The World of Natsume Sôseki by Takehisa Iijima; James M. Vardaman,Review by: Sara DillonThe Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Apr., 1988), pp. 123-127Published by: American Association of Teachers of JapaneseStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/489345 .

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Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese

Japanese mon or textile patterns. For a hardback book these days, the

price is modest. It deserves the broadest readership. They have a treat in store.

THE WORLD OF NATSUME SOSEKI, edited by Takehisa Iijima and James M. Vardaman, Jr. Tokyo: Kinseido, 1987. Pp. v + 326. Y4500.

Reviewed by Sara Dillon

It may be only cultural inclination, or it may after all have some- thing to do with more universal "truth," but I personally tend to think of those modern Japanese writers who have grappled openly with the painful issues of cultural influence (welcome and unwelcome) as being the genuinely "great" ones. I am not necessarily referring to those who en-

gage in cultural polemics of any kind, but rather to those who reflect in their work the complexity and ambiguity of modem cultural upheaval in

Japan. It is, indeed, through such work that we have been able to dismiss any simplistic notions about the direction such changes will or ought to take. Certainly Natsume S6seki was one of the earliest of these intel- lectual pioneers, and he has lost nothing of his artistic stature over time. Since his knowledge of the outside world acted as both inspiration and irritant to him as artist, it would be impossible (and obviously unde- sirable) to attempt to identify any set view of history and of cultural influence held by S6seki. What makes his life and work so continually interesting is that he never retreated into any sort of culture-bound, aestheticized version of the "Japanese man of letters," and certainly never succeeded in hiding (if such was ever his intention) his own com- plexes. S6seki was not primarily a philosophical or abstract writer; on the contrary, his work still displays a brilliance and power to move not attributable to anything but his own genius, however problematic a notion that might be for criticism at the present time. The scope and moral rigor of S6seki's work, in fact, become more apparent as his period recedes in time, particularly when we see his work in the context of his contemporaries, whose sense of self and of history seem pale and hazy by comparison. In this sense, a book which attempts to present S6seki's

Japanese mon or textile patterns. For a hardback book these days, the

price is modest. It deserves the broadest readership. They have a treat in store.

THE WORLD OF NATSUME SOSEKI, edited by Takehisa Iijima and James M. Vardaman, Jr. Tokyo: Kinseido, 1987. Pp. v + 326. Y4500.

Reviewed by Sara Dillon

It may be only cultural inclination, or it may after all have some- thing to do with more universal "truth," but I personally tend to think of those modern Japanese writers who have grappled openly with the painful issues of cultural influence (welcome and unwelcome) as being the genuinely "great" ones. I am not necessarily referring to those who en-

gage in cultural polemics of any kind, but rather to those who reflect in their work the complexity and ambiguity of modem cultural upheaval in

Japan. It is, indeed, through such work that we have been able to dismiss any simplistic notions about the direction such changes will or ought to take. Certainly Natsume S6seki was one of the earliest of these intel- lectual pioneers, and he has lost nothing of his artistic stature over time. Since his knowledge of the outside world acted as both inspiration and irritant to him as artist, it would be impossible (and obviously unde- sirable) to attempt to identify any set view of history and of cultural influence held by S6seki. What makes his life and work so continually interesting is that he never retreated into any sort of culture-bound, aestheticized version of the "Japanese man of letters," and certainly never succeeded in hiding (if such was ever his intention) his own com- plexes. S6seki was not primarily a philosophical or abstract writer; on the contrary, his work still displays a brilliance and power to move not attributable to anything but his own genius, however problematic a notion that might be for criticism at the present time. The scope and moral rigor of S6seki's work, in fact, become more apparent as his period recedes in time, particularly when we see his work in the context of his contemporaries, whose sense of self and of history seem pale and hazy by comparison. In this sense, a book which attempts to present S6seki's

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Volume 22, Number 1

"world" in all its complexity (and often contradiction) is certainly to be welcomed. The essays in this volume cover a great many aspects of S6seki's life and work, from detailed examinations of individual novels through overviews of S6seki's thought. The essays contrast with and

complement one another, leading the reader eventually to a sense of S6seki as both bleak and comic, dry and passionate, courageous and

escapist, progressive and feudalistic. It is S6seki's intellectual ambition itself which is touching, his attempt to synthesize all that he had

experienced and imagined. Indeed, as reflected in the essays, S6seki's almost Herculean effort and high moral purpose are exhausting even to consider. One never has the sense that S6seki relied upon any artistic "formula," or that he paused at any point in his development to repro- duce something he already knew he could do with ease. The S6seki reflected in these essays appears to be continually challenging himself, never at ease either spiritually or artistically.

No essay in this collection presents any startling new theoretical

approach to S6seki. Rather, taken as a collection, the essays seek to inform us of "what we need to know" about S6seki in the most basic terms. The opening essay, Maria Flutsch's "An Introduction to S6seki's Chinese Poetry," presents us with a helpful introduction not only to the kind of Chinese poetry S6seki wrote, but also to why he returned so often to this form. Her explanation of the manner in which S6seki sought release from worldly frustration through writing kanshi is clearly useful to readers who wish fully to understand, for instance, S6seki's Three Cornered World. Yet even as S6seki pursued this ffiryi ideal, he was far from being intellectually evasive. Another side of S6seki's mind is outlined in "S6seki, His Scholar-Critic Years," by Toshiaki Tsukamoto. As a review of S6seki's self-doubts with regard to his ability actually to understand the English literature to which he had devoted so much

scholarