness, my life and my death, for thy glory, my salvation, and for the utility of the Church and of thy saints, of whom I hope by thy grace to form a part… [C]onform my will to thine; and grant that in humble and perfect submission … I may be disposed to receive the orders of thy eternal providence, and that I may adore alike all that comes to me from thee. (Pascal 1910, 372–73) Again, Nagai writes in a very similar vein: Thus immersing ourselves in loneliness and pain, we must do all we can, praying to be shown how we can reflect God’s glory… “[W]orking for the glory of God” is not influenced at all by what are called pleasure, favorable conditions, unfavorable conditions, failure, pain, health and illness… When we are ill, we offer our illness to God; when we are in pain, we offer that pain to God; when we encounter adverse conditions, we work for God’s glory while accepting the adversity. We experience supernatural, perfect happiness while remaining in physical or emotional pain. (Nagai 2008, 72–73) In The Bells of Nagasaki, Nagai frames this idea of offering one’s pain and illness to God within the framework of participating in, and unity with, Christ’s redemptive suffering. It is the recognition that times of suffering can be opportunities to unite oneself to Christ that led Nagai to refer to the task given to the Urakami Catholics after the bomb as walking the “way of expiation” and, in so doing, remembering “how Jesus Christ carried His cross to the hill of Calvary” (Nagai 1987, 109). Such a practice, however, presupposes a certain disinterestedness Chapter 7: Nagai Takashi on Divine Providence and Christian Self-Surrender

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with respect to the favorability of one’s worldly circumstances. It is perhaps for this reason that Nagai writes that, when he was staying with the Conventual Franciscans, a particular verse resonated with him: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Nagai 2008, 43; Matthew 24: 35). Knowing that, while not everything that occurs in the world is necessarily willed by God but is at least permitted by Him in virtue of His certain knowledge of the triumph of good over evil and the final compensation which will be given to human beings for the sufferings they have endured, the Urakami Catholics referred to everything that happens as divine providence and times of suffering as shiren. As Kataoka Chizuko, a hibakusha and defender of Nagai, remarked in an interview in 2016: The understanding of the people from the home (genbaku hōmu) of setsuri (God’s providence) and the Urakami [Catholic] people’s understanding of setsuri and Nagai Takashi’s use of setsuri … suppose[s] a deep faith [and are] not able to be understood by those who do not have this faith. When something happens in daily life, we will say, “that was God’s providence, wasn’t it!” So, we use it in everyday scenarios, or we use it about the atomic bomb; so for Nagai to use the word setsuri, it was quite different to the meaning given by “these people” [critics] … it was a different meaning… These words are known through faith. So, in [the word] setsuri, … there is this deep… knowledge, a scholarly way, which … implies a true psychology of God present, offering praise… So in the centre of faith life, therefore, Nagai Takashi’s writing uses an extreme shorthand (tanraku) expression. (cited in McClelland 2018, 247) Here Kataoka insists that divine providence was understood by the Urakami Catholic hibakusha in a far more general sense than a specific event intended by God, as in hansai-setsu. Her remarks explain why Nagai Tokusaburō also insists that interpreting his grandfather’s words in the manner of hansai-setsu was contrary to the latter’s purpose of providing consolation to survivors and relatives of those who died. The core of Nagai’s message was that the deaths of the Urakami Catholics were not meaningless because God knows and loves each human soul, and He triumphs over the evil committed by human beings by using it for the greater good He has established in His wisdom and recompensating each of us for the suffering we have endured in this life. The biblical image of the hansai which Nagai employs is intended to convey that meaning, rather than to provide a theodical explanation. In this connection, it is noteworthy that, in his autobiography, Fujitarō Tetsurō, a Catholic priest from Gotō who studied philosophy under Father Maximilian Kolbe and who knew and admired Nagai, frequently uses the same concepts of hansai and gisei and never defines them or uses them as part of an implied theodicy (Fujitarō 1965, 37, 42). Indeed, if Nagai himself had intended to construct a theodicy, we should expect to see in his later works a response to the prevailing interpretation of hansai-setsu in the form of a clarification of its essential terms or a more detailed elaboration on the funeral address. This, however, we do not see in Nagai’s work after The Bells of Nagasaki. Rather, in the works that followed, Nagai only makes passing references to the concepts of hansai and gisei, and often in explicitly metaphorical fashion.

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With regard to the latter, we see this in Itoshi ko yo (My Precious Child, 1949), in the humorous and touching story of the attempt of the nuns caring for Nagai to provide him with additional goat’s milk to maintain his weight and stamina, to the detriment, it turns out, of the goat’s kid, which is somewhat underfed and which therefore serves as a kind of “sacrifice” (gisei) for Nagai (Nagai 2002, 104–13). The story can be taken as a parable explaining the meaning and purpose of daily sacrifice for Nagai’s children and fellow Catholic Christians. More significant for our purposes is the similetic use of hansai in Leaving My Beloved Children Behind, published two years later, and written, Nagai says, as “a record for my family… not for the public” (Nagai 2008, 176). In writing of the destruction of two Catholic girls’ middle schools and the death of the students caused by the atomic bomb, Nagai says: “This was just like in ancient days, when undefiled lambs used to be burned as a sacrifice on altars in order to please God” (Nagai 2008, 26). Here we need to pay attention to the phrase “just like,” which, in Nagai’s original Japanese, is sanagara. The resemblance indicated by sanagara is similetic, rather than literalistic. That is, sanagara is used to express a poetic resemblance, rather than a visual, logical or theoretical resemblance. This precludes the possibility of theologically equating hansai in Nagai’s work to hansai as featured in the Old Testament—the latter being required by ancient Jews for the establishment of a covenantal relationship between God and Israel, their worship of God and atonement for their sins. Nagai’s placing of such practices as having occurred in “ancient days” also highlights the qualitative difference between hansai in the Old Testament and the sacrifice of Urakami Catholics, which for him is a kind of hansai, but only in a similetic fashion. Nagai intended to provide a familiar biblical matrix in which the death and suffering of Urakami could be understood symbolically. This similetic or symbolic resemblance to which Nagai referred in order to give meaning to the deaths of Urakami Catholics and offer consolation to survivors and the victims’ relatives is complemented by his use of white lilies in his paintings pertaining to hansai. The paintings were accompanied by the third and fourth lines of a poem entitled “Shiro bara” (White Roses) which Nagai wrote between 1945 and 1950 (Nagai 1999, 153–54): Singing even in the midst of the flames of the burnt sacrifice, may they burn like white lilies, those young girls.12 It is worth noting that the white lily has long been a symbol of purity which, among Christians, also came to be associated specifically with the purity of the Virgin Mary and other saints. In claiming that God took the purest of believers as a sacrifice in the atomic bombing, Nagai intended to give hope and assurance to survivors and the relatives of victims that their faith in God—as in the exemplary case of the Virgin Mary—was not forgotten by God, but rather magnified and eternally rewarded in recompense for their sufferings.

Conclusion In this chapter, I set out to challenge the interpretation of Nagai Takashi’s references to the biblical concept of hansai and of divine providence, or setsuri, as constituting a theoretical explanation of the atomic bombing of the Urakami district of Nagasaki—what Takahashi Shinji calls hansai-setsu. According to the theory, God intentionally directed the atomic bomb to land on Urakami in order to provide a sacrifice that would in turn provide propitiation for

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the sins of humankind committed during the Second World War. The claim is that, by virtue of Nagai’s insistence that only the sacrifice, or gisei, of Urakami Catholics was enough to bring about the end of the War, such a sacrifice was in fact necessary to satisfy divine justice and redeem humankind, and that this redemption was manifest in God’s ending of the War. I have advanced several arguments, based on interviews, primary and secondary sources on Nagai, biblical passages, philosophical and theological resources, and finally, Nagai’s own poetry and artworks, to show that, as his grandson Nagai Tokusaburō believes, hansai-setsu is a misinterpretation of Nagai which he would have regretted. First, hansai-setsu is soteriologically erroneous, given that, in the Old Testament, God explicitly prohibits the sacrifice of His human creatures, and, according to the New Testament, the sacrifice of Christ alone, as the eternal son of God is necessary and sufficient to redeem humankind. Second, Nagai’s treatment of the issue makes it clear that divine providence is not to be understood mechanistically, or in terms of necessary connections. Rather, Nagai, like Blaise Pascal, suggests that Christians ought to surrender to the mystery of divine providence in loving trust, confident, like Jacques Maritain, that, while God does not necessarily will everything that occurs in the world, He permits it and will, by virtue of His power and love, bring about a greater good for all creatures from the perspective of eternity. This is in clear contrast to hansai-setsu, which would have us believe that God directly willed the atomic bombing of Urakami and therefore directly willed the slaughter of tens of thousands of innocents. The latter view simply makes God nothing less than a moral monster. Against this interpretation of Nagai’s use of hansai, then, I have suggested instead that Nagai’s use of the notion of hansai can only be understood correctly if it is recognized as emerging from his broader, spiritual and pastoral approaches to divine providence and Christian sacrifice. In this connection, I employed the theoretical tools of Jacques Maritain to reconstruct his underlying theological assumptions pertaining to God’s will and His relationship to evil to show that Nagai’s views on divine providence were in fact quite orthodox. At the level of application, however, the approaches to both divine providence and Christian sacrifice which Nagai shared with his listeners and readers were gained from the Marian spirituality of those around him in the Urakami Catholic community and from his reading of Pascal. Together, they provided a theologically consistent and orthodox foundation for his use of hansai in a variety of media. In providing a similetic rather than literalistic meaning to the sacrifice of Urakami Catholics vis-à-vis the burnt offerings at the Temple in ancient Israel, Nagai’s use of the biblical term of hansai constituted a unique pastoral device for providing consolation to the victims and families of the victims of the atomic bombing, of which Nagai was a member and which he represented. Nagai’s purpose was to remind Urakami Catholics, in a way that would resonate with them, that God had not abandoned those who had departed, would remain with those left behind, and will fulfil His promise that there will be a time for all His human creatures when He “will wipe every tear from their eyes” and “there will be no more death” (Revelations 21: 4).

Notes

The three characters used to represent Nyokodō (如己堂) literally mean “like myself house.” Nagai chose this name as a sign of the importance he attached to the command, offered by Jesus in Mark 12: 31, to “love your neighbor as yourself.” 2 See McClelland (2018) and Diehl (2018). 1

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3 John Paul II made this statement during his address in Hiroshima in 1981. See also Miyamoto (2011, 134), and McClelland (2018, 243–45) for their respective discussions on how this statement by the Pope challenged hansai-setsu and influenced the thoughts of many hibakusha concerning the relationship between divine providence and the atomic bomb. 4 I interviewed Nagai Tokusaburō twice. The first time was by email, and the second time was in person, at the Nagai Takashi Memorial Museum in Nagasaki, on 26 December 2019. I wish to express my sincere thanks for his generous acceptance of my request to conduct these interviews and for his kind permission to quote his answers in this chapter. 5 Given my inability to access a physical copy of Gagliardi’s gargantuan book, which runs to about one thousand pages, I cite the book with reference to the relevant section and sub-section numbers, which are, thankfully, extremely clear and concise. 6 The journal in which Suzuki’s article was published, Acta Litt&Arts, is an online publication which, at the time of writing this chapter, uses a browser-based reading format which divides the text up by paragraphs, rather than by pages. I therefore cite the paragraph number, rather than the page number. 7 Honor Levi translation (1999), 172. 8 W. F. Trotter translation (1910), 155. 9 Trotter translation. 10 Trotter translation. 11 Nagai had known Kolbe through the work of the Conventual Franciscan friars in Nagasaki, whom Kolbe led. Having long been an admirer of Kolbe’s work and spirituality, Nagai had met him at least once, for the purpose of giving him a medical examination. 12 My own translation.

References Aquinas, T. (1949). On Being and Essence (A. Maurer, trans.). Toronto: The Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies. Cohn-Sherbok, D. (1990). Jewish Faith and the Holocaust. Religious Studies 26(2), 277–93. Diehl, C. (2018). Resurrecting Nagasaki: Reconstruction and the Formation of Atomic Narratives. New York: Cornell University Press. Doering, B. E. (1983). Jacques Maritain and the French Catholic Intellectuals. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press. ———. (1985). Jacques Maritain, George Bernanos and Julien Green on the Mystery of Suffering and Evil. Religion & Literature 17(3), 37–55. Fujitarō, T. (1965). Waga michi wa tōku [Our true path is far from here]. Tokyo: Sei Furanshisuko Shūdōkai. Gagliardi, M. (2020). Truth Is a Synthesis: Catholic Dogmatic Theology. Steubenville, OH: Emmaus Academic. John Paul II (2000). Appeal for Peace. In Takayama H. (ed.), Hiroshima in Memoriam and Today: A Testament of Peace for the World. Tokyo: The Himat Group. Konishi, T. (2012). Nagai Takashi wa ikanishite katorikku shinja to natta ka [How Nagai Takashi became a Catholic]. Essays from Nagasaki University of Foreign Studies 16 (December), 73–86. Maritain, J. (1942). Saint Thomas and the Problem of Evil. Milwaukee, WI: Marquette University Press. ———. (1948). Existence and the Existent (L. Galantiere & G. Phelan, trans.). New York: Pantheon Books. ———. (1966). God and the Permission of Evil (Joseph W. Evans, trans.). Milwaukee, WI: The Bruce Publishing Company. ———. (1984). Pascal Apologist. In Jean-Marie Allion (ed.), Jacques Maritain, Raïssa Maritain: Oeuvres completes (vol. 3). Paris: Éditions Saint-Paul, 163–83. ———. (2011). Man’s Approach to God. Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers. Maybaum, I. (2001). Ignaz Maybaum: A Reader. (N. de Lange, ed.). New York: Berghahn Books. McClelland, G. (2018). Re-Interpreting hansai: Burnt Offerings as the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb. In D. Kim, (ed.), Colonial Transformation and Asian Religions in Modern History. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 230–61. Miyamoto, Y. (2011). Beyond the Mushroom Cloud: Commemoration, Religion, and Responsibility after Hiroshima. New York: Fordham University Press. Moriarty, M. (2020). Pascal: Reasoning and Belief. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Nagai, T. (1987 [1949]). The Bells of Nagasaki. (William Johnston, trans.). Wheathampstead: Anthony Clarke. ———. (1996a [1948]). Horobinu mono o [For That which Does not Pass Away]. Tokyo: San Paulo. ———. (1996b). Nyokodō zuihitsu [Nyokodō Essays]. Tokyo: San Paulo. ———. (1999). Atarashiki asa [New Morning]. Nagasaki: Seibo no Kishisha. ———. (2002 [1949]). Itoshi ko yo [My Precious Child]. Tokyo: San Paulo. ———. (2008 [1948]). Leaving My Beloved Children Behind (Tatsuoka, M. & Takai, T. trans.). Strathfield, NSW: St. Paul’s Publications. ———. (2014 [1948]). Rozario no kusari [Rosary Chain]. Tokyo: Nihon Bukkuēsu. O’Connell, M. R. (1997). Blaise Pascal: Reasons of the Heart. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. Pascal, B. (1910). Thoughts (W.F. Trotter, trans.). New York: P. F. Collier & Son. ———. (1999). Pensées and Other Writings. (H. Levi, trans.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Rogers, B. (2003). Pascal’s Life and Times. In N. Hammond, (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Pascal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 4–19. Suzuki, S. (2019). Réflexions sur la réception des Pensées de Pascal au Japon à travers le “roseau pensant” [Reflections on the reception in Japan of Pascal’s Pensées with a focus on the “thinking reed”]. Acta Litt&Arts 10 (May). Available via: http://ouvroir-litt-arts.univ-grenoble-alpes.fr/revues​/actalittarts/495reflexions-sur-la-reception-des-pensees-de-pascal-au-japon-a-travers-le-roseau-pensant. (Accessed 20 October 2020.) Takahashi, S. (1994). Nagasaki ni atte tetsugaku suru: kakujidai no shi to sei [Philosophizing in Nagasaki: Death and life in the atomic age]. Tokyo: Hokuju Shuppan. Treat, J. W. (1995). Writing Ground Zero: Japanese Literature and the Atomic Bomb. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Weaver, J. D. (2001). The Nonviolent Atonement. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

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Chapter 8 Dazai Osamu: His Wrestle with the Bible Nagahama Takuma Translated by Van C. Gessel The connection between Dazai Osamu and Christianity is rooted in the Bible. From around 1935, when Dazai began to read the Bible in earnest, his literature includes frequent citations from the Bible and a strong Christian worldview comes to pervade his oeuvre. This trait is particularly noticeable in his postwar works penned between 1945 and 1948, as a result of which a distinction can be drawn between his “period of evacuation in Tsugaru” and his “final works.”

Introduction Dazai Osamu (1909–1948) was neither a Christian, nor is there any evidence that he ever attended Christian services. Even so, the reason his relationship with Christianity is discussed within the framework of Christian writers stems from the biblical quotations found in many of his works, as well as from the influences he received from his Christian associates. In considering Dazai’s relationship with Christianity, the following words have the most symbolic significance: “I do not go to church, but I read the Bible” (DOZ 11: 259). The context for this statement may be traced to the so-called “Non-church” movement in Japanese Christianity as typified by the teachings of Uchimura Kanzō. We can see this in the profound influence of the Non-church magazine, Seisho chishiki (Bible Knowledge), to which Dazai subscribed, and to his powerful obsession with reading the Bible. Also, Dazai had the following to say about the relationship between the Bible and Japanese literature: With the single volume known as the Bible, the history of Japanese literature can be clearly divided in two with a heretofore unknown clarity. It took me three years to finish reading Matthew Chapter 28. Mark, Luke, John; Ah! When will I be able to obtain the wings described in the Gospel of St. John? (DOZ 3: 71) There are doubtless differing opinions on how to demarcate the history of Japanese literature; but Dazai acknowledges the great influence that the Bible has had on Japanese literature. Furthermore, in his statement that it took him three years to finish reading the Gospel

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of St. Matthew, we can see the influence of Seisho chishiki and the energetic stance that Dazai took in his thorough reading of the Bible. As we might expect, he continued to read the Bible throughout his entire life and, thanks to its influence, he included many biblical quotations in his works, with citations from the Gospel of St. Matthew being most numerous. In this essay, I will consider indications of the ways in which Dazai wrestled with the Bible. To that end, I will first examine Dazai’s “Bible experience.” This will be followed by an overview of the relationship between Dazai’s literature and the Bible, and I will conclude with a detailed discussion of the relationship between his literature and the Bible in his mid-career and later writings.

Dazai’s “Bible experience” It is unclear when Dazai began reading the Bible. We can say, however, that in the climate of Taishō period (1912–1926) liberal education, it would have been quite normal for Dazai, as a student from the elite class, to have read the Bible and studied the history and knowledge relating to the Bible as part of his cultural education during his school years (which started with Hirosaki Higher School and continued until his matriculation to Tokyo Imperial University.)1 Also, given the fact that Akutagawa Ryūnosuke—an author greatly respected by Dazai—read the Bible up to the time of his suicide in July 1927 and wrote many works classified as “Kirishitanmono” (Christian stories), there is good reason to believe that Dazai had developed an interest in the Bible from around that time. There are phrases connected to the Bible among the stories from Dazai’s schooldays, including “Mukan naraku” (Bottomless Hell, 1927) and “Jinushi ichidai” (A Landlord’s Life, 1930), and one can identify smatterings of Dazai’s interest in the Bible and Christianity in the stories of his early period, with obvious biblical quotations appearing first in “Das Gemaine” (Das Gemeine,* 1935) and in “Chikyūzu” (World Map, 1935), a work which bears close resemblance to Akutagawa’s “Christian stories” and which has as its protagonist Fr. Giovanni Sidotti, the final Christian missionary of the Edo period. When, then, did Dazai have what can be called his “Bible experience,” when he began a serious reading of the Bible? Broadly speaking, four stages of this experience can be posited. First, in 1934, came his introduction to the Bible by the critic Yamagishi Gaishi (1904–1977), who participated in the publication of the coterie magazine, Aoi hana (Blue Flowers), of which Dazai was a founding member and in which he played a leading role; second, in December 1935 came Dazai’s experience of “taking my first step into the realm of faith” when he “fell completely under the spell of ” a book by Uchimura Kanzō (DOZ 11: 64–65); third, his experience in October 1936, when he “read nothing but the Bible” that had been lent to him by a doctor while Dazai was a patient in the Musashino Hospital; and finally, the influence of Yamagishi Gaishi’s book Ningen kirisuto-ki (A Record of the Man Christ, 1938). The key figures in these experiences were Yamagishi Gaishi and Hirezaki Jun, the latter being central to experiences two and three. Yamagishi, who, as Nohara Kazuo attests, “had a significant influence in opening his eyes to the Bible,” (Nohara 1998, 16) was a close friend of Dazai and frequently discussed the Bible with him. The friendship between the two began in 1934 when Yamagishi participated in Aoi hana. Although Dazai was familiar to a certain degree with the Bible from his school education, we can assume that he began to have a deep interest in the Bible thanks to Yamagishi’s influence. Yamagishi, who was five years Dazai’s

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senior, graduated from the philosophy section of the Literature Department at Tokyo Imperial University and, though not a Christian himself, he loved reading the Bible and wrote A Record of the Man Christ as a non-believer or an outsider to Christianity. A Record of the Man Christ focuses primarily on the Gospel of St. Matthew and offers the following conclusion about the man Jesus: The term “genius” in many cases is applied to artists. Jesus, though, should be called a man greater even than a genius or a poet. All He could do was to love and believe in God and none other. He lived solely because of God and loved to “speak” because of God; He followed God zealously and then hung upon the cross. Personally, I do not know what to call such a person. He was not a religious leader, nor does He merit the label of believer. His faith was too deep for that. Rather, He was a poet of the heavens. A poet who, with His blood, wrote of God upon the earth. (Yamagishi 2018, 31–32, emphasis added) Yamagishi’s views on the Bible emphasizing the Gospel of St. Matthew, along with his image of Jesus as a “poet of the heavens,” had a profound effect on the manner in which Dazai read the Bible. Hirezaki Jun was a friend of Dazai’s brother-in-law, Kodate Zenshirō; he was both a painter in the western style and an advocate of the Non-church brand of Christianity. Hirezaki can be assumed to be the reason that Dazai read books by Uchimura Kanzō. Hirezaki first visited Dazai, who was living in Funabashi, in August 1935. Of this period, Hirezaki has written: “Starting from his time in Funabashi, he often brought up Christianity in our discussions, and each day when I brought a copy of the Non-church Bible research journal, Seisho chishiki, we would discuss that together” (Yamanouchi 2012, 160). Just at the time Dazai fell under the influence of Yamagishi, Seisho chishiki was brought to him by Hirezaki, and Dazai read it regularly. In that same year, Dazai suffered as a result of a variety of problems: he was forced to leave Tokyo Imperial University, he botched a suicide attempt at Kamakura, he became addicted to Pavinal following his surgery for appendicitis and he engaged in verbal battles with Kawabata Yasunari when the latter failed to help Dazai secure the Akutagawa Prize. Amid these tense situations, hearing about Christianity from Hirezaki must have been motivation for Dazai to become interested in Uchimura Kanzō and the Bible. This is evident in the description of his encounter with Uchimura’s books in his essay, “Hekigan takuhatsu” (Blue-Eyed Religious Mendicant, 1936). Here is the passage: Toward the end of last year, three unbearable events piled on top of me, and I fled from my home feeling literally that my trousers had caught on fire. I walked around Yugawara and Hakone and, when I descended the mountain at Hakone I was too poor to pay for lodging, so I decided to walk all the way to Odawara. Mikan plantations lined both sides of the path, and scores of automobiles passed me by. I couldn’t even bring myself to look up at the mountain ranges that surrounded me. I walked on, hanging my head like a wild beast. I was so tormented by the sternness of “Nature” that I could barely breathe. It’s as though I had been crumpled up like tissue paper, wadded up and tossed away.

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This trip was good medicine for me. For a month after my journey, wanting to examine the splendid fruits of human endeavor, I re-read all the books I owned one after another. This is not boasting. None of them could move me to read even ten pages. For the first time in my life, I experienced the desire to pray. “Please let there be something good to read. Please let there be something good to read.” But there was nothing good to read. Two or three novels made me furious. Only a collection of Uchimura Kanzō’s essays never left my bedside for about a week. I thought of quoting a few words from those essays here, but I couldn’t. It felt as though I would have to quote all of them. It was a terrifying book, to the same extent that “Nature” was terrifying. I confess that I fell completely under the spell of this book. For one thing, aided by my animosity toward “Tolstoy’s Bible,” I finally surrendered to Uchimura’s book about faith. All that remains for me now is silence, like that of an insect. I seem to be taking my first step into the world of faith. That’s all there is to me as a man. I have no more beauty than this, nor am I any more contemptible than this. Ah, the emptiness of words! The embarrassment of loquacity. Everything is just as you say. Be silent! Indeed, I believe in the kindheartedness of Heaven. Thy Kingdom Come. (Truth comes out of falsehood. Faith is born of desperation). (DOZ 11: 64–65, emphasis added) Dazai set out on this journey to Yugawara and Hakone in December 1935. His state of mind was such that it was only natural that he would want to escape from the serious problems noted above. During his travels amidst such despair, he writes that he wanted “to examine the splendid fruits of human endeavor” and “re-read all the books [he] owned one after another,” and he could be described as being in a religious state of mind in search of a seed of “salvation” or “healing” within his books. However, “there was nothing good to read.” “Only a collection of Uchimura Kanzō’s essays never left [his] bedside for about a week.” He appears to have found some sort of “salvation” or “healing” in Uchimura Kanzō’s essay collection. Surrendering to Uchimura’s book about faith, Dazai declared that he “seemed to be taking [his] first step into the world of faith.” This stage can be described as the prologue to his “Bible experience.” The following year, 1936, Dazai was back from his trip to Yugawara and Hakone but encountered an even more serious problem. His addiction to Pavinal had worsened, and for a second time he failed to obtain the Akutagawa Prize. Having lost his opportunity to graduate from Tokyo Imperial University, receiving the Akutagawa Prize would have been the chance of a lifetime to gain respect with his family as a writer. His despondency over his failure to win the Prize was exacerbated because he had expected that his selection was assured in this second round because Satō Haruo, a member of the selection committee, had already acknowledged his talent. Because of these setbacks, Dazai spent about a month beginning in October in the Musashino Hospital to be treated for his Pavinal addiction. He seems to have been absorbed in reading virtually every day during his hospitalization. But, above all, he was reading the Bible. The Bible he studied was an annotated copy of the New Testament (edited by Kurosaki Kōkichi) that he had borrowed from the physician, Saitō Tatsuya, who was also a patient at the hospital. The donation of this Bible to the Kanagawa Museum of Modern

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Literature by Dr Saitō’s heirs in September 2018 caused quite a stir. The Bible contained notes written in Dazai’s own hand, and in the endpapers was a verse: Though deeply moved, My eyes brimming with tears from The pitiful nature of man’s transience— Still old age begins (Osamu) This is the same verse found under the date August 11 in “HUMAN LOST” (1937), which Dazai wrote in diary form while in the hospital. Dazai quotes from the Bible in many subsequent works, and we can assume that his “Bible experience” at this time became an important turning point that linked Dazai with the Bible. Many Christian terms are sprinkled throughout “HUMAN LOST,” including those cited above, along with “Christ” and “Judas.” The story ends with a quotation from Matthew 5: 44–48:2 Love your enemies, pray for them which despitefully use you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven; for He maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans do so? And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans do so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (quoted in DOZ 3: 84–85). Passages from the Bible in this work are numerous and some are even this lengthy; this is the first reference he makes to the Bible, confirming that he read it intently while hospitalized. Furthermore, the influence of Yamagishi Gaishi is clearly evident in the emphasis he placed on the Gospel of St. Matthew. As described above, Dazai had a “Bible experience” under the guidance of two individuals, the non-believer Yamagishi Gaishi and the follower of Non-church Christianity, Hirezaki Jun. The resulting transformation in his writings is patently apparent and, beginning with “HUMAN LOST,” Dazai continued to grapple with the Bible as he examined his literature and his life.

Dazai’s literature and the Bible The first work published by Tsushima Shūji using the pen name Dazai Osamu was “Inakamono” (Country Bumpkin, 1933). Thereafter, as Dazai Osamu, he forged ahead as a writer through the turbulent prewar, wartime and postwar eras over a period of fifteen years, ending with his love suicide in June 1948. Dazai used quotations from the Bible in many of his works and expressed a Christian worldview in his writings. As there are many analytical essays by researchers on this subject, they will be omitted here.3 I will instead provide a summary focused on the biblical quotations in his fiction. Generally speaking, his writings can be divided into three categories: early, middle, and late periods. But, for convenience, I

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will further divide the third category into two sub-segments, the “period of his evacuation to Tsugaru,” 4 and his “final activity” period. These can be simply summarized as follows: Period

Dates

Main works

Early Period

Feb 1933 – Dec 1938

First story collection Bannen (Final Years) “HUMAN LOST”

Middle Period

Jan 1939 – Aug 1945

“Fugaku hyakkei” (One Hundred Views of Mt. Fuji) Otogi zōshi (Fairy Tales) Tsugaru

Late Period · Tsugaru Evacuation

Aug 1945 – Nov 1946

Pandora no hako (Pandora’s Box)

· Final Activity

Nov 1946 – Jun 1948

Shayō (The Setting Sun) Ōtō (Cherries), Ningen shikkaku (No Longer Human)

We will first look at how the Bible was used in the works of Dazai’s “Early Period.” For Dazai, who had just started his career as a writer, this could be described as a period of trial and error. Many of his writings, taking suicide and madness as their subjects, were avant-garde and experimental, and few of these contain biblical quotations. As noted earlier, such citations are limited to “Das Gemeine” and “World Map.” But after the turning point of Dazai’s 1936 “Bible experience,” such quotations greatly increase. In this sense, the monumental example is the previously mentioned “HUMAN LOST.” Next comes use of the Bible in Dazai’s “Middle Period.” With the critical juncture being his marriage to Ishihara Michiko, Dazai proceeded to write many salubrious, lively works with home and the Bible as their subjects. This period is also marked by production of a series of parodies. These can be broadly divided into three categories: those based on classical literature, those derived from Dazai’s own personal experiences, and those based on the diaries of others. His parodies of classical works include those derived from western classics, including Shin Hamuretto (A New Hamlet,* 1941), “Kakekomi uttae” (Heed My Plea,* 1940), and “Hashire Merosu” (Run, Melos!,* 1940). Other parodies include “Seihintan” (The Chrysanthemum Spirit,* 1941) and “Chikusei” (Blue Bamboo,* 1945),5 two works based on Ryōsai shii (Liaozhai Zhiyi, Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio), as well as those based on classical Japanese literature, including “Udaijin Sanetomo” (Sanetomo, Minister of the Right, 1943), “Shinshaku shokoku-banashi” (A New Interpretation of Tales from Various Provinces, 1944), and Otogi zōshi (Fairy Tales,* 1945). Among the parodies based on Dazai’s personal experiences are “Mangan” (A Promise Fulfilled,* 1938), “Tokyo hakkei” (Eight Views of Tokyo,* 1941), “Fugaku hyakkei” (One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji,* 1939), “Kaze no tayori” (Rumor Has It, 1941), and Tsugaru (Tsugaru,* 1944). Parodies derived from the diaries of others include “Joseito” (Schoolgirl,* 1939), which is based on the diary of Ariake Shizu, and Seigi to bishō (Integrity and Smiles, 1942), based on the diary of Tsutsumi Yasuhisa, the younger

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brother of a friend of Dazai. There was also an increase in Bible-related stories in this period thanks to the influence of Yamagishi Gaishi’s A Record of the Man Christ. Characteristic of these works are “Heed My Plea,” “Rumor Has It” and Integrity and Smiles. These three will be discussed in the next section of this essay. The “Tsugaru Evacuation” period, comprising the first half of the third category of Dazai’s works connected with the Bible in his “Late Period,” refers to the time between early August 1945 and November 1946, when Dazai had been evacuated to his homeland of Tsugaru in northern Japan. During this period, Dazai produced sixteen fictional works, beginning with Pandora no hako (Pandora’s Box,* 1946) and continuing to “Tokatonton” (The Sound of Hammering,* 1947); in addition, he wrote two plays, Fuyu no hanabi (Fireworks in Winter, 1946) and Haru no kareha (Dried Leaves in Spring, 1946). Among these many works, the ones in which biblical quotes can be clearly identified are Pandora’s Box, “Jūgonenkan” (Fifteen Years, 1946), “Kunō no nenkan” (An Almanac of Pain,* 1946), Fireworks in Winter, “Chansu” (Chance, 1946), Dried Leaves in Spring, “Shin’yū kōkan” (The Courtesy Call,* 1946), and “The Sound of Hammering.” To summarize the quotations from the Gospels in this period, there are eight from Matthew, two from John, and one from Luke—with each one taken from a statement by Jesus. The meanings of these quotations taken from their contexts in these works can be arranged into four categories: 1) The concept of freedom, in Pandora’s Box; 2) Love of neighbor, in “Fifteen Years” and “An Almanac of Pain”; 3) Forgiveness, in Fireworks in Winter and Dried Leaves in Spring; and 4) Moral precepts, in “The Courtesy Call” and “The Sound of Hammering.” In each of these works one can find traces of Dazai’s confrontation with the Bible in this period as he seeks after Christ as a philosopher of freedom; Christ as a person of pure love, who taught His followers to “love thy neighbor as thyself ”; and Christ who provided the guiding principles for living in an earthly paradise where those who have been forgiven dwell together. To put it another way, for Dazai, the words of Christ provided a guide for living and a light of hope that shone amidst the chaos of defeated Japan. The “Final Activity” period following the fifteen months of the “Tsugaru Evacuation” period covers the time following Dazai’s move to his final home in the Mitaka area of Tokyo in November 1946—a period in which he produced Shayō (The Setting Sun*), his first postwar best seller, and then went on to secure solid popularity as the darling of the times with his novel Ningen Shikkaku (No Longer Human*)—and ending with his death in the Tamagawa canal in June 1948. Limiting our consideration here to only his works of fiction from this period, they start with “The Sound of Hammering” and “Meri Kurisumasu” (Merry Christmas*), both from January 1947, followed by his controversial stories, “Viyon no tsuma” (Villon’s Wife,* 1947) and The Setting Sun. The period ends with the works published just preceding or after Dazai’s suicide, No Longer Human and “Guddobai” (Goodbye,* 1948). The biblical quotations from this period, as was the case during the “Tsugaru Evacuation” period, are drawn primarily from the New Testament, particularly from Matthew’s Gospel. But there is also a trend toward variety with quotations from Genesis (in “Chichi” (Father), 1947), Psalms (in “Cherries”), and also the Gospel of St. John (in works such as “Binanshi to tabako” (Handsome Devils and Cigarettes,* 1948). The biblical quotations in these writings of Dazai’s “Final Activity” period—unlike those of the “Tsugaru Evacuation” period in which the Bible was employed idealistically as a representation of the philosophies of the characters—were used in a relativistic manner to express some aspects of the philosophies of his characters. For example, a topic of discussion related to the Bible might be introduced Chapter 8: Dazai Osamu: His Wrestle with the Bible

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into a casual conversation in order to “educate.” This could be called an attempt to make the Bible a part of everyday activities. However, though the Bible is merely being incorporated superficially as part of the everyday lives of the characters, in another sense, in portions of the works in which images of the Holy Mother or Jesus, or the name of God are employed in connection to their themes, there are clearly visible indications of biblical influence, suggesting that Dazai is pursuing deeper themes related to the Bible. To summarize the meanings of the quotations as they appear in context in these works, they can be divided into three categories: 1) The Bible as a tool of “refinement”; 2) images of the Holy Mother; and 3) giving shape to the image of Jesus, as found in The Setting Sun. In contrast to the writings of the “Tsugaru Evacuation” period, in which there is an overall tendency to depict Jesus as a “teacher of how to live one’s life,” the trend in the writings of the “Final Activity” period is for the Bible to be used as a device to display the “degree of refinement” of his characters. In addition, in the “Final Activity” period, through direct or indirect quotations from the Bible, various images—such as those of the Holy Mother or Jesus—are intermingled, and even in cases such as No Longer Human, in which there are no biblical quotations, a biblical worldview forms the basis of comments about God, with the result that biblical themes are still pursued. Viewed in this manner, in Dazai’s literature of his “Final Activity” period there are more varied quotations from the Bible than in the “Tsugaru Evacuation” period, and a range of images rooted in the Bible is incorporated into those works, creating what could be called a fictional world of more profound religiosity. This also speaks to the depths of suffering that led Dazai to suicide.

Dazai’s literature and the Bible in his “Middle Period” As described above, the chief characteristic of Dazai’s writings in his “Middle Period” is the proliferation of parodies. Among these writings, those with connections to the Bible include “Heed My Plea,” “Rumor Has It,” and Integrity and Smiles. Each of these three works provides an important key to understanding the relationship between the Bible and Dazai’s literature from his “Middle Period.” I will consider each in the above order. “Heed My Plea” is a biblical parody featuring Judas Iscariot as the protagonist. Its focus is on Judas, whose betrayal Jesus has perceived at the Last Supper, as the former rushes (kakekomi) in to see the chief priest to “file a complaint (uttae).” 6 Biblical quotations come chiefly from chapters 21, 23 and 26 of the Gospel of St. Matthew, and the story is told in the form of a one-sided monologue in which Judas files his complaint with the chief priest. The opening passage reads as follows: A word, please! A word, master! That man is horrible. Just horrible! That’s right. He’s a deplorable bastard. An evil man. Oh, I can’t bear it. He can’t be allowed to go on living! (DOZ 4: 228) Judas’ complaints against Jesus, all related in the first person, continue throughout the story. Initially, Judas, quoting from Jesus’ words and actions, angrily expresses his dissatisfaction with having to remain behind the scenes while being forced to bear an enormous financial burden for Jesus and His followers. He claims that Jesus and His disciples have been able to survive solely because of his own business acumen, and that Jesus and His followers are

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utterly incompetent at making a living. Additionally, having discovered the love that Jesus showers upon Mary Magdalene, who poured the fragrant oil of nard over Him, Judas exudes both jealousy and anger toward Jesus. Judas’ feelings toward Jesus reach their nadir when Jesus issues His ultimatum to Judas at the Last Supper, and he makes up his mind that, if Jesus is to be killed by others, it would be better if he were the one to perform the last rites for Him. After he relates all of this, Judas is finally able to calm down somewhat and acknowledges his own role as a merchant: Yes, master. I’ve told you nothing but lies. I followed that man out of the desire for money. Oh, that’s it for sure. Once I realized tonight that that man wasn’t going to help me make money, being a merchant and all, I immediately changed sides. Money. All the world is nothing but money. Thirty pieces of silver—how wonderful! I’ll take it. I’m a stingy merchant. I can’t help craving it. Yes, thank you so much. Yes, yes. I forgot to tell you. My name is Judas the merchant. That’s right, Judas Iscariot. (DOZ 4: 244–45) We can interpret Judas’ words here as clearly designed to gloss over his guilt at betraying Jesus with comments about his obsession with money. In popular parlance, “the greatest hatred springs from the greatest love.” In short, Judas loved Jesus to the very end. Which is to say that “Heed My Plea” is Dazai’s Record of the Man Christ. The next story, “Rumor Has It,” takes the form of an exchange of letters which parody Dazai’s personal experience. The protagonist, Kido Ichirō, is thirty-eight years old. He has written nothing but shoddy novels in the twenty years since he left his home in Chiba and moved to Tokyo. He is unschooled, the son of a carpenter who was raised by his stepmother. While Kido is depicted as a character not unlike the author Dazai, the background of Jesus Christ as the son of a carpenter is also slyly inserted into the story. One famed author whom Kido admires is Ihara Taizō, who is fifteen years Kido’s senior. Taizō is head of a noble family with a glamorous background that includes study in France. He could be thought of as a blend of the careers of authors such as Nagai Kafū, Shiga Naoya and Ibuse Masuji. The structure of the story is simple, consisting of five letters exchanged between Kido and Ihara. In them, Kido, who has fallen into a creative slump, receives words of encouragement from Ihara that include passages from the Bible. After spending a week at a hot spring inn and two days with Ihara, Kido breaks out of his slump by coming up with the idea of writing a one-hundred-page story based on parts of the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament. Initially, Ihara quotes from the Old Testament Book of Proverbs 1: 7: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (KJV) and explains to Kido the importance of humility and sincerity. Reading those words, Kido recalls how moved he had been when he read the Bible at Ihara’s encouragement and, comparing himself to Moses who fought against all manner of difficulties, he channels these feelings into the story he writes. This work closely mirrors Dazai’s own wrestling with the Bible. The third work, Integrity and Smiles, is a parody derived from the diary of Tsutsumi Yasuhisa, the younger brother of one of Dazai’s friends. Dazai adapts the devotion to Marxism depicted in Tsutsumi’s diary and changes it in every respect into a devotion to Christianity, thereby rendering his novel a thoroughgoing rewrite of the diary. The story consists of a diary written by a character named Serikawa Susumu. The diary begins on 16 April on Susumu’s birthday and covers a two-year period describing, inter Chapter 8: Dazai Osamu: His Wrestle with the Bible

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alia, the problems he experienced in his school soccer club, crises surrounding his younger sister’s marriage and divorce, his experiences taking the entrance exam for the First Higher School, his acceptance into R. University, his consultations with his high school teacher, Mr. Tsuda, and Saitō Ichizō (one of Tsuda’s college professors), and his tryouts to join two theater troupes, the Kamome Troupe and the Shunjū Troupe. It concludes on 29 December, the day he makes his debut onstage. It is unclear whether Susumu is a Christian himself, but his deceased father undoubtedly was, and both Susumu and his older brother have clearly been influenced by their father’s beliefs. The father’s impact as a Christian can be seen in various places in the novel: the work begins and ends with lyrics from a Christian hymnbook; there are scenes in which Susumu’s brother reads aloud from the Bible; and throughout the story prayers and phrases from the Bible are frequently repeated. The novel’s title, in fact, is derived from Matthew 6: 16, and the motto “Do Justly with a Smile!” also advocates, as Dazai had in “Rumor Has It,” the importance of living with humility and sincerity. There are many other quotations from the Bible, but the most important passage deals with the struggles of Moses as recounted in the Book of Deuteronomy. Susumu hears the story of Moses in his Bible class at the university and realizes that Moses did more than deliver sermons to his people: he also attended to every aspect of the lives of the children of Israel, including the food they ate. Accordingly, Susumu faces up to various difficulties by comparing himself to Moses, who led his people as a pioneer, and also to Christ.

Dazai’s literature and the Bible in his “Late Period”: “Tsugaru Evacuation” period As noted earlier, the relationship between Dazai’s literature and the Bible in his “Tsugaru Evacuation” period can be divided into four classifications. First of these is the concept of freedom as expressed in Pandora’s Box. This work originally appeared as a newspaper novel and takes the form of letters sent to a close friend by Hibari, a twenty-year old young man who is recovering from tuberculosis in a “health dōjō.” A total of thirteen letters is dispatched between 25 August and 9 December. The focus is on Hibari’s recuperation and in part depicts his interactions with other patients and his unrequited love for a nurse named Take-san. Most important of all is the profound influence of the concept of freedom advocated by a character called Echigo Jishi.7 Echigo defines a “free thinker” as a “genius who fights in search of truth”; he is driven in his quest by the example of Christ, and Matthew 6: 26 is quoted, emphasizing that the “spirit of Christ” (DOZ 9: 98–99) is the notion of freedom. Above all, Christ’s words, “Take no thought,” are presented as his core philosophy. Echigo further quotes Matthew 5: 34, “Swear not at all” and Matthew 6: 34, “Take no thought for the morrow,” and emphasizes that it is Christ who is the “genius who fights in search of truth.” Here we see the likely influence of Yamagishi Gaishi’s Record of the Man Christ, in which Yamagishi describes Christ as a “poet of the heavens,” “a poet who, with His blood, wrote of God upon the earth.” Next is the concept of love of neighbor, expressed in “Fifteen Years” and “An Almanac of Pain.” In these two stories, the scripture in Matthew 19: 19, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself ” is repeatedly quoted. “Fifteen Years” is a “journal of recollections of the nightmarish fifteen-year period” (DOZ 9: 221) that followed Dazai’s move to Tokyo. In this story, the narrator primarily looks back on his experiences as an author in Tokyo, relying on excerpts

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quoted from “Eight Views of Tokyo,” Hi no tori (Firebird, 1939, unfinished), and Pandora’s Box. The narrator, “I,” makes clear the hatred he feels toward literary salons: “I scorned salon art. I despised the salon’s way of thinking. In short, I could not bear being in a salon,” he declares, and goes on to heap additional criticism on literary salons as “whorehouses of knowledge,” as places of “knowledge transmitted from Imperial Military Headquarters” and knowledge found in “wartime Japan’s newspapers.” (DOZ 9: 204) The first-person narrator expands his critique of salons by including a quotation from the Bible: Become even more timid! You’re nothing to be admired. Your so-called learning—toss it away! Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. If that’s not your starting point, nothing will ever become of you! (DOZ 9: 205; emphasis added) There is no specific explanation in the work of what is meant by a salon, but the true nature of the “dilettantes” criticized by the narrator stands out. They are, ultimately, arrogant dilettantes who brandish their learning, who are filled with hypocrisy, and who lack the sort of love that evinces concern for others. By contrasting the “dilettantes of the salons” with the advocacy, seen in Matthew 19, to “love thy neighbor as thyself,” Dazai calls attention to the importance of caring for others. “An Almanac of Pain” records the history of suffering of the first-person protagonist that begins during his childhood. At the end of the story, the chronology of the narrator’s philosophical views is summarized: “At the age of ten, democracy; at twenty, communism; at thirty, pure aestheticism; at forty, conservatism.” In his personal history of ideas, there is only one quotation from the Bible. The following scene describes his recollections of reading in his childhood: There was another story I read as a child; it sank most strangely into my heart. It appeared in one of those children’s magazines called The Golden Boat or maybe The Red Star. There was absolutely nothing interesting about the story. There was a young girl who was hospitalized with some illness, and late one night she got very thirsty. When she tried to drink what little sugar water was left in the cup at her bedside, an elderly patient who shared the same room was moaning “Water! Water!” The girl climbed out of her bed and gave all of her sugar water to the old man to drink. That’s all there was to the story, but I can still vaguely remember even the illustration that accompanied it. It truly sank into my heart. And next to the title of the story were these words, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” (DOZ 9: 248; emphasis added) It is doubtful whether the protagonist actually read that story. But including the story of the young girl giving her sugar water to the old man as an episode expressing the idea of “democracy at the age of ten,” and writing the words from Matthew 19: 19, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself ” next to the title of the story, indicates that the core philosophy underlying his idea of “democracy at the age of ten” was “love of neighbor.” Next comes the theme of “forgiveness” found in Fireworks in Winter and Dried Leaves in Spring. Both works have similarities in that their titles combine both seasons and

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unseasonable aspects of the seasons; both are set in 1946, shortly after the War; and both take place indoors in the Tsugaru region of Aomori Prefecture. But the important point is that they share “forgiveness” as their central concept. The protagonist of Fireworks in Winter, Kazue, ties into this issue. Kazue is the twenty-nine-year-old wife of a deployed soldier; she has been evacuated from late January to February 1946 to her family home in Tsugaru, taking along her six-yearold daughter. More than three years have passed since her husband, Shimada, went missing in battle, and there is a strong likelihood that he is no longer alive. Kazue apparently has a lover in Tokyo, and she is constantly concerned about communications from Tokyo even while she is living in the countryside. Her relationship with her father is not particularly good, and her stepmother, Asa, struggles to be an intermediary between her husband and Kazue. Weary of her daily life in the country with the constraints it places on her, the overbearing demands of Kanaya Seizō to marry him and her arguments with her father, Kazue dreams of an anarchistic earthly paradise. She fantasizes about the attitudes of people in an idealized world such as the one characterized in Matthew 19: 19. Of course, underlying this dream is the despair of the postwar period in Japan. The play Dried Leaves in Spring, written after Fireworks in Winter, also has a theme relating to forgiveness. This second play opens with the laments of the character Nonaka and ends with his sudden death, and Nonaka’s sufferings are the musical bass line that underscores the entire work. Just before his death, Nonaka’s vents his discontent to his wife. But the issue here is that, when he assails his wife, he does so by quoting the Bible. After denouncing his wife as “the Devil,” Nonaka mocks her lack of response by quoting the scripture in John 19: 9, in which Jesus gives no response when He was questioned by Pilate: “But Jesus gave him no answer.” In other words, not wanting to acknowledge his wife’s humanity, Nonaka at times calls her “the Devil” and at other times “Jesus,” attacking her lack of humaneness. Following this scene, Nonaka torments his wife’s cold-heartedness even more brutally: Setsuko: But the things you’re doing are wrong. Nonaka: Here’s what it says in the Bible. To whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little. Do you understand what this means? It means that only those who have the confidence that they have done nothing wrong are cold-hearted. Those with many sins love deeply. (DOZ 9: 431; emphasis added) Nonaka here quotes from the Bible as he denounces his wife’s heartlessness and arrogance. But what Nonaka despises more than anything is his wife’s “hypocrisy.” Finally, we will look at the category of moral precepts as expressed in “The Courtesy Call” and “The Sound of Hammering.” These two stories are the last stories Dazai wrote during his period of evacuation to Tsugaru and, though his feelings of respect for Christ’s words and actions are unchanged, in these works we can see an attitude of wanting to learn from Christ as a “great man” as expressed through His moral precepts. “The Courtesy Call” depicts an “incident” in which a “close friend,” 8 a fellow classmate in elementary school, pays a visit to the first-person narrator, who has evacuated to his family home in Tsugaru at the beginning of September 1946. This “close friend” drinks up all the narrator’s treasured whisky and spews out all manner of abusive language. The narrator, at

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his wit’s end because his “close friend” is drunk and saying only self-serving things, considers coming up with some way to drive this “close friend” away; but in that moment he remembers the story of Christ evading the Jews at the temple in Jerusalem, as related in John 10: 39.9 “The Sound of Hammering” is written in epistolary form, as was Pandora’s Box. It is made up of a letter written by a twenty-six-year-old young man from Aomori complaining about his sufferings and a letter sent in reply by “a certain author.” The young man’s sufferings began with the Emperor’s broadcast of surrender delivered at noon on 15 August 1945. On learning of Japan’s defeat, a “young first-lieutenant” declares that, even though the war is over, as a soldier he will continue fighting until he is dead. Hearing this, the narrator is moved and decides that he, too, will die. At that moment, from somewhere he hears the sound of a hammer hitting a nail—tokatonton10—and his illusory vision of militarism is stripped away. Thereafter, each time he becomes somehow enthusiastic about writing stories, or about his work at the post office, or love, or demonstrations, or sports, he hears the same sound of hammering and loses interest in doing anything. Thereafter, he begins to hear the hammering sound incessantly and cannot apply himself to anything; unable to bear it any longer, he writes a letter to “a certain author” asking for advice. The “certain author’s” response to the young man’s request for guidance is as follows: Dear Sir: Agonizing, isn’t it? Well, I don’t have much sympathy for [you]. You still seem to be avoiding an ugly situation that can’t be explained away, a situation others see and point a finger at. Real thought takes courage more than intelligence. As Jesus said [in Matthew 10:28], “Fear not them that kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul; rather fear him that is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.” In this passage, “fear” means something like “to hold in awe.” If you can sense the thunder in these words, you will not be hearing things anymore. (DOZ 9: 358; James O’Brien, trans., 1989, 198) Read in the context of the biblical passage, it is clear that the biblical expression “[they] that kill the body but are not able to kill the soul” refers to human beings, whereas He “that is able to destroy both body and soul in hell” is God. This is an admonition to have feelings of “awe” more toward God than toward man. Therein, he suggests, lies a key to escaping the despair of the postwar era.

The relationship between Dazai’s literature and the Bible in his late period: “Final Activity” period I will divide the biblical quotations in Dazai’s works from his “Final Activity” period into three categories: 1) The Bible as a tool of “refinement”; 2) images of the Holy Mother; and 3) phenomenalizing the image of Jesus, as found in The Setting Sun. Characters in the works of the first category, who are intellectuals, display the heights of their “refinement” by quoting from the Bible or by flaunting their knowledge of the Bible. Among these characters are the lady of the nobility in “Merry Christmas”; the first-person protagonist in “The Father” (who describes Abraham’s anguish as he makes an offering of Isaac to God); the first-person protagonist in “Asa” (Morning*); Kazuko, Naoji and the hanger-on, Uehara, in The Setting Sun; the first-person protagonist in “Handsome Devils and

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Cigarettes” (who photographs vagrant children in Ueno Park); the narrator of “Wataritori” (Birds of Passage); the first-person protagonist and his wife in “Cherries”; and Ōba Yōzō in No Longer Human. Most characteristic among these is Kazuko of The Setting Sun. She is a young lady from the nobility who has graduated from a women’s college and can be described as a woman of considerable “refinement” for the times. She is fond of literature, but “at every opportunity” she quotes from the Bible, displaying the high degree of her refinement. Her first reference to the Bible comes following the uproar stemming from a fire that Kazuko had started; she is able to feel at peace after her mother consoles her: I suddenly felt at ease and gave a laugh. I remembered the words from the Book of Proverbs in the Bible, “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver,” and I was filled with gratitude to God for having such a kind-hearted mother. (DOZ 10: 136–37; D. Keene, trans., 1956, 36; emphasis added) This quotation is from Proverbs 25: 11. We can conjecture, from the fact that Kazuko so swiftly recalls the Bible, that she regularly and carefully read the Bible. Quoting here from the Book of Proverbs, which is styled the “Book of Wisdom,” symbolizes her mother’s sagacity and gentleness. In addition, Kazuko repeatedly quotes from the Gospel of St. Matthew in her letters to Uehara. The key verses are Matthew 10: 16, “Be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” and Matthew 10: 28, “him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” 11 The former is quoted three times, the latter twice. The highlight comes in Chapter Six of The Setting Sun, in the scene following the death of her mother, when Kazuko makes up her mind to live for her love for Uehara as a new way of life. Keeping in mind what Jesus commanded His disciples, a major portion of Matthew 10: 9 through 10: 39 is quoted with several ellipses. Admittedly, there appear to be some deviations from biblical orthodoxy, but this serves to underscore Kazuko’s strong determination to fight against society’s mores. Kazuko is utilizing the Bible to justify her own actions. Next to be considered are the “images of the Holy Mother.” These appear at various points in five works from Dazai’s “Final Activity” period: “Merry Christmas,” “Haha” (Mother,*) The Setting Sun, “Kyōō fujin” (The Hospitable Lady) and No Longer Human. Among these, the Holy Mother is most effectively represented by Kazuko’s mother in The Setting Sun. This mother is “the last aristocrat in Japan,” a suffering figure who sacrifices herself for her daughter and son. The final image of her in the novel comes in Kazuko’s description of her as “Mary in Pietà.” In Italian, “Pietà” means “compassion, piety,” and generally refers to “the iconic portrayal of Holy Mother Mary mourning as she embraces the dead body of Christ on her lap … an image of the grieving Holy Mother” (Daijirin, 1989, 2010). In essence, Kazuko’s mother possesses the three attributes of “nobility,” “sacrifice” and “compassion.” Furthermore, it is important here to note that the image of the Holy Mother appears, not only in the description of Kazuko’s mother, but also of Uehara’s wife. This character rarely makes an appearance in the work, but Kazuko meets up with her when she visits Uehara’s home, and she is the object of Naoji’s secret affections. When Kazuko first meets her, her impression is of “a woman with a thin face, some three or four years older than I, and wearing an old-fashioned scent” (Dazai 1956, 113). In his last testament, Naoji expresses sympathy for Uehara’s wife, who has suffered as a “sacrifice” for her husband, and he praises the beauty of 150

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her eyes. It is also worth noting that Naoji describes Uehara’s wife as “noble” (Dazai 1956, 137). She is not of the aristocratic class, but Naoji’s admiration for her underscores the high level of her spiritual refinement. These two attributes of “sacrifice” and “nobility” correspond to those of Kazuko’s mother. In addition, just as Kazuko’s mother is depicted with a pictorial image as “Mary in Pietà,” Uehara’s wife is also idealized by Naoji with pictorial imagery in the following passage: Then it happened one winter evening that I was struck by her profile… I … saw her sitting quietly with her daughter in her arms next to the apartment window, against the clear blue sky of a Tokyo winter’s evening. Her regular profile, its outlines clear-cut with the brilliance of a Renaissance portrait, floated against the background of the pale blue of the distant sky. There was nothing of coquetry or desire in the kindness which had impelled her to throw the blanket over me. Might not the word “humanity” be revived to use of such a moment? She had acted almost without consciousness of what she did, as a natural gesture of sympathy for another person, and now she was staring at the distant sky, in an atmosphere of stillness exactly like a painting. (Dazai 1956, 137; original in DOZ 10: 256–57) Naoji describes the profile of Uehara’s wife in painterly terms: “Her regular profile, its outlines clear-cut with the brilliance of a Renaissance portrait.” And her posture as she sits by the window with her child is reminiscent of a sculpture of the Holy Mother. Regarding Uehara’s wife in this scene, Aoki Kyōko points out that “[Dazai] must have had in mind the traditional images of the Holy Mother and Child in European Christian art when he described her” (Aoki 2006, 159). This is a persuasive insight. The third category to be discussed is “particularized images of Jesus” in The Setting Sun. Let us examine the issue of Jesus images by focusing on Kazuko’s mother. Kazuko’s monologic narration, including three letters she sends to Uehara, forms the core of The Setting Sun; but Naoji’s “Moonface Diary” and his suicide note are also included in the novel. Consequently there is absolutely no depiction of their mother’s inner world, since her words and actions are conveyed exclusively from Kazuko’s perspective. This narrative structure might be considered very similar to the way that Jesus is portrayed in the Gospels, since there is no description of His thoughts or feelings, and His words and actions are all related through His disciples. Sifting through the words and actions of Kazuko and Naoji with respect to their mother, we see that she is described with images like those applied to Jesus, while Kazuko and Naoji are depicted using images similar to those associated with Jesus’ disciples. Deserving of special mention is a scene in which Kazuko has a dream. In her dream, she is walking beside a lake in a forest, accompanied by a young man in Japanese-style clothing. Next to the lake is a hotel made of stone, called “HOTEL SWITZERLAND,” in the garden of which “huge red flowers like hydrangeas were blooming with a burning intensity” (Dazai 1956, 95). In this setting, the young man announces the death of Kazuko’s mother. In reality, at this point in time Kazuko’s mother is still alive, but her tuberculosis is already in an advanced stage and she is clearly approaching death. Kazuko’s dream is more than an ominous premonition. In reality, it is shortly after she has this dream that her mother dies. What is significant here is that the way Kazuko’s dream is structured closely resembles the scene of Jesus’ resurrection in Matthew 28. There are several points of similarity: following His Chapter 8: Dazai Osamu: His Wrestle with the Bible

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execution on the cross, Jesus is placed in a tomb. Those who first visit Jesus’ tomb are women. When they arrive at the tomb, Jesus’ body is not there, and they are notified by an angel who waits there of Jesus’ resurrection. Comparing these scenes with the events in Kazuko’s dream: her mother has already been dead and buried; Kazuko is the one who goes in search of her mother; and a young man notifies Kazuko of her mother’s death. In short, these images all appear to overlap: Jesus entombed after His crucifixion and Kazuko’s mother, who has already been buried; Mary Magdalene12 visiting Jesus’ tomb and Kazuko going in search of her mother; and the angel13 who notifies the women what has happened to Jesus and the young man who informs Kazuko of her mother’s death. As described above, Dazai’s literature of his “Late Period” goes beyond simple biblical quotations, presenting a more profound biblical world with the Bible discussed as a source of “refinement” in the casual conversations between characters, and with images of the Holy Mother and of Jesus. Here we can identify the terminal point of Dazai’s lengthy wrestle with the Bible.

Notes 1 To cite another example, Kawabata Yasunari (1899–1972), who was ten years Dazai’s senior, attended shortterm classes during his years at Ibaraki Middle School where the Bible was read for English study and, after higher school and into his years at the Imperial University, he frequented the Kirisutokyō Seinen Kaikan (Christian youth meeting hall) and often read the Bible. See Nagahama, T. (2016, 216–33). 2 In the translation from the Taishō period into literary Japanese 3 Critical essays on Dazai are so numerous, I will only list here the important studies that have been published in book form: Sako, Jun’ichirō. Dazai Osamu ni okeru dekadansu no rinri [The ethics of decadence in the works of Dazai Osamu]. Gendai Bungeisha, 1958. Kikuta, Yoshitaka. Dazai Osamu to tsumi no mondai [Dazai Osamu and the problem of sin]. Shūdōsha, 1961. Shimizu, Hiromu. Tenjō to kagi to kage: Dazai Osamu-ron [A ceiling, a hook and a shadow: A study of Dazai Osamu]. Shūdōsha, 1973. Saitō, Suehiro. Dazai Osamu to Shiina Rinzō [Dazai Osamu and Shiina Rinzō]. Ryokuchisha, 1973. Terazono, Tsukasa. Dazai Osamu to seisho [Dazai Osamu and the Bible]. In Terazono T., Bungakusha to shūkyō [Writers and religion]. Kasama Shoin, 1974. Sako, Jun’ichirō (ed.). Dazai Osamu to seisho [Dazai Osamu and the Bible]. Kyōbunkwan, 1983. Akashi, Michio. Dazai Osamu: Sono kokoro no henreki to seisho [Dazai Osamu: the pilgrimages of his heart and the Bible]. Yagi Shoten, 1985. Fukunaga, Shūsuke. Dazai Osamu-ron: Kirisutokyō to ai to gi to [A study of Dazai Osamu: Christianity and love and duty]. Shiraishi Shoten, 1992. Tanaka, Yoshihiko. Dazai Osamu to “Seisho chishiki” [Dazai Osamu and “Bible knowledge”]. Chōbunsha, 2004. Suzuki, Norihisa & Tanaka, Yoshihiko (eds.). Taishō: Dazai Osamu to seisho [Contrasts: Dazai Osamu and the Bible]. Seikōkai Shuppan, 2014. 4 Like many Japanese, once the bombing of large cities by Allied forces began during World War II, Dazai was evacuated to his birthplace in Tsugaru. 5 Chikusei is the name of a female crow the protagonist meets in the story. 6 “Heed My Plea” is not a direct translation of the title, “Kakekomi uttae,” which more literally means “Rushing in to file a complaint.” 7 This epithet is taken from a kind of street performance, including tumbling done by a child wearing a carved lion’s head. 8 The “shin’yū” of the Japanese title means “close friend.” 9 “Therefore they sought again to take Him; but He escaped out of their hands.” 10 Onomatopoeia for the sound of hammering.

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Dazai quotes the same verse in “The Sound of Hammering.” Mary Magdalene is taken in the act of adultery and is rescued by Jesus as she is about to be executed. This correlates to Kazuko, whose husband suspects her of adultery with another man and divorces her. 13 The accounts differ in each Gospel: in Matthew it is an “angel” who appears at Jesus’ tomb, while in Mark’s version it is “a young man…clothed in a long white garment”; in Luke it is “two men…in shining garments,” and in John’s Gospel it is “two angels.” Mark’s account bears the closest resemblance to the “young man in Japanese-style clothing.” 12

References Aoki, K. (2006). Shayō no joseizō: Seiyō bijutsu o chūshin toshite [Female images in The Setting Sun: Focusing on western art]. In Aoki K., Dazai Osamu no joseizō [Female images in the works of Dazai Osamu]. Kyoto: Shibunkaku Shuppan. Dazai, O. (1956). The Setting Sun (Donald Keene, trans.). New York: New Directions. ———. (1975-1977). Dazai Osamu zenshū [The Collected Works of Dazai Osamu] (13 vols.). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. ———. (1989). Crackling Mountain and Other Stories (James O’Brien, trans.). Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle. ———. (1998–1999). Dazai Osamu zenshū [The Collected Works of Dazai Osamu] (13 vols.). Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. (cited as DOZ) Nagahama, T. (2016). Sengo bungaku to seisho (2), Dai-isshō: Kisei sakka to seisho [Postwar literature and the Bible (2), chapter 1: Established writers and the Bible]. Kirisutokyō bunka (November). Nohara, K. (1998). Dazai Osamu to seisho [Dazai Osamu and the Bible]. Tokyo: Shinchōsha. Yamagishi, G. (1938). Ningen kirisuto-ki [A record of the man Christ]. Tokyo: Daiichi Shobō. Yamanouchi, H. (2012). Dazai Osamu no nenpu [Dazai Osamu: A chronology]. Tokyo: Taishūkan Shoten.

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Chapter 9 Shiina Rinzō: His Two Visages Nagahama Takuma Translated by Van C. Gessel Shiina Rinzō can be seen as both a member of the Sengoha (postwar) literary coterie and that of “Christian writers.” These two categorizations are born from two of his pivotal life experiences: his awakening to literature in the form of his “Dosutoefusukii taiken” (Dostoevsky experience) in 1938, and to the Christian faith with his “fukkatsu taiken” (resurrection experience) in 1951. And these two experiences are closely linked to the image of “light” that pervades Shiina’s entire oeuvre.

Introduction Shiina Rinzō (1911–1973) had two different visages. One belonged to an author who was active on the front lines in the post-World War II literary scene as a representative of the Daiichiji Sengoha (the First Generation of Postwar Writers). His other visage was that of a formally baptized “Christian author” whose writings vividly displayed themes rooted in a Christian world view. The First Generation of Postwar Writers refers to those authors who debuted in 1946– 1947 as members of “a group who began writing after the Second World War. Employing psychological and existential techniques in their works, they pursued such themes as war responsibility and the question of individual identity, centering on issues dealing with politics and literature” (Daijirin, 3rd ed.). After a memorable debut with “Shin’ya no shuen” (Midnight Banquet*) in February 1947, Shiina proceeded to write a series of provocative works. In 1956, following publication of Utsukushii onna (The Beautiful Woman), he received the “Geijutsu senshō Monbudaijin-shō” (Minister of Cultural Affairs art encouragement prize) for that and other works. He was active in many fields: in addition to novels, he wrote screenplays, television dramas and plays, thereby bolstering his solid position in the postwar literary world. Existential leanings are especially strong in Shiina’s writings in each of these genres, as he continued to question what it means to be alive. Turning to his role as a Christian writer, Shiina was baptized on Christmas Eve 1950 in a Protestant church. Beginning with his “resurrection experience” in 1951, he foregrounded his

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Christian faith; and, in his writings, including the essays treating his personal experiences of faith which were collected as Watashi no seisho monogatari (My Bible Stories, 1957), and the images of the resurrected Christ in The Beautiful Woman, his Christian faith was tightly interwoven into his literary works. Active on the frontlines of the world of Japanese literature that started with the Meiji period, Shiina was the first writer since the beginning of the Meiji period to openly declare his Christian faith and Endō Shūsaku considers Shiina his progenitor as a “Christian writer” (ESBZ 12: 224–29). With respect to these dual visages of Shiina, there are two turning points that produced changes in his life: a “Dostoevsky experience” in 1938 that opened his eyes to literature, and the “resurrection experience” of 1951 in which he was awakened to faith in Christianity. Furthermore, these two experiences are firmly linked by the images of “light” that permeate all of Shiina’s writings. In this chapter, I will examine Shiina Rinzō as a Christian writer from these three perspectives: his “Dostoevsky experience,” his “resurrection experience,” and his use of images of “light.”

“Dostoevsky experience” Many Japanese writers developed an interest in literature during their schooldays and began their creative endeavors by publishing coterie literary magazines; these writers are referred to as “bungaku seinen” (young literature buffs). Shiina, on the other hand, was living a life completely unconnected to literature during his schooldays. Throughout his adolescence, he was a laborer who had nothing to do with literature. In 1926, at the age of fifteen, circumstances in his home led him to move out, after which he held a variety of jobs, including doing deliveries for a fruit store and a restaurant, and working as an apprentice chef; in 1929, at the age of eighteen, he became a laborer in the transportation industry by taking a job in the railway division of Ujikawa Electric Company (now the San’yō Railway Company). Before long, he joined the labor movement. In July of 1931, at the age of twenty, he became a member of the illegal Japan Communist Party and was arrested in September. He was tried and sent to prison. Two years later, he signed an oath recanting his political beliefs (a so-called tenkō) and was released. However, as a former communist he was kept under surveillance by the Special Police even after his release while he shuffled from one job to another. No matter the kind of work he did, Shiina’s poverty made life itself agonizing for him. He still had absolutely no connection to literature. However, in the spring of 1938, at the age of twenty-seven, he read—and was astonished by—Dostoevsky’s Demons: it is this awakening to literature that is referred to as his “Dostoevsky experience.” Although a relatively late-in-life awakening, it was an event that completely changed the course of his life. Shiina described this experience as follows: When I read Dostoevsky, inspired to do so by Nietzsche, it was shocking. This will sound foolish, but I wondered if this was actually what novels were all about. At the time, although I had plodded through challenging philosophical texts, those efforts ultimately went unrewarded. I felt an emptiness in those works, and I was left in a stupor, thinking there were no solutions to life’s challenges. It felt almost as though I were drowning helplessly in the water, lost with only my hands waving instinctively in my effort to stay alive. That was the state I was

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in when Dostoevsky taught me that I could cry out “Save me!,” even if I had no hope that I could be saved. The novel I read was Demons. (Shiina 1957, 43; emphasis added) During the approximately five-year period after he had “apostatized [from communism], thereby betraying [his] party and comrades,” Shiina searched for a way to be saved from [his] vile self ” (Shiina 1957, 43). But he continued to live unconnected to literature, even though he voraciously read works of existential philosophy by authors such as Nietzsche, Kierkegaard and Heidegger. But, as he noted, it was Dostoevsky’s Demons that “taught me that I could cry out ‘Save me!’ even if I had no hope that I could be saved.” In this way, he realized, for the first time, that a meaning for living could be found in literature. I want to point out here that Shiina’s philosophical torments were religious, even Christian, in nature. We see here the image of a man longing to be “saved,” suffering from a “guilty conscience” for having betrayed his party and his comrades, offering something akin to a “prayer” to be saved from his own ugly self and to be rescued from the depths of despair. He had no idea at the time who might save him, but it is clear that the answer is linked to his later faith in Christianity. Moreover, images of light are profoundly linked to his “Dostoevsky experience” at this time. I refer here to Shiina’s description of a conversation in Demons between Stavrogin and Kirillov: Kirillov talks about the leaf of a tree he saw when he was young. He says that the glimmering sunlight making the veins of the leaf transparent were beautiful. Stavrogin asks what that means. Of course it has no meaning, Kirillov responds and says “All men are saved.” Stavrogin presses him, asking if then it’s all right to beat out a child’s brains or to rape a young girl. In response, Kirillov says even those acts are forgiven. However, he replies “A person who truly understands that all is forgiven would not do such things.” What struck me about this is the final parenthetical comment. There is a serious discontinuity between the statements “A person who truly understands that all is forgiven” and “would not do such a thing.” And what is strange is that this discontinuity caused a fresh, somehow blinding light to suddenly shine into my heart. (Shiina 1957, 43–44; emphasis added) Shiina also wrote the following about this scene: When I heard those words, I felt as though a somehow fresh light of “true freedom” such that I had never before known came flashing into my heart. I had the same feeling no matter how many times I read the words. To tell the truth, it’s pathetic to admit, but I only truly understood this passage after I became a Christian. “Those who know through Jesus Christ that all men are forgiven would surely not bring shame upon a young girl.” (Shiina 1967, 51–2; emphasis added) It is important to note here that Shiina’s “Dostoevsky experience” is expressed using images of light, such as “a fresh, somehow blinding light” and the “light” of “true freedom.” That 156

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is to say, while Shiina’s interest in literature began with his “Dostoevsky experience,” at the same time, that interest from this early stage developed in an extremely religious form as the “light” of “true freedom.” And, in saying that he “truly understood this passage…after [he] became a Christian,” it becomes clear that this “light” of “true freedom”—a transcendent, religious “light” originating in Jesus Christ—comes close to being an exceedingly religious experience that would lead to his later Christian faith. However, these images of light that led Shiina to his “Dostoevsky experience” are not immediately reflected in his literature. Shiina’s apprenticeship as a writer, which began in the spring of 1938 with his “Dostoevsky experience,” continued until February 1947 with the publication of his debut work, “Midnight Banquet”; but images of light do not emerge in the works of that apprentice period. There is a clear difference between the apprentice period works and “Midnight Banquet” in terms of whether or not the image of light appears. In other words, by successfully giving shape to the image of light in “Midnight Banquet,” Shiina was able to assume an active role as a representative writer of the Daiichiji Sengoha literary group. Underpinning this activity, not only do we see the process of Shiina’s maturation as a writer, but we can also say that his harsh experiences before, during and after the Second World War encouraged him to raise existential questions as those experiences greatly changed him, both philosophically and religiously.

Images of “light” prior to Shiina’s “resurrection experience” At the end of this approximately nine-year apprenticeship period as a writer, Shiina made an auspicious debut in the postwar literary milieu with “Midnight Banquet.” Soon, he became vigorously engaged as a member of the First Generation of Postwar Writers, whose works are characterized by existential and philosophical themes in which characters question the meaning of being alive amidst the devastation of the postwar world. However, Shiina’s initially dark, dense, ambiguous prose changed dramatically, beginning with his “resurrection experience” of 1951, leading to works that are optimistic and humorous. The former style permeates his writings between “Midnight Banquet” and Akai kodokusha (The Lonely Red) of 1951, while the later phase begins with Kaikō (The Encounter, 1952) and carries forward through an unfinished posthumous work, “Nishi ni higashi ni” (To the East, To the West) of 1973. There are significant differences in the ways in which Shiina shapes the images of light around the time of his “resurrection experience,” and it is in those differences that we can glimpse a portrait of Shiina as a Christian writer. At this point, I would like to consider the images of light in the works preceding Shiina’s “resurrection experience.” The underlying refrain that echoes through Shiina’s early works, starting with “Midnight Banquet,” is the sound of his characters “cursing God.” They raise voices of hatred toward a “God” who, as a transcendental being, has consigned humankind to a cruel existence. Consequently, images of light appear in the minds of his protagonists as illusions symbolizing a heaven or an earthly paradise that could potentially help them forget the harshness of everyday life. This tendency in Shiina’s writings first becomes conspicuous in “Midnight Banquet” but can almost never be seen in the works of his apprenticeship period—which began with “Shimaosa no ie” (The House of the Island Chief, 1938) up until the works immediately preceding “Midnight Banquet.”

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I will begin my consideration of these works with “Midnight Banquet,” a story set in an apartment in the war-ruined Shitamachi district of Tokyo which describes the struggles of impoverished people from the lowest class of society who lack even food to eat. Living in these harsh conditions, the protagonist Sumaki is assaulted by a hallucination: “The lady next door’s probably going to die soon,” I gave voice to my thoughts. It was somehow unbearable to me. I felt a dull, heavy ache at the back of my head, as if I was about to go mad. Fearful, I stood up and began walking around my room. And then, suddenly, I was walking through a vast, brilliantly lit field. The tips of the blades of grass glimmered, fluttering occasionally in the breeze. Leaning against a tree, I Iistened to the sound of the wind. (SRZ 1: 15–16; emphasis added) In this scene, Sumaki leans against the wall of his cheap apartment, assailed by many different sounds, and he hears what is happening in the adjoining apartment to a man’s wife who is dying from an illness. But Sumaki, who himself is suffering from poverty and starvation, can do nothing for his neighbor. In that desperate state Sumaki is assaulted by a hallucination. If we take a close look at this hallucination, it is clear that it takes place in a world that represents the diametric opposite of the reality in which Sumaki dwells. He is walking, not through the dark, endlessly ruined landscape of postwar Japan, but through “a vast, brilliantly lit field”; the scene is not set in the oppressive atmosphere of incessant rain, but offers instead an image of “light” that flickers “on the tips of the blades of grass”; and it is not the groans of the wife in the next apartment, but the gentle sound of the wind that he hears. This is without question a hallucination. This is the only hallucinatory scene in “Midnight Banquet,” but the image of light that appears here causes Sumaki to forget momentarily the wretchedness of real life. A similar hallucinatory moment also appears in “Omoki nagare no naka ni” (In the Sluggish Stream,* 1947). Here, the protagonist feels a dizziness, similar to a hallucination, when he sees an elderly woman: The baggy workpants she wore were hiked up to her chest and her tiny back was bent like that of a cat. Seeing the old woman working tirelessly, almost in a trance, I suddenly felt dizzy. In the next moment, my mind was filled with a powerful longing. This woman had everything a person could hope for— freedom and peace and happiness and love. There was not a trace in her of dark presentiments, of frustrating anxiety, of ugly hatred. But there wasn’t any reason she should have all that, was there? (SRZ 1: 58; emphasis added) Feeling “dizzy,” his mind filled with “a powerful longing”: this is virtually the same as experiencing a hallucination. A protagonist who feels a powerful longing, an old woman who is working assiduously—characters such as these frequently appear in Shiina’s works. The figure of an elderly woman who feels no despair, no “dark presentiments,” no “frustrating anxiety” in the hopeless circumstances of the ruined postwar landscape is an object of “powerful longing” for the protagonist. Behind the “freedom and peace and happiness and love” that the old woman possesses there is an image of light, and hers is an idealized figure after which the protagonist yearns. This sort of hallucination appears most obviously in Shiina’s

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first full-length novel, Eien naru joshō (The Eternal Preface, 1948) and in Sono hi made (Until that Day, 1949). Let us turn then to consideration of the image of light that appears in The Eternal Preface. The protagonist of the novel, Sunagawa Anta, is told by his doctor that he has only three months to live; but, in the moment he comes face to face with the reality that he is going to die, his body is racked with violent “shudders” and he feels an “intense light” in his chest. When he became aware of his surroundings, Anta was looking enviously at the swirling eddies of people. The moment he came to himself, an indescribably powerful shudder ran through him. But he was overpowered by an unexpectedly mysterious, inexplicable emotion. Although the shudder came partly from fear, it was also filled with a strange exhilaration that was not unlike sexual ecstasy… In that moment, he shivered again. But the joy in his breast shook his body more powerfully with each shudder, which he experienced as an intense light in his chest. What in the world was happening to him? Even though at this point of his life he was fated to die, how was it that he felt like a person filled to overflowing with hope? Surely there was something wrong with him. (SRZ 1: 329; emphasis added) This is a paradoxical awareness of life prompted by an awareness of death, by what might be called “the fervency of living,” and Anta is so transformed by this experience that he determines to live his everyday life with zeal. Thereafter, each time Anta senses the certainty of his impending death, he feels a “blinding light” amidst his “shudders” and “hallucinations.” By my calculation, this results in nine scenes of “shuddering” and three scenes of “hallucinations.” At times, when he becomes aware of the sound of a piano, he falls into the following type of hallucination: He suddenly tumbled into a hallucination. Far in the distance, the thick leaves of a broad-leafed tree were glowing with a blinding light. Beneath the tree a young girl was skipping. (SRZ 1: 346; emphasis added) The “tips of the blades of grass” had also been shimmering and fluttering in “Midnight Banquet”; and, in this work as well, we have an image of light in which the leaves of a tree “were glowing with a blinding light.” This hallucination cannot be anything other than the “fervency of living” as one faces death. It is like the flickering flame of a candle just before it burns out. And, like the candle flame, Anta ends up dying after only six days. The flame of his life had burned out. Shiina’s next novel, Until that Day, set within the devastation following the massive air raids on Tokyo on 5 March 1945, is the story of Mano Seiichi, who has lost his wife in the air raids and is searching for some way to revitalize his own life. In this work, a wide variety of hallucinations assail Seiichi. In sheer numbers, there are probably more hallucinations here than in any other work by Shiina. These include visions of roosters, baby monkeys, toads, his deceased wife, horses, gentlemen, Jesus on the cross and gigantic fish. As in “Midnight Banquet” these hallucinations cause the main character to forget for a brief moment the real world, which has been rendered a wasteland by the air raids and is littered with an

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extraordinary number of corpses. What is of greatest importance here is that these many hallucinations ultimately converge in the image of “Jesus on the cross”: He could hear stifled laughs coming from Yaso [Jesus] and another group of figures. The singing voices started up again. But Seiichi for some time now had been roasting peanuts over the coals from a charcoal fire… For an instant, Seiichi saw the usual absurd hallucination. Jesus hung, His head drooping, on the cross once again. (SRZ 2: 174; emphasis added) In other Shiina works as well, the name “God” had frequently appeared as an epithet, but its appearance in the form of “Jesus on the cross” occurs for the first time in Until that Day. We can detect an increase in the author’s interest in Christianity in the fact that it is not “God” but “Jesus” in this work. However, we can also recognize the limitations in this image of light in the fact that this is not an object of faith, but rather it remains an image that appears only in hallucinations.

“Resurrection experience” I would next like to examine Shiina’s “resurrection experience,” of which his baptism represents the initial step. He received Christian baptism on 24 December 1950, during the Christmas worship service conducted by Reverend Akaiwa Sakae at the Uehara Church of the United Church of Christ in Japan. This took place twelve years after Shiina’s awakening to literature as a result of his “Dostoevsky experience.” At the time of that first experience, Shiina was in such depths of despair that rumor had it that “the next to commit suicide after Dazai Osamu would be Shiina” (SRZ 21: 467). But the awakening of Shiina to literature through his reading of Dostoevsky was a step leading him toward belief in Christianity. To put it another way, Shiina’s encounter with Dostoevsky did not in itself result in him believing in Christ; but Shiina gambled on the experiences of the Christian believer Dostoevsky and received baptism himself. This wager demonstrates how important Dostoevsky was to Shiina, and his baptism is fundamentally connected to his “Dostoevsky experience.” It deserves special mention here that among the many things that Shiina inherited from Dostoevsky was the image of light, as described above. He writes in an essay: Having reached a dead end in my life, one of the great motivations for me to draw near to Christianity was Dostoevsky. I was especially guided by the Grand Inquisitor section of The Brothers Karamazov and the conversation between Stavrogin and Kirillov in Demons. In short, I was guided by the light that is found in things which cannot be understood as anything other than contradictions. (SRZ 18: 74; emphasis added) Here, too, we see that Shiina received guidance from the images of light he felt at the time of his “Dostoevsky experience.” At that time, however, Shiina did not yet know the source of that light. Then in 1951, in the spring of his fortieth year, Shiina had what is called his “resurrection experience” when he encountered the “resurrected Jesus” while reading from the Gospel of

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St. Luke. Although it is lengthy, I will quote here about that experience as depicted in My Bible Stories. Shiina comments that he read the passage on the resurrection in Luke in a spirit of meekness: “So then, after His death, Jesus appeared to two of His disciples as they traveled to Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem.” Marveling as he read that, he thought, “All right, these two disciples then returned to Jerusalem and told the other eleven disciples about this experience. Eleven disciples? Oh, of course, one of the twelve, Judas, betrayed Jesus and then hanged himself, didn’t He? The math makes perfect sense. And then Jesus appeared to them again, right? But it would be preposterous if He were stark naked, so He must have been wearing one of those loose white Jewish robes. Hmm. And so, you’re telling me that He said ‘I am not a spirit, if you don’t believe me, look at my hands and my feet and touch them; a spirit doesn’t have flesh and bones as you see me have?’ … Okay. if that’s what you have to say, Mr. Jesus, I’ll look into this.” Then he imagined Jesus enthusiastically showing His hairy legs to His disciples and their followers and enthusiastically stretching out and displaying His hands. He thought that image was totally hilarious. But in the next instant, this balding man who had conjured up that image of Jesus was startled for some reason. He felt a powerful shockwave and, as the ground beneath his feet began to shake, every absolute of the world in which he had believed suddenly appeared before him with tameness, like an animal that has just been given food. He couldn’t believe what was happening to him. He had been so tormenting himself with these thoughts that he felt perhaps he had gone mad. He stood up quickly and looked at his own face in a mirror. It glowed a deep red, as if he were drunk, and the face was filled with genuine joy, as though he had just won the lottery. He examined the face in the mirror in great detail and, in a voice filled with feelings of friendship, he said to it, “You are a fool!” Strangely, despite him saying this to the face in the mirror, it smiled back at him with delight. This is the story of my conversion. As you just read, it is a truly ridiculous story. But I can say that what I saw in that moment has completely determined who I now am. (Shiina 1957, 104–5; emphasis added) For Shiina, this encounter with the resurrected Jesus represented the second turning point in his life. It was of great importance because what he had most agonized over—what he had most feared—was the absoluteness of “death” to which humanity had been consigned. The “light of freedom,” no matter its source, amounts to nothing when it is faced with the absolute nature of “death.” But the reality of the resurrected Jesus demolishes the absoluteness of “death” and can cause the “light of freedom” to glow brightly. That is to say, the resurrected Jesus, in whom “life” and “death” co-exist, demonstrated to Shiina that “death” is not absolute, and that “life” has endless potential. This was Shiina’s “resurrection experience.” After this encounter, Shiina openly declared his faith, and his works moved from being written in an obscure, impenetrable idiom to a bright, simple style. The dividing line in

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Shiina’s literature comes with this “resurrection experience.” It is, of course, also the dividing line in his employment of images of light.

Activities as a Christian writer With his “resurrection experience” as the turning point, Shiina expanded his literary activities to include not only novels but also essays, plays and scenarios. The central work that stands at this juncture is Jiyū no kanata de (In a Place Beyond Freedom, 1954). This novel stands at the crossroads of Shiina’s work, both in relation to his past and to the Bible and, in addition, displays his unique position as a Christian writer who styled himself “a fool for God.” The first aspect of his writings at this crossroads is the depiction of Shiina’s past, when he was living in the Kansai region. The sole earlier work in which he had openly depicted the experiences of his past was “Shitto” (Envy, 1951), which describes his experiences while working for the Ujikawa Railway Company. However, after writing In a Place Beyond Freedom, he published a succession of autobiographical works including “Haha no zō” (An Image of my Mother, 1955), “Kami no dōkeshi” (A Fool for God, 1955), The Beautiful Woman (1955), and Unga (The Canal, 1956). The other aspect of his writings at this crossroads revolves around the Bible. After his baptism at the Christmas worship service in 1950, Shiina said, “I read the Bible over and over, as though I were a madman” (SRZ 21: 470). This statement is confirmed by the change in the number of quotations from the Bible that appear in his works. For example, among the works written around the time Shiina began to read the Bible eagerly, there are nine biblical citations in Until That Day and seventeen in The Lonely Red. He may have gained some knowledge of the Bible from his reading of Dostoevsky, but it would have been impossible for him to include so many citations had he not read the Bible himself. On the other hand, directly after his baptism, works that include quotations from the Bible are greatly reduced in number. There are only two biblical citations in The Encounter and none in In a Place Beyond Freedom. It appears that he was initially avoiding biblical quotations. After the composition of In a Place Beyond Freedom, however, there is an increase in the number of works that directly take their source materials from the Bible. These include “Magudara no Maria” (Mary Magdalene, 1954), Shōsetsu Matai-den (A Fictional Gospel of St. Matthew, 1954–56), and My Bible Stories. Examining the changes in these works related to the Bible, it is evident that In a Place Beyond Freedom stands at the turning point between works that quote from the Bible and those that, while containing fewer direct citations, take their material directly from the Bible. What this means is that the novel, In a Place Beyond Freedom, is not concerned with simply quoting from the Bible, but rather is situated at a new starting point in which Shiina gives literary form to Christian philosophy (especially faith in the resurrection) as the underlying theme of his writings. Let us turn, then, to an examination of these works. In a Place Beyond Freedom is introduced by a first-person narrator (marked by the informal pronoun “boku”) who, while clearly situated in present time, describes the boku of a reconstituted “past” as seen through the eyes of “a fool for God.” The past of boku is related over a period of six years between 1927 and 1933. In the first of three parts, the boku of the past has fled his home in 1927 at the age of sixteen and is working as an apprentice cook while spending time with a group of juvenile delinquents; in Part Two, the protagonist is

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working in 1929 as a train conductor on the line that runs between Kobe and Himeji and, at the same time, is engaging in illegal activities; finally, Part Three describes the period during which he flees from the police, is captured, spends time in prison, and ends up working at a match factory in Himeji. In each of these periods the protagonist, named Yamada Seisaku, is presented as the boku of the “past,” a “laughable man” who keeps repeating comical actions as a result of his fear of “crime and the shadow of death.” The “comical” figure of this main character is presented as “a fool for God,” which, as already noted, is also the fundamental posture of Shiina as a Christian writer. Shiina expresses this literary stance as follows: It is my hope that I will be able to commit all my sins, my foolish actions, and my improprieties in such a way that Jesus can laugh at them. Sometimes as an author sitting in the corner of a theater and trying to crouch down to make myself small, I suddenly wonder, while the audience is laughing as they watch a play of mine, whether Jesus Christ is laughing along with them. The character that appears on the stage as a person always to be laughed at is “me myself.” (SRZ 19: 168; emphasis added) Like the Pierrot in Anatole France’s “Le Jongleur de Notre Dame” who displays the only talent that he possesses in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary, Shiina too exhibits himself as “a person to be laughed at” by exposing his sins, foolish acts and improprieties of the “past” in front of Jesus. But, no matter how ridiculous such a person may appear in the eyes of others, in the eyes of God he is a man who is worthy of being saved. This is Shiina’s stance as a Christian author who writes as “a fool for God.” Furthermore, the viewpoint of the “fool for God” permeates the entirety of In a Place Beyond Freedom. At the start of the novel, Shiina presents to the readers his “past” self as “a person to be laughed at.” Here is the passage: I have in my possession an old photograph in the shape of a playing card. … It’s a photograph of myself, Yamada Seisaku by name, in my youth. But I must categorically reject the belief that this photograph is of me. And that’s true of every photograph from my past. It’s because specters of crime and death brood over every one of them. They represent the disgust we associate with photographs of a corpse lying at the scene of a murder. The one thing for certain is that this youngster is clearly not me. He’s my corpse. My ridiculous, vanished corpse. (SRZ 5: 65–66; emphasis added) In this passage, the narrator utterly rejects his “past” self. He even labels photographs of his “past” as “corpse[s]” with their “specters of crime and death” and repeatedly emphasizes that they have no connection with his “present” self. In this manner, the “he who is narrating” is completely differentiated from the “he is who is being narrated.” Put another way, the “he who is narrating” is the “present” boku, while the “he who is being narrated” is the “past” boku. What I wish to emphasize here is that the boku of the “past” is reconfigured through the eyes of the boku of the “present.” For example, one often hears such phrases as “looking back at the past” or “taking a hard look at the past.” But, given the irreversibility of time, one can never reproduce exactly the “past” that one has experienced. That is to say, the “past” that is being related by the “present” self can only be a “past” that has been reconstituted through the filter of the ideas and values held by the “present” self. It is the same with the “past” boku Chapter 9: Shiina Rinzō: His Two Visages

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of In a Place Beyond Freedom. The issue then becomes the nature of the filters (ideas, values, etc.) of the boku of the “present.” This becomes clear when one looks at the ending of this work: However, it’s a foregone conclusion that, amusingly enough, this Seisaku is quite certain to die after several years pass. And what is even more amusing is that even this fellow who has been so difficult to save will, as God’s fool, be resurrected in heaven after he dies. (SRZ 5: 208; emphasis added) Saying that he will “be resurrected in heaven after he dies” could, in other words, be a profession of the belief that “once he dies, he will be able to go to heaven.” No matter how ignorant, and no matter how “difficult to save” the Yamada Seisaku of the “past” (as described in the work) might be, since all his actions have been laughable, the Yamada Seisaku of the “present” has ended up having a Christian-like faith that he will “be resurrected in heaven after he dies.” Or perhaps he is already in heaven. It is justifiable for the narrator to refer here to the “corpse” of his “past” self. And, by thrusting away this corpse, the narrator has conversely been able to adopt the viewpoint of a “resurrection” that is the reality of “living even though one is dead.” Furthermore, being “resurrected in heaven after he dies” is predicated on his living “as God’s fool.” Thus, as “God’s fool,” no matter how “laughable a person” one has been, one is still loved by God and able to go to heaven “after [one] dies.” In short, as illustrated above, even though there are no quotations from the Bible in In a Place Beyond Freedom, it can be described as a work rooted in a Christian worldview as presented through the eyes of “God’s fool.” Next, I would like to consider the venues where Shiina was active as a Christian writer. These include the believer-oriented journal Yubi (The Finger) and the Protestant literary group called Tane no kai (The Seed Society). We will start with Yubi. This journal, aimed at Christian believers, was started up by Reverend Akaiwa Sakae in December 1950, the same month that Shiina was baptized. Shiina published Christian-related works in this journal in the form of stories, plays, essays and criticism, widening the locus of his activities as a Christian writer. I want to draw particular attention to an essay entitled “Fukkatsu” (Resurrection), which Shiina began writing in 1951 directly after his own “resurrection experience”; it was serialized in Yubi from December 1951 to April 1952. This essay was written as a substantiation of Shiina’s own “resurrection experience.” Then, starting with “Hitsujikai no hangyaku—Seitōka ni tsuite” (Rebellion of the Shepherd: Regarding Justification) which was published in Yubi in September 1954, over a period of two years, Shiina proceeded to serialize A Fictional Gospel of St. Matthew, conceived as a novelization of the Gospel of St. Matthew, the final installment being “Jōjō shakuryō sezu” (Not Taking Extenuating Circumstances into Consideration), published in September 1956. In addition, Shiina’s first play, Yanushi no jōkyō—Fukkatsu no parodi (The Landlord Visits the Capital: A Parody of the Resurrection) was also published in Yubi in April 1953. It is clear from the subtitle, “A Parody of the Resurrection,” that the play’s motif comes from Shiina’s “resurrection experience.” Shiina went on to publish additional plays, including Shūdensha dassen su (The Last Train Jumps the Tracks), in Yubi; Daisan no shōgen (A Third Witness*) in the play program for the Seinenza theater troupe; and In a Place Beyond Freedom in Shingeki, all of which were well received. In short, Yubi provided the motivation for him to begin writing plays. 164

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Shiina also published essays in general interest venues other than Yubi, including the serialization of his “Bible experience” in My Bible Stories, which was published by Chūō Kōronsha in February 1957. His style in this work overflows with humor as he relates, from the viewpoint of “a fool for God,” his attitudes toward the Bible based on his “resurrection experience.” These essays show him at his best as a Christian writer. As far as the Tane no kai—the “Seed Society”—is concerned, Shiina’s affiliation with this group came when he found himself unable to continue as a follower of Reverend Akaiwa Sakae, who increasingly argued the demythologization of the New Testament. At this point, Shiina also separated himself from Yubi and, in March 1960, he joined with Sako Jun’ichirō, Abe Mitsuko, Takamizawa Junko and others to organize a Protestant literary group, the “Seed Society,” through which he engaged in activities that marked him as a central figure among Christian writers. Shiina and the other members of the group published the journal Tane (The Seed), and while he continued to contribute fiction, literary criticism and essays to this outlet, the group also provided a place for younger writers to publish their writings and worked to foster their talents. By 1960, several Catholic writers, including Endō Shūsaku, Miura Shumon, Sono Ayako, Tsuji Kunio and Ogawa Kunio, had become remarkably active, and as a Protestant writer, Shiina may have felt some sense of competition with this group of Catholic authors. But he completed his final labors as a Christian writer by co-editing, with Endō Shūsaku, the eighteen volumes of the Gendai Nihon kirisutokyō bungaku zenshū (Collected Works of Modern Japanese Christian Literature), published by Kyōbunkwan in March of 1972, just prior to his death.

Images of light in the works after his “resurrection experience” I will now examine Shiina’s works produced after his “resurrection experience.” As discussed above, the images of light in his works prior to this were constructed in such a way that any positive depictions of heaven and earthly paradises were undercut by negative elements, such as the fear of death and blasphemy against God. But, in the works following his “resurrection experience,” those negative features disappear, and his writings come to be filled with positive images such as the humor of God as presented through the eyes of “a fool for God,” thereby providing reasons for living along with images of the resurrection. This change has great significance—as epitomized by The Encounter, written directly after his 1951 “resurrection experience.” The Encounter is filled with inspiring warmth, to a degree that the critic Kamei Katsuichirō could label it “haikyo no tomoshibi” (A light in the ruins) (Kamei 1952, 289). There are no direct appearances of images of light, but one can sense “light” in the smile of the protagonist, Furusato Yasushi. The story takes place over a three-day period between 7 and 9 December 1950, at the height of the Korean War. Yasushi, a poverty-stricken electrical laborer, is hounded by endless troubles, and the novel depicts him standing up against a succession of problems created by members of his family. Yasushi is tormented by these problems, but refuses to despair over them. In the introduction to the work, Yasushi receives word that his father has been hospitalized following an accident at his workplace. He also has no idea of the whereabouts of his younger sister Keiko, who is about to be fired from her job even though the company is

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suffering from a labor shortage. Faced with this succession of problems, Yasushi is reminded of a catfish thrashing about in a pot of boiling water. Yasushi felt heavy weights come crashing in on him. Everything came hurtling in all at once. I’d been feeling safe and secure living in tepid water. Apparently that water has suddenly started to boil. But I can’t leap out of the water, and I mustn’t. I’m a catfish thrashing around in that water as it begins to boil. He was amused by the humor of the catfish’s situation as well as his own. That’s how my whole life has been. But nothing can make me lose hope. (SRZ 4: 116; emphasis added) Burdened with difficult problems he cannot handle all by himself, Yasushi is able to move forward without despair in his fight against the realities of life by conjuring up the image of a catfish and finding the humor in it. In the same manner, Yasushi is able to respond to the problems of real life, no matter how painful they might be, undaunted by the weightiness of those problems; and, from a position of freedom, he smiles as he senses the humor in each situation. In any case, it’s money. Money, money, money. Our misfortunes and calamities all take shape for us in the form of money. … The banks that stand before us. They are imposing temples that govern our modern times. He smiled. It’s true that I’m suffering because of you, but unfortunately, I also happen to know that you are empty, whited sepulchers. You cannot claim to be absolute with respect to me. Even death is becoming something that cannot be absolute in my case. … I agonize over my powerlessness, I suffer, and I am weary. That’s my humorous confession of the freedom and joy I feel in response to you. Yasushi smiled as he felt sincere affection for himself and for the world. I am free. (SRZ 4: 158; emphasis added) In this passage, Yasushi confronts the problem of money as the source of all kinds of misfortunes. At this point, he uses the metaphor, found in Matthew 23: 27, of banks as a “whited sepulchre” as a way of heaping abuse upon them. That is because he will not be daunted, no matter how many money problems he may face. And he asserts that not even death is an absolute force that can cause him to despair. Yasushi’s stance as one who will not despair over issues of money or death is sustained by the kind of faith in “God” expressed in the following passage: In this world of ours, there is fundamentally nothing that can cause us defeat. No matter what sort of setback it is, it can be transformed into joy. That’s because it can be transformed by God. (SRZ 4: 263; emphasis added) In the works produced prior to Shiina’s “resurrection experience,” “God” is a hateful figure who consigns humankind to cruel fate and death. But in The Encounter, “God” is clearly changed into a being who provides joy to humankind. To use Shiina’s words, “God” can also be described as a being who offers “true freedom.” It is not explicitly stated that this “God” is a Christian figure, but the image is rooted in Shiina’s Christian worldview in the sense that 166

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“God” intervenes in human fate and offers protection to individuals, and we can detect here the declaration of Shiina’s faith as a Christian writer. Next, I would like to examine Shiina’s most important work, The Beautiful Woman. This novel, set in the early years of the Shōwa period (1926–1989), depicts half the lifetime of its protagonist, Kimura Sueo, who is a common transportation laborer employed by a private railway company. What should be emphasized here is that the vision of a “beautiful woman” that inwardly sustains Kimura’s way of living appears more than thirty times in the novel. However, there is absolutely no indication of what this “beautiful woman” looks like; she is only described with the imagery of an intense “blinding light.” But, because Kimura perceives these images of light as a “beautiful woman,” he is able to continue holding on to his desire to live a normal life throughout the turbulent years before, during and after World War II without being tainted by either communism or militarism. In that sense, the “beautiful woman” is a vital existence that can be called a foundation for living. Furthermore, images of the “beautiful woman who is a blinding light” recur repeatedly, and the entire work is permeated with images of light. The “beautiful woman” first appears while Sueo is drinking shōchū: But when I was drinking the saké, what came painfully to my mind were thoughts of a beautiful woman. It was a beautiful woman who would save me from my foolish self. But I had absolutely no idea what the face or form of my beautiful woman looked like. The only thing that’s for sure is that when the face of that beautiful woman appears before me, my mind is filled with a kind of blinding light and with power. It’s as though that beautiful woman were blinding light and power itself. (SRZ 6: 274–75; emphasis added) When Sueo encounters an insoluble problem that traps him between his work and his compatriots, this image of a “beautiful woman”—“a beautiful woman who would save me from my foolish self ”—appears in his thoughts like a salvific being. What I would like to point out here is that this is not the appearance of some goddess-like “beautiful woman”; instead, Sueo is fervently seeking after a “beautiful woman” who can save him. He says that when he has such thoughts, his mind is “filled with a blinding light and with power.” Perhaps it is more accurate to say that the “beautiful woman” is the source of this “blinding light and power.” Sueo proceeds to search for this idealistic “beautiful woman” among the women he encounters in reality, and he interacts with three women: Kurabayashi Kimi, Iizuka Katsue and Hiroko. From the outset this is a wish that cannot be fulfilled, and his associations with these real-life women, linked to complicated social conditions—such as prewar communism, wartime militarism and postwar democracy—press in on Sueo. But he is able to stand up to each of these problems in real life thanks to the “blinding light and power” that is provided to him by his thoughts of the “beautiful woman.” Furthermore, by the fourth chapter of The Beautiful Woman, we are no longer presented with these abstract concepts of a “beautiful woman” or of thoughts about a “beautiful woman”; rather, they come close to being a real-life “actual beautiful woman” who “laughs tenderly.” This figure appears in the following three excerpts (SRZ 6, emphasis added):

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At that moment, I sensed in my mind the presence of an actual beautiful woman who was laughing tenderly. (416) At that moment, in my mind the actual beautiful woman was once again laughing. (421) If I were truly able to believe, even just a little bit, that I could love someone, it would be because that unusual, actual, beautiful woman had burst into laughter. And because only the laughter of that unusual woman could truly move me and calm my labored breathing. (426) In this manner, within this work, the “beautiful woman” who appears in Sueo’s mind is transformed, as time advances from prewar to wartime to postwar, from an abstract to a concrete existence. In other words, the “beautiful woman” changes from being like the sun, which is far away yet gives off a “blinding light,” to a personage closer at hand who is “laughing” directly beside Sueo. Here we have a reflection of Shiina’s “resurrection experience” in which he personally experienced the “resurrected Jesus,” and we can say that the “blinding light and power” of which Christ is the source are of the same nature as the light that Shiina felt at the time of his “Dostoevsky experience.” Images of light also appear in Shiina’s final controversial work, Chōekinin no kokuhatsu (A Prisoner’s Indictment, 1969). The protagonist, Tahara Chōsaku, hits a twelve-year-old girl with his small truck and kills her. He ends up in prison and, as a result of the shock he receives from the accident, he can no longer feel either alive or dead. He is frequently haunted by visions of a “headless black dog” that is a symbol of nihilism. This illusory dog first appears when Chōsaku is passing by a cemetery, distraught after being notified by the president of the factory where he works that his salary is being reduced for no reason at all: Startled, I strained my eyes in the darkness. No matter which way I looked at it, the black dog had no head. Fear gripped my body. … Or I wondered if maybe I had seen my own emptiness. I had the loathsome premonition that I would be pursued by that headless black dog for the rest of my life. (SRZ 21: 72; emphasis added) The “headless black dog” appears each time Chōsaku is about to encounter some sort of crisis. Since this dog lives in the cemetery, it can be considered a symbol of “death”; it can also be seen as symbolizing the despair and nihilism that stems from Chōsaku’s sense that the dog represents his “own emptiness” in the face of “death.” The words “darkness,” “blackness” and “emptiness” that are associated with this dog have meanings that are the exact opposite of images of light. It could be said, then, that, in depicting “darkness,” Shiina is paradoxically suggesting images of light. This “headless black dog” appears to Chōsaku each time various problems occur in his life, plunging him into a state of fear. But Chōsaku does not surrender to his fears and faces up to the problems of real life. There is just one scene in which Chōsaku is struck by a vision of “blinding light”: “Yeah, both of them are lies,” he repeated.

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Strangely, Chōji’s words struck my mind with great force. It happened because I felt as though, at a place somewhere beyond all the negations and affirmations of this life, the black clouds had parted slightly, and suddenly a single shaft of blinding light had shone down on this earth. I had no idea what that blinding light meant. (SRZ 21: 112; emphasis added) In this novel, with its theme of how one is to live after overcoming nihilism, the role played by this “blinding light” that overcomes Chōsaku is significant. Even if it is impossible for him to understand at this point, the “blinding light” that appears “at a place somewhere beyond all the negations and affirmations of this life” has the potential to provide sustenance for living as the possibility for salvation. At the same time, it is the light of “true freedom” that Shiina continually sought. We have considered here the works that followed Shiina’s “resurrection experience.” In any event, images of light in the works written after his “resurrection experience” permeate these works and are described in a humorous style or as visions. And what sustains these images is a God who is an object of faith, one who imparts grace, not a God who should be cursed. A line is clearly draw here, separating these works from those written prior to the “resurrection experience.” And it can be said that here shines the light of the “true freedom” that Shiina observed in his “resurrection experience.” Here we find the essence of Shiina as a Christian writer.

References Daijirin, 3rd edition. (2006). Endō, S. (1999–2000). Endō Shūsaku bungaku zenshū [The Collected Literary Works of Endō Shūsaku] (15 vols.). Tokyo: Shinchōsha. (cited as ESBZ) Ishihara, Y. (1972). Bōkyō to umi [Nostalgia and the sea]. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō. Kamei, K. (1952). Kaisetsu [Commentary]. In Kaikō [The encounter]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. Shiina, R. (1957). Watashi no Seisho monogatari [My Bible Stories]. Tokyo: Chūō Kōronsha. ———. (1967). Watashi no Dosutoefuskii taiken [My Dostoevsky Experience]. Tokyo: Kyōbunkwan. ———. (1970-76). Shiina Rinzō zenshū [The Collected Works of Shiina Rinzō]. (24 vols). Tokyo: Tōjusha. (cited as SRZ)

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Chapter 10 From out of the Depths: Shimao Toshio’s Literary Response to Adversity Mark Williams As Shimao Toshio prepared to listen to the Shōwa Emperor’s famous declaration of surrender at the end of World War II, he and the some 200 men who comprised the tokkōtai (special attack force) under his command on the island of Amami Ōshima had just completed final preparations for the suicide mission for which they had spent the past two years in preparation. Little wonder then that Shimao struggled to come to terms with the ensuing postwar reality. And when this was followed by a decade during which he was obliged to devote most of his attention to care for his wife, whose psychiatric problems he attributed to his own marital infidelity, Shimao found himself turning, by way of “acts of atonement,” both to the Catholic faith and to literary composition. These acts influence Shimao’s resulting oeuvre, in particular his epic novel, The Sting of Death.

Introduction Many authors can cite one specific experience as representing the catalyst for their literary careers. Few, however, can rival the emotional trauma endured by Shimao Toshio (1917– 1986) during the last three days of the Pacific War as the kamikaze squadron he commanded was placed on “ready alert” for their “final mission” on 13 August 1945—only to be spared its appointment with death with the cessation of hostilities some forty-eight hours later. Hardly surprisingly, the young man to emerge from this experience struggled to comprehend the postwar reality with which the entire nation was forced to come to terms, his resulting warped perspective on both life and interpersonal relationships leading to an increased sense of isolation from the real world. The outcome for Shimao was a resort to the world of fiction in an attempt to highlight the disparity he came to see between himself and those around him and, in so doing, to seek to reach a deeper understanding of human nature. Armed with this experience within that liminal space between life and death, Shimao was quick to recognize the possibilities of literature, and his considerable literary output over the ensuing thirty years is marked by a consistent attempt to place his characters under extreme conditions in the belief that only thus could he truly probe the workings of the human mind.

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In this, Shimao has often been compared with Dostoevsky, another author compelled to come to terms with the call to a seemingly meaningless death and who also experienced the emptiness of life following his unexpected reprieve from the firing squad.1 In light of these experiences, both men focus on the pain, more psychological than physical, experienced by those who are dead in all but body. And both sought to use portrayals of life in extremis to portray some more profound universal truths about human reality. The result, in the eyes of the critic, Morikawa Tatsuya, was a portrayal of Shimao as an author “who found new ways of asking the old questions, What is war? What is man?” (GNKBZ 9: 227). In all this Shimao was by no means alone: in 1945, he found himself as part of a generation of young survivors of the hostilities that had represented daily reality for the preceding fifteen years. And, in turning to literature in an attempt to make sense of his search for a meaning to life after what had seemed like certain death, he allied himself with a considerable number of his peers who created the body of work known as sengo bungaku (postwar literature). More specifically, Shimao came to be identified with the group of writers identified as the Daisan no Shinjin (Third Generation of Postwar Writers), a group that Gabriel sees as united by their shared experience of “the inferno of complete loss—the loss of spiritual home, the ravages of war, the humiliation of defeat and the collapse of the familial order” (Gabriel 1999, 1). As both Gabriel and Gessel (1989) have argued, Shimao’s oeuvre does indeed have much in common with those of his peers in the Daisan no Shinjin coterie. And, in highlighting the depths to which the individual can sink under wartime conditions, Shimao was certainly not unique in thereby hinting at the presence of an almighty figure watching over the chaos, itself attributable to the freedom of choice with which he had endowed his creations. In most cases, however, these accounts are penned from the perspective of a postwar, ostensibly peaceful reality and are thus ideally positioned to allow for objective depictions of life in extremis. The unusual aspect about Shimao’s literature is that the extreme personal circumstances persisted after the War—in the form of the “domestic problems” (katei no jijō) with which his household was afflicted in the ensuing years. Linked directly to his relationship with Miho, the woman he met shortly after his arrival on the island of Amami Ōshima as leader of a tokkōtai (special attack, or kamikaze) corps, who remained with him during the two years he spent there and whom he subsequently married, Shimao attributed these “problems” to his own marital infidelity. With Miho requiring over a decade of psychiatric treatment as a result of these “problems”—and with Shimao coming increasingly to accept the need to care for his wife and family as an act of atonement (shokuzai, a frequent refrain in Shimao’s literature), so this element of his autobiography came to assume an even more prominent role in his literary production, leading to the positing, by various critics, of a distinct category of byōsaimono (sick wife stories) within Shimao’s oeuvre.2 The protagonist who populates these stories is once more confronted with extreme circumstances and, just as the leader of the suicide squadron had been compelled to live for the moment, with all thoughts of the “future” rendered meaningless, so too, in these byōsaimono, as the entire family comes to be dominated by the attacks of the protagonist’s wife, the future holds no significance. As the first person protagonist confesses in one of the early byōsaimono, “Ware fukaki fuchi yori” (From out of the Depths,* 1955), “For me, for my wife, and even, to a certain extent, for my children, the concept of the future was inconceivable” (ShTZ 7: 8). As with the War stories, the protagonist in these byōsaimono is once more excluded, not only from life (due to the lack of any future), but also from death: confronted by the psychological disorder of his wife, Miho, and feeling compelled, as a result of his earlier marital Chapter 10: From out of the Depths: Shimao Toshio’s Literary Response to Adversity

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infidelity, to accept a degree of responsibility for subsequent events, his role at this stage is still to endure the continuing extreme circumstances. Suicide is not a viable option and, even though the experience of the narrator-protagonist at the end of the War remained the absolute issue in his life, there is no suggestion of Shimao treating his subsequent “domestic problems” in mere relative terms. In the discussion that follows, our focus will be on the manner in which the trauma that Shimao endured both during and after the War shaped his entire oeuvre. Before moving on to this analysis, however, it is important to note that much of the critical response to Shimao’s work has focused—to an extent typically eschewed in western criticism—on the author’s immediate relationship with, and response to, his literary material. In most critical traditions, constructs such as “authorial intent” may remain anathema: for Shimao and his peers on the postwar Japanese literary scene, however, the tradition of the shishōsetsu (the term traditionally translated as “I-novel” but which establishes a uniquely Japanese relationship among author, narrator, reader and text) remained all-pervasive, and this has inevitable consequences for the critic/reader.3 Seen thus, the reader of Shimao’s stories— whether it be those stories rooted in his experience of waiting for death on Amami Ōshima or those focused on a protagonist seeking to provide his wife with the care and support she required—is instinctively drawn to a shishōsetsu mode of reading in which the distinctions between author, narrator and protagonist are all too often blurred, however unintentionally. To be sure, as Gabriel is at pains to point out, one should beware of carelessly assigning Shimao’s corpus to the shishōsetsu template: the style, not just of the byōsaimono but of so many of his other short stories differs from prewar shishōsetsu precursors in significant ways (Gabriel 1999, 126–27). As will be evidenced in the ensuing discussion, however, Shimao, as author, occupies that liminal site between fact and fiction, and it is this self-positioning that encourages a comprehensive reading of his work as a literary response to the series of trials and tribulations with which he found himself confronted.

Inverted reality The above depiction of Shimao’s war stories and byōsaimono suggests a corpus marked off by an inverted vision of normality in which postwar peace is perceived as a temporary respite from the norm of war. This leads, inexorably, to a perception of life as a struggle, not so much with his fellow humans, but with his own inner being battling to divest itself of the psychological aftereffects of a War which, though ultimately passing him by, had nevertheless obliged him to reconcile himself to impending death. Following Yamagata Kazumi (1994), I have described the literary technique that Shimao uses to delineate such an overturning of reality as that of “paradoxical inversion,” a process whereby a given duality, a binary initially so clearly envisaged (whether it be war/peace, norm/abnormality, fantasy/reality, or whatever), is gradually eroded. The technique is ubiquitous in Shimao’s oeuvre and is deployed most typically to imbue gloomy events with a note of optimism. The light that the reader consequently perceives is, however, no external light: it derives, rather, from the hope for self-salvation displayed by Shimao’s protagonists in embarking on the path to a new life. As we shall see in our consideration of Shimao’s masterpiece, Shi no toge (The Sting of Death, 1960–1976)4, it is in this way that Shimao’s narrator is able to portray the scene, at the very end of this novel in which

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Shimao’s narrator depicts, in painful detail, the challenge to domestic harmony occasioned by his wife’s psychiatric disorder, as a depiction of a husband bent on atonement, resisting the temptation to flee from his increasingly disorientated wife and finding himself drawn, in spite of himself, to return to her psychiatric ward. Far from the ultimate act of purgatory that this might seem to embody, Toshio’s decision comes to be seen as a powerful act of atonement—of reunification and self-effacement. Clearly, life under such circumstances was hard for all concerned. However, the more the couple is thrust in upon their own devices, the more they come to appreciate that their ability to crawl out from the deep abyss (fukaki fuchi) in which they find themselves lies in their own hands. Herein lies the note of optimism, the Rembrandt-like ray of light shining through the darkness that pervades these stories. At the same time, however, there was another development in Shimao’s personal circumstances during the immediate postwar period that was to have a profound influence on his subsequent literary direction. This involved his decision, made as soon as Miho’s medical condition would allow, to relocate the family back to Amami Ōshima, Miho’s native island and the location where Shimao himself had spent those two years preparing himself (and the men under his command) for their confrontation with death. Not long after their return to the island, Shimao announced his decision to seek baptism into the Catholic tradition. In an interview with Yoshimoto Takaaki at the time, Shimao was the first to admit the importance of the move to Amami in this decision: The immediate motivation for my baptism occurred after life in Tokyo became impossible and our savings were exhausted, when I took the entire family to go and live on my wife’s island of Amami. Once there, we threw ourselves at the mercy of my wife’s aunt. Several of my wife’s relatives were Catholic and the family could trace its spiritual heritage back to my wife’s great grandmother—to the earliest days of the church on Amami, a church that had just celebrated the 75th anniversary of its founding in 1891. My wife too had been baptized as an infant. Since we had imposed ourselves on this family, it was taken for granted that we would attend mass… After about a year of attending church like this, the padre said to me, “You may be baptized now.” I replied that I had committed so many sins in the past and still felt surrounded by Satan. But he was not concerned and merely replied, “You are fine.” That’s how I ended up receiving baptism. (Yoshimoto 1968–1975, 9: 243) The event took place in 1956 at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Nase on the island— with Shimao readily acknowledging the role exercised by both his War experience and his family situation in arriving at this decision. Beyond both of these sources of suffering for Shimao, however, lies a third, more overwhelming source of pain—that occasioned by life itself. On reading his corpus, the reader is gripped, less by the urgency of the situation or the terrible scars inflicted on the family, more by the strange leanings of his soul and the melancholy which that inflicts on him. His is no tragic or intense pain: it is a pain caused by guilt and enhanced by his own weakness and cowardice—the anguish of one whose soul has been crushed by the experiences of life. Shimao himself gave clear acknowledgement of this motivating factor in an interview he gave to the critic, Kazusa Hideo, in which he attributed his baptism to “an increasing awareness of his own human fallibility in the face of Miho’s illness” (GNKBZ 4: “Geppō” (Monthly bulletin)). At the same time, however, suggesting that Chapter 10: From out of the Depths: Shimao Toshio’s Literary Response to Adversity

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“further sacrifice was necessary” (ShTZ 13: 122), he echoed the anguish expressed by several of his peers in the Daisan no Shinjin who, like Shimao, had turned to Christianity after the War but who also struggled in their search for an indigenous, Japanese form of the faith. As he noted in an essay of the time: There is something about the spiritual climate [of Japan] … which is totally unrelated to Christianity. That something is very deep-rooted within us so that, when one enters the Catholic Church, one cannot escape a sense of having somehow betrayed something, however illogical that sentiment may be. (Morikawa 1969, 131) From the outset, therefore, Shimao made clear his ready acceptance of the integral role exercised by doubt and skepticism in his faith, indeed in all religious commitment. But whereas some, such as Ogawa Kunio, chose to give expression to this through a literary focus on the darkness present in all light—with the occasional glimmer of light penetrating the darkness, Shimao chose, rather, to relate this, even more specifically, to his own personal experience—with many of his post-baptism works dwelling on the strong doubts that he still harbored. One such example is “Shisetsuroku” (A Record of my Incoherent Thoughts, 1965), a work presented in the guise of five dreams, dreams that are unified by strong doubts about himself as a believer. In the first dream, such doubts are expressed in the form of the protagonist’s concerns about his wife whenever she is out of sight and the concomitant relief occasioned when she is firmly within his field of vision. It is, however, the second dream that offers the most concrete evidence of Shimao’s misgivings with regard to his adopted creed: On the next occasion, I was in the sanctuary. There was a Japanese monk standing there who appeared to be trying to explain the creed. Beneath a picture of the “Via Dolorosa” that hung by the window, he had stretched out a wide sheet of white cloth on which were written various words of divination. I wanted to understand everything; but a little voice at my back kept urging me to reflect, to be more logical. … I found myself deep in thought, but was unable to make any sense of the monk’s explanation. Whatever could have led him to use divination in an attempt to explain Catholic doctrine? (ShTZ 6: 134–35) In hereby seeking to highlight the paradox inherent in attempting to explain the Catholic creed through resort to divination, Shimao succeeds both in giving expression to his own personal devotion to the faith whilst at the same time giving voice to his impulse to reject it, to turn towards the darkness. He is here venting the sense of fear and uncertainty that persisted throughout his career—and which he never assumed could be assuaged by means of Christian baptism. For all the heightened artistic perception that enabled Shimao to discern—and to give expression to—the light resident in the depths of the soul that is increasingly evident in his more mature works, it is clearly over-simplistic to posit his baptism as a watershed in Shimao’s oeuvre. Indeed, as Gabriel has noted (1999, 39ff), many of the early Shimao short stories are full of Christian symbolism.5 And yet there is a clear distinction between the earlier byōsaimono, those typically depicted as byōinki (hospital stories) that were penned in the early 1950s while Miho remained isolated in the hospital ward, and the subsequent 174

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byōsaimono, authored following the family’s relocation to Amami and thus imbued with a greater degree of objectivity. The former category is epitomized by “From out of the Depths,” a desperate cry from the heart for the peace of his wife’s soul, and a clear reference to the opening verses of Psalm 130 (KJV): “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice. Let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.” Already, the narrator here recognizes that the family has fallen into an “abyss,” this being defined in the following passage in the story: The casual workings of society. Each of these appeared to be staring into a terrifyingly deep abyss from which there can be no escape, and I was overcome by an uneasy feeling. (ShTZ 7: 10) From this vantage point, the happiness of the ordinary citizen appears as utopia, and the narrator remains convinced that, “unless I grow mad like my wife, the two of us will never be able to crawl out from this deep abyss” (ShTZ 7: 16). This and the other hospital stories describe the mental process of the couple praying that they might be granted such happiness. As Shimao’s career progressed, however, the attitude of prayer appears diminished, and the resulting depictions of the family home in decline are consequently more realistic, suggesting that the distinction between the earlier hospital stories and the later byōsaimono is the result of a development more fundamental than merely a heightened objectivity as the time between the events and their subsequent recording increased. Rather, such a distinction would appear to be founded on the greater appreciation of the true egoism of the protagonist evidenced in Shimao’s post-baptism byōsaimono; indeed, one can argue that this recognition is the sine qua non of these works. This awareness, based as it is on observation, not only of his fellow human beings but also of himself, is reflected in the choice of themes as well as in Shimao’s treatment of these. Thus, whereas the attempt in the earlier works appears to be the restoration of a lost routine, a return to a state of normalcy long since absent from the home, this concern with the past is much less apparent in Shimao’s later byōsaimono. By this stage, Shimao appears to have accepted the destruction of the normalcy the family had previously enjoyed and to have determined to live with that as a reality—to make a new start. As such, the narrator of the later byōsaimono no longer looks to try to restore the past; rather, while not wishing to evade or deny its reality, he looks to the construction of a new future. There is, in short, a realism, regardless of authenticity, to the more mature byōsaimono—a quality exemplified in The Sting of Death, the concluding novel in the series and a work unrivalled in modern Japanese literature as an attempt to probe the inner recesses of the human psyche. Let us turn then to a closer consideration of Shimao’s signature novel.

O death, where is thy sting? The world depicted in The Sting of Death is hopelessly cruel. Significantly, however, Shimao succeeds in injecting a certain gentleness—a distinct beauty—into these depictions of hell on earth.6 From the outset, the protagonist, the eponymous Toshio, sees the “domestic problems” with which he is confronted as obliging him to serve “[his wife] for at least the next ten years” (hitomazu jūnenkan hōshi suru; Shimao 1977, 68; all subsequent references to this novel are from this edition and cited as page number only). And, in his willingness to endure

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all that life may throw at him, he locates his reader in an eternal present, separated from both time and space. In keeping with the precedent established in several of Shimao’s short stories, the biblical allusion present in the title of this novel is significant: the phrase “the sting of death” is drawn from 1 Corinthians 15: 54–56 and, in keeping with the apostle Paul’s message of the necessity for rebirth in Christ, Shimao chooses to portray this concept in the form of consideration of a relationship that had been totally destroyed, but which is ultimately revived through the surrender of Toshio, the purported cause of the original downfall, and the forgiveness that he ultimately receives from his wife.7 In choosing this biblical allusion, Shimao would appear to be suggesting that, in focusing on the loneliness of Toshio as betrayer of Miho’s trust, he is seeking to portray his protagonist, not as a saved being, but as a sinner for whom salvation has nevertheless been promised. The focus on the consequences of sin represents a constant trope throughout the novel, juxtaposed as it is with the focus on original sin that also pervades the work. As the action unfurls, therefore, Toshio grows in his awareness of the sin with which his existence has been embroiled from the moment of birth. This is more than an expression of guilt and remorse: the sense of original sin with which Shimao enshrouds his protagonist is no mere abstraction, but a real phenomenon, sensed by Miho as well as by Toshio himself. Awareness of this has been conferred on him by fate—and is augmented in inverse proportion to the sense of fear that such awareness instils in him. In the final analysis, however, it serves, not to exonerate the protagonist from sin, but rather to add an extra burden upon him, to emphasize his responsibility to live with the knowledge of that sin and of his own conscience that has been torn by it. This trait is introduced into the text in the depiction of the relationship that unites Toshio and Miho, even as her attacks continue. As such, Miho’s constant verbal—and occasionally physical—assaults come to be seen as expressions both of outrage and of despair in the wake of her husband’s betrayal of her trust. In determining to accept all his wife’s recriminations, however, Toshio is not liquidating his sin; this attitude represents rather an expression of his determination to bear his own sins at the very depths of his being. In all of this, Toshio is increasingly depicted as a man whose actions are determined by his conscience. The more he hangs his head in shame when confronted by Miho’s attacks, the more the “Toshio = assailant; Miho = victim” paradigm is undermined—until eventually the roles are reversed. In this way, as increasingly Toshio comes to accept the need to face up to reality and to live with his own past, so he comes to discern something pure—something holy—within Miho’s inner being. By the end, therefore, just as there can be no salvation for Toshio without the pain of acknowledging the extent of the suffering he has inflicted on his wife, so Miho’s hoped-for recovery is linked to her ability to cast off her sense of victimhood. The result is a virtual deification of Miho. First intimation of this occurs at the very outset of the work, in the initial depiction of Miho predicting “with an uncanny confidence” that Toshio would “leave home in November and commit suicide in December” (5). Not only is Miho here ascribed with the powers of a prophetess; she also possesses the stature to pass judgment on her husband’s sin, such “judgment arriving earlier than expected, towards the end of summer” (5). As far as Toshio is concerned, at that moment, “the day of judgment had arrived” (6) and he is left totally powerless to oppose the will of God, in the form of his wife. All he can do is to continue to pray for her “forgiveness,” acknowledging that “I was painfully aware that if she could just forgive me one more time, things would improve and I could be born again” (10). 176

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Such forgiveness is not, however, readily forthcoming and, faced with this awesome being, Toshio is left to conclude that he is a “despicable man” (iyashii otoko), “replete with unsavory thoughts” (kitanai koto bakari kangae[te]) and “attempting to pass off his own weakness and shadow being onto her” (jibun no yowasa to kurai bubun o kanojo ni shiwayose shite) (11). Replete with such feelings, Toshio is “filled with a belief that the final judgment was near” (13) and Miho does little to destroy this image that is rapidly formulating in his mind—as evidenced by her retort, at the very beginning of the argument: “How dare you call me by name?!” (8). With such comments, Miho provides clear evidence of her desire to be placed on a divine pedestal by her husband. When she then continues by emphasizing the fact that she had “given herself to him, body and soul” (8), the comparison with the way in which God had entrusted Himself to mankind in like manner—in the guise of His son—may not be immediately evident. But, through continued reference to her sense of having been betrayed, following years of sacrifice on her part, Toshio is rendered increasingly aware of his position of subservience. Subsequent events only serve to augment the seeming inequality of the relationship between husband and wife, with Miho continually drawing Toshio’s attention to her ability to read his innermost thoughts and feelings. As she notes on one occasion, “Isn’t it strange how I already know everything?” (64). Like God, Miho evidences a willingness to forgive Toshio. But equally, like God, she emphasizes that such forgiveness can be afforded only to those who repent, leading her to continue, “But I have to hear everything from your own mouth” (64.). Thereafter, as the work progresses and as the relationship between the couple continues to develop into that between sinner and potential saviour, the divine attributes with which Toshio invests Miho are not merely enhanced, they are even ascribed to others who incite in him recollections of the past. Apart from Miho, this is particularly evident in his confrontation with the “other woman” to whom he finds himself inexorably drawn following an aborted search for Miho. At the woman’s house, Toshio seeks to place the past firmly behind him; but on taking his leave, as the two stand, cigarettes in hand, looking at each other across the station barrier, he is forced to conclude: The light from her cigarette, which would glow and then disappear at regular intervals, began to resemble the will of a woman trying to decide on suitable punishment for a man who had turned his back on her and beaten a hasty retreat as soon as the going got rough. (53) Once more, Toshio feels “judged,” forlorn in the realization that there is now no escape from his past, either within the home or outside, and he feels left with little choice but to return home to face his perceived ultimate arbiter, Miho. As the couple subsequently continues its temporarily aborted quarrel, however, Miho’s standing is, if anything, enhanced by this and the subsequent encounter with the other woman following the removal of the family to a new home, and, by the end of the novel, Toshio is driven to conclude, “Miho’s appearance was filled with the infallibility of a judge (sabaku mono no fubyū) and it was hard to see her as my wife” (409). The role reversal evidenced in all this is profound. Far from an intimation that Miho’s hopes for salvation have been jeopardized as a result of her newfound aggression at the end of the novel, however, it would appear that it is precisely because she has become aware of her ability to inflict, as well as to receive, pain that Miho can hope for salvation—for herself Chapter 10: From out of the Depths: Shimao Toshio’s Literary Response to Adversity

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as well as for Toshio. The conclusion thus posits an inverse correlation between the two characters: just as there can be no salvation for Toshio without the pain of knowing the suffering his actions have caused, so Miho’s hopes for salvation remain dependent on her ability to cast off her sense of being victimized. With her resort to an aggressive style of selfdefense, however, she too becomes acutely aware of this pain and it is in part this depiction of the protagonists seeking to contribute to each other’s own spiritual welfare upon which the optimistic message of the latter part of the novel is premised. In light of all this, The Sting of Death ends with both protagonists displaying a hitherto inconceivable optimism and it is this mutual display of positivity that typifies the ray of light and hope illuminating the otherwise dark world of the byōsaimono. Significantly, this is no external light, but a light deriving from the hope for self-salvation displayed by Toshio in embarking on the path to new life. As such, as the process of salvation comes to permeate his every action, such light comes to assume an ever-increasing intensity—until the final episode in which Toshio is finally drawn to accept his total inability to live apart from Miho: My wife was in the psychiatric ward, awaiting my return. I had no alternative but to settle down to life in that ward with my wife. I couldn’t help feeling guilty at the sense of self-indulgent liberty I experienced outside the ward. I had to collect the futon and return to the ward as quickly as possible. Realizing that, even when leaving my wife behind, there was no easy escape from that ward. I felt a strange sense of relief such as I had never experienced before. … I picked up the necessary bedding as quickly as possible, tied it up into a manageable size and caught the train [back to the hospital]. But the return journey seemed to last an eternity. On deserting my wife, even for a short time, I was overcome by a profound sense of unease and was unable to relax. Even though it might entail dealing with another of her attacks, I just had to see my wife’s face again. I felt that, once in the ward and isolated from the outside world, it might even be possible to make a new start to life. (504) Much has been written concerning this final scene of the novel—as the protagonist’s sense of freedom experienced during a brief visit home is superseded by a sense of fear and apprehension at leaving his wife unattended. Some critics, like Yoshida Toyoko, have argued forcibly that, in opting to have his protagonist retrace his steps to the hospital, Shimao is guilty of returning Toshio to hell, not with any intention of thereby rescuing Miho from her suffering, but simply in order to join her there. To be sure, Toshio may well discover peace in so doing; but Yoshida insists that, as a consequence, the protagonist fails to experience “God’s love, strong enough to rescue humans from the suffering of hell and to lead them to the joy of living” (Yoshida 1988, 36). Similar arguments have been advanced by the critic Karatani Kōjin and the author Mishima Yukio, both of whom wondered why Toshio does not simply run away from Miho in the face of her attacks. Mishima, for example, went as far as to ask: In the irresponsible judgment of an outsider, as soon as the wife’s attacks begin to destroy the family, one thinks the husband should put his wife in the hospital and devote himself to raising the children. This might be the coldly realistic solution of society, but what is the real reason he doesn’t take this realistic solution but adopts the methods I’ve described? Is it because of human love? If so, what 178

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about the innocent children? Is it because of a sense of guilt and is it done for atonement? If so, shouldn’t the atonement be best directed at the children? These are questions your average person would think of. (cited in Gabriel 1999, 114) Addressing the same issue, Karatani is led to portray this set of stories as marked off by a “suspension of disbelief,” an acceptance of things as they are, of an “absolute order” that is never questioned, a world in which the question of why Toshio must “bow in reverence” to his wife’s madness is excluded (Gabriel 1999, 114). But did Shimao really intend to confine his first-person protagonist to the throes of purgatory? Or does the final episode serve, rather, to encapsulate the tenor of optimism, increasingly prominent as the novel proceeds? To be sure, the argument expounded by Yoshida can be supported with reference to the trials and tribulations that undoubtedly await the protagonist on his return to the hospital. But, in view of the growing sense of optimism evidenced by Toshio himself, an interpretation whereby his return to Miho’s bedside is viewed as the ultimate act of reunification and self-effacement is surely easier to justify intratextually. Throughout the latter part of the novel, Toshio has grown increasingly aware of their mutual interdependence and, viewed in this light, his decision to return to the hospital appears to represent a telling commitment to Miho, inspired by emotions resident in his inner being. The point is cogently made by the critic, Takeda Tomoju, who argues that the only way for Toshio to escape his “living hell” is not to place distance between himself and his ailing wife, but to assume full responsibility for the consequences of his actions. Indeed, Takeda goes further, arguing that Toshio should not only adhere to his promise to “serve” Miho for the next ten years, but that he should view this as an act of zange (penitence) (Takeda 1976, 35). The argument is central to Takeda’s reading, not only of The Sting of Death, but of Shimao’s byōsaimono corpus as a whole. And it is on these grounds that Takeda justifies his conclusion that, whereas Shimao may not be categorized as a typical “Christian author” (on the grounds that he rarely addresses specifically Christian motifs), he is incontrovertibly a “religious” author—on account of the preponderance of profound soul-searching that populates these works. Takeda’s conclusion justifies citation in full: Of course, the religiosity of Shimao’s works comes across quite differently from the works of other religious authors who deal with Christian motifs and depict religious experiences explicitly. And yet one can argue that the manner in which Shimao probes the essence of humanity and examines his own inner being is indisputably “religious.” Equally, Shimao was certainly not unique in dividing humans into victimizers and victims. But one can argue that he was unique in concluding his examination of human nature with a vision of humankind as possessing the potential to victimize and who discerned the potential for closer examination of human nature in the act of salvation from the desire to victimize, regardless of the distinction between self and other. The victim/victimizer distinction is no more than a concrete manifestation of human perception based on a particular victimizing act. When we see the potential for victimizing latent in all beings, recognizing the source of sin in this dark power, and seek deliverance—or salvation—from this, we become aware of an indisputably Christian presence in the shadows of Shimao’s scrutiny of human nature; or, to put it another way, we discern the presence of original sin. (Takeda 1976, 44) Chapter 10: From out of the Depths: Shimao Toshio’s Literary Response to Adversity

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Another influential reading of this novel was that offered by the critic, Isogai Hideo, who described the experience of reading The Sting of Death as reminiscent of being “carried along by an ocean current” (cited in Aeba 1976, 177). This is indeed one of the most powerful and lingering sensations imbued by an exploration of the more than five hundred pages of this examination of the marital union in times of stress. At the same time, however, when read in the knowledge that, by the time of composition of even the earlier chapters, Miho was largely recovered and the family settled on Amami Ōshima, the novel comes to assume the guise of a work of thanks for Miho’s recovery, a paean of praise to a God whom the author has come to recognize as the ultimate source of love and victory. The sordid details of the past are not to be forgotten. But through his willingness to endure the even greater pain involved in the act of creating the work in the first place—of reliving the past and exposing his sins to the world, Shimao has succeeded, not only in making a virtue of frank confession, but also in transforming the image of the mad wife into a beautiful, even noble figure. Only when viewed thus can the full significance of the work be comprehended; only when read in this way can the novel justify its reputation as a requiem for a former wife, penned by a renewed husband. Such a reading of The Sting of Death represents a clear rejoinder to the argument proffered by the critic, Niwa Masamitsu, who, in an article penned in 1958, before Shimao began work on The Sting of Death, felt obliged to warn the author, on the basis of his reading of the earlier “hospital stories,” that You know as well as I do that literature can never serve as an act of atonement [shokuzai-kōi]. And yet, because you can only find an attitude of prayer towards Miho in the midst of such meaningless creativity, you continue to strive to atone for past misdeeds, even though you know that this is by no means a perfect method. (Niwa 1958, 155) Niwa continued by stressing the “selfless” attitude which the author must needs adopt towards his material, concluding that, as such, literature does not allow for such ulterior motives as writing for the sake of atonement. By way of response, Shimao began by seeking to define the term “atonement,” laying emphasis on the fact that, in the Christian context, the concept refers directly to the death of Christ: it was, after all, Christ who atoned for the sins of the world through his death. Shimao continued: If one accepts, as I do, that literature can never be considered divorced from all human actions, then literature, too, can be seen as a continuous act of atonement for past sins. (I deliberately avoid the word “expiation.”) But I cannot deny that that is somewhat too all-encompassing as a comment. If we are talking of literature as atonement for sins in the limited sense of an “eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,” then I am the first to accept that the two should not be linked. (Shimao 1973, 5: 114–15) Guilt consciousness does not invariably lead to repentance and confession. In the case of Shimao, however, it appears highly influential in providing him with the courage to continue treating such sensitive material in his literature. As he further admitted to Niwa in his reply:

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It was my fault that my wife had to enter the psychiatric hospital and this was not unrelated to my literature. And yet, the reason that I wrote about nothing but my wife was both because I was writing at a time when I was unable to think of anything but my wife, and also because, given our personalities, unless we first secured the relationship between the two of us, we would not have been able to continue. (Shimao 1973, 5: 119–20) Shimao’s reply to Niwa’s assertion that he was writing as an act of atonement clearly suggests a man who, despite an initial determination to avoid apologetics in his literature, found himself drawn, through careful reflection on his own past, to experience a sense of God’s wrath. This wrath assumes the guise of Miho’s attacks—with the consequence that his feelings of guilt and the need for atonement are also addressed at Miho who, as noted above, is thereby progressively invested with divine attributes. The issue represents an increasingly dominant refrain in Shimao’s writings of the time, culminating in his article, “Tsuma e no inori” (A Prayer to my Wife) where Shimao admits to this tendency to juxtapose his wife with the divine and, more specifically, with what he perceived as the vengeful God of the Old Testament. As he acknowledged in his “Postscript” to this prayer: The expression “A prayer on behalf of my wife” may not be entirely accurate. Prayers cannot be addressed to wives; they have to be addressed to God. What I meant to imply was “A prayer to God on behalf of my wife.” But to me, my wife was God’s way of testing me. I could not see God; I could only see my wife. In that sense, that title is an adequate expression of my mental state at that time. (ShTZ 13: 217) Such comments, portraying Miho as the visible personification of God’s testing of His creation, provide manifold evidence of the narrator’s obsessive apprehension that he will ultimately be brought to trial, held accountable for past misdeeds—an obsession reinforced by the image of Miho as infallible. Thus, later in the same paean, he admits: My wife was never wrong. It was my wife, mistaken for a psychiatric patient and plagued by strange voices and flights of fantasy, who was leading me, the one who was supposed to be normal! That too was very strange. (ShTZ 13: 219)

“Everyday Life in a Dream” Given the reputation of The Sting of Death as one of the most sophisticated psychological novels in modern Japanese literature, we have, of necessity, concentrated this discussion on Shimao’s classic novel. No discussion of Shimao’s literary relationship with Christianity would be complete, however, without a brief consideration of another group of Shimao short stories in which he sought to depict truths deeper than would be possible through objective realism. In focusing on inward experience—in plumbing the unconscious, these so-called “dream stories” seek to gain access to truths that would otherwise remain hidden deep in the

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individual psyche and to portray the chaos of human existence at a more basic level. Homing in on this aspect of these short stories, the critic, Okuno Takeo, noted: By resorting to the world of dreams, Shimao gives direct and effective expression to the truth that lurks in the deep consciousness, one that cannot be portrayed in “realistic novels.” He is able to give symbolic expression to the meaning of reality projected onto our inner world. (Shimao 1961–1970, 1: 314) In these dream stories, individual experiences of real life are lived through a combination of conscious and unconscious perception, and the ability to gain access to his inner being represents a constant trope within these works. The dreams in these stories can be juxtaposed onto the spiritual revolution of the author as he moves from examination of outward, conscious experience to a deeper, more internalized level of his subconscious. At the same time, they represent wish fulfilments which can never be actualized in daily life. The clearest example of this comes in “Yume no naka de no nichijō” (Everyday Life in a Dream,* 1948), a short story written shortly after cessation of Pacific War hostilities and the author’s release from his contract with death—and whose very title suggests an inversion of the real world and that of fantasy, an attempt to portray reality as it is viewed by the unconscious. The protagonist of “Everyday Life in a Dream” is depicted as though in search of a deeper level of his unconscious and the reader is presented with several passages in which the narrator confronts this being in the guise of his own “mood.” In one such incident, the first person protagonist has just been reunited with his parents and subjected to a “formidable” beating from his father. It is upon leaving his parents that he is confronted by his mood, and he continues, My mood darkened, as if clouds had covered the sun … (You’re cheating. You’re a fake) my mood whispered. (You know, the trouble with you is…) my mood whispered again. (This isn’t “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” It’s venturing something after losing everything). (And just what do you mean by that?) I challenged. (Suppose you tell me exactly what it is you are trying to say?) Whereupon my mood answered me in an intimidating singsong. (These days you’ve been making such a big deal about NO-thing VEN-tured, NO-thing GAined). (What would I make a big deal about a dumb thing like that for?) I shook my head. I was walking. I began to smell sulphur. (Sparling 1985, 68) The protagonist here appears intent on examining the working of his own mind, of communicating with his own inner being, and by the conclusion of the work, he succeeds, quite literally, in exposing this inner self. The more he has explored his unconscious, the more it has come to overwhelm him—until ultimately the roles are reversed:

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Gathering my courage, I thrust my right hand into my stomach. Then, still madly scratching my head with my left hand, I tried forcibly scooping out what was in there. I felt something hard adhering stubbornly to the bottom of my stomach, so I pulled at it with all my might. And then the strangest thing happened. With that hard kernel uppermost, my own flesh followed up after it. So desperate at this point, I was beyond caring what happened to me; I kept pulling. Finally, I had turned myself completely inside out like a sock. The itching on my head and the pain in my stomach were both gone. (Sparling 1985, 70) “Everyday Life in a Dream” was written when Shimao was only 31 years old, but already the desire to grasp in words the mysterious force that assaults his inner being—to probe the stirrings of the soul—is apparent. Thereafter, in the way in which the author can be seen gradually honing his texts in an attempt ultimately to reveal the true essence of that which he is confronting, his art can be compared to that of a sculptor, laboriously chipping away at his material. The result is akin to a passion story, as the protagonist is seen gradually inching his way back to reality and overcoming the sense of distance he had been forced to experience. The scars of his past had to be healed before he could embark on a new beginning to life. But, rather than seeking to tend the wounds to his damaged ego, he can ultimately be seen attempting to heal the relationships by which he was restricted. The result of this has been described by the critic, Takeda Kin’ichi, as a prime example of “salvation through communication” (cited in Aeba 1976, 271), in which the potential for salvation derives from the relationship that Shimao, as author, succeeds in establishing with his reader. In all this, Shimao’s attitude is one of total non-resistance, as he appears to be looking, not so much for forgiveness, as for a renewal of lost love, attainable only through absolute self-denial. He has come to feel shame, not so much about his past or the present, but about the distorted human relationships contained therein as well as those with the natural world. Significantly, however, it is in these dream stories that Shimao comes to acknowledge that these relationships are supporting him in his cowardice and that, in this sense, his experiences with his sick wife are a mere repetition of those he had experienced within the suicide squadron during the War—and that both are destined to remain with him for the rest of his life. Nowhere is this better evidenced than in Shimao’s final full-length novel, Hi no utsuroi (The Days Go By, 1975), a work in which the author records, in diary form, the workings of his mind following the restoration of a degree of domestic harmony following the move back to Amami. The conscious analysis of his dreams in the course of this work reinforces the image of an author concerned with the world of the subconscious—in pursuit of his alter ego. As such, in several entries, he becomes aware of the presence of his doppelgänger offering unsolicited commentary upon events in his dreams. In his entry for 15 April 1972, for example, he concludes: It seems to me that there are two distinct kinds of dreams: those in which the words play a prominent role and those that develop through a succession of images. In the former, there is a powerful sense of the existence of an alter ego, over and above the dreamer himself, providing a commentary on the dream to no-one in particular. In those that rely more on images, the presence of this commentator becomes less distinct and events in the dream progress by piling one image on Chapter 10: From out of the Depths: Shimao Toshio’s Literary Response to Adversity

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top of another. After one awakes, as though terrified of remaining in the active memory, all dreams withdraw to the very depths of one’s consciousness; but, on such occasions, it is the pictorial dreams that make the more rapid escape. In those that entail the presence of some kind of verbal commentary, the lingering effects of this anonymous commentator continue to resonate vividly around the ear until one is completely awake. (ShTZ 10: 20) In all of this, the painful realization of the effects of Toshio’s past treatment of Miho and the suffering he had inflicted upon her leads the narrator to some painful conclusions. All he can do at this stage is continue to obey his wife’s every whim—a poignant vestige of his promise, made constantly in The Sting of Death, to atone for his past transgressions by continuing to serve her. At the same time, however, he seeks solace in the Bible, even though this often has the paradoxical effect of stirring the thorn—the toge of the title of Shimao’s novel that is in turn a direct biblical quotation—that pricks at his heart. Through such reading, he is brought to an awareness that atonement is not synonymous with the repayment of a debt—and that mere consciousness of sin does not, of itself, constitute an act of redemption. By this stage, Shimao’s main focus is on the Old Testament, where he sees atonement and pain as inextricably linked, and it is this that leads to a conviction that his atonement remains incomplete. In this regard, certain passages are especially poignant, as evidenced, for example, by his entry for 20 July 1972, where his narrator is to be seen seeking solace in the Book of Leviticus. As he reads here of the lepers, and of how “unless they underwent a ceremony of atonement, they could never be cleansed” (ShTZ 10: 71), the narrator is brought back to the reality of his own situation with a start. Significantly, however, it is at this moment that his wife appears unexpectedly, underlining once more the precariousness of his current situation. A similar reaction is evidenced in his entry for February 12, 1973: Why was it that, for a while after I awoke, I was assailed by a sense of regret that my past sins had never been completely forgiven and continued to linger within me? As I read the Bible, shortly after arriving at work, I came to the passage in 2 Chronicles in which it is recorded that the weak and cowardly could leave the battlefield—and, as though I had just been doused with cold water, I was overwhelmed by a sense of terror. Since everything had been exposed, there was no way I could gloss over the truth, nor was I permitted to run away from it. With a tingling sensation, as though I had been recklessly abandoned, I stared for a while at the two Chinese characters that represented the concept of “cowardice.” (ShTZ 10: 257–58) In all this, Shimao remains on a journey, one in which repentance and confession continue to occupy a prominent position. Of greater significance, perhaps, is the testimony, provided by such passages, of the author’s ongoing determination to continue to address such sensitive material in his literature.

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Conclusion In our discussion of the manner in which Shimao’s acceptance of Christian ideology represents an increasingly significant trope within his oeuvre, it is important to note the extent to which the author sought to eschew apologetics in his writing. Arguing that “questions of faith must first and foremost be considered as that: questions of faith—before they can be treated as literary problems” (cited in Morikawa 1969, 134), Shimao was well aware of the seemingly paradoxical relationship that exists between literature and religion. The reader thus searches in vain for overt references in this corpus to the author’s spiritual struggles and for a depiction of the path that was ultimately to lead to his decision to seek Christian baptism. In this, Shimao can be seen as concurring with Endō Shūsaku and several of his peers in the Daisan no Shinjin group who sought to place a spotlight on the paradox, highlighted by so many of their predecessors, inherent in the very concept of a “Christian literature.” For Uchimura Kanzō, founder of the mukyōkai (Non-church) strand of the faith in Japan, who devoted so much time to resolution of this conflict, for example, the issue brooked little compromise: Literary work is the worst possible course for anyone who is anxious to understand Christian faith. … One may be a critic, dramatist, novelist, even a poet in some special cases. A man of letters, however, is generally too feeble, too delicate, too cowardly to be a cross-bearing follower of Christ! (cited in Takadō 1967, 84) The challenge was clear. And, in light of the gauntlet thrown down by Uchimura, there followed a generation of Japanese writers who felt obliged to seek the potential for reconciliation between the necessity, accruing to themselves as authors, to create “living human beings” (ESBZ 12: 313), and their duty, as believers, to seek within the individual the potential for salvation. Most vociferous in his response to Uchimura’s challenge was Endō himself who, to the end, remained committed to his conviction that the primary duty of the literary artist lay in his/her “obligation to understand, not only the character and psyche of their characters, but also their true flavor, their pain and struggles, everything about them” (ESBZ 12: 314). The issue is, however, no less prevalent in Shimao’s oeuvre—with works such as The Sting of Death testimony to the author’s vision of literature, when viewed as a transformation of personal experience, as representing a constant attempt to capture the spiritual wanderings of the individual. In this, in those works where he sought to focus on issues of faith, Shimao, like Endō, came to envisage areas in which literature was potentially able to probe deeper into the workings of the individual mind than could be achieved by means of more conventional theological exposition. To Shimao, literature, as an art form, must not only focus on real life; it must also reflect the struggles and issues confronted by that which gives it life, the author. As noted earlier, this has led some to characterize Shimao’s work as an extension of the shishōsetsu tradition; more pertinent to this discussion, however, is a reading of this corpus as a consistent attempt to explore, in greater depth, the trappings of the individual soul. Much has been made in the course of this discussion of Shimao’s tendency to focus on his creations when placed in extremis—to embroil his protagonists in situations that afford his narrator maximum scope to penetrate the heart and to create, in the world of his fiction,

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a contrast to the real world—an anti-world—of equal weight. In this, Shimao may have been aided by his own personal experience of life in extremis. However, it is only when coupled with another aspect of Shimao’s art—his extraordinary powers of observation—that the benefits of this technique are best appreciated. To Shimao himself, the determination simply to record the world around him was in no way extraordinary. As he noted, “I try to capture everything that passes before my eyes and to record it. Without trying to interpret, I merely seek to capture it in all its transparency” (ShTZ 14: 265). What we have here, though, is no simple record of daily reality as typically offered by the prewar shishōsetsu authors. Instead, this oeuvre embodies the author’s conviction that, regardless of the circumstances in which the author finds himself—or in which his narrator chooses to place his protagonists, it is the determination to perceive in his current circumstances something of eternal significance that must needs represent his primary preoccupation. In light of this remarkable acuity, the critic Satō Yasumasa was driven to describe Shimao as “kansatsu no oni” (a demon of observation; cited in Aeba 1976, 295). And it is in light of this that we, as 21st-century readers, are enabled to move beyond the superficial depictions, that appear to populate Shimao’s oeuvre, of marital discord and life on the border between life and death—to discern something of universal significance.

Notes 1 See, e.g., Higuchi Satoru, Shishitsu no geki; aruiwa jūnan no shishitsu [A drama of qualities; or the qualities of suffering]. Eureka (1998), 113. 2 For the most comprehensive discussion of the significance of Shimao’s byōsaimono, see Ishii 2015, 2016a, 2016b & 2017. 3 For more on the shishōsetsu, a concept more aptly associated with the immediate prewar school of writers, but whose influence on postwar writing and reading practices cannot be ignored, see Fowler (1988), Fujii (1993) and Hijiya-Kirschnereit (1996). 4 Sparling’s collection of Shimao short stores in translation contains one chapter from this novel, but there is no translation of the complete work. 5 In this regard, Gabriel focuses particularly on “Shima no hate” (The Edge of the Island, 1948) which has Toé, fictional embodiment of Miho as the lieutenant’s girlfriend on the island, awaiting her lover with a fish dinner (with fish a Christian symbol whose association with the resurrection makes it appropriate for one about to sail to his death). After dinner, the lieutenant presents Toé with a dagger which she holds “reverently, like a cross, to her breast”; she is subsequently portrayed as awaiting the departure and death of her lover who, Christlike, will give up his life for others. 6 Those familiar with the movie version of this novel, in which Shimao’s wartime experience on Amami Ōshima is skillfully juxtaposed with the events depicted in the novel (which focuses exclusively on the Shimao family’s attempts to cope with Miho’s illness), will recognize these same qualities—qualities that led to the movie being awarded the Grand Prize of the Jury at the 1990 Cannes Film Festival (where it was also nominated for the Golden Palm. 7 Shimao further emphasized these scriptural overtones through use of a considerable amount of biblical vocabulary, both within the text itself and in several of his chapter titles. Chapter 9 for example, is entitled “Sugikoshi” (The Passover, the feast to celebrate release from Egyptian bondage) in that it deals with the family’s move to a new house in the suburbs of Tokyo, which is thereby depicted as the family escaping the clutches of an uncaring society. In this way, the chapter can be read as a prayer for the success of this new venture.

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References Aeba, T. (ed.). (1976). Shimao Toshio kenkyū [Studies on Shimao Toshio]. Tokyo: Tōjusha. Bungakukai 71:6 (2017). Shimao Toshio special edition (June), 10–42. Endō, S. (1999–2000). Endō Shūsaku bungaku zenshū [The Collected Literary Works of Endō Shūsaku] (15 vols.). Tokyo: Shinchōsha. (cited as ESBZ) Eureka 30:10 (1998). Shimao Toshio special edition (August), 44–259. Fowler, E. (1988). The Rhetoric of Confession: Shishōsetsu in Twentieth-century Japanese Fiction. Berkeley: University of California Press. Fujii, James (1993). Complicit Fictions: The Subject in the Modern Japanese Prose Narrative. Berkeley: University of California Press. Gabriel, P. (1999). Mad Wives and Island Dreams: Shimao Toshio and the Margins of Japanese Literature. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Gendai Nihon kirisutokyō bungaku zenshū iinkai (eds.). (1972–1974). Gendai Nihon kirisutokyō bungaku zenshū [Anthology of modern Japanese Christian literature] (18 vols.). Tokyo: Kyōbunkwan (cited as GNKBZ) Gessel, V.C. (1989). The Sting of Life: Four Contemporary Japanese Novelists. New York: Columbia University Press. Hijiya-Kirschnereit, I. (1996). Rituals of Self-revelation: Shishōsetsu as Literary Genre and Socio-cultural Phenomenon. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press. Ishii, H. (2015). Shimao Toshio Shi no toge-kō 1 (1-shō~4-shō): “katei no jijō” no ne ni aru mono no shosō [Thoughts on Shimao Toshio’s Sting of Death 1: Various elements that underlie the “family circumstances”]. Gunkei 35, 133–60. ———. (2016a). Shimao Toshio Shi no toge-kō 2 (5-shō~9-shō): “Yurushi” no kakyū kara fukachi no chikara e no manazashi e [Thoughts on Shimao Toshio’s Sting of Death 2: Shifting the gaze from the desire for “forgiveness” to the gaze of agnostic power]. Gunkei 36, 207–38. ———. (2016b). Shimao Toshio Shi no toge-kō 3 (10-shō~12-shō): Watashi no kazoku no saisei e mukau tabi e [Thoughts on Shimao Toshio’s Sting of Death 3: On the journey towards rebirth of my family]. Gunkei 37, 194–228. ———. (2017). Shimao Toshio no bungaku sekai: byōsai shōsetsu, nantō shōsetsu o yomu [The literary world of Shimao Toshio: Reading his “sick wife stories” and “southern island stories”]. Tokyo: Ryū Shobō. ———. (2020). Shimao Toshio “Sono natsu no ima wa” o yomu: shinkōsha no me ga mitsumeta tokkō-butai taichō no haisen [Reading Shimao Toshio’s “This Time that Summer”: The defeat of the suicide squadron leader as viewed through the eyes of a believer]. Gunkei 44, 177–91. Morikawa, T. (1969). Bungaku sōzō no himitsu [The secret of literary creativity]. Tokyo: Shinbisha. Niwa, M. (1958). Bungaku wa shokuzai kōi ni wa naranai [Literature does not represent an act of atonement]. Sakka (June), 154–55. Shimao, S. & Shimura, K. (eds.). (2010). Kenshō: Shimao Toshio no sekai [The world of Shimao Toshio]. Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan. Shimao, T. (1961–1970). Shimao Toshio sakuhinshū [A Collection of the Works of Shimao Toshio] (5 vols.). Tokyo: Shōbunsha.. ———. (1973). Shimao Toshio hishōsetsu shūsei [A Collection of Shimao Toshio’s Non-fictional Writings] (6 vols.). Tokyo: Tōjusha. ———. (1977). Shi no toge [The Sting of Death]. Tokyo: Shinchōsha. ———. (1980–1983). Shimao Toshio zenshū [The Collected Works of Shimao Toshio] (17 vols.). Tokyo: Shōbunsha. (cited as ShTZ) Sparling, K. (1985). “The Sting of Death” and other Stories by Shimao Toshio. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Takadō, K. (1967). The Challenge of Christian Literature. Japan Christian Quarterly 33(2) (Spring), 81–86. Takasaka, K. & Nishio, N. (eds.). (2005). Nantō e nantō kara: Shimao Toshio kenkyū [To the southern islands from the southern islands: Studies of Shimao Toshio]. Osaka: Izumi Shoin. Takeda, T. (1976). Shi no toge—de purofunduisu: Shimao Toshio-ron [The Sting of Death—from out of the depths: a study of Shimao Toshio]. Mita bungaku 63(4) (April), 28–44. Williams, M. (1992). Life after Death? The Literature of an Undeployed Kamikaze Squadron Leader. Japan Forum 4(1), 163–79.

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———. (1997) Shimao Toshio. In Van C. Gessel (ed.), Dictionary of Literary Biography 182: Japanese Fiction Writers Since World War II. Detroit: Gale, 212–21. Yamagata, K. (1994). Sei naru mono to sōzōryoku [The divine and powers of the imagination] (2 vols.). Tokyo: Sairyūsha. Yoshida, T. (1984–1987). Kirisutokyō to Nihon bungakusha [Christianity and Japanese authors]. Seiki 412– 442 (Sept. 1984–March 1987, monthly installments). Yoshida, T. (1988). Heiwa no rōdōsha [Workers for peace]. Seiki 456 (May), 31–40. Yoshimoto, T. (1968–1975). Yoshimoto Takaaki zenchosaku-shū [The Collected Works of Yoshimoto Takaaki] (15 vols.). Tokyo: Keiso Shobō.

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Chapter 11 Yasuoka Shōtarō and Christianity: From Postwar “Emptiness” to Religious Longing Yamane Ibuki Translated by Van C. Gessel The spiritual journey of Yasuoka Shōtarō culminated in his baptism in his late years. As he pursued a consistent confrontation with the existential issue of postwar “emptiness,” Yasuoka developed a religious longing for a being that could envelop that “emptiness.” That religious longing is evident in his pre-conversion writings, including his most representative work, Tales of Homeless Wandering, which reflects Yasuoka’s own experiences of defeat in war. Yasuoka’s writings relating directly to issues surrounding Christianity, as well as statements by his friends and family members, trace the path that led him to baptism. The religious world of Yasuoka’s late years was enlarged through his encounter with Christianity, locating the apex of his literature as he continued to depict the “emptiness” of the postwar period.

Introduction Yasuoka Shōtarō (1920–2013) was baptized into the Catholic Church at the age of 68 by Father Inoue Yōji, with his friend, the Catholic author Endō Shūsaku, acting as godfather. Baptized in the later years of his life, the relationship that Yasuoka had with Christianity was considerably different from those of many young authors in the Meiji and Taishō periods who were drawn to Christianity and received baptism into Protestant denominations but ultimately left the church after experiencing various conflicts. The trajectory for Yasuoka resembles something of a pilgrimage, over the course of which his awareness of a religious longing in his life deepened. There was no particular religious background that was fully practiced in the home where Yasuoka spent his childhood, and his conscription into the military during his adolescent years meant that the War prevented him from forming a sense of selfhood. As a result of the chest ailment he contracted in the battlefield, he developed spinal caries, and for a time after

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the War ended, he was forced to spend all his time lying in bed. In those instances, Yasuoka experienced feelings of emptiness. It was a time when many Japanese could not believe in any philosophy or ideology—let alone religion—and sensed a “spiritual void” (Yasuoka 2018, 365). As he lay on his sickbed, questioning whether perhaps his life had no meaning, he began to write from his prone position in order to confirm that he actually was alive. His debut work was “Garasu no kutsu” (Glass Slipper,* 1951). As a prominent writer, Yasuoka was one of the representatives of postwar Japanese literature, and although it is widely known that he was baptized in his later years, there has been virtually no critical examination of Yasuoka as a Christian writer. Even when he is analyzed as a postwar writer, there is an undeniable tendency for critics to ignore the significance of the religious yearnings that led to his conversion. One can conjecture that this is because Yasuoka’s baptism came in the final years of his life and because he never consciously foregrounded issues of religion in his major works. However, Yasuoka participated in a special program entitled “Kirisutosha no bungaku: Endō Shūsaku no sekai” (The Literature of a Christian: The World of Endō Shūsaku) that was broadcast on 9 October 1996 on NHK Educational Television following Endo’s death. And there, in response to a question from the host, “Did you ever discuss God with him?” Yasuoka replied, “Yes, I did.” The following comment is noteworthy: This transcendent being called God, I suppose you could call it this vague hunch that He was somewhere—that if I set Him aside, I really couldn’t think about my own life. That feeling grew within me, even before I considered whether or not to become a Christian, whether or not to be baptized. Here Yasuoka himself clearly acknowledges that he had some sense of the existence of a “transcendent being” connected to “[his] own life” from before his baptism, and he situates his own baptism within a deepening of his religious sensibilities. That being the case, it should be possible to identify Yasuoka’s religious yearnings with regard to a “transcendent being” who sustained “[his] own life.” Keeping this important issue in mind, in this essay, I will demonstrate that Yasuoka’s late-in-life baptism is closely linked to the central themes of his writings. I will begin by examining the importance of the religious longing that can be identified through a careful reading of the works he produced prior to his baptism. More specifically, I will demonstrate that the religious longing that led Yasuoka to be baptized in his later years is fundamentally tied to a concern with the “spiritual emptiness” of the postwar era that runs through all of Yasuoka’s works, beginning with his debut as a writer. It is fair to say that the theme of “spiritual emptiness” that Yasuoka shouldered throughout his career was largely shared by the Japanese people of his generation, all of whom lived through the chaotic wartime and postwar periods. For that reason, with Yasuoka continuously preoccupied with a “spiritual emptiness” that could never be filled in his own life even as postwar Japanese society was achieving remarkable economic growth, the spiritual pilgrimage that brought him to the waters of baptism late in life has great significance in a consideration of the history of postwar Japanese spirituality. Furthermore, Yasuoka’s life, in which the sense of “spiritual emptiness” was redirected toward a religious yearning that led to his conversion, provides a meaningful vantage point for a consideration of the theme that pervades this Handbook: in Japan, where the number of Christian believers is less than 190

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one percent of the population, why do the names of so many Christian writers appear in the history of modern Japanese literature, particularly in postwar literature? In this essay, I will first consider in specific terms whether a religious yearning can be identified in Yasuoka’s major works prior to his baptism. By far the most valuable resource for such an examination is the January 1982 review of Yasuoka’s historical novel, Ryūritan (Tales of Homeless Wandering, serialized from March 1976 to April 1981), written by the leading Japanese critic, Kobayashi Hideo. In this review, Kobayashi pinpoints Yasuoka’s religious yearning almost as though prophesying Yasuoka’s conversion to Christianity. Taking Kobayashi’s review as a starting point, I will proceed to identify the ways in which Tales of Homeless Wandering expands the themes that Yasuoka pursued throughout his writing. By so doing, I will elucidate in detail the question of Yasuoka’s religious yearning that was intuitively pointed out in a few short words by Kobayashi. Next, selecting those of Yasuoka’s writings in which issues relating to matters of faith can be identified, I will look at the process through which Yasuoka became aware of his own religious yearnings during the period leading up to his baptism. I will accomplish this by looking at remarks by Endō Shūsaku, Yasuoka’s friend and baptismal godfather, as well as those offered by Yasuoka’s daughter, Yasuoka Haruko. Finally, I will examine Yasuoka’s late writings, which are enriched by his encounter with Christianity. I will consider the fictional works, essays, published conversations, and letters from the period preceding and following his conversion as they directly relate to questions of faith. In so doing, I will illuminate the religious world of his late years, which are the culmination of the increasingly deepening theme that he pursued from the time he became a writer.

Religious yearnings prior to the writing of Tales of Homeless Wandering Tales of Homeless Wandering is a historical novel depicting the lives of Yasuoka’s paternal ancestors, country samurai of the Tosa domain who lived in the time of upheaval surrounding the Meiji Restoration of 1867–1868. Their story is told through letters and diaries that are still kept by the Yasuoka family, the verbal testimonies of relatives, and public historical documents. I will start by taking a look at Kobayashi Hideo’s review of the novel, in which he identifies in it a religious yearning so strong that he predicts Yasuoka’s conversion. The author off-handedly relates the following story: A mother named Masu is preceded in death by her daughter Minayo. As Minayo lay dying, she sang the words of a hymn, “This world that shall perish/My body that will decay/On what can I rely?…” At that, her singing voice broke off, and Masu sang the next words at Minayo’s bedside: “On what can I rely?/I will cling to the cross.” 1 The author adds, “It is truly moving when one recalls that the words ‘This world that shall perish/My body that will decay/On what can I rely?…’ are coming from the mouth of a person on her deathbed, and the person seated beside the dying woman may have felt unbearable compassion. It must have felt to her that the words were filled with feelings of regret, not so much because they were coming

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from a Christian, but rather from a person who was searching for something from this world that ultimately she was unable to obtain.” To tell the truth, however, it is the author himself who is feeling unbearable compassion. The reader simply has to interpret it this way. The author is walking toward the cross, following in the footsteps of these two women. What else can he do? The path in the opposite direction is no longer open to this author. (Kobayashi 2000, 518; emphasis added) In this critique, as though forecasting Yasuoka’s conversion six years later, Kobayashi stated that Yasuoka, in writing that two of his ancestors who converted to Christianity were clinging to the cross, is in fact himself “walking toward the cross, following in the footsteps of these two women.” The impact of what Kobayashi points out here cannot be overemphasized, so I want to examine the ways in which Kobayashi locates this religious yearning in Yasuoka’s work. In Tales of Homeless Wandering, Yasuoka relates this story of a mother, Masu, who is caring for her daughter Minayo, and as she was dying Minayo sang a hymn. Yasuoka heard this story from an elderly woman who was well acquainted with his relative, Masu. Writing about Minayo breathing her last while singing a hymn, he says “the person seated beside the dying woman may have felt unbearable compassion” (Kobayashi 2000, 518). However, notice that Yasuoka emphasizes that, for Minayo, this act was not one arising from the faith of a “Christian” who is relying upon the cross; rather, his interpretation is that “these words were filled with feelings of regret.” The problem here is why Kobayashi—from a passage that could be understood as the author having “unbearable compassion” towards Minayo’s “feelings of regret”—could sense such a religious yearning in Yasuoka that was so apparent as to make Kobayashi hold a strong conviction that there was no other choice but for Yasuoka to convert. I want to elaborate on this point by examining the development of Yasuoka’s writings leading up to Tales of Homeless Wandering. When we reflect on how much Yasuoka, born in 1920, lost because the years during which he would have developed a sense of selfhood coincided with World War II, it is vitally important as we examine his writings that we understand the “spiritual emptiness” that Yasuoka experienced. First, then, let us look at a statement from the critic, Hattori Tatsu, who was a friend from Yasuoka’s own generation, that is frequently cited by Yasuoka to describe the challenges his generation faced: Beginning with those who were twenty years old in 1936 up to those who were twenty in 1945, for the most part it is fair to say that the period in which their spiritual molding took place overlapped with the War. The world around them was filled with violence, and their attitudes were shaped in that climate. Comparatively older men had a brief period during which they had the leisure to steer clear of the violence and create for themselves a tiny world in some remote corner. But the younger a man was, the less he was able to do so unless he was blessed with unique circumstances. … Those without such opportunities were

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forced to begin life in the military midway through the molding of their selfhood. (cited in Yasuoka 2018, 130–31) To affirm what Hattori says here about generations, 1936 was the year of the so-called “2.26 Incident,” when the influence of the military expanded, leading to an opportunity for the militarists to establish a wartime organization; the Pacific War broke out in December 1941, ending with the defeat of Japan in August 1945. During that period, being the age of 20 meant that a man was eligible for the draft, so we can say that the young men who lived through Japan’s march toward defeat were unable to make any responsible plans for their future and were forced to live out whatever days remained for them, resigned to death. Furthermore, to a certain degree the “comparatively older men” had available to them the necessary time and circumstances to establish a firm sense of identity, and they were able to stand against the times with a critical perspective derived from their education and their ability to think for themselves. As a consequence, even though they experienced various difficulties during the War—the suppression of free speech, impoverishment and the draft— they were able to carve out their own private worlds and subsequently take the lead in the Japanese literary scene directly after the War. By contrast, Yasuoka, who belonged to a generation younger than such men, sought to “steer clear of the violence and create for [himself] … in some remote corner” (Yasuoka 2018, 130–31) a tiny world by joining with friends (those with whom he associated while he waited for a second chance to apply to a university and those he came to know during his time in the preparatory program at Keiō University) to publish a coterie literary journal and submit stories to it. But, before he was able to seize hold of a world that he earnestly wanted to describe, he was drafted in March 1944. Yasuoka’s unit was dispatched to northern Manchuria, but in August 1944 he was hospitalized with a chest ailment and repatriated to Japan in March of the following year. As a result, he was able to avoid being caught up in the fighting, but he was treated as an unpatriotic citizen and recalled, “We sick soldiers weren’t just regarded as useless to the military, or to the nation; rather, we were thought of as reducing Japan’s military might,” and “it seemed to us that the attitude of the nurses who brought us food and the military guards was that they were offering chow to stray dogs or abandoned cats” (Yasuoka 2018, 235). As noted earlier, although the War ended in August 1945, Yasuoka’s health continued to decline and he developed spinal caries. Lacking the money to buy the kind of corset necessary for his recovery, he had to remain in bed at his family’s home. In May 1946, his father, who had been an army veterinarian, was repatriated from the South Seas, but he no longer had employment and was unable to find a new job, so the family remained impoverished. In fact, reflecting back on this period, Yasuoka remembers it as a period “during which, more than at any time in my life, I was tormented by thoughts of killing myself ” (Yasuoka 2013, 148). Yet we cannot overlook the fact that it was during this same period of “emptiness” in his life that the writings which became his debut works were produced. Yasuoka seized upon literature as a kind of spiritual bomb shelter that could protect him from the “violence of the world around him,” and he remarked that he tried to produce works that would enable him to create a “tiny separate world” (Yasuoka 2018, 130–31) disconnected from reality; his approach to literature, he wrote, was altered by his reading of Oscar Wilde’s “The Critic as Artist,” which argues that strange imaginings are delusions that

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bear no relation to creativity and that “criticism is really creativity in the highest sense of the word” (Yasuoka 1986, 1: 480). Under the influence of this theory of art, Yasuoka came to believe that examining his life in the real world, in which he was tormented by feelings of emptiness and powerlessness, was a creative labor through which he might be able to affirm that he was actually alive. The following comment by Yasuoka regarding this realization has a significance that cannot be overlooked if we are to understand the origins of his writings: All I do is write in the short spaces between the lines the things I have been able to learn or discover, no matter how minor. If I am able to hit the bullseye, expressing minor things just as they are, then those sentences come to life, and they enable me to gradually bury the emptiness inside me. (Yasuoka 2018, 364) Yasuoka continued to write even while suffering from spinal caries, producing one or two lines “on the manuscript paper by my pillow while lying flat on my stomach” and when that position became painful turning onto his back to rest, repeating that process over and over again (Yasuoka 2018, 364). In this manner, Yasuoka wrote seminal works such as his debut work, “The Glass Slipper” which was a finalist for the Akutagawa Prize, “Jinguru beru” (Jingle Bells,* 1951), and “Inki na tanoshimi” (Gloomy Pleasures,* 1953), which received the Akutagawa Prize. What I want to establish here is that, through intense scrutiny of his life which was weighed down with feelings of “emptiness,” the words that Yasuoka wove together, searching for something that could bury the “‘emptiness within” himself, formed the starting point for his literature. Yasuoka recovered from spinal caries and received the Akutagawa Prize in 1953; the following year he married Hiraoka Mitsuko. It was around this time, however, that after his mother returned to Kōchi with her husband, she began to display signs of mental disorder, and she was diagnosed with senile dementia. In 1956, she was admitted to a mental hospital in Kōchi, where she died in July of the following year. Yasuoka could not help but feel that his mother, whose mental condition had worsened due to the stresses of the family’s extreme poverty and a succession of irrational events after the War, represented all that had been lost as a result of the War. Regarding this, he wrote: When I think about my mother, I can’t help feeling that the “postwar” lingered with her. Of course, my mother’s illness was nothing more than a result of her own predispositions and her mental state. Not every person who suffered during the postwar era ended up as my mother did. Even so, when I looked at my mother’s sunken eyes and her pupils which could not focus on one spot, the stench of hideously scorched earth that rises from the unforgettable atmosphere of the postwar period wafts cruelly all around her. (Yasuoka 2018, 448) Through writing about the realities of his life as he suffered so intensely from a sense of emptiness that he pondered suicide at his mother’s bedside, Yasuoka sought at the same time to affirm the fact that he was alive; by writing Kaihen no kōkei (A View by the Sea,* 1959) from that same posture, he bore witness to his mother’s life by coming face to face with her during the period when the Japanese were manipulated by the War as she died a miserable 194

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death. In this novella he describes these events and his feelings about them during a nine-day period beginning with notification that his mother is on the verge of death; memories of her resurface in his mind while he hurries to the mental hospital in Kōchi Prefecture to care for her. From November 1960 to May 1961, Yasuoka lived in Nashville, Tennessee at the invitation of the Rockefeller Foundation. Instead of choosing a city where he could stay in the western or northern parts of the U.S. where many renowned universities are located, he asked to live in the southern United States. His explanation of his reasons for choosing the South reveal the intensity of his feelings as he continued to be preoccupied with the issue of the “postwar”: If I was to be going to America, I wanted to go to the South rather than to the northern or western states. Several years ago, when William Faulkner came to Japan, he stated at a news conference, “We Southerners, who are also the losers of a war, can well understand how the Japanese people feel.” Newspaper reports at that time described the astonishment of the Japanese who were present for his remarks. (Yasuoka 1986, 3: 469) During his time in Nashville, the civil rights movement was in full swing, and in various ways Yasuoka experienced the problems of racial prejudice in the South from the perspective of a person from East Asia. After returning to Japan, he published an account of his experiences in the U.S. as Amerika kanjō ryokō (A Sentimental Journey in America, 1962). This memoir stands out as one in which Yasuoka, whose work usually exhibits strong autobiographical tendencies, takes the opportunity to expand his concerns to social issues. At the same time, it expresses a pervasive concern in his writing in its search for all that was lost during the War. It is also important to understand that Yasuoka in this work continues to probe the “self ” in the setting of the American South. In 1965, Yasuoka’s father, Akira, died. As an army veterinarian he had been sent on many overseas expeditions, and because Yasuoka was raised without his father, he had been unable to establish an affectionate relationship with him. At the time of his father’s death Yasuoka was about the same age as his father had been when he headed off to war. Yasuoka wrote: Around this time, I was travelling almost every year to foreign countries, and every time things went wrong while I was on the road, or I felt isolated and abandoned, I thought about my father in the fields of battle. … This was when, rather than seeing my father as my opponent, I began to picture him as the father who dwelled within my own bloodstream. (Yasuoka 1986, 4: 479) The desire to reconsider his relationship with his father, who until then had been nothing more than an adversary, inspired Yasuoka to feel an affinity with the experiences of the author Shiga Naoya, a leading writer of the Shirakaba (White Birch) literary society, who in his youth had not gotten along well with his father because he had been separated from his parents and raised by his grandparents, which in Japanese tradition was considered a distinctive form of education for the eldest son. See, for example, the following comments by Yasuoka: When I learned about Shiga’s experiences with his father, the themes of his works such as Wakai (Reconciliation*) and An’ya kōro (A Dark Night’s Passing*), Chapter 11: Yasuoka Shōtarō and Christianity: From Postwar “Emptiness” to Religious Longing

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which up until then I had only understood in an abstract manner, became for me descriptions of the fleshly conflicts between parent and child that I could relate to; and the backdrop for his conflicts, the Meiji Restoration, which had previously seemed like ancient history to me, now began to feel like events that had transpired just yesterday. (Yasuoka 1986, 4: 480) Based on this heightened understanding, Yasuoka wrote Shiga Naoya-den (The Life of Shiga Naoya, 1966) and Shiga Naoya shiron (My Personal Interpretation of Shiga Naoya, 1967–1968). It is worth noting that, in analyzing Shiga’s life and works, Yasuoka was confronting his own existential issues as he examined the challenges he had with his own father. This became the motivation for him “to start developing an interest in history” (Yasuoka 1986, 4: 480). I have described above the place occupied by the historical novel, Tales of Homeless Wandering, in Yasuoka’s oeuvre. Given that, since his literary debut, Yasuoka’s forte was autobiographical short stories, Tales of Homeless Wandering, which skillfully uses a vast array of historical sources and was written in serial form over a period of more than five years, can be described as a unique work for him in terms of form. At the same time, however, in order to glean the existential concepts that pervade this work, it is essential to identify the ongoing themes in Yasuoka’s works that emerge in the very first stories that he wrote from his sickbed. First, I want to re-emphasize that, while the short stories from Yasuoka’s early period are autobiographical in form, they are, as I have described, better viewed as “criticism,” which is the essence of the “true creativity” that Yasuoka derived from his reading of Oscar Wilde’s Intentions. That is, from his sickbed where he was tormented by feelings of emptiness and powerlessness, Yasuoka created pieces of “criticism” that recorded “the things I had been able to learn or discover, no matter how minor” in an effort to affirm that he was actually alive (Yasuoka 2018, 364). He thereby reshaped those experiences in a form that created a rhythm for his stories. Thus, we can say that Yasuoka’s creative posture as he discovered and recorded the truths of his life had already set the stage for his success in critiquing society and history. At the same time, as he persisted in confronting his feelings of loss and emptiness, Yasuoka wrestled with issues related to his mother and father that were an inseparable part of his life experience, and he proceeded to widen his vision toward those aspects of society and history that shared many of the concerns with which he was grappling. Based on the above discussion, we can say that tracing the genealogical roots and describing the history of his paternal ancestors in Tales of Homeless Wandering stand out as an affirmation for Yasuoka of the vital connections that encompass himself and the father with whom he struggled. Furthermore, it was meaningful for Yasuoka, who recognized the parallels between the late-Tokugawa/Meiji Restoration periods and his own experiences during the Second World War, to write about his ancestors whose lives were tossed about at the mercy of the age in which they lived. Thus, Tales of Homeless Wandering became a multi-layered experiment that explores the existential issues that Yasuoka had constantly been pursuing, resulting in him being able to write a massive novel that is by far the best of all the works he had produced to that point. Reflecting on the influence of the existential concepts that gave him the prodigious energy to produce this work, Yasuoka states in the Preface that, for a period of several years, he had “begun to feel something compulsive” in his desire to trace his roots (Yasuoka 2000, 1: 22). Regarding Bunsuke, the protagonist of the novel who was a patriot during the Meiji 196

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Restoration as well as being the father of Kasuke and Kakunosuke and the author of the invaluable diaries and Yasuoka family genealogies that provide materials for the novel, Yasuoka says the following: In reality, as I looked at the genealogy that Bunsuke wrote, which identifies the relationships between each and every individual, it stirred up a certain inexplicable enthusiasm inside me. I felt inwardly that I simply had to keep searching, leaving no stone unturned. I have no way of knowing how Bunsuke felt as he created this genealogical chart. But it seemed to me as though the passion that Bunsuke felt as he spread out old papers and tried to find some way to determine where and how the names recorded there were connected to himself was transmitted to me like heat passing from one body to another. (Yasuoka 2000, 1: 44) That sort of “passion” motivated Yasuoka to trace the history of his ancestors. The lateTokugawa/Meiji Restoration period that serves as the backdrop for his search was an age of upheaval that has been the source for historical novels for many Japanese writers, including Shiba Ryōtarō. Yasuoka Kasuke and Kakunosuke who appear in the novel were, much like Sakamoto Ryōma on whom Shiba devoted so much attention, patriotic country samurai from the Tosa domain who participated in the Restoration. Yasuoka’s creation of a dramatic narrative in the form of an historical novel brings their experiences to life. More importantly, however, Yasuoka’s gaze is directed toward the sorrows of those who lived during that period of upheaval and experienced the struggles and feelings of guilt that unavoidably placed their families in danger, and who died through execution, death in battle, or fatal illnesses. Relating stories of the Restoration period as a family history can be described as the unique feature of Tales of Homeless Wandering. The Tosa domain, which was the home of the Yasuoka clan, joined the anti-shogunate forces along with warriors from the Satsuma and Chōshū domains, and both Kasuke and Kakunosuke gave their lives seeking to realize the ideals of the new age. Since in reality, however, power in the new government was monopolized by men with pedigrees from Satsuma and Chōshū, Yasuoka argues that, in historical terms, his clan figured among the defeated. Yet again Yasuoka must have been led to contemplate the fact that the history of his Yasuoka clan ancestors was fraught with feelings of defeat and mortification. As he threw himself into the writing of Tales of Homeless Wandering while reflecting on his own sense of defeat derived from his experiences during World War II, Yasuoka must naturally have anticipated that he would encounter the same feelings among his ancestors. But, as he studied the lives of each of them as they were swallowed up in the chaos of history, it is not difficult to imagine that, once again, Yasuoka felt “unbearable compassion” (Kobayashi 2000, 518) toward them. When he learned that many of his relatives, who suffered from unfair treatment in a variety of ways, had become Christians following the Restoration, his discovery of the story of Minayo declaring her faith from her sickbed as she died has a significance that we cannot overlook as we ponder the ways in which Yasuoka used the history of his ancestors’ feelings of defeat that he himself had long harbored. From this perspective, it seems likely that Kobayashi read between the lines of this historical novel and detected such a strong religious yearning in Yasuoka’s work that he was compelled to feel that at some point the author would be baptized, even though, at the time he was writing Tales of Homeless Wandering and came across the story of Minayo as a Christian, Chapter 11: Yasuoka Shōtarō and Christianity: From Postwar “Emptiness” to Religious Longing

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Yasuoka did not go beyond sensing “feelings of regret” and “unbearable compassion” (Kobayashi 2000, 518). It might be that Kobayashi had a deep understanding of the pervasive themes in Yasuoka’s works leading up to Tales of Homeless Wandering as the author wrestled with the “spiritual emptiness” of the postwar era, and he may have also directly observed Yasuoka’s spiritual yearning through personal interactions with him. It is of course evident through Kobayashi’s own works, such as Dostoefuskii no seikatsu (The Life of Dostoevsky, 1939) or his unfinished “Masamune Hakuchō no saku ni tsuite” (Concerning the Writings of Masamune Hakuchō), which further developed his focus on religious issues, that throughout his life as a critic he possessed a powerful religious yearning himself. Taking as a starting point Kobayashi’s review of Tales of Homeless Wandering, I have traced the development of Yasuoka’s writings and demonstrated that the core themes of Yasuoka’s works are linked to his own religious longings.

Religious yearnings leading to Yasuoka’s baptism in the wake of Tales of Homeless Wandering and his interactions with Christianity During the time Yasuoka spent in America between 1960 and 1961, he forged close associations with fervent believers of Protestant Christianity in the area where he was living. He also frequently attended their worship services, and so this sojourn can be seen as his first opportunity to have close contact with Christianity. In addition, after his return to Japan, Yasuoka began examining issues of faith in the writings of the Shirakaba literary society and the influential Protestant leader, Uchimura Kanzō, also taking the opportunity, as he wrote The Life of Shiga Naoya and My Personal Interpretation of Shiga Naoya, to confront the issues he had with his own father. These projects must have afforded him the chance to become gradually more aware of the existential issues that Christianity presented to him. On this point, it is worth mentioning that, when Yasuoka was invited to a university in Canada in 1972 to give a talk on Japanese literature, he told the audience, “If you’re going to study modern Japanese literature, start by first reading Uchimura Kanzō’s Yo wa ikani shite Kirisuto shinto to narishi ka (How I Became a Christian*)2” (Yasuoka 2013, 310). The encounter with Uchimura’s brand of Christianity and their resultant conflicts with it were problems common to some of the most prominent writers of modern Japan, including Masamune Hakuchō, Arishima Takeo, Shiga Naoya and Mushanokōji Saneatsu. The ways in which each of these authors responded to these conflicts produced the central currents of modern Japanese literature and, in this lecture in Canada, Yasuoka discerned the significance of this influence and stressed the need to take into account Uchimura’s influence. Furthermore, in January 1981, Yasuoka published, under the title, “Kuchioshisa to iu koto”’ (About Regrettable Decay), the text of a lecture he gave at a meeting held to commemorate the one-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Masamune Hakuchō. Based on that lecture, it is clear that Yasuoka had carried out detailed research on issues relating to the faith of Hakuchō and Uchimura. In this lecture, Yasuoka related how Masamune had been drawn to Uchimura during his teenage years but was ultimately unable to continue following Uchimura and distanced himself from him. Later, Masamune published articles critical of Uchimura, yet he continued to be drawn to Uchimura as a person, and led such a

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problematic life that he could not keep from writing a hefty work entitled Uchimura Kanzō. Yasuoka described the relationship between the two men and commented, This man Masamune, I don’t know exactly how to say this, but I somehow, well, I have this feeling that he lived his life incredibly frustrated with the world, feeling a vexation that he wasn’t able to put into words. (Yasuoka 2013, 166) Considering the fact that the “vexation” of Masamune mentioned here by Yasuoka is closely related to the feelings of emptiness and defeat that Yasuoka himself continued to harbor within, it is interesting to note that he gleaned Masamune’s state of mind at the time when, in the midst of his “vexation,” Masamune wrote the story “Irie no hotori” (Beside the Bay, 1939). Yasuoka observed: In this story, it’s not just the vexation; the depiction of the bay is truly extraordinary. It’s magnificent. It’s not that he writes something like “The ocean is beautiful.” That’s not how he describes it. In his descriptions of the scenery of the bay, he helps us as readers feel something that surpasses the pent-up resentments, the frustrations within each individual person… I suppose I could call it a very welcome beauty. I think this could well be the summation of the entirety of Masamune’s writings. (Yasuoka 2013, 174) Here we can detect the depths of Yasuoka’s religious sensibilities in the way he identifies “a very welcome beauty” that surpasses “the pent-up resentments, the frustrations within each individual person.” And we can understand how earnestly Yasuoka yearned for a transcendent existence that would receive and swallow up the feelings of defeat and emptiness he had experienced in his own life. In addition, in order for Yasuoka to actually reach the point of accepting baptism, it was essential for him to have interactions with two individuals: his friend, the Catholic writer Endō Shūsaku, and Father Inoue Yōji, a friend of Endō who had taken as his lifelong challenge the question of how Christianity could be grasped by the Japanese mind. Father Inoue was a theologian who wrote: Whether we’re talking about me, or a single flower, or a horse, ... because all of these are given life and sustained by something greater than themselves, none is a complete being: rather, all are like a bottomless barrel floating in a great ocean—in Nature’s sea of life. (Inoue 2016, 56) In this statement, Father Inoue was identifying those sensibilities in the Japanese tradition that are experienced as a religiosity connected at a very fundamental level with the essence of the Christian faith: coming to the realization that every individual is a part of the body of Christ, as Paul describes it, and in so doing attempting to implant the Gospel into the sensibilities that underlie Japanese culture. I believe that the sort of Christianity described here by Father Inoue was a realm that Yasuoka could comfortably plunge into because of his own

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religious sensibilities, which enabled him to identify, in the essay cited above, a sensibility identical to that of Masamune. With respect to the relationships Yasuoka had with specific individuals, we should note that the writers Takahashi Takako and Ōhara Tomie (who, like Yasuoka, was from Kōchi Prefecture) were baptized in 1975 and 1976 respectively, by Father Inoue with Endō as godfather. Also, in 1976, Father Inoue’s first book, Nihon to Iesu no kao (The Face of Jesus in Japan*), a collection of his thoughts over the first half of his life as he sought to find a Christianity that could take root in Japan, was published by Hakuyōsha at Endō’s recommendation. Around this same time, Endō introduced a number of writers, including Miura Shumon, Yashiro Seiichi, Setoumi Harumi and Kawakami Tetsutarō to Father Inoue, providing the priest with frequent opportunities to associate with other writers who were interested in Christianity. In his 1977 essay, “Tsugi-tsugi to yūjin ga jusen suru no o mite” (Watching My Friends Get Baptized One after Another, 1977), Endō wrote that “Yasuoka Shōtarō once remarked that he might become Catholic when he died” (ESBZ 13: 262). This statement suggests that Yasuoka had likely been influenced as he observed these writers either being baptized or displaying an affinity with Christianity. At the funeral mass conducted by Father Inoue when the critic Kawakami Tetsutarō, another who had a strong interest in Christianity, died in May 1988, Yasuoka forcefully complained, “I’m afraid that the Catholic Bible and the translated vocabulary used in it are no good. They give me the shivers” (ESBZ 13: 262). Endō remarked that seeing Yasuoka so intent on finding fault gave him the feeling that Yasuoka was unable to be apathetic toward religion (Yasuoka 2013, 308). In May 1988, Yasuoka, his wife Mitsuko, and their daughter Haruko were all baptized by Father Inoue. Yasuoka had been hospitalized for half a year in late 1986 following a heart attack and painful gallstones and, during his hospitalization, his daughter Haruko underwent cancer surgery in a different hospital. Haruko has remarked that these crises may have given her father a push to be baptized (Yasuoka Haruko 2013, 316–18). In a short story, “Kōyō kara aoba e” (From Yellow Leaves to Green Leaves), which Yasuoka wrote about the time when Haruko had cancer surgery while he was still in the hospital, an elementary school-aged boy goes with his father, as he delivers newspapers. While he waits for his father, the boy sees a young child playing all alone in the courtyard of a hospital, and he “concluded that the child was pretending with all his might to be having fun, trying not to display to his surroundings the fact that he was lonely.” However, he realizes that “the child was creating his own personal world” and he “unconsciously felt, while watching the child’s surroundings gradually sink into the colors of nightfall as he played single-mindedly in the courtyard, that he and I were merging into one” (Yasuoka Haruko 2013, 319). Regarding this story, Haruko said she “couldn’t shake the feeling that the story was about me” (Yasuoka Haruko 2013, 319). Note what she goes on to say: When my father heard that I had cancer, I think he must have braced himself for my death. And for a short time, he doubted whether his daughter had had any joy in her life. But as he thought about it, he concluded that, no, unbeknownst to her father, his daughter must have built her own individual world, and I think he must have felt that he and his own child should give themselves over to the great Existence that enfolded them. (Yasuoka Haruko 2013, 320)

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This story’s description of a “nightfall” that warmly enfolds humankind calls to mind Yasuoka’s interpretation of the depiction of a transcendent existence in Masamune’s “Beside the Bay.” In this sense, Haruko’s interpretation of the light at the time of nightfall as “the great Existence enfolding the child and himself ” can be said to indicate the most significant religious symbolism in Yasuoka’s writings. Doubtless, when Yasuoka learned that his young daughter had developed cancer, like Masu facing the death of her daughter in Tales of Homeless Wandering, he felt “unbearable compassion,” and within these feelings, one can sense, just as Kobayashi had predicted in his review, that this resulted in Yasuoka’s decision to “walk toward the cross” together with his family. What we see here is that, within an image of God for which Yasuoka had yearned and which was imparted to him by Father Inoue, there was a motherly Existence that accepts and enfolds the sorrows of humankind, as symbolized by the light at the time of “nightfall.”

The terminal point of Yasuoka’s writings and his post-conversion state of mind When his short story collection, Hashire Tomahōku (Run, Tomahawk!), originally published in 1973, appeared in paperback form in 1988, the year he was baptized, Yasuoka added an Afterword entitled “Watashi jishin no shōsha” (My Own Little Hut), which contains the following noteworthy description: As I wrote in “Run, Tomahawk!”, while I clung to the back of the first large horse I had ever ridden, I thought about my father jostled around on his horse on the battlefields of China, and I felt that I needed to apologize for my lack of respect toward him. But when the horse approached his own stable he suddenly galloped in a straight line toward it; I too was searching for my own little hut. (Yasuoka 1988, 251; emphasis added) In this story, Yasuoka describes the experience in America when he rode a horse for the first time. After the horse had taken a very long route past forests and rivers and rocky mountains, when the “stable” belonging to the pack of horses came into view in the distance, the horses raced in unison toward their own “little huts.” This “little hut” that Yasuoka himself had been “searching for” can be interpreted as the welcoming heart of God, the homeland to which his soul might one day return. Here, it is important to point out that Yasuoka, describing himself almost sixteen years before his baptism as he confronted his “spiritual emptiness,” states that he had a religious yearning that led him to seek a “little hut” to which his soul could return. In addition, for the 1990 paperback edition of his novel Maku ga orite kara (After the Curtain Falls), originally written in 1967, Yasuoka wrote an Afterword entitled “‘Kurikaeshi’ no yami no naka de” (In the “Recurring” Gloom). In discussing the background for writing this novel, Yasuoka here comments that his motivation for writing the work came from his increasingly clear awareness that he had been “carrying something that was spiritually difficult to heal” from around the time of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics, when “each of us had started to recover from the ‘prewar period’” (Yasuoka 1990, 305). After the Curtain Falls, the novel

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in which Yasuoka unflinchingly confronts these issues, has a unique construction in which “one day, some ten years after the war ended, as [the protagonist] is describing the events of the day, various experiences he had after the war come hurtling toward him, abruptly and fragmentally” (Yasuoka 1990, 307). In that sense, Yasuoka comments that, as the story unfolds, he purposely eliminated aspects of “temporal development” within the protagonist, and his description of the “stagnation in the immature core of the protagonist” is the “hidden theme of the novel” (Yasuoka 1990, 308). Precisely because the protagonist cannot move forward since he “cannot make himself understand what is happening to him,” he “continues to sit in the ‘recurring’ gloom,” and in that “stagnated” situation, he searches for a way to “make himself understand” in order to “discover himself.” Yasuoka portrays his protagonist caught in this dilemma in the following way: He continues to sit in the gloom, wondering whether at some point a faint light might come shining in. Of course, it is pointless for him to merely hope for that to happen. That said, though, it would likely be too arrogant of him to outright deny the possibility that it could occur. No, it definitely is not the case that the protagonist is rejecting his own “maturation.” It’s merely that he is continually pondering his heart, and he is stuck in the process of somehow or other discovering himself even as he continues to worry too much about his past. Had he been able to find himself, in that moment he would spontaneously attain “maturity.” (Yasuoka 1990, 309–10; emphasis added) Here Yasuoka explains that the reason his protagonist is seeking to “somehow or other discover” himself is because, in truth, he is seeking to achieve “maturity” “spontaneously” by “finding himself.” One can indeed say that Yasuoka, at the time he wrote After the Curtain Falls, was, like the novel’s protagonist, seeking his own “maturity” by “finding himself ” “in the ‘recurring’ gloom” even as he continued to be preoccupied with the issue of the “postwar.” We must not ignore the significance of the fact that this process of finding himself after writing Tales of Homeless Wandering and Boku no Shōwa-shi (My Shōwa History, 1980–88) coincides with Yasuoka’s encounter with the Christian faith. We can say that, even though there are no indications in After the Curtain Falls that the protagonist does find himself and achieve maturity, from the point at which Yasuoka was ready to receive baptism, he reflected back on himself within the recurring gloom, “continually pondering his heart” and “[continuing] to worry too much about his past” and saw this as a yearning for a maturation that was linked to the development of religious faith. Next I want to consider the short story “Inu” (Dog), published in May 1988, the month that Yasuoka was baptized. The story takes place in mid-December 1943, when it has already been decided that the protagonist will be conscripted in another three months. He is invited by the younger brother of his friend, O, who had already been drafted on 1 December, to attend a gathering along with several of his friends, where they are treated to a dinner as an expression of thanks for all that the protagonist did for O at the time of his induction. After dinner, the men are playing mahjong when the secret police storm in, shouting at them, and they are sent back to their homes late at night.

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Just as in Yasuoka’s previous works, this story depicts the loneliness of a protagonist who is spending idle days and months as he waits to be drafted during wartime. But I want to call attention to the shepherd dog that walks the road home alongside the protagonist as a companion in his loneliness. While the protagonist initially feels friendly toward the large shepherd dog that is following him, at the same time he fears that the dog might bite him. However, on his way back home he is attacked by a pack of wild dogs and only just escapes into a nearby telephone booth. At that moment, the shepherd dog “leaps toward the pack of wild dogs” as though he is trying to fend them off (Yasuoka 1994, 83–84). When the pack of wild dogs has fled, the protagonist cautiously emerges and realizes that the shepherd dog is waiting for him beside the telephone booth. He is “moved, as though he has encountered a friend who has just returned from the battlefield and, without thinking, he puts his arms around the dog’s neck.” He tries to think of a way he can take care of the dog, but there is no way he can avoid entering the military in only three months, and it depresses him that “the craving for a peaceful life of which he had already despaired was sprouting inside him.” He mutters to the dog, “Go away now. If my feelings toward you grow any stronger, it will only make the separation that much more painful.” But just after he says that, he realizes that the dog, as though it has intuited his feelings, has disappeared (Yasuoka 1994, 85–86). “Forty-five years” pass, and the protagonist remarks that “ever since my heart attack two years ago at the end of the year, I quit raising dogs.” He continues by noting that, for some reason, he “began remembering fondly that shepherd dog I met just before I entered the army” (Yasuoka 1994, 86–87). The story ends with the following: It’s just that, sometimes I unconsciously stop and look behind me. Of course, there’s nothing there. But still, I deliberately call out, though not uttering a sound, “He—ey! Where have you gone? Hurry back here…!” And then, for just an instant, the shadowy form of that black shepherd, who has followed me here, races across my field of vision. It follows me soundlessly across the gulf of half a century. (Yasuoka 1994, 87) Taking into consideration that a central theme of Yasuoka’s writings is the ongoing pursuit of all that was lost in the War, we need to acknowledge the significance of this depiction of the shepherd dog who accompanies him in his loneliness and sorrow as the war is raging. And when we take into account the fact that this story was written just before his baptism, Yasuoka appears to be professing his own faith as he melds the image of the shepherd dog who “follows me… across the gulf of half a century” with the image of Jesus as his companion.

The state of Yasuoka’s faith in his final years—a conclusion At the time of Yasuoka’s baptism, Endō Shūsaku presented his friend with a gift of a statue of Mary as a memento. That Yasuoka cherished this statue can be seen from a letter he sent to Endō in which he said “Every morning and every evening I clasp my hands together and pray to this statue of Mary that was imported from Spain” (Yasuoka 2013, 105).

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Furthermore, when Endō was diagnosed with liver failure, Yasuoka sent him a letter that read, “I love and am truly grateful for the statue of Mary that I received from you when I was baptized; but I think that the one who really needs that image of Mary right now is you more than I, so please keep it with you until your health is restored. Then send it back to me once you’re well” (Yasuoka 2013, 107). Yasuoka’s wife, Mitsuko, delivered the statue of Mary to Endō’s hospital room. From the comments in letters such as this one, it is clear that, for Yasuoka, recognizing that there were far more people enduring the sorrows of life than he could comfort even though he wished to, Mary was a motherly figure who would accept and console him when he sensed that it was a situation toward which he felt “unbearable compassion.” In his final years, walking along the banks of the Tama River turned into a daily activity for Yasuoka, and the views of sunrise and sunset along the river became a mental landscape that symbolized his religious world. Note the following that Yasuoka wrote in his essay collection, Shi to no taimen (Facing Death, 1997), regarding this emotional state: As I was walking beside the river, there was a splash right in the middle of the water, and a koi carp leaped up. At that exact same moment, a single shaft of light flickered off to my left, as though the sun had just risen. And for just an instant my eyes captured a bright flash from the silvery scales of the koi as it caught the sunlight. I think that heaven must be an incredibly beautiful place, a place that the Tama River can’t begin to compare with, but there’s no doubt that a city like Tokyo that’s normally stained with pollution can, for just a fleeting moment, display a scene this beautiful. Even though Endō is in heaven now, I thought how delightful it would be if he were strolling alongside me in such a beautiful moment. They say that when you die you go to heaven. But I think our dreams of heaven are like those times when we catch just a brief glimpse of something beautiful even when we’re in the center of a filthy town. … Without question there are those moments when we are stained with mire and corruption. We aren’t living in a place that overflows with nothing but beauty. Is this what it’s like to catch a brief glimpse of heaven? (Yasuoka 2012, 77–78) This scene along the Tama River is reminiscent of Masamune’s description in “Beside the Bay,” which Yasuoka interpreted as a great Existence that accepts and embraces the sorrows of humankind. And as we have seen, Yasuoka is a writer who lived with feelings of emptiness and loss through the ages of chaos in wartime and postwar Japan and who gazed unflinchingly at characters “stained with mire and corruption” amidst that emptiness in works such as After the Curtain Falls. But we cannot overemphasize the fact that ultimately Yasuoka discovered that there is “a brief glimpse of heaven” that shines through the grace of God that can reach even such characters. This is the state of mind that Yasuoka attained through his baptism.

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In 1999, Yasuoka made his status as a Christian clear with publication of the work, Wa­ rera naze Kirisutokyōto to narishi ka (Why Did We Become Christians?), which comprised a series of discussions he held with Father Inoue. I would also like to call attention to this statement by Yasuoka’s daughter, Haruko, regarding her father in his final years following his baptism: There was no particular change in my father after his conversion. But I felt as though his concern for, and tender feelings toward, weak individuals and tiny creatures increased. Father Inoue was kind enough to say that, after my father’s baptism, “he now has such a wonderfully gentle face. It’s truly unusual for a person’s face to change this much.” (Yasuoka Haruko 2013, 317) Additionally, Haruko has written, “Two or three years after my father’s eightieth birthday, it seemed as though every day he was giving back to God one after another the functions of his mind and body, and his final years were exactly as expressed in a verse by the Zen Buddhist poet, Ryōkan, that was a favorite of Father Inoue: The autumn leaf falls/showing its underside/showing its surface.” At the same time, she noted that, “even as my father gradually lost his faculties in his final years, he never grumbled with discontent or complained of anxiety, but to the very end he maintained his bright, humorous personality” (Yasuoka Haruko 2013, 319–20). This characterization of Yasuoka in his final years, filled with compassion and quietude, powerfully conveys the depths of tranquility that the author had attained through his faith, a tranquility arrived at only after the many pains and struggles he experienced during the War and postwar chaos. Yasuoka passed away from the infirmities attending old age on 26 January 2013, at the age of 92. Beginning in adolescence he had continually confronted feelings of “spiritual emptiness”; but in his final years he found what he had been longing for: surely he felt the joy of having encountered an Existence that acknowledged and filled that “emptiness” when his life ended.

Notes 1 This hymn is a very free translation into Japanese of the hymn, “I am Coming to the Cross,” written in 1870 by William McDonald; the last two lines of the refrain in English read “Humbly at Thy cross I bow/ Save me, Jesus, save me now” [translator’s note]. 2 This work was originally published in English and subsequently translated into Japanese. It is impossible to overemphasize the important role that Uchimura Kanzō (1861-1930) played in the development of attitudes toward Christianity beginning in the Meiji Period. Although he was baptized in 1878 by a Methodist minister, he and other young men at the Sapporo Agricultural College broke off and established an independent church that would eventually lead to what is known as the “Non-church (mukyōkai) movement.” Disappointed by the dogmatism in the theological schools he attended during his four years in the United States (1884–1888), Uchimura returned to Japan and gained a wide following among young Christian intellectuals, writers, and businessmen through his writings and his support of pacifism.

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References Endō, S. (1999–2000). Endō Shūsaku bungaku zenshū [The Collected Literary Works of Endō Shūsaku] (15 vols.). Tokyo: Shinchōsha. (cited as ESBZ) Inoue, Y. (2016). Hito wa naze ikiru ka [Why do people live?]. In Yamane M., (ed.), Inoue Yōji chosaku senshū [Selected writings of Inoue Yōji] (vol. 6). Tokyo: Nihon Kirisutokyō Shuppankyoku, 11–158. Kobayashi, H. (2000). Ryūritan o yomu [Reading Tales of Homeless Wandering]. In Yasuoka S., Ryūritan [Tales of Homeless Wandering] (vol. I). Tokyo: Kōdansha, 510–58. Yasuoka, H. (2013). Atogaki ni kaete [In place of an afterword]. In Yasuoka S., Bunshi no yūjō—Yoshiyuki Junnosuke no koto nado [Friendship Among Writers: About Yoshiyuki Junnosuke and Others]. Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 312–21. Yasuoka, S. (1962). Amerika kanjō ryokō [A Sentimental Journey in America]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shoten. ———. (1971). Yasuoka Shōtarō zenshū [Collected Works of Yasuoka Shōtarō] (7 vols.). Tokyo: Kōdansha. ———. (1986) Yasuoka Shōtarō-shū [Works by Yasuoka Shōtarō] (10 vols.). Tokyo, Iwanami Shoten. ———. (1988). Hashire Tomahōku [Run, Tomahawk!]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. ———. (1990). Maku ga orite kara [After the Curtain Falls]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. ———. (1994). Yūhi no kawagishi [The Riverbank at Sunset]. Tokyo: Shinchōsha. ———. (2000). Ryūritan [Tales of Homeless Wandering] (2 vols.). Tokyo: Kōdansha. ———. (2012). Shi to no taimen: Toki o ikiru [Facing Death: Living for the Time]. Tokyo: Kōbunsha. ———. (2013). Taidan Inoue Yōji, Endō Shūsaku, Yasuoka Shōtarō, “Bokutachi no shinkō” [A Conversation among Inoue Yōji, Endō Shūsaku, and Yasuoka Shōtarō, “Our Faith”]. In Yasuoka S., Bunshi no yūjō— Yoshiyuki Junnosuke no koto nado [Friendship among Writers: About Yoshiyuki Junnosuke and Others]. Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 270–311. ———. (2018). Boku no Shōwa-shi [My Shōwa History]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. Yasuoka, S. & Inoue, Y. (1999). Warera naze Kirisutokyōto to narishi ka [Why Did We Become Christians?] Tokyo: Kōbunsha.

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Chapter 12 Miura Ayako and the Human Face of Faith Philip Gabriel From the beginning of her career Miura Ayako, one of the most widely-read and popular Christian writers in Japan, was far from a “hidden” Christian. Openly declaring that her work as a writer was motivated by a desire to share the Gospel, her early novels Freezing Point and Shiokari Pass, and the autobiographical work, There is a Way, won for her a wide readership and sparked discussion in Japan on Christianity, the ideas of sin, faith, and redemption and the role of the Christian writer. A prolific writer throughout her career, Miura wrote in a variety of genres, including numerous essays, which directly address her own understanding of faith, and her final novel, Muzzle, is a saga that spans the entire Shōwa era and depicts one man’s coming to faith after experiencing imprisonment and war. In all her works we see how Miura, and her characters, struggle with their own human weaknesses as they confront the meaning of belief, and its implications for their lives.

Introduction Miura Ayako (1922–1999) made her literary debut in 1964, when her first novel Hyōten (Freezing Point*) was awarded first prize in a nationwide contest sponsored by the Asahi newspaper company.1 Winning out over 730 other entries, Miura, an unknown housewife in the Hokkaido city of Asahikawa, vaulted overnight from obscurity to literary stardom. Freezing Point marked the beginning of a long and successful career as a prolific and highly popular writer of novels, essays and biographies, with numerous TV and film adaptions of her better-known works, and over forty million in total sales (Kamide 2001, 117).2 Miura’s success during the course of her career has sparked much debate over the relationship between “serious” and popular literature, and about the sometimes-intertwined role of religious faith and literature.3 Unlike many other Christian writers in Japan, Miura Ayako has made it clear that her priority in writing was religious, rather than literary (Kamide 2001, 115–16). This arguably puts her in clear opposition to other Japanese Christian writers, such as Endō Shūsaku and Shimao Toshio, who see themselves more as writers first, and Christians second. As Miura puts it:

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In my case, this might be a literature of apologetics, a proselytizing literature. In terms of literature, maybe that’s not proper. But I have continued to write down to the present fully aware of these things. At any rate, I don’t place literature as supreme. Rather, I place God as supreme, and because of this, as a believer in Japan, what I must do now is tell others about Christ. Therefore, you could say that I don’t suffer from struggling to make “faith and literature” compatible, as other writers who are Christians have. (Kamide 2001, 115–16) Miura further comments that “I wonder if I had been born in a Christian country what kind of novels I would write. At least I probably wouldn’t have written the kind of novels-asintroduction-to-Christianity that I have done so far. (Putting aside whether these ended up being so, that was my honest intention in writing them)” (Kamide 2001, 116). Miura was certainly aware of criticism of her writing as “literature as serving a master” (shujin-mochi no bungaku) and as apologetic literature. But the bottom line for her was always clear: “Right now, what I want is simply to tell others of Christ” (Kamide 2001, 116–17). Given all this, Kamide sees it as difficult to assess Miura’s reputation (Kamide 2001, 16): she calls Miura’s literary project “extremely solitary,” seeing it as bringing something incompatible with both modern literature and Christianity, a thought echoed, perhaps, in the words of Etō Jun who, commenting on the popularity of Freezing Point, calls it a work that poses a “challenge” (Kamide 2001, 12–13). Miura clearly has had both detractors and supporters in the literary world. In response to Freezing Point, Tagawa Kenzō, a critic and scholar of the New Testament, for example, writes that, in contrast to Endō “who includes Christianity deeply in his works, … all [Miura] does is just sprinkle a few cheap Christian concepts in her work, doing nothing more than giving her work an atmosphere of Christianity” (Kamide 2001, 12). The result, he argues, is a work that is neither deeply Christian nor very literary. Tagawa fears that, in Kamide’s words, the “weak literary nature of her work will affect Christianity itself and weaken it as well and further stir up the conflict between literature and religion.” While there may be a proselytizing power in her works—Kamide notes how many readers have come to faith through reading her work—there is also a sense of “danger” in the face of Miura’s strong stance as a believer first (Kamide 2001, 12). In essence, Tagawa does not lament that the writer struggles with Christian themes in her work; rather, he is disappointed by what he views as a diluted version of both faith and literature in Miura’s first novel. Others have had a much more positive view of Miura’s work. Kuroko Kazuo, for instance, sees Christianity as tied into the same sort of appeal to universal human essence to which novels should aspire, so he does not view the kind of “believer first” stance of Miura as creating an imbalance or as antithetical to the creation of moving literature (Kamide 2001, 117–18). Unlike Tagawa, Kuroko claims that Miura’s works are not shallow, but appeal to her legion of readers precisely because the message in them “reaches to the depths of her readers’ spirits” (Kamide 2001, 117). He sees her work as “transcend[ing] the level of Christian faith and rooted in the essence of human beings,” arguing that, “since Christianity is also bound up in the universality of human beings (their essence), for Miura, Christianity and literature both spring from the same roots” (Kamide 2001, 118). 208

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One should always keep in mind the challenges faced by Miura. Unlike a writer who does not foreground her faith in her works, Miura’s firm stance of “telling others about Christ” through her writing meant that she was always engaged in an uphill battle, a complex series of adjustments and even compromises as, like Jesus in His parables, she attempted to transmit truths about God and the human condition through the vehicle of entertaining stories, all the while understanding that her reading audience was, at best, only vaguely in tune with the tenets of her faith. In short, she was, as is true of any Christian writer in Japan, a minority writer.

Freezing Point (Hyōten) This struggle can be seen in Miura’s very first novel, Freezing Point, which intimates at spiritual and religious questions rather than fully exploring them. As I have argued elsewhere (Gabriel 2006, 11–47), when the novel was set for publication, it was announced that the theme was genzai, original sin, a term generally so unfamiliar to Japanese that the phonetic reading for the term was provided; this, in turn, generated considerable in-print debate and discussion over the meaning of the term. However, in this sometimes melodramatic, and always entertaining, novel of marital unfaithfulness, deceit, hidden identities and murder, Miura in essence sidesteps the usual Christian definition of original sin, tying it, not to all mankind’s condition because of the Fall, but rather to the sins of individuals, to people whose parents, for instance, have sinned and whose sin is now revisited on the next generation. As I have written elsewhere (Gabriel 2006, 11–47), the novel presents three kinds of sinners: the sinner who is unaware of sin (Natsue); the self-reflective, suffering sinner who seeks redemption but cannot take the final step towards it (Keizō); and the sinner who is fully conscious of sin but seeks to die as an escape from, and atonement for, sin (Yōko). A 1967 article by a reviewer makes it clear that de-emphasizing the idea of original sin was a good strategic move, especially for a first novel, for otherwise the novel may have come across as overly moralizing (Gabriel 2006, 33). Though Freezing Point successfully launched Miura’s career, it greatly toned down her faith in favor of a moving drama and, for a writer with such strong religious convictions and such a strong sense of purpose in writing to share the Gospel, the novel might be seen as less than a success. As Miura herself noted, “I’m very happy that so many people read the book, but my inability as a writer meant readers couldn’t fully understand what I wanted to convey, namely the Christian idea of original sin” (cited in Gabriel 2006, 33). It is really only in the sequel to Freezing Point, Zoku Hyōten (serialized from 1970 to 1971; hereafter Freezing Point II) that Miura more openly, and effectively, addresses ideas of God, faith, sin and forgiveness. Freezing Point II is the inevitable sequel after the cliffhanger at the end of Freezing Point that had readers anxious about whether the main character, Yōko (named, incidentally, after Miura’s own sister who died as a child), lived or died. Having established her readership, and herself as writer, one can clearly see Miura now more confidently and openly displaying her stance as a Christian writer. The pattern for much of her later literature is established here, namely the writer who, in a simple, straightforward prose style, is unafraid to “tell others about Christ” through her writing. As one critic notes, if the theme of Freezing Point is (however haltingly) original sin, the theme of Freezing Point II takes this a step further by exploring the forgiveness of sin

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(Harada 2001, 369). Even more so than Freezing Point, Freezing Point II has a myriad of characters, back stories and side plots, but the story essentially boils down to two of the main characters very gradually being exposed to, and being affected by, the Christian gospel—to the point where their seemingly implacable hatred and hardened hearts learn to forgive. These characters are Keizō, a doctor, and his adopted daughter, Yōko. The complex story essentially boils down to Keizō wanting forgiveness for what he has done to his wife, Natsue, and to Yōko. In Freezing Point, Keizō and Natsue’s real daughter was murdered when Natsue neglected her to flirt with another man, and Keizō hatched the idea of taking revenge on his wife by adopting the infant daughter of the killer, who had subsequently committed suicide, and forcing Natsue to raise her, all the while ignorant of her identity. This adopted daughter is Yōko. The main plot lines concern Yōko’s understanding of her true identity, and Keizō’s mental anguish with what he has done. Freezing Point II takes the story further by depicting these two characters’ search for forgiveness—Keizō’s desire for forgiveness for his deception, and Yōko’s desire to forgive her real birth mother, who had given her up for adoption. Setting a pattern for much of her later fiction, in Freezing Point II it is often the minor characters who point the way toward faith for the main characters whose ever so slow, and painful, transition to an understanding of the true relationship between humans and God forms the backbone of the works. One character here, Tatsuko, Natsue’s friend, though not a Christian, is often the voice of reason in the novel.4 In one scene, involving Natsue, her love interest Dr. Murai, and Tatsuko, we read the following, as Natsue notices a church outside Tatsuko’s home: Natsue: “What is that cross? A church?” Under the cloudy sky a cross was directly visible on a tall building in the background. Tatsuko: “It’s a church all right.” Murai: “Nothing to do with me, then.” Tatsuko: “Someone like Dr. Murai should go, don’t you think? Right, Natsue?” Natsue smiled awkwardly. Murai: “No, Tatsuko, there’s no god to save a profligate like me.” Tatsuko: “What a trite remark. They say, though, that the profligates and villains are the easiest to save. If you really think you’re wicked, then you can’t hold your head up in front of God. That’s the easiest [person to save]. The ones who are the hardest are the people who feel—in front of both men and God—that they haven’t done a single thing wrong.” (Miura 2000, 2: 54)5 This quotation of course echoes the memorable parable of Jesus in Luke 17: 10–14 (NIV) about the proud Pharisee and the humble tax collector, and how “those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Similarly, Tatsuko much later mentions reading in a novel the words, “Don’t seek revenge yourself. I am the one who will take revenge. I will mete out a reward.” She has been harboring thoughts of revenge for the death in jail of her lover, a political dissident, but now comes to the realization that, “instead of my taking revenge, a far more

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impartial judgment will take place. And I started to think that the one who can truly judge can truly grant forgiveness, and will truly take vengeance” (Miura 2000, 2: 190–91). Talk of revenge and vengeance aside, Tatsuko’s emphasis on “the one who can truly grant forgiveness” underscores the main theme of the novel. As already noted, in Freezing Point II it is often the minor characters who point the way to this type of spiritual understanding and awakening. As I have written earlier: The stories of these minor characters forcefully demonstrate that one cannot opt out of sin and suffering. It is part of the human condition and the question is how to deal with it. Junko [the murderer Saishi’s real daughter] shows the importance of Christ’s atonement. Tatsuko describes the futility of human hate and revenge, as judgment—and forgiveness—come ultimately only from God. Keiko [Yōko’s birth mother] shows the compounding of sin and the necessity for confession. Yakichi’s story [Keiko’s husband, who committed war crimes in China] reveals both the universality of sin and the blessing that comes from forgiving others. (Gabriel 2006, 38) The pattern in Miura’s work is thus set early on—of having minor characters reveal truths that the stumbling, sometimes obtuse main characters only gradually understand, of minor characters in essence being the ones who lead the main characters down a slow, painful path to spiritual awakening and faith. As we shall see below, two other early works, the 1968 novel Shiokari tōge (Shiokari Pass*) and Miura’s autobiographical work Michi ariki (There is a Way, volume 1 of which was published in 1969), reveal the same pattern, as does her final novel, Jūkō (Muzzle, 1994). As I have stated elsewhere, Miura’s genius lies in outlining, in a detailed, evolving manner, for an audience who, for the most part, is skeptical of any literary proselytizing, the way in which an ordinary person comes to understand extraordinary truths (Gabriel 2006, 41). Yōko’s spiritual awakening, her hard-won forgiveness of her adulterous mother at the end of Freezing Point II is one of the more memorable scenes in Miura’s entire oeuvre. Yōko travels to Abashiri (as with many of Miura’s novels, this one is set in her native Hokkaido), known primarily for its infamous prison. As she passes the prison, Yōko considers the prisoners locked away to atone for sins and wonders, “But is sin something to be atoned for?” (Miura 2000, 2: 356). That morning, Keizō had given her a Bible to take and had urged her to read John 8: 1–11, the story of the woman caught in adultery. As she stares at the frozen landscape, Yōko contemplates her own heart, as frigid as the ice before her, unable to forgive her mother Keiko. She thinks: (Original sin!) Yōko suddenly recalled this term about which she had heard from Keizō. With this massive, unyielding ice field before her, Yōko felt she understood for the first time the ugliness concealed in her heart. Jesus alone was qualified to throw the stone, but He didn’t throw one at the adulterous woman. Instead He warmly forgave her. Yōko couldn’t help but remember that.

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(But why…?) Why did Jesus forgive her? Because even at the cost of our human life sin cannot be fundamentally atoned for? Certainly there is no way to deal with sin other than through forgiveness. (Miura 2000, 2: 362–63) As she watches the sheet of ice before her, Yōko suddenly notices a red stain on the ice, the ice burning like “fires on the plain [nobi].” She watches as the red spreads, “like drops of blood seeping into the ice,” and is “struck by the deep feeling that she witnessing, before her very eyes, the blood of Christ shed on the cross” (Miura 2000, 2: 366). This is Yōko’s moment of revelation, at the end of the massive saga that comprises both volumes of Freezing Point: Watching the brilliant flames, Yōko thought that there was indeed a God who could, right now, truly forgive human sin. Junko had told her that only through the sacred life of God’s Son could sin be atoned for, and now Yōko could believe that was true. Someone who could, silently, accept a cold-hearted person like herself. Why didn’t I believe this up till now? (Miura 2000, 2: 367) Yōko cries out in her heart to Keiko to forgive her, and picks up the phone to tell her of her own forgiveness. One could, of course, argue that Miura is still keeping forgiveness of sin more on the human level: Yōko should be depicted crying out to God before Keiko. But enough of Yōko’s revelation of the relationship between humans and God, and the saving grace of Jesus’ blood, has been shown here, at the end, to justify the conclusion that Freezing Point II is the Christian story Miura had tried, unsuccessfully, to tell in the original Freezing Point. In comparing Miura to such esteemed literary figures as Sōseki, Akutagawa and Dazai, the critic Harada Yōichi writes that Sōseki shows us the capriciousness of love and the absence of hope for salvation, Akutagawa the egotistical nature of humans, and Dazai how people are “no longer human.” Only Miura, he writes, provides a prescription for hope, a way out of “humankind’s illness,” creating in her work a “literature of salvation” (sukui no bungaku) (cited in Gabriel 2006, 47). A passing remark in a conversation between Keizō and Natsue drops a broad hint regarding another of Miura’s spiritual and literary concerns, namely that of love and self-sacrifice. The two are discussing love and, after Natsue argues that “love isn’t such a complicated thing,” Keizō counters: “But it is complicated… It’s a very tough thing, to love. True love means giving up that which is most precious to you.” “By ‘most important’ do you mean money or clothes or something like that?” “So life to you, Natsue, is number two in importance?” “Apart from life, that is what I’m saying.” “Being able to give up one’s life for another, that’s what love is.” (Miura 2000, 2: 330)

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Shiokari Pass (Shiokari tōge) Miura’s own favorite among her novels, and one of her most popular,6 takes up this very theme of giving up one’s life for another as an act of love. Shiokari Pass, published in 1968, between Freezing Point and Freezing Point II, focuses on this theme, as well as on another pattern in Miura’s work, namely her interest in spiritual biography and autobiography. Shiokari Pass recreates the life and sacrificial death of a little-known young railroad worker in Miura’s hometown of Asahikawa and can be read in conjunction with her own autobiography, There is a Way (which we will look at below), penned the following year and which traces her own rocky road to faith. Shiokari Pass was, notably, the first in a series of spiritual biographies Miura wrote, including Ai no kisai (A Genius of Love, 1983) about the businessman and Christian leader, Nishimura Kyūzō; Chiiroba-sensei monogatari (The Story of Our Pastor, the Young Donkey, 1986) about the pastor Enomoto Yasurō, leader of the Christian Ashram Movement in Japan; Yū ari, asa ari (There was Evening, and There was Morning, 1987)7 about Igarashi Kenji, a strong Christian who founded the Hakuyōsha Company in 1920; and Ware yowakereba (If I am Weak, 1988), about Yajima Kajiko, an educator and Christian activist who advocated for women’s education in Japan. (One should also note here her historical novel, Hosokawa Gracia-fujin (lit. Lady Hosokawa Gracia, 1975; translated as Lady Gracia: A Samurai Wife’s Love, Strife, and Faith*), a novel about the early Christian noblewoman Hosokawa Gracia, daughter of the 16th–century warlord, Akechi Mitsuhide). Unlike this series of spiritual biographies written in the 1980s, where plentiful documentary material was available (and in some cases Miura actually knew the subjects of the biographies), with Shiokari Pass, Miura was dealing with a subject simultaneously close to home and yet difficult to grasp. Nagano Masao, the young man on whose life the novel is based, was known only to a small circle of friends and church members in Miura’s home church (Rokujō Church in Asahikawa), and there was scant written documentation remaining after Nagano’s death in 1909: all that remained were a short memorial pamphlet, some postcards with his photo and last will, and a short article about him in the local church history (Gabriel 2006, 63). Miura had first heard of Nagano from an elderly church member, and she added his reminiscences to her meager store of documentation and, in essence, was left to base Shiokari Pass on scant evidence and to creatively imagine and recreate the actions and inner life of this remarkable man. The novel, or more properly this biographical novel, remains a powerful account of one person’s journey to faith, and his ultimate loving sacrifice. Nagano Masao (called Nagano Nobuo in the novel; Miura also changed one of the kanji characters in the name Nagano, too, to a homonym) was a young railroad employee in Hokkaido in the early 1900s, and also quite active in Christian missionary and evangelistic outreach circles. He had traveled to deliver an evangelistic address to a Christian group when, on the evening of 28 February 1909, he was returning to Asahikawa by train when the last car in the train came uncoupled at the steep Shiokari Pass north of the city and began speeding backward down the tracks. Fearing for the passengers’ lives, Nagano attempted to stop the car with the emergency brake and, when that failed, according to eyewitnesses he threw himself under the car, stopping it and sacrificing himself to save others. In Miura’s interviews with Nagano’s friends and acquaintances she heard him lauded as an “incarnation of love,” and Miura says she found it hard to imagine the real life of such an exemplary figure (Gabriel 2006, 64). Though some readers find the Nobuo of the novel almost too good to be

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true, it is critical to note that Miura intentionally humanized him by depicting him as a man full of self-doubt, a person who comes to faith only after an enormous inner struggle over many years.8 Critics have speculated about autobiographical elements in the novel, whether, for instance, the two devout Christian women in the novel who most influence Nobuo— Kiku, his estranged mother, banished from the home for her beliefs, and his sickly fiancée, Fujiko—reflect in some way aspects of Miura’s own autobiography. But it is Nobuo’s own spiritual transformation from a person with great antipathy toward Christianity to devout believer that most closely parallels Miura’s own journey of faith. This point becomes clearer when we consider Miura’s own spiritual biography, There is a Way, published one year after Shiokari Pass. One of the surprising aspects of Shiokari Pass is indeed the widespread and vehement opposition to Christianity, both on a personal level (Nobuo’s own early feelings) and a societal level (the extensive prejudice and opposition to the formerly banned religion in the early years of the Meiji period, 1867–1912). Nobuo is the one holdout in his family who rails against the Christianity of his mother and sister, incensed that his mother does not carry out Buddhist rituals for her deceased mother-in-law, and even at one point declaring he will become a Buddhist priest when he grows up. In Shiokari Pass, much more than in Freezing Point and its sequel, Miura traces a spiritual bildungsroman that shows a gradual, but ultimately drastic, transformation in the main character as Nobuo grows from a person who detests Christianity to an evangelist whose sacrificial death brings even hardnosed skeptics to convert to the faith. As I have argued elsewhere: For her intended audience of ordinary Japanese, Shiokari Pass reads like a primer of Christian beliefs… Miura concentrates on presenting a step-by-step view of how an ordinary Japanese, filled initially with ignorance of and antipathy toward Christianity, comes to understand the Christian teachings about man’s sinful state and how it can be overcome through reliance on God…. If the Freezing Point novels are comparable to Paul’s shorter epistles, Shiokari Pass is Miura’s Romans, her theological magnum opus. At the same time, the novel presents Japanese readers with the radical nature of Christianity as it confronts the givens of their society. The religion’s radical egalitarianism and call to duty beyond family and state run counter to much of the accepted ideology of modern Japan, and make the novel a challenge to readers today. (Gabriel 2006, 80) There is, indeed, much discussion scattered throughout the novel of Christian beliefs and doctrine, and discussions by the characters, including an intriguing reading of the parable of the Good Samaritan. At one point, Nobuo is challenged by a street preacher to try to put one part of the Bible into action in his life. Nobuo chooses the Good Samaritan story and attempts to help his colleague Mihori but finds: I thought that, seeing I had loved him from the heart and been a good friend to him, naturally he would be glad. But he did not accept my efforts and I built up a great hatred toward him. I was like the Samaritan, putting all my efforts into helping an injured, half-dead man on a mountain road, and I could not understand why he should shout at

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me…[and] roughly push off my helping hands… I realized that, right from the beginning, I had looked down on him. Every day I was unhappy and prayed to God. Then I heard God’s voice, “You yourself are the wounded traveler, fallen on the mountain road. The fact that you are continually crying out to me for help proves it.” I was the sinner who needed help. (Miura 1974, 226)9 This is a realization for Nobuo, who earlier in his opposition to Christianity viewed it as a refuge for the weak: “he did not think of himself as a weak person who needed to depend on God” (Miura 1974, 163). It is this realization of one’s own sinfulness, and the need for God, that is transformative. Equality in Miura’s world becomes the notion that all people are equal as sinners in God’s sight, and our shared human inheritance is that of original sin, the inherited sinful state of all. This discussion of the meaning of scripture is not to imply, however, that Miura sees the path to faith lying only, or even essentially, in an understanding of Christian theology. What brings Nobuo to faith is not theology or doctrine as much as the human character of the Christians he encounters, the examples set by others’ lives. Miura steers the reader away from an overly intellectual reaction to faith to a more visceral, emotional one (Gabriel 2006, 74). Street preachers, for instance, play an important role as both Kiku and Nobuo come to admire their fortitude and perseverance in the face of often intense, even physical, abuse from ordinary Japanese passers-by who often berate these street preachers, wondering what it is that sustains them. Speaking of street preachers, as an aside, in her book Shin’yaku seisho nyūmon (An Introduction to the New Testament, 1977) Miura writes that she herself always tried avoiding listening to Salvation Army street preaching; but now, serializing the essays that make up the book, she feels like a street preacher herself. She always sets herself up as a thoroughly ordinary believer: I am neither a preacher nor a teacher. I am nothing more than an ordinary believer who attends church every week, keeps worship service and listens to the pastor’s sermons. So I don’t have any specialized knowledge… Much of what I present here is, in my own fashion, second-hand, or even third-hand knowledge of the research of predecessors. … What I really want to convey here is that the Bible completely changed my life. (Miura 1984a, 5–7) The Bible and understanding of Christian teachings and doctrine are, of course, very important for Miura (she wrote book-length guides to both the Old and New Testaments); but the takeaway from a novel like Shiokari Pass is that, in large part, it is the examples set by others’ lives—other believers, rather than doctrine—that brings Nobuo to faith. And the same is true of his own life, as, through his own sacrificial death, Nobuo brings others to faith. Miura depicts how, for instance, ten young railway workers convert because of his example and how, when his will is read aloud (Nobuo always carried a copy with him), one acquaintance, Mihori, the ne’er-do-well colleague whose life Nobuo tried to turn around, has his life “changed… completely” by Nobuo’s sacrifice. Significantly, Mihori notes that “Nobuo’s sacrificial death, which I saw, was a more eloquent message to me than his will or anything else” (Miura 1974, 268–69). It is an interesting and important part of Miura’s approach that,

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more than preaching or an understanding of doctrine, we are ultimately moved by the examples of other people’s lives, how they live out their faith in their actions.

There is a Way (Michi ariki) In There is a Way, written immediately after Shiokari Pass, Miura moves from showing how this plays out in biographical fiction to how it is seen in autobiography, in her own life: how the people she met, and their lives, attitudes, words and faith helped bring her to faith in Christ. There is a Way is Part One of a three-part set of autobiographical writings: Michi ariki: seishun-hen (There is a Way: Youth, 1969);10 Kono tsuchi no utsuwa o mo: kekkon-hen (This Clay Jar Also: On Marriage, 1970); and Hikari aru uchi ni: shinkō nyūmon-hen (While There is Still Light: An Introduction to Faith, 1971). There is a Way is the first, and best known, of the three volumes, an autobiography that traces Miura’s long battles with illness, her relations with men, and her difficult journey to faith. The title, of course, is from the Gospel of John 14: 6: “I am the way [ware wa michi nari] and the truth and the life,” a verse which Miura includes in the epigraph. The fact that an author who has been publishing for only three years would come out with an autobiography is remarkable in itself, though no doubt explainable when we understand Miura’s sensational literary debut and the intense interest in this young woman writer who so openly espoused Christianity in a clearly non-Christian country. When she was in women’s high school, Miura heard someone say, “Women don’t have an inner life” (onna wa seishinteki na seikatsu wa nai), and she reacted strongly against this, telling herself, “Women too do have a soul. They have ideas. Indeed they should” (Miura 1980, 5; all subsequent references to this work are cited as page number only). There is a Way is her early attempt to corroborate this assertion, as it delves deeply into her own heart and soul, and is, as she puts it, “a history of my heart” (jibun no kokoro no rekishi). She notes that, although it is autobiography, she has used some made-up names for some of the people in order not to harm them in any way.11 Though one might expect her autobiography to cover childhood and adolescence, the story unexpectedly begins in 1946, when Miura was 24.12 From ages 17–24, Miura was an elementary school teacher in Hokkaido, one who apparently had few qualms about toeing the wartime ideological line when it came to teaching youngsters. Immediately after the defeat, however, when she and other teachers were ordered to have their pupils ink out parts of their textbooks, Miura experienced an overwhelming sense of shame and guilt for having deceived the children by teaching false doctrines such as emperor worship. At this point, in rapid succession, she became engaged, resigned from teaching, and fell ill with tuberculosis. She feels that TB, which she battled for the next thirteen years, is the punishment she deserves for deceiving innocent children, and at one point says she wanted to become a beggar because, unlike a teacher, no one listens to a beggar’s words (25). This is interesting for two reasons: the desire, on the part of someone now relating her life story (and writing prolifically) to be silent and avoid words, and her understanding of teachers as victimizers of their pupils. In her final novel, Muzzle, teachers themselves are depicted as victims of wartime oppression. Miura depicts her life at this point as one no doubt shared by many Japanese soon after the defeat: she says she lost all faith and trust and, without goals in life, does not care if she lives or dies (27–29):

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I had no idea what goals I should live for, and living itself was terribly painful. Unable to believe in anyone, everything in this world seemed in vain. A nihilistic life [kyomuteki na seikatsu] ruins a person. First of all because everything seems empty, and you feel no enthusiasm for living. Far from it, everything seems stupid. You come to see all existence in a negative light. You can’t even affirm your own existence. (29–30) Miura spent the next eleven years in the hospital, seven of them in a full body cast, as a variety of visitors, friends and intellectual ideas drifted in and out of her enforced sedentary life.13 Typical of a late 1940s-early 1950s young person, she made her way through all the usual secular sources of wisdom: Marxism and humanism, etc., rejecting them all in turn. At this point she met Maekawa Masashi, a childhood acquaintance, a top student locally who went on to study at the medical department at Hokkaido University, and a Christian who became a major influence on her (50). Because of her illness, Miura’s thoughts often turned to death and dying, and she first asked Maekawa about the death of his young sister, Mikiko. Miura remembers the young Mikiko often talking to her about Jesus, and inviting her to a church for the first time. Maekawa relates that it was because she was a true Christian that Mikiko could face death so calmly at age thirteen, and Miura is moved by the story (53). Though she finds Maekawa a bit dull, they begin corresponding, exchanging upwards of one thousand postcards over the years (55), and argue over such things as drinking: Maekawa thinks it is wrong, especially for someone in the hospital—to which Miura reacts hotly, claiming he has no right to preach to her. “Masashi-san,” she tells him, “That’s why I hate Christians, always acting all holier than thou” (59). She curses Christians as hypocrites who think that they are above others (63). Despite Maekawa’s attempts to nudge her towards his faith, Miura again turns to reading secular writings—Sartre, Tolstoy, and existentialism in particular—hoping to thereby learn something to show her meaning in life (63). In an early turning point, she asks Maekawa if suicide is a sin (65); she feels tired of life and doesn’t think she will ever be cured (68–69). Her question presages her suicide attempt, when she goes to a nearby beach to kill herself (71). Nishinaka, her fiancé, rescues her, but she is still left feeling empty, feeling that life is in vain because everything is destined to die and vanish (78). Maekawa urges her to be serious about life, to which Miura counters that she was serious during the War, but that it only made her suffer: “I believed during the War,” she notes, “but that was a mistake, so how can I believe again?” (79–81). In a memorable scene, Maekawa confesses how deeply he has prayed for her recovery, and suddenly he begins hitting his leg with a small stone to punish what he sees as his weakness and ability to pray effectively for her. Miura is naturally startled at the intensity of his reaction, and she cries, telling herself that believing in something again is stupid (oroka). At the same time, though, she figured that “it’s alright to be stupid” (shikashi watashi wa aete oroka ni natte mo ii to omotta) (81). This scene marks a turnaround in her thinking and the first steps for her on the road to faith in Christ. She stops drinking and smoking, and comes to the conclusion that religious believers are not necessarily better people than non-believers (94). She had felt this before, but whereas earlier she had dismissed them as hypocrites, now she is happy to discover a budding comradery, to recognize that there are weak, stupid people much like herself in church, and that, “if God can accept those people, then maybe he can even accept me” (95). She comes to the conclusion that the church is an assembly of sinners, not of the pure, and that she may belong there after all. Chapter 12: Miura Ayako and the Human Face of Faith

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Perhaps understandably for a nihilistic young woman whose belief system was so upended by Japan’s defeat, Miura is drawn to the message of Ecclesiastes—that “there is nothing new under the sun,” (Eccl. 1: 1) and she sees the vision of this Old Testament book exceeding even her own nihilism, its vision of wisdom as pointless since the wise and the foolish end up the same (100). Interestingly, Miura sees overlaps with some Buddhist views here, and concludes that nihilism is really the starting point for religion, the realization that, without some higher meaning, life is pointless. “Nihilism,” she writes, “negates everything in this world, and finally ends up negating even oneself, yet I felt in Ecclesiastes that, when one is driven to that point, something new opens up” (102). One line near the end of Ecclesiastes in particular is memorable to her: “Remember your Creator in the days of your youth” (Eccl. 12: 1). “I was really moved by this line,” she writes, “and after this, my seeking for the truth [kyūdō seikatsu] gradually became more serious” (102). Miura confronts her many shortcomings, concerned, for instance, that she is a woman of loose morals because of her many male friends (116). As she writes later, she essentially had two fiancés simultaneously; but now her budding faith allows her to confront possibly life-threatening surgical procedures with a greater sense of calm. She recognizes a will at work (ōinaru ishi) greater than individual will (123). And, as she moves toward baptism, which takes place in July 1952, Miura’s condition is diagnosed as more serious, and she is moved to a ward for more critical cases. When she subsequently learns that the patient who occupied her bed until now has died, she sees herself, as in 2 Corinthians, dying to her “old self,” making an interesting linkage between physical and spiritual death. (At this point, she quotes 2 Corinthians 5: 17: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come; the old has gone, the new is here!”) Before this, she makes the discovery that, “Isn’t an unawareness of sin the greatest sin of all?” (13) The linking of the spiritual and physical continues here as Pastor Nishimura Kyūzō (whose biography she was later to write) essentially tells her that, if we discover a physical illness, such as leprosy, within us, we waste no time in running to the doctor: the same holds true when we realize our sinful nature: we should run to God (216–17). On the day of her baptism, Miura is overcome by tears, with the realization that “someone unfaithful and sinful like me can belong to Christ” (Kirisuto no mono ni naru koto ga dekiru) (220). Soon after her baptism, Miura realizes that being a Christian entails evangelizing, and she begins to do so, albeit haltingly, talking to other patients about God and, interestingly, writing poems that deal with religious ideas. (Throughout the book, Miura uses poetry as an important vehicle of literary expression, scattering poems throughout, and at one point including more than three pages of her poems.) For example, one poem that concerns both Maekawa and original sin reads: I think about your intense eyes, you who have led me to recognize original sin. (279) Not long after her baptism, Miura suffered through the deaths of both Maekawa and Pastor Nishimura. Pastor Nishimura passes away first, in 1953, and Miura is moved by his teaching and great personal kindness to her, and she includes a tanka about their last meeting: You straightened up the futon on my bed that had slipped off and then left, our final meeting. (245)14 218

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Miura, in a hospital in Sapporo, decides to return to her hometown of Asahikawa and, in a poignant aside, notes how her brother, who accompanies her, has to describe the scenery passing by outside the train window since she is still in a body cast (249). Similarly, when Maekawa visits her at home, he holds up a hand mirror to show her the snow outside (255). These touching scenes remind us of the severity—over a dozen years—of Miura’s physical condition. In fact, it is the parallel stories of physical and spiritual struggle that give There is a Way its depth, dealing as it does with both physical and spiritual illness and rebirth. Her friend and closest spiritual mentor, Maekawa, himself long struggling with illness, passes away not long after this, which is naturally devastating to her; but in his final letter he encourages her in both her faith and her writing and, toward the last part of There is a Way, we see Miura finding the “work God has prepared for me” as she corresponds with other convalescents, writing postcards to them while she lies on her back, and finding that it takes three days to recover from writing one card (282). At the same time, however, she discovers how she is able to encourage others through her writing: “Even someone like me can play a role, gladdening and comforting others” (284). Upset at how God has taken Maekawa from her, she understands that the Bible says that God is love (kami wa ai nari) and struggles to understand how God can always have good plans for her, even in hardship and loss (285). Again, the ministry of another believer, and words from the Old Testament, bring her to a deeper understanding. Pastor Igarashi reads to her from the Book of Jonah, emphasizing the message that “God prepares everything for us, even that which seems bad,” (329) and Miura is touched and realizes that even loss and her illness are necessary, and prepared by God.15 We see here a new attitude in her, an appreciation that “God will give me what I need; if He doesn’t provide something, then I don’t need it” (330). The final pages of There is a Way deal with Miura’s relationship with the last man in her life, Miura Mitsuyo, whom she married in 1959.16 This final section describes her very gradual recovery, her joy in simple pleasures like sitting up and eating a meal (rather than eating lying on her back, holding a hand mirror to see the food), her deepening relationship with Mitsuyo,17 and her deeper understanding of the truths of the Christian faith. Mitsuyo, a devout man, encourages her to never forget Maekawa, since he helped lead her to faith, and believes deeply in her eventual recovery. For a time she is forced to go back into the hospital, and here we see how her faith now makes her quite a different person from the cynical, nihilistic patient at the beginning of the book: she is joyful, plays tricks on other patients to cheer them up, shares her faith openly, and encourages one particular young patient who is violent and rough, understanding how much he longs for love. In all this, her models are the Christians who have encouraged her and are no longer here, Maekawa and Pastor Nishimura (353–55). Miura and Mitsuyo exchange inscribed copies of the Bible rather than rings, and plan their wedding day; yet Miura falls ill with a fever that lasts for ten days before the ceremony. Miura worries that she will not be well enough for the wedding, but Mitsuyo, as he often does here, encourages her: “We will certainly be able to have the ceremony as planned,” he tells her. “Trust in the Lord who has brought us together” (363). In a way summing up her spiritual journey in this book, Miura writes at the end, “I couldn’t help but think of the love God had shown me, through so many people, despite my unworthiness” (368). As in Shiokari Pass, the fictionalized biography of Nagano Nobuo, There is a Way shows us indeed how it was through the love, patience and perseverance of so many believers that Miura Ayako was herself saved and came to Christ. And further, this spiritual autobiography depicts the Chapter 12: Miura Ayako and the Human Face of Faith

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early stirrings of the evolution of a person who, through her writing, learned how she can touch and influence others through her own faith, and through her words.

Miura as Essayist In addition to her novels and biographies and her own autobiography, Miura was a prolific writer of essays, publishing over forty books of essays during her career, many of them expanding on aspects of Christianity and faith. These essays are quite valuable for a more concentrated, and often very personal, view of Miura’s thoughts on faith, sin and forgiveness. In this section, we will examine three early essays: “Samaria no onna no yō ni” (Like the Samaritan Woman), “Tsumi to wa nani ka” (What is Sin?), and “Ningen kono yowaki mono” (How Weak we Humans Are).18 In her essay, “The Samaritan Woman,” Miura writes that, of all the female characters in the Bible, the Samaritan woman in John chapter 4 is her favorite. She briefly summarizes this familiar story, wherein Jesus encounters a Samaritan woman drawing water from a well and reveals to her that He is the Messiah. As Miura notes, the woman is drawing from the well at noon, alone, the hottest time of day, and, with what we learn of her promiscuity (she is living with her fifth man and they are not even married), we understand that she is shunned by her community. (Miura does not, however, mention how extraordinary it is that a Jewish man—a rabbi—would even talk with a Samaritan, let alone a woman, and one of such loose morals.) Miura labels the woman a “crafty old fox” and “loose and promiscuous” and says that it is no wonder that people are surprised at this choice as her favorite female biblical character since they would likely expect her to choose a more virtuous woman. Miura is so fond of this character, she writes, partly because she sees herself reflected in the woman. Miura writes how, as a young woman, she herself had a reputation as a “vamp” (she uses the English word) because she had so many male friends (Miura 1983, 19). (She doesn’t mention it here, but as mentioned earlier, she had two fiancés basically at the same time.) But Miura contends that everyone has a time in their lives like this, when their lifestyle is risky and ruinous. However, unlike the Samaritan woman, who avoided people’s gaze by going alone at noon to draw water, Miura herself made a show of her faults. She flaunted these relationships, openly being with men regardless of the effect on her reputation. Thus she identifies with this woman in their shared bad reputations. Likewise, Miura also sees her personality reflected in the Samaritan woman, whom she sees as a simple soul, scatterbrained enough to rush off to tell people about Jesus, leaving behind her precious water jar, a telling detail that many readers might miss. The woman tried to avoid people’s gaze, but now that she is sure that she has found the Messiah, she is unconcerned about her reputation anymore and races around town broadcasting the news about Jesus. Miura particularly admires how the woman drops everything to spread the news about Jesus, even though it draws attention to her and her bad behavior (Miura 1983, 21), openly telling people “He told me everything about me.” Miura notes how, in December 1951, while in the hospital, like the Samaritan woman, she too started to have a revelation about Jesus being the savior. Her beliefs were not yet firm—Miura’s own heart wavered as, when she saw people who believed, she asked herself, “Is there really a God?” and when she saw atheists she thought, “Those poor people don’t know about Christ” (Miura 1983, 21–22). But still Miura called on fellow patients to come listen to visiting pastors,

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despite her uncertainty. Her motivation, like that of the Samaritan woman, was to ask the question, “Could this be the Christ?” (Miura 1983, 22). In John 4: 39–42 we read how the crowd came to faith after hearing Jesus directly. The woman, Miura notes, is merely the spark that brings them to hear the message. Whether her bad reputation endured, we are not told, since she fades from the picture. She did not stand between the crowd and Jesus, and everyone forgot her, the original messenger. Miura says, “She didn’t assert herself. And that’s the main reason I am so drawn to her” (Miura 1983, 23). We would suspect at this point that the author would press home the point that she sees her role as similar to that of the Samaritan woman: a weak, sinful woman telling people about Christ, then withdrawing to let them come to faith through a personal encounter with Him. But that is not the case, as once more she reveals the human side of her faith. Miura discusses her secret pride in leading people to faith: “I can’t be like that. Publicly and privately I keep track of my feats—like I led this person to faith, and brought this person to church, and so on. I always insert my face, unwanted, between Christ and people” (Miura 1983, 23). She is proud of leading people to church, and of reading in their many letters to her how many are led to read the Bible after they listened to her talks or read her novels. “But this is dangerous. Dangerous,” she continues. “Our true desire is not to be praised ourselves, but for God, the Father, to be praised. I understand this, but find it hard to put into practice” (Miura 1983, 24). “I also have a tendency to have too much respect for those who led me to faith,” she writes, and she remembers a pastor’s words that, “No matter how great a person may be, he is not the savior. There is but one savior, and that is Jesus Christ.” Miura concludes by saying, “I wish to become a modest witness, like the Samaritan woman, not standing in the way between people and Christ” (Miura 1983, 24). Her personal revelations about her own pride and lack of humility show that she finds herself still far from this goal. The essay “What is Sin?” opens by revisiting the notion of genzai, or original sin, raised in her novel of six years before, Freezing Point. After announcing in the Asahi newspaper that genzai was the theme of the novel, she received many letters asking for clarification of the meaning of the term. Her response was to say that it connotes “the sin we humans have from birth” (ningen ga umarenagara ni shite motte iru tsumi no koto desu) (Miura 1982, 26, all subsequent references to her essays are cited as page number only). But, she notes, people still did not seem to understand the idea, as for example, in one roundtable discussion, a person commented that sexual desire and appetite are also genzai, a remark which she found puzzling. Her goal here, she writes, is to discuss further the notion of both sin and original sin, to try to clarify that which her novel, and earlier discussions, had not elucidated. Miura’s main points are that we do not consider ourselves sinners, and operate by a selfcentered double standard that always judges others’ actions more harshly than our own. She discusses incidents discussed in There is a Way, including the fact that she had two fiancés at one time (27–28); but she never considered herself as sinning in this regard. If, however, the situation were reversed and, say, she discovered that one of her fiancés had another secret fiancée, she writes that she would have been so outraged she would have called him “shameless” and “a swindler.” Likewise, with her eventual husband, Mitsuyo, if she had discovered that he was meeting with a former fiancée, “I would have been so jealous I might have stabbed him to death” and denounced the woman. But then the revelation came to her one day that “the greatest sin is not having a sense of sin as sin” (28). We scold others for actions we accept in ourselves, as “our hearts operate by a double standard.” Another example,

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one Miura returns to often, is gossip and slander, how much we love to gossip about others, unaware of the hurt it does them, but that we hate it when people gossip about us (29–30). As with “The Samaritan Woman,” Miura illustrates her points with a well-known biblical story, here the story of David and Nathan in 2 Samuel 12: 5–13. In this story, after David has taken Bathsheba for his own, and arranged for her husband to be killed in battle, the prophet Nathan tells David a story about a rich man with many sheep who nonetheless takes away a poor man’s sole lamb to feed a traveler. David is incensed by this action and says, “The man who did this must die!”—to which Nathan replies, “You are the man!” At this, David comes to the realization that “I have sinned against the Lord.” “In this way,” Miura writes, “the Bible mercilessly shows the sinful nature of all, from king to anyone. Not a single person in the Bible is holy and inviolable” (36). Self-centeredness leads to disregard of others and “there is no one who is not self-centered.” However, she cautions, “taking care of yourself is not the same as being self-centered” (37). Pushed to an extreme, self-centeredness leads one to “become a law unto oneself [jibun ga kenpō ni nari], where what is convenient for oneself is considered correct, and what is inconvenient for oneself is incorrect” (37). Using examples from her days as a young elementary school teacher, when she encountered lazy teachers who failed to correct compositions and made others do their work, Miura concludes that self-centeredness also makes people hate those who work harder than they, those who are more serious and proper about work. People, in other words, try to bring others down to their level, and she cites the example of her husband, a man of few bad habits, who neither drinks nor smokes; Miura focuses on the irony of the fact that people want to bring him down to their level, rather than become more like him (39–40). Miura writes that people sometimes say they dislike Christianity because it “treats people as sinners” (41). “But isn’t it kinder to tell sinners they are sinning?” she asks. Returning, as she does, to the image of physical sickness, she asks, “What would happen if you left a sick person without telling them they’re sick? For me, when I’m sick, I’m more grateful to be told that I am” (41–42). Here Miura quotes the well-known line from Romans 3: 10: “There is no one righteous, not even one.” Finally, as she closes her essay, Miura divides sin into three types: sin that touches on the law (stealing, murder, etc.); moral sin (inconsiderateness, betrayal, loose morals); and, in a return to her opening theme, genzai (original sin) (42). She points out that the term “sin” derives from the idea of missing the mark: “In other words, though we should be God-centered, we are self-centered. That is our original sin” (42). Maybe, she writes, we are even more sinful than some of those in jail. In her speeches she often asks, “Which is a worse sin, stealing or slander?” (43). She concludes that, since slander can lead people to suicide, it can actually be more devastating than stealing. She notes that, with thirty percent of children born with psychasthenia (seishin suijaku, a kind of neurosis), their mothers had a huge shock in the first three months of pregnancy, such as hearing slander about themselves: Our casual slander of people can drive them to death or make children have neuroses. That is the power of evil… enmity, hatred, jealousy, a sense of superiority, thoughtlessness—all come out in slander and when we say bad things about others. Surely there is no one in the world who has never spoken ill of others. That’s how deeply sinful each and every one of us is. Yet even so, seldom do we feel the pain of being deeply sinful. (44–45)

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She concludes with the following observation: “I wrote ‘The greatest sin is not having a sense of sin as sin.’ As I write this now, I shudder at how blind I am to my own sin” (45). One of the difficulties Japanese might have in comprehending the Christian notion of sin, especially original sin, lies in the word used to translate sin: tsumi, a word with other connotations as well.19 Miura’s first two categories, legal sin and moral sin, are easy enough to understand for her readers; but the difficulty in grasping the third category is what necessitated this essay, coming not long after the publication of Freezing Point. As already noted, the novel depicts original sin more as the inheritance of certain people whose parents have committed crimes, and less as what Miura now makes clearer in this essay, the inheritance of all humankind. In another essay, “How Weak we Humans Are,” step by step Miura dismantles the argument of people who say that they rely entirely on themselves, of people who reject Christianity and insist that “relying on God means you’re a weakling” (48). As with her treatment of sin in the previous essay, here she wants to show how weak we all really are, how only God is strong and reliable, and how strong we can be if we rely on God, not ourselves. This essay immediately follows “What is Sin?” and begins by reviewing some of the concepts raised in that essay, namely that “self-centeredness is the origin of sin,” that we seek “accomplices” in our weakness and sin, and that “looking away from God is original sin” (kami no hō o minai, kore wa genzai na no da) (46–47). An interesting personal example, both of how we can mete out criticism but cannot handle it, and our seeking of accomplices, is found when Miura acknowledges how she reacts when people criticize her writing as “just a newspaper novel”; “You call yourself a novelist—you think you’re writing literature?” she hears, and she then feels “That’s when I don’t look to God.” Instead, she reacts angrily, upset, too, at her husband as an “accomplice” for not backing her up (47–48). As to the main question of this essay—are we weak or strong?—Miura opens with a discussion of the popularity of palm reading, horoscopes, predictions based on people’s names, all of which are popular because, she concludes, people are weak. In other words, if people are strong in and of themselves, they would not need these. They are susceptible to words that have no basis (51). (Referring to her own “mischievous nature,” she confesses she will occasionally pretend to read others’ palms, and quotes a scene in Freezing Point where one character reads the palm of another.) Another example of our weakness is how we are shaken by so many things, for example a diagnosis of a grave illness (55). We may be weak, but are we wise? And unchanging and reliable? The spread of counseling centers of all varieties, she argues, proves we are not wise enough even to deal with everyday problems. Miura writes that “Even someone as foolish as I receives letters almost every day seeking advice, not just about their husband’s infidelity or their lover’s change of heart, but seeking advice about jobs, even problems in the workplace” (56). To rely on ourselves we need to be unchanging, but are we? Miura cites the example of pledges of love between husbands and wives, pledges of eternal love that do not last, and reminds us how the Bible tells us not to “swear” (57). Her implication here is clear: we are not unchanging enough for our pledges to mean anything. As an example of the weak, fickle nature of human beings, she cites the story of a nurse whom she met and who always looked sad. Miura enquired and learned that, when she was a girl with her family fleeing Manchuria at the end of the War, her mother had abandoned her two-year-old brother. In wartime, people change abruptly, she writes, and we all too easily abandon those we love, due to our weakness. Chapter 12: Miura Ayako and the Human Face of Faith

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If you seek help, Miura writes, seek it from something strong. She cites an amusing example from a play where one of the actors recites the line, yoraba taijū no kage (literally “if you’re going to lean on something, choose a big tree”). The suggestion that one should choose something strong and reliable on which to rely is clear; but, in the play, the actor then leans against a large willow tree, which falls over, sending him tumbling to the ground to a roar of laughter from the audience. In the same way, she writes, we must reject idols, since none can be relied on (60). “You must be weak, Ms. Miura, relying on God,” she was told, and she writes, “Those words are exactly right” (60). She here retells the story of Peter denying Christ three times to illustrate the point about human weakness. Miura writes that she likes Peter best of all the twelve apostles, and, though he shows human weakness in the betrayal scene, later in Acts we see his strength as he comes to rely completely on God. (In Acts 5: 29, as she notes, he declares, “We must obey God rather than human beings!”) “The question is,” Miura writes, “for us weak humans, is there really a path for us, something we can really believe in?” (62). For Miura, Peter’s words above provide an answer. Miura, as she is wont to do, offers examples of more contemporary people who trust completely in God. One such is Hikida Ichirō, an evangelist who, over six years, walked some 30,000 kilometers all over Hokkaido to hand out Christian tracts to people, enduring freezing cold and blazing heat to share the Gospel (even carrying separate rice balls with him at times in case he ran into bears). On one occasion, Hikida asked Miura which believer she respects, and she tells the story of Yabe Toyoko, an elderly believer unable to walk since the age of ten, who has become a great evangelist out of her home (64). Over thirty people were baptized as a result of Yabe’s influence. Interestingly, instead of choosing someone who walked 30,000 kilometers to spread the gospel, Miura chooses a person who cannot walk one step, underscoring the influence one person can have through their own strong faith, a memorable example of overcoming adversity and being joyful in all situations. Returning at the end to her theme of human weakness, Miura writes, “Who could ever say looking at Hikida or Yabe that ‘those who believe in God are weaklings’?” (65).

Muzzle (Jūkō): The Final Novel Finally, returning to Miura’s fiction, we will briefly consider Muzzle, Miura’s final novel, and one of her longest.20 Muzzle was first serialized in the journal, Hon no mado, from January 1990 to August 1993 after Miura had been asked by a Shōgakkan editor to write about “God and man within the backdrop of the Shōwa period” (Satō 2006, 124). Battling illness, Miura declared that this would be her last novel and that she would not write any more (Satō 2006, 130). Though the working title was “Kuroi kawa no nagare” (Flow of a Dark River), Miura settled on “jūkō,” literally “muzzle of a gun” after seeing an image in a World War I novel, Dōhyō (Guidepost, 1947–1950) by the leftist writer, Miyamoto Yuriko. (Miyamoto visited a WWI memorial in Verdun and saw the muzzle of a rifle held by a dead soldier sticking out the ground) (Satō 2006, 129). Miura went on to explain that jūkō represents the War, which occupied such a large part of the Shōwa period. “When we say Shōwa you think of war,” she said (Satō 2006, 129), adding that “you and I all had a muzzle pointed at us in many ways…. Even now that the Shōwa era is over, that muzzle is still pointed at the people” (Satō 2006, 129). Kuroko Kazuo adds that “jūkō is clearly a synonym for that which steals away human freedom and dignity, in other words, humanity.” Kuroko goes on to argue that, as an educator

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in a militaristic education system, Miura herself felt as though she were a jūkō aimed at her pupils (Kuroko 2009, 131). The critic Satō Shōkan notes that Miura’s comments point to recent events—talk of the Self Defense Force being sent abroad, the debate over revision of the Constitution, etc., (Satō 2006, 129). There is also at work a clear anti-war message, and as Kuroko notes, during the serialization of the novel, Miura also published an essay (in April 1991) denouncing the Japanese government’s financial support (over ten billion dollars) for the Gulf War. Kuroko writes how the harsh tone of this essay contrasts with Miura’s usually gentler tone (Kuroko 2009, 132) and notes how she quotes Christ’s dictum, “All who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matthew 26: 52). Miura clearly sees an overlap with the first half of the Shōwa period (a period of war) and the war in the early 1990s (Satō 2006, 133), and readers of Miura’s other works may be surprised to find her as a writer with a decidedly political stance as well.21 As Kuroko notes, like Kitamori Ryūta, the main character in Muzzle, for Miura the first half of the Shōwa period was when she spent her youth; and now, with the impetus of the death of the Shōwa emperor (1989), and as she neared the end of her own life, she wanted to re-examine this dark part of Japanese history (Satō 2006, 126). We should also note the part played by school teachers at the time, for Miura herself had served as a young teacher throughout the war. Indeed, as mentioned, Miura taught from age 17 to 24, and the novel reflects her own experiences as a wartime elementary school teacher (Takano 1998, 434). As Kuroko notes, the first half of the novel, especially, overlaps closely with Miura’s own life as seen in the autobiographical works, Ishikoro no uta (Song of a Pebble, 1974) and Kusa no uta (Song of the Grass, 1986); he argues that she did not aim to write an objective history, but to show the history of the period through the life of one person (Kuroko 2009, 126–27). Takano Toshimi, too, sees a strong connection between Muzzle and these earlier autobiographical works, entitling his explanatory essay (kaisetsu) in the paperback edition “Ishikoro no sakebi” (Cries of the Pebbles) and quoting Miura from the end of that work in saying, I came to see myself as a tiny pebble lying by the road. No, it wasn’t just me. This was the way so many people of the same generation were. Pebbles kicked aside, trampled on, without a backward glance. …I saw myself as a tiny pebble kicked aside and fallen into a ditch. (Takano 1998, 435) Thus, while the main drama of the story—Ryūta’s arrest and imprisonment as a potential political subversive—is based on an actual incident involving the arrest of some fifty school teachers in Hokkaido in 1941 (the so-called Tsuzurikata jiken, literally “composition incident”) on the charge of subversion, there is little in the way of a broader view of events; instead, Miura is interested in how it actually felt to live through this dark period.22 As one might expect, the novel also deals with issues of God and faith, though as we shall see, in a mostly indirect and subtle way until the very end. The novel covers the entire Shōwa period, since it begins with the Taishō emperor’s funeral and ends with Ryūta at age 71, though the core of the book follows the life of Kitamori Ryūta in Hokkaido from 1927 to April 1946. In sum, the novel covers the life of Ryūta from childhood to manhood, as he becomes a teacher dedicated to his pupils, encouraging them to find their individual voices as they write compositions in class; he attends some meetings of other concerned teachers, and is arrested along with them, improbably, as a subversive. I say improbably since Ryūta is obviously no subversive: as Takano notes, the arrested teachers Chapter 12: Miura Ayako and the Human Face of Faith

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are humanists, not communists (Takano 1998, 437). Finally released from prison, Ryūta is about to marry his sweetheart, Yoshiko, when he is drafted and sent as a soldier to China. Near the end of the War, confronted by anti-Japanese Korean soldiers, with “a muzzle (jūkō) aimed right at him,” (Miura 1998b, 2: 312) he is unexpectedly rescued when one of them turns out to be Kim Shunmei, a Korean laborer who had lived in Asahikawa, been forced to labor on a reservoir, and whom Ryūta’s family had treated kindly. Kim helps Ryūta and a companion, Yamada, escape and make their way back to Japan. Ryūta and Yoshiko marry, and he becomes a teacher once more. The Christian element in the story comes to the fore more toward the end, when Ryūta begins to pray for rescue from danger, and then, safely back home, comes more under the influence of his wife, Yoshiko, a Christian, in whom he confides his desire to begin attending church. In great part, much as in Shiokari Pass when Nagano’s sacrificial death spurs many others to faith, Ryūta’s decision is also due to the influence of a wartime companion, Kondō, who he learns had sacrificed himself to save another on the very day of Japan’s surrender. Toward the end of the book, telling Yoshiko of his decision to attend church with her, Ryūta says: Now I have no resistance [to God] at all. The Christian God is an extraordinary being, far beyond anything I can imagine. I now want to leave everything up to Him. I don’t know anything about the Bible. I don’t know any hymns either. I don’t understand sin, or forgiveness. I am ignorant of so much, but I want to bow down before God, who is omnipotent. Yoshiko, please guide me. (Miura 1998b, 2: 417) Later, Ryūta and Yoshiko discuss the Emperor’s speech renouncing his divinity, with Ryūta stating that a person cannot be God, but that Christ is God’s son. Interestingly, Ryūta’s positive acceptance of Christ contrasts with Miura’s own early postwar reaction to the defeat that we saw in There is a Way, the nihilistic rejection of belief and her long struggle over many years to find faith. As Kamide notes, “Ryūta realizes at the end the void within him and thus seeks the one who goes beyond all ages [namely God]” (Kamide 2001, 102). The novel, written soon after the death of the Shōwa emperor, ends with this death, and with Ryūta at age 71. Yoshiko tells him: “So Shōwa is finally over, isn’t it,” to which Ryūta responds: “I suppose so. But can we really say it’s over? It feels like lots of things are still not over and done with” (Miura 1998b, 2: 428). This somewhat dark statement at the end reflects what we have touched on above: that Miura sees, in early 1990s Japan, the shadow of a muzzle still pointed at ordinary people. The influence of a loved one, a believer, the self-sacrifice of a friend for others, the experience of someone to whom he had shown kindness (Kim) returning the favor by saving his life, all work together on Ryūta to overcome political and wartime thought. As Kamide notes, after all the false words in wartime, Ryūta finally encounters true words (of God) and comes to faith (Kamide 2001, 109). But why choose this Tsuzurikata jiken—the roundup of fifty school teachers as subversives—as the focus of the novel? Miura notes that she chose it, first because she had no idea this ever took place and, as a former teacher, she felt responsible. Second, she wanted to depict teachers as both victims and victimizers during the War. (As we have seen above, in her own life Miura regretted being a part of the wartime indoctrination of her pupils.) And third, she chose this incident because it highlights the question of voice and freedom of expression. 226

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One of the first incidents in the novel shows Ryūta as a third grader being scolded for what he wrote in an essay on the funeral of the Taishō emperor, and as a teacher Ryūta always stressed to his pupils the importance of writing as self-expression, and finding one’s own voice (Kamide 2001, 105). The individual voice found in compositions stands in opposition to something like the Imperial Rescript on Education, words that worked to suppress and confine individual “voices” (Kamide 2001, 107). One might even read the title as expressing this opposition: the Japanese title, Jūkō, comprises two Chinese characters, meaning “rifle” and “mouth” respectively, thereby representing an opposed pair, with the rifle seen as suppressing voice, the human voice rising in opposition to this suppression. Muzzle has certainly not been without criticism. Readers have noted a lack of depth in the main character, Ryūta; but, as Kamide notes, this is in fact what the Shōwa period imposed on people: people had to surrender their inner selves, and be depthless in order to survive (Kamide 2001, 99). Miura supports this view, commenting on the main character that “Ryūta was just an ordinary person, and in that time ordinary people could not see what was going on” (Kamide 2001, 100). As readers, then, we are like Ryūta, unable to see the big picture, tossed about by forces beyond our understanding. Raised and educated at a time of ultranationalism, Ryūta is indoctrinated to see war as a sacred mission (he “sees dying for the Emperor as a great honor”) and lacks a sense of the political incidents happening at the time. He views what happens to him (arrest and imprisonment) as personal disasters, not connecting this with, or criticizing, the State (Kamide 2001, 100–1). He is an unlikely person to be seen as a threat, and yet the State does just this, displaying its awful power, and Miura felt the incident on which the novel is based best illustrated the fearfulness of that age (Kamide 2001,105). As Ishida Hitoshi notes, Ryūta is like a blank slate by which other people define themselves; yet, by the end, this leads Ryūta to seek to fill the void within him with the one who goes beyond all ages and periods (God) (Kamide 2001, 102). In that sense, Muzzle is a fitting end to Miura’s career as a Christian and novelist. Muzzle, and Miura’s literature in general, is often seen as popular entertainment, not serious fiction (junbungaku), one reason being its reliance on coincidence. As Kamide notes, Yokomitsu Riichi23 defined some of the characteristics of junbungaku as the avoidance of coincidences and sentimentality, qualities both seemingly found throughout Miura’s work (Kamide 2001, 109). One might question, though, the status of “coincidence” in her work from a Christian perspective. In Muzzle, for instance, we are even clued in by an intrusive narrator of a critical plot point: as Ryūta’s father, after commenting on Korean laborers in Japan as “people just like us” helps the young Korean laborer Kim to escape (Ryūta is with them, too), the narrator comments, “Of course, Ryūta had no way of knowing that this man would later rescue him from danger” (Miura 1998b, 1: 176). We can see this, I would argue, less as heavy-handed foreshadowing, or the kind of intrusive narrator found in 19th–century British novels, than as part of Miura’s stance as a Christian: simply, what others would see as coincidence, we suspect Miura would see as part of God’s overall plan.24 In short, what may seem like coincidence is, in the long range view, part of a divine plan; in Ryūta’s case, the rescue of Kim leads, years later, to their seemingly unlikely reunion in the chaos of war and to his own rescue, and becomes a factor in his coming to faith. One other criticism of Miura’s works, Muzzle included, is that they tend to be simpler in style, more plot-based, even similar to children’s fiction at times (Kamide 2001, 109). Kamide dubs it “literature of the voice” (koe no bungaku) and this might remind us of oral literature or oral tales. Part of this was the result of how Miura wrote many of her books, including Chapter 12: Miura Ayako and the Human Face of Faith

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Muzzle: because of her many illnesses (at the end of her life she was battling Parkinson’s disease), she often dictated her novels to her husband Mitsuyo, who acted as both amanuensis and editor. (Some refer to this as a collaborative effort). In Muzzle, in particular, because of the novel’s focus on the individual voice and its suppression, this overlap of theme and style is particularly effective, as we hear Miura’s own voice relating what is, in essence, a kind of history of her generation.

Conclusion Miura Ayako’s writings are thus both apologetic and stories, some fictional, others nonfictional, of the journey to faith. Looking back at Keizō and Yōko (Freezing Point), Nobuo (Shiokari Pass), Ryūta (Muzzle) and Miura herself (There is a Way), we find a thread connecting them all, as tales of the most unlikely of people coming to faith. In many cases, there is a very real, and very human, resistance, questioning and struggle involved on the road to faith. It is Miura’s complete openness to the weakness of humans, and (in her essays and autobiography) her open, even joyous, admission of her own sins and weaknesses that one finds most refreshing in her work. Typical of this is her relating of her ignorance of the Bible; how, for instance, for years she thought that Catholics only read the Old Testament and Protestants the New Testament (Miura 1984b, 3–4); her acknowledgement, as we have seen in “The Samaritan Woman,” of pride in keeping score of how many people she herself has shepherded to faith; and the amusing story (in While There is Still Light) discussing how, given how many bears there are in Hokkaido, if she were walking with Mitsuyo and a bear suddenly appeared, she would no doubt run away, leaving him behind in order to save herself (Miura 1982, 91). Even in cases of real Christian selflessness, even martyrdom, she highlights as well the human face of faith, making these sacrifices somehow more real, and part of the lives of flesh and blood human beings. One incident that Miura turns to several times in her work is based on a real historical happening.25 The story first surfaces in Freezing Point, involving the character Keizō. As I have summarized elsewhere: Keizō sets off on a business trip to Honshu, and a typhoon capsizes his ferry. As he and the other passengers struggle to survive, a foreign missionary offers his life jacket to a young woman whose own is ripped: “You are younger than I am,” he says, “It will be the young people who will build Japan….” The boat sinks, and after a terrifying struggle with death, Keizō barely makes it to shore (the missionary does not survive). …[Keizō] realizes that everyone who died in the accident wanted to live just as much as he did, and that his survival was due, less to good fortune than to the sacrifice of others. (Miura 2001, 1: 362, 367)26 This incident is based on the real-life sinking of a ferry ship, the Tōya-maru, in a typhoon in September 1954, between Hokkaido and Honshu. Up to 1,155 souls were lost, the largest loss of life in a maritime accident in Japan.27 In Freezing Point, Miura mentions one missionary, but in the actual Tōya-maru incident, two American missionaries, Dean Leeper (33) and Alfred Russell Stone (52) voluntarily gave up their life jackets, and their lives, to save two young Japanese. Miura notes how she received a letter from a reader asking if this incident

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was real or fictional, and she replied that “Of course it’s real,” noting how “I keep a photo of one of them, Stone, in my home” (Miura 1984a, 57). She goes on to say: They didn’t give away their life jackets because they wanted to show off to people. As the ship capsized, everyone was desperate, and people didn’t have time to see what others were doing. With absolutely nobody paying attention to them, they gave up their life jackets, which were their very lives. These missionaries weren’t born honoring God alone. They had the same weaknesses as we all do, drawn at times to be praised by others, and tempted by the desire to be recognized by people. But even so, as they had faith in God’s word I believe they arrived at the stage where they could give others their life jackets and die with joy in their hearts. … These two people’s actions were possible, not because they wanted praise from others, and it didn’t matter if anyone was watching them; it was because of their trust in the Lord who was watching over them. A life honoring God was their reward. (Miura 1984a, 57) This short passage sums up much of Miura Ayako’s approach to literature, faith and life. While never forgetting—and often underscoring—our nature as weak, sometimes fearful, often sinful human beings, she demonstrates to us that we can, through faith, overcome, and even show the kind of sacrificial love Christ showed to us.

Notes 1

The novel was first serialized in the Asahi newspaper, then published as a stand-alone full-length novel in 1965. 2 As an indication of her popularity, a year after her first novel was published, it had sold over 700,000 copies, and, by 1986, some 1.5 million copies. One more recent online site lists Freezing Point as her best seller, with 3.38 million total copies sold (see Gabriel 2006, 180–81). 3 For a lengthier study of Miura’s work, especially her early novels, see chapters 1 and 2 of my book Spirit Matters: The Transcendent in Modern Japanese Literature (University of Hawai’i Press, 2006). 4 According to one survey, she is the character with whom readers sympathized the most (Gabriel 2006, 36–37). 5 Unless otherwise noted, all translations from Miura’s texts are my own. 6 The book was serialized from April 1966 to August 1968 in the Christian journal Shinto no tomo, and ranks second in total sales (2.96 million copies), and first in popularity among her readers (Nonomiya 1998, 65). 7 Miura’s title for this work likely comes from the Bible; in the Creation story in Genesis this phrase is repeated after almost every section (day): “And there was evening, and there was morning” (e.g., Genesis 1: 5, 1: 8, 1: 13, 1: 19. 1: 23, 1: 31, NIV). In the New Revised Translation, this is rendered as: “Kōshite yū ga ari, asa ga atta.” 8 Again, for a fuller treatment of the novel, see chapter 2 of my book Spirit Matters, esp. pp. 62–86. Some of the discussion above summarizes this fuller treatment. 9 Translations from Shiokari Pass are taken from the 1974 published translation. All subsequent page references refer to that edition. 10 Translated into English as The Wind is Howling (Intervarsity Press, 1977). This edition is slightly abridged, and here translations from the book are my own. 11 The Japanese Wikipedia site includes the three volumes in the There is a Way series in the list of Miura’s novels (chōhen shōsetsu), rather than as zuihitsu, or essays, while a related link describes it as a jiden shōsetsu,

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or autobiographical novel. The term shōsetsu is obviously being used in a loose sense here, since the work is usually viewed as non-fictional autobiography. 12 The book does mention a few aspects of her childhood, including her large family (parents, ten siblings, and two other relatives living with them), the family’s poverty, and the traumatic death of her younger sister Yōko at age six. This was Miura’s first encounter with death, and Miura later used that name for the main female character in Freezing Point (Miura 1980, 45–46). 13 For this reason, the setting of There is a Way is, for the most part, a hospital room, with only an occasional change of scenery. 14 Regarding this poem there is a controversy that she had plagiarized it, a claim which she vehemently denied. For more on this, see Michi ariki, 252–61. 15 As with Pastor Nishimura, Miura was so moved by Pastor Igarashi that she wrote his biography as well, under the title There was Evening, and There was Morning (1987). As she notes in There is a Way, she initially misjudged him as a successful businessman and actually refused to see him, but she soon came to understand what a humble man he was (Miura 1980, 322–23). 16 We have been referring to Miura by her married name throughout; but until her marriage late in the book, she went by, and is referred to by, her maiden name, Hotta. 17 Their married life is described in more detail in book 2 of the There is a Way trilogy: This Clay Jar Also. 18 “Samaria no onna no yō ni” is taken from Ikiru koto, omou koto: Watashi no shinkō zatsuwa (Living and Feeling: Chats on My Faith, 1972); and “Tsumi to wa nani ka” and “Ningen kono yowaki mono” are taken from While There is Still Light (1971). As noted earlier, While There is Still Light is book 3 of the There is a Way trilogy, but it is essentially a series of ten essays on aspects of faith. 19 The word also has the meaning of “guilt” and “a criminal offense.” 20 The two-volume paperback edition runs to just under 900 pages. 21 In an online interview with Miura and her husband (Kamui Mintara, May 1985, vol. 14) about the novel Haha (Mother, 1992), that deals with the martyred leftist writer, Kobayashi Takiji (author of the novel Kani kōsen [The Crab Cannery Ship*], 1929), Miura emphasizes that, in his tragic death, she saw Takiji as something of a Christlike figure, and that she was drawn to the warmth and humanity of his mother. Yet this seems an unusual subject for her, and it would be interesting to examine Miura’s works in more depth in light of her political views. 22 This mass arrest of teachers of composition was largely based on the view that, by encouraging pupils to write honestly about their daily lives, and often poor circumstances, the teachers were promoting a leftist agenda. Kamide insists that Muzzle is a work with a “broad scope” (Kamide 2001, 97), which is understandable, perhaps, as the novel does cover a lengthy time period and is set both in Hokkaido and in China during the War. But the point remains valid that Miura’s interest was less in the broader aspects of the time and more in how it felt to survive then, and the pressures that came to bear on ordinary citizens. 23 Yokomitsu Riichi (1898-1947) was one of the leading figures, along with Kawabata Yasunari, in the Shinkankaku-ha (New Sensations School) movement, which sought to break away from the quasiautobiographical writings popular in the 1920s. Heavily influenced by European modernism, Yokomitsu wrote with a powerful, almost revolutionary aestheticism. One of his most moving works is the story, “Haru wa basha ni notte” (Spring Riding in a Carriage*), which deals with the death of his wife. 24 Kamide makes this point, too (Kamide 2001, 110). 25 She references it in Freezing Point, in Introduction to the New Testament, and also in the essay “Ai no samazama” (Diversities of Love) in While There is Still Light, 87–88. 26 This is discussed in Gabriel 2006, 18. 27 The number of casualties differs according to the source; figures range from 1,011 to 1,155.

References Gabriel, P. (2006). Spirit Matters: The Transcendent in Modern Japanese Literature, Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Harada, Y. (2000). Kaisetsu [Interpretive essay]. In Miura A., Zoku hyōten [Freezing Point II] (vol. 2). Tokyo: Kadokawa Bunko, 369–75. ———. (2001). Kaisetsu [Interpretive essay]. In Miura A., Hyōten [Freezing Point] (vol 2). Tokyo: Kadokawa Bunko, 365–71.

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Ishida, H. (1998). Jūkō: ningen, “kotoba,” kami [Muzzle: people, “words,” God]. Kokubungaku, kaishaku to kanshō 63(11), 143–48. Kamide, K. (2001). Miura Ayako kenkyū [Research on Miura Ayako]. Tokyo: Sōbunsha. Kubota, G. (1998). Miura Ayako no sekai: sono hito to sakuhin [The world of Miura Ayako: The author and her works]. Osaka: Izumi Shoin. Kuroko, K. (2009). Miura Ayako-ron “ai” to “ikiru koto” no imi [A study of Miura Ayako: The meanings of “love” and “living”]. Sapporo: Hakurōsha . Miura, A. (1974). Shiokari Pass. (Bill & Sheila Fearnehough, trans.). Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle. ———. (1980). Michi ariki (seishun-hen) [There is a Way: Youth]. Tokyo: Shinchō Bunko. ———. (1982). Hikari aru uchi ni [While There is Still Light]. Tokyo: Shinchō Bunko. ———. (1983). Ikiru koto, omou koto: Watashi no shinkō zatsuwa [Living and Feeling: Chats on My Faith]. Tokyo: Shinchō Bunko. ———. (1984a). Shin’yaku seisho nyūmon [Introduction to the New Testament]. Tokyo: Kōbunsha Bunko. ———. (1984b). Kyūyaku seisho nyūmon [Introduction to the Old Testament]. Tokyo: Kōbunsha Bunko ———. (1986). Freezing Point. (Hiromu Shimizu & John Terry, trans.). Wilmington, DE: Dawn Press. ———. (1998a). Shiokari tōge [Shiokari Pass]. Tokyo: Shinchō Bunko. ———. (1998b). Jūkō [Muzzle] (2 vols.). Tokyo: Shōgakkan Bunko. ———. (2000). Zoku hyōten [Freezing Point II] (2 vols.). Tokyo: Kadokawa Bunko. ———. (2001). Hyōten [Freezing Point] (2 vols.). Tokyo: Kadokawa Bunko. Nonomiya, N. (1998). Shiokari tōge [Shiokari Pass]. Kokunbungaku, kaishaku to kanshō 63(11), 65–69. Satō, S. (2006). Jūkō o yomu: “Tsuzurikata jiken” to sono moderu-tachi [Reading Muzzle: The “composition incident” and models for characters in the novel]. Sapporo: Hakurōsha. Takano, T. (1998). Kaisetsu [Interpretive Essay]. In Miura A., Jūkō [Muzzle] (vol. 2). Tokyo: Shōgakkan Bunko. 434–41.

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Chapter 13 Endō Shūsaku and the Compassionate Companionship of Christ Van C. Gessel With a substantial readership and a solid international reputation, Endō Shūsaku is demonstrably the most important and influential Christian writer that Japan has produced to date. Beginning with a baptism at age 12 that he described as his mother dressing him in ill-fitting western clothing, Endō grappled throughout his career to re-tailor Christianity to make it more accessible to his Japanese readers. Struggles with his own faith and chronic illness with lengthy hospitalizations led him to create an image of a forgiving, maternal Christ who is an “eternal companion” for all who suffer. In powerful novels such as the internationally acclaimed Silence, along with The Samurai and Deep River, Endō exerted significant and enduring influence on Japanese attitudes toward Christianity.

Introduction Of all the authors in this handbook who were influenced to varying degrees by Christianity, none achieved as wide a readership or as loyal a following both in Japan and overseas as did Endō Shūsaku (1923–1996). In many of Endō’s works, the challenge of being a Christian in Japan is foregrounded more consistently and unapologetically than in the writings of most other Christian authors. And as a spiritual godfather, he influenced a number of authors and critics to convert to Christianity, including three writers considered in this volume: Yasuoka Shōtarō, Kaga Otohiko and Takahashi Takako. Critics who study his writings concur that Endō’s career can be broadly demarcated into two periods: before and after the publication of Chinmoku (Silence*) in 1966. That novel perhaps best exemplifies one of the most distinguishing characteristics of his work: his identification with individuals in Japanese history who, like himself, are earnestly seeking after some source of consolation as they suffer physical and spiritual pain, defeat, a weakness born of fear and faltering faith and ultimately death. That ongoing search played out amidst his own struggles with faith and life-threatening illness; this quest joined his personal experiences (centered around his complicated feelings toward his mother) and his beliefs in Christianity

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(literally sprinkled onto him before he was old enough to understand what was happening) to shape a distinctive image of Christ in his writings. One could even argue that the seeming schizophrenia in Endō’s decision to direct a considerable amount of his creative energies not solely into serious religious works but also into numerous “entertainment” 1 novels and comic essays—not to mention his highly publicized extracurricular activities2—sprang from a desire, not merely to amuse or play the clown, but at a deeper level to reach out with compassion to a wide readership with the aim of providing some respite from the struggles of daily life. An equally important motivation behind his less serious writings and escapades was, I think, a desire to eliminate a common stereotype by demonstrating to the Japanese public through his own life that one does not have to be a sour-faced, dreary stiff-necked prude to be a believing Christian. Literary critics who deride the “old-fashioned” approach of “bio-criticism” should probably read a bit more Japanese literature. Endō Shūsaku’s writings are a prime example of an intimate intertwining of his life’s experiences and the literary works that he produced. Many of the incidents from his life have been told and retold many times, but without reviewing his personal experiences it is impossible to consider, as I will seek to do in this chapter, the intricate interrelationship between life and writings that, first, enhance our understanding of how his fiction is read by Japanese people and, second, how that interplay underscores the spiritual power of his works.

Youth, rifts and mother The decade Endō spent in Dalian, Manchuria—his father had been transferred there by the Japanese bank that employed him—between the ages of one and ten were marked by fear, loneliness, and the pain of separation. Marital discord between his parents erupted into loud altercations that drove their young son to bury himself in his futon and jam his fingers in his ears. More than a handful of Endō’s short stories, while brushed with a thin fictional gloss, describe the turmoil that clouded his childhood. For example, the following memory of the narrator’s childhood in Dalian is described in the seminal story “Haha naru mono” (Mothers,* 1969): I can still vividly recall the icicles that hung down past the windows of our tiny house like the teeth of a fish. The sky is overcast, and it looks as if it will begin to snow at any moment, but the snow never comes. In a nine-by-twelve room my mother is practicing the violin. For hours on end she practices the same melody over and over again. With the violin wedged under her chin, her face is hard, stone-like, and her eyes are fixed on a single point in space as she seems to be trying to isolate that one true note somewhere in the void. Unable to find that elusive note, she heaves a sigh; her irritation mounts, and she continues to scrape her bow across the strings. (Endō 1984, 113–14) In an essay about his mother’s devotion to practicing the violin, he wrote: “My mother as I remember her was a very hard worker and would practice the violin non-stop for four or five hours a day, and on cold wintry days I saw her fingers sliced open by the strings of the violin, causing blood to trickle from her fingers” (ESBZ 12: 391).

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With the divorce of his parents, Endō’s mother took him and his older brother Shōsuke3 back to Japan, where they lived for a time with her sister. It was there that these three members of the Endō family encountered Christianity. But before considering that seminal experience, one additional separation during this period in Endō’s childhood is worth examining. In both his personal essays and his semi-autobiographical stories, Endō describes the one source of consolation he had as his parents’ marital problems brought unsettling discord into their home in Dalian. That was a mongrel dog he named Kuro (Blackie). The dog became his sole confidant, something of a pre-conversion priest to whom he could confess all his worries and hurts. A scene in the story “Gojussai no otoko” (A Fifty-year-old Man,* 1976) vividly conveys the moment of separation when his mother took him back to Japan: When he climbed into the horse carriage packed with suitcases and wicker trunks, he looked back at the familiar house, only to realize that his dog was standing despondently at the gate looking towards him. When the Manchurian driver gave a lethargic flick of his whip and the carriage jerked forward, the dog chased after it for five or six paces, then stopped in resignation. That was the last he saw of his dog. (Endō 1993, 62)

Baptism and mother While Endō’s mother Iku and her two sons lived with her sister, a practicing Catholic, Iku began attending mass, seeking in religious devotion, perhaps, some degree of solace in the wake of her divorce (Endō 1988, 6). She converted and became a devout Catholic—as fervent in her faith as she had been at practicing the violin—and convinced her sons to attend mass and catechism classes. As an adult, Endō recalled that he understood not a word of the religious instruction and attended solely to please his mother and to eat the candy that was offered after the lessons. He asserts that, when he was baptized in June 1935 at the age of twelve, the ceremony felt rote and superficial: The priest asked “Do you believe in God?” And because the other children who were to be baptized all replied, “Yes, I believe,” he went along with the group and declared his belief—having no idea what he believed in, what he was committing to, or how those simple words would determine the entire course of the rest of his life (ESBZ 12: 395). Endō devised a famous image to describe his feelings about being baptized. He noted that it was almost ten years after his baptism that he “first became conscious of the western clothing that my aunt and mother had dressed me in.” He continued: Those western clothes did not fit my body at all. Some parts of the western suit were baggy, while others were too short. When I came to understand the problem, there were many occasions when I thought I would remove that western suit. It was, after all, a western suit and not Japanese clothing that would fit my body. There were wide gaps between my body and the western suit and nothing to be done about them, and it seemed to me that those gaps made it something I could never consider my own. …

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Still, even back then I was ultimately unable to discard the western suit. I simply could not cast off a suit given to me by someone I loved until I was able to do so with conviction and confidence in myself. In any case, that suit became one of the pillars that sustained me from my youthful days through my adolescence. Later on, I made up my mind that I was not going to consider removing that suit of clothes. I decided to alter the western suit into Japanese style clothes that would fit my body. … I had come to feel that the lifelong effort to restyle the baggy western suit that had been put on me by someone else into something that would fit my body was, in the end, possibly what literature was all about. (ESBZ 12: 395–96) In an interview with the critic Yamagata Kazumi, Endō elaborated: I was often tempted to forsake this [clothing], but my attachment to my mother was the grace that prevented me from doing so. … This thought was later to become a very important element when I got to think of the “motherly” compassion of God. Anyway, because my attachment to my mother would not permit me to forsake Christianity, I made one decision. I wondered whether it was possible for me to reshape this western [suit] that my mother gave me and make it fit my Japanese body; that is, whether it was possible to adapt Christianity to our mentality without distorting Christianity. (Yamagata 1986, 495) We cannot overlook the significance of the fact that Endō was dressed up in the western suit of clothing—Christ, in metaphorical terms—by his mother. In addition to choosing his wardrobe, she was his greatest advocate at a time when he suffered from a serious inferiority complex, which likely contributed to abysmal academic performance throughout his early adolescence. He had to live with the fact that his older brother was an outstanding student and had to endure ridicule not only from his classmates and family members but also from his teachers. Iku rose to his defense, doing all she could to build up her younger son’s confidence. She told him, “You have just one good talent—you’re very good at writing and speaking, so you should become a writer. … [E]ven though other people make fun of you now, eventually you’ll be able to meet life head-on by doing something you like” (ESBZ 12: 392). The example she set for him of passionate dedication to her art, and the compassion with which she tolerated his failings and sought to buoy him up played a significant role in tethering Endō to Catholicism when, in late adolescence, he was considering leaving the Church. Equally important, her eagerness to accept and forgive him, even when he did something that offended her (which he felt he often did), became a key part of the image of Christ that he forged through his writings. Just as she never abandoned him, he could not bring himself to abandon her or the Christian outfit in which she had dressed him. This core metaphor for his literary project is all the more interesting when one considers the many characters in Endō’s fiction who have multiple layers of their outer selves stripped away by the author to reveal what lies in the deepest recesses of their hearts. Endō is unremitting in his efforts to denude his characters, to divest them of the lies, the self-deceptions and the egotism that, on the one hand, cripple their interactions with other individuals, but more importantly prevent them from forming any meaningful relationship with God. Examples

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of this peeling off of outward pretence should be evident in the discussions of individual novels below, but highlights include Father Rodrigues in Silence, the two main characters in Samurai (The Samurai,* 1980), the protagonist in Sukyandaru (Scandal,* 1986), and multiple characters in Fukai kawa (Deep River,* 1993). Although Endō was unable to bring himself to abandon the Christian outfit that his mother had provided for him—feeling weak and exposed were he to undress—he developed an artistic, even spiritual posture that allowed him to tear off the trappings of human egotism that weighed down his characters. It is after his characters are forced to examine the naked truth about themselves that they are opened to encounters with the divine.

Catholic writers and France At what point was Endō bitten by the academic bug? After graduating from high school, over three successive years he failed at college entrance exams, but he used his idle time to read both Japanese and European novels voraciously. After he was accepted into the literature department of Keiō University in 1943, he fell under the influence of a Catholic dorm master, Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko4, who ignited his interest in French Catholic authors, most especially François Mauriac.5 In his first published essay from 1947, titled “Kamigami to kami to” (The Gods and God), Endō already realized how distant he felt from such works: When we read Catholic literature, one of the most important things to keep in mind is that we must not recoil at the feelings of remoteness that these unfamiliar works provoke in us. These feelings of distance cause our innately pantheistic blood to be constantly battling against and clashing with the monotheistic blood that flows through the veins of Catholic literature. (ESBZ 12: 24) Despite—or because of?—these feelings of distance from the French Catholic writers, Endō accepted the invitation to become one of the first Japanese after World War II allowed to travel overseas and study in France6. He and the other Japanese in the small group of travelers set sail from Japan on June 4, 1950. The ability to observe and experience European Christianity first-hand, along with the prejudice he encountered as a member of a defeated race that had for centuries been considered inferior to Caucasians, reinforced in Endō’s mind the existence of an insurmountable wall that separated him as a Japanese from the Christian culture of the West: I could not shake the gnawing feeling that a great gulf lay between them [French Catholic writers] and myself. Every time I read their accounts of their religious conversions, I got the impression that they felt they had ‘returned home’ when they accepted Christianity. Being Japanese, though, I could not feel inside myself that embracing Christianity was any sort of homecoming. And none of the writers I studied had anything to say about the agony endured by the stranger to Christianity.

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The more I studied Christian literature, the wider the gap between me and these writers grew. It was not simply a feeling of distance from Christianity, but a distance from the entire culture of a foreign country…. I was able to make friends with many of the French people, but no matter how long I remained there, my studies seemed to run into a massive wall, and gradually I lost the desire to go to the classroom. From that time, I gave thought to becoming a writer. For I felt that I had run across a theme that I would need to pursue my entire life. (Endō 1973, 57) In metaphorical terms, the “massive wall” that impeded Endō’s studies and his reconciliation with European Christianity was manifest for him in a very corporeal way: in late 1951, he began coughing up blood from a chronic pleural condition that continued to worsen until he had to cut his studies short and return to Japan in January 1953, feeling as though the “great wall of European culture” had defeated him. He uses this wall metaphor in his 1964 novella, Nanji mo, mata (And You, Too*), in which Tanaka, who has come to France to study the life and philosophy of the Marquis de Sade, spits up blood onto the wall of de Sade’s ruined castle La Coste. From his hospital bed, Tanaka recalls a letter he had received from a Japanese friend, equally disillusioned by his studies, that commented, “We cannot receive blood from those of a different blood type.” Tanaka ponders: “So the blood he had spat out at that snowy scene had been Japanese blood. Or maybe it had been blood he had coughed up from an inability to endure something western which had flowed into his body” (Endō 1990, 226).

Probing the “distance”: Yellow Man Harboring those feelings of defeat, it was perhaps only natural that in his early essays and the first works of fiction that he published, Endō agonized over the distance that seemed to separate him from the Christianity he had observed in Europe. The strict orthodoxy of belief that he experienced there battled with his own Japanese sensibilities. Critic Mark Williams describes how this struggle was manifest in Endō’s early essays “The Gods and God” and “Katorikku sakka no mondai” (The Issues Confronting the Catholic Author, 1947): The overall tenor of [these works] is to posit a clear distinction between the “monotheistic” West and the “pantheistic” East—with Endō arguing passionately that “it is impossible to journey to the ‘realm of God’ without being lured toward the ‘realm of the gods.’” To Endō, the latter represents a “passive” world, one that stands in sharp contradistinction to the “monotheistic” West in which the individual is charged with “affirming their state of existence as neither God nor angel and waging constant battle against death, sin and the Devil.” (Williams, in Dennis, M. & Middleton, D. 2020, 110) After attracting attention in the literary world with the novella Shiroi hito (White Man,* 1955)—a dark story of torture and betrayal in Occupied France—in that same year Endō published Kiiroi hito (Yellow Man*), in which he sharply contrasts the “passivity” of his Japanese characters with the almost suffocating vibrancy of the western priests; even an apostate

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priest, Durand, who has committed fornication with a Japanese woman, fiercely battles his guilty conscience. The contrast between the Japanese in the story, represented by Chiba, a onetime Christian who has lost his faith, and Durand, who despite his excommunication cannot forget God, presents a stark, even pessimistic view of the viability of Christian belief in the culture of Japan. Chiba writes in a letter to the priest who had once tried to nurture his faith: “As a yellow man, I know nothing so grave, or so dramatic, as your sense of sin, or your ‘emptiness.’ All I know is fatigue. Deep fatigue. A fatigue as cloudy as my yellowish skin, and as dank and sunken” (Endō 2014, 73). Sharply contrasted with the spiritual numbness that Chiba describes is the relentless guilt that Durand feels for betraying God. He grabs Kimiko, his partner in adultery, by her shoulders and shakes her, unable to endure her utter indifference to the church and its condemnation of his sin. And then he reflects: It has been twelve years since I started doing missionary work in Japan. And today I understood for the first time the bliss of the heathen (those who do not know God). I don’t know if it is truly “bliss.” But now at least I think I understand the secret of those eyes of Kimiko and Chiba—the cloudy, long, narrow eyes peculiar to the yellow man. Those eyes, with their dull luster, remind me of the eyes of a dead bird. There is something apathetic and inanimate in their glassy stare that we westerners find almost uncanny. Theirs are the eyes of a people indifferent to God and to sin and impassive in the face of death. (Endō 2014, 112) In stark contrast to the spiritual indifference Durand senses in the Japanese, he writes in his journal shortly before his apparent suicide: Yet, while I reject God, I can never deny His existence. I’m imbued with Him to the tips of my fingers. And here … all these Japanese can get along fine without God. They are able to live in ambiguity, in perfect indifference to the church, to the pain of sin, and to the desire for salvation—to everything we whites believe to be essential to human beings. Why is it? Why? (Endō 2014, 128) Endō wrote Yellow Man barely two years after his return from France, and he seemed firmly convinced that European Christianity could never be reconciled with the spiritual climate of Japan. Much as he sensed a need to re-tailor the western suit put on him by his mother, he felt that he was pounding in vain against the wall that kept him from a full acceptance of the kind of Christianity he had experienced in Europe. There is certainly a possibility that he never would have found a way to break down that wall—or, to put it more accurately, to abandon the attempt to destroy the wall and instead to find ways to create a different, a Japanese kind of Christianity on his side of the wall. Had his thinking and his experience not led him to explore the potential for the creation of a distinctly Japanese version of Christianity, his writing career might have stagnated and left him feeling “indifferent” toward what he called the “damp country” at the lifeless roots of imported religion.

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Brutality, love, and consecration: The Sea and Poison, Wonderful Fool, and The Girl I Left Behind Something of a turning point occurs in Endō’s writings at the end of the 1950s. His important novel, Umi to dokuyaku (The Sea and Poison,* 1958) was met with critical acclaim and received two literary prizes. But in this work, Endō has set aside his preoccupation with the East-West dichotomy and instead focuses on the issue of individual conscience in the face of unspeakable cruelty. The story line was suggested by a notorious incident that took place at Kyushu Imperial University’s College of Medicine: eight American airmen were captured after their plane was rammed by a Japanese fighter near Fukuoka in May 1945. They were taken to the medical college, where vivisections and other inhuman experiments resulted in the deaths of all eight. The novel centers around the experiments conducted on just one of the U.S. airmen, but Endō’s concern is clearly not political. He is far less interested in condemning the doctors and nurses who conducted the vivisection than in examining the depth—or lack thereof—of remorse, the pangs of conscience felt by members of the medical staff. Some are insensible to the horror, merely doing their job as doctors and obediently following orders from the Japanese military command. As one ambitious intern, Toda, insists, “I have no conscience, I suppose. Not just me, though. None of [the doctors or nurses] feel anything at all about what they did here” (Endō 1980, 157). But one young intern, Suguro, cannot bring himself to participate in the brutality and can only stand frozen as an observer at the back of the operating room. He has felt for a long while that his conscience has been “paralyzed. For me the pangs of conscience … were from childhood equivalent to the fear of disapproval in the eyes of others—fear of the punishment which society could bring to bear” (Endō 1980, 118). When the merciless experiments are over and the airman’s mutilated corpse has been removed, Suguro goes up to the roof, where he has a conversation with Toda, who has been unable to muster any feelings of regret for what had been done that day. “Toda, doesn’t it bother you at all?” “Bother me? What do you mean, bother me?” Toda’s tone was dry. “Was it the sort of thing that should bother somebody?” Suguro was silent. Finally, as though to himself, he spoke in a still feebler voice. “Toda, you’re strong. As for me… I shut my eyes today in there. I don’t know what to think, even now. I just don’t know.” “What is it that gets to you?” Toda felt a painful constriction forming in his throat as he spoke. “Killing that prisoner? Thanks to him, if we’re now better at curing thousands of TB patients—then we didn’t kill him. We let him live on. The conscience of man will change to some degree depending on how you look at it.” Really there was nothing changed at all. Everything was just the same as before.

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“Still… some day, we’ll be punished for it,” said Suguro, leaning close suddenly and whispering. “That’s for sure. It makes total sense that we’ll be punished for it.” “By ‘punished,’ you mean by society? If it’s only a punishment by society, then nothing will change.” Toda opened his mouth wide and yawned again. “You and I happened to be here in this particular hospital in this particular era, and so we took part in a vivisection performed on a prisoner. If those people who are going to punish us had been put in the same situation, would they have done anything different? That’s all there is to the punishments of society.” (Endō 1980, 166–67)7 One of the first indications that Endō was eager to excavate at least a small opening in the unyielding European cultural wall is the publication in 1959 of what is considered his first “humorous” novel,8 Obakasan (Wonderful Fool*). The novel feels like a breath of fresh air, a return to placid, everyday life in the wake of The Sea and Poison. The bumbling protagonist, a lanky Frenchman named Gaston Bonaparte, comes to Japan and makes a “fool” of himself, bouncing from one ludicrous mistake to another thanks to his ignorance of the country and its customs; but it is not long before he becomes entangled in a revenge plot involving a hardened killer (named, ironically, Endō) and makes desperate efforts to reform—to “save”—this man. It is from this point that the Japanese who have associated with Gaston come to understand that he is not the pathetic idiot they had thought him to be. One of them, a young woman named Tomoe, ponders: A man who loves others with open-hearted simplicity, who trusts others, no matter who they are, even if he is deceived or betrayed—such a man in the present-day world is bound to be written off as a fool. And so he is. But not just an ordinary fool. He is a wonderful fool. He is a wonderful fool who will never allow the little light which he sheds along man’s way to go out. (Endō 1974, 180) Of greatest interest here is that this is likely the first time that Endō envisioned a Christlike figure as a weakling, a clumsy “fool” who is nevertheless filled with love and goes out of his way to be with those who are suffering or even evil. For the vast majority of Japanese readers, there was nothing overtly “religious” or even “spiritual” about this novel; but one line near the end of the book, after Gaston mysteriously vanishes after trying to intervene in a gangland fight to the death, finally reveals Gaston’s motivation for coming to Japan: Gaston has written in his notebook: “I’ve failed three times to pass the entrance examination to the Mission Seminary. So I won’t be able to become a missionary priest. Still I must go to Japan” (Endō 1974, 234). Considered in light of Endō’s subsequent formulations of a compassionate, “eternal companion” image of Christ, Wonderful Fool can be seen as an attempt to reach out in a largely humorous narrative to a broad, non-Christian reading audience in Japan to plant a seed in their minds that might help them conceive of a different kind of Christianity than that which most regarded as a stern, unforgiving, utterly foreign faith. The Christian motifs are more prominently on display in another important novel from this period, Watashi ga suteta onna9 (The Girl I Left Behind,* 1963). Endō’s protagonist here, like Gaston, is something of a “saintly” figure: Mitsu transitions from used and abandoned

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innocent young woman to a self-sacrificing minister to the afflicted. She is portrayed as something less than commonplace—a drab, unattractive girl who has nothing but the use of her body to offer the bright, ambitious student, Yoshioka. Once Yoshioka has had his way with Mitsu, he moves on to more physically attractive women who can aid him in his quest for worldly success. After she has been cast aside, Mitsu notices dark marks on her wrists and is mistakenly diagnosed with leprosy. For a time she is committed to a leper hospital in Gotenba. She is initially hesitant to associate with the other patients, but over time she comes to see them as good, but wounded, people. Once the diagnosis of her ailment is discovered to be false, however, she hurries to the train station, feeling joyously relieved. But the concern she has developed for the others at the hospital keeps her from abandoning them in the same way that she has been abandoned: This was the train for Tokyo. Mitsu tried to put her finger on the difference between Tokyo and that hospital in the woods. In Shinjuku and Kawasaki, people would push busily past Mitsu with the same cold indifference as at this station. And there would be others like Miura Mariko who, despite having shared a desk with Mitsu, ended up forgetting her entirely…. The buzzer announcing the imminent departure of the train was muffled. A voice from within kept whispering to Mitsu that, if she ran, she could still catch the train. But at the same time another corner of her heart was given over to thoughts of that rain-drenched grove and the hospital resembling an army barracks. In the ward she had just left behind her, the female patients would no doubt be busy with their embroidery. Kano Taeko would possibly be sitting all alone in that bedroom. Mitsu recalled with a shudder the looks on the patients’ faces as they watched her leave. The buzzer stopped, there was a short silence and then the train moved off with a screech. The smoke from the engine enveloped the carriages and wafted down the platform. Mitsu left the station still clutching her suitcase. Then slowly she crossed the square and walked slowly towards the bus-stop. (Endō 1994, 175) In this portion of the novel, Endō is able to look past Mitsu’s drab surface, that had only served as a vehicle for Yoshioka to indulge his lusts, and peer into her heart, where he locates tremendous stores of compassion and empathy. There is no “earthly” reason why Mitsu should give up the freedom that has been granted her by a proper diagnosis, but she chooses to take the bus back to the leprosarium. She has won a special sort of victory, overcoming the very natural impulses toward self-fulfilment and shifting her attention to the sufferings of others. Whatever failings of plainness, ignorance and gullibility Mitsu may have had, her silent triumph over personal desires qualifies her to be the “ideal woman” Yoshioka hears about at the novel’s conclusion, after Mitsu has been killed in an accident at the hospital. He is left to ponder:

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[W]hat was the source of my current loneliness? I had secured for myself a moderate, yet dependable happiness. I was not about to abandon that out of consideration for Mitsu. And yet why did I feel so lonely? If Mitsu had taught me anything at all, it was that every single person with whom we cross paths during our journey through life leaves an indelible mark on us. So does loneliness stem from such marks? Furthermore, if the God in whom this nun [who worked alongside Mitsu at the hospital] believes truly exists, does He speak to us through these marks? (Endō 1994, 192) It is overly optimistic to conclude that Yoshioka has been forever transformed by his encounter with Mitsu; he will not “abandon” the “moderate, yet dependable happiness” he has attained through ambition and manipulation of others. He has, however, been afforded a glimpse into the zone of compassion where Mitsu has put love above personal convenience and service above success. She is one of Endō’s most memorable character creations, and she effortlessly attracts the reader’s sympathy and admiration. She may appear common, unexceptional on the surface, but in her capacity to love, she points toward the characteristic of Christ that Endō most admired: the determination never to abandon those who suffer. Setting Mitsu’s story in a leprosarium certainly begs for comparison with the stories of Christ’s ministry among lepers in the New Testament. The depiction of Mitsu has made The Girl I Left Behind perhaps the most enduringly popular of Endō’s works among Japanese audiences. The novel has been adapted twice for film (in 1969 and 1997) and once as a television drama. A musical adaptation, titled “Nakanai de” (Don’t Cry), was first performed in Japan in 1994 and has been revived several times. Endō frequently watched a video recording of the musical and even tried to sing along with one of the songs (Endō Junko 1998, 34).

An illness, a lost lung, and a step toward Silence The trajectory of Endō’s work was abruptly interrupted in 1960—ironically, after he again visited Europe, this time to pursue studies of the Marquis de Sade—when he suffered a severe relapse of pulmonary tuberculosis and entered a Japanese hospital for what would end up being just over two years. During that time, doctors attempted two operations on his lungs, but both failed. Endō was presented with the option of a third surgery but was warned that the odds of survival were slim. He decided to have the operation, in which one entire diseased lung was removed. Despite his physical suffering, this extended period of hospitalization and surgery presented Endō with an opportunity to begin his studies of the early history of Christianity in Japan, the “Christian Century,” as it is called, stretching from Saint Francis Xavier’s arrival in 1549 to approximately the fourth decade of the 17th century, when governmental persecution virtually eradicated the Christian population. Endō’s attention was drawn to the spiritual agony of those too weak to endure torture who signified their abandonment of the alien faith by stepping on an image of Christ or the Virgin with Babe (a fumie). He felt a kinship with the relatively small numbers of early Japanese Christians who placed their feet on the image but subsequently went underground with their beliefs. Many of these “hidden Christians” (Kakure Kirishitan) suffered for generations from the shame they felt for betraying both God

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and their Christian ancestors. Endō evokes the pain of these hidden Christians in his 1969 short story, “Mothers,*” written in the period after the publication of Silence, during which he was refining his image of a maternal Christ—a deity modeled in part on his own idealized portrait of his mother—that he felt would be more appealing to Japanese spiritual sensibilities than the commonly held view that the Christian God was a vengeful deity. In a seminal essay, “Chichi no shūkyō, haha no shūkyō: Maria Kannon ni tsuite” (Paternal Religion, Maternal Religion: On the Maria Kannon, 1967), Endō contemplated some of the reasons why Christianity has held little appeal for Japanese in the modern age: Japanese writers since the Meiji period, when they have given intellectual consideration to the God of Christianity, have primarily associated Him with the image of a deity who judges and punishes them for the secrets they conceal within the depths of their hearts. And I suspect that, more often than not, Christianity itself is regarded less as a religion of harmony and love than as a religion designed to condemn the individual. I can’t help but feel that lurking within the vague distaste the Japanese have felt toward Christianity since the Meiji period lies this sense of otherness and distance toward a western religion, combined with these one-sided interpretations of God and Christian doctrine. (ESBZ 12: 371) Even as he was exploring how his fiction could reflect his view of Christianity as “a religion of harmony and love,” Endō was simultaneously spawning a new literary persona for himself. It was during his recuperation after release from the hospital in the spring of 1962 that Endō came up with the idea of writing humorous, sometimes even scatological essays which, I think, in addition to being an emotional release for him were yet another part of his efforts to demonstrate that he was no puritanical, judgmental Christian. The persona he created was named Korian-sensei, meaning something like “The Sage of the Fox and Badger Hermitage.” These numerous essay collections, which he continued to publish until nearly the end of his life, were extraordinarily popular and helped create a “second” group of readers, paralleling but not always overlapping with the group who were only interested in reading his serious religious works. As his health improved, he also became a well-recognized television personality, appearing on talk shows and in commercials for such products as Nescafe coffee.

The turning point: Silence Saeki Shōichi, a Japanese scholar and long-time friend of Endō, argued that in the works of fiction published in the 1950s and early 1960s, Endō “was more concerned with the themes of his novels than with the creation of believable human beings. His characters were forced to howl and suffer submissively as they writhed beneath the burden of the themes that had been foisted upon them… But Endō is a perceptive critic, and he recognized these faults in his own work… He had clearly matured as a writer after his two and half years in the hospital” (Saeki 1973, 58–59). Additionally, British scholar Adrian Pinnington has suggested that the works leading up to Silence express “the author’s sense that the protagonists suffer from a sickness which

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cannot be cured by the Japanese culture they know. At the same time, however, there is the equally strong sense that it cannot be cured by the culture of Europeans either.” Pinnington cites a critique of Endō’s works by the Japanese theologian Kitamori Kazō, who “points out that in Endō’s earlier novels, although the characters have no consciousness of sin …, there is little doubt that what they are doing is evil. In this sense, these novels offer a critique of Japanese culture.” In Silence, however, “the sense of evil, while still present, recedes, and the sense of humans as weak rather than evil is emphasized” (Pinnington 2001, 100–1). The problem of evil surfaces again with great intensity in Endō’s late works, most particularly in Scandal and Deep River, but in his mature vision of the nature of evil, a seed of spiritual deliverance resides within the acts of evil. I would also argue that the works written after Silence more pointedly foreground the possibility that even (or especially?10) the weak individual merits the saving grace offered by Christ; in these novels, Endō’s image of a forgiving Christ (seamlessly merged with the image of his indulgent mother) reaches out and embraces those whose faith is not strong enough to endure torture and persecution, yet not so weak that they can bring themselves to abandon their hope of redemption. Endō’s ultimate proposition is that Christ suffers alongside the weak and that there is, within that shared pain, a salvific link that pardons all the betrayals and brings reconciliation between man and God.11 Silence and the fumie It is instructive to compare some of the ways in which Silence was first condemned by the Catholic Church upon publication with the honor paid to it some three decades later. When the novel first came out, the native Catholic clergy denounced it, horrified at what they regarded as the aesthetic glorification of apostasy, and some voices recommended that the novel be listed on a local equivalent of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum (List of Prohibited Books) (ESBZ 15: 353). A Catholic priest, Kasuya Kōichi, argued that the novel appears to “not only acknowledge apostasy, but even praise it…” (Inoue 2012, 158). Other Christian readers of the novel in Japan were equally incensed: Yanaihara Isaku, a professor of philosophy at Protestant-founded Dōshisha University, insisted that the faithful martyrs of Japan’s “Christian century” had, indeed, heard the voice of God, but that the apostate priests Ferreira and Rodrigues were denied that blessing because they did not have faith in Him from the beginning (Endō 1969, 16–17). In his “Afterword” to the original hardback edition of Silence, Endō wrote, “Some may consider Rodrigues’s ultimate faith to be close to that of Protestantism, but that is my own current position. I’m well aware that I’ll be criticized from a theological perspective for this, but I can’t help it” (Endō 1998, 256). Yet within four years of Endō’s death, in conjunction with the dedication of the Endō Shūsaku Literary Museum in Nagasaki, a memorial mass was celebrated at the Urakami Cathedral dedicated to “Endō Shūsaku and all the Christians from the era of persecution” (emphasis added). The significance of celebrating a mass for “all the Christians” was not lost on many of the two thousand in attendance.12 There was no longer the sense that in Silence Endō had somehow intended to glorify those Christians of the early 17th century who renounced their faith under torture, which had been seen as an insult to the hundreds of martyrs who suffered and died for their beliefs. This hardliner view was conspicuous for its

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absence at the 2000 memorial mass, where all who suffered, martyr and weakling, were paid homage—something for which Endō’s writings had consistently argued.13 The storyline of Silence is widely known, whether from the novel itself or from Martin Scorsese’s magnificent 2016 film adaptation. Simply described, in the 1630s two young Portuguese Jesuits, Rodrigues and Garupe,14 receive word that their spiritual mentor, Father Ferreira, has apostatized after being tortured by Japanese authorities. Unable to believe Ferreira capable of such weakness, the two fathers steal into Japan but are eventually captured: Garupe (representing perhaps the strong martyrs) dies in the ocean trying to stop the authorities from drowning Japanese Christians. Rodrigues flees but is dogged by a Japanese apostate, Kichijirō, who repeatedly confesses his weakness to the priest and tries to be strong but tramples on the image of Christ (the fumie) whenever the authorities threaten him with physical harm. The weak-willed Kichijirō ultimately betrays Rodrigues, Judas-like, and the latter is imprisoned. The young priest is forced to look on helplessly while dirt-poor Japanese peasants who have accepted the Christian message are brutally tortured. He is told that their tortures will cease if he will simply place his own foot on the fumie. Ferreira, having denied his faith himself, is brought in to persuade Rodrigues to do the same out of Christlike love for the peasants. Beaten down by the relentless psychological torment, Rodrigues raises his foot to step on the face of Christ in the image, and in that moment, a gentle, forgiving voice breaks the silence and tells him, “It’s all right to trample. Go ahead and step on me. I know better than anyone else how your foot aches. It’s all right to trample. I was born into this world to be trampled upon by you and by all of mankind; I bore my cross so that I could share in your pain.” 15 The power of the dramatic conflict Endō offers up in the novel was easily recognized and widely appreciated by both critics and readers. But many Japanese critics and readers glossed over the profound spiritual meaning of this crucial passage and concluded that Endō was writing solely about the “silence of God.” Consequently, late in his life the author took pains to insist that he was writing about a voice that came in the silence at the precise moment Rodrigues was facing his own private Gethsemane.16 Perhaps the most insightful reading of the novel at the time came from the critic Etō Jun, who wrote that the “mournful gaze” from the image in the fumie was the gaze of a “maternal” figure, and that by trampling on that image, Rodrigues was able to obliterate the image of the “Father” who heads the westernized Church and thereby embrace a forgiving “Mother” who is more compatible with Japanese religious sensibilities (Etō 1975, 180–81). It is critical to understand the merging of Endō’s idealized image of his mother (in the sense that his mother seems to have been a fervently orthodox believer in her faith, yet an indulgent parent to her younger son) with his evolving perception of Christ. Yet, as Mark Williams insightfully points out, Silence represents less a simple portrayal of “the image of the Japanese mother,” more a depiction of the paradox of strength emerging through weakness. … The qualities of strength and weakness, symbolized in the text by martyrdom and apostasy, have been effectively fused in the protagonist’s mind, and with it, Rodrigues’ initial perception of an unfathomable gap between East and West has been eroded, the neat division between the “monotheistic” West and the “pantheistic” East no longer readily identifiable. (Williams 1999, 124, 127)

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Williams sees in this fusion a significant step forward in Endō’s thinking about cultural differences and similarities—with the tension between them central to his views of Christianity—and describes what Endō achieves in this and later novels as a “reconciliation” between the two poles. Rodrigues, in debasing himself and making of himself a sacrifice because of his intense love for the innocent Japanese Christians, is performing the most Christlike of the options (imprisonment, ongoing torture, even martyrdom) placed before him. However key Rodrigues may be to the narrative drama of the novel, however, we cannot overlook the fact that the character in Silence with whom Endō most closely identified is Kichijirō.17 The novel can certainly be read as a journey in which the aggressive, fervently faithful western priest Rodrigues is transformed by his painful experiences in Japan into a much weaker, more passive, yet significantly more compassionate human being, virtually indistinguishable from Kichijirō by the end of the book. Endō emphasizes the identification between these two frailbut-believing figures from different parts of the world in the oft-misread—and frequently un-read—final section of the novel, the “Diary of an Officer at the Christian Residence” (a “residence” which is actually a prison). In oblique terms, Endō hints that Rodrigues, now sharing his residential cell with Kichijirō, who is both a companion and something of a servant to Rodrigues, has become even more like Kichijirō during his incarceration: although he has publicly renounced Christianity, Rodrigues continues ministering to the Japanese Christians in the cell, but each time the authorities discover his activities, he is again tortured in the pit and coerced into signing an oath of apostasy. This cycle of falling and rising, only to fall and rise again, can be read as another subtle identification of Rodrigues with the Apostle Peter. Jesus’ admonition to Peter, “When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren,” (Luke 22: 32 KJV) is given in the Japanese translation of the Bible (taken from Martin Luther’s rendition into German) as “When you are once again standing on your feet, strengthen your brethren.” 18 To underscore the power of Silence, I want to briefly examine the subtle manner in which the narrative structure of the book delineates, one step at a time, the journey that Rodrigues must make from confident, loquacious preacher to chastened, empathetic crypto-disciple. After the novel’s brief “Prologue,” Rodrigues speaks in the first person—in the form of letters addressed to his superiors in Rome—for four consecutive chapters, representing nearly a third of the novel’s length. His is the only “voice” that is audible throughout virtually the first half of the novel. We may be impressed by his faith and courage; we may be annoyed by his egotism and zeal; but we cannot help but accept him as our guide through the opening events of this drama. After Rodrigues is betrayed to the Japanese authorities by Kichijirō and obviously can no longer send dispatches to Rome, the narrative voice steps away from him, and our only access to his thoughts thereafter is indirect. In cinematic terms, we started this journey with the camera tightly focused on Rodrigues, but beginning in Chapter 5, the camera pulls back to give us a broader viewpoint—one less dominated by Rodrigues’s gaze and voice. The “I” has been arrested and incarcerated, with the result that we only see and hear about “he.” The “priest,” as he is now called, has lost his commanding, capitalized first-person pronoun and no longer exerts control over the progress of the narrative. This detached perspective persists through the climactic fumie scene and into Chapter 9, where we still have some third-person limited access to Rodrigues’s thoughts, though the only name that is applied to him comes via the taunts of neighborhood children who call him 246

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“Apostate Paul!” The dolly bearing the narrative camera seems to continue its slow tracking away from the priest; the first two paragraphs of the chapter are scarcely even populated with human figures. By the time we reach the extracts from the diary of the Dutch clerk at Dejima in Chapter 10, the protagonist has become “Padre Rodrigues, the apostate Portuguese,” an appellation well in keeping with the contemptuous attitude that many Dutch traders held toward the Catholic missionaries who had almost ruined the opportunity for their commercial activities in Japan. Rodrigues scarcely shows up at all in the diary entries; it is not until the latter part of the chapter that he has his final interview with Lord Inoue, who informs him that hereafter he will be known by as Okada San’emon, the name of a recently deceased Japanese man whose wife will be handed over to him. This is the last opportunity Rodrigues has to speak for, and as, himself in the novel, and it is in his final internal dialogue with Christ that Endō reaffirms what has been most important to him throughout the work. Rodrigues speaks to Christ: “Lord, I resented your silence”; the response is: “I was not silent. I suffered beside you” (Endō 2017, 203).19 In moving from the unavoidably audible voice of Rodrigues at the beginning of the novel, the gaze of the narrator progressively pulls away from him and, accompanying this movement, his voice grows more and more indistinct. By the final chapter, the Portuguese priest “Sebastian Rodrigues” no longer exists. The camera dolly has withdrawn so far from him that he is now only a pin-point in the mute records of history. The officer at the Christian Residence makes a handful of references to “Okada San’emon” over a period of ten years, until he finally notes in the Ninth Year of Enpō that “Okada San’emon died of illness at 2–3 past the hour of the Monkey” (Endō 2017, 211). Rodrigues’s very existence has been removed from the pages of the story. Not once in the final years of his life does the narrative give him the opportunity to speak a word. To what, then, does the novel’s title refer? And what is the function of this cinematic mode of narration that renders the protagonist less and less central to the story? Since I am certain that Endō was not ultimately writing about “the silence of God,” I can only conclude that it is the voice of Rodrigues—the voice of his overly-confident ego, of his aggressive determination to encourage the violently persecuted flock of Japanese Christians to maintain their faith, of his escalating demands that God break His silence—that must be stilled before the voice of Christ can finally speak to him in his extremity. Once that Voice has spoken, Rodrigues is freed from all his preconceptions about the Church as a stern, paternal taskmaster and can now embrace his new-found faith rooted in compassion, sacrifice, and forgiveness. Herein, I believe, lies the power of Silence as a novel to move readers among every kindred, tongue and people.

Beside the Dead Sea and A Life of Jesus The crucial fumie scene in Silence when Rodrigues hears the merciful voice of Christ can be considered the point at which Endō began to broaden and deepen his artistic (and personal) vision of a “motherly” deity who brings peace and reconciliation to his characters who battle physical and spiritual weakness. For much of the remainder of his literary career, he would return to the timorous, abandoned and despairing individuals who can only be rescued by coming into contact with a tender character who embraces him (and, sometimes, her) and refuses to cast him off, no matter what offenses have been committed. After Silence, Endō

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gave himself the assignment to pursue ways to present such a caring figure in his writing, a process that would refine an image of Christ from which he hoped the Japanese would feel less distance. The first steps in moving forward with this project led him to create two “artistic/fictional” portrayals of Christ in Shikai no hotori (Beside the Dead Sea) and Iesu no shōgai (A Life of Jesus*), published almost simultaneously in 1973. In his preparation for writing these two books, Endō undertook an in-depth study of contemporary western scholarship on the accounts of Jesus’ life as presented in the four Gospels. He familiarized himself with many of the doubts about the veracity of miraculous incidents recorded in the New Testament and used these as the starting point for a highly idiosyncratic interpretation of “that Man,” as he calls Jesus. For what emerges in his dual portraits from these works is the figure of a sorrowful, powerless itinerant preacher who has only one redeeming quality: He cannot leave the side of suffering individuals who plead for him to heal them. He performs no miracles of healing, but he holds the hands of the sick and dying and assures them that he will always be with them. As Endō himself described this interpretation in a Preface to the English translation, “Jesus as I depict him is a person who lived for love and still more love. … I wrote this book for the benefit of Japanese readers … to highlight the particular aspect of love in his personality precisely in order to make Jesus understandable in terms of the religious psychology of my non-Christian countrymen and thus to demonstrate that Jesus is not alien to their religious sensibilities.” Those sensibilities, he continues, “lead the Japanese to seek in their gods and buddhas a warm-hearted mother rather than a stern father” (Endō 1978, 1). A Life of Jesus is, then, a chronological musing on the birth, ministry and death of the man Jesus. Ineffectual as a worker of miraculous healings, this Jesus does, in many ways, appear as a kind Mater Dolorosa, a “Messiah of love who would be the eternal companion of mankind everywhere” (Endō 1978, 88). Beside the Dead Sea is much more intricately constructed, providing glimpses of this Jesus through the eyes of some of his contemporaries, including: a man begging Jesus for a healing, a disciple who abandons Christ yet cannot stay away from him, Pontius Pilate (who, interestingly, is depicted as having betrayed his mother in order to advance his own career) and a Roman centurion who must keep watch until the man on the cross has died. These vignettes alternate with the story of two Japanese men of the 20th century who travel around the Holy Land in a fruitless search for historical traces of Jesus. Both of these men seem to have lost their faith: one, Toda, is a biblical scholar convinced from his studies that all the stories of Jesus as a worker of miracles were invented by His disciples after the crucifixion. The other, who narrates the modern sections, seems to be on a quest to find any vestiges in the region around the Dead Sea that might confirm or finally extinguish his fading belief, to provide some sort of “resolution” to his life. The image of Jesus that emerges as these two story lines intertwine is of an unusual prophet who is powerless to heal the physical and emotional wounds that daily life inflicts on humankind, but who has limitless love to offer as he comforts and weeps alongside those who suffer. Endō’s Jesus says to Pilate, “You will not forget me. Once I have crossed paths with another’s life, that person can never forget me. … That is because I will never cease to love that person” (ESBZ 3: 125). Here we encounter the “eternal,” mutually suffering “companion” that Endō had for many years been working to produce in his fiction.

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Endō was reportedly dissatisfied with the critical reaction to Beside the Dead Sea, feeling that his motives in writing the novel were not understood.20 This caused him for a time to lose faith in the efficacy of fiction, and over the next two decades he wrote a number of critical biographies of Japanese Christians from the age of persecution.21 He did not publish another serious novel for the next seven years; even then, The Samurai can in some ways be regarded as a creative study of the unintentionally dramatic life of yet another historical figure from the early-17th century, Hasekura Tsunenaga.

The Samurai Some critics, myself included, consider The Samurai to be Endō’s masterpiece based on its mature literary style, sophisticated structure, and powerfully affective evocations of time, place and character. The idea for the novel began taking shape even as Endō was publishing A Life of Jesus and Beside the Dead Sea. Shortly after completing The Samurai, Endō wrote, “This novel is a reconfiguration within myself inspired by what occurred in [the title character] Hasekura’s life. … I began to sense that Hasekura was a character that I could employ as a projection of myself, and I started to feel that Hasekura was me,” (Kawashima 2000, 149) echoing his earlier statement that “Kichijirō is me.” The core incidents depicted in the novel closely follow historical fact. It recounts a 1613 trade voyage to Mexico and Europe undertaken by Hasekura Tsunenaga, a low-ranking vassal of the powerful Sendai warlord, Date Masamune. Hasekura is plucked out of his placid rural homelife at His Lordship’s command to lead the mission, which included other samurai and a group of Japanese traders. The instigator of the journey is a Franciscan monk, Luis Sotelo (called Velasco in the novel). Sent on a mission to establish trade ties between their domain and Mexico, the envoys are told in Mexico City that nothing can be decided without the authorization of the King of Spain. Velasco is then able to persuade several of the merchants in the group that they can increase their chances of concluding trade agreements if they will, as a mere formality, receive baptism. They proceed to Spain, where they have an audience with King Philip III, but still they make no progress toward successful achievement of their mission. In Madrid, Hasekura and some of the other samurai in the entourage also accept baptism as an expediency to have their petition accepted. But just when victory seems attainable, news arrives that, since their departure from Sendai, the persecution of Japanese Christians has grown fierce. Velasco decides he must make direct appeal to the Pope and persuades the group to accompany him to Rome. But ultimately every aim of the mission is frustrated: Velasco is unable to get himself appointed Bishop of Japan, and no discussions regarding trade relations are held. The emissaries return to Japan in 1620, their mission an utter failure. There is even more dishonor awaiting Hasekura when he finally returns to his home domain. Guilty of converting to a now proscribed foreign religion while overseas, he is ordered to commit seppuku. His devoted obedience to orders from his lord has, with the changing winds of politics, been redefined as treason. He is left with nothing on which he can rely. At least on earth. The ending of the novel hints that Hasekura has developed at least the seedlings of faith in Christ. Throughout his travels in Mexico and Europe, he encountered images of Jesus in virtually every town or room he entered. Raised in a religion such as

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Buddhism where the iconography focuses on the physical beauty and grandeur of its deities, the samurai looked on in bafflement at the parade of crucifixes that passed before his eyes: The samurai sat down on his bed and looked uncomfortably about the room. … On the bare wall an emaciated man with both hands nailed to a cross hung with a drooping head. “A man like this…” Once again, the samurai experienced the same incomprehension. “Why do they worship him?” He remembered that he had once seen a prisoner in a similar condition. Riding bareback, he had been paraded about with both hands lashed to a pole. Like this man on the crucifix, the prisoner was ugly and filthy. His ribs protruded, and his stomach had caved in as though he had not eaten for a long while; he wore only a cloth about his loins, and he supported himself on the horse with spindly legs. The more he looked at it, the more the image on the wall reminded the samurai of that prisoner. “What would the people in the marshland think … if I worshipped someone like this?” ... [H]e could detect nothing sublime or holy in a man as wretched and powerless as this. (Endō 1982, 159–60) His protracted, arduous journey, however, changes him in many subtle ways. Raised in the faith of his village and inculcated with absolute fidelity to his feudal leaders, Hasekura struggles with, but ultimately cannot remove from his mind, the images of the emaciated man on the cross. In the final days of his life, it is to those images that he turns for empathy and companionship: “I’ve always believed that I became a Christian as a mere formality. That feeling hasn’t changed at all. But since I’ve learned something about Government, sometimes I find myself thinking about that man. I think I understand why every house in those countries has a pathetic statue of that man. I suppose that somewhere in the hearts of men, there’s a yearning for someone who will be with you throughout your life, someone who will never betray you, never leave you—even if that someone is just a sick, mangy dog. That man became just such a miserable dog for the sake of mankind… Yes, that man became a dog who remains beside us.” (Endō 1982, 245) There is one more reliable companion whom the samurai has always had at his side throughout his long voyages—his faithful servant, Yozō, who privately confesses to his master that he believes in Christianity. When the samurai begins his walk down a long, dark corridor to the room where he has been ordered to take his own life, Yozō calls out to him: “‘From now on… He will be beside you. … From now on, He will attend you.’ The samurai stopped, looked back, and nodded his head emphatically. Then he set off down the cold, glistening corridor towards the end of his journey” (Endō 1982, 262).22 The final blow to Velasco’s proud ambitions on the journey is struck in Rome when he has an audience with the powerful Cardinal Borghese, who insists that the Church cannot afford

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to send more missionaries to Japan in the midst of fierce persecution. The Cardinal rebuffs Velasco’s pleas for support: “We run a massive organization. We have a responsibility to the Christian nations and their peoples. And as an organization, we have certain policies. Even if they seem cowardly and tainted to you, it is because of those policies that the organization is sustained. Order is preserved, and the faithful in the Christian nations can maintain their faith in confidence. … If in searching for the one lamb the other sheep are exposed to danger…,” the Cardinal said sadly, “the shepherd has no choice but to abandon that lamb. It cannot be helped if one is to protect the organization.” (Endō 1982, 192–93) The painful irony of the Cardinal’s words is not lost on readers familiar with Jesus’ parable of the Lost Sheep, in which he says, “What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?” (Luke 15: 4). A greatly humbled Velasco steals back into Japan but is quickly apprehended. Not even this fervent believer is able to escape the grinding, unfeeling machinery of political change. As he is burned at the stake, he cries out, “I … have lived!” (Endō 1982, 267). Endō builds up parallel scaffoldings of power on both sides of the world, emphasizing the plight of the individual in every man-made society. Whether the shogun in Japan or the Pope in Rome, the lord of a domain or a powerful cardinal—each of these levels of bureaucracy has the single aim of preserving their institution. Should someone within those institutions disturb their peace, they must be crushed out of existence. Every character in the novel is betrayed by the institution they have lived in and worked to support, and it is not until almost the end of their lives that they realize they have been manipulated as pawns in a fearsomely pragmatic political game. They are stripped of all purpose, all self-respect, even their very identities, and left standing naked and alone. It is at this point that they discover the Eternal Companion who has traveled the entire journey beside them and is the only one who will never betray them. In many ways, The Samurai is Endō’s most powerful, eloquent evocation of the need for such companionship.

Kiku and Sachiko Just half a year after the publication of The Samurai, Endō began serialization in the Asahi Newspaper of two novels set in Nagasaki, a city that first appeared prominently in Silence but with which Endō increasingly identified, to the point that he declared it “my heart’s homeland” (Endō 2013, 311). Onna no isshō I: Kiku no baai (lit. The Life of a Woman, 1: The Case of Kiku, translated as Kiku’s Prayer*) was serialized between November 1980 and July 1981, while Onna no isshō II: Sachiko no baai (lit. The Life of a Woman, 2: The Case of Sachiko, translated as Sachiko*) was carried in the newspaper from July 1981 to February 1982. In both novels, though set in different time periods, Endō’s sadly compassionate eyes observe the cruel treatment of blameless Nagasaki Christians. The events in Kiku’s Prayer span the final years of the Tokugawa Shogunate and the commencement of the Meiji Period in 1867, which corresponds to the age of the last brutal

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roundup and torture of underground Japanese Christians. Just as in Silence, which was set two centuries earlier, uneducated peasants of the late-19th century who are merely trying to pursue their faith unobtrusively are hounded and arrested by government authorities. Although Japan is generally described as having ended over two hundred years of seclusion and “opened” the country to the West (a gradual process initiated by an agreement signed in 1854), the ban on the practice of Christianity was not lifted until 1873, and that only under intense pressure from foreign Christian nations. Kiku, who is not a Christian, falls in love with a Christian man, Seikichi, and repeatedly begs him to abandon his dangerous religion. He refuses and is arrested in a governmental raid, ultimately being exiled to a distant province where the bitter cold of winter and various means of punishment are employed to persuade him and more than 150 other prisoners to renounce their beliefs. This cruelty continues for five years, during which time Kiku, even though she is not a Christian, frequently goes in secret to pray for his safety to the statue of the Virgin Mary that has been placed in a small Catholic chapel in Nagasaki.23 Believing the deceitful claim from a low-ranking government official that he will send any money she gives him to help care for Seikichi, Kiku undertakes a number of jobs, finally even accepting the humiliation of selling her body if it will assist the man she loves. When her health fails, she painfully makes her way to the feet of the Blessed Mother’s statue, where just before she dies she thinks she hears the image say to her: “You are not violated in the least. Even though you gave your body to other men … you did it for just one man. The sorrow and misery you felt at those times … has cleansed everything. You are not the least bit defiled. You lived in this world to love, just as my son did … [Y]our love will obliterate all the filth from the men who have touched you” (Endō 2013, 286). In this novel, the identification between Endō’s maternal Christ image and that of the Blessed Mother is complete: the one requirement for deity is compassionate companionship; the sole prerequisite for discipleship is membership in the community of sufferers who acknowledge the presence of Christ/Mary. Kiku’s Prayer highlights the physical sufferings of Japanese Christians; Sachiko explores the psychological persecution directed toward believers in the “religion of the enemy” during the years between 1930 and 1945. Two young Christians, Sachiko and Shūhei, try to allow their feelings of affection for one another to blossom into love but are thwarted by the approach of war and the inevitable drafting of Shūhei despite his strong moral opposition to killing others. The descriptions of the harassment of Japanese Christians in many ways echo what Endō himself experienced during the war years. In Sachiko, even as the tragic love story plays out, the author interweaves the true story of the ultimate sacrifice made by Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish priest who labored for a time in Japan before returning to his homeland, where he was arrested by the Nazis and sent to Auschwitz. There in the concentration camp he volunteers to take the place of another prisoner—a total stranger—who has been condemned to death.24 The two parallel stories of the wages of faith extracted from Christian adherents by heartless political institutions underscore one of the most powerful motifs of the novel, uttered by Father Kolbe: “If there is no love [in the world], then we must create love” 25 (Endō 2020, 119). Against all odds, the priest insists that the only force that can triumph over evil is “the will to love” (Endō 2020, 118).

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Scandal Not long after the completion of The Samurai, Endō’s health began to deteriorate, with a combination of high blood pressure, diabetes and kidney disease draining his energies and increasingly focusing his thoughts on impending death.26 It was during this time of compounded physical suffering that Endō conceived a plan to “shake to its very roots his literary universe that he had brought to completion with the writing of The Samurai” (ESBZ 15: 373). It was as though with The Samurai he had finished the work of providing his readers with a Christianity re-tailored to the Japanese spiritual climate and felt it was time for a departure, a jolting that would enable him to explore broader philosophical questions of the complex interplay of good and evil within every human being. That agitation took shape in his next major novel, Scandal, published in 1986. Many readers and critics regarded Scandal as a dramatic departure from the path Endō’s writing had traversed for at least two decades. They could identify no compassionate Christ figures in the work; the potential for salvation from the miseries of mortality was nowhere to be found; and the subject matter, including sadomasochism and voyeurism, puzzled and disturbed many devoted Endō fans. In fact, rumors that Endō had written a “pornographic novel” circulated around Europe, and some believe that this unfounded slander cost Endō the Nobel Prize for Literature.27 In subject matter and tone, Scandal is decidedly a departure for Endō. But as Mark Williams has persuasively argued, the novel continues its author’s quest to harmonize the constantly wrestling impulses toward either Good or Evil in the human spirit (Williams 1999, 167–90). Endō was heavily influenced in his thinking about this issue, as well as the nature of the unconscious mind, by his study of the writings of Carl Jung as well as by the Buddhist psychological concept of an “Ajase Complex.” 28 One of the most challenging aspects of the novel for readers was Endō’s decision to make his protagonist, named Suguro, a famed Japanese Christian novelist at the peak of his literary acclaim. It required no imagination to leap to the conclusion that Scandal was an autobiographical novel, and that the sordid details of Suguro’s life that are revealed in the story were in fact unvarnished confessions of the author’s own misdeeds. A superficial reading of the plot of the novel could easily lead to such conclusions. At a much deeper level, however, Scandal asks whether salvation can even be a possibility when every individual harbors the potential to sin. (In Silence, Endō defines sin this way: “Sin is for one man to walk brutally over the life of another and to be quite oblivious to the wounds he has left behind” (Endō 2017, 92). Yet Endō seems to suggest that the seeds of salvation may be buried—however deeply—even within acts of evil. Scandal’s plotline reads somewhat like a suspense novel: Suguro is giving an acceptance speech for a literary prize when he spots a sneering lookalike in the audience. It feels to him as though this mysterious doppelgänger is mocking his hypocritical pose as a man of virtue. A cat-and-mouse game ensues, with the lookalike and a confusingly seductive woman, Madame Naruse, drawing Suguro deeper and deeper into the recesses of his own psychological urges, which are seemingly unrestrained by his religious beliefs. Even as he is being pursued by a cynical journalist determined to expose his two-facedness, Suguro’s double (or is he a manifestation of desires buried within his own psyche?) sinks to the level of sexually

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assaulting a young woman while Suguro watches (himself?) through a peephole—a fissure that may in fact allow him to gaze at his own contradictory nature. Endō’s probe into the duality of the human spirit is not merely an admission of man’s capacity for depravity; he had already examined this potential as early as his first published novella, White Man, and carried his scrutiny further in The Sea and Poison. What identifies Scandal as a more complex study of what the Apostle Paul calls “the natural man” (1 Corinthians 2: 14) are, first, the insights Endō gained from his study of Jung. Even more central to apprehending the novel is Endō’s determination to find some glimmers of hope that point the way out of inner spiritual conflict and the pull of corruption. The possibility of salvation, faint though it might be—reaching down into the very depths of sin—plays a key role in many of Endō’s serious works. In Silence, Rodrigues develops a more intimate relationship with Christ after he steps on the fumie; the eponymous samurai, though he heads down a dark corridor toward his death, has gained the assurance that he has an eternal companion in Jesus. Often these assurances are accompanied by a faint light that the protagonist sees flickering through a dark mist ahead of him. Such a scene carries profound meaning for Endō: In one of his first published essays, “The Issues Confronting the Catholic Author” from 1947, he argues that Catholic authors “must gaze directly at the secrets, the sins, even the evil of his characters,” (Endō 2020 XII, 26) but he also draws attention to the existence of a “light that shines in front of the author’s anxious eyes, a light that purifies and sanctifies sin. The author should bear witness to this light.” Comparing this to what he gained from his study of Mauriac, “Endō describes this as ‘the light of grace, a twilight glow reminiscent of Rembrandt’s art that shines upon Mauriac’s dark characters’; he cites the task of the author as the discovery of ‘the hidden vestiges of God’ that lurk within the psyche of all their creations” (Williams, in Dennis, M. and Middleton, D. 2020, 110–11). In Suguro’s case, even though his publisher saves him the embarrassment of an exposé by the pestering reporter, his experiences with (as?) the doppelgänger have forced him to accept “filthiness as a part of himself. He had to begin searching for evidence of salvation even within this filthiness.” It is at this point that he acknowledges that there is no double, that the impulses toward evil he thought he was identifying in that “other” man were really the dark drives buried in his own heart. Once he comes to this conclusion, however, he has the following experience as he walks through the snow: A multitude of white flecks hit by the streetlights whirled ahead of him. The thin flakes of snow seemed to emit a profound light. The light was filled with love and compassion, and with a maternal tenderness that seemed to envelop [him]… The light increased in intensity and began to wrap itself around Suguro. Within its rays, the snowflakes sparkled silver as they brushed his face, stroked his cheeks, and melted on his shoulders. “Lord, have mercy.” The words fell from his lips. “Have mercy on us whose minds are deranged.” It was a vaguely recollected verse by Baudelaire. He may have gotten the words wrong, but it didn’t matter. This verse alone adequately described his feelings at

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that moment. “In the eyes of Thou who knowest why we exist and why we were created—are we monsters?” (Endō 1988, 242–43) And does that faint light suggest Endō’s own prayer that his mother, and his God, will one day soon embrace and forgive him of his mortal frailties?

Deep River By the time the English translation of Deep River was published in London in the spring of 1994, Endō’s reputation throughout the English-speaking world was at perhaps its pinnacle. The buzz in Europe that autumn was that he would be only the second Japanese author to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature.29 Japanese journalists had crowded into the parlor at Endō’s house that October evening, eager to get a comment from him as soon as the announcement was made in Stockholm. However, to almost universal surprise, the Japanese author voted the newest Nobel Laureate was Ōe Kenzaburō. Before rushing to Ōe’s home, one of the journalists asked for a response to the announcement from Endō; diplomatically, he remarked “I think he is highly thought of for his writings about the problem of salvation without God” (Asahi shinbun, 14 October 1994). Over a period of months before he began writing Deep River, with Endō’s reading concentrated on studies of the unconscious mind and the problem of evil, he concluded that the Buddhist concept of the Āyala Consciousness could be correlated with the unconscious mind, where, in Endō’s view, the seeds of “latent good” and “latent evil” are “forever whirling around and erupting upwards like a raging torrent.” 30 It was in bringing these eastern and western philosophical strains together that Endō perceived the potential for God to work at this deepest level of the human unconscious, there to cause good to sprout even from seeds of evil. In Deep River, the Gangā that flows through India—the cradle of eastern religion and philosophy—serves as the place where good and evil, life and death, sin and redemption are brought together without discrimination or judgment. Even more influential than Jung on Endō’s thinking and beliefs as he wrote Deep River were the religious concepts expounded in two works by the British religious philosopher, John Hick (1922–2012): God Has Many Names (1982) and Problems of Religious Pluralism (1985). What most resonated for Endō from his reading of Hick was the assertion that “what is important is not the conventional religious organisations and their official formulations— but the religious way of experiencing and participating in human existence and the forms of life in which this is expressed” (Hick 1985, 18; quoted by Williams in Dennis, M. & Middleton, D. 2020, 114). Endō’s writings from his earliest essays to this last novel increasingly move from a reliance on “conventional religious organisations” to a quest for an individualized, internalized faith that can sustain his characters through every trial and deprivation of modern human experience. The Samurai had explicitly rejected the reliability of earthbound religious and political institutions and, by the time Endō’s reading had injected the influence of Jung and, especially, Hick into his thinking about faith, his ultimate vision, as expressed in Deep River, brought together the traditions of Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Shintō on the banks of the River Ganges, where they converge to create an ever-fluid human spirituality free of the boundaries of sectarian orthodoxy. Yet as Mark Bosco and Christopher Wachal

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argue, amidst all this merging of world faiths, Endō’s highly unorthodox Catholic protagonist in this novel, Ōtsu, retains a commitment to the person of Christ… At no point does Ōtsu disavow his Christianity. He remains a priest. He celebrates mass. He loves Christ. In the person of Christ, Ōtsu finds a face of God suited to his life and situation, a face he can love as completely as he loved his mother. This particularity is key to Endō’s theology of encounter. Ōtsu loves a particular face of God, a commitment that necessarily entails honoring and engaging the many other particular faces, loved in many other particular ways. For Endō, to love Christ—to be a Christian—requires seeing God at work in other forms in other places. Acknowledging this multiplicity intensifies one’s love of Christ rather than diminishing it. (Bosco & Wachal 2020, 143) The novel comprises several “case studies” of characters who share a search for “something,” a something that Endō defines as a quest “in search of what was lost.” 31 This yearning motivates them to join a tour group that has the expressed intent of visiting Buddhist holy sites in India. Like so many previous Endō characters, these individuals embark on a journey that by novel’s end has expanded into a voyage into the very heart of human spirituality. The narrative focus of Deep River shifts between five different characters. Isobe heads to India in response to his wife’s dying words: “I…I know for sure…I’ll be reborn somewhere in this world. Look for me…find me…promise…promise” (Endō 1994, 17). This reincarnation theme, introduced in the first chapter of the novel, is reiterated near the end when the resurrection of Christ is described as His metaphorical rebirth in the hearts of His disciples. Numada, who writes children’s books featuring animal characters, joins the tour so that he can set free a myna bird, out of gratitude for the bird that had vicariously died for him when he underwent a dangerous operation (an experience Endō himself had in 1961). A survivor of the wartime march along the Burma Road, Kiguchi wants to offer up prayers for his deceased comrades, most particularly a soldier who kept him alive by feeding him meat that only later would Kiguchi realize was human flesh. Clearly, each of these experiences in one way or another reflects Christ’s sacrifice offered in love. The chief protagonist, the “heretical” 32 priest Ōtsu, is doggedly pursued by a world-weary woman, Mitsuko, who had seduced and then abandoned him during their college days. Encountering Ōtsu in India, Mitsuko demands that he explain to her satisfaction why he continues to have faith when he has been “despised and rejected” on all sides, much like Christ was. He has wandered for years in search of a spiritual home in which he can worship in his own way, bouncing from Japan to a seminary in Lyon, then to a religious retreat center in the south of France, on to a kibbutz beside the Sea of Galilee, and finally to Vārānasī, where, dressed in the robes of a Hindu ascetic, he walks through the labyrinthine streets, seeking out the dying who are struggling to make their final journey to the Ganges. A particularly moving scene provides Endō with an opportunity to draw together the multiple religious strains he has been working to harmonize. Ōtsu lifts a parched, dying old woman onto his back and begins to carry her toward the Mother River that accepts all who approach: How many people, how much human agony had he taken on his shoulders and brought to the River Ganges? Ōtsu wiped away the sweat with a soiled cloth and 256

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tried to steady his breathing. Having only a fleeting connection with these people, Ōtsu could have no idea what their past lives had been like. All he knew about them was that each was an outcast in this land, a member of an abandoned caste of humanity. He could tell how high the sun had climbed from the intensity of the light that struck his neck and back. O Lord, Ōtsu offered up a prayer. You carried the cross upon your back and climbed the hill to Golgotha. I now imitate that act. A single thread of smoke already was rising from the funeral pyres at the Manikarnikā Ghāt. You carried the sorrows of all men on your back and climbed the hill to Golgotha. I now imitate that act. (Endō 1994, 193) So many of the motifs from Endō’s previous works are here that it is tempting to accept his diary notation that Deep River “encapsulates the form of all [his] novels over the years” (Williams, in Dennis, M. & Middleton, D. 2020, 109). We have here the empathy for those who have been “abandoned”; the intense light (of Grace?) that shines down on Ōtsu as he performs as a “Christian” clothed in Hindu garb; the comparison of this protagonist with Christ, who “carried the sorrows of all men” (note the gentle emphasis on sorrows, rather than a stern reference to sin); and the act of love that Ōtsu performs in imitation of his master. Several of the “many faces” of God converge in this scene, one of the most powerful in Endō’s entire oeuvre. Though he was weakened in body by a multiplicity of ailments, Endō’s creative imagination is on full display here.

The unwritten Book of Job and “Death is not the end” Poor health had plagued Endō throughout most of his adult life, with flare-ups of his lung disease causing interruptions to his work at many stages of his career. But the last four years of his life were characterized by a compounding of serious health disorders that sapped his energies and made the writing of Deep River an arduous test of will. He was, however, determined to express what he seemed to know would be his final, expansive examination of the bolstering nature of faith in a world of endless strife and hatred. In late 1992, doctors notified Endō that his kidney failure had become acute and that dialysis would soon be unavoidable. He was further informed that the sleeping pills he had been taking at the advice of a previous doctor had likely damaged his kidneys. In May of the following year, just a month before Deep River was published, he received surgery in preparation for the administration of peritoneal dialysis, an enervating daily task which fell to his wife. Shortly after dialysis began, Endō starting suffering from unrelieved itching all over his body; it was not until almost three years later that a doctor identified the cause as some of the medications he had been prescribed. Once those were stopped, the itching went away within two weeks. When these “plagues” began to torment him, Endō’s wife suggested that perhaps God was encouraging him to write his own “Book of Job;” and though he was never able to complete such a work, in a brief essay shortly after she made the comment, he mused:

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I’ve wanted to write about Job at some point in my life, and presently I am preparing to do so. Even though I say I’m “preparing,” that doesn’t mean that I have already come up with answers to this dilemma. In truth, I’m still groping in the dark. Depending on how you look at it, groping in the darkness in search of answers to this greatest of all problems may well be part of the joy of living for me. … Perhaps, to put it in an extreme way, it is that joy which makes every day worth living for me. I have come to the conclusion that to live—and I realize this sounds like a wet-behind-the-ears literary adolescent—means to fight against the all-too-overwhelming problems that God throws in our path. (Endō 1993b, 41–42) Endō was in and out of the hospital for the next three years.33 In September of 1995 he suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and was rendered largely unable to speak; only two months later he was awarded the Bunka Kunshō (Order of Cultural Merit) by the Japanese Emperor, the highest honor given to those who have contributed to the advancement of the nation’s culture. His final hospitalization occurred in June of 1996, when he was placed on hemodialysis. He passed away on 29 September of that year. Funeral services were held at the St. Ignatius Church in Tokyo with over four thousand of the mourners in attendance placing flowers on the altar. Copies of both Silence and Deep River were placed in the casket. Because the stroke in September 1995 had rendered verbal communication all but impossible, Endō’s wife Junko, who stayed constantly at his hospital bedside during his final illness, described in her memoirs a form of communication between her husband and herself that consisted of him squeezing her hand in an almost Morse code-like fashion. She describes the day when she finally agreed to have his life supports disconnected: I was holding his hand at the time he passed away, and at the moment when the expression on his face turned to one suffused with joy, he sent me the message: “I have entered into the light! Don’t worry about me—I’m with my mother and my brother. … Death is not the end; I know we’ll meet once again.” (Endō Junko 1998, 192, 235) For all the words he assembled over his career—more than 120 volumes of serious and comical fiction, essays, and plays—his silent message to his wife at the time of his death may be the most eloquent of Endō Shūsaku’s expressions of his Christian faith.

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Notes 1 This term was appropriated from one of Endō’s literary idols, Graham Greene, to whom Endō was often compared. 2 In addition to the pen-name, Korian Sensei ( 狐狸庵, the Sage of the Fox and Badger Hermitage) he used when he published comic essays, Endō created such diversions as the amateur theater troupe, 樹座 Kiza (literally the “Tree Troupe,” but a homonym meaning “pretentious”), an amateur go game association, a social dance group known as Salon de Roi Pauvre (Salon of Royal Paupers), and a choral group of amateur fathers named Choeur Papas (Papas Chorus). He had a great many other hobbies, including painting, haikai comic verse, piano, magic, hypnotism, and the tea ceremony. 3 Endō Shōsuke (1921–1977) was baptized into the Catholic Church along with his younger brother Shūsaku. He was an outstanding student, graduating from Tokyo University just prior to being drafted into the Japanese navy in 1942. Following the War, he was employed by Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Public Corporation, where he eventually became a corporate director. His sudden death at the age of 56 from a rupture of swollen veins (varices) in his esophagus came as a great shock to Shūsaku, who had always looked up to his older brother. 4 It is likely that Endō’s mother used her influence with a Catholic priest to gain her son admittance into the Catholic dormitory. Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko (1904–1945) was a prominent Catholic philosopher who studied with Jacques Maritain and was heavily influenced by Neo-Thomism. 5 Among Mauriac’s novels, Thérèse Desqueyroux (1927) was most influential on Endō. 6 The planning for this unique excursion was done by a group of professors (many of them Jesuit priests) at Sophia University, with financial support from the Catholic Church in France and a few generous donors in Japan. Another member of the group of young travelers, Father Inoue Yōji (1927–2014) became a lifelong friend of Endō and a significant influence on his thinking about Christ and Christianity in Japan. 7 Translation revised by Gessel. 8 It might also be categorized as one of his “entertainment novels,” a term that emerged from comparisons that were later made between Endō and Graham Greene. 9 A more literal translation of “suteta” might be something like “dumped, jilted, abandoned.” 10 This assertion situates Endō’s religious philosophy in harmony with one of the great Buddhist thinkers in the history of Japanese religion: the True Pure Land sage, Shinran (1173–1263), who was quoted as saying, “Even a good person attains birth in the Pure Land, so it goes without saying that an evil person will.” 11 The most perceptive discussion of this reconciliation may be found in Mark Williams’ 1999 book, Endō Shūsaku: A Literature of Reconciliation. 12 I observed this first-hand when I attended the Museum dedication and the mass. 13 Interestingly, Martin Scorsese dedicated his film adaptation of the novel with these words: ‘‘For the Japanese Christians and their pastors, Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam.” 14 I am using here the spelling not from the English translation of the novel, but from Scorsese’s film, research for which demonstrated that “Garupe” is an accurate Portuguese name, whereas “Garppe” is not. 15 This is my translation of the passage. The published translation interprets Christ’s words to Rodrigues quite differently. 16 See Endō’s Chinmoku no koe, Purejidento-sha, 1992. 17 It is illuminating that on several occasions—one of which I witnessed at a symposium on his works in which Endō participated at John Carroll University in Cleveland, Ohio in May of 1991—he responded to protests that the novel glorified the apostate Kichijirō with the simple declaration: “Kichijirō is me.” 18 “Sore de, anata ga tachinaotta toki ni wa, kyōdaitachi o chikarazukete yarinasai’ (Luke 22: 32). 19 This key statement is echoed again in The Samurai, when the protagonist’s servant tells him “From now on… He will be beside you… From now on… He will attend you.” I cannot overemphasize the significance of this brief exchange. This is the only passage in my translation that Endō inquired about (and the only time I can remember him ever asking me how I had rendered any passage in his works), making it clear that this concept of Christ as a mutual sufferer was of utmost importance to Endō. 20 This assertion is made by Yamane Michihiro in the Endō chronology he compiled for the fifteenth volume of Endō Shūsaku bungaku zenshū, p. 362. 21 These include studies of the Christian samurai, Konishi Yukinaga (Tetsu no kubikase [The iron pillory], 1976), the world traveler Father Petro Kasui Kibe and other students at the first seminary established in Japan (Jū to jūjika [The musket and the cross], 1978), and Ōtomo Sōrin (Ō no banka [Elegy for a king], 1992).

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22 It has long been thought that these powerful statements of faith originated in The Samurai. However, in an extraordinary interview between Endō’s close associate, Katō Muneya, and Endō’s son, Ryūnosuke, which was published in November 2020, Katō revealed, much to Ryūnosuke’s surprise, that these words were actually spoken by Endō Junko to her husband in late 1961 as he was being wheeled into the operating room for a third—and very possibly fatal—lung surgery. When the gurney reached the doors where Junko could proceed no further beside her husband, she said to him something very similar to “From now on, He will attend you.” 23 The Meiji authorities allowed the Church to be built in 1865 on condition that only foreigners residing in the city could worship there. It was there, however, that in March 1865, a French priest, Bernard Petitjean, encountered the first group of hidden Christians to have contact with the Catholic Church. The encounter is described in Kiku’s Prayer. 24 Father Maximilian Maria Kolbe (1894–1941) was a Franciscan friar ordained in Rome in 1918 prior to his return to minister in his native Poland. He labored in Japan between 1931 and 1932 and again in 1933–1936; one of his chief contributions was the publication of a Japanese language version of the evangelical magazine, Knight of the Immaculata. Returning to Poland in 1938, he wrote anti-Nazi propaganda and helped to hide 2,000 Jews in his friary. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1941 and eventually sent to Auschwitz, where he was martyred after volunteering to die in place of a Polish prisoner. He was canonized in 1982. (See also the chapter in this volume on Sono Ayako.) 25 Father Kolbe says this to a fellow prisoner at Auschwitz; the actual quote in the novel says “…no love here….” 26 Stated in the Endō chronology compiled by Yamane Michihiro in ESBZ 15: 372–73. 27 This concern was particularly distressing to Peter Owen, the publisher of Endō translations in London, who expressed his alarm about such rumors in letters to Endō, held now in special collections at Georgetown University. 28 The concept of an Ajase complex “was set forth by H. Kosawa (1897–1968) in his paper, ‘Two Different Kinds of Guilt Feelings,’ and presented to Freud by Kosawa in Vienna in 1932. Prince Ajasa [sic] wanted to kill his mother when he lost his feeling of oneness with her and his narcissistic omnipotence was damaged. Realizing, however, that the evil mother was also the good mother who had nursed him through illness (caused by his guilt feelings), he developed the capacity to accept his ambivalence towards her and thus re-established a healthy ego. In Kasawa’s psychotherapy, the patient experiences, through togetherness with the therapist, a feeling of fusion with the mother and becomes able to develop a basic trust in the world and other people.” This quotation comes from a summary of the article, Okonogi, K. (1975). The Ajase Complex (by Kosawa): The Theory of Psychotherapy Proposed by a Japanese Psychoanalytic Pioneer. Dynamische Psychiatrie, 8(5), 296–307. published at APA PsycNet https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1976-10246-001. Accessed 30 September 2020. Also of interest is this description: “(Kosawa) discussed the psychological peculiarity of the Japanese as evidenced by the acceptance of oral dependency toward the mother, the repression of the resentment at the mother and “guilt feeling over being forgiven” and a need to make restitution for harboring this evil intent.” National Library of Medicine https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/482556/ Accessed 30 September 2020 29 The first prize to a Japanese writer was to Kawabata Yasunari (1898–1972), awarded in 1968. 30 From a speech Endō gave at a plenary session of the International PEN Club Congress in Tokyo, 15 May 1984. Original transcript and English translation, by Janusz Karol Buda, in author’s possession. Endō applied his own interpretation to this concept based on his study of the writings of Vasubandhu, a fourth-fifth century Indian Buddhist priest. 31 This is the title of Chapter eight of the novel; in Japanese “Ushinaishi mono o motomete.” 32 So labeled by the European Catholic ecclesiastics who are unsuccessfully attempting to rid Ōtsu of his unorthodox views. 33 Endō called himself “a virtual department store of diseases.” On one occasion, he drew a comic picture of a snail and attached a poem: “Thanks to T.B., I have only one lung/Yet with chronic hepatitis/High blood pressure/And diabetes/I have fought back and been writing for over twenty years/So don’t underestimate your illnesses/And don’t surrender to them.” Cited in Yamane 2010, 13.

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References Asahi Shinbun (1994). Kaigai demo hyōka, odoroki wa nai [Highly thought of overseas, it comes as no surprise]. (October 14). Bosco, M. & Wachal, C. (2020). Catholic Convergences in Deep River. In M. Dennis & D. Middleton (eds.), Navigating Deep River: New Perspectives on Shūsaku Endō’s Final Novel. New York: SUNY Press. Endō, J. (1998). Otto no shukudai [Homework assignments from my husband]. Tokyo: PHP Kenkyūjo. Endō, S. (1973). Ihōjin no kunō [The Agony of the Alien]. Bessatsu Shinpyō: Endō Shūsaku no sekai 6 (Winter): 54–71. ———. (1974). Wonderful Fool (Francis Mathy, trans.). Rutland, VT & Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle Co. ———. (1978). A Life of Jesus. (Richard A. Schuchert, trans.). New York: Paulist Press. ———. (1980). The Sea and Poison (Michael Gallagher, trans.). New York: Taplinger Publishing Co. ———. (1982). The Samurai (Van C. Gessel, trans.). New York: Harper and Row/Kodansha International. ———. (1988a). Watashi ni totte kami to wa [What God Means to Me]. Tokyo: Kōbunsha. ———. (1988b). Scandal (Van C. Gessel, trans.). New York: Dodd, Mead & Company. ———. (1990). Foreign Studies (Mark Williams, trans.). New York: Linden Press. ———. (1992). Chinmoku no koe [The Voice in the Silence]. Tokyo: Purejidento-sha. ———. (1993a). The Final Martyrs (Van C. Gessel, trans.). London: Peter Owen Ltd. ———. (1993b). Yobu wa naze kurushimu no ka [Why Did Job Suffer?]. Shinchō 45 12:11 (November): 41–42. ———. (1994a). The Girl I Left Behind (Mark Williams, trans.). London: Peter Owen Ltd. ———. (1994b). Deep River (Van C. Gessel, trans.). New York: New Directions. ———. (1998). Chinmoku [Silence]. Tokyo: Shinchōsha. ———. (1999–2000). Endō Shūsaku bungaku zenshū [The Collected Literary Works of Endō Shūsaku]. (15 vols.). Tokyo: Shinchōsha. (cited as ESBZ) ———. (2013). Kiku’s Prayer (Van C. Gessel, trans.). New York: Columbia University Press. ———. (2014). White Man, Yellow Man (Teruyo Shimizu, trans.). New York: Paulist Press. ———. (2017). Silence (William Johnston, trans.). New York: Picador Modern Classics. ———. (2020). Sachiko (Van C. Gessel, trans.). New York: Columbia University Press. Etō, J. (1975). Seijuku to sōshitsu: “Haha” no hōkai [Maturity and loss: The collapse of the “Mother”]. Tokyo: Kawade Bungei Sensho. Inoue, M. (2012). Reclaiming the Universal: Intercultural Subjectivity in the Life and Work of Endo Shusaku. Southeast Review of Asian Studies 34: 153–70. Kawashima, H. (2000). Endō Shūsaku: “Wakai” no monogatari [Endō Shūsaku: Stories of “reconciliation”]. Osaka: Izumi Shoin. Pinnington, A. (2001). Yoshimitsu, Benedict, Endō: Guilt, Shame, and the Post-war Idea of Japan. Japan Forum 13, 1: 91–105. Saeki, S. (1973). Kanashii me no sōzōryoku [The power of imagination in sad eyes]. Kokubungaku 18 (February): 52–62. Takahashi, C. (ed.). (2020). Shūsaku Kurabu kaihō [Shūsaku Club newsletter]. 18: 1. Takeda, T. (1971). Endō Shūsaku no sekai [The world of Endō Shūsaku]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. Williams, M. (1999). Endō Shūsaku: A Literature of Reconciliation. London: Routledge. ———. (2020). Endō Shūsaku: The Long Road to the Deep River. In M. Dennis & D. Middleton (eds.), Navigating Deep River: New Perspectives on Shūsaku Endō’s Final Novel. New York: SUNY Press. Yamagata, K. (1986). Mr. Shusaku Endo Talks about His Life and Works as a Catholic Writer. Chesterton Review 12 (4): 493–506. Yamane, M. (2010). Endō Shūsaku “Fukai kawa” o yomu [Endō Shūsaku: Reading Deep River]. Tokyo: Chōbunsha.

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Chapter 14 Ogawa Kunio: Renewal of Faith and Identity in His seishomono (Bible Stories) Ryōta Sakurai Ogawa Kunio, one of the most famous Catholic writers in postwar Japan, produced a series of biblical fiction novels (seishomono). His encounter with Christianity influenced his seisho­ mono and impinged on his literary output to a significant degree.

Introduction Ogawa Kunio (1927–2008), one of the most famous Catholic writers in postwar Japan, cre­ ated his seishomono, a series of biblically-inspired novels, throughout his literary career. Though little attention has been paid to Ogawa’s works in English-speaking academia, the se­ ries has been widely discussed in Japanese literary circles—with particular focus on analysis of his usage of Christian motifs, leading to frequent comparisons with the literature of Endō Shūsaku (1923–1996). In contrast to the works of Endō, however, the critic Yamagata Kazu­ mi stated that the issue of indigenization is more “abstracted” in Ogawa’s works (Yamagata 1997, 7).1 The issue has captured the attention of novelists and literary critics since the early 20th century in Japan, but Ogawa appears to take a very different approach to writing about faith and Christianity. Endō himself once described the difference between their novelistic approaches to issues of faith as follows: “You walk a hundred meters ahead of me, and I move at a languid pace a hundred meters behind” (Endō et al. 1974, 156). The distance described by Endō is by no means a reference to literary maturity or superiority in creating a Christ figure in literature. Instead, this purported gap suggests that these two authors have different concerns in their approach towards Christianity, and these concerns clearly affect the course of their literary careers. Ogawa’s encounter with, and the trajectory of his journey with, the Christian faith are critical in understanding his oeuvre, particularly his seishomono. This chapter aims to illustrate how Ogawa’s encounter with Christianity influences his seishomono and to assess the extent to which this encounter impinges on his literary output.2 In this, the intent is not merely to draw theological implications from the series: to do so would be to risk creating a unique genre of Christian literature in modern Japanese litera­ ture.3 Instead, this chapter first situates Ogawa’s seishomono within the context of postwar

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Japanese literature, particularly vis à vis the Naikō no sedai (Generation of Introverted Writ­ ers), with which Ogawa shares some common features in his works. Second, this chapter focuses on this generational characteristic with the concept of “identity depletion,” intro­ duced by the theologian and anthropologist, Douglas J. Davies. With this methodological approach, this paper finally examines the literary connotations embedded in the Christian motifs in Ogawa’s seishomono and offers insights into the connection with his faith and liter­ ary expressions. To this end, let us now turn to some of the features of the Naikō no sedai and Ogawa’s relationship with this literary grouping.

Ogawa Kunio and the Naikō no sedai One inevitable aspect germane to Ogawa’s oeuvre is his affiliation with the so-called Naikō no sedai, who emerged during the early 1970s. This generation of authors was born in the early 1930s and consequently raised amid the rapid changes in social values and norms in the early postwar period; as such, they rarely experienced a sense of home. Instead, the emptiness of the self and the harsh reality of their living conditions were anchored in their identities. This sense of emptiness appears as a deep inner nihilism at the outset of their careers; thus, the Naikō no sedai were programmed to create fiction with a fragmented image of the self, due to the dark experience of turmoil in early postwar Japan. A corollary of this dilemma is the determination to provide narratives focusing inward, works replete with fundamental questions regarding their identities and a sense of confusion and anxiety. In short, the Naikō no sedai was a generation who suffered true social anomie as they emerged from the ashes of wartime with a lost foothold on their own identity: as the critic Aeba Takao has argued, they were a “Haimāto-rosu sedai” (generation who had lost their homeland) (Aeba 1970, 10). In one sense, the ensuing works of fiction of this generation of authors seem to echo a lit­ erary feature of their predecessors in immediate postwar literary circles in Japan, the Daisan no Shinjin (Third Generation of Postwar Writers)—”a splintered narrative perspective.” The Daisan no Shinjin, including Endō Shūsaku, sought to scrutinize the complexity of human interiority, providing a literary depiction of their “former selves” (Williams 2002, 220). In­ deed, it is likely that the works of these two generations addressed the issue of interiority—an issue rooted in the prewar literary shishōsetsu (“I- novel”) tradition—by deploying a different approach from that of the prewar shishōsetsu authors. In their fiction, authors of both these postwar generations carefully crafted a distance between themselves and their protagonists to delve further into human interiority in an attempt to craft an objective portrayal of them­ selves. However, the critical difference between these generations can be identified in terms of the notion of the authors’ identities and selves expressed in literary form. On the one hand, protagonists in the works of the Daisan no Shinjin pursue new selves through confron­ tation with their “former selves.” This novelistic discourse suggests that the authors of this generation somehow possessed an image of themselves that they were happy to develop in their fiction despite a variety of perplexing experiences (failed medical examinations and an inherited religion, to cite the example of Endō). On the other hand, characters in the works of the Naikō no sedai appear to be devoid of a basic image of self in the first place, and their fragile identity prevents exploration of self and character development. The critic, Ueda Mi­ yoji, states that this feature is germane to the fact that the Naikō no sedai remained resolute in their determination to provide literary expression to their insecure sense of self—to the

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“futashika na watashi” (uncertain self) (Ueda 1973, 243).4 A reality foreshadowed by the social anomie in the early postwar period may underlie this determination, and the result is a corpus of literature focusing on individuals trapped in problematic situations and seeking a foothold for the renewal of self and reality. At the textual level, this novelistic attempt tends to be pursued in daily life settings, echo­ ing the quintessential city life of 1960s Japan: their protagonists tend to live as a nuclear family in relatively new developments outside a city, to work for large companies, and to experience less interaction with nature than previous generations. As Maeda Ai and oth­ ers have noted, these modern features—the consequence of high economic growth in the 1960s—are central motifs in the works of the Naikō no sedai.5 Hence these narratives trace the individuals’ internal processes underpinning their identity-trajectory in daily settings of life. It is in this context that critics have criticized the literature of this generation as express­ ing less social awareness and obsessing excessively on issues of inwardness. Odagiri Hideo, who first used the term Naikō no sedai in a pejorative sense, claimed that these authors tend­ ed to avoid social issues, including the controversial debate over the nationalistic fervor that had led Japan towards militarism and which was reignited by the 1970 suicide of Mishima Yukio (1925–1970) (Odagiri 1971, 8). In contrast to Odagiri’s assessment, however, Karatani Kōjin argued that these narratives brought to the fore the issue of sensation in modern life that includes the irritating feeling of emptiness and a lack of stimulation. For Karatani, both of these emotional struggles were prevalent during the period, and he described the ensuing “crisis” as follows: The crisis is not that we walk away from “reality.” Rather, it is that we are balefully filled with a feeling of impotence towards “reality,” even though we deal with it excessively…What we should do is find a way to recover reality by our own “methodological skepticism.” (Karatani 1971, 8) Karatani here borrows the term “methodological skepticism” from modern western phi­ losophy in order to examine the issue of sensation, and he regards the focus on inwardness in the narratives of the Naikō no sedai as a strategy for coping with reality. Seen in this light, this generation’s novelistic endeavors to provide literary expression to the renewed self and reality are reinforced by the issues of sensation aroused by the rapid modernization of lifestyle during the 1960s. The individual approach to such spiritual crumblings varies. However, it is worth noting that, for many of the Naikō no sedai, becoming a full-time writer was their second career: of the six authors who are usually regarded as core members of this generation (Kuroi Senji, Furui Yoshikichi, Abe Akira, Sakagami Hiroshi, Gotō Meisei and Ogawa Kunio), five had worked either for large companies or schools for a while.6 As we shall see in the next section, this was not the case for Ogawa as he engaged himself fully in writing right after his threeyear study program in Europe. However, it was only following his experience of living and traveling in the region and publishing short stories in his coterie magazine after returning to Japan that his commitment to seeking a foothold for the renewal of the self and reality was thoroughly manifested. The influence of the experience of the workplace on the literary creativity of the Naikō no sedai is particularly apparent in the works of Kuroi Senji (1932–) and Furui Yoshikichi (1937–2020). In the case of Kuroi, confrontation with a sense of personal emptiness was a 264

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direct result of his wartime experience and of the rapid changes in values and social systems during the postwar period. Kuroi spent his days during the War as an evacuated child, grew up during the postwar social reconstruction process, and obsessed over philosophical de­ bates on social realism during his undergraduate days. By his own admission, however, this whirlwind of changes, both internal and external, caused Kuroi to miss out on the opportu­ nity to develop a concrete image of self. It was only after starting to work for Fuji-jūkōgyō (the company that later became SUBARU), where he worked for fifteen years, that the impli­ cations of this lack of self-identity were addressed.7 In his 1969 novel, Jikan (Time), Kuroi’s emotional struggles appear encapsulated in the protagonist’s perplexing self-image as he faces an identity threat in his workplace. This motif—replete with confusion and uncertainty regarding the self—recurs in a different setting after Kuroi resigned from office work, forcing his protagonists to focus on family life. The ensuing works include the Tanizaki-Prize win­ ning novel Gunsei (Life in the Cul-de-Sac,* 1981–1984), and Kuroi’s fiction continued to be populated by protagonists who struggle in their search for a coherent picture of themselves. Furui’s wartime experience was more traumatic: he suffered mentally due to experienc­ ing several air raids, including witnessing his family home on fire, the scarred landscape of Tokyo, and the dead and wounded during the closing months of the War. These experiences gave Furui a unique sense of reality, a reality in which “an extreme state and regular life lie next to each other” (Furui 2017, 133). His unique perspective may also have been reinforced during the campus strife of the late 1960s, during which time Furui worked for a university as a German teacher. Furui felt strongly the vulnerability of intellectuals to which he belonged amid the campus conflicts, and was plunged into confusion about his identity. The subse­ quent works of fiction, in which again protagonists are torn apart by conflicting images of the self, are marked by elusive protagonist figures, such as Yōko in his 1970 novel, Yōko, and Toshio in Tsuma-gomi (Withdrawing Wife), published in the same year. These works and Furui’s other fictions reveal the spiritual turmoil of the postwar period in Japan. In considering the backgrounds of these Naikō no sedai authors, the concept of “identity depletion” helps in analyzing their experiences. Identity depletion and its transformation are discussed by the theologian and anthropologist, Douglas J. Davies, who argues that negative experiences of life—disappointment, grief, anomie, and death—can be transformed into an “identity enhancement.” As Davies argues, identity depletion describes “a very wide variety of feelings and contexts in which human beings sense themselves assailed in their desire for a meaningful life” (Davies 2011, 93). Though negative emotions associated with these expe­ riences are disruptive, Davies insists on the necessity of a comparative view that balances negative and positive emotions as dynamics that intensify identity. Religious practices (such as rites and personal devotion) are critical in achieving this balance. More specifically, Davies emphasizes the importance of an influential leader who possesses an attractive personality because “the charismatic leader may serve well as a means of relating people to the forces they conceive of [sic] supernatural agents of ancestors, spirits, and gods” (Davies 2011, 117). The emphasis here is not simply on the negative experience itself, but also on the possibility of transforming these experiences into a process of identity enhancement through charis­ matic power. The Naikō no sedai authors were not in close affiliation with religious practices (except for Ogawa Kunio); however, as Ōe Kenzaburō has noted, their works tend to employ images that invoke issues of faith (Ōe & Nakamura 1996, 284). Seen in this light, it is in the expressions of renewal of the self and reality, which call for a transformational power beyond the individual, that the contribution of the Naikō no sedai is best appreciated. Chapter 14: Ogawa Kunio: Renewal of Faith and Identity in His seishomono (Bible Stories)

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Ogawa’s contribution in this context is critical. As with other works of this generation, his seishomono novels tend to deploy an inward narrative. In this way, the novelistic fo­ cus is on the faith of the individual, and these works address the issue of identity deple­ tion and its transformation in a faith-based context. In considering this characteristic of Ogawa’s seishomono, however, it is worth bearing in mind that the author’s encounter with the Christian faith and his faith trajectory are associated with his determination to create the seishomono series. Let us turn then to this topic before considering Ogawa’s seishomono and the extent to which the inward narrative and protagonists’ fragmented selves result in a corpus in which we find “identity depletion” and the renewal of the self and reality.

Ogawa’s faith trajectory Ogawa was born the second of three children in 1927 in the Fujieda region of Shizuoka prefecture. As an elementary school student, he occasionally went to Sunday school at the Seventh-day Adventist church since his relatives were familiar with Christianity. Ogawa’s experiences of church led him to become fascinated by the storytelling of the Old Testament. Inspired by these stories, Ogawa began attending a Catholic Church in the Fujieda region with his mother and older sister. In 1946, he entered high school, but soon became neurotic. In part as a result of the consequent suffering and despair, he converted to Catholicism the following year. After graduation, Ogawa attended Tokyo University. However, he rarely went to classes and instead was obsessed with writing novels and participating in activities at the Ōmori Catholic Church in Tokyo. His first published works, “Tōkai no hotori” (Beside the Eastern Sea, 1953) and “Dōin jidai” (The Age of Mobilization, 1954), appeared in one of the leading literary journals, Kindai bungaku, during his time in college. During his senior year, Ogawa embarked on a period of study abroad in Europe: he spent most of this time traveling and visiting relatives of bishops he had met in Japan. After returning from a stay of three years in Europe, Ogawa published a collection of short stories in 1957 entitled Aporon no shima (The Island of Apollo, 1967) that features a fictional world replete with European vistas. Shimao Toshio (1917–1986) praised the quality of these works in an Asahi newspaper article in 1965. Thanks in large measure to this positive reception, Ogawa gradually emerged into the mainstream of the contemporary Japanese literature scene. At the same time, he continued to publish novels imbued with biblical implications, culminating with Aru seisho (A Certain Bible, 1973). In many of his recorded interviews, Ogawa often informed his contemporaries that his conversion to Catholicism was initially motivated by the atmosphere within his family and his interaction with several French Catholic priests with whom he had stayed close during his youth.8 In one interview, he describes the motivation for his conversion as very feeble and states that he decided to rely on the Christian faith simply because of his personal cir­ cumstances. However, he also shared a story about one French priest who forgave the hostile attitude of Japanese society towards him during the War—a response that inspired Ogawa to claim that “the direct influence of such communication [with this French Catholic priest] was significant” (Ogawa & Takeda 1972, 4). This statement confirms the criticism that suggests that seeking to define Ogawa’s reli­ gious experience and thoughts through discussion would be difficult; all we can do is capture a glimpse of such experiences from his testimony regarding attendance at a Seventh-day

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Adventist church and a Catholic church.9 However, a more sympathetic approach would link this to the author’s suffering from neurotic depression accompanied by his sense of helplessness in the immediate postwar period. Ogawa is here seen as a victim of the AsiaPacific War: along with the majority of school students, he was conscripted to work in a series of munitions factories and anxious lest he be assigned to military service. Like many other students who suffered from emotional turmoil so intense that it often remained with them until their deaths, Ogawa was plunged into a sense of confusion and despair in the wake of the Imperial declaration of surrender. Such emotional turmoil does not necessarily imply that he endorsed the trend towards militarism during the period; rather, by his own admission, he was critical of teachers who were eager to conduct militarist education during his school days.10 Nevertheless, Ogawa’s depression may be associated with Japan’s defeat in the War—and this in turn would fuel his sense of nihilism with regard to an uncertain future. Seen in this light, Ogawa’s conversion to Catholicism appears to reflect his determination to seek help for such depression—for what the critic, Suguro Susumu, has described as his sense of being afflicted by an “uncertain mental condition” (Suguro 2012, 84). Given the centrality of biblical faith to all that Ogawa wrote (an issue we shall address later), this background offers an adequate basis for considering Ogawa as an author who naturally imbues his creations with Christian motifs. Ogawa allied himself to a particular kind of Christian writer whose encounter with Christianity can be seen as a “love-marriage,” a term used by Endō to describe authors such as Shiina Rinzō and Miura Shumon.11 What we have here is a body of works that conjures up, not merely a religious image, but an image that plays a pivotal role in the course of these narratives. However, this assumption overlooks some vital aspects of Ogawa’s work as linked to his fictional imagination with regard to his faith trajectory after his initial conversion. This becomes clear when considering his con­ frontation with the contemporary Japanese cultural context—which Ogawa describes as a context in which Christianity has all too often been understood simply in a rational manner. This confrontation surfaced for Ogawa from time to time in the course of his novelistic ca­ reer as he had many conversations about Christianity with other novelists and intellectuals. A series of discussions with Yoshimoto Takaaki, a prominent literary critic of the post­ war period, is critical in this regard. In 1954, Yoshimoto published his critical essay entitled “Machiu-sho shiron” (An Essay on the Book of Matthew). Here Yoshimoto directs his venom at Matthew, the author of the first gospel, for seeming to fabricate a claim regarding the exis­ tence of Christ.12 In Yoshimoto’s view, Matthew plagiarizes pieces of the Old Testament and the Talmud to create the leading text of primitive Christianity, an act he sees as motivated by resentment towards Judaism on account of the severe conflict between these religious sects (Yoshimoto 2014, 196). Based on this principle, Yoshimoto identifies Matthew’s gospel as a product of the author’s imagination—an attempt to establish a new religion to counter the threat from Judaism. In so doing, however, Yoshimoto accuses Matthew of assuming that the historical events of Christ’s life do not matter in terms of faith. In reaction to this argument, at a roundtable talk in 1971, Ogawa claimed that such an interpretation of the Bible dismisses a reading of the relevant passages as alluding to the life of Christ. Ogawa emphasizes the significance of his effort to reconstruct the figure of Christ in the following anecdote: I once talked with a Catholic priest … he said he disagrees with the idea of preaching by picking up the words of Christ as aphorisms and claiming that these words possess universal validity. He stated that the most critical task is Chapter 14: Ogawa Kunio: Renewal of Faith and Identity in His seishomono (Bible Stories)

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for churches to reconstruct the life of Christ in keeping with the gospel accounts. (Yoshimoto & Ogawa 1998, 51–52) In Ogawa’s view, to read the Bible is to rediscover the earthly life of Christ, the impact of His interactions with His disciples and His preachings in specific contexts, and to under­ stand the whole range of the thoughts, words, and behavior of Christ. Not reading the Bible in such a manner serves to diminish the pursuit of Christ, with this being replaced by mere rational arguments. The words of the Bible thus tend to be interpreted as moral teachings and lessons for guidance through life—because dismissing the life of Christ denies the con­ text of the Bible. Ogawa’s polemics against Yoshimoto in 1973 and 1975 build on this theme.13 If readers interpret the Bible in a manner that is devoid of the pursuit of an understanding of the life of Christ, then any subsequent interpretation ends up morphing the words of the Bible into mere fiction. Ogawa insists that tracing and recapturing Christ’s life represents an integral part of reading the Bible; to deny this is to treat the Bible as a collection of trivial aphorisms and results in a failure to grasp the significance of the Bible in its intended context (Ogawa 1998, 78). Given these discussions, what at first glance appears to be the “love marriage” of Oga­ wa’s encounter with the Christian faith takes on a somewhat different significance. Oga­ wa describes his conversion to Catholicism as the result of unfortunate circumstances: in particular, he cites his struggle with neuroticism as decisive in his determination to receive Christ into his life. However, his creation of the seishomono should be considered in the context of his faith trajectory after such a “love marriage,” in which Ogawa confronted ad­ verse reaction to his understanding of the Bible in a Japan where Christianity had not been widely embraced. These reactions tend to assume a stance based on rationality per se, as can be seen in the case of Yoshimoto, deriving from a secular understanding of the Bible and Christianity. In his discussions with Yoshimoto, Ogawa’s focus is not on a favorable theoretical framework of interpretation for the Bible, nor on reading the Bible as literature or scrutiny of the rhetoric deployed therein; instead, he stresses the input that reading the Bible could have on a believer’s life. More specifically, his central concern is on an actual moment of faith and personal insight which can only be achieved by pursuing the figure of Christ through reading the Bible. This position of Ogawa seems to have been reinforced through confrontation with intellectuals who, like Yoshimoto, tended to argue issues of faith from a purely rational perspective. This background concerning Ogawa’s encounter with the Christian faith likely led to his determination to create his seishomono with an inward narrative that focuses on the faith of the individual. Here, the focus of the narrative is associated with the inner faith life of his protagonists. While other Naikō no sedai authors undertook the task of seeking depiction of the renewal of their self and of reality in daily settings, Ogawa introduces this into a faithcentered context in his seishomono, a fictional world replete with allegorical symbols and imagery from biblical stories. At this stage, however, we need to examine Ogawa’s literary art; let us turn then to a consideration of Ogawa’s fictional worlds and examine the extent to which his novels deal with “identity depletion” and its renewal.

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Renewal of faith and identity in Ogawa’s seishomono When Ogawa came to fame as one of the authors of the Naikō no sedai generation in the early 1970s, his published novels tended to center on the coexistence of two opposed images, such as light and darkness (e.g., “The Island of Apollo,” “Aporonasu nite” (At Apollonas, 1967) and “Umi kara no hikari” (The Light from the Sea, 1968)). These images are both associated with his experience traveling around the Mediterranean and the dualistic imagery of light and dark in the Bible. Marked by these features, the images often appear as background scenery (e.g., an intensity of the light from the sky), serving to symbolize a protagonist’s ambivalent personality at the textual level. This method of story development used in these short stories was later incorporated into the body of the seishomono. Moreover, given Ogawa’s admission that the first text in the series, “Kareki” (Deadwood, 1957) published in Aporon no shima, serves as the source of the images of the other two major genres of his writings (“I-novel”style writings and stories about the Fujieda region of Shizuoka),14 the series can be regarded as a structural basis underpinning the imagination of his entire fictional world—as what Suguro has described as “a light source that illuminates [Ogawa’s] entire literary world” (Su­ guro 2004, 35). The short story “Deadwood” is thus critical to the body of the series and preempts the marked inward focus evidenced by Ogawa’s subsequent protagonists. This focus foreshad­ ows the plight of protagonists suffering from a divided identity in the context of their faith journeys and seems to be sharpened as Ogawa’s fictional imagination matures. More specif­ ically, the portrayals of individual protagonists struggling to deal with the tension between faith and doubt in his later seishomono became increasingly articulated. A corollary to these portrayals is the illustration of protagonists who struggle to come to terms with the painful distance between their imagined self as an ardent believer and their vulnerability in the life of faith. This internal conflict encourages them to embark on journeys in search of their authentic self. These protagonists echo Ogawa’s portrayal of Paul in the New Testament: “Though expelled from his country and the Jewish community, [Paul] considered the miser­ able situation into which he was cast as a blessing … He insists that this must be grace since his life had truly started with the loss of his identity, that is the loss of a foothold” (Yoshimoto & Ogawa 1998, 173). In later novels in this series, Yunia, the typical protagonist of Ogawa’s seishomono, strug­ gles to achieve a deep sense of self, but this eventually emerges from his renewed sense of belonging to his spiritual leader “Ano hito” (that man). This latter character resembles Christ in the Bible, both in appearance and behavior, though His salvific power is never directly expressed; instead, He remains laconic and elusive throughout the narratives. Regardless of this, as we shall see later, the influence of this character on the minds of the people is widely evidenced in the characterizations of the various protagonists. Yunia is engaged in a quest for greater understanding, not of the self that is underpinned by feelings of self-efficacy, but of the self as based on personal knowledge of this divine-human encounter. He struggles to come to terms with inner doubts in the course of the stories, obliged to acknowledge his powerlessness to exercise control over the increasing weakness of his faith. In so doing, Yunia finds himself utterly helpless in healing his wounded and distorted faith; by contrast, he glimpses a sense of the potential for rediscovery of the self in the presence of “Ano hito,”

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who died on the cross, by encountering the power of the words of the spiritual leader, a power that, in signalling His resurrection, consequently restores Yunia’s faith. This struggle reveals the plight of protagonists suffering from a divided identity, which is often regarded as the literary embodiment of the spiritual conflict of the Naikō no sedai au­ thors confronting “futashika na watashi” or “jiko no kūi” (emptiness of self), and its possible recovery. It is confrontation with uncertainty and weakness that shakes these protagonists and leads them to despair. However, the more they come to acknowledge their inability to break the impasse, the more aware they become of the source of their faith and come to recognize it as an integral part of their sense of identity. In this sense, the self-reflections of these characters become an avenue in seeking a reconsideration of selfhood and otherness that includes a re-articulation of the self in terms of faith. Hence, they embark on journeys toward a renewal of the self and of reality in a spiritual sense. In short, Yunia is caught up in his own process of identity enhancement in a faith-life context. To this end, I have chosen to focus on Ogawa’s seishomono as depicting a “renewal of faith and identity.” At this stage, however, let us allow the novels to speak for themselves.

Early narratives: “Deadwood” and “At Mandraki” Many of the early Ogawa seishomono—including “Deadwood,” “Budō no eda” (Grape Branches, later renamed as “Umikara no hikari”), “At Apollonas,” and “Mandoraki nite” (At Mandraki, 1958)—were born of the author’s determination to create a fictional world filled with biblical imagery, one in which “Ano hito” occupies a central position in the narratives. To this end, these stories tend to deploy several characters’ points of view to encapsulate “Ano hito,” with Yunia’s serving as the most prominent. From this literary perspective, the narratives can be interpreted as a portrayal of the ardent believer, Yunia, who travels to sev­ eral lands where people are obsessed with the words of “Ano hito.” Yunia attempts to examine this figure, who has left such a deep impression on the minds of all with whom he came into contact. To certain critics, the central theme of these narratives focuses on the inner world of the protagonists, particularly that of Yunia—on the psychological processes they undergo on account of their faith in Christ as their religious leader.15 Such a reading is seemingly sup­ ported at the textual level throughout the narratives. For example, the following conversation between Yunia and a man in “Deadwood,” which occurs after the execution of “Ano hito,” is informative: [Yunia] “Ano hito” stood holding His face with a piece of cloth for a while, withstanding the weight of the iron balls that were pushing Him down the hill. He peeled off the piece of cloth from His face and turned to Philomena, whispering “Raw wood is like this. I wonder how dry wood is.” The man said nothing as if struck in the chest. He got up from the fence he was sitting on and started walking. The sheep which was eating a leaf stepped aside to open the way for him. The boy got up from the fence and followed him. “Did Philomena say nothing to ‘Ano hito’?” the man asked.

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“No, she didn’t, she could not say anything,” the boy replied. “it was as if my throat shut and I could hear ‘Ano hito’ breathing all over my body.” The two walked together in silence. “I am thinking of the words that ‘Ano hito’ muttered,” the boy said. (Ogawa 2014, 295–96, emphasis in original) The words of “Ano hito” quoted by the boy, Yunia, echo the verse from the Gospel of Luke, “For if people do these things when the tree is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (Luke. 23: 31 [NIV]). The words remain elusive for Yunia because of the limited number of interactions he has had with “Ano hito.” We can nevertheless find a rudimentary sense of un­ certainty that emerges from Yunia’s internal reflection on the meaning of the words of “Ano hito.” As the narrative of Ogawa’s seishomono progresses, this inclination becomes intensified and transformed into a tension between belief and doubt. Significantly, however, in keeping with the arguments in the previous sections in this chapter, this tendency can also be read as part of the process of establishing an identity underpinned by faith. The ensuing psycholog­ ical drama played out in Yunia’s mind appears as the plight of a protagonist suffering from a divided identity. Seen in this light, the narratives come to assume a different path: they are not merely associated with an obsession with the religious leader, but with a deep spiritual journey in pursuit of a foundational basis underpinning identity. In so doing, the narratives hint at the potential for the renewal of faith and identity amid depression and confusion. On the textual level, the discussion of the inner world of Yunia in the narratives, characterized as a psychological drama between belief and doubt, reveals the extent of the journey towards faith and identity renewal as a result of encountering the power of the words offered by a religious leader. In this context, the early seishomono appear to establish a process for such renewal—with A Certain Bible the representative work in this series. “At Mandraki” is critical among the early seishomono in this regard. In this story, Yunia heads to Mandraki with a guide, aware of rumors of “Ano hito” bringing curses and misfor­ tune by preaching his message to the people. On his way to the village, the guide tells Yunia that “Ano hito” often told sensational stories by which poor and socially marginalized people had been induced to provoke a riot. Of these followers, the guide focuses on the story of a man—described as the “jailbird of ‘Ano hito’”—who was deeply obsessed with the religious leader. This man was impressed with “Ano hito’s” merciful love for the weak and ill, and attempts to live like Him; however, when faced with a tragedy in which one of the ill persons killed his girlfriend, he was disillusioned by his inability to do so. On hearing such anecdotes, Yunia becomes embarrassed and decides not to visit Mandraki at this point; instead, he de­ cides to meet the man to tell him about the heroic death of “Ano hito.” At the outset of the story, Yunia seems to embody self-assertiveness. Fired by an un­ quenchable trust in the words and teachings of “Ano hito,” he asserts that only wholehearted trust should be shown when following the religious leader, whose words and actions should not be doubted. That is to say, in-depth reflection on the words and teachings might induce a skeptical mindset, and Yunia supports this claim with one of “Ano hito’s” teachings: “unless you become like a child, it is hard to go heaven” (Ogawa 2014, 486). Viewed out of context, such evidence suggests a protagonist of unyielding commitment, a man for whom disbelief could never be part of the process of nurturing faith. Closer examination of the text, how­ ever, reveals an inner vacillation with regard to Yunia’s trust in “Ano hito.” This vacillation is Chapter 14: Ogawa Kunio: Renewal of Faith and Identity in His seishomono (Bible Stories)

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occasionally described as Yunia’s silence in the scenes where he is confused by sensational rumors about “Ano hito.” Examples of such rumors include Yunia’s silence in response to the following observations by the guide: “The poor and socially neglected remembered that ‘Ano hito’ had declared that He had brought fire to the earth. It is nonsense…” (Ogawa 2014, 479); or “‘Ano hito’ sowed the seed of conflict in Mandraki. When the time comes, the seed begins to sprout, grow, and branch. It has already been decided” (Ogawa 2014, 480). Superficially, these silences seem to exemplify Yunia’s mental state, highlighting his inher­ ent uncertainty in a manner that may transform his skepticism into an understanding of the dynamics of faith. In effect, however, they serve to reveal the psychological distance between the two characters, one rooted in Yunia’s determination to guard his idealized image of “Ano hito” from such rumors. Yunia is, at this stage, someone who refuses to change his mindset when presented with information that conflicts with his existing beliefs. In other words, the “otherness” of the world and its processes does not yield any meaning that would make pos­ sible a “renewal” of the self and reality with acceptance of others as an integral part of such a transformation. A clear example of this is found in Yunia’s response to the anecdotes of the “jailbird of ‘Ano hito.’” This young man, named Delfio, is preoccupied with the charismatic appeal of “Ano hito”; he faces a severe dilemma, torn between his willingness to live like “Ano hito” and a reality in which he cannot overcome his hatred for the ill person who murdered his girlfriend. After being released from confinement to prevent potential suicidal behavior, Delfio visits the square in Mandraki where the execution of the ill person had been carried out and picks up the dead body in his arms. Following this, the man becomes mad, suffering from depression and despair. A silence follows this anecdote, as with the other cases, and Yunia concludes the story with the following response to the guide: “There was a providence in the life of the young man, Delfio” (Ogawa 2014, 495). The word “providence” seems abrupt or even misplaced, as the guide’s subsequent re­ sponse suggests: “I have witnessed what actually happened … I do not think so” (Ogawa 2014, 495). Given the above discussion, however, such a hasty conclusion reveals that the ill person’s story looms as a serious threat to Yunia, for whom tests of belief only bring con­ fusion. The trail of the ardent follower represents, in essence, a similar potential crisis that could destroy faith and identity. As if to expunge such threats, Yunia continues to support his position: “I will meet Delfio and proclaim glory and sing Hosanna [to God],” he vows (Ogawa 2014, 495). This statement is also deliberately made here, lest the anecdote should induce him to question his initial trust in “Ano hito” and his identity; in short, underlying these exaggerations is a determination to keep a safe distance from the anecdote perceived as a menace in Yunia’s mind. This determination allows Yunia to reject the unpalatable aspects of his faith without dealing with the otherness of the world. By the conclusion of the novel, however, a potential process of transformation towards a renewal of faith and identity is hinted at by Yunia’s intention to revisit Mandraki. Here, the extent to which Yunia has come to terms with the otherness of the world is somewhat vague; but the comment at least speaks to his awareness that he cannot escape this problem: Yunia said, “I have decided not to visit the ruins of Mandraki. I will tell miserable Delfio about the brave death of ‘Ano hito’ and leave here, without speaking to the people from Mandraki in Hakosute … However, I will return here someday.” (Ogawa 2014, 495) 272

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Since the whole story is encapsulated into less than twenty pages with little lapse in narra­ tive time, Yunia can be seen as static, a model of self-assertion at this final stage. He attempts to keep his imagined images intact regardless of any reality that opposes them. And yet, it is worth noting that the determination to return to Mandraki is metaphorical: it suggests that an understanding of the world’s otherness and the subsequent doubts about his faith were inevitable for Yunia. Later novels address and further develop this theme. In particular, it is in A Certain Bible that Yunia encounters the “other” and struggles to achieve a renewal of faith and identity. Before we move on to consideration of this novel, however, let us briefly turn to the next seishomono to examine this issue.

“The Prison Ship” “Shūjin-bune” (The Prison Ship, 1959) has often been seen as building on features of “Ano hito” appearing in Ogawa’s early seishomono stories. Given the discussion above, however, it can be argued that Ogawa here continues to delve into the renewal of self and reality from a faith-based perspective with the characterization of Yunia. A closer examination of the story reveals that the narrative develops by dramatizing internal threats to the source of the pro­ tagonist’s trust in “Ano hito,” and that these menaces prompt the ensuing inner doubts about his faith. Seen in this light, “The Prison Ship” is a text which, born of Ogawa’s determination to explore the process of individual identity formation and reality renewal, focuses on a more intensified struggle that necessitates linking a faith-based perspective to such a process. Problems begin for Yunia at the outset in “The Prison Ship” when he finds himself dis­ turbed by Kiriko, another “jailbird of ‘Ano hito,’” who maintains his belief in the teachings and behavior of “Ano hito” as beyond human understanding and thus unapproachable ideals. This somewhat rational interpreter of “Ano hito’s” remarks encourages Yunia to understand such behavior and teachings with caution rather than to accept them without doubt. This suggestion, coupled with Kiriko’s mistrust of the religious leader, lead Yunia to experience confusion and anxiety about his determination to follow “Ano hito.” As the narrative pro­ gresses, therefore, the more Yunia realizes the need to reflect on the teachings and behavior, the more he finds himself tied up with looming doubts about his trust in “Ano hito.” As a result of this plot structure, and in keeping with the other seishomono stories, “The Prison Ship” seemingly probes the psychological drama that continues to be played out throughout the series. However, what needs to be noted here is that there is a carefully craft­ ed shift of narrative focus involved in the characterization of Yunia: he gradually distances himself from his self-assertiveness and questions the roots of his faith in “Ano hito.” Through this skillful modification of focus, the author derives a unique opportunity to address the issue of a renewal of self and reality from a faith-based perspective. A corollary to this insight is that the novel provides the setting for a literary exploration of “identity depletion” and its recovery, a motif which is thoroughly explored in A Certain Bible (albeit from a distinctly faith-based perspective). From the outset of the story, Yunia is dismayed by the skeptical description of “Ano hito” in conversation with Kiriko. Kiriko is persistently haunted by the meaning of merciful be­ havior and the words of “Ano hito” and plies Yunia with questions about the religious leader’s true intentions:

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“[‘Ano hito’] said that the suffering one should find salvation,” said Yunia. Kiriko listened attentively to these words, acknowledging that he was moved. After a moment, he opened his lips and asked, “Yunia, have you ever reflected on the meaning of this?” (Ogawa 2014, 336) Troubled by Kiriko’s eloquent, spirited attack on his views on “Ano hito,” Yunia seeks to come to terms with such moments, even though, as with other cases in earlier novels, he remains silent: “He did not answer the question … That was an inexplicable experience for him” (Ogawa 2014, 336). Yunia is here wavering in his initial conviction with regard to “Ano hito,” conceding that he has never reflected on the figure of his God apart from the imagined image he had created for himself. Following this acute awareness, the text acknowledges that he is not able to deal with such an experience: Yunia conjured up an image of the living “Ano hito,” feeling his chest grow tight. “There are things that I do not understand … I understand nothing … Is this an obstacle that I need to overcome in order to follow His teachings?” (Ogawa 2014, 337) Yunia appears here to be overwhelmed by uncertainty, which leads to doubts regarding the validity of his decision to follow the religious leader; but he still tries to manage such feelings by distancing himself from obstacles in reality. When dealing with the ensuing con­ versation on the source of his trust, Yunia must confront the dilemma directly. Kiriko here seeks to urge Yunia to be rational by making him aware that an idealized figure of “Ano hito” threatens to blur reality (Ogawa 2014, 338). This suggestion seems to come from Kiriko’s complex perspective on “Ano hito.” On the one hand, Kiriko has personal knowledge about the religious leader’s background that enables him to relativize the guru’s current status. On the other hand, he had witnessed the increasing authority of “Ano hito” in the course of his life and is now impressed by the latter’s charisma. In this sense, Kiriko is someone who nevertheless finds himself engrossed in a mystic phenomenon, a phenomenon in which a childhood friend transforms into a religious leader. This duality provides Kiriko with a unique position from which to assuage Yunia’s inner doubts. Observing that a sense of trust is chiefly defined in terms of a personal penchant for the deification of God’s power, he considers that faith is a psychological creation deriving from the natural desire for salvation and harmony. Kiriko describes Yunia’s faith in “Ano hito” as follows: “Yunia, I see you are obsessed with ‘Ano hito.’ In minds like yours, ‘Ano hito’ becomes salvation, harmony, and provides motivation for reckless behavior and an eventual return to harmony. Even if you regard yourself only as a tool of ‘Ano hito,’ harmony derives from your own nature.” (Ogawa 2014, 341) In response, Yunia immediately dismisses this view; “‘No, it is not,’ Yunia reassured him­ self. He could not accept Kiriko’s idea” (Ogawa 2014). However, his impatience is a telltale sign that Yunia is vacillating between his trust and the growing doubts that cast their thick shadow on his faith in “Ano hito.” Here, the focus on self-assertion that the protagonist had earlier employed to cope with such threats has been replaced by a focus on the psycholog­ ical drama between belief and doubt. At this stage, however, Yunia has not yet reflected on 274

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the foundations of his faith; instead, he remains static. This element within Yunia is further reinforced at the end of the novel in the course of his farewell speech to Kiriko, who is on the way to losing the battle and consequently faces death. Yunia remains numb to the reality of what is going on around him and reveals his lack of character development by stating, “Kiriko, I pray God for your victory” (Ogawa 2014, 347). Though the encounter with Kiriko has caused Yunia to question the essence of his faith, it has not been enough to bring him to turn away from his self-assertion and awareness of the need for alternative approaches in understanding the process of faith development. Viewed in the light of the concept of “identity depletion” and its recovery, howev­ er, Kiriko’s role in the characterization of Yunia is still worthy of consideration. Kiriko is here shown as a person who challenges Yunia’s belief in “Ano hito” in a way that radically eliminates the source of his faith. From his analytical viewpoint, where faith is reduced to a personal sentiment without rational foundation, Kiriko dismisses Yunia’s faith as mere fanaticism, a psychological inclination based on the protagonist’s desire for intimacy with God. Confronted with this perspective, Yunia seems uncertain about his identity as a follow­ er of “Ano hito” because his faith is still a subtle form of self-assertion. Though only hinted at on the textual level, however, Yunia becomes increasingly aware of this fact and begins to question the grounds of his faith. In tracing the changing parameters of Yunia’s awareness of his faith in this way, the focus of the narrative is incorporated into the process of identity renewal in a faith-based context. Critics have noted that “The Prison Ship” contains more character sketches of “Ano hito” than the early seishomono series, and this is evidenced by the appearance of Kiriko. In this reading, the narrative is about information regarding the origins of “Ano hito,” designed to illustrate phases of the character’s life. Suguro, for example, argues: What Ogawa Kunio lets Kiriko talk about in “The Prison Ship”—in other words, the core of what the author makes Yunia listen to—is his attempt to use the words of “Ano hito” to capture the figure of Christ, including the adolescent image of Christ that is not clear in the Gospels. The plot, in which Yunia listens to stories from people he meets during his journey, is the same as the earlier novels; however, while these stories focus on what “Ano hito” brought to people’s minds, “The Prison Ship” focuses on the figure of this character itself. (Suguro 2000, 241) As previously stated, however, there is another level to this novel, a level of narrative as­ sociated with a faith-based perspective, whereby Yunia is depicted as confronting his identity dilemma. The stories of “Ano hito” told by Kiriko here exacerbate this dilemma, and Kiriko himself appears to be taking the initiative in this process. In struggling with these challenges, Yunia gradually loses his grip on the core fundamentals underpinning his belief, and he is reduced to uncertainty about his status as a follower of “Ano hito.” In so doing, however, the narrative sets the stage for the drama of identity renewal, a stage on which the protagonist is led to acknowledge a more significant foundation on which his identity is built.

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A Certain Bible As with the earlier seishomono novels, a similar pattern can be seen in Ogawa’s representative work of this series, A Certain Bible, in which the author traces the process of identity loss and its recovery through a series of characters whose motifs are drawn from the Bible. In this regard, the novel employs the recurring protagonist, Yunia, and adds two new antagonists: Ashiniriromuzo, a literary embodiment of the biblical betrayer, Judas Iscariot, and Oki, the devil who both entices Ashiniriromuzo to sell “Ano hito” to an enemy and causes Yunia to be skeptical of the divinity of the religious leader. These characters serve to undermine Yunia’s faith and to create a severe tension between belief and doubt in his mind. As such, several critics have argued that the novel addresses the issue of faith through increasing anxiety and distrust in the characterization of Yunia.16 From the outset, the protagonist appears as an adolescent, thinking of joining a religious group, the “Areno shūkai” (A Gathering in the Wilderness). Yunia is attracted to this as a means of reforming his city, but he is hesitant to dissolve his relationship with his family. The following oft-quoted scene, in which Yunia sud­ denly loses his sight on the way to the wilderness and receives his calling from an anonymous man who is identical to “Ano hito” at the outset of the novel, tends to be used to argue for an interpretation of this story as representing the story of Yunia’s calling: [Anonymous man] “You are not wandering the stone field like that woman. Aren’t there still holy temples near you? An intense light shines on the hearts of blind people, cripples, and lepers. Low-income families and prostitutes also receive the light. You have now received the same grace.” [Yunia] “Grace? … I have never suffered from this agony. Will I be blinded too?” [Anonymous man] “If necessary, your physical eyes will go blind. Why does it matter? You have received a calling: Yunia, do not go to the wilderness. Return to Kitōra and serve the people there. Cut off the dereliction of the holy temples.” (Ogawa 2014, 86–87) On the one hand, as several critics have suggested, this moment when Yunia first becomes aware of a vertical relationship with God through this personal encounter is marked as sig­ nificant because it establishes a narrative tension between belief and doubt, which carries the story to its climax. When viewed in the light of “identity depletion” and its recovery, on the other hand, the same moment introduces a new type of identity in the characterization of Yunia, which is bound up with his perceived calling. Yunia is, in this regard, depicted as a character for whom encountering God involves gaining clarity about his purpose in life. As the novel progresses, however, his interactions with the antagonists challenge Yunia’s determination to live out his faith and mission; he is tempted to diminish the calling after the crucifixion of “Ano hito.” Yunia’s ensuing psychological drama is represented as a struggle to determine that which sustains his faith in the face of God’s silence or seeming absence. Significantly, however, the novel offers a “game-changer” in the form of a nameless witness of the risen “Ano hito,” who restores Yunia’s faith in the last scene of the novel.17 In this brief concluding section, there is evidence that Yunia realizes his inability to sustain his faith by being self-assertive; he comes to appreciate that it is the power of the words of God that will

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enable him to renew and strengthen his faith and affirm its foundation. With these charac­ ters and plots, Ogawa incorporates identity renewal into a faith-based perspective, and this serves as a fitting culmination for Yunia’s journey. The first antagonist to appear during the course of Yunia’s faith journey and who disrupts the naïve certainty of his faith is Ashiniriromuzo. On one level, the character’s role can be seen as exposing “Ano hito’s” injustice to Yunia. In doing this, Ashiniriromuzo emphasizes that he was once a follower of the guru but was urged to betray him since the leader de­ scribed him as a “poisonous tare” 18 in front of the other disciples at a dinner table: [Ashiniriromuzo] “Although I had worked for Him, I was called a poisonous tare. I am no longer a disciple of anyone. That is enough. I have felt much better; I am a fish released from a pot into a lake. If ‘Ano hito’ were dead, that means nothing to me anymore. I just feel sorry for Him.” (Ogawa 2014, 143) For Yunia, the confrontation with this antagonist appears to cast doubt on his faith in “Ano hito”: he struggles with negative images, to the extent that, on occasion, he comes to regard the leader as the source of all evil. Beyond this, moreover, there is a more critical mission for Ashiniriromuzo: to deceive Yunia into being complicit in selling “Ano hito” to the enemy. He attempts to accomplish this task by inducing the protagonist to draw a map that shows the route to His house. Yunia agrees to do this, but Ashiniriromuzo uses this map to entrap the leader and beats him. Eventually, Yunia realizes that he was unintentionally involved in the crime: Yunia casually received [the map]. At that moment, his thoughts began to race. He thought all things had already been done … Realizing that he had taken part in a crime by drawing the road map for this man, he felt twinges of horror as he rose from his slumber. (Ogawa 2014, 165) Because of the muted narrative in this section, the psychological drama in Yunia’s mind hardly comes to the fore. Of particular interest in this regard, however, is the shattered selfimage revealed through Yunia’s words. He blames himself as being worthless and hopes to die after realizing his complicity. In other words, this incident hurts Yunia deeply, threatening his identity as a follower of “Ano hito,” leading him to be overcome by feelings of guilt. The culmination of this inner struggle comes as he is reduced to tears as he witnesses the death of “Ano hito” on the cross. “I cannot live anymore. Please let me die with you,” he pleads (Ogawa 2014, 188). The symbolic role of Ashiniriromuzo in invoking this painful confusion of identity and self-reproaching is crucial, with Yunia’s cry of hopelessness suggesting that his self-image has been radically called into question. As a result of such fatal inner contradictions, the only possible course of action left for Yunia is to secure his broken self-image by entrusting himself to the divine image of “Ano hito.” Towards the end of the novel, therefore, he heads to the venue where the guru had been executed to pour out his fears. However, here Yunia encounters Oki, another antagonist characterized as an “accuser.” 19 Oki is opposed to “Ano hito” by nature and blames Him for assuming a false image as God; in so doing, he attempts to defy the guru. This hostility plays a pivotal role in exacerbating Yunia’s identity confusion. As Oki tries to induce the protag­ onist to “think with his own head” about the life of “Ano hito” (Ogawa 2014, 264), Yunia Chapter 14: Ogawa Kunio: Renewal of Faith and Identity in His seishomono (Bible Stories)

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attempts to distance himself from this suggestion. Despite his best efforts, however, Yunia succumbs to the artful talk of Oki, who maintains that the divinity of “Ano hito” is false and that His love for Yunia ironically reveals this fact: “At least [‘Ano hito’] loves you [Yunia]. Thus, He did not want you to go through what He went through; He did not want you to go down the wrong path. He realized He could make you avoid what He himself was unable to avoid. Because of you, He realized His own mistakes. You are the first one who forged a crack in His outrageous beliefs.” (Ogawa 2014, 268) Oki’s argument adds a new twist to Yunia’s inner depression. Here Oki does not call for disobedience, but a changed approach to God—from a believing mind to a rational mind, a mind in which faith is seen as distorting observable facts. In doing so, Oki nullifies faith and distorts God’s image into that of a deceiver, no longer a divinity. The shift in this rhetoric of the argument induces the protagonist to become even more depressed since it inspires him to see himself not as a follower but as a witness of the false God. These challenges, which damage the last defense in Yunia’s mind, are critical, and Yunia comes to suffer extreme vulnerability, “Lord, have you been defeated? I am almost lost. The defeat has already been a comfort to me.” (Ogawa 2014, 271) These examples dramatizing the protagonist’s inner struggle are by no means exhaus­ tive. The contrast between Yunia and other disciples, who leave to join “A Gathering in the Wilderness” in the later stage of the narrative, also serves to depict a severe strain in Yunia’s trust in “Ano hito.” 20 However, all these instances pale in comparison with the message of the risen “Ano hito,” offered by a nameless witness at the climax of the novel, which leads the protagonist to recover from his depression and to embark on a renewal of identity and faith. This witness, another disciple who had met the risen “Ano hito” in person, appeals to Yunia as if she could provide hope for restoring his faith: “[Yunia] felt immersed in the light shining from her [a nameless witness]; it enveloped him in thick waves” (Ogawa 2014, 273). Despite this dramatic appearance, the narrative focus immediately shifts from the newly ap­ peared disciple to the words of “Ano hito” Himself. The nameless witness tells Yunia that she had found the empty tomb of “Ano hito” and encourages Yunia to remember the religious leader’s frequent allusions to His own resurrection. At first, Yunia hesitates, but as he recalls the words that he had received, he gradually discovers that “Ano hito” had been speaking all along of His own death and resurrection: [The nameless witness] “Have you heard from ‘Ano hito’ about His resurrection?” [Yunia] “…” “You haven’t?” “[‘Ano hito’ said] that His words would live forever. And that He would never die. Or rather, He claimed that He would die, but then be resurrected beyond time and place.”

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“Is that all?” “I will die, go beyond time and place and be resurrected. My child, you do not understand these words.” (Ogawa 2014. 276) Though these words had been offered to Yunia earlier, they were deprived of meaning until the witness informed him that “Ano hito” had risen from the dead. In this sense, the female disciple’s role is critical in helping determine the character of God through the message of the resurrection. “Ano hito” is here portrayed, not as a deceiver, as Oki had maintained with hostility, but as someone faithful in the performance of His promises. Equally significant, though only implicitly expressed, is Yunia’s gradual awareness of the phenomenon whereby the meaning of the words he had received from “Ano hito” becomes radically transformed by the image of the risen God. The message of the resurrection here turns out, not to be merely a promise of a future event, but to be a hope of restoration following failure. Yunia, in whom feelings of guilt and worthlessness stemming from his complicity in the crucifixion of “Ano hito” remain alive, is nevertheless here addressed as “My child”; in this way he is brought into the parent-child relationship, indicative of the genuine relationship between the protagonist and God. In this revealed relationship, his inner voices, which had urged him to give up his calling and succumb before death, no longer sound a threat but like “someone’s voice” (Ogawa 2014, 277). Following these scenes, the image of the risen figure of “Ano hito” at the end of the conversation appears real, integrated as it is into the portrayal of the process of restoration of Yunia’s faith and identity. The very last scene, in which the witness brings the message of the risen “Ano hito” to Yunia, is informative: [The nameless witness] “I asked [‘Ano hito’] what to say to you. He replied, ‘Just tell him to wait for me.’ I then asked, ‘Where should he wait for you?’ He replied, ‘Woman, I can go anywhere, anytime. Yunia does not have to stay in one place; he may wait for me while recalling my words.’” “…” “I believe that the Lord has chosen me as a witness. I have told you exactly what I saw and heard.” The woman remained quiet. Yunia muttered the words of “Ano hito”: “Words are the light … I am called from Kitōra … Do not go to the wilderness.” (Ogawa 2014, 279–80) Although this conclusion is not devoid of ambiguity, there is a hint in this section that Yunia is exposed to God’s living reality, one in which the protagonist somehow finds God more clearly revealed through the divine words. His faith is gradually restored and renewed in this reality: faith is no longer something to be achieved through one’s own efforts, such as being self-assertive; rather, it is something to receive, like light penetrating from the outside. Given the relationship noted above, this awareness of the source of his faith also seems to enable Yunia to recover his identity. He is informed that he is someone who, regardless of his achievements, deficiencies or even guilt, will never go astray as long as he holds on to God’s words. In other words, Yunia’s identity is re-established through his relationship to

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the omnipresent image of the risen “Ano hito”; the paternal figure that guides His children, both directly and indirectly, all the time. “Words are the light,” Yunia’s mantra, can thus be interpreted as an expression of his recognition that, if not explicitly articulated, the identity crisis in his faith has been gradually resolved by the power of the words of “Ano hito”—the power to make the risen Lord present in the lives of those who remember His words. As noted earlier, A Certain Bible has been interpreted as a story wherein, after many trials, Yunia reaffirms his calling. The protagonist’s awareness of being called from Kitōra and his reflection on the meaning of the words of “Ano hito” at the end of the story seem to support such a reading. However, given the above discussions, these considerations appear to be associated with Yunia’s faith and identity renewal. The act of recalling the words of “Ano hito” can be seen as the process whereby Yunia is reminded of his identity as a child of the Lord. This can be most clearly seen at the moment when Yunia recalls the message “do not go to the wilderness” at the end of the narrative. Within this message, he discerns God’s will to bring him back to communion with Himself rather than the wilderness, a place of death. To be sure, Yunia’s awareness is rudimentary; however, he now finds hope, not in what he can accomplish, but in the risen Lord, who declares Himself as dwelling beyond time and space—and who will always be with Yunia in the form of words.

Conclusion In his assessment of A Certain Bible, Takadō Kaname suggests that the novel presents the figure of the risen Christ as “eien no rogosu” (eternal logos), this in contrast to the widely accepted assessment of the similar figure in Endō’s fiction as “eien no dōhansha” (an eternal companion) (Takadō 1975, 125). Evidence of this is present at the climax of A Certain Bible in which Yunia experiences the reality of the resurrection of “Ano hito” as he recalls His words. As suggested in the discussion of the connection between Ogawa and the Naikō no sedai authors as well as by the trajectory of Yunia’s faith, the focus of Ogawa’s seishomono represents a logical extension to his spiritual questioning. In this, he can be seen mirroring an issue germane to this entire generation of authors, namely, providing a literary expres­ sion to their uncertain selves. Seen in this light, Ogawa’s seishomono series is populated by characters whose initial self-assertive characteristics are gradually undermined, challenged in the course of their engagement with “‘others” (depicted as external characters, including antagonists, who are incorporated into the process of undermining Yunia’s faith). These “oth­ ers” serve to create a severe tension between belief and doubt in the course of the narrative. Equally important, however, is the image of otherness of “Ano hito” in A Certain Bible. This image—namely “Ano hito” looming in the form of words in Yunia’s mind—offers a solution towards such tension. By creating this image, the text provides a fictional picture of bib­ lical faith and, in so doing, suggests the potential for identity renewal. While most of this generation engaged with this project by creating protagonists who delve further into their interiority in daily settings, Ogawa transposed the setting to a literary world imbued with biblical elements, exploring constructions of identity in the context of faith. It is here that Ogawa’s encounter with the Christian faith and his response to that encounter as an author of the Naikō no sedai is best appreciated.

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Notes Unless otherwise noted, all translations are mine. 1 For other comments on the difference between Ogawa and Endō, see Rizawa (1975), esp. pp. 73–74; Satō (1974), esp. p. 109; and Takadō (1975), esp. p. 125. 2 Suguro Susumu categorizes Ogawa’s seishomono into three sections: (1) short stories in the 1950s, including “Yunia no tabi” (Yunia’s Journey); (2) the series of stories that later came to be published as Aru seisho (A Certain Bible); (3) stories in the 1970s, including “Yoreha-ki” (A Chronicle of Yoreha) (2000, 231). Following this categorization, this paper covers the first two sections. 3 On this risk, see Williams (1996), esp. p. 156. 4 See also Takahashi (1975) for further discussion on this feature. 5 See Maeda (1980) and Katō (1999), esp. pp. 523–29. 6 See Abe et al. (1971) for thoughts on the relationship between work experience and novel writing. 7 On this topic, see Kuroi (1963). 8 See, e.g., Ogawa & Takeda (1972), Morikawa et al. (1972), and Yoshimoto et al. (2001). 9 For example, the critic Takeda Tomoju argues that, unlike Endō Shūsaku and Moriuchi Toshio (1936–), images of Christianity tend to be obscure in Ogawa’s novels, pointing out that Ogawa himself rarely spoke about his faith in public. For details, see Takeda (1978). 10 For this admission, see Morikawa et al. (1972), esp. pp. 42–43. 11 On this, see Endō (1969), esp. pp. 264–65. 12 His bitterness towards the author of the gospel of Matthew seems to be associated with his sympathetic reading of Ernest Renan (1823–1892), Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) and Arthur Drews (1865–1935). See Yoshimoto (2001), esp. pp. 11–14. 13 For these discussions, see Yoshimoto & Ogawa (1998). 14 For this admission, see Ogawa (1976). 15 See, e.g., Suguro (2000), esp. p. 243. 16 See, e.g., Yamagata (1998), Saitō (1989), and Satō (1974). 17 I have explored the role of this nameless witness elsewhere; see Sakurai (2018). 18 Ogawa would here appear to be referring to the reference to “tares” in Matthew 13: 25–30 (KJV). 19 For further discussion on the role of Oki in Ogawa’s seishomono, see Sakurai (2020). 20 On this, see Sakurai (2018), esp. pp. 39–41.

References Aeba, T. (1970). Haimāto-rosu no sedai no bungaku [Literature of the generation who lost their homeland]. Tokyo Shinbun (20 May). Abe, A., Kuroi, S., Gotō, M., Sakagami, H. & Furui, Y. (1971). Zadankai: Gendai sakka no jōken [Roundtable discussion: The situation with respect to modern authors]. Bungei 9(3) (March), 180–204. Akiyama, S. (1978). Nichijōsei no bungaku [Literature of ordinary life]. In Matsubara S., et al. (eds.), Sengo Nihon bungakushi nenpyō [A historical chronology of postwar Japanese literature]. Tokyo: Kōdansha, 373–85. Davies, D. J. (2011). Emotion, Identity, and Religion: Hope, Reciprocity, and Otherness. Oxford: Oxford Uni­ versity Press. Endō, S. (1969). Watashi to gaikoku bungaku, 2 [Foreign Literature and Me, part 2]. In Nihon kindai bungakukan (ed.), Nihon kindai bungaku to gaikoku bungaku [Modern Japanese literature and foreign literature]. Tokyo: Yomiuri Shinbunsha, 264–76. Endō, S., Ogawa, K., Hotta, Y. & Takadō, K. (1974). Naze “Iesu” o kaku ka: Shikai no hotori, Aru seisho o megutte [Why do We Write of Jesus? With Reference to Beside the Dead Sea and A Certain Bible]. Bungakukai 28(2) (February), 152–75. Furui, Y. (2017). Furui Yoshikichi. In Hirano K. & Iidabashi bungakukai (eds.), Gendai sakka ākaibu: Jishin no sōsaku katsudō o kataru [An archive of modern authors: Writers tell of their own literary activities]. Tokyo: Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai, 79–146. Katō, S. (1999). Nihon bungakushi josetsu: ge [An introductory history of modern Japanese literature, part 2]. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobō.

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Karatani, K. (1971). Naimen e no michi to gaikai e no michi: ge [Paths through to the inner and outer worlds, part 2]. Tokyo Shinbun (10 April). Kuroi, S. (1963). Genjitsusei to kanōsei: aru sōsaku hōhō-ron [Reality and possibility: A creative methodolo­ gy]. Bungaku 31(9) (September), 56–62. Maeda, A. (1980). Kūkan no bungaku e: toshi to Naikō no sedai [Towards a literature of space: The city and the generation of introverted writers]. Bungakukai 33(9) (September), 192–201. Morikawa, T., Morota, K. & Ogawa, K. (1972). Kakute mimi hirake: Ogawa Kunio taidanshū [And his ears were opened: A collection of interviews with Ogawa Kunio]. Tokyo: Shūeisha. Ōe, K. & Nakamura, Y. (1996). Bungaku, tetsugaku, shūkyō [Literature, philosophy and religion]. Shinchō 93(1) (January), 264–96. Ogawa, K. (2014). Ishua-ki: Shin’yaku seisho monogatari [A Chronicle of Ishua: The New Testament Stories]. Tokyo: Puneumasha. Ogawa, K. & Takeda, T. (1972). Shizen ni nagarederu kotoba [Words that flow naturally]. Gendai Nihon kirisutokyō bungaku, geppō 1 [Modern Japanese Christian literature, monthly report 1], 1–8. Odagiri, H. (1971). “Mada” to “mō” to: Manshū-jihen kara yonjū-nen no bungaku no mondai, ge [“Not yet” and “already”: Issues in literature in the forty years since the Manchurian Incident, Part 2]. Tokyo Shinbun (24 March). Rizawa, Y. (1975). Hikari to kageri no kōzu [A composition of light and dark]. In Isoda K. (ed.), Ogawa Kunio sakuhinshū bekkan [A collection of Ogawa Kunio’s works, supplementary issue]. Tokyo: Kawade Shobō, 66–86. Sakurai, R. (2018). Namonaki akashibito no yakuwari: Ogawa Kunio Aru seisho no fukusōteki kōzō no ichikōsatsu [The role of the nameless witness: A study of the dual structure of Ogawa Kunio’s A Certain Bible]. ICU Comparative Culture 50, 27–61. ———. (2020). Oki no sakuryaku: Ogawa Kunio Kirigamiroi no ichi-kōsatsu [The strategy of Oki: A study of Ogawa Kunio’s Kirigamiroi]. ICU Comparative Culture 52, 35–68. Saitō, K. (1989). Aru seisho no shikai [A perspective on A Certain Bible]. Kirisutokyō bungaku kenkyū 6, 21–32. Satō, Y. (1974). Kyūyaku no sekai: Aru seisho o megutte [The world of the Old Testament: Touching upon A Certain Bible]. Kokubungaku: kaishaku to kyōzai no kenkyū 19(8) (August), 55–61. Suguro, S. (1998). Ogawa Kunio Aru seisho no sekai: Sakuhin no kōzō [The world of Ogawa Kunio’s A Certain Bible: The structure of the work]. Kirisutokyō bungaku kenkyū 15, 21–32. ———. (2000). Areno ni yobu koe: Ogawa Kunio bungaku no sūō [A voice calling out in the wilderness: The essence of the literature of Ogawa Kunio]. Tokyo: Shinbisha. ———. (2004). Ogawa Kunio bungaku ni okeru kami no chinmoku [The silence of God in the literature of Ogawa Kunio]. Kirisutokyō bungaku kenkyū 21, 34–42. ———. (2012). Hyōden Ogawa Kunio: ikirareru bunshi [A critical biography of Ogawa Kunio: A living writer]. Tokyo: Bensei Shuppan. Takadō, K. (1975). Iesu to anarogia: Aru seisho ni tsuite [Jesus and analogia: On A Certain Bible]. In Isoda K. (ed.), Ogawa Kunio sakuhinshū bekkan [A collection of Ogawa Kunio’s works, supplementary issue]. Tokyo: Kawade Shobō, 120–27. Takahashi, H. (1975). Warera no bungaku to naikō no bungaku [Our literature and introverted literature]. Chūō Kōron 90(8) (August), 114–23. Takeda, T. (1978). Naikei ni ukabu kami, shizen, ningen [The inner God, nature and human beings]. Kokubungaku: kaishaku to kanshō 43(8) (August), 58–64. Toshizawa, Y. (1973). Daisan no shinjin to shinsedai no sakkatachi [The Third Generation of New Writers and the new generation writers]. Kokubungaku: kaishaku to kanshō 38(6) (June), 56–62. Tsuge, T. (2006). Naikō no sedai sakka sakuhin gaido [A guide to the works of the generation of introverted writers]. Kokubungaku: kaishaku to kanshō 71(6) (June), 20–31. Ueda, M. (1973). Naikō no sedai–kō [Thoughts on the generation of introverted writers]. Gunzō 28(4) (April), 242–52. Williams, M. (1996). From Out of the Depths: The Japanese Literary Response to Christianity. In J. Breen & M. Williams (eds.), Japan and Christianity: Impacts and Responses. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 156–74. ———. (2002). Endō Shūsaku: Death and Rebirth in the Deep River. Christianity and Literature 51(2) (Feb­ ruary), 219–39.

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Yamagata, K. (1997). Joshō [Introduction]. In Yamagata K. (ed.), Endō Shūsaku sono bungaku sekai [Endō Shūsaku: his literary world]. Tokyo: Seiunsha, 1–13. ———. (1998). Ogawa Kunio Aru seisho shiron [An essay on Ogawa Kunio’s A Certain Bible]. Kirisutokyō bungaku kenkyū 15, 10–20. Yoshimoto, T. (2001). Kaisen, senchū, haisen chokugo [The outbreak, wartime and the immediate aftermath of defeat in the Second World War] (Interview by Yamamoto, T.). In Yoshimoto Takaaki kenkyūkai (ed.), Yoshimoto Takaaki ga kataru sengo 55-nen [Yoshimoto Takaaki talks about the fifty-five years since the Second World War] (vol. 5). Tokyo: Sankōsha. ———. (2014) Yoshimoto Takaaki zenshū [The Collected Works of Yoshimoto Takaaki], vol. 4. Tokyo: Shōbunsha. Yoshimoto, T. & Ogawa, K. (1998) Shūkyō ronsō [Religious debates]. Tokyo: Ozawa shoten.

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Chapter 15 Kaga Otohiko: In Search of What Lies Beyond Death Imai Mari Translated by Van C. Gessel Kaga Otohiko is both an author of works of fiction and a professional psychiatrist. While serving as a medical officer at a Tokyo detention center, he came across many prisoners on death row. His novel The Verdict features one such prisoner as protagonist. Kaga’s literature asks questions such as “What is the meaning of faith to the individual confronting death?” “Is there any room for light in such a world of darkness?” Kaga’s writings depict what he observed through his protracted focus on “both the death of the body and the death of the spirit.”

Introduction I have here a book. The title is The Day Christ Died, a study by Jim Bishop, who started out as a newspaper reporter and then began writing in the genre of documentary literature. He was also the author of The Day Kennedy Was Shot, and in these works he analyzes and conjectures what occurred on a single day of tremendous historical significance and deduces as much of the “truth” as can be known. As the title The Day Christ Died implies, Bishop traces, hour by hour, the events of the day Christ died, starting with the previous evening. The translation of this book into Japanese was supervised by the Japanese Christian author, Miura Shumon. Miura commented that translating this book became “one of my motivations for receiving baptism” (Bishop 1958, 302). Endō Shūsaku remarked that he “read the entire book in one sitting” (Bishop 1958, front cover). And the Catholic playwright Tanaka Sumie stated: “Bringing to life so vividly the true events of two thousand years ago signifies a resurrection of literature about Jesus” (Bishop 1958, front cover). The climax of Bishop’s book is the scene of Jesus’ execution. Jesus, as we know, was nailed to a cross. The words of Jesus’ final prayers—“Eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani? (My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?)” and “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit”—weighed heavily upon the hearts of His disciples and still capture our hearts today. Even as it touches our hearts, Bishop presents Jesus’ death—His physical death, that is—to his readers in a manner as close to the truth as

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supposition will allow. He depicts Jesus’ death as Savior and in exhaustive detail describes the pains that Jesus’ body suffered, accompanied by groans and thirst. Take, for example, the crucifixion scene. An executioner puts two five-inch nails between his teeth and, hammer in hand, kneels next to Jesus’ left wrist. The nails were not driven into his hands. Bishop writes about the crucifixion in detail: “…the executioner probed the wrist of Jesus to find the little hollow. When he found it, he took one of the square-cut nails from his teeth and held it against the spot, directly behind where the so-called life line ends. Then he raised the hammer over the nail head and brought it down with force” (Bishop 1957, 311). It is said that the Phoenicians were the first to design the cross. We are told that, prior to the invention of the cross, criminals who were found guilty were run through with spears or killed by stoning or drowning. But these criminals always died quickly, so the Phoenicians sought a crueler method of execution that would make the victims die slowly. Executions on the cross were painful, took time, and could be carried out in the presence of the public. The Romans apparently used crucifixion as a crime deterrent. In Bishop’s book quoted above, he describes the death of Jesus in considerable, documentary-like detail. Kaga Otohiko (1929–) also sought to depict the death of Jesus based on factual information, describing the scene without making a distinction between “mind” and “body.” He believes, as I will later describe, that this is the starting point for the kind of Christian literature that he writes. There seem to be encounters with Christianity at each turning point in Kaga’s life. In many cases, those encounters take place in the context of “death.” What was it that Kaga’s gaze was fixed upon as he pondered “death?” As a scientist, how did Kaga confront the issues of religion? From among his many works, I will examine these questions by focusing on Senkoku (The Verdict, 1979). Kaga is both a novelist and a professor of psychiatry. Following his conversion to Christianity, he produced many works of Christian literature. Of course, as is the case with many Christian authors, he does not write apologetic literature. Rather, while maintaining his belief in Christianity, he continues to grope his way toward a fuller understanding of the religion in his writing. However, Kaga makes a distinction between himself and many other Japanese Christian writers. His career reveals a portion of that difference. That is to say, in order to analyze Kaga’s literature, it is necessary to examine his life. In many of his novels, understanding both Japanese history and the course of Kaga’s own life is vital; this perspective cannot be ignored when considering his relationship with Christianity and with the issues surrounding “death.”

Evidence from Kaga Otohiko’s life Kaga was born in Tokyo in 1929. The 2.26 Incident,1 which he would later write about in Eien no miyako (The Eternal City, 1997), took place in 1936 when he was seven years old. In 1943 he enrolled in the military preparatory school for young men at Nagoya, where he was studying when the War ended. There is no question that the defeat had a profound effect on Kaga later in his life. His 1973 novel, Kaerazaru natsu (The Summer of No Return), deals with the end of the Second World War that violently rocked Japan and depicts a protagonist who commits suicide because he cannot accept the defeat. Kaga himself experienced the harsh reality of witnessing the collapse of something that, until the previous day, had been considered righteous. This work is based in historical fact, but it is more than a simple history. Kaga

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wrote about the end of the war, “My life began in the desolate ruins of postwar Japan” and, feeling terrible guilt that he had survived when so many young men had died in battle, he commented that he felt “supported by the many spirits of the dead” (Kaga 1988, 28). After the war, Kaga studied at a municipal higher school and moved on to Tokyo University medical school. He writes of that period: One of the reasons I chose to study psychiatry is because, after long years of loving literature, I had developed an interest in the human psychiatric phenomena that weave stories together. And in one corner of my mind I thought that if I ever had the opportunity in the future to write novels, my experiences as a doctor of psychiatry would be a great asset for me. (Kaga 2013, 105) In the autumn of his first year as a graduate student, Kaga undertook training in dissection. When he reflected on those experiences, a thought crossed his mind. He wrote: “It was impressed upon me in an extremely concrete way that, no matter what kind of life a person led while they were alive, once they are dead, people are all the same.” When he looked at the bodies that were being dissected, he mused: For instance, it’s astonishing to see the way in which blood vessels and nerves come together to flow throughout the body. There’s a delicacy there that you can’t find in any run-of-the-mill robot, and it’s so delicate and beautiful that I can’t believe it was not created by God. If you slice off brain cells one micron at a time and look at them through a microscope, it provokes a truly philosophical fascination. That fascination later became linked to my faith in Christianity. (Kaga 2013, 93) After graduation, Kaga became a technical official at a prison medical department, where he studied criminology and detention psychology. Thereafter he worked as a medical officer at the Tokyo Detention House, where he conducted many interviews with convicts on death row and those sentenced to life in prison. In an essay entitled “Kyokugen no shi to shūkyō” (The Extremity of Death and Religion) Kaga wrote that he realized that those who had received the death penalty tended to be strongly interested in religion. He acknowledged that he felt that they were seeking religion as an escape from their fear of death. He felt, for instance, that it was simply a matter that Christians believed that after death they would receive eternal life, while followers of Buddhism felt they had the potential to go to paradise in the Pure Land. In essence, Kaga at that time regarded such views of religion as a perfunctory sort of belief. He would later write: “Usually, young individuals had not yet thought of death as the grim future that awaited them; and in my case, as one who similarly had no connection with religion, I could not say that I understood the actual feelings of those condemned to death.” He added, however, that as he formed additional friendly relationships with the condemned prisoners, “I came to understand the connection between death and religion” (Kaga 1986, 57–58). In the Tokyo Detention House Kaga met one man who had received the death sentence. This was the murderer, Shōda Akira, who later became the model for the protagonist in Kaga’s novel, The Verdict. A murder was committed in 1953 in a Shinjuku bar named Mecca; Shōda was arrested and sentenced to death. While in prison he was converted and baptized 286

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as a Catholic. This encounter with Shōda would later have a tremendous impact on Kaga’s life. However, Kaga’s relationship with Shōda was temporarily interrupted when he went to France to study. In 1957, Kaga, who was in his later twenties, passed the French government exam for foreign students and left for France to study for approximately three years. He wrote that, while there, “I was able to clearly observe the ways in which the Catholic religion was tied to the lives of the people” (Kaga 1988, 31). Kaga pursued his studies at the Sainte-Anne Psychiatric Hospital Center affiliated with the University of Paris, and thereafter was employed at the Saint-Venant Psychiatric Hospital in northern France. There, too, Kaga interacted with many patients. His experiences during this period were later depicted in his novel, Furandoru no fuyu (Winter in Flanders, 1967), which is set in a psychiatric hospital in northern France. This was Kaga’s first novel; it received the 18th Minister of Education Newcomer Award for the Fine Arts. Kaga returned to Japan in 1960, at the age of 31. Back home, he was re-employed as an assistant at the psychiatric department of the Tokyo University Hospital. Just as he had done during his time in France, he spent time at prisons, carried out psychological evaluations, and heard the stories of many criminals. Following the suggestion that Kaga publish the diaries of condemned prisoners in Hanzaigaku zasshi (Journal of Criminology) published by the Japanese Association of Criminology to which Kaga belonged, he once again met up with Shōda. After reconnecting, Kaga and Shōda exchanged many letters and engaged in interviews. Kaga has remarked that the encounters between individuals are mysterious; while there are some people to whom you cannot relate even if you meet with them on an almost daily basis, there are others to whom you can feel connected after only a single encounter. Kaga has acknowledged that he learned of the mystery of human encounters from Shōda; but undoubtedly Shōda felt the same way. But why was Kaga so drawn to Shōda, and why did he develop such an interest in his criminal act? Kaga has this to say about these questions: I was a student in medical school when the murder at the Mecca bar took place in July 1953. … The culprit was the same age as me; he too was a university graduate; the fact that the murder incident appeared to be the fulfilment of some hidden desires harbored by those of my generation—I couldn’t bring myself to think of this as someone else’s issue. I had observed the violent changes in the world from wartime into the postwar period and seen the ugly treachery of adults, and I really wasn’t able to trust adults, no matter how hard I tried. … I even felt as though Shōda had taken revenge on adults as a representative of my generation. (Kaga 1980, 176) When Shōda was arrested after several months on the run following the murder, he asked a newspaper reporter, “You say that I’m a horrible criminal, but what exactly is meant by ‘evil’?” Hearing this question—“What exactly is meant by ‘evil?’”—Kaga says he felt he understood a little of why Shōda had asked it. He meant that he himself—and those of his generation who had been born in the early years of the Shōwa period—experienced the reality that what the world had labeled as “good” had actually all been “evil.” For example, the killing of an American during the war was considered “good”; invading other countries on behalf of Japan was not “evil.” But that was all turned upside down in the postwar period. Kaga was stirred by Shōda’s question, “What exactly is meant by ‘evil’?” That very question Chapter 15: Kaga Otohiko: In Search of What Lies Beyond Death

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about “evil” was one that Kaga continued to ask throughout his life. On 9 December 1969, Shōda Akira was executed. Following his death, Kaga wrote The Verdict.

Considering The Verdict The Verdict was serialized in the journal Shinchō between January 1975 and July 1978. It received the 11th Nihon Bungaku Taishō (Grand Prize for Japanese Literature). One of the protagonists in the novel is a psychiatric doctor named Chikaki who, as Kaga had once been, is employed as a young doctor of psychiatry at Tokyo Detention House. The patients he works with on a daily basis are death row prisoners referred to as “Number Zero.” “Number Zero” refers to convicted murderers and others sentenced to death or to life in prison whose inmate registration numbers end in “0.” Models for the death row prisoners who appear in the novel include Shōda Akira, perpetrator of the Mecca Incident, a crime which Kaga also depicts in Shikeishū no kiroku (A Record of Death-row Criminals, 1980) and Hanzai nōto (Notes on Crime, 1981), and Wakamatsu Yoshiki, who blew up a train on the Yokosuka Line. They of course do not appear in these works as themselves. Kaga explained that each character in The Verdict had a model, but that the characters were not necessarily depicted as true-to-life to the actual individuals. Details differ; for example, the killer in what is called the “Träumerei Murder Case,” who appears in The Verdict as Kusumoto Takao, is clearly modeled after Shōda Akira, but Kusumoto was born and raised in Tokyo as the youngest of three siblings, while Shōda Akira was born and reared in Osaka and was the youngest of four brothers and two sisters. Of great importance, however, is the fact that the author had close contact with Shōda, the real-life model for Kusumoto, over the course of many years, exchanging letters with him and hearing his actual words. Kaga has forcefully stated that there is not a single “arbitrary flight of fancy” in the novel. If there is a difference from Shōda, it is that Kusumoto is Kaga’s “own alter ego” and a character who “provides information on my own feelings over the course of my life, including my war experience and my life after the War, as well as my turn toward God and love.” That is to say that the fictional character Kusumoto Takao was born from within Kaga, sharing the various experiences he had as a young doctor of psychiatry (Kaga 1986, 79–80). The setting for The Verdict is a prison, a space separated from the outside world. As part of his experiences as a prison doctor, Kaga interviewed many death row prisoners and personally witnessed their deaths. In The Verdict, a novel based on those experiences, Kaga both describes the “deaths” of these prisoners and also depicts the “lives” of the death row inmates. These condemned prisoners are not told when their executions will take place. The executions must take place within five days after the Minister of Justice orders them. However, in many cases the prisoner is notified only twenty-four hours in advance. The prisoners spend their final day meeting with family members and writing letters to friends. No one can escape the realm of death. Yet nobody knows when that death will occur. It is precisely because we do not know when it will happen that we are able to go on living each day. Kaga meticulously describes the situations of the prisoners who fear the day of their executions, never knowing when it might come—perhaps tomorrow?—including those who have nervous breakdowns and those who begin screaming loudly. These condemned men write such things as: “This is an even worse hell than the hells in my imagination or in my dreams, and I am a more evil person than the evil in my imagination.”

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In particular, the depiction of the twenty-four-hour period from the time Kusumoto’s execution date is decided until the execution actually takes place leaves an intense impression and touches the hearts of readers, almost as though they were watching a documentary movie. During those precious hours until the execution, Kusumoto met with his mother and, thinking of people he loved, he wrote his final letters to them. He left a last letter for his mother in which he wrote, “Pray that I’ll safely drift up to heaven.” As he was heading toward the execution chamber, he turned to Chikaki and quietly said, “There’s just one thing I’d like to tell you. I spent last night pretty normally, but in a dream I had near dawn, I was falling. But when I awoke, nothing had changed” (Kaga 1979a, 3, 467). Perhaps for Kusumoto, heaven was a place to which one ascended, while hell was a place into which one fell. The protagonist, Kusumoto, is described as a “person who distrusted people.” Many criminals are cold, heartless, and feel no remorse, no matter how horrible the crimes they have committed, and it would have been possible for the author to create Kusumoto as such a character. But Kaga was unable to depict Kusumoto in that way: I wanted to achieve in the novel a depiction of him doing a one-hundred-eightydegree turnabout, from the extreme of distrust to absolute trust, from icy emotions to heartfelt love. The real theme I wanted to express, my ambition for the work, was to write about a paradox: that even as I wrote about the extremes of the condemned individuals’ lives, I could identify a bright hope in their solitary cells where common sense suggested that there was no hope for salvation. (Kaga 1986, 79–80) Nakano Kōji has said of this novel that it depicts “characters who rescue themselves” and that it “expresses hope for humankind” (cited in Kaga, 1979a, 3, 483). If there is, as Kaga has said, salvation to be found in this work, it is surely discovered in the moment when Kusumoto moves from “icy emotions to heartfelt love.” Kaga reflects on the novel: “In my recent work, The Verdict, I described the deaths of death-row inmates not as something gloomy, but as something containing the bright hope of salvation. That is where my views on religion may be found” (Kaga, 1986, 60). In addition, Kaga asserts that Shōda taught him that an individual is a being of love. Kaga wrote that the theme of this work can be found in Shōda “making his way toward love after wandering through the dark world of stagnation and disbelief ” (Kaga, 1979d, np). It is certainly true that Kusumoto is able to lay hold on a certain kind of love while in prison. In the Detention House, he falls in love with a woman. He exchanges many letters from prison with this woman, named Tamaki Etsuko. In his letters he writes: “It’s thanks to you that I learned of love”; “Unbeknownst to you, you have altered my faith”; “Through you, I first learned to ‘believe in other people’. That’s because my greatest suffering came from being unable to trust others” (Kaga 2019, 128). And Kusumoto confesses that when his execution has been scheduled for the following day, he earnestly wants to see her. That is not all. While incarcerated, he honestly confronted issues of faith and evil. Kaga subsequently obtained and described in The Verdict a letter sent by Shōda (Kusumoto in the novel) addressed to a Catholic sister. In that letter, Shōda explains several of his thoughts, including those about the realities of “life” and “death,” and regarding issues surrounding religion. For instance, with regard to “love,” he says that to live is to search for “love,” and that, like air, one cannot go on living without it. In addition, he is resistant to the expression Chapter 15: Kaga Otohiko: In Search of What Lies Beyond Death

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“joining a religion,” and confesses: “The inward inclination toward religion isn’t like that, is it? … Without that inclination, one cannot make the move toward true conversion; it comes from a groaning of the spirit in that moment preceding suffocation.” At the same time, asserting that “evil” is not the absence of “good,” but that there are those in this world who have the carrying out of “evil” itself as their goal in life, he emphasizes that not every person who has committed a crime seeks salvation. He further insists that hell is not a fictitious place and says that “a person who knows nothing of evil and hell can’t ultimately save one who is evil, can they?” (Kaga 2019, 128) This issue of “evil” that Shōda raises is not a problem limited to those on death row; it is, rather, an unquenchable “evil” that exists deep in the hearts of all human beings. In a letter he wrote to Kaga, he stated, “The problem of evil was of the greatest importance to me throughout my life” (Kaga 2019, 128). The protagonist created by Kaga was not a death row convict “who did not believe in others and therefore did not know God, and who had no connection to warm, vibrant love”; rather, he was a character who knew as a human being the meaning of trust and love. In The Verdict he also raised the issues of the “evil” that resides within all people. And yet, there is still one unsolved problem. No matter how much faith in other people Kusumoto was able to reclaim, this novel is not resolved simply through the “spiritual death” of a man who was executed after he was converted and came to know love. There remains the ineluctable issue of “physical death.” Readers cannot avert their eyes from that issue as they read the scene of the execution. When an execution is carried out, the rope is adjusted to match the convict’s height and weight. The execution is planned so that when he drops from the hanging platform his feet stop at a height of some thirty centimeters above the floor. Following the execution, as a physician, Chikaki must deal with “the human figure dangling there.” The description of Kusumoto’s body after he has been executed shortly after Chikaki spoke with him is a scene that perhaps only Kaga could have depicted. What he sees there is less a human being, more “physical death” itself. It is found in a realm that rejects the course of this person’s life, the crimes he has committed, the salvation he sought in Christianity, and the love he had obtained: Eventually the violent jerking of his muscles subsided and his limbs, which dangled parallel to his torso, began to twitch, faintly but rapidly. … Several streams of drool began to glisten on his chin, like fat squeezed from a wound. There was not a single sign of the dignity that the spirit preserves in the facial expression. All that remained was the agony of the body, starkly frozen there. (Kaga 1979a, 3, 470) The only voice echoing throughout the execution site said “Time expended, 14 minutes 15 seconds.” Kusumoto had a dream the night before his execution. In his dream, he was floating in darkness, his heart shuddering: “I am falling into the depths of the darkness, to the bottom of a gigantic well. That’s it. In my cell, I’m lying down absurdly enough when the walls sag, the floor tilts, and I fall down, down. I fall. I fall” (Kaga 1979a, 3: 449). He is not sure whether that floor was ultimately the floor of the hanging platform or the depths of hell into which he is falling. As he had previously told Chikaki, it felt to him as though he were falling further and 290

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further down until he was swallowed up in darkness. Alone in his cell, he opened up his Bible and read the scene following the Last Supper when Jesus goes by Himself to Gethsemane. “O Lord. I did not find you outside myself. Even though you were inside me, I mistakenly sought for you outside [emphasis added] myself.” Thinking of Jesus in Gethsemane, he prays: “Gethsemane, sweat like blood. Fill the darkness with light!” The Last Supper is an important scene to Kaga and becomes a key phrase for him. The critical significance of the writing of The Verdict to Kaga lies in how profoundly it was connected, along with these other issues, to issues of his own faith. The Verdict and Faith Kaga has the following to say about his encounter with Christianity. His mother led a Bible reading group, and Christianity was familiar to him. He had often read the Bible, and what remained in his mind was the phrase “belief = croire,” a word which almost never appears in the Old Testament. It is in the New Testament that the word “croire” is frequently spoken by Jesus. In order to understand the question of what “croire” means, he started reading books dealing with Christianity: These feelings became particularly strong as I began writing The Verdict. Because the protagonist is modeled after Shōda Akira, I could have replicated the protagonist’s religious faith based on Shōda’s own thoughts on the subject; but at the same time, I brought Shōda to life within my own heart and then proceeded from there to portray my main character. (Kaga 2013, 217) Perhaps we can say that, for Kaga, who, while writing The Verdict, often dreamed of himself standing on the gallows platform and dangling from it, Shōda was already drawing breath within him: The starting points for this novel were the questions of just who this Shōda Akira was, and my doubts as to whether a person can ultimately understand other people. But gradually my interest shifted to what it meant to believe in God, to what I might call the realm of religion. In that process, the word “croire” continually swelled within me, and midway through writing, I changed directions and wrote a novel with the theme of “belief.” (Kaga 2013, 218) At this stage, Kaga felt that death was meted out equally to all at God’s command. In order to overcome “death,” it is necessary to engage in a dialogue with God, he said. These thoughts led Kaga to alternate between reading books on Buddhism and books on Christianity. He went so far as to assign scores to the concepts presented in these books, depending on which ideas therein matched his. Two of his acquaintances responded to what he was doing: he was told by Father Kadowaki Kakichi, his guide when he received baptism, that, although the word “belief ” appeared many times in The Verdict, “That’s not what belief is. You still don’t understand religion”; and Endō Shūsaku complained, “You’re a Christian driving without a license. A true Christian should not be looking at God in this way. Having not the slightest doubt that God one hundred percent exists is croire, is belief. Still doubting that perhaps God

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does not exist means you can’t get your license yet” (Kaga 2013, 219). But there is more to Endō’s comment; later he wrote: “I’m driving without a license, too.” Furthermore, regarding faith and doubt, Endō in his novels and essays repeatedly wrote that faith is ninety-nine percent doubt and one percent faith. And the starting point for Endō’s literature is the assertion that the love and faith that ordinary people embrace are to be found within that one percent of faith. In considering the “humanity of murderers,” Kaga begins with the premise that they, too, are human beings. He has said that he wants to depict murderers as they truly are and to write about their “suffering and their salvation.” In other words, the potential for becoming a criminal lurks within each of us. Kaga recognizes that we are all individuals who, somewhere within our hearts, carry the seeds of evil, and that criminals are human beings just like the rest of us. He also says that it is a simplistic approach to writing if novelists only depict the despair and everyday reality of human lives. If there is anything that gives vitality to a novel, it is “an essential awareness of metaphysics and religion. A novelist’s fundamental working principle must be to infuse old, worn-out words such as freedom, love and hope with fresh insights into truth” (Kaga 1986, 20). Using Shōda as his protagonist, Kaga recognized the marvel of human encounters and the foundation and mystery of man’s existence in this world. “A gradual emergence of the certain reality that a deceased man, a criminal, had once again begun to live within me also led me to an understanding of my own resurrection” (Kaga 1988, 67). It has been reported that Shōda rejected a plan to deliver to the courts about two-thousand signatures obtained by a group of Catholics appealing for clemency in his case. He told Kaga that, because his actions were evil, there was no option except for him to be executed. But he believed that God had forgiven his sins. Having devoted himself to the writing of this novel, Kaga subsequently continued to grapple with the issue of “death.” And as he grappled with this issue, he came face to face with himself as one of the living. Kaga felt that the many deaths he had observed over a long period of time after the War could in no way be wiped from his consciousness in the peaceful postwar era. It could certainly be maintained that he had this awareness of “death” in the depths of his consciousness as he examined Japan’s fifteen-year war and the events in its wake while he was working on the novel The Eternal City. In writing The Verdict and asking what religious faith actually meant to a person facing “death,” Kaga continued to inquire whether light could exist in the midst of such darkness.

Baptism In the winter of 1987 at the age of 58, Kaga was baptized, with Endō Shūsaku acting as godfather. In September of that year he invited Father Kadowaki Kakichi to his cottage in Shinano Oiwake, where the two men conversed over a period of four days, during which time Kaga asked every question he had regarding aspects of Christianity that were unclear to him. Some two hundred questions were on his list, dealing with such subjects as genzai (original sin) and the Holy Ghost, the problem of evil and the Devil, as well as miracles and resurrection. Regarding the question of “Whether the Devil actually exists, and what form does he take?” Kaga’s opinion was as follows: having spent time in prisons and detention centers with many convicts, Kaga had also gazed into his own heart, and through his reading of the Bible and

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works of literature, he had come to the conclusion that, even though we do not know what form he takes, “there really is a Devil. … At the very least, there are diabolical feelings that are firmly implanted in the hearts of all of us” (Kaga 2006a, 103). That is to say, the Devil lurks within each and every heart, and that is the same whether the person is a criminal or an ordinary member of society. It appears that, for Kaga, the four days he spent with Father Kadowaki indeed eliminated his concerns one by one. He reflected on his attitudes before his conversion and stated: I personally did not believe in God until I was 58 years old; to put it the way Shinran said it, I was a follower who believed that “karmic evil is deep and burdensome.” I fully believed that the realm of evil was at the core of human nature, and I wrote a number of novels based on that belief; but I came to the realization that, unless evil permeates this world, there can be no faith. (Endō & Kaga 1993, 15) Around the age of 50, Kaga felt that, if this was a world in which there was no faith but only evil, there could also be no salvation. When he turned 58, he confessed, “I could no longer endure it, and I was baptized,” and in response to this, Endō Shūsaku pointed out that Kaga’s exchange of letters with death row prisoners and his “coming into contact with people who have been abandoned by the world” was linked to his decision to be baptized. Kaga’s concerns did not deal solely with the deaths of condemned prisoners. He has commented that, as a scientist and as a human being, he had often wondered why people are born. Why are there limits to the life span of a human being? Why, given that the universe is so vast, is the world of human beings kept within fixed bounds? Did he perhaps encounter the realm of “religion” after he had thoroughly investigated these concerns? In one published conversation, Kaga declared, “There seems to be a domain that can’t be fully explained by science and, in particular, once I realized that it was beyond the capabilities of science to cope with people who are facing death, I gradually began to be interested in religion” (Endō et al. 1969, 234). He added that he had continued to observe the changes in Shōda after the prisoner embraced the Catholic faith. In Kaga’s case, it can be said that it was not inevitable that the religion he came to believe in would be Christianity. If, for instance, he had been born in an Islamic country, he might have become a follower of Islam. His Christian baptism could be described as the result of having by happenstance been born in Japan, having been influenced by his mother and by the situations of the people around him. It cannot be denied that, just as is the case with many Christians and Buddhists, he was influenced in his choice of religion by the circumstances in which he lived. Perhaps that is the preordained encounter one has with religion. For Kaga, who had lived in the world of science, “what lay beyond the limitations of science was literature and religion,” (Kaga 1999b, 10) and for him it was difficult to separate the two. It is highly interesting that he placed the greatest weight in the Bible on the account of the Last Supper. The Last Supper is reenacted in the Catholic Mass. Kaga describes the scene as follows: The Last Supper is the farewell feast that was held amidst the strong premonition that, on the following day, Jesus would finally be killed. [The Eucharist] is a vicarious re-enactment of the acute dread felt by Jesus Himself when, sweating Chapter 15: Kaga Otohiko: In Search of What Lies Beyond Death

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blood, He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane. In addition, this Holy Communion involves feeling keenly the pain Jesus felt and the agony in His blood when the nails were driven into His hands and feet and He was hung on the cross. Receiving the Eucharist is not merely a ceremony in which one feels gratitude as one eats the tiny wafer known as the Host; it is a solemn ceremony in which one takes the Host—the flesh and blood of Jesus—into one’s mouth and vicariously reenacts His agony in one’s own mind and body. (Kaga 1999b, 141) Kaga has stated that The Last Supper is the starting point for the New Testament. At the time of the Last Supper, Jesus gathered His disciples together and then gave them bread and wine, saying “This is my body,” “This is my blood.” Kaga points out that, through this Holy Communion, Jesus is telling them “Tomorrow I will die, but my spirit will remain within you” (Kaga 2006b, 209). Of great interest is the passage in which Kaga writes, “The Last Supper was held on a Thursday night, and on Friday Jesus was killed. At that time, Jesus told His disciples, ‘I wish to offer my life for others, and you must also humble yourselves.’ I am drawn to those words. I was drawn to the act itself as it was carried out in the flesh by Jesus” (Kaga 2006b, 209). The act is carried out “in the flesh by Jesus”: as quoted above, the ceremony of the Eucharist for Kaga is not simply a ceremony to receive communion, but it is to take into one’s own body the “flesh and blood of Jesus” and to vicariously re-enact in one’s own mind and body the agony that Jesus suffered as He was crucified. At this point, Kaga brings up the thesis in Kazoh Kitamori’s book Kami no itami no shingaku (Theology of the Pain of God,* 1946) and writes that Jesus’ suffering on the cross was not only the suffering of His spirit, but more than anything else, “[Kitamori] unambiguously points out that, if Christians cannot to a certain extent actually feel for themselves the pain of Jesus’ suffering from the nails that pierced His body, they cannot understand the grace of Christ” (Kaga 1988, 74). Theology of the Pain of God is quoted frequently in The Verdict as a book that Shōda read and by which he was moved. When Christian believers attend Eucharist, they receive the Holy Communion from The Last Supper. But what awaited Jesus after that feast was capture and torture on the cross. In essence, Kaga is pointing out that there is great meaning in the Last Supper through vicariously re-enacting the “pain of the nails” that Jesus felt as He hung on the cross. Jesus died following the feast, and it is then for the first time that the significance of resurrection can be understood. Following his baptism, Kaga wrote two works that are considered Catholic literature. These are Takayama Ukon (1999) and Junkyōsha (The Martyr, 2016). In addition, he published in succession the novels The Eternal City—a trilogy consisting of Kiro (Crossroads, 1988), Ogurai mori (Shaded Forest, 1991), and Ento (Capital Ablaze, 1996). Other works that shed further light on the author’s approach to the Christian faith include Kirisutokyō e no michi (The Road to Christianity, 1988), Seisho no daichi (The Lands of the Bible, 1999), Kumo no miyako (Cloud Capital, 2002–2012, a novel which was serialized in the Mainichi newspaper and received the Mainichi Publishing Culture Special Award), Zabieru to sono deshi (Xavier and His Disciples, 2004), Kagaku to shūkyō to shi (Science, Religion, and Death, 2012) and Kaga Otohiko jiden (Autobiography of Kaga Otohiko, 2013). Takayama Ukon deals with the life of Ukon, who was born in 1552 and died from an illness in 1615 in present-day Manila. The book carefully traces the footsteps of Ukon, who continually sought after that which is holy. In 1613, as a result of the ban on Christianity issued by the Tokugawa shogunate, Ukon was exiled from Japan. He gave up his lands and 294

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lived out his days as a wanderer, but, although pressured to abandon his faith, he never did. He constantly sought to understand the life of “that Man,” Jesus. One memorable scene in the novel describes an experience that Ukon had while engaged in the Jesuit “spiritual exercises.” His spiritual director carried out a practice in which he contemplated going through the same sufferings as Jesus on the cross, as though he himself had been condemned to be crucified. This is how Ukon is described at that time: He awoke one early dawn feeling intense pain, as though his hands and feet had been pierced with red-hot tongs, and when he gingerly examined them he discovered that the palms of his hands and the tops of his feet were stained a dark reddish black, with the pain emanating from those exact areas. (Kaga 1999a, 281) Ukon proceeded to spread his arms wide and was able to visualize a figure hanging on a cross on the hill of Golgotha. The pain had not subsided the following day, so Ukon headed for a hospital. There a doctor told him that these were a condition called “stigmata” and, upon further examination, the doctor discovered that it was not just his hands and feet, but that Ukon also had a “reddish black wound” in his right side. Whenever Ukon thought about “that Man,” his thoughts were always accompanied by pain in these wounds. To put it simply, “that Man” was none other than the “Man” who had a wound in His side from being pierced by a spear while hanging as a criminal on the cross. Ukon was experiencing a vicarious reenactment of Jesus’ agony on the cross, an experience of “the death of the body.” Wakamatsu Eisuke writes, “This work is both a spiritual biography of Takayama Ukon in the form of a novel and a work that depicts the life of Jesus, who is brought to life through Ukon,” (Wakamatsu 1999, cited in Kaga 1999a, 438) and that the same can be said of Kaga’s later works, Xavier and His Disciples and The Martyr. The Martyr is a so-called Kirishitan tale with Petro Kibe as its protagonist.2 As preparation for writing about Kibe, Kaga followed in his footsteps through Greece, Turkey and Syria and commented, “What was the source of his strength? Petro Kibe is simply too imposing as a character, and his faith is too profound. Somehow or other I want to be able to approach him and write realistically about the world of his faith.” He also stated “By finishing this work, I think my literary project will be complete” (Kaga 2013, 272). At the conclusion of his training in Rome as a Jesuit, Kibe went to Lisbon. While living peacefully in Portugal, where he was ordained as a priest, he received word that the Shimabara Rebellion had erupted in Japan and that over 30,000 Christians had been killed.3 In order to assist the Christians in Japan, he made the long, difficult journey back to Japan. Captured after he returned to his homeland, Kibe was sent to Edo, where he was interrogated. Even though a variety of tortures were inflicted upon him thereafter, Kibe never abandoned his faith. “The Martyr is, I think, a novel that displays something like full mastery,” (Kaga & Gaku 2017, 188) Kaga wrote; but he went on to say that he did not understand why Kibe scurried about the world. “And so, it’s not that I was writing about a person with deep faith; I was writing about myself,” (Kaga & Gaku 2017, 188) he added. Kaga had been baptized about one year after he began writing The Eternal City, and has said that at that time he made up his mind to write next about Petro Kibe. He went on to comment, “The Eternal City and The

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Martyr comprise a pair of works. In that sense, in them I tried to write about my own faith. I had never written about my faith before that” (Kaga & Gaku 2017, 188). In The Eternal City trilogy, which portrays the lives of the intelligentsia in the period starting before World War II and continuing into the war years, Kaga depicted daily life in Japan at the time, basing his story on factual information. What was the motivating force that drove Kaga to write about this era? For the generation that experienced the War, one can perhaps understand the sense of reality they felt with regard to such things as food shortages, air raids and the other tragedies of wartime. But Kaga has stated that he “wants the young generation to read this book” (Kaga & Gaku 2017, 230). By young generation, he means those who know nothing of the War. Kaga did not depict scenes of the War’s violence. He wrote about “everyday life” for those who lived in that period—the daily lives of those people, just like the young people of today, who fell in love, whose hearts leapt, and who shed tears when they parted from those they loved. Kaga wrote about people who lived fervently no matter how turbulently the times changed. He has also commented on the different viewpoints that he employed in the novel. Were he, for instance, to write about only one character, events would be understood only from that single point of view and would only provide a glimpse of history from that one person’s perspective. But by writing from multiple perspectives, from various viewpoints, with incidents viewed through the eyes, the sorrows, the joys, and ultimately the “deaths” of several different characters, the story gains that much more depth. Although Kaga stated that he had not written about his own faith prior to the writing of these two works, perhaps it can be argued that the origins of Kaga’s faith can be discovered in The Verdict; in that work he listened to the cries of the soul from individuals whose lives were inexorably stained by evil, even as he grappled with the question of whether they could be saved. Finally, I want to make a few comments about Kaga and Dostoevsky. There is wide acknowledgment that Kaga was influenced in his novelistic technique and as a reader by Dostoevsky. Kaga has written about The House of the Dead, Crime and Punishment, The Idiot, Demons, and The Brothers Karamazov. His comments regarding The House of the Dead are of particular interest: The House of the Dead is a record covering a period of ten years, but read carefully, one realizes that the section covering the first month is extremely long. … When Dostoevsky describes events that will transpire over a lengthy period of time, he frequently writes in great detail about that first month. There he introduces the necessary characters, characters he will make use of later on. (Kaga 2006b, 21) Dostoevsky writes in detail about such things as how a character was doing at Christmastime or at Easter and so forth, describing very specific matters and what took place. And as the story progresses, he again brings in the characters involved at each juncture. According to Kaga, characters that are at first casually introduced slowly take on more important roles in the narrative. The novel comes to life, he writes, as a result of this skillful re-appearance of characters. Regarding the theme of the work, Kaga also asserts that the skillfulness of the novel lies in the manner in which, after Dostoevsky has written about one theme, it fades away and a different theme emerges, but then the previous theme is recounted through the eyes of a different character. Examining Kaga’s many full-length novels, the influence of 296

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Dostoevsky’s skill is evident. Naturally, Kaga also makes note of the fact that Dostoevky’s ability is not limited to novelistic technique, but also to the fact that the main focus of such works as Crime and Punishment, The Idiot and Demons is crime and murder. Kaga’s most important observation in his discussion of Dostoevsky’s works is that the Russian novelist “by describing the locus of crime is paradoxically depicting the love of God” (Kaga 2006b 24).

Conclusion One must carefully read each of the writings of Kaga in order to analyze them. There are still many issues that must be examined. For example, there is more to be said in evaluating the works of Kaga by considering Takayama Ukon and The Martyr as works of Catholic literature. And in addition to Dostoevsky, Kaga as the author of lengthy novels was greatly influenced by Tolstoy, whose complete oeuvre he assiduously read. Similarly of great interest would be a comparison of Kaga’s works with those of Endō Shūsaku, the Catholic writer who functioned as godfather at Kaga’s baptism. Both authors studied in France, were devoted readers of Mauriac, and wrote about Julien Green’s Moira. One theme that is important in understanding the faith and writings of these two authors would emerge from comparing and contrasting Kaga’s writings, which depict martyrs, and Endō’s, which turn the spotlight on apostates. The Verdict was highlighted in this essay from two vantage points. It is vital in considering Kaga’s writings to emphasize that he pondered his own faith by writing about one particular condemned man. Second, an inevitable theme in discussing Kaga’s works is the theme of the “death” of human beings, as this chapter has examined. “Death” here is not merely the “death of the spirit” or the “death of the mind.” For Kaga, that “death” is also the “death of the physical body.” During his years of medical training, Kaga came in contact with many “spiritual deaths.” He also observed “physical deaths” at close range. As a young man who saw and heard about things that lie beyond the understanding of medical science, he interacted with many patients while he studied in France and, following his return to Japan, he heard through interviews the voices of many death row convicts. He witnessed the fate of prisoners who had been crushed by fear, their spirits gradually broken—especially the ways in which their physical bodies were destroyed as though they were mere clumps of flesh. He wrote of the nature of individuals who commit crime after crime, but also of the love and faith that they discover amidst their crimes, and ultimately the prayers that are born therefrom. There are many memorable scenes in The Verdict. The graphic murder scene; the execution scene; the suffocating feelings in the hearts of the prisoners on the day before their execution—these isolated “deaths” press heavily on the reader’s heart. Among these figures, one nameless character radiates light. A heavily made-up woman who works in a bar tells a man that she often thinks about dying. She has attempted suicide twice, but both attempts failed. She swallowed sleeping pills twice, but the first time the number of pills was insufficient, the second time too great, so she was unsuccessful. But next time it’d be okay for sure. I have absolute confidence that I’d be able to die based on the principles of science. But to tell the truth, I’m at a point where I can’t die. … Sā-san [referring to Satō, the alias for Kusumoto], it’s God’s fault. Lately I’ve all of a sudden started going to church, and I believe in God. I haven’t

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been baptized, but I really want to believe. Believing the way I do, I can’t die. (Kaga 1979a, 2: 157) The woman tells Sā-san that her body is not solely her own, that people cannot live as solitary individuals, that they can’t go on living as such. If it’s wrong to kill another person, then it’s also wrong to kill yourself, she says. Still, the man won’t back down, pressing her to explain to him what a person should do if they have murdered someone. She replies, “There’s nothing that person can do then but pray” (Kaga 1979a, 2: 159). Later, Shōda thinks back on this woman and says “She taught me something vital,” yet she only appears in one scene. Even so, this woman’s words shine brightly in this work. Kaga’s prayer may be found in her words. Here is the realm of evil, toward which, as Shōda frequently writes in his letters, he is drawing ever nearer. But for Kaga, who has repeatedly observed “death,” this is a scene in which a single shaft of light shines into this place of “death” that continues to plunge toward the lowest depths. Takahashi Takako, another Catholic writer, once asked Father Inoue Yōji whether God dwelt “above” or “in front of ” us (Takahashi 2006, 140). In her view, God was positioned “above,” in Heaven, looking down on the “scenes of sin” that human beings inevitably commit merely because they are alive. To her surprise, however, Father Inoue replied that God was “beneath us.” That is to say, God does not dwell in the light from the heavens; rather, the power of God comes from “below,” from the infinite realm inside each individual person. To use Takahashi’s expression, “What lies within human beings, who live with God inside them, that inward feeling is an ‘embrace’ from ‘beneath’ them. ‘Prayer,’” she explains, “comes to exist precisely in the depths of that spot at the very bottom where no one else can console us, where no one else can enter” (Takahashi 2006, 137). Kaga is a writer who has constantly peered into the darkness that lies in the very depths of the human soul. Does the light penetrate to such a place? Is there such a place where light gleams? He continued to witness many, many deaths. The deaths of those lost in war, the deaths of condemned prisoners, the issues surrounding his own unavoidable death, even the question of death viewed from a religious standpoint—none of these issues can be avoided. What may become visible beyond the veil of death? Perhaps human beings are weak, so powerless that at times they cannot even endure the slightest pain. But the human spirit that believes in the light even while fearing death—no one can steal away such a soul. Wherein lies the way in which humankind can fight against the darkness? Right at this moment, there is most certainly one author who joins his hands in prayer as he stands in the darkness.

Notes 1

This was an attempted coup d’état in Japan that took place on 26 February 1936 (hence 2.26), led by a group of young army officers who sought to purge the government and military leadership. 2 Kirishitan is the term used to describe those who turned to the Christian faith following the arrival into Japan of the first Catholic missionaries in the late-16th and early-17th centuries. 3 The Shimabara Rebellion was a largely Kirishitan-led uprising that occurred in the Shimabara region of western Japan in 1637–1638.

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References Bishop, J. (1957). The Day Christ Died. New York: Harper & Brothers. Japanese translation by Miura, S. (1958). Tokyo: Arechi Shuppansha. Endō, S. & Kaga O. (1993). Saishinsaku Fukai kawa: tamashii no mondai [The Problem of the Soul in Your Latest Work, Deep River]. Kokubungaku: Kaishaku to kyōzai no kenkyū 38(10), 6–21. Endō, S. et al. (1969). Shūkyō to bungaku [Religion and literature]. Bungei 8(9), 228–54. Kaga, O. (1972). Furandoru no fuyu [Winter in Flanders]. Tokyo: Shinchōsha. ———. (1979a). Senkoku [The Verdict] (3 vols.). Tokyo: Shinchōsha. ———. (1979b). Kyokugen no shi to shūkyō [The Extremity of Death and Religion]. Hanzai nōto (1986): 57–60. ———. (1979c). Senkoku o kaite [Writing The Verdict]. Hanzai nōto (1986): 77–81. ———. (1979d). “Ai suru sonzai” toshite no ningen [The Individual as a “Being of Love”]. Shūkan Dokushojin, 19 February. ———. (1980). Shikeishū no kiroku [A Record of Death-row Criminals]. Tokyo: Chūkō Shinsho, Chūōkōron Shinsha. ———. (1986). Hanzai nōto [Notes on Crime]. Tokyo: Ushio Shuppan. ———. (1988). Kirisutokyō e no michi [The Road to Christianity]. Tokyo: Mikuni Shobō. ———. (1993). Kaerazaru natsu [The Summer of No Return]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. ———. (1997). Eien no miyako [The Eternal City] (7 vols.). Tokyo: Shinchōsha. ———. (1999a). Takayama Ukon. Tokyo: Kōdansha. ———. (1999b). Seisho no daichi [The Lands of the Bible]. Tokyo: Nihon Hōsō Shuppan Kyōkai. ———. (2004). Zabieru to sono deshi [Xavier and His Disciples]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. ———. (2006a). Akuma no sasayaki [The Whispers of the Devil]. Tokyo: Shūeisha. ———. (2006b). Shōsetsuka ga yomu Dosutoefusukii [A Novelist Reads Dostoevsky]. Tokyo: Shūeisha. ———. (2012). Kagaku to shūkyō to shi [Science, Religion, and Death]. Tokyo: Shūeisha. ———. (2013). Kaga Otohiko jiden [Autobiography of Kaga Otohiko]. Tokyo: Shūeisha. ———. (2019). Shikeishū no yūgen to mukishū no mugen [Limitations for Death Row Convicts and the Absence of Limitations for Convicts with a Life Sentence]. Tokyo: Kōrusakkusha. Kaga, O., Endō, S., Kizaki, S. (2001). Kirisuto to deau: senrei o ukeru made [Encountering Christ: The Time Preceding Baptism]. Tokyo: Nihon Kirisuto Kyōdan Shuppankyoku. Kaga, O. & Gaku, S. (2017). Eien no miyako wa doko ni? [Whither The Eternal City?]. Kyoto: Makino Shuppan. Kitamori, K. (1946). Kami no itami no shingaku [Theology of the pain of God]. Tokyo: Kyōbunkwan. Nakano, K. (2003). Senkoku kaisetsu [Commentary on The Verdict]. In Kaga, O., Senkoku, (vol. 3). Tokyo: Shinchōsha. Takahashi, T. (2006). Doko ka aru ie [A house somewhere]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. Wakamatsu, E. (1999). Takayama Ukon kaisetsu [Commentary on Takayama Ukon]. In Kaga, O., Takayama Ukon. Tokyo: Kōdansha.

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Chapter 16 Sono Ayako: Amor Vincit Omnia Kevin M. Doak Sono Ayako is not only one of postwar Japan’s most important Christian writers, she is also one of the few still alive today. In addition to three of her novels that have been translated into English (Miracles, No Reason for Murder and Watcher from the Shore), the as yet untranslated The Empty Room enables the reader to find that Sono’s Catholicism is expressed through her conviction that love triumphs over sin.

Introduction Sono Ayako was born Machida Chizuko in the Katsushika neighborhood of Tokyo on 17 September 1931. Her father, Eijirō, was a graduate of Keio University who had joined the management of the Yamato Rubber Manufacturing Company that was run by his wife Kiwa’s older brother. Because Chizuko frequently suffered from pneumonia in the damp area around Katsushika, the family moved to the suburb of Den’en Chōfu when she was three and her health improved. In 1938 she entered Sacred Heart Academy. Neither of her parents was Christian, but her mother felt that some kind of spiritual education would be good for her (Tsuruha 1979, 33). These chance events led to Chizuko’s eventual conversion to Christianity. She was baptized in the school chapel in 1948, taking the name Mary Elizabeth. Mary Elizabeth Chizuko became Sono Ayako the following year when she began using that pen name when publishing pieces in Nakagawa Yoichi’s La Mancha journal. She was concerned that her father would not approve of her interest in writing fiction. In 1953, Sono married Miura Shumon, one year before she graduated Sacred Heart University. In June 1954, just three months after graduating, Sono published the work that would establish her reputation as an up-and-coming writer: “Enrai no kyakutachi” (Guests from Afar) was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize in 1954 and widely praised by Japan’s leading literary critics. While “Guests from Afar” is not usually considered part of Sono’s Christian literature, it lays the foundation for that latter development through its treatment of the American occupation soldiers, not as superiors or inferiors, but merely as “guests from afar” (Sunami 2011, 134). Sono’s ability to see the American soldiers in this light surely owed much to her Christian faith and her sense that many of these soldiers shared her faith more closely than did many of her fellow Japanese.

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Literary scholars are in agreement that Sono’s explicitly Christian literature begins around the late 1960s or early 1970s. Hokao Toshimi identifies three periods in Sono’s literary development, culminating in a “period of completion” that began around 1969 (Hokao 1985, 105–6). Sunami Toshiko links this period with Sono’s Christian literature, noting that “Sono did not completely express her view of life that is rooted in her faith in an unconditional God until 1969” (Sunami 2011, 137). And Sono’s high school classmate, Tsuruha Nobuko, also sees 1969, and particularly the novel Mumeihi (A Nameless Monument) that came out that year, as a turning point in Sono’s work. While A Nameless Monument is not explicitly Christian in theme, Tsuruha invites a reading of it as an allegory of the Book of Job. Tsuruha makes another important point that we must bear in mind in reading Sono’s literature: referring to Sono’s novel Rio Gurande (Rio Grande, 1971, based on her extensive travels through Latin America in 1960), Tsuruha notes that Sono’s literature frequently has a “false bottom” (nijūzoko), or two levels of meaning (Tsuruha 1979, 110–11). Sono herself backed up this impression when she wrote that her novel Kizutsuita ashi (The Bruised Reed,* 1970) was not only about the protagonist, a priest who stuck with his vow of chastity amidst temptation, but was also a symbolic criticism of her husband, Miura Shumon, who did not stick with his university post in the face of the challenges of the 1968 student uprisings (Sono 1979b, 412). So, while below I will focus on those novels from Sono’s explicitly Christian period, especially those available in English translation, we should bear in mind this “false bottom” that can lure the reader into superficial, if not false, expectations about her literature. Sometimes Sono’s most explicitly Christian literature disappoints the devout Christian reader and sometimes her least explicitly Christian literature conveys a Christian message most profoundly.

Kiseki (Miracles) Sono’s 1973 novel, Kiseki (Miracles*) is one of the earliest of her publications in the period when Christian themes increasingly became prominent in her work. Sono herself has noted that she started a serious study of the Bible under Fr. Hotta Yūkō, OFM in her forties (Sono 2010, 87), and she turned forty in 1971. This is also the year she traveled to Poland and Italy to research Miracles. Globalism accompanied her Christian themes to the extent that Gabriel emphasizes “the disparity between the Japan she depicts, where her Christian faith can be a source of embarrassment, something to downplay or even hide, and these European countries, where, for many, faith, prayer and the possibility of miracles are the very air they breathe” (Gabriel 2006, 58). But her globalism should not be limited to a contrast between a Christian Europe and a secular Japan. In 1972, Sono founded JOMAS (The Japan Overseas Missionary Assistance Society) to support Japanese Christian missionaries, principally in the global South. And in Miracles, she deftly intertwines Japan and Europe through the work’s main character, the Polish friar St. Maximilian Kolbe who spent the years from 1930 to 1936 in Nagasaki where he founded a publication house and a friary. The pretext for the story is the curiosity of the protagonist (is it a fictional character or Sono herself?) about the nature of miracles, a curiosity that is piqued when Kolbe is about to be beatified and a miracle is required for that process. Challenged by Father S. to go to Europe and find out for herself what the miracles associated with Kolbe were all about, she does just that. One of the appeals of Miracles is its global nature as a work of Japanese literature in which almost all the action takes place in Poland and Italy. The reader will learn a

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great deal about St. Maximilian Kolbe’s life and spirituality, particularly his devotion to Mary. The reader will also learn a good deal of Polish history. But one of the most riveting parts of the story is Sono’s telling of how Kolbe took the place of one of the condemned prisoners, Franciszek Gajowniczek, in the starvation bunker of Auschwitz. Sono makes an important point that the sadism that suffused Auschwitz was more than simple human cruelty, but was inexplicably tied to the Christian culture of Europe: What I mean is that, precisely because of the pleasure derived from the thought that by tormenting other men one is wounding God, sadism is linked to a pleasure that lies deep inside Man. Putting it this way might invite misunderstanding, but it is true that, without the existence of God, a dark passion like sadism would never exist. In other words, without first accepting God, one can neither understand nor write about sadism. (Sono 2016, 95) This is the other side of Europe, which turns out to be more than simply the land of Christian love and goodness. It is also the place of unimaginable cruelty, where concentration camps like Auschwitz were built to put into practice unimaginable acts of sadism on an industrial scale. Ultimately, for Sono, European culture is neither the problem nor the solution. Sono’s globalism militates against cultural essentializing; more important than cultural stereotypes are the relations between individual people and particularly the opportunities to express love that every relationship affords. One cannot overlook that fact that, when the protagonist returns to her hotel room from the shock of Auschwitz, she finds consolation in reading, not the Bible, but a poem by Rabindranath Tagore. Significantly, it is not Tagore’s Hindu beliefs that comfort her, but the poignant love story of a young Indian boy and girl. Later she quotes from a long passage by the Marxist philosopher, Vítêzslav Gardavsky, who drew the unexpected conclusion that “love turns out to be the radically subjective element of history. Why be afraid of this type of miracle?” (Sono 2016, 116). Sono’s globalism finds sadism in Christian countries, but love as a universal human condition, expressed by a non-Christian Indian and a non-Christian European. Perhaps the noted literary critic Okuno Takeo put it best when he noted that Ms. Sono’s literature is a literature that possesses a new oldness (atarashii furusa). Its oldness is not that of an old moldy or rusty period. It has nothing to do with the certain dark, mustiness of traditional Japan. But it is also not that of the classics of old Europe. It is an oldness that doesn’t exist anywhere; I suppose we may call it the oldness of the future. (Okuno 1974, 210) Sono is always full of surprises. As the protagonist is packing up and about to leave Sardinia, where she discovered “the ordinary lives of the people here, with their extraordinary goodwill,” she makes a shocking admission: I almost forgot. I have a confession to make. The truth is, I don’t really believe there is an eternal life. I also don’t think it is possible to meet one’s death filled with the joy of gaining eternal life. (Sono 2016, 199–200)

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What is the reader to make of this shocking statement? If her readers all along have read Miracles as a non-fictional work, a transparent window into Sono’s own experiences and beliefs, what then to make of this confession by one of Japan’s leading Christian writers that she doesn’t believe in eternal life? Is Sono a fraud? A religious hypocrite? That conclusion is even more tempting in light of Sono’s afterword to Miracles where she tells us that, after her trip to Poland and Italy, she no longer felt compelled to conceal her own weaknesses as a Christian and that her understanding of faith had changed—even while she did not reject the necessity of the idea of God (Sono 1977, 252). But what exactly do these statements by Sono add up to? Given Tsuruha’s warning that Sono regularly writes with double-meanings, one should be cautious about taking this almost forgotten confession as proof of a crisis of faith within Sono herself. It is just as plausible that she was confessing a deeper faith that gave her greater confidence in admitting her doubts. Her global experiences in Poland and Sardinia may well have helped her accept that she was not a perfect Christian, something more difficult to express in Japan where a Christian writer is often expected to live a perfect Christian life. But conversely, recognizing one’s moral weaknesses can also be described as evidence of greater sanctity—a deeper engagement with the virtue of humility. The humility to admit that one is an imperfect Christian is one thing; a rejection of eternal life is quite another. Surely, Sono (who has written a book on the influence of St. Paul’s writings on her) was aware of St. Paul’s admonition to his fellow Christians that “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied” (1 Cor. 15: 19 NIV). If this rejection of belief in eternal life is allowed to stand as a confession of the nature of Sono’s own faith, then we would be justified in considering her as not a Christian, even a religious hypocrite. The first problem is whether a work like Miracles can be relied upon for an accurate record of Sono Ayako’s own beliefs. While clearly based on experiences that Sono herself had, it is nonetheless written within the genre of the “I-novel” (shishōsetsu), a fictional genre that makes any transparent link between the protagonist’s thoughts and beliefs and those of the author problematic. Sono uses fictional stances to great advantage. In the past, in The Bruised Reed, she had used a fictional priest as an allegory to criticize her husband, Miura Shumon; by the same token, she can also use the genre to present, if not a “false Sono” then at least one with a “false bottom.” In any case, one has to be very careful in reading Sono’s work, as she is often playing with, and undermining, the reader’s expectations—something she would do just a few years later with particular skill—and a splash of humor—in the short story “Etoraruka misaki” (Cape Etoraruka) (Sono 1976). This confession of lack of belief in eternal life by the protagonist of Miracles may be best understood in context with the following lines from a novel Sono wrote just a few years later, Fuzai no heya (The Empty Room, 1979). In that novel, we find the following lines where the Catholic nun Taeko is reading from St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s autobiography, The Story of a Soul: Thérèse finally opened up to the nuns around her. “I no longer believe in eternal life. Everything has vanished.” … When Taeko read the passage where Thérèse said “I don’t believe in eternal life,” she felt her fingers go numb. (Sono 1979a, 389–90) The coincidence of these confessions of a lack of faith in eternal life in two novels written close together in time is uncanny. We must go deeper into this problem. The passage Taeko is Chapter 16: Sono Ayako: Amor Vincit Omnia

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reading is from the period of St. Thérèse’s dark night of the soul. What gets the saint through the dark night is when she ceases fixating on her own peace that comes from her belief in eternal life and simply makes an act of will to love Jesus unconditionally, whether she will be rewarded with eternal life or not. She admits she faces “a wall which towers to the sky and hides the stars. When I sing of the bliss of heaven and the eternal possession of God, I get no joy from it, for I am singing only of what I want to believe” (Beevers 1957, 119). The point of faith—true faith—is that the object of faith really exists, whether or not faith in it makes one feel good. Is it true faith if ultimately one is only believing in God for selfish reasons, for one’s own eternal bliss? The key lesson here is St. Thérèse’s discovery of love, not love as an emotion but love as an act of the will, even in the face of doubts about eternal life. And that is also Sono’s lesson. Immediately after Taeko is shocked by this passage from St. Thérèse’s autobiography, the narrator (or is it Taeko’s conscience?) reflects on how Taeko has fallen short in loving the sisters around her, offering at best only a self-serving philia (kōi), but not the agape (risei no ai; rational love) of which the Lord speaks (Sono 1979a, 390). And so with Miracles, too. Immediately after the protagonist declares that she cannot believe in eternal life, she offers this reflection: Perhaps that is what eternal life is—passing on to someone else the essential brilliance of a certain spirit. Even if we don’t have the sense of a heavily supernatural eternal life, such as when we speak of participating in the life of Christ, it is certainly possible in this way to transmit a certain eternal life. It was in this way that Father Kolbe, even after his death, was able to continue to convey to us this life/love. (Sono 2016, 200)1 One need not conclude that Sono herself is here confessing her disbelief in eternal life. After all, how could one “transmit a certain eternal life” without some belief in eternal life? Sono has a different point to make and a particular strategy with which to make it. The key is to remember that Sono is not writing her works only for faithful Christians but for the vast majority of Japanese who are not Christian and do not believe in eternal life in the Christian sense. The suggestion raised in Miracles that eternal life could be a passing on to others of a certain spirit evokes Buddhist ideas of samsara (rinne), ideas with which many Japanese readers will be more familiar than the Christian idea of an eternal, individual soul. Fiction, even the thin fiction of the “I-novel,” allows Sono to take cover under the genre and to adopt a strategy that non-fiction, and certainly theology, would not permit. Her goal is to get her readers (Japanese and non-Japanese) to understand that the central message of Christianity is love, not eternal life. And a reader who understands the true meaning of love, not love as sentimentality or love as selfish interest, but love as a willingness to sacrifice all for others, will understand what St. Maximilian Kolbe did in giving up his life for a condemned man. And that reader will understand that the true miracle is the miracle of love. Jason Morgan, in his online review of Miracles, has put it well: In the end, Sono transcends the I-novel within the context of the I-novel: for Miracles is ultimately not about Sono or Kolbe or Auschwitz or a trip through the European countryside—it is about the economy of grace. The protagonist of

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this I-novel—entirely unlike those of Mishima or Dazai Osamu—is not Sono, but God. (Morgan 2017) Morgan concludes that “perhaps, Sono is not such a simpleminded, half-apostate Catholic after all” (Morgan 2017). And indeed, her actions reveal that Sono had not abandoned her Catholic faith. In September 1974, a little over a year after Miracles was published, she took a trip to the Vatican where she had an audience with the Pope. The following year Sono traveled to Tripoli, Cairo, Beirut, Damascus, Jeddah, Riyadh, Kuwait and Abu Dhabi and wrote a book entitled Arabu no kokoro (The Arab Heart, 1976) based on her experiences there. Sono later credited this trip to the Mideast with helping her to understand the Bible better (Sono 2010, 88). This was a very productive period for Sono’s non-fictional works, with Christian themes figuring large during this time. For example, she began publishing Watashi no naka no seisho (The Bible Within Me) in serial installments from December 1974, with volume one coming out as a monograph in December 1976. None fared better than her two-million bestseller Dare no tame ni aisuru ka (For Whom Do You Love?), first published in 1970 by Seishun Shuppansha and republished in 1977 and 1979 by Kadokawa Shoten. It was made into a movie by Tōhō in 1971 and a television drama that aired on NET (now TV Asahi) from 4 April to 11 July 1974. Clearly inspired by Sono’s engagement with St. Maximilian Kolbe, the television drama opened with these lines written in Sono’s own hand: “Could you die for someone you love? It’s like the fumie.” 2

Fuzai no heya (The Empty Room) Although written between 1976 and 1978, only a few years after Miracles, The Empty Room seems at first quite different. Rather than taking place in Europe, it is set in the remote fictional town of Matsuno, somewhere in the north of Japan along the Japan Sea. The story follows Ogawa Taeko, daughter of the president of a local engineering company, who had attended St. Mary’s Catholic Academy through university. As the late Catholic literary and cultural critic, Watanabe Shōichi, has noted, while Sono created this fictitious Catholic women’s school, it no doubt draws from her own experience at Sacred Heart Academy in Tokyo, down to the division of its religious women into the “Mary” sisters who teach and pray and the “Martha” sisters who do the menial labor (Watanabe 2015). Another “false bottom,” this fictional work is on one level a whimsical elegy to Sono’s time with the nuns at Sacred Heart Academy. A close reading of the work gives the reader a powerful sense of what Sacred Heart meant to Sono’s Christian faith and how disappointed she was with the changes in the religious culture during and after the late 1960s. Taeko is drawn to the community of the Catholic nuns through an infatuation with one of her teachers, Sr. Agnes. This motivation matures while on retreat, as she reflects on St. Augustine’s works and begins to find the sisters’ life attractive as the life of citizens of the Kingdom of God: a life that is neither Japanese nor foreign (Sono 1979a, 17). Here we see how globalism remains strong in this novel without involving travel to foreign lands or cosmopolitan settings, as non-Japanese characters, including some of the nuns, are an important part of the story. Certainly there is an element of Sono herself in the character of Taeko, although there are enough differences to prevent the kind of autobiographical interpretation that Miracles invites. First, Sono was baptized while still a student at Sacred Heart; Taeko decides to undergo

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baptism shortly after her graduation from university. But the path that leads to Taeko’s baptism may well have reflected some of what Sono went through herself. Taeko’s parents are opposed to baptism, so she asks Sr. Agnes if baptism could be done in secret: “Sister, is getting baptized something you have to tell other people?” Taeko asked. “Baptism is a matter of the heart, so it’s different from getting a tattoo, right?” (Sono 1979a, 15) Sister Agnes tells Taeko that there are times when faith needs to be expressed publicly and she does not seem ready for that. Finally, Taeko receives her parents’ begrudging permission to be baptized and she resigns herself to a public ceremony. The baptism is one of the most humorous scenes in the novel: just as Taeko proclaims her renunciation of Satan, lightning knocks out the lights and leaves them all in darkness. Not a propitious (or even reverent) beginning for the new Christian Taeko. A novice reader of Sono might rush to conclude that this scene means Taeko’s faith will not last, or at least she either will not join the convent or will not stay in it. Raising such doubts in the reader’s mind is one of Sono’s talents as a writer: we stay with the story to find out what will happen to Taeko. But a more experienced reader of Sono’s literature will bear in mind her penchant for depicting the messiness of life. Her literature frequently employs words like futameku (make a commotion), dogimagi (flustered) and doyomeki (a commotion, stir)—all of which are closely connected to the traditional Christian understanding of the good of confusion or consternation, the very attitude that St. Ignatius encouraged in the repentant sinner (Puhl 1951, 26). It is an antidote to pride. Sono’s representation of the Christian faith is never (or at least not for long) a buttoned-down, orderly affair where human emotions are stifled in the interests of high-falutin, dogmatic principles. In this sense, the contrast between Taeko (who is often a confused mess!) and her father (the orderly construction man) is an important one for understanding Sono’s Christian spirituality. But it is also true that, in The Empty Room, intense Christian faith coexists in tension with disciplined human emotions and that too much indulgence of emotions and personal desires tends to dilute Christian faith. That point, in fact, may be taken as a succinct summary of the narrative flow across the entire two-volume work. Volume one focuses on life in the convent from the late 1950s, and volume two deals with the changes in the convent that followed the Second Vatican Council from 1962–1965. For much of the first volume, the reader is left wondering if Taeko will be long for the convent: she seems to have a crush on every man who ever speaks to her, including a few priests. But her emotional state is contained within a disciplined religious life, and the text itself is rife with profound insights into the Christian spiritual life, with citations from the Bible, St. Augustine, Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Anthony of the Desert, John of Ruusbroec, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and even Matthew Arnold! At the end of the first volume, Taeko reflects on the meaning of “the poor in spirit” in the Sermon on the Mount and concludes that the real meaning refers to the anawim, the remnant who have been deprived of all wealth, status and everything but their absolute trust in God (Sono 1979a, 205–6). Taeko sees her community of nuns as a living embodiment of the anawim—those who have given up everything for God. But she is immediately brought back down to earth, and she begins to scheme to impress the Mother Superior so as to get a shot at attending graduate school. And the volume ends with another surprise: the father of one of her students who comes for a parent-teacher 306

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conference is none other than Hisamori, the man whose kiss she has never forgotten. The volume ends with a silent, if crushing, sense of dogimagi and doyomeki in Taeko’s heart. When the second volume opens, Taeko is still deeply infatuated with Hisamori, but she is increasingly drawn to a young American seminarian named John Marshall. Her romantic interest in men (so far, completely in her imagination) rises to a crisis when, at her final vows, the bishop asks whether she will swear not to love anyone but God. This vow creates tension in Taeko’s mind since she also reflects that a Christian should love everyone (and she cannot forget the young man Hisamori who kissed her just before she joined the convent). And to make matters worse, vague notions of change are in the air, especially after the German Sr. Ursula outlined in English the opening of Vatican II and promised the sisters that their lives will soon be different. Taeko’s response is an interesting one: Taeko thought she had no desire for any change. The Church as it has been up to now more than satisfied her, and while the Council may be important for “those on high,” she had no real sense that it was all that necessary for those on the margins like Taeko and her circle. (Sono 1979a, 233) This reflection is interesting because the self-reference as one on the margins (mattan no mono), not only evokes the earlier concept of the anawim, but also because it appears in a chapter entitled “The Goat of Azazel,” a reference to Leviticus chapter 16, the locus classicus of the term “scapegoat.” And indeed, at the close of the chapter, after reflections on St. Ignatius’ directions on the mortification of the body, Taeko sees herself as that goat, willing to wander off into the desert and face even death so long as she could find God in return. Taeko does not need to wander off in the desert; the desert comes to her. But it is not clear that this desert is a place of God. Changes begin under the new Mother Superior, Sr. Josepha, who has just returned from a retreat on Vatican II. Sr. Josepha is very excited, telling the sisters that “it was truly a wonderful five days. I had read the documents of the Council, but this was the first time I was able to understand the spirit of the Council in such a clear and concrete form” (Sono 1979a, 255). Here, Sono puts her finger on how the changes in Catholic life arose in the wake of Vatican II: an appeal, not to the documents that actually came out of the Council but to a more amorphous “spirit” of the Council that could and often did mean just about anything. For Taeko and her sisters, it began with humble changes such as the introduction of sofas in the common room, but it quickly escalated to luxury underwear (but no habits), televisions and newspapers, private rooms and private eating, increased consumption of alcohol (with Sr. Lucia clearly an alcoholic), and a breakdown in duties and responsibilities. The “Martha” sisters were no longer willing to do the cooking and cleaning for the entire community, and so eventually these chores did not get done. In one unforgettable metaphor, Sono describes the breakdown in terms of a bar of soap left floating in a filthy soap dish in the bathroom since nobody felt responsible for cleaning it up. An even more damning metaphor is Sono’s description of the convent as “a house of cats” which she explains in these terms: Somehow or other, the sisters, including Taeko, were like cats. Cats do not by nature live together but like to live alone. To the degree that they are domesticated, they trust people and crawl right up next to them, even at the risk of getting stepped on. But if another cat comes along, they raise a terrible hiss and chase it Chapter 16: Sono Ayako: Amor Vincit Omnia

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out of their own living space. The sisters may live together [gunsei shite wa ita ga],3 but deep down they are like cats. Neither hating nor loving anything, they simply don’t care about each other. (Sono 1979a, 370) Sono herself has written that, in this novel, she was not trying to say that God no longer exists in the Church or in convents (and she pointed to Mother Teresa’s community in India as a counter-example). Rather, her general point was to address the “absence of spirit” (seishin no fuzai) that had affected so many people and institutions by the 1970s. But she also admits that it would be a lie to assert that no convent had gone with the flow of easy living during the same period (Sono 1979a, 411–12). Watanabe Shōichi emphasizes that The Empty Room is valuable as a historical documentation of the changes in Catholic life that followed the Second Vatican Council. He rightly suggests that Sono’s work is a response to the Kathryn Hulme novel, The Nun’s Story (1956; adapted into the popular 1959 movie starring Audrey Hepburn), concluding that “the young nun’s excuse for her decision to leave the convent was in large measure put into reality at the Council” (Watanabe 1983, 300). Whether Taeko leaves the convent, I will not say and spoil it for the reader. Suffice it to note that the title comes from criticism by the traditional Sr. Magdalena who tells Taeko that, whenever she tries to visit her in her room, the sign on the door always says “absent.” Without giving away the ending, I will say that Sono finds a beautiful way to realize in her novel a point Watanabe raised in his commentary: “Whenever in the 2000-year history of the Catholic Church one finds such decay and decadence that one thinks this is the end … new buds always sprout up in another spot” (Watanabe 1983, 301). Sono leaves that hope in the heart of the reader as well.

Kami no yogoreta te (translated as Watcher from the Shore) Critics often refer to Watcher from the Shore* (1986) as Sono’s abortion novel. But that is not quite right. It would be more accurate to call it Sono’s adoption novel. The inspiration for Watcher from the Shore was clearly the social movement started by the obstetrician, Dr. Kikuta Noboru, to reform adoption laws in Japan to make it easier for people to adopt children who might otherwise have been aborted. Sono visited Dr. Kikuta in Ishinomaki, Miyagi-ken in 1977, a year and a half before she started publishing the story in serial form in the Asahi Newspaper (Kikuta 1980, 311). Dr. Kikuta warmly welcomed her and cooperated with her in order to spread awareness of the need for a Special Law on Adoption, a movement he had led since 1973 when he put an advertisement in two local newspapers, calling for someone to raise a newborn baby as their own child. After a Mainichi Newspaper reporter saw the ad and wrote a story about Dr. Kikuta on the front page of his newspaper, the doctor found himself at the center of a national movement to reform the adoption laws. Dr. Kikuta had told the reporter that he had already filled out over one hundred fraudulent birth certificates for these children, listing their adoptive parents as their birth parents. Following the Mainichi, other media began to pick up the story and a national debate ensued centered on whether a doctor must always strictly observe the letter of the law, even when there are larger moral issues at stake. Dr. Kikuta was called to testify before the Japanese Diet, and the local obstetrics association filed a criminal complaint against him for violating the law. Convicted, he lost his certification to practice under the Eugenics Protection Law and his medical practice was suspended for six months. We cannot overlook the Christian context of this movement. Dr.

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Kikuta had read the Bible in his youth, but put it aside when its principles conflicted with his profitable abortion business. His wife, Suzuki Shizue, was a Christian, although, for a long time, she was prevented by her husband from exercising her faith until Dr. Kikuta began to rethink the morality of the abortions he was performing. Finally, he himself converted to Christianity and was baptized by the Protestant pastor, Saeki Akira, on 19 April 1987 (Morgan 2019, 36). Endō Shūsaku, the famous Catholic writer who had a long-standing commitment to medical ethics, also wrote in praise of Dr. Kikuta’s efforts to reduce the number of abortions in Japan (ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/菊田昇). When Sono met Dr. Kikuta, the movement based on this “baby mediation incident” (akachan assen jiken) was in full swing. So, in a sense, Watcher from the Shore should be read in the context of Sono’s cooperation with this movement to loosen restrictions on adoption and thereby to reduce the number of abortions in Japan. Dr. Kikuta and his efforts to liberalize adoption laws are explicitly referred to in the novel, albeit in passing.4 The novel is no social history or mere summary of a political movement. In Sono’s skillful hands, the story takes on a broader human significance, as we follow the fictional obstetrician, Dr. Nobeji Sadaharu, struggling with his conscience, or perhaps one should say, struggling to find a conscience. Tsuruha has characterized Sono’s literary work in a way that is important for understanding this novel in particular: “[Sono] Ayako’s singular stance throughout her life is to adopt a position that is non-judgmental while in the background bringing everything to the fore quite clearly” (Tsuruha 1979, 70). Rather than emphasizing a theological or ethical argument about abortion, the novel simply follows Sadaharu (as he is called in the translation) through his daily work in his clinic and his regular evening visits to the nearby home of his deceased elder sister’s friend, the Catholic, Kakei Yoko, and her friend, Fr. Munechika, a frequent visitor. As in many of Sono’s other works, the key question is one of conversion of the heart: will Sadaharu recognize his moral complicity in the killing of unborn babies and will such a moral recognition lead him to convert to the Catholic faith of his friends Yoko and Fr. Munechika? It is as if Sono is writing about Dr. Kikuta at that point in time when he had begun to recognize how Japan’s restrictive adoption laws had forced him to conduct many abortions but before his change of heart and Christian conversion. What keeps the novel moving along is the question of whether Sadaharu will develop a conscience and stop doing abortions and perhaps even convert to Christianity. Sono, of course, is not so crude a writer as to answer that question. She leaves it open-ended, so the reader has to decide on the basis of the reader’s own moral principles and understanding of human nature what is most likely to happen. As with Sono’s earlier works, particularly those since her 1960 travels in Latin America, globalism plays an important role in Watcher from the Shore. Perhaps a bit less obvious than Miracles and a bit more obvious than The Empty Room, Watcher from the Shore employs globalism, both in terms of Christian values as a counterpoint to Japan’s particular custom of the family registration system (koseki) and in specific references to Americans and Brazilians. Yoko herself was married to an American man who is deceased by the time the novel opens, but she mentions her on-going relationship with the American friends of her late husband, Mr. and Mrs. Laurie. She takes a trip to Brazil with the Lauries and writes back to Sadaharu about this Catholic country where abortion is illegal and where she encounters a thalidomide baby girl whose happy smile leaves a deep impression on her. The baby’s mother has abandoned her and she will be put up for adoption. The head of the hospital tells Yoko

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that someone will adopt her, not in spite of her condition, but precisely because she is a thalidomide baby. Globalist values emerge here as the solution. The adoptive parents would very likely not be a Japanese (Maybe Mrs. Laurie will be the one!). At any rate, … this earth is not such a disappointing place as we suppose. People who know the beauty of love really do exist—and to a degree that would not occur to us Japanese, who have lost our souls in a sea of prosperity. (Sono 1990, 118–19; all subsequent references to this novel are cited as page number only.) Neither Yoko nor the narrator explicitly identify these globalist values as Christian, but they are raised as a contrast to the dominant Japanese values in which love of a person for their inherent dignity is rare and more often replaced by personal comfort and consumerism. To that extent, Watcher from the Shore was ahead of its time, almost prophetic in its grasp of the dehumanizing effects that Japan’s newly prosperous economy would have on human dignity and morality. It is important to see that Sono does not condemn wealth per se, but rather is critical of an emerging culture in Japan where personal comfort takes priority over moral values, yielding a society in which the pursuit of wealth is seen as the highest, if not the only, good. The point is made subtly in the novel in various places, but especially in the actions of the Laurie family. Edmund Laurie is a wealthy lawyer which is fortunate since substantial economic resources are required for adopting a foreign baby. The Lauries come to Japan to adopt Miyako, the newborn daughter of a high school student. The family had immediately put Miyako in foster care where she was abused by her foster parents so badly that the great-grandmother, Mrs. Komatsu, rescued Miyako and took her to Dr. Nobeji when her own health prevented her from caring for the child. The abuse Miyako suffered in the foster home signals problems with adoption under Japan’s peculiar koseki system—the very issue Dr. Kikuta had raised in his efforts to revise Japan’s laws on adoption. Globalism figures in the Lauries, both as an escape from the koseki system and in their own attitude toward adoption. When Dr. Nobeji asks why they have no children of their own, Edmund just laughs and says they will have their own if so blessed, but that “adopting a child has quite another meaning” (243). It is a meaning that Dr. Nobeji is unable to fathom. He also cannot understand why Mrs. Laurie is not interested in shopping and tourism like most Japanese wives, but is, instead, singularly focused on adopting Miyako as soon as possible and taking her to their home. They adopt Miyako, have her baptized Margaret Miyako Laurie by Fr. Munechika, with Yoko as godmother, and take her home to America. Later, a picture arrives of Margaret Miyako Laurie at her new home in Colorado and, as Dr. Nobeji studies it, he is struck by her happiness: on the back was written, “‘Miyako is laughing out loud!’ It was a sentence deserving of the exclamation mark” (365). Sono may have chosen the Japanese title of this novel, which literally translates as “God’s Dirty Hands,” as a riposte to Jean-Paul Sartre’s political play Les Mains Sales (The Dirty Hands) which was first performed in Paris in 1948 but staged again in France in 1976, just a year before Sono started researching the novel. Both works feature a triangular relationship at their core. In Les Mains Sales, it is Hugo, Jessica and Hoederer; in “God’s Dirty Hands” it is Dr. Nobeji, Yoko and Fr. Munechika. Murder is also a common theme, although in Sono’s story it refers to abortion. But the differences are profound. In fact, if there was inspiration from Sartre’s play on Sono’s work, it would be to challenge the atheistic, politicized nature of the play in keeping with Sono’s commitment to the rejection of politicized literature by many 310

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of her literary friends and associates. But the similar titles may have just been coincidence. In any case, the important point is that Sono re-inserts God into the equation. If we look within the text for the meaning of the title, we find early on a reference to dirty hands. In Chapter Two, Dr. Nobeji tells Fr. Munechika that in the case of a woman seeking an abortion, “I could keep my hands clean, of course, by asking the patient to go to some other doctor, but that would be despicable, don’t you think? I really prefer to take the responsibility myself ” (33; emphasis added). Later, the idea is further developed when Dr. Nobeji takes a taxi to see Fr. Munechika at his church. He is troubled by the magnitude of his error (ironically, a failed abortion for Shinjo Kumiko who now wants to keep her baby). He tells Fr. Munechika of his mistake with another patient, a Mrs. Nakanishi, who became pregnant after he told her it was not possible. And when he tells the priest of the failed abortion for Shinjo, Fr. Munechika reminds him that, after all, he also has caused life to come into being. Dr. Nobeji retorts, “Just what am I in that case? In your way of speaking, I’m an instrument of God. But I’m a rather dirty instrument, I’m afraid” (145). Fr. Munechika suggests that, before leaving, Dr. Nobeji take a look at the painting of Jesus of Nazareth hanging at the church entrance, a present from Yoko’s late American husband. Dr. Nobeji notices that “Jesus’ hands are dirty. It looks like he is doing agricultural work instead of carpentry.” Fr. Munechika tells him that “even the hand [sic] of God is dirty when He is at work. If His hands are not dirty, then He is not actually working” (148; emphasis added). The significance of “God’s dirty hands” in the novel remains somewhat ambiguous. Does it refer to God as He condescends to take on human flesh and live among us? Or does it refer to His intimate involvement in our lives in order to save us? Or does it refer to Dr. Nobeji who brings forth life and sometimes takes life with his dirty hands? Or does it refer to all the people in the novel who are, in their own ways, God’s hands for good or ill? The ambiguity of course is a great part of what makes the novel successful. Each reader decides what the phrase means, but that is only possible if the reader knows that Sono originally entitled this novel, “God’s dirty hands.” The English title, Watcher from the Shore, comes from a scene at the conclusion of the novel, a scene that puts the entire novel into the context of moral salvation. The question now is: will Dr. Nobeji have a conversion of heart? Will he develop a moral conscience? All throughout the novel, Dr. Nobeji was untroubled when performing abortions because “he could not accept that a fetus unable to live outside the womb was a human being. Of that, he was convinced” (265). Yet at the same time and with a certain amount of pride, “Sadaharu admitted to himself that he both took life and aided it” (266). How could he take life if the fetus was not a human being? He does not commit infanticide. Does he mean that he takes life, but it is not human life, and thus is not killing in the sense of murder? That seems unlikely. Later, Mrs. Nakanishi is contemplating aborting her baby who has been diagnosed with Down’s syndrome. Dr. Nobeji is in favor of abortion in such a case but also says, “can’t we at least admit it to ourselves when we kill someone?” (309). There is an ambivalence in Dr. Nobeji’s moral philosophy that leads him to believe it best to look the other way in such matters. Yoko tells him he sees things from the perspective of a pantheist whereas she is a monotheist. The difference is that “I don’t like to lead people on,” she tells him (320). Dr. Nobeji reflected that his philosophy is “not to be serious” (345) and that he “wished to believe a thing true even when he saw otherwise” (348). This attitude shapes his life on many levels, including his cold relationship with his estranged wife and his frequent escapes into the whiskey bottle.

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A possible turning point occurs in the final chapter “Who am I?” when Dr. Nobeji visits Yoko’s house to find several gospel songs by Elvis Presley playing. The first song gives the chapter its title: “Who am I?” Dr. Nobeji likes the melody and takes it home to listen over and over again to the words: When I think of how he came so far from glory, Came to dwell among the lowly such as I, To suffer shame and such disgrace, On Mt. Calvary take my place, That I ask myself this question: “Who am I?” (368) Earlier in the evening Yoko had introduced Dr. Nobeji to another song from the same Elvis album, Peace in the Valley (1972), her favorite one called “[An] Evening Prayer.” She translated the following section for him: If I have wounded any soul today, If I have caused one’s feet [sic] to go astray, If I have walked in my own willful way, Dear Lord, forgive. Forgive the sins I have confessed to thee, Forgive the [sic] secret sins I do not see … . (359) Dr. Nobeji is deeply moved by the words and accuses Yoko of playing the song on purpose for him to hear. She assures him that is not the case, that she is merely a fan of these Elvis gospel songs. Later, standing outside alone, Dr. Nobeji imagines a large ark which only people who have done good things would be permitted to board. He saw many of the people he loved on board: Yoko, Fr. Munechika, several dead babies and even his estranged wife and daughter. Yoko called out his name, which he found pleasing. But he wanted to reassure them that “as long as he had a bottle of whiskey he would be alright”’ (375). What seems to keep Dr. Nobeji from being allowed on the ark is that he had not been completely honest with Fr. Munechika about his own responsibilities that may have contributed to the death of a seriously malformed newborn baby. The final lines of the novel make the point: Sadaharu walked in the green grass that reached up to his chest to stand on the cliff at the top of the hill. He could hear sounds coming from the open window of Yoko’s house. Here was a world apart from everyone, a world where Sadaharu was commanded to stand alone in the buffeting wind. (376) Will he remain outside, or will he eventually be allowed in, to join the saved? Sono doesn’t tell the reader. Perhaps because the question is not really about Dr. Nobeji Sadaharu or anyone else in the novel. It is a question addressed to the heart of each and every reader.

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Tenjō no ao (translated as No Reason for Murder) No Reason for Murder* is one of Sono’s most successful novels. It was published by Mainichi Shinbunsha in September 1990, after having been serialized in the same newspaper. In 1994, NHK-BS2 broadcast a dramatization of this work which won the Japan Agency for Cultural Affairs “Geijutsu Sakuhin-shō” that year, and NHK Sōgō TV re-broadcast this on 13 May and 20 May 1995. Sono herself has written that No Reason for Murder was based on the case of Ōkubo Kiyoshi (Sono 2015, 114). Ōkubo raped and killed eight women in early 1971 and was executed in 1976 after he refused to appeal his conviction. It was Sono’s first crime novel, but not her first treatment of the death penalty. That issue was taken up in the earlier short story “Kōkichi no andon” (Kōkichi’s Paper Lantern, 1976) which in certain respects foreshadows what Sono does in No Reason for Murder. Christianity makes no explicit appearance in “Kōkichi’s Paper Lantern,” but Christianity stands as a silent witness against the extreme Emperor worship that does figure largely in the story. Kōkichi is sentenced to death for killing his mother who had killed his sister and was about to kill him out of disgrace after his father, a train engineer, committed suicide for backing up the Emperor’s train. The reader is certainly sympathetic to Kōkichi who had been a good friend to Yuki, the girl next door who has her own share of domestic troubles. On death row, Kōkichi is a model prisoner and even makes a shoddy paper lantern as a wedding gift for Yuki who has written that she will marry another man. Kōkichi ultimately realizes that a cheap paper lantern from a convicted murderer would be an inauspicious wedding gift, so he gives it to the prison warden Kido. When Kido gets the report that the execution has been carried out, he lights Kōkichi’s lantern for the first time. The penultimate line of the story reads: “The dark morning laden with heavy rain clouds did not dampen in the slightest the bright flame in Kōkichi’s lantern. Kido felt that Kōkichi’s soul had come back, looking for some friends” (Sono 1976, 232). The final line of the story simply reports that the Emperor Meiji died two and a half months later. No Reason for Murder continues the theme of condemned criminals who are linked to a romantic partner. But it is not really a detective novel. It is clear from the start who committed the crimes and the conditions that led to them. Sono had originally suggested the title of “homicidal maniac” (satsujinki) (Sono 2015, 115), and she connected this title to an intentional spiritual point she was trying to make: When I set out to write this work, I had a pretty clear theme in mind. Theologically speaking, God is not up in the heavens somewhere but exists within every person. But that means I was thinking I had to show in this work the God who is also in a homicidal maniac. That was worthwhile even as a literary task. (Sono 2015, 115–16) Sono changed the title to “Heavenly Blue” (tenjō no ao) when she was looking through an old gardening book and came across a picture of the Heavenly Blue variety of the morning glory, from which she got an idea for the opening scene of the novel. Her editors were relieved, as the work was being serialized in the Mainichi newspaper from late 1988, right as Emperor Hirohito’s health was taking a turn for the worse. The editors felt that the title “Heavenly Blue” was much easier to accept than “Homicidal Maniac,” given the context of heightened social sensitivities at the time of the emperor’s declining health.

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The story opens with Hata Yukiko at home. Yukiko can be seen as a reprisal in some ways of the character of Serizawa Mayuko from Watcher from the Shore. Mayuko was asexual and had decided to work at home, sewing kimonos. Yukiko works from home “as a seamstress of Japanese-style clothing” (Sono 2003, 15; all subsequent references to this novel are cited as page number only.). She is trimming her Heavenly Blue morning glories when a stranger approaches and asks the name of this variety of flower. Eventually he asks her to save some seeds for him, which she promises to do. Later when he returns, Yukiko does give him the requested seeds, only to subsequently find out that he had tossed them away. Confused and hurt, she still continues to see him, and the man, Uno Fujio, comes by for consolation often after he has murdered or raped someone. Interestingly, she never has a sexual relationship with him. Once when he pressed her to go to a hotel with him after lunching together, Yukiko demurs, simply telling him, “not today … I may feel like it sometime, but going to a hotel and eating are different things” (30). It is a point that Fujio needs to understand, but he never does. In both characters, Serizawa Mayuko and Hata Yukiko, Sono is representing the Christian idea of rational love, agape, now contrasted, not with philia (as in The Empty Room), but with eros. It is Fujio’s failure to understand agape and his obsession with eros that leads to his downfall. Yukiko, always trusting and innocent, remains ignorant of Fujio’s dark side until a friend tells her that Fujio had raped her and is being held for murder, too. Yukiko struggles with what to do next and finally decides to write a letter to Fujio to try to have him see what his crimes have done to others. Yukiko even approaches a lawyer for Fujio and offers to pay the fee herself. The lawyer, Nagisa Kazami, is puzzled that Yukiko is willing to pay the legal fees for a man who has lied to her and specifically asks Yukiko if she is motivated by her Christian religion. Yukiko deftly sidesteps the issue and merely says that she is doing this for herself, not for Fujio. When pressed, Yukiko replies that: rather than spending money on clothes or travel, spending it on Mr. Uno’s trial would be much more worthwhile. We don’t often have a chance to spend money on someone else’s life, or for some effort that will clear up what the world doesn’t understand. (341) This provision for Fujio’s legal costs is also a manifestation of the love the world doesn’t understand, agape, the Christian rational love that Yukiko has been trying to practice, especially in her relationship with the troubled Fujio. Seeking spiritual guidance in a time of dogimagi, Yukiko goes to see her parish priest, Fr. Izumi. It is important to note that Yukiko is, by her own admission, not a good Catholic. She fails to attend Mass every Sunday because she dislikes engaging with the other people at Mass. She is troubled because she recalls a homily Fr. Izumi gave once where he said that “God exists in the people right in front of me,” not just up in Heaven. Here is another riff on the meaning of the novel’s original title, “Heavenly Blue.” But in light of what she has discovered about Fujio, she struggles with this idea: “And to think that God might exist inside of Fujio Uno is just about inadmissible to a humanist” (347), she tells Fr. Izumi. Fr. Izumi suggests they think of the name uno in Spanish or Italian, meaning “one,” in the sense of people or all humanity in general.

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Especially for a criminal who commits such a crime, the term ‘human being’ is very appropriate. At least I think so. He’s not unique, after all … No matter what you try to do, good or evil, it is within the sphere of ‘being human’. That’s the lesson, and with that, for the first time, you won’t fall into making simple judgments like ‘That person is evil’, or ‘I am good’. You can easily become one of the other kind. Do you see that? (Sono 2003, 347) This exchange is critically important in understanding what Sono is trying to say in this novel. Equally important is Yukiko’s cryptic response: “Mr. Uno committed the most pointless crimes. And now I’m about to do the same thing” (347–48). What could she possibly mean? Is merely paying his legal fees somehow equivalent to the murders and rapes committed by Uno Fujio? The significance of Yukiko’s statement that she is about to do the same thing is not evident until the end of the novel. (Spoiler alert! Those who have not read No Reason for Murder may want to skip the following). Yukiko leaves Fr. Izumi, still believing that she is different from Fujio. She begins a lengthy exchange of letters with Fujio, trying to get him to recognize what he has done. In the meantime, he is convicted of the crimes and given the death penalty. Then, on 23 June comes this short letter: Dear Miss Hata. Just one thing. Please answer. I will not appeal if you love me. Fujio Uno (411). This is a devil’s dilemma, Fujio’s one last wicked deed. If Yukiko loves him, she doesn’t want him to die, much less to be responsible for hastening his death. If she wants him to live, she has to lie and tell him that she doesn’t love him. But knowing he is loved is the one thing Yukiko wants to convey to Fujio so that he might have at least one good day before he dies. Five days later, she writes her last letter to Fujio, saying “I love you deeply. To write only this has caused me pain for these past two days” (411). The fact that she has been in anguish for several days shows that Yukiko understood what she was doing. Her act, which will expedite Fujio’s death, was done with cold rational reflection—unlike his crimes which were merely the result of passion and even accident. By the end of the novel, the reader is forced to confront another of Sono’s surprises: Yukiko is no longer the good person in contrast to Fujio, the evil one. She too has, in a sense, committed murder. The key to understanding No Reason for Murder is something Sono wrote elsewhere, quoting from Romans 3: 10: “just as the Bible says ‘none is righteous, no, not one,’ Christianity clearly takes the position that human nature is bad” (Sono 2011). We are all sinners, even Hata Yukiko. There is, however, yet another surprise before the novel closes. Rev. Kuriyama, the Buddhist prison chaplain, visits Yukiko and tells her that, before Fujio died, he declared he was a Christian. He had not claimed to belong to any particular church. He was a Christian because, as he said, “A friend of mine is a Christian” (412). Did Yukiko’s Christian love, her agape, finally reach the heart of Fujio? Was he saved in the end because of her Christian love—the very declaration of which hastened his end? The text is not clear about that. But later, when Yukiko hears that Fujio’s execution had been carried out, she almost collapsed. She sees the Heavenly Blue morning glories in her garden and walks out toward them, noticing that they were blowing in the morning breeze. Yukiko thought: Chapter 16: Sono Ayako: Amor Vincit Omnia

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It’s a kind of sign … Fujio returning to earth, not floating out to some distant reach of the eternal universe… just as though he’s come to see the morning glories again … and through them, he’s sending me a wordless greeting. (422) The final lines are strongly reminiscent of those in “Kōkichi’s Paper Lantern” where warden Kido feels the spirit of the executed criminal come back to this world in the light of his lantern. Throughout her literature, Sono emphasizes that her Christian faith is a matter of how we deal with those in this world, and she even finds an artful way to include the dead in this world, insofar as the living see the dead as part of their community—a very traditional Catholic understanding of the communion of the living and the dead. But more important than theological matters is Sono’s consciousness of her role as a writer. She writes, not to express theological dogma, but to soften the hearts of her readers so that they will be better able to see the Christ in their neighbors, even the very worst of them.

Sono’s Later Works In December 1995, Sono became the Chair of the Nippon Foundation. In that position, she oversaw many charitable projects: a hospice program; cleaning up the Sea of Japan after the oil spill by the Russian tanker, the Nakhodka; the medicine box project in Mongolia, which was subsequently adopted in Thailand, Myanmar, and other countries. She resigned this position in 2005, after strong criticism of her refusal to support the Iraq War. In 1996 she was appointed member of the Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts and Letters of the Virtuosi al Pantheon. In 2003–2004 she serialized the story Aika (Lamentations*) in the Mainichi newspaper which drew on her experiences as Chairman of the Nippon Foundation with which she had traveled to Sierra Leone, the Central African Republic and Rwanda. Lamentations has its proximate origins in a conversation Sono held in the Vatican with Fr. Shirieda Masayuki (1932–2007), Undersecretary of the Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, about the murder of many priests and nuns in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 (Kishi 2012, 376). The story is based on a Japanese nun who works in an African country and is caught up in the midst of the genocide between the Hutus and Tutsis. Making the story even more gripping is the fact that over eighty percent of the people there were Christian and yet they were killing each other on an unimaginable, horrific scale. Once again, Sono was emphasizing that being a Christian did not necessarily make one “a good person”: there is good and evil in every heart. Lamentations was not her first African-based novel. Nearly twenty years earlier, she had written Toki no tomatta akanbō (The Babies for Whom Time Stopped) about a nursery attached to a convent in Madagascar (a work serialized in the Mainichi newspaper, 1983–1984). In Madagascar, Sono had met the Japanese Sister, Endō Yoshiko, who had worked many years as a medical missionary in the poorest regions of the country. On Sono’s last day there, she won handsomely at the hotel’s roulette table and her winnings helped JOMAS expand its activities greatly (Kishi 2012, 377). JOMAS continues to send doctors and other medical professionals to Ansirabe in Madagascar to help children born with cleft palates and other medical problems, as well as in other underprivileged parts of the world. For example, in 2013 Sono visited the South Sudan where Sister Shimosaki Yūko and other sisters in Juba were building a clinic. JOMAS continues to provide antibiotic medicines and other necessities to medical missionaries in the South Sudan.

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Sono Ayako continues to write, although mostly non-fictional essays. Of all the Christian Japanese writers included in this volume, she and Kaga Otohiko are the only ones still alive. Her literary contributions are extraordinary and, by any measure, place her at the forefront of Japanese writers, Christian or not. But her Christian work also extends to non-literary engagement with the world: charitable contributions, work on educational and social issues. She is one of the most global of contemporary Japanese, and yet not as widely known outside Japan as she should be. My hope is that this chapter will encourage more people to take a closer look at the literary accomplishments of Sono Ayako, one of contemporary Christianity’s most engaging, and engaged, literary minds.

Notes 1

“life/love.” What I translated in this way is Sono’s original text that gives the character for love (ai) but glosses it as life (inochi) (Sono 1984, 379). 2 A fumie is a sacred image that Japanese Catholics were forced to step on to signal their abandonment of faith—on pain of death during the closed country period (roughly the 17th–19th centuries). 3 It is worth noting that the word Sono uses here that I have translated as “living together” is gunsei, a word that is usually reserved for animals, not humans, or for criticizing humans who live together (like animals) in sin. 4 The translator, Edward Putzar, seems unaware of Dr. Kikuta Noboru and the movement he sparked, as he refers to him as “Dr. Kikuda” (Sono 1990, 73, 82).

References Beevers, John (trans.) (1957). The Autobiography of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux: The Story of a Soul. New York & London: Image Books/Doubleday. Gabriel, P. (2006). Spirit Matters: The Transcendental in Modern Japanese Literature. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Hokao, T. (1985). Sono Ayako. Kokubungaku: Kaishaku to kanshō 50(10) (September), 104–7. ———. (2008). Sono Ayako Reimei-ron—ijirashii mokuteki no kichōsa [Sono Ayako’s Dawn: the preciousness of a sweet purpose]. Kokubungaku: Kaishaku to kanshō 73:11 (November), 129–34. ja.wikipedia.org​ /wiki/菊田昇. Accessed 20 June 2020. Kikuta, N. (1980). Nihonjin no seimeikan e no toi: Sono Ayako-cho Kami no yogoreta te (jō, ge) [A question about the Japanese view of life: Sono Ayako’s Watcher from the Shore] (vols. 1, 2). Ushio 252 (May), 311–13. Kishi, T. (2012). Kaisetsu: Sono bungaku no genba [An interpretation: the real site of Sono’s literature]. In Sono A., Tachidomaru sainō: sōzō to sōzō no sekai [A Gift for Standing Still: Creation and the World of the Imagination]. Tokyo: Shinchōsha, 372–79. Morgan, J. (2017). Book Review: Beyond the I-Novel: Ayako Sono’s Miracles. Japan Forward (February 3). https://japan-forward.com/book-review-beyond-the-i-novel-ayako-sonos-miracles/. Accessed 1 April 2020. ———. (2019). Kikuta Noboru and Adoption Law in Japan. Reitaku daigaku kiyō 102 (March), 35–44. Okuno, T. (1974). Sono Ayako. In Okuno T., Joryū sakka-ron [On women writers]. Tokyo: Daisan Bunmeisha, 200–13. Puhl, L. J. (1951). The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Chicago: Loyola Press. Sono, A. (1976). Ai [Love]. Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū. ———. (1977). Atogaki [Afterword]. In Sono A., Kiseki [Miracles]. Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū. ———. (1979a). Fuzai no heya [The Empty Room]. Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū. ———. (1979b). Atogaki [Afterword]. In Sono A., Fuzai no heya [The Empty Room]. Tokyo: Bungei Shunjū, 411–13. ———. (1984). Sono Ayako senshū II: daiyon-kan, Inochi aru kagiri; Kiseki, [Selected Works of Sono Ayako II, vol. 4: As Long as There is Life, Miracles]. Tokyo: Yomiuri Shinbunsha.

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———. (1990). Watcher from the Shore (Edward Putzar, trans.). Tokyo & New York: Kodansha International. ———. (2003). No Reason for Murder (Edward Putzar, trans.). Tokyo & New York: Kodansha International. ———. (2005). Aika [Lamentations]. Tokyo: Shinchōsha. ———. (2010). Sono Ayako: amakakeru hodo no karoyakana tamashii no jiyū [Sono Ayako: The Freedom of a Soul so Light it can Soar to Heaven]. Tokyo: Nihon Tosho Sentā. ———. (2011). Akunin o mo yurusu, kokoro odayaka na ikikata [How to Live with a Heart so Peaceful it can even Forgive Evil People]. President (December 5): https://president.jp/articles/-/10246?page=4. Accessed 4 August 2020. ———. (2013). Ningen kankei guchibanashi [Tedious Complaints about Human Things]. Shinchō 45 (August). https://www.jomas.jp/2020年ー活動報告/2013年―活動報告/曽野綾子氏による南スーダン視察記. Accessed 4 August 2020. ———. (2015). Midori no yubi [A Green Thumb]. Tokyo: PHP Kenkyūjo. ———. (2016). Miracles (Kevin M. Doak, trans.). Portland, ME: MerwinAsia; reprint by Wiseblood Publishers, 2021. Sunami, T. (2011). An Essay on Sono Ayako (Kevin M. Doak, trans.). In K. M. Doak, (ed.), Xavier’s Legacies: Catholicism in Modern Japanese Culture. Vancouver & Toronto: UBC Press, 134–44. Tsuruha, N. (1979). Kami no deku: Sono Ayako no tamashii no sekai [God’s fool: the world of Sono Ayako’s soul]. Tokyo: Shufu no Tomosha. Watanabe, S. (1983). Kaisetsu [An Interpretation]. In Sono A., Fuzai no heya, ge, [The Empty Room] (vol. 2). Bunshun unko 133–15, Tokyo: Bungei Shunju, 298–301. ———. (2015). Kyōyōjin no tame no “midoku no meisaku”—yomigaido Fuzai no heya [cho] Sono Ayako [A reading guide for the educated on “unread famous works”: Sono Ayako’s The Empty Room]. Shūkan shinchō (November 5); reprinted on https://www.bookbang.jp/review/article/30651. Accessed 11 June 2020.

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Chapter 17 Takahashi Takako: Drawing Closer to God Through Literature Sekino Miho Takahashi Takako is an author who sought to give literary expression to human sin through the depiction of primitive human desire. As a result of her continued focus on sin, she came to discern a territory of true serenity. This process becomes evident when her works are read in chronological order. In all this, Takahashi Takako can be seen as an author who drew close to God through her literary activity.

Introduction Takahashi Takako (1932–2013) is a writer who delved into the realm of the unconscious and pursued the evil that emerges from it. Among the many Japanese writers who were influenced by Christian literature, such as Mishima Yukio1 and Endō Shūsaku, Takahashi is notable as an author who contemplated the realm of the unconscious in greater depth. As Takahashi herself later stated, “I wrote novels by plunging into the midst of the unconscious” (Takahashi 1992b, 166); indeed, her creative approach was to draw out various aspects of human nature from the realm of the unconscious. Therefore, it is quite difficult to logically identify a clear Christian approach from a reading of her works since the influences of Christianity are also processed in the unconscious and deep consciousness. However, as Takahashi herself later mentioned, the influence of Catholic literary writers or Christian mystical thinkers and their ideas can be seen in her works. Considering them in chronological order, in the first half of her career one can see the problem of evil depicted from the standpoint of a writer who was influenced by Christian literature, while in works from the latter half of her career one can find depictions of the individual as viewed from within the framework of Christianity and the problem of the relationship between humanity and God which appears in that framework. The writer’s awareness is always focused on the deep consciousness within human beings, which Takahashi describes as “the sea inside” (Takahashi 1994, 3: 64) and “the sea of life” (Takahashi 1992b, 183), referring to the locus where human beings meet with God.

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Contacts with Christian literature Takahashi Takako was born in Kyoto in 1932, and raised in a typical non-Christian family. The indigenous customs of Kyoto, especially the male-dominated nature of the region, were deeply etched into Takahashi’s psyche and would haunt her for the rest of her life. She struggled to accept these values that bound and menaced her in the sensual realm, and her resistance to these stagnant customs led her to admire decadent European works that would inspire her own writings. Her increasing familiarity with the works of surrealist, fantastical and decadent European writers, such as André Breton and André Pieyre de Mandiargues, influenced her early work.2 Many of Takahashi’s early works depict female protagonists who dream of rejecting and destroying values and social institutions which the public accepts, such as marriage and motherhood. Specifically, she depicts a woman’s hatred for her daughter, whom she views as her own alter ego, along with fear of the child the woman is carrying. What Takahashi looks at is the unconscious desire to destroy whatever it is that constantly threatens her female characters and the evil that accompanies that desire, while, at the same time, glimpsing the essence of human life that lies beneath such destructive urges. Viewed from the perspective of the social system and its prevailing values, the wickedness of these women is nothing more than an antithesis directed toward society and the public; but it was important for Takahashi to explore the destructive principles underlying life, which might be called original sin. In other words, we can say that the purpose of Takahashi’s creations was not to express an ideology, but to convey what she came to understand as a result of her confrontation with the unconscious. This intimate connection between her creative posture of grasping and taking in the entirety of human existence by penetrating deeply into the realm of the unconscious mind is what would later determine her attitude as a Christian writer. For Takahashi, literature was the gateway to this exploration, and she was influenced by European literature with a Christian background. She was particularly attracted to the poetry of Charles Baudelaire. Takahashi chose Baudelaire as the subject for her undergraduate graduation thesis in the Department of French Literature in the Faculty of Letters at Kyoto University. She found something in common with her own spirit in Baudelaire and remarked: The cloud-laden, gloomy, endlessly closed horizon. From the midst of it, a clear sky. On one hand, ennui and the earth; on the other hand, ideals and beyond, hedonism and decadence, and dreams of escape to a distant land. Fervor and sorrow, and God. (Takahashi 1975, 66) For Takahashi, this feeling is not merely a superficial one of longing for a foreign country or culture, but one that is deeply connected to fundamental life. The “clear sky” and “dreams of escape to a distant land” that she saw in Baudelaire’s works represent a longing for a sensual cleanliness that can be glimpsed through the chaotic defilement of life, and, for Takahashi, it is one of the images of Christianity that emerges through European literature. Reading the works of Baudelaire, Takahashi became aware for the first time of a bright pathway to God leading out of a stagnated, oppressed existence that cannot help but do evil. It is a paradoxical proof of God’s existence and, in particular, the image of escape from this world evoked by

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Baudelaire that remained important to Takahashi, both in her actual faith and in her writings into her later years. Also, regarding Catholic literature, Takahashi said: The life I had seen with my own eyes, that is, the life I had previously perceived through my own subjectivity, was developed there, more consciously than I had been aware of. (Takahashi 1975, 67) Takahashi absorbed many of the themes of her early writing from Catholic literature: the theme of how to portray the actual human soul, which manifests itself in the form of evil as a result of oppression by others, and the question of whether or not the soul can be liberated in human beings caught up in such evil, which Takahashi describes as “the drama of the soul in Catholic literature” (Takahashi 1975, 67). In particular, the influence of François Mauriac and Julien Green is prominent, and she chose Mauriac as the subject of her Master’s thesis. The paradoxical structure at the heart of her works—the search for something to quench the soul’s thirst by means of evil—comes from Mauriac, and what she depicts is the misery of godless man. Under the influence of Mauriac, she wrote her pre-baptismal full-length novels, Botsuraku fūkei (A Ruined Landscape, 1974) and Sora no hate made (To the End of the Sky, 1973). Although published after her debut on the literary scene, her first significant work was A Ruined Landscape.

Early full-length works A Ruined Landscape depicts the drama of two sisters’ souls. The older sister, Yamanouchi Yayoi, seeks to quench her soul’s thirst in real life, while the younger sister, Shinko, continues to wander in her inner world and can only interact with others there. Yayoi’s pursuit of evil toward others and Shinko’s constant gazing at the evil of others lead to a catastrophic end when their younger brother instigates a mass suicide, leading to an act of arson by Yayoi and the mental breakdown of Shinko. Midway through the story, the older sister, Yayoi, visits a monastery to attend a lecture on the Bible. There, Yayoi is intrigued by “ma mère Sasaki” and selects her as her mentor. Yayoi tries to strip away the mask of Sasaki’s faith in order to quench her own craving. She becomes obsessed with exposing the inner thoughts of Sasaki. Yayoi completely ignores Sasaki’s suggestion that she seek God as a way to quench her thirst. Yayoi has no idea what God is. Instead, she has no doubt that sacrificing Sasaki is the only way to quench her craving. Sasaki is forced to leave the monastery because of her involvement with Yayoi and, in the end, Sasaki hands over her monastic robe to Yayoi. Yayoi, unsure what to do with the robe, suddenly decides to burn it in order to end her relationship with Sasaki. As soon as she has burned the robe, Yayoi feels that she has fulfilled all her desires; but then she is upset when she reads a letter from Sasaki that says, “What I have given you is but a mere skeleton. I am one who will never change” (Takahashi 1974, 243). Even though she had felt that she had succeeded in sacrificing ma mère Sasaki, the awareness that her actions have been completely meaningless makes Yayoi thirst even more. The fire that she has set spreads to the weeds and the surrounding area, reaching the mansion where they live. At the end of the novel, we are presented with a fire that threatens to

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consume everything. Yayoi’s own thirst, which no amount of fire can quench, leaves her in despair. Though Yayoi has not been able to be saved, no matter how desperately she tried, the possibility for salvation is nevertheless broached. During visits to the monastery, Yayoi has often seen the crystal-clear light of the faceted windows in the front entrance. In her subconscious mind she is drawn to that light, but she walks past without realizing it. This motif of light is used repeatedly in Takahashi’s works. It is possible to identify an image representing Jesus Christ as an embodiment of something invisible to the eye, such as the light reflected against a shoji screen, but it is not certain that the writer herself had a clear awareness of this. It is more reasonable to think that this motif is merely expressing an image of cleanliness symbolized by light, which she perceived instinctively. On the other hand, the image of salvation is also presented to Yayoi’s younger sister, Shinko. Shinko’s fear that she is constantly being watched by Yayoi, and her delusion that she will lose the person she loves to Yayoi drive her to insanity. In her mad dreams, she commits the inward sin of killing Yayoi and finally gets to be with the one she loves. The story ends as Shinko murmurs, “Darling, I have killed my sister, so I can finally come to you” (Takahashi 1974, 248). It is possible to read the image of Jesus in this “you”; but, as with the depiction of light, the character is not aware of it, and there is no paradoxical structural composition in this story suggesting that one can arrive at something clean by getting one’s hands dirty. There is simply a sense of liberation for the individual who has finally been able to fulfill her deepest desire. This may be a secular salvation for Shinko, but it does not depict an inner peace attained through God. What the author is clearly aware of, for both Yayoi and Shinko, is the evil in the unconscious mind and of some functions operating within it. Christians may regard this unconscious evil as sin and see therein the work of the devil and of God. However, although Takahashi herself acknowledged the influence of Catholic literature, she repeatedly stated that she was not a Christian at the time she created these works: “I’m not a Christian, so the word grace doesn’t even occur to me” (Takahashi 1973, Appendix 4). While this suggests modesty on the part of the writer, it is also an honest confession that she did not comprehend the existence of God. What Takahashi tried to depict in her literature was the inner drama of human beings who commit evil, and the various manifestations of the soul that emerge from the realm of the unconscious. One could call this sin or salvation in the Christian sense, but in Takahashi’s case, it is only a method of symbolic expression taken from Christian literature. There is nothing particularly “Christian” in either a logical or a doctrinal sense in the evil that is finally expressed in the form of fire or in the symbolic representation of salvation as seen in the light of a clear window pane. It is a sensual expression, but it is not expressed as the simple opposition of good versus evil. In this work, a movement toward salvation as perceived by Takahashi herself is vaguely depicted, and all that is expressed is the inner drama of the characters based on the writer’s internal insights. The same is true in To the End of the Sky, in which the influence of Mauriac’s Thérèse Desqueyroux is most evident. The protagonist, Akiba Hisao, cannot regard her husband as anything more than an oppressor, and she tries to reduce herself to nothingness in order to escape this oppression. However, in the midst of an air raid, she suddenly realizes that there is no need to diminish herself to the point of extinction, so she sends her husband to rescue her son, whom she has left behind in their burning house, resulting in both of them dying. She has inwardly wished that her spouse would simply disappear, and that is precisely what happens. Although she is not directly responsible for their deaths, Hisao continues to live 322

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alone, in a state of numbness from the consequences of her act, which in real life has the same effect as having murdered them. In a daze, Hisao commits what is obviously another crime: infanticide. There is no reason whatsoever for this act. It is evil born merely of an unconscious desire to do so. For those without God, evil is nothing more than the pursuit of one’s own desires, and the sensual pleasures they obtain by living true to their desires cannot simply be repudiated without assuming the reality of God, in which they find the meaning of self-existence. On the other hand, it is also human nature, even without the intervention of God, to feel uncomfortable about such pleasures. Likewise, we can treat the simple quest for that which is beautiful as one of the operations of such minds. It is impossible to discern the existence of God in the working of inner forces that lead an individual to continue pursuing their desires even though they regard that pursuit as unpleasant. In order to face this problem of evil, pleasure and displeasure, it is necessary to pursue the existence of God. In other words, unless one can logically understand the relationship between being faithful to one’s own desires as well as the existence of a God who negates their pursuit, one can only express oneself in the realm of the senses, with no hope of further development. And it becomes increasingly difficult to express one’s beliefs and thoughts with certainty. For Takahashi, the influence of Mauriac on her fictional writings is significant in terms of the structure of her works and her methods of expression; conversely, one of the problems she encountered from that influence is the realization that the evil that exists in the realm of the unconscious is deeply connected to faith. When Takahashi later edited a collection of self-selected novels, she excluded everything she had written before her baptism. When considering her works as a Christian writer, she was naturally concerned both about whether she had been baptized when she wrote them, and also about their maturity as works of art. She describes her pre-baptismal works as “prototypes” and stated that “the distinction between prototypes and my other [later] works is the difference between what I wrote and what was written by something that transcends me,” and that by maturity she means “something that becomes manifest in that which transcends me” (Takahashi 1994, 1: 524). In other words, this writer who was producing “prototypes” under the influence of Christian literature needed to know God in order to write a mature “work.” What Takahashi was seeking in Christianity was, of course, her own salvation (conversely, in Takahashi’s case, the pursuit of contemplation in the creation of her novels was also linked to her own salvation). But, at the same time, she was looking for logical explanations and understanding of what can only be grasped through the senses. Therefore, Takahashi approached Christianity trying to “use logic as a weapon to approach something beyond logic,” with the sense that to “dig as deeply as logic can be employed, and at the point where we can’t go any further, we’ll encounter something beyond logic” (Takahashi 2006, 156).

Details of her Catholic baptism Takahashi Takako was baptized as a Catholic on 5 August 1975, at St. Michael’s Monastery in Tokyo. Endō Shūsaku, the prominent Japanese Catholic writer, along with his wife acting as her godmother, were the only people present when she was baptized by Father Inoue Yōji. Her baptismal name, which she herself chose, was Maria Magdalena.

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Takahashi met Endō when she was 30 years old, when she published an essay entitled “Endō Shūsaku-ron: tsumi no ishiki to gekiteki naru mono” (An Analysis of Endō Shūsaku: Consciousness of Sin and the Dramatic) and sent it to him. This started an exchange between the two, which continued until Endō passed away. At the age of 34, Takahashi developed neurosis due to the environment in Kyoto and social pressures surrounding her husband Kazumi.3 It was during this time that Endō introduced her to Shimoyama Tokuji, a psychiatrist at Sophia University and the Japanese translator of Viktor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning. Later, when Takahashi’s husband moved alone to Kyoto for a job, they lived separately4 and her symptoms worsened, so Shimoyama recommended that she undergo relocation therapy, and she moved to Paris for about six months. During her stay in Paris, she visited various parts of Europe and came into direct contact with Christian culture through churches and church music, which was one of the factors leading to her baptism. After her husband Kazumi passed away when she was 39 years old, Takahashi began a vigorous writing career that earned the respect of others; but she found no inner fulfillment, which led to depression. It was in those circumstances, at the age of 42, that she met Father Inoue Yōji through an introduction by Endō. This was the first time Takahashi heard from a priest about a Christianity that was not connected to literature. The year after her encounter with Father Inoue, at his introduction, Takahashi spent a week at a Carmelite monastery in Hokkaido. During this stay, Takahashi realized what she really wanted: “For many years I have been searching for a place in this world that is not of this world” (Takahashi 1977a, 209–10). When she returned from the monastery, Takahashi visited Endō. At that time, they discussed a collection of letters exchanged between Jacques Riviere and Paul Claudel. When she came across one of the sentences in that correspondence, Takahashi announced that she had “Got it!” about God, and she decided to be baptized immediately (Takahashi 2006, 264). Around the end of 1978, Takahashi read Vladimir Nikolayevich Lossky’s The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, with Father Inoue tutoring her from the original French word by word. She also translated Julien Green’s Varouna in early 1979. These two works together gave her a view of a large, immanent universe and she felt that she had finally become a true Christian and consequently received the rite of confirmation. Her confirmation name was Johanna.

Yūwakusha (The Tempter) After her baptism, Takahashi published many works before she stopped writing at the time she entered religious life. The most important work among these was Yūwakusha (The Tempter, 1976), which was written while she was moving toward baptism. With her title referring to the devil, in this work she depicted the existence of God, ambiguous in her earlier writings, with great clarity. Here, God is not simply the one to whom we turn for forgiveness, but the one from whom we seek unity. This work also offers glimpses of the influence of mystical thought. The protagonist, Torii Tetsuyo, is depicted as though she were emptiness personified.5 Tetsuyo is in awe of the dark, heavy waves of the unknowable at the edge of nothingness that constantly surge inside her, and she has an uneasy feeling that she is being threatened by her

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unknown self. The darkness is so thick that it swallows up everything that has life, and Tetsuyo is left with nothing but emptiness. Despite the fact that she herself has not the slightest desire either to die or to live, she is sensitive to, and accepts, people’s deaths and tries to determine their fate. The reason for this is to find out the identity of the other self that emerges from the unknown and, to do so, she tries to understand the “framework of death”—the desire to die that resides inside others. In order to fill her own emptiness, Tetsuyo invites her two friends to the crater of a volcano and leads them to their own deaths. However, Tetsuyo herself does not believe that she is the one who has led them to their deaths: she has simply tried to understand the nature of the dark waves inside herself. But even though she thinks she can discover the nature of those waves by watching these two friends die, the words of the first suicide victim, Sagawa Miyako, force Tetsuyo to confront an even more incomprehensible self. When Tetsuyo tells Miyako that she should abandon her suicide attempt, Miyako says, “I’m dying because of you,” and disappears into the crater. Tetsuyo suspects that the dark surge inside herself has led to Miyako’s death, and her suspicions are transformed into a conviction that what lives inside her has something to do with the devil. Tetsuyo then takes Oda Kaoru to Mt. Mihara to find out what Miyako’s words mean and to find out the true nature of the devilish impulse inside her. She demands to know from Kaoru whether she is sending them to their deaths, but Kaoru does not answer the question with anything more than a strange smile. Instead, she repeatedly begs Tetsuyo to “Push me off!” Tetsuyo has no choice but to shove her from behind. In that moment, Tetsuyo feels a tremendous quantity of the unpleasant power inside her that she has been holding back come flooding out and, for a moment, she experiences that unpleasantness as “pleasure.” With respect to what has been brought about by these unwitting actions, Tetsuyo is convinced that there are conflicting emotions inside her—pleasure and displeasure, envy and disgust, affirmation and negativity—and she asks herself whether she “does not desire them” or “does desire” them. She finally arrives at the possibility that she “wants what she does not want,” and the story ends with a scene where Tetsuyo herself finally says “It is bright in the crater” (Takahashi 1976, 304), words that Kaoru had forced her to say as she ended her own life. Kaoru believes that death is “like entering into the subconscious” and that it will lead to “infinite and full life” (Takahashi 1976, 201). Tetsuyo, on the other hand, labels the dark waves in her subconscious “the devil.” The structure of The Tempter depicts Tetsuyo’s devil leading Kaoru to a union with the god who contains Kaoru within itself. This is an analytical structure, a paradoxical composition derived from Baudelaire, one not present in Takahashi’s earlier works but which clearly leads to God. The Tempter differs from the author’s previous works in that the existence of God is explicitly mentioned by a character for the first time. As noted earlier, Takahashi was baptized during the course of writing this work, and she seems to have gotten a faint glimpse of God through writing it. However, the relationship between the subconscious mind controlled by God that is mentioned by Kaoru and Tetsuyo’s inner sea, which is the subconscious mind controlled by the devil, is not made clear in this work. At the end of the novel, Tetsuyo mentions the brightness in the crater—the possibility of God’s existence—but it is unclear whether Tetsuyo herself can go there; nor is it certain that this is the place where God exists. Exploration of this issue was entrusted to her later works, which matured alongside Takahashi’s religious maturity, and a clear answer is provided in her late trilogy.

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Middle period works A theme that had not appeared in her earlier works before her baptism was introduced in Ten no mizuumi (The Heavenly Lake, 1977). That theme is “Pascha,” one of the Catholic themes that Takahashi acquired as a result of her baptism. Another theme that Takahashi persistently employed throughout her life was the relationship between one man and one woman, which could be said to be her core philosophy. Naturally, the human desire for sex is connected to this theme. These two themes allow us to see the workings of God in what was, in her previous writings, depicted as evil. Seki Kunpei, the protagonist of The Heavenly Lake, is a man who is thirsty for love, saying “It doesn’t matter if it’s a man or a woman, it doesn’t matter what kind of person they are, as long as I can really be in love with him or her.” Kunpei is estranged from his younger brother, Tamaki, with whom he wants to communicate, and not loved by his father, for whom he yearns from the bottom of his heart, and he lives without interacting with anyone. While he believes that he can communicate with Tamaki if there is love between them, he begins to hate Tamaki since his brother does not love him. In the final scene of the story, while playing with his father’s hunting rifle, Kunpei remembers a dream in which he shot and killed Tamaki, and he ends up actually shooting his brother, just as he had in the dream. Immediately, he hears the words of Amano Sumio, his friend from junior high school: “We have passed over.” These words clearly reflect the concept of Pascha. Pascha in Catholicism refers to Easter, but originally it was the Jewish Passover, commemorating the Exodus. I will eschew the doctrinal details, but there is no doubt that the Resurrection of Christ is depicted in this work. By carrying out his dream, Kunpei tries to bring himself closer to that which seems true to him. It is a “passing over” from a place where he does not have what he wants to a place where he does, and thus Jesus as God is resurrected inside him. How one views the resurrection of Christ varies from person to person; but, for Takahashi, it is the resurrection of the inner life, the rebirth of that which makes an individual alive. The impetus for this can be anything that brings a person closer to the truth, be it evil or sexuality. It is only by “passing over” that one can come closer to God. On the other hand, there is another protagonist in the novel, Yamaoka Yuiko, who is more clearly aware of God than Kunpei; but she does not ultimately “pass over.” Even knowing that there are limits to physical sexuality, she still dreams of being able to own her lover, Tamaki, by having him stuffed. She longs for the water that will enable her to never thirst, yet she cannot “pass over” her sexuality. “Ningyō ai” (Doll Love,* 1978), written around the same time, is also a story that carries Yuiko’s situation even further. “Doll Love” depicts a dream in which new life is breathed into a doll through loving it, with the doll serving as a metaphor for the elimination of human desire, and this doll that comes to life is the very resurrection of Jesus Christ. Possessing another person by means of taxidermy seemingly takes away the desires of the flesh; but, so long as we insist on existing as material beings, we will never encounter the resurrection of God within us. The author’s belief that God can only appear to those who are fervently able to “pass over,” even if it means they become madmen, is evident in The Heavenly Lake. The subject of sexual love is further explored in Arano (The Wasteland,* 1980). This is Takahashi’s only full-length work that focuses on sexuality. The protagonist of the novel, Nobe Michiko, is a woman who lives her life solely for her physical desires. She seeks only

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men who will accept her as her true self, a self who has become nothing more than sexuality, and only in this way can she find the meaning of her life. Although she has a husband, she is in a relationship with Sawamura Takuzō, the other protagonist of the work. She is satisfied by his acceptance of her, and is unable to stop seeing him, even though she knows that this will hurt the people around her. She is living resigned to the fact that she has no choice but to live this way. When her relationship with Takuzō collapses, she can only say, “Tomorrow, I’ll start looking for another man.” Even though she feels that Takuzō has something that is different from other men, she can only fuel her own existence by clinging to her carnal desires. For his part, Takuzō tries to seek a spiritual love that lies beyond his physical sexuality. He seeks “only one love” and “only one woman,” focusing his attention on where such a relationship leads. In the end, what lies beyond for him is a woman who accepts everything, including his own filthiness, and who is the one eternal woman for a man. Takuzō tries to get closer to the eternal woman by “passing over” a real woman. This is one form of passover, also discussed in The Heavenly Lake, demonstrating that love is not mere sexuality but also a pathway to God. Takahashi’s depiction of love between one man and one woman foreshadows the idea of God that exists beyond that relationship, and she herself later stated that “the passageway to loving God lies deep within the love between a man and a woman” (Takahashi 1985a, 110–11). In her later years, when she was preparing a translation and commentary on novels about Abelard and Heloise, Takahashi came to view the relationships between one man and one woman—and God vis-à-vis herself—as indistinguishable, with the key issue for her being how to sever the unnecessary connections of the flesh. This problem of the flesh was carried over to Yosōi seyo, waga tamashii yo (Adorn Yourself, O Dear Soul, 1982), and the answer to this problem was tentatively depicted in her later trilogy. Of the works from Takahashi’s middle period, two of her longer works were written after she moved to France: Adorn Yourself, O Dear Soul and Ikari no ko (Child of Wrath, 1985).6 Takahashi lived in France from 1980 to 1988 as a contemplative nun. However, she felt that these two works were something she “had to write, even if it meant going backwards” as a novelist, not as a nun (Takahashi 1994, 3: 563). I will consider Child of Wrath first, because Takahashi herself described Adorn Yourself, O Dear Soul as “my last work in terms of content” (Takahashi 1994, 4: 530). Child of Wrath has murder as its explicit content. The title is taken from Ephesians 2: 3: “by nature the children of wrath,” suggesting that the theme of the book is original sin. In that sense it differs from The Tempter, which likewise deals with demonic acts, in that it treats sins that involve, not only the individual, but also envy, jealousy and hatred of others: sins that manifest themselves in our relationships with others. The protagonist, Fujiwara Mioko, is secretly in love with her distant relative, Iwasaki Matsuo. She longs for him so much that she feels it would be enough if he were the only man in the world; but her feelings for him never reach him. Mioko also adores Matsuo’s sisterin-law, Hatsuko, and calls her “elder sister.” The story intimates that Hatsuko is a Christian from the fact that she goes out every Sunday, but Mioko never knows it. However, Mioko feels that, by associating with Hatsuko, the “dense, gushing, yellowish sea” that she is aware of inside herself calms down and becomes a “blanket of snow” (Takahashi 1985b, 182). She feels a “presentiment of good fortune” (Takahashi 1985b, 103) in Hatsuko, and feels “clean and happy” (Takahashi 1985b, 117) in her presence. Yamamoto Masumi, who lives in the same apartment building as Mioko, gets involved with her and breaks up her relationship Chapter 17: Takahashi Takako: Drawing Closer to God Through Literature

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with Hatsuko. Through her involvement with Masumi, Mioko is made aware of a “yellow sea” of anger. When emotional stagnation starts to build up in Mioko, she begins to suspect that there is a relationship between Matsuo and Hatsuko. This suspicion, which arises from a mistaken belief that they are in love with each other, gradually turns to a hatred from which Mioko cannot escape. As she loses the cleanliness transmitted to her by Hatsuko, and comes to realize that any future relationship with Matsuo is doomed, Mioko is dealt an additional blow by Masumi. Disgusted by Masumi’s flat, her expressionless face and her trampling down of Mioko’s inner world, the anger that has built up within Mioko mounts. And, at the very moment she feels someone or something she cannot identify leaping out of the yellowish sea inside her, she pushes Masumi down the stairs, killing her. What is depicted in this work is the variety of emotions that emerge from the interactions between individuals. The source of the emotions that arise when individuals communicate with each other lies not so much in the individual since it resides in the roots of humanity. The sin of evil (in this case, murder), which is described as a “child of wrath” in this work, does not come from the individual, but is expressed through the relationship between individuals interacting, and emotions which can be considered irrational; or, to put it in other terms, original sin makes an appearance in these situations. This is where the power of God and the devil comes into play. The theme that Takahashi, who was living a monastic life, had not written about before, was this power at work in the interactions between individuals, this being the universal human problem that emerges from individuals. The reason why she had to “go backwards,” as she phrased it, to write about this is probably because the problem of humanity is also related to her own faith. Next comes Adorn Yourself, O Dear Soul, a novel that opens with the protagonist, Yamakawa Namiko, searching for a room in Paris, and ends with her journey in search of her “homeland,” a journey undertaken while holding onto the room inside herself and carrying it with her at all times. This “homeland” is the Kingdom of God. The story depicts the pilgrimage of Namiko’s soul, which has turned 180 degrees from searching for a place outside herself, a room where she can live in peace, to searching for it within herself. The person who provides Namiko with direction is a priest. She decides to do whatever he tells her, whether it is to go straight or “vertically” (suichoku ni) because she feels she has been able to connect to God through him. She has been directed and strengthened by him, but, even as she directs her heart straight toward God, Namiko receives advances from men one after another. Naturally she feels inclined to move toward them. This is because both love for the opposite sex and love for God are sweet and passionate. Yet she rejects the men; she knows that nothing but futility lies ahead in such relationships. The priest, on the other hand, has informed her that connecting with God will not be futile as long as she remains connected with Him. Even though the sweetness in both directions is similar, the temptation of the flesh is clearly rejected in the work with the French word “non.” While the love of a man and a woman is analogous to a one-to-one relationship with God, the former is a temptation, and the novel clearly demonstrates the presence of God at work in all human activities. It also shows that, in order to move toward God, we must repeatedly reject temptation by saying “non,” repeating the passover. Adorn Yourself, O Dear Soul is different from Takahashi’s previous works in that it was written combining both the spiritual understanding she obtained by going to France and living in seclusion, along with the human insights she had previously gained. This work displays the joy Takahashi experienced when she became convinced through spiritual works 328

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and guidance that what she had previously anticipated by writing fiction was true. She received the conviction that, in passing from the love of a man and a woman to love with God, the latter cannot exist without the former. The novel also tells us that by continuing to dive into the “inner sea,” we emerge into the blue sky. Prayer makes the “inner sea” clear, and Takahashi’s striking description shows that love and hate are cleansed by prayer even as they continue to coexist. This is the first work Takahashi wrote with her eyes consciously opened, rather than in a state of euphoria, with the conviction that the problems of the inner sea, love between men and women, and the misfortunes of hatred and sadness are not confined to the individual, but are what emerge as problems of the universal life of mankind manifest in the individual through the unconscious mind.

Spiritual trilogy Believing that being a novelist and being a contemplative nun were incompatible, for a period of ten years following composition of Child of Wrath, the final work from the middle of her career, Takahashi did not publish any literary works, but confined herself to producing only religious writings that she regarded as spiritual works. After publication of Child of Wrath, Takahashi formally entered the Jerusalem Community as a trainee in order to enter the monastic life. Three years later, for various reasons, she left the Community, returned to Japan, stopped writing, asked to have her previous works put out of print and, with considerable determination, entered the Kyoto Carmelite Society in Japan. However, after a year, she again left. It seems that her reason for leaving was that she did not fit in with the Japanese spirit of the Carmelite Society. After leaving the monastery, Takahashi first tackled the genre of “spiritual works” that had deeply influenced her in France, publishing a spiritual trilogy, including Tochi no chikara (The Power of Place, 1992), “Uchinaru shiro ni tsuite omou koto” (Reflections on The Interior Castle, 1992) and Hajimari e (Toward the Origin, 1993). The styles of these works are, respectively, a novel, an essay and a play; but they are different from her purely literary works in that they are written with their face toward God alone. Specifically, both The Power of Place and Toward the Origin are set mainly in Europe, and many of the characters are European Christians, including sisters, priests and pilgrims. Both the protagonists and the other characters have a strong sense of being travelers who do not live or settle down in one place. The topics of conversation are about God and the fundamental sufferings of human existence. But these are not mere confessions of faith, nor are they simply about glorifying God. The works depict people who, even through their suffering, are unashamedly pondering how they should live, how to reach God, and who Mary and Christ are. Therefore, although the topics of the works are all related to Christianity, they depict the single-mindedness of human beings who are earnestly seeking something, illustrating their purity, beauty of spirit, humility and the demonic and holy traps that arise because of this quest; at the same time, they vividly express the fresh human emotions and the actions these characters take on the basis of their feelings. Thus, these “spiritual works” are not like specialized theological or philosophical books that are difficult to understand, but rather literary works of great poetic beauty. “Reflections on The Interior Castle” is an essay about St. Teresa of Avila’s The Interior Castle (El Castillo Interior, 1577), outlining Takahashi’s understanding of the book.

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The trilogy is a direct reflection of Takahashi’s monastic life in Europe and Japan, the form in literary style and content representing the pursuit of religious themes. This is a valuable achievement, as neither the attempt nor works of this nature have ever been seen in Japan.

Later trilogy After leaving the monastery and publishing her spiritual trilogy, Takahashi began writing literary works again. This resulted in the trilogy of Bōmeisha (The Exile, 1995), Kimi no naka no mishiranu onna (The Unknown Woman Within You, 2001), and Kirei na hito (A Beautiful Person, 2003). Inspired by Julien Green’s Diary and the epic novel Maronie no hana ga itta (The Horse Chestnut Flower Says, 1999) written by Kiyooka Takayuki, Takahashi set out to write an epic novel, in which the background of the characters’ lives is filled in with various historical and human issues, such as genealogical, racial and mixed-race problems, as well as the issue of war. What is common to all three works is that the setting is in France; the narrator, “I,” is a Japanese woman and a Catholic; and the lives and histories of many other people are told in addition to “I’s” life. The Exile describes the story of Daniel and Annie, who love each other and take a vow of celibacy while still in love, and together they enter a cloistered life called Poustinia.7 Daniel has struggled with the feeling that something vital is missing in their relationship even though he loves Annie and, as a result, he proposes that they both enter cloistered religious life; thereafter, he draws closer and closer to God more rapidly than does Annie. Annie, although she has decided to follow Daniel, suffers from the distance between herself and Daniel, whom she cannot reach even if she reaches out with her arms toward him. This pain is similar to the feelings of love and jealousy in normal human life that threaten to destroy one’s existence, but as she “passes over” each one of her feelings for him, she begins to feel “happy” and moves toward God with Daniel. In The Unknown Woman Within You, Antoine is an atheist, but, after the death of his wife, Marie-Claire, he converts, inspired by a religious painting, and becomes a monk. It is the story of a man who loses his partner despite their love for each other. We see MarieClaire struggling with her own incomprehensible existence, feeling something inside herself that she cannot control, and Antoine suffering because of his wife’s peculiar feelings. MarieClaire’s suffering is also depicted as the problem in Europe of blood mixing due to intermarriage between races. After the accidental death of his wife, Antoine’s conversations with her and his exploration of the “glowing woman” and the “transparent woman” represented in her paintings lead him to an understanding of his wife’s inexplicable existence, and he proceeds along the path to becoming a monk. Antoine realizes that the life of contemplative monasticism is a return to the “glowing man” and “transparent man” that is also inside him; it is, in other words, a “passing over” (pascha), and he leaves his aged mother, a devout Catholic, at home by herself and heads straight toward God. The scene in which the mother sends her son to the monastery also shows the anguish of a mother who is robbed of her son by God. A Beautiful Person differs from the first two novels in that the story is not about the narrator’s creative work or dreams, but about life itself as related by an old French woman. It is the story of the narrator, Yvonne’s love for the monk Michel, spanning a period of eighty years. Yvonne falls in love with Michel the moment she sees him for the first time. When Yvonne hears that he is a young man who has been wounded in the war and has completely

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lost all memory and emotions, she cannot help but say to him the second time she sees him, “Hey, Michel, I’ll love you.” Then she realizes, “I should say that to him over and over again.” Michel, for his part, takes this confession as one of holy love, and afterwards, he subconsciously feels as if Yvonne is always and forever close, whispering those words to him. Yvonne’s constant companionship and selfless love for him saves him. Later on, Michel calls Yvonne a “dear friend” and he tells her everything that has happened to him, concealing nothing. When they meet again after he enters the monastery, he again tells Yvonne all that has happened to him. Despite the joy of being Michel’s one and only friend, feeling the pain of not being loved as a woman, Yvonne remains celibate and continues to love only Michel for over eighty years. She also relates the story of Michel’s long road to becoming a monk. The greatest difference between this and previous works is that it does not depict in Yvonne’s character the appearance of the hatred and murderous intent towards other women that emerges from an “inner sea.” Despite the multiple women who have been involved with Michel, both physically and emotionally, Yvonne’s malice towards them is not depicted; only her suffering is described. Nor does it show the inexhaustible desire to steal something from a romantic partner. All Takahashi depicts is Yvonne’s single-minded devotion to her partner, listening intently to him, and waiting for him. “In the end, I didn’t marry at all. It’s as if I gave my life to Michel” (Takahashi 2003, 104): Yvonne’s words resemble the words of a nun. Her straightforward, honest, righteous, submissive and humble living for a single love is the answer to Takahashi’s question, an idealized form of prayer to God. A Beautiful Person could be considered the culmination of everything Takahashi had written up to that time. A single love is portrayed in a fresh and unalloyed way. Although not mentioned in this discussion, the lives of many people—the 100-year-old Madame Simone, the 98-year-old Yvonne, Michel who became a monk, André in exile in the United States, and a lady who assisted the exiled man—intersect to create an epic novel that depicts the long passage of time and the great flow of life.

Conclusion Looking at her works, what we can learn is that Takahashi’s creative works themselves are manifest as a path of faith. For her, writing is close to prayer, and the trajectory of the soul’s seeking God directly dictates the form of her works. Her faith is an internal search for God, and the path to God that Takahashi pursued seems to have been a single-minded desire for the purification of a heart mired in original sin. While her early and mid-career works continued to depict characters struggling but unable to find God, her later trilogy depicts characters who have found peace of mind and live with God. In this sense, it would be reasonable to assume that Takahashi’s own faith had also reached that point. Takahashi is a writer who showed the way of salvation through her literature to those who bear the burden of original sin.

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Notes 1 Although not often discussed in terms of Christianity, Mishima’s novel Ai no kawaki (Thirst for Love,* 1950) was influenced by François Mauriac, and other writings frequently contain references relating to other Christian writers, such as Dostoevsky. 2 For a comprehensive study of Takahashi’s life and oeuvre, see Mirror, Gems, and Veil: The Life and Writings of Takahashi Takako (1932–2013) by Maryellen Toman Mori (Edwin Mellen Press, 2018). 3 Takahashi Kazumi was himself a noted novelist and scholar of Chinese literature. 4 It was rumored that, when Kazumi assumed a post at Kyoto University, Takako decided not to move with him due to her dislike of the antiquated attitudes toward women still prevalent in Kyoto. 5 A torii is a gateway found in Japanese shrines that separates the realm of the divine from the secular and marks the entrance to the divine realm. 6 In reference to the title, Adorn Yourself, O Dear Soul is taken from J.S. Bach’s Cantata no. 180, “Schmücke dich, o Liebe Seele” meaning “Clothe your soul with the Lord Jesus Christ” (first performed in 1724). Although the music itself is not mentioned in the writing, it is likely that Namiko adorned herself with Christ just as God called her to do. 7 Derived from the Russian word for “desert,” a poustinia is a small cabin or room with minimal furnishings where a person goes to fast and pray in God’s presence.

References Takahashi, T. (1973). Sora no hate made [To the End of the Sky]. Tokyo: Shinchōsha. ———. (1974). Botsuraku fūkei [A Ruined Landscape]. Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha. ———. (1975). Tamashii no inu [Dogs of the Soul]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. ———. (1976). Yūwakusha [The Tempter]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. ———. (1977a). Kioku no kurasa [The Darkness of Memory]. Kyoto: Jinbun Shoin. ———. (1977b). Ten no mizuumi [The Heavenly Lake]. Tokyo: Shinchōsha. ———. (1978). Ningyō ai [Doll Love]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. ———. (1980). Arano [The Wasteland]. Tokyo: Kawade Shobō Shinsha. ———. (1982). Yosōi seyo, waga tamashii yo [Adorn Yourself, O Dear Soul]. Tokyo: Shinchōsha. ———. (1985a). Reiteki na shuppatsu [Spiritual Departure]. Tokyo: Joshi Pauro-kai ———. (1985b). Ikari no ko [Child of Wrath]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. ———. (1992a). Tochi no chikara [The Power of Place]. Tokyo: Joshi Pauro-kai. ———. (1992b). “Uchinaru shiro” ni tsuite omou koto [Reflections on The Interior Castle]. Tokyo: Joshi Pauro-kai. ———. (1993). Hajimari e [Toward the Origin]. Tokyo: Joshi Pauro-kai. ———. (1994). Takahashi Takako jisen shōsetsu-shū [Takahashi Takako’s Literary Works, Selected by the Author] (4 vols.). Tokyo: Kōdansha. ———. (1995). Bōmeisha [The Exile]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. ———. (2001). Kimi no naka no mishiranu onna [The Unknown Woman Within You]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. ———. (2003). Kirei na hito [A Beautiful Person]. Tokyo: Kōdansha. ———. (2006). Doko ka aru ie [A House Somewhere]. Tokyo: Kōdansha Bungei Bunko.

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Index A abba, 92–93, 94, 95 Abe Isoo, xxix Abe Jirō: and Rinrigaku no konpon mondai (The core problem of ethics), 40 (n7) Abe Mitsuko, xxxv agape, 88–89, 304, 314, 315 Ajase complex, 253, 260 (n28) Akaiwa Sakae (Rev.), 160, 164, 165 Akutagawa Prize, 139, 140, 194, 300 Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, xvii, xxviii, 100, 212; Akutagawa Michiaki and Tomo (uncle and aunt), 65; “Akutagawa-style I-novels”, 68; assignment to China, 67, 76; at Tokyo Imperial University, 66, 71, 72–73; and the Bible, 69, 70, 77, 138; Christ as in the gospels, 70; Christianity and artistic aestheticism, 65, 70; and Dostoevsky, 71; early exposure to Christianity, 65; early life, 64; failed relationship with Yoshida Yayoi / broken love, 66, 74; fascination with martyrdom, 70; Fuki (aunt), 65; Hatsu and Hisa (sisters), 65; influence of Uchimura Kanzō, xxviii; and the journal Shinshichō, 66; Kirishitanmono (Kirishitan stories), 70, 76, 79, 100, 113, 138; marriage with Tsukamoto Fumi, 65, 67; and maternal aspects of Catholicism, xxxvi; and Muroga Fumitake, 68, 77, 78; and Natsume Soseki, 66–67; Niihara Toshizō and Fuku (parents), 65, 75, 77; and “plotless novel” controversy (with Tanizaki Jun’ichirō), 68; shinkyō shōsetsu (mental state novel), 68; and Spanish influenza, 75; suicide attempts and suicide, 68–69; travels to Nagasaki, 75, 76; with Fr. Leon Gracy, 75; work with Osaka Mainichi shinbun, 67, 75; Yasukichi works, 67 Aoi hana (Blue Flowers, coterie magazine), 138

Index

Ariake Shizu: and diary used by Dazai Osamu, 142 Arishima Takeo, 24, 99, 198; as social reformer, 42; at Haverford College, 45–46; and Dr. J.B. Scott, 46–47; early exposure to Christianity, 42; and the Friends’ Asylum for the Insane, 46; friendship with Morimoto Kōkichi, 43–44; graduation from Gakushūin, 43; introduction to Quakerism, 43; and Nitobe Inazō, 43, 45; and the Sapporo Agricultural College, xxiv, 43; and Shirakaba-ha (White Birch Society), xxvi, 50; suicide with Hatano Akiko, 49; theodician doubt and apostasy, 47–48; and Uchimura Kanzō, xxiv, 45 Ariyoshi Sawako: and Kōkotsu no hito (The Twilight Years*), xxxiii–xxxiv Ashio copper mine pollution incident, xxv

B Baba Kochō, xxii, 13 Ballagh, James, xxii, 4 Baudelaire, Charles: and Les Fleurs du mal, 103; and Takahashi Takako, 320–21, 325 Bishop, Jim: and The Day Christ Died, 284–85 Braithwaite, George, 6, 7, 12 Brown, Samuel: and Wa-Ei rinshūsei (JapaneseEnglish and English-Japanese Dictionary), xxi Buddhism / Buddhist, 250; and Arishima Takeo, 43; and Endō Shūsaku, 253, 255, 256; and Hori Tatsuo, 101, 111; and Kaga Otohiko, 286, 291, 293; and Kitamura Tōkoku, 9, 13, 20; and Miura Ayako, 218; and Shimazaki Tōson, 26, 38, 39; and Sono Ayako, 304; and Yagi Jūkichi, 91, 97 Bungakukai, 13, 15

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Bunshō sekai, 26, 39; and articles about authors’ lives and works, 28; “Dokusha tsūshin” (Readers’ correspondence) and “Dokusha rondan” (Readers’ criticism); 29–30; and serialization of Sakura no mi (Cherries) (Shimazaki Tōson), 28 Bushidō: and Uchimura Kanzō, 86, 88, 97 byōsaimono (sick wife stories): and Shimao Toshio, 171, 172, 174–75

C Christian missionary activity, xix, xxx; and higher education, xxx Clark, E.B., 4 Clark, W.S.: and “covenant of those who believe in Jesus Christ”, xxiv; and instruction in Christian Ethics, xxiv; and Sapporo Agricultural College, xxiv Confucianism, 44; and Kitamura Tōkoku, 13; and Uchimura Kanzō, 88, 97 Cosand, Joseph and Sara, 6, 9, 11

D Daiichiji Sengoha (the First Generation of Postwar Writers), 154 Daisan no Shinjin (Third Generation of Postwar Writers): compared with Naikō no sedai, 263; and Shimao Toshio, 171, 173, 185 Davies, Douglas J.: and “identity depletion”, 263, 265 Dazai Osamu (Tsushima Shūji), xvii, xix, xxviii, 212; addiction to Pavinal, 139, 140; at Tokyo Imperial University, 139; “Bible experience”, 138–41; and the diary of Ariake Shizu, 142; failure to win Akutagawa Prize, 139, 140; influence of Uchimura Kanzō, xxviii, 137–140 (passim); influence of Yamagishi Gaishi, 138–39; journey to Yugawara and Hakone, 140; literary periods, 142–43; marriage to Ishihara Michiko, 143; and Seisho chishiki (Bible Knowledge), 137–38; suicide attempt / suicide, 139, 141, 143, 144; and the use of biblical quotations, 137, 138, 143–52 (passim) dōhansha (companion), Christ as, 82, 280 Dostoevsky, Fyodor, xxxi, xxxiv; and Akutagawa and Crime and Punishment, 71–72; and

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Kaga Otohiko, 296–97; Shimao Toshio compared with, 171; and Shiina Rinzō and his “Dostoevsky experience”, 155–57, 160, 162, 168

E Ebina Danjō: and Shinjin xxix, 30 Endō Shūsaku, xvi, xvii, xxxi, xxxii, xxxvi, 100, 207, 319; at Keio University, 236; awarded Bunka Kunshō (Order of Cultural Merit), 258; baptism (and metaphor of “western clothing”), 234–35; biographies of early Japanese Christians, 249; and a “Book of Job”, 257–58; death and funeral, 258; early life in Manchuria, 233–34; Endō Ryūnosuke (son), 260 (n22); entertainment novels and comic essays, 233, 243; European Christianity vs. Japanese Christianity, 238; and exploration of the human soul, xxxi; and failure to win the Nobel Prize for Literature, 254; godfather to Takahashi Takako, 323; godfather to Yasuoka Shintarō, 189, 191, 199; and his dog, “Blackie”, 234; in Miura Ayako’s writings, 213; interest in French Catholic writers, 236; joining themes from Christianity, Buddhism, Hinduism and Shintō, 255; Junko (wife), 258, 260 (n22); Kakure Kirishitan, 242; literary periods before and after Chinmoku (Silence*), 232, 243–44; “love-marriage“ to describe encounter with Christianity, 267; maternal Christianity, 244, 245, 247; meets Inoue Yōji, xxxi; overseas study in France, 236; parents’ divorce and return to Japan, 234; and relationship with his mother, Iku, 232, 233, 234–35; Scandal as autobiography, 253–54; Shōsuke (brother), 234; studies of early Christianity in Japan, 242; study with Hori Tatsuo, xxxi, 113; “that Man”, 248; and The Day Christ Died, 284; the problem of evil and salvation, 254; trip to Nagasaki, xxxii; tuberculosis and other illnesses, hospitalization, xxxii, 232, 237, 242, 253, 257 Enomoto Yasurō: wide readership in Japan and overseas, 232 eros, 88–89, 314

Handbook of Japanese Christian Writers

F Fisher, Galen: and Arishima Takeo, 48 Fox, George: founder of Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), 7 Freedom and People’s Rights Movement, xxiii, 2, 6, 24 Fujioka Zōroku: friend of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 65, 71, 74 Fujitaro Tetsurō (Fr.), 132 Fukuin shinpō, xxii fumie, 71, 242, 244–46, 254, 305; definition of, 317 (n2) Furui Yoshikichi, 264, 265; Yōko, 265; Tsumagomi (Withdrawing Wife), 265 Futabatei Shimei: and “Yo ga hansei no zange” (Confessions of Half My Life), 26

G Gajowniczek, Franciszek: and Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, 302 genzai (original sin), 292; in Miura Ayako’s writings, 209, 221, 222, 223 gisei (sacrifice): in Nagai Takashi’s writings, 116, 121, 129–34 (passim) Gotō Meisei: as member of Naikō no sedai, 264 Gracy, Leon (Fr.), 75

H Hani Motoko: and journalism, xxiii hansai (burnt offering), 115–22 (passim), 125, 127, 129, 130, 132–34 (passim) Hara Zen’ichirō: and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 134 Harris, Merriman Colbert, xxiv Hatano Seiichi: at Tokyo Imperial University, 66, 73 Heiwa (Peace) (journal), 12, 14, 15, 17 Hepburn, James: and system of Romanization of Japanese, xxi; and Tsukiji Daigakkō, forerunner of forerunner of Meiji Gakuin University, xxii hibakusha (atomic bomb victims), 118, 132 Hikida Ichirō: and Miura Ayako, 224 Hinduism, 255, 257, 302 Hirezaki Jun, 138, 139, 141 Hōkyō shuisho: and the “Kumamoto Band”, xxix

Index

Honda Yōitsu: and the “Yokohama Band”, xxii Hori Tatsuo, xxx, xxxvi; autobiographical nature of “Footprints in the Snow”, 112; and balance between Christian God and pantheon of nature, 101, 110; Catholic influences / overtones, 100; Christianity and the Japanese spiritual tradition, 100, 113; and the Church of St. Paul, 108–10; and daily Bible reading, 108; difference from other Meiji and Taishō writers, 99; and Endō Shūsaku, 113; influence of Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 102–4; Katō Taeko (wife), 107; and the Mainichi Culture Prize, 113; time spent in Karuizawa, 108–10; trip to Nara, 101; Yano Ayako (fiancée), 104 Hoshino Tenchi, 13 Hotta Yūkō (Fr., OFM): and Sono Ayako, 301

I Ibuka Kajinosuke: and the “Yokohama Band”, xxii Ibuse Masuji, 145 Igarashi Kenji: and Miura Ayako, 213 Ihara Saikaku: and Kōshoku gonin onna (Five Women who Loved Love*), 11 Inoue Hisashi: and Mokkinpotto-shi no atoshimatsu (Settling the Affairs of Father Mockinpott), xxxiv Inoue Yōji, xxxi, xxxvi; and baptism of Yasuoka Shōtarō, 189, 199; and book by Thérèse de Lisieux, 90; and “eros-type” soulsearching, 88; Kirisutokyō no nihonka (The Japanification of Christianity) xxxii; meets Endō Shūsaku, xxxi; Nihon to iesu no kao (The Face of Jesus in Japan) xxxii, 200; and Takahashi Takako, 298, 323; time in Europe, xxxii Ishihara Ken: and Shūkyō tetsugaku (Philosophy of religion), 40 (n7) Ishizaka Masataka: father of Ishizaka Mina (wife of Kitamura Tōkoku), 3 Iwamoto Yoshiharu, 12; baptized by Kimura Kumaji, xxiii; and Wakamatsu Shizuko, xxiii Iwashita Sōichi: and influence on postwar Catholic writers, xxx, xxxvi

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J Janes, L.L., xxix, 4 Japanese Naturalist literature, 24–25, Jiyū minken undō (Freedom and People’s Rights Movement), xxiii, 2, 6, 24 Jiyūtō (Freedom Party), 1, 2, 3 Jogaku zasshi (The Woman’s Magazine) (magazine), xxiii, 1, 6, 12, 13, 15, 25 John Paul II, Pope: “War is the work of man”, 118 Jones, David (Rev.), 9, 12 Jones, William, 6

K Kadowaki Kakichi (Fr.): and baptism of Kaga Otohiko, 291 Kaga Otohiko, xxxiii; as novelist and psychiatrist, 285; awarded Mainichi Publishing Culture Special Award, 294; awarded Minister of Education Newcomer Award for the Fine Arts, 287; awarded Nihon Bungaku Taishō (Grand Prize for Japanese Literature), 288; baptism of, 292–93; and discussions about “the Devil”, 292–93; and Dostoevsky 296–97; and Endō Shūsaku, 291–92, 297; and the idea of “evil”, 287, 290; and the Last Supper, 293–94; pre- and postwar life, 285–86; and questions about “life”, 293; and Shōda Akira, 286–87; study in France, 287; understanding the connection between death and religion, 286; work in the prison system, 286 Kagawa Toyohiko: and Nobel Prize nomination, xxix; and Shisen o koete (Beyond the Line of Death), xxix Kaifu Chūzō, 6 Kakure (Hidden) Christians, xvii (n2), 123, 242; and Petitjean, Bernard (Fr.), xvii (n2), 260 (n23) Kanbara Ariake: “Ryūdokai tsuisōroku” (Remembering Ryūdokai), 28 Katayama Hiroko, 114 (n4) Katō Shūichi, xxxi Kawabata Yasunari, 260 (n29) Kawakami Tetsutarō, 200 Kazoh Kitamori: Kami no itami no shingaku (Theology of the Pain of God*) 294 Kazusa Hideo, xxxiii

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Kibe Petro (Fr.), 259 (n21), 295 Kikuchi Kan, 66, 75 Kikuta Noboru (Dr.), 308–9; “baby mediation incident” (akachan assen jiken), 309; and Endō Shūsaku, 309; and Sono Ayako, 308, 309; Suzuki Shizue (wife), 309 Kimura Ki, 27 Kimura Kumaji, 31; baptism of Shimazaki Tōson, xxiii, 25; and Shitaya Church, xxiii; and study abroad, xxiii Kindai no chōkoku (Overcoming Modernity, symposium), xxxi Kinoshita Naoe: and Hi no hashira (The Pillar of Fire), xxix Kitahara Hakushū, 28 Kitamori Kazoh, 294 Kitamura Tōkoku (Kitamura Montarō), xv, 24, 99; as editor of Heiwa (Peace), 12, 14; as editor of Seisho no tomo, 17, 18, 19; and the Azabu Church, 17–18, 19; caught between heaven and earth, 14; Chichibu Incident, 2; Christianity and Buddhism, 20; conversion to Christianity, 4; debate with Yamaji Aizan, 15; early life, 2; and Freedom and People’s Rights Movement, xxiii, 2, 6; Freedom Party, 1, 3; and George Braithwaite, 6, 7, 12; and the Great Man (shijin), 14–15; influence of Byron, 5; and “inner life”, 16, 100; and Ishizaka Mina (wife) xxiii, 1–2, 3, 4, 11, 18; and Jogaku zasshi, xxiii; and Joseph and Sara Cosand, 6, 9, 11; literature as a spiritual enterprise, 16–17; and Meiji Jogakkō, xxiii; Osaka Incident, 6; and Ōya Masao, 2, 3, 6; and repentance, 14; suicide, 19; and Tokyo Senmon Gakkō (later Waseda University), 2, 4; and Tomii Matsuko, 11, 18; work as a translator, 6; work with David Jones, 9, 12, 17 Kiyooka Takayuki, 330; Maronie no hana ga itta (The Horse Chestnut Flower Says) 330 Kizaki Satoko: recipient of the Akutagawa Prize, xxxiii Kobayashi Hideo, xxxvi Kojima Masajirō, 75 Kokumin no tomo (journal), xxvii, 11, 13 Kolbe, Maximilian (Fr.), Saint, 125, 132; subject of Sono Ayako’s Miracles, 301–2, 304 Konishi Yukinaga, 259 (n21)

Handbook of Japanese Christian Writers

Kozaki Hiromichi, xxix; Tokyo Young Men’s Christian Association (Tokyo YMCA), xxii Kumamoto Band, xxi, xxviii–xxix Kume Masao, 66 Kunikida Doppo, xv, xxiii, 24, 99, 100 Kuroda Kiyotaka, xxviii Kuroi Senji, 264–65; Jikan (Time), 265; Gunsei (Life in the Cul-de-Sac), 265 Kusano Shinpei, 85

L La Mancha (journal), 300 Leeper, Dean: victim of the Toya-maru disaster, 228

M MacDonald, Davidson, 6 Maeda Noboru: “Sōsakusha no kokochi” (The Feelings of the Creative Man), 28 Maekawa Masashi: friend of Miura Ayako, 217–19 (passim) Maritain, Jacques, xxx, xxxi, 122; and “free will defense” theodicy, 129; and God’s Being and essential Goodness, 128; influence of Pascal, 125; and problem of evil, 125 Masamune Hakuchō, xxiii, xxvi, xxvii–xxviii, 198; and Uchimura Kanzō, 198–99 Matsumura Mineko, see “Katayama Hiroko” Matsuo Bashō, 16, 25, 38 Matsuoka Yuzuru, 66 Mauriac, François: and influence on Takahashi Takako, 321, 322, 323; and interest of Endō Shūsaku, 236, 254, 297; and Kaga Otohiko, 297; and Le Fleuve de Feu (The River of Fire*), 109 Maybaum, Ignaz: and the Holocaust, 127 Meiji Jogakkō, xxiii; and Hani Motoko, xxiii; and Nogami Yaeko, xxiii; and Yamamuro Kieko, xxiii Meiji Restoration / Meiji period: Christianity associated with reform, 24; and early understanding of Christian doctrines, 24, 25; and Kumamoto School of Western Studies, xxviii; and missionary activity, xix, 24; and the Protestant influence, xxxvi, 24; and religious freedom, xv

Index

Min’yūsha, xxiv, 13, 15 Mishima Yukio, 178, 264, 319 Mitani Takanobu, 65 Miura Ayako, xvi, xxxvi; anti-war message, 225; as an elementary school teacher, 216, 222; as essayist, 220; autobiographical writings, 216; and childhood friend, Maekawa Masashi, 217, 218, 219; conversion and baptism, 217–18; critics of, 208; and evangelization, 218; life before baptism, xxxv; marriage with Miura Mitsuyo, 219; original sin (genzai) as theme, 209, 221, 222, 223; priority as a “religious” writer, 207–8; references the Toya-maru disaster, 228; sense of shame and guilt, 216; serious vs. popular literature, 207, 227; spiritual biographies, 213; Tsuzurikata jiken, (literally “composition incident”), 225, 226; tuberculosis and hospitalization, 216, 217, 220; understanding of “sin”, 222–23; Yōko (sister), 209 Miura Shumon, xxxiii, 200; marriage with Sono Ayako, 300; and translation of The Day Christ Died, 284; and university riots of 1968, 301 Miyazawa Kenji, 90 Modern Japanese literary history: and four periods, xx–xxxvii (passim) Mori Reiko, xxxv Morimoto Kōkichi (Masuyama), 43; and guilt over sin, 44 Morita Sōhei, 28 Moriuchi Toshio: and Hone no hi (Fire in the Bones), xxxiv mukyōkai (Non-church Movement), see “Nonchurch movement” Murō Saisei, 101 Muroga Fumitake: influence on Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 68, 77; and Uchimura Kanzō, 68 Mushanokōji Saneatsu: and Arishima Takeo, 50

N Nagai Kafū 145 Nagai Takashi, xxxiv; biblical prohibition of human sacrifice, 121; Catholic formation in Nagasaki, 123; and children, Makoto & Kayano, 117; death of Urakami Catholics likened to hansai, 116; death of wife, Midori, 116, 117; evil not “willed” but “permitted”,

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127–28, 130, 132; funeral address for atomic bomb victims, 116, 117, 118; funeral address understood as theological explanation (theodicy), 117, 118, 119–20; gisei (sacrifice) and hansai as interchangeable, 116; grandson, Nagai Tokusaburō, 119; hansai (burnt offering), setsuri (divine providence) and hansai-setsu (hansai theory), 115, 117, 118, 120, 121–22, 125, 127, 132, 133–34; influence of Blaise Pascal, 122, 123–24, 130–31; influence of Franciscan order, 122, 125; and leukemia, 117; Nyokodō (“like myself house”), 117, 126, 134 (n1); Passion of Christ as the “unique and definitive” sacrifice, 120, 127; Nagano Masao, 213 Nagasaki Tarō, 65 Nagayo Yoshirō: and Shirakaba-ha (White Birch Society), xxvii Naikō no sedai (Generation of Introverted Writers): characters experiencing “modern life”, 264; devoid of self-image / identity depletion, 263, 265; emptiness as nihilism, 263; futashika na watashi (uncertain self), 264, 270; and Ogawa Kunio, 263; six authors usually associated with group, 264 Nakagawa Yoichi: and La Mancha, 300 Nakahara Chūya, xxxvi Nakamura Seiko: “Bungakusha no seikatsu” (The Life of a Man of Letters), 28 Nanbu Shūtarō, 75 Natsume Sōseki: and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 66–67; and the capriciousness of love and the absence of hope for salvation, 212; and Nogami Yaeko, xxiii Nihon heiwa-kai (Japan Peace Society), 6 Nihon Kirisuto kōkai (Meeting of Christ in Japan), xxii Nihon Kirisuto kyōkai dōmei (Alliance of Japanese Christian Churches), 30; and “Taishō democracy”, 30 Niijima Jō: and Doshisha English School, xxix Nishimura Kyūzō (Rev.): and Miura Ayako, 213, 218 Nitobe Inazō: and Arishima Takeo, 43, 45; and the First Senior High School, 71; and the League of Nations, xxiv; and Natsume Soseki, xxiii; and Tokyo University, xxiv and Tokyo Woman’s Christian University, xxiv

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Nogami Yaeko, xxiii Nomura Hideo, xxxi Non-church (mukyōkai) movement: and Christian Literature, xxv–xxvi; and Dazai Osamu, 137; and Hirezaki Jun, 139; meaning of, description of, xxv, 30; and Seisho chishiki (Bible Knowledge), 137; and the “two Js” (Jesus and Japan), xxv; and Shimao Toshio, 185 Nyokodō (“like myself house”), 117, 126, 134 (n1)

O Ochi Yasuo, xxxi Ōe Kenzaburō: and the Nobel Prize for Literature, 255 Ogawa Kunio, xxxiv, 174; “Ano hito”, 269–80 (passim); and Christian motifs, 262; comparisons with Endō Shūsaku, 262; conversion to Catholicism, 266, 268; early life and university, 266; and “identity depletion”, 263; importance of reading the Bible for faith and insight, 268, 269; living in Europe, 266; and Naikō no sedai, 263; roundtable discussions with Yoshimoto Takaaki, 267; seishomono (Bible stories), 262–63, 266, 268, 269–80 (passim); the Tanizaki Prize, 265; wartime turmoil, 267; works praised by Shimao Toshio, 266 Ogawa Mimei, 28 Ōhara Tomie, 200 Ōi Kentarō, 3 Ōkubo Kiyoshi: as basis for Sono Ayako novel, 313 Orikuchi Shinobu (a.k.a. Shaku Chōkū), 114 (n11) Osaka Incident, 3 Osanai Kaoru: as “father of new theater”, xxvi; and Uchimura’s summer colloquia, xxvi Oshikura Masayoshi: and the Yokohama Band, xxii Ōta Toshio: and Kitamura Tōkoku, 17, 19 Ōtsuka Yasuji: professor of aesthetics, Tokyo Imperial University, 73 Ōya Masao: and Kitamura Tōkoku, 2, 4, 6 Ozaki Kōyō: and Ken’yūsha (Friends of the Inkstone), 11 Ozaki Yukio, 16

Handbook of Japanese Christian Writers

P “paradoxical inversion”: and Shimao Toshio, 172 Paris Foreign Missions Society, xxi, xxx Pascal, Blaise: and Pensées, read by Nagai Takashi, 122, 123–26 (passim), 130–31, 134 Pascha: theme for Takahashi Takako, 326, 330 Paul VI, Pope: and Jacques Maritain, 122 Petitjean, Bernard (Fr.): “discoverer” of Kakure (hidden) Christians, xvii (n2), 260 (n23) philia, 304, 314 Protestant missionaries, xxi Protestant / Catholic influences, differences, xvi, xxxvi

R Rai San’yō, 15 Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), 6, 7; and “Inner / Inward Light”, 7, 20, 48, 59 Rikugō zasshi (magazine), xxii Rilke, Rainer Maria: inspiration to Hori Tatsuo, 104, 106, 107, 108 Russo-Japanese War, xxv, xxx Ryōkan, 205

S Sade, Marquis de: and Endō Shūsaku’s writings, 237, 242 Saeki, Akira (Rev.), 309 Saigyō, 16, 25 Saitō Takeshi: professsor of English, Tokyo Imperial University, 66 Saitō Tatsuya: and Bible lent to Dazai Osamu, 140–41 Sakagami Hiroshi: member of Naikō no sedai, 264 Sako Jun’ichirō, xxxv sakoku and the ban on Christianity, xv, 252 sange, see “zange” Sapporo Band, xxi, xxiv–xxviii Sasaki Mosaku: and letter from Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 76 Satō Haruo, 140 Satō Shōsuke: and Hokkaido University, xxiv; and the Sapporo Band, xxiv

Index

Schroeder, Emil: and Japan-Germany Educational Institute, 71 Scorsese, Martin: and film “Silence”, 245 Seelye, Julius Hawley: President, Amherst College, xxv Seisho chishiki (Bible knowledge) (magazine), 137, 139 Seisho no tomo (Friends of the Bible), 17, 18, 19 seishomono (Bible stories), 262–63, 266, 268, 269–80 (passim) Setoumi Harumi, 200 setsuri (divine providence), 115–32 (passim) Shaku Chōkū, 112, 114 (n11); Shisha no sho (The Book of the Dead), 112 Shiga Naoya, 24, 198; and Shirakaba-ha (White Birch Society), xxvii, 195; and Uchimura’s summer colloquia, xxvi, xxvii Shiina Rinzō: as member of Daiichiji Sengoha, 154, 157; baptism of, 154, 160; “Dostoevsky experience”, 155–57, 160; early life, 155; and Endō Shūsaku, 155; existential leanings of, 154, 157; and the journal Yubi, 164; membership in Communist party, 155; reading the Bible, 162; receives Geijutsu senshō Monbudaijin-shō (Minister of Cultural Affairs art encouragement prize), 154; “resurrection experience”, 154–55, 160–61, 162; and Tane no kai (Seed Society), xxxv, 164, 165; time in prison, 155; use of hallucinations, 157, 158; use of images of “light”, 155, 156, 157, 165–68 Shimao Toshio, xvi, xxxiv, 207; as kamikaze pilot, 170; byōsaimono (sick wife stories), 171, 172, 174–75; compared with Dostoevsky, 171; and the concept of “Christian literature”, 185; marriage with Miho, and her illness, 171, 172, 173; move back to Amami Ōshima, 173; and “paradoxical inversion”, 172; praise for works by Ogawa Kunio, 266; sengo bungaku (postwar literature) and the search for the meaning of life, 171; short stories (dream stories), 181–83 Shimazaki Tōson, xv, xvii, xxii, 99, 101; baptized by Kimura Kumaji, xxiii, 25; and Buddhist notion of sange / zange, 26; graduation from Meiji Gakuin, 25; and Jogaku zasshi, Bungakukai, 13, 25; Kansai “pilgrimage”, 25; and Meiji Jogakkō, xxiii; relationship

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with Bunshō sekai, 26–28; and the “Shinsei incident”, 26; trip to France, 28 Shimazu Omasa, 26 Shimosaki Yūko (Sr.): and Sono Ayako, 316 Shimoyama Tokuji: and Takahashi Takako, 324 Shin kigen (magazine), xxix Shinjin (magazine), xxix shinkyō shōsetsu (mental state novel), 68 Shinsei incident: and Shimazaki Tōson, 26 Shinshichō (journal), 65 shintaishi (new style of poetry), xxii Shintō: and Nagai Takashi, 117, 123 Shirakaba-ha (White Birch Society), xx; and Arishima Takeo, xxvi; researched by Yasuoka Shintarō, 198; and Shiga Naoya, 195 shiren (test of faith), 118, 122, 123, 125, 130, 132 Shirieda Masayuki (Fr.), 316 shishōsetsu (“I” novel): and Naikō no sedai, 263; and new selves developed through former selves, 263; and Shimao Toshio, 172, 185–86; and Sono Ayako 303, 304–5 Shitaya Church, xxii, xxiii Shōda Akira, 286, 288–91 shokuzai (atonement): as theme in Shimao Toshio’s writings, 179 Sono Ayako: and “absence of spirit” (seishin no fuzai), 308; as the Chair of the Nippon Foundation, 316; as founder of JOMAS (The Japan Overseas Missionary Assistance Society), 301, 316; as an imperfect Christian, 302–3; audience with the Pope, 305; and beginning of “Christian” literature, 301; death penalty as theme, 313; early life and education, 300; and futameku (make a commotion), dogimagi (flustered) and doyomeki (a commotion), 306, 314; “God’s Dirty Hands”, 310–11; “love” as central message of Christianity, 304; marriage with Miura Shumon, 300; meaning of “Heavenly Blue”, 313; member of Pontifical Academy of Fine Arts and Letters of the Virtuosi al Pantheon, 316; nominated for Akutagawa Prize, 300; parents, Eijirō and Kiwa, 300; travels abroad, 301, 305, 316; two levels of meaning, 301 Stone, Alfred Russell: victim of the Toya-maru disaster, 228

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Suga Atsuko: and Mirano—kiri no fūkei (Milan: City of Fog), xxxiii

T Tachihara Michizō, 108 Takadō Kaname, xxxv Takahashi Kazumi: husband of Takahashi Takako, 324, 332 (n3) Takahashi Shinji: and “the hansai theory”, 117 Takahashi Takako, xxxiii, 200, 298; at Kyoto University, 320, 321; baptism by Fr. Inoue Yōji, 323; death of husband (Kazumi), 324; and the destructive principles underlying life, 320; early life, 320; and Endō Shūsaku, 323–24; entrance into the Jerusalem Community, 329; and Kyoto, 320 324; move to Paris, 324; Pascha, 326; and the realm of the unconscious, 319, 320; time spent at Carmelite monastery in Hokkaido, 324; return to Japan and time in the Kyoto Carmelite Society, 329 Takamizawa Junko, xxxv Takesaki Yasoo: and Arishima Takeo, 49 Tanaka Chikao: Maria no kubi (The Head of Mary), xxxiv Tanaka Sumie: and Garashia Hosokawa-fujin (Lady Hosokawa), xxxiv Tane no kai (Seed Society), xxxv, 164, 165; and the journal Tane (The Seed), 165 Tanizaki Jun’ichirō: and the “plotless novel” controversy, 6 Tayama Katai: “Meiji bungaku no gaikan” (An Overview of Meiji Literature), 28 Thérèse de Lisieux, 89, 95; and Chiisaki hana (Little Flowers), 90; in Sono Ayako, 303–5 Toda Yoshio: and the “Endō and Inoue Mountain Range”, xxxiii Togawa Shūkotsu, xxii Tokugawa (Edo) period: and Christian affiliation, xv, xx Tokutomi Roka: and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 77 Tokutomi Sohō, 11; and Kokumin no tomo (journal), 13, 16 Tominaga Tokuma (Rev.): and the baptism of Yagi Jūkichi, 85 Toya-maru disaster, 228

Handbook of Japanese Christian Writers

Toyoda Minoru: and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 66, 67, 72 Toyoshima Yoshio: and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 66 Tsuchiya Bunmei: and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 66 Tsuji Kunio, 165 Tsujino Hisanori, xxxi tsumi (sin), 223 Tsunashima Ryōsen, xxix Tsunetō Kyō: and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 65, 66, 70 Tsuruha Nobuko: and Sono Ayako, 301 Tsushima Shūji, see “Dazai Osamu” Tsushima Yūko: and Hi no yama: Yamazaruki (The Mountain of Fire: Records of a Mountain Monkey), xxxiv Tsutsumi Yasuhisa: and diary used by Dazai Osamu, 142 Tsuzurikata jiken (composition incident): and Miura Ayako, 225

U Uchida Roan, 13 Uchimura Kanzō, xxi, 25; Aigin (Selected Poems, 1897), xxvi; and Arishima Takeo, 42; and Ashio copper mine incident, xxv; and Bushido / Confucian principles, 88, 97; Bushidō to Kirisutokyō (Bushido and Christianity), 86; decision to leave his church, 86; early publications, xxv; and the First Higher School of Japan, xxv; and Hokuetsu Gakkan, xxv; influence on Dazai Osamu, 138; influence on later writers, xxviii; inspiration to Yagi Jūkichi, 85, 86, 96–97; Kirisuto shinto no nagusame (Consolations of a Christian), xxv, 45, 86; and “lèse majesté” incident, xxv; and a “masculine Christ”, 86, 91; and Muroga Fumitake, 68, 77; and “Non-church” (mukyōkai) movement, xxv, 30, 86, 137, 185; and Protestant influence, xxxvi; response to Arishima’s apostasy, 49; and Russo-Japanese war, xxv; “samurai Christianity” / “male Christianity”, 91; and Sapporo Agricultural College, xxiv, 44; and the “Sapporo Band”, xxiv; and the “Second coming of Christ” movement, 86–87; Shokan jūnen (Ten Years

Index

of Sensations), 77; Shūkyō to gense (Religion and the Secular World), 77; stern ethical dogma, 90, 91; study in the US, xxv; and Yasuoka Shintarō, 198; Yo wa ikani shite Kirisuto shinto to narishi ka (How I Became a Christian*), xxv, 198 Uemura Masahisa, xxi, xxii, 25; baptism of, xxii; and James Ballagh, xxii; and Meiji Jogakkō, xxiii; and Protestant influence, xxxvi; and scholarship, xxii; and Shitaya Church, 31; and Tokyo Union Seminary, xxii; and Tokyo Young Men’s Christian Association (Tokyo YMCA), xxii; and works of Pascal, 123

W Wakamatsu Shizuko: and translation work, xxiii Wakamatsu Yoshiki: model used in Kaga Otohiko’s writings, 288 Watanabe Kazuko: and Okareta basho de sakinasai (Bloom where you’re planted), xxxiii Whitney, Willis Norton (Dr.): and daughter, Adelaide, 6, 17 Woodworth, Alonzo D. (Rev.), 17

Y Yabe Toyoko: and Miura Ayako, 224 Yagi Jūkichi, xxviii; agape and eros, 88; change in spiritual direction, 89; death at age 29, 86; early life, 85; God as “abba” 92–93; image of a “stern” God, 87–88; and Jōdo Buddhist tradition, 91; life in Kashiwa (Higashi Katsushika Junior High School), 85; life in Mikage, Hyōgo Prefecture (Mikage Normal School), 85; marriage with Shimada Tomiko, 85; “relaxing in the warm embrace of God”, 93; search for a “maternal” God, 90, 91, 97; and Uchimura Kanzō, 85, 96–97 Yajima Kajiko: and Miura Ayako, 213 Yamagishi Gaishi, 138–39, 141 Yamaji Aizan: and debate with Kitamura Tōkoku, 14–15; and essays on “commoners” in the Tokugawa period, 13, 14 Yamamoto Kiyoshi: and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 65 Yamamoto Yūzō: and Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, 66

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Yamamuro Gunpei: and the Salvation Army, xxiii Yamamuro Kieko, xxiii Yanaihara Tadao, xxv, 65, 72 Yashiro Seiichi, xxxiii, 200 Yashiro Yukio: and Hori Tatsuo, 107; Jutai kokuchi (The Annunciation of Mary), 107 Yasuoka Shōtarō, xxxiii; autobiographical short stories, 196; awarded Akutagawa Prize, 194; damage to self-identity due to the war, 192–93, 194, 196; and Endō Shūsaku, 189, 191, 199, 200, 203–4; experience of racial prejudice, 195; final years, 205; and Fr. Inoue Yōji, 189, 199, 200, 205; and Hiraoka Mitsuko (wife), 194, 200; and illness, 189–90, 193, 194; literature as protection, 193–94; mother’s

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illness, 194; relationship with father, Akira, 195; religious longing of, 190; residence in the US (Nashville, TN), 195, 198, 201; wartime experience, 193; and Yasuoka Haruko (daughter), 191, 200, 201, 205 Yokohama Band, xxi–xxiv Yokohama Eiwa Gakkō, 42 Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko, xxx–xxxi; xxxvi Yoshino Sakuzō, 30 Yubi (The Finger) (journal), 164

Z zange (penitence), 26, 40 (n2), 179 zenkoku kyōdō dendō (joint missionary efforts), 30

Handbook of Japanese Christian Writers

Index of titles Akutagawa Ryūnosuke: “Ababababa” (Granny), 67; “Aki” (Autumn*), 67; “Akuma” (The Devil), 74; “Anchū mondō” (A Dialogue in the Dark), 79; “Aru aho no isshō” (The Life of a Fool*), 69, 79; “Bunshō” (A Letter), 67; “Butōkai” (The Ball*), 67; “Byōshō zakki” (Miscellaneous Notes from my Bedside), 76; “Daidōji Shinsuke no hansei” (Daidōji Shinsuke: The Early Years*), 68; “Genkaku Sanbō” (Genkaku’s Mountain House), 68; “Gesaku zanmai” (Absorbed in Letters*), 67; “Haguruma” (Cogwheels*), xxviii, 68, 77, 78, 79, 82, 102–103; “Hana” (The Nose*), 66; “Hitokure no tsuchi” (A Clod of Soil*), 67; “Hōkyōnin no shi” (The Death of a Martyr*), 67, 69, 74, 80; “Hōonki” (Returning a Favor*), 76; “Imogayu” (Yam Gruel*), 67; “Itojo oboegaki” (The Diary of Maid Ito*), 76; “Jashūmon” (Heresy*), 75; “Jigokuhen” (Hell Screen*), 67; “Juriano Kichinosuke”, 75; “Kamigami no bishō” (Smiles of the Gods*), 67, 76, 80, 81, 100, 111; “Kappa” (Kappa), 68; “Karenoshō” (Withered Fields*), 67; “Kirishitohoro shōnin-den” (The Legend of St Christopher), 70; “Kirisuto ni kansuru danpen” (Fragments about Christ), 71, 79; “Kokui seibo” (Black Robed Mary*), 75–76; “Kumo no ito” (The Spider’s Thread*), 67, 82; “Nagasaki shōhin” (Nagasaki Trinkets), 76; “Nankin no Kirisuto” (The Christ of Nanking*), 67, 76, 80; “Nenmatsu no ichinichi” (A Day towards the End of the Year), 68; “Ogata Ryōsai oboegaki” (Dr. Ogata Ryōsai: Memorandum*), 74; “Ogin*”, 76, 80; “O-jigi” (The Greeting*), 67; “Oshino*”, 76; “Rashōmon*”, 66; “Roku no miya no himegimi” (The Lady, Roku-no-miya*), 67; “Rōkyūjin” (A Mad Old Man), 71, 79; “Rushiheru” (Lucifer*), 74; “Samayoeru Yudaijin” (The Wandering Jew), 70; “Samusa” (The Cold), 67; “Seihō no hito” (The Man from the West), 69, 77, 78–79, 103,

Index of titles

113; “Shinkirō”, 68; “Shiro” (White), 82; “Shōnen” (The Youth), 67; “Shukin” (The Handkerchief*), 67; “Sobyō sandai” (Three Sketches), 77; “Sodomu no yoru” (A Night in Sodom), 68; “Tabako to akuma” (Tobacco and the Devil*), 70, 79; “Tenkibo” (Death Register*), 68; “Torokko” (The Truck), 67; “Toshishun” (Tu Tze-chun*), 67; “Umi no hotori” (At the Seashore*), 68; “Yabu no naka” (In the Grove*), 67; “Yasukichi no techō” (Yasukichi’s Notebook), 67; “Yūwaku: aru shinariō” (Temptation: A Certain Scenario), 76; “Zoku Seihō no hito” (The Man from the West: The Sequel*), xxxvi, 69, 79, 103 Arishima Takeo: Aru Onna (A Certain Woman*), xxvii, 42; Daikōzui no mae (Before the Deluge), 55–57; Kain no matsuei (The Descendant of Cain*), 50–52; Kurara no shukke (Clara’s Consecration), 52–55; Samuson to Derira (Samson and Delilah), 57–59; Sanbukyoku (A Triptych), 55; Seisan (The Last Supper), 60 Dazai Osamu: “Asa” (Morning*), 149; Bannen (Final Years), 142; “Binanshi to tabako” (Handsome Devils and Cigarettes*), 143, 149; “Chansu” (Chance), 143; “Chichi” (Father), 143, 149; “Chikusei” (Blue Bamboo*), 142; “Chikyūzu” (World Map), 138; “Das Gemaine” (Das Gemeine*), 138; “Fugaku hyakkei” (One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji), 142; Fuyu no hanabi (Fireworks in Winter), 143, 147–48; “Guddobai” (Goodbye*), 143; “Haha” (Mother*), 150; Haru no kareha (Dried Leaves in Spring), 143, 147–48; “Hashire Merosu” (Run, Melos!*), 142; “Hekigan takuhatsu” (Blue-Eyed Religious Mendicant), 139; Hi no tori (Firebird), 146; “HUMAN LOST”, xix, 141, 142; “Inakamono” (Country Bumpkin), 141; “Jinushi ichidai” (A

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Landlord’s Life), 138; “Joseito” (Schoolgirl*), 142; “Jūgonenkan” (Fifteen Years), 143, 146; “Kakekomi uttae” (Heed My Plea*), 142, 144–45; “Kaze no tayori” (Rumor Has It), 142, 144, 145; “Kunō no nenkan” (An Almanac of Pain*), 143, 146, 147; “Kyōō fujin” (The Hospitable Lady), 150; “Mangan” (A Promise Fulfilled*), 142; “Meri Kurisumasu” (Merry Christmas*), 143, 149, 150; “Mukan naraku” (Bottomless Hell), 138; Ningen shikkaku (No Longer Human*), 142, 144, 150; Ōtō (Cherries), 142, 143, 150; Otogi zōshi (Fairy Tales), 142; Pandora no hako (Pandora’s Box*), 142, 143, 146; Seigi to bishō (Integrity and Smiles), 142, 144, 145–46; “Seihintan” (The Chrysanthemum Spirit*), 142; Shayō (The Setting Sun*), 142, 149, 150, 151; Shin Hamuretto (A New Hamlet*), 142; “Shin’yū kōkan” (The Courtesy Call*), 143, 148–49; “Shinshaku shokoku-banashi” (A New Interpretation of Tales from Various Provinces), 142; “Tokatonton” (The Sound of Hammering*), 143, 148, 149; “Tokyo hakkei” (Eight Views of Tokyo*), 142, 146; Tsugaru, 142; “Udaijin Sanetomo” (Sanetomo, Minister of the Right), 142; “Viyon no tsuma” (Villon’s Wife*), 143; “Wataritori” (Birds of Passage), 149–50 Endo Shūsaku: “Chichi no shūkyō, haha no shūkyō: Maria Kannon ni tsuite” (Paternal Religion, Maternal Religion: On the Maria Kannon), 243; Chinmoku (Silence*), xxxii, 100, 111, 232, 244–47; Fukai kawa (Deep River*), 236, 244, 254–57; Gendai Nihon kirisutokyō bungaku zenshū (Collected Works of Modern Japanese Christian Literature), coedited with Shiina Rinzō, 165; “Haha naru mono” (Mothers*), 233; “Hori Tatsuo oboegaki” (Memorandum on Hori Tatsuo), xxxi, 113; Iesu no shōgai (A Life of Jesus*), 248, 249; “Kamigami to kami to” (The Gods and God), 113, 236; “Katorikku sakka no mondai” (The Issues Confronting the Catholic Author), 237, 254; Kiiroi hito (Yellow Man*), 237–38; Nanji mo, mata (And You, Too*), 237; Obakasan (Wonderful Fool*), 240; Onna no isshō I: Kiku no baai (Kiku’s Prayer*), 251–52; Onna no isshō II: Sachiko no baai (Sachiko*), 251–52; Samurai (The Samurai*), 236, 249–51, 253; Shikai no hotori (Beside the Dead Sea), 248, 249; Shiroi hito (White Man*), 237, 254; Sukyandaru

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(Scandal*), 236, 244, 253–54; “Tsugi-tsugi to yūjin ga jusen suru no o mite” (Watching My Friends Get Baptized One after Another), xxxii, 200; Umi to dokuyaku (The Sea and Poison*), 239, 254; Watashi ga suteta onna (The Girl I Left Behind*), xvi, 240–42 Hori Tatsuo: “Emao no tabibito” (The Travelers on the Road to Emmaus), 99, 104; “Geijutsu no tame no geijutsu” (Art for Art’s Sake), 104; “Jūgatsu” (October), 101; “Kaze tachinu” (The Wind has Risen*), 104–6; “Ki no jūjika” (The Wooden Cross), 104, 108–110; Naoko, 110; “Sei kazoku” (The Holy Family), 99, 104, 106; “Yuki no ue no ashiato” (Footprints in the Snow), 99, 111–12, 113 Kaga Otohiko: Ento (Capital Ablaze, vol. 3 of The Eternal City), 294; Eien no miyako (The Eternal City), 285, 292, 294, 295, 296; Furandoru no fuyu (Winter in Flanders), 287; Junkyōsha (The Martyr), 294, 295–96, 297; Kaerazaru natsu (The Summer of No Return), 286; Kaga Otohiko jiden (Autobiography of Kaga Otohiko), 294; Kagaku to shūkyō to shi (Science, Religion, and Death), 294; Kirisutokyō e no michi (The Road to Christianity), 294; Kiro (Crossroads, vol. 1 of The Eternal City), 294; Kumo no miyako (Cloud Capital), 294; “Kyokugen no shi to shūkyō” (The Extremity of Death and Religion), 286; Ogurai mori (Shaded Forest, vol. 2 of The Eternal City), 294; Seisho no daichi (The Lands of the Bible), 294; Senkoku (The Verdict), 285, 286 288–91, 297; Takayama Ukon, 294–95, 297; Zabieru to sono deshi (Xavier and His Disciples), 294 Kitamura Tōkoku: “Banbutsu no koe to shijin” (The Voices of Creation and the Poet), 19; “Ensei shika to josei” (Pessimistic Poets and Women, 1892), xxiii, 10–11; Hōraikyoku (Mount Hōrai*), 7–9; “Issekikan” (The View One Night), 19; “Isshu no jōi shisō” (A Type of Xenophobia), 12; “Jinsei ni aiwataru to wa nan no ii zo” (What Does “Relevant to Life” Mean?), xxiv, 16, 17; “Jisei ni kan ari” (Impressions of the Times), 6; “Kakujin shinkyūnai no hikyū” (The Secret Temple within the Temple of Each Person’s Heart), 14; “Kokoro no shikatsu o ronzu” (On the

Handbook of Japanese Christian Writers

Life and Death of the Heart), 14; “Matsushima ni oite Bashō-ō o yomu” (Reading Bashō at Matsushima), 16; “Moku no ichiji” (The One Word “Silence”), 14; “Nakan ka warawan ka” (Shall I Cry or shall I Laugh?), 6; “Netsujō” (Earnestness), 19; “San’an zakki” (Notes from a Mountain Hut), 14; “Shinchiren” (The Lotuses in the Pond of the Heart), 14; “Shukkonkyō” (The Magic Mirror), 13; “Soshū no shi” (The Prisoner), 5; “Takai ni taisuru kannen” (The Idea of Another World), 13; “Tokugawa-shi jidai no heiminteki risō” (Commoner Ideals in the Age of the Tokugawas), 13; “Tōsei bungaku no ushio moyō” (Current Trends in Literature), 6 Miura Ayako: Ai no kisai (A Genius of Love), 213; Chiiroba-sensei monogatari (The Story of Our Pastor, the Young Donkey), 213; Hikari aru uchi ni: shinkō nyūmon-hen (While There is Still Light: An Introduction to Faith), 216, 228; Hitsujigaoka, xxxv; Hosokawa Gracia-fujin (Lady Gracia: A Samurai Wife’s Love, Strife, and Faith*), 213; Hyōten (Freezing Point*), xxxv, 207, 209–10, 228; “Ishikoro no sakebi” (Cries of the Pebbles), 225; Ishikoro no uta (Song of a Pebble), 225; Jūkō (Muzzle), 211, 216, 224–28; Kono tsuchi no utsuwa o mo: kekkon-hen (This Clay Jar Also: On Marriage), 216; “Kuroi kawa no nagare” (Flow of a Dark River), 224; Kusa no uta (Song of the Grass), 225; Michi ariki (The Wind is Howling*), xxxv, 211, 214, 216, 219, 221, 228; Michi ariki: seishun-hen (There is a Way: Youth), 216; “Ningen kono yowaki mono” (How Weak we Humans Are), 220, 223; “Samaria no onna no yō ni” (Like the Samaritan Woman), 220–21, 222; Shin’yaku seisho nyūmon (An Introduction to the New Testament), 215; Shiokari tōge (Shiokari Pass), xvi, xxxv, 213–15, 228; “Tsumi to wa nani ka” (What is Sin?), 220, 221; Ware yowakereba (If I am Weak), 213; Yū ari, asa ari (There was Evening, and There was Morning), 213; Zoku Hyōten (Freezing Point II), 209–12 Nagai Takashi: Itoshi ko yo (My Precious Child); 133; Kono ko o nokoshite (Leaving My Beloved Children Behind*); 118, 125, 126, 133; Nagasaki no kane (The Bells of Nagasaki); xxxiv, 115–25 (passim), 131; “Shiro bara” (White Roses), 133

Index of titles

Ogawa Kunio: Aporon no shima (The Island of Apollo), 266; “Aporonasu nite” (At Apollonas), 269; Aru seisho (A Certain Bible), xxxiv, 266, 271, 275–80; “Budō no eda” (Grape Branches), 270; “Dōin jidai” (The Age of Mobilization), 266; “Kareki” (Deadwood), 269, 270; “Mandoraki nite” (At Mandraki), 270, 271–73; “Shūjin-bune” (The Prison Ship), 273–75; “Tōkai no hotori” (Beside the Eastern Sea), 266; “Umikara no hikari” (“Budō no eda”, renamed), 270; Shiina Rinzō: Akai kodokusha (The Lonely Red), 157, 162; Chōekinin no kokuhatsu (A Prisoner’s Indictment), 169–70; Daisan no shōgen (A Third Witness*), 164; Eien naru joshō (The Eternal Preface), 159; “Fukkatsu” (Resurrection), 164; Gendai Nihon kirisutokyō bungaku zenshū (Collected Works of Modern Japanese Christian Literature), coedited with Endō Shūsaku, 165; “Haha no zō” (An Image of my Mother), 162; “Hitsujikai no hangyaku—Seitōka ni tsuite” (Rebellion of the Shepherd: Regarding Justification), 164; Jiyū no kanata de (In a Place Beyond Freedom), 162–64; “Jōjō shakuryō sezu” (Not Taking Extenuating Circumstances into Consideration), 164; Kaikō (The Encounter), 157, 162, 165–66; “Kami no dōkeshi” (A Fool for God), 162; “Magudara no Maria” (Mary Magdalene), 162; “Nishi ni higashi ni” (To the East, To the West), 157; “Omoki nagare no naka ni” (In the Sluggish Stream*), 158; “Shimaosa no ie” (The House of the Island Chief), 157; “Shin’ya no shuen” (Midnight Banquet*), xxxiv–xxxv, 154, 157–58; “Shitto” (Envy), 162; Shōsetsu Matai-den (A Fictional Gospel of St. Matthew), 162, 164; Shūdensha dassen su (The Last Train Jumps the Tracks), 164; Sono hi made (Until that Day), 159, 162; Unga (The Canal), 162; Utsukushii onna (The Beautiful Woman), 154, 162, 165–68; Watashi no seisho monogatari (My Bible Stories), 155, 161, 162, 165; Yanushi no jōkyō—Fukkatsu no parodi (The Landlord Visits the Capital: A Parody of the Resurrection), 164 Shimao Toshio: Hi no utsuroi (The Days Go By), 183; Shi no toge (The Sting of Death), xxxiv, 172, 175–80, 184; “Shisetsuroku” (A Record of my Incoherent Thoughts), 174; “Tsuma e no

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inori” (A Prayer to my Wife), 181; “Ware fukaki fuchi yori” (From out of the Depths*), 171, 175; “Yume no naka de no nichijō” (Everyday Life in a Dream*), 182–83 Shimazaki Tōson: Hakai (The Broken Commandment*), 26; Haru (Spring), 25; “Katatsumuri” (The Snail), 25; “Rakubaishū” (Collection of Fallen Plums), 25; Sakura no mi no juku suru toki (When the Cherries Ripen), 26, 31–39, 101; Shinsei (New Life), 25; “Wakanashū” (Collection of Young Herbs), 25 Sono Ayako: Aika (Lamentations*), Arabu no kokoro (The Arab Heart), 305; Dare no tame ni aisuru ka (For Whom Do You Love), 305; “Enrai no kyakutachi” (Guests from Afar), 300; “Etoraruka misaki” (Cape Etoraruka), 303; Fuzai no heya (The Empty Room), 303, 305–8, 309, 314; Kami no yogoreta te (Watcher from the Shore*), xxxiii, 308–13, 314; Kiseki (Miracles*), 301–5, 309; Kizutsuita ashi (The Bruised Reed), 301, 303; “Kōkichi no andon” (Kōkichi’s Paper Lantern), 313; Mumeihi (A Nameless Monument), 301; Rio Gurande (Rio Grande), 301; Tenjō no ao (No Reason for Murder), 313; Toki no tomatta akanbō (The Babies for Whom Time Stopped), 316; Watashi no naka no seisho (The Bible Within Me), 305 Takahashi Takako: Arano (The Wasteland*), 326; Bōmeisha (The Exile), 330; Botsuraku fūkei (A Ruined Landscape), 321–22; Hajimari e (Toward the Origin), 329; Ikari no ko (Child of Wrath), 327–28; Kimi no naka no mishiranu onna (The Unknown Woman Within You), 330; Kirei na hito (A Beautiful Person), 330–31; “Ningyō ai” (Doll Love*), 326; Sora no hate made (To the End of the Sky), 321, 322–23; Ten no mizuumi (The Heavenly Lake), 326; Tochi no chikara (The Power of Place), 329; “Uchinaru shiro ni tsuite omou koto” (Reflections on The Interior Castle), 329; Yosōi seyo, waga tamashii yo (Adorn Yourself, O Dear Soul), 327, 328–29; Yūwakusha (The Tempter), 324–25

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Yagi Jūkichi: “Aki no hikari” (Light of Autumn*), 94; Aki no hitomi (Autumn Eyes), 86, 87, 93, 94; “Asobi” (Play), 96; “Dorufuin no uta” (The Song of the Dolphin), 87; “Iki o korose” (Hold your Breath*), 87; “Ishi” (The Stone*), 94; “Ishikure” (A Stone*), 94; “Junjō o shitaite” (Yearning for a Pure Heart), 87; “Kami o omou aki” (Thinking of God in Autumn), 87; Ketsuraku shigun (Collection of Missing Poems), 90; “Mari to buriki no koma” (The Ball and the Tinplate Top), 89; “Mazushiki mono no uta” (Poem of a Pitiful Soul), 90; Mazushiki shinto (A Humble Believer), 93; Mi-na o yobu (Calling on His Name), 90; Mono-ochitsuita fuyu no machi (The Quiet Town in Winter), 88; Osanaki ayumi (Childlike Steps), 88; Shinkō shihen (Psalms of Faith), 96; “Shiroi eda” (A White Twig*), 87; “Shizuka naru fūkei” (The Silent Landscape), 87; “Soboku na koto” (A Naïve Harp*), 96; “Sora o sasu kozue” (Twigs Pointing to Sky*), 87; “Tsuki” (The Moon*), 95; “Tsurugi o motsu mono” (A Man with a Sword*), 87; Yasuoka Shōtarō: Amerika kanjō ryokō (A Sentimental Journey in America), 195; Boku no Shōwa-shi (My Shōwa History), 202; “Garasu no kutsu” (Glass Slipper*), 190, 194; Hashire Tomahōku (Run, Tomahawk!), 201; “Inki na tanoshimi” (Gloomy Pleasures*), 194; “Inu” (Dog), 202–3; “Jinguru beru” (Jingle Bells*), 194; Kaihen no kōkei (A View by the Sea*), 194; “Kōyō kara aoba e” (From Yellow Leaves to Green Leaves), 200; “‘Kuchioshisa to iukoto”’ (About Regrettable Decay), 198; “‘Kurikaeshi’ no yami no naka de” (In the “Recurring” Gloom), 201; Maku ga orite kara (After the Curtain Falls), 201– 2, 204; Ryūritan (Tales of Homeless Wandering), 191–92, 196–98, 202; Shi to no taimen (Facing Death), 204; Shiga Naoya shiron (My Personal Interpretation of Shiga Naoya), 196; Shiga Naoyaden (The Life of Shiga Naoya), 196; Warera naze Kirisutokyōto to narishi ka (Why Did We Become Christians?), 205; “Watashi jishin no shōsha” (My Own Little Hut), 201

Handbook of Japanese Christian Writers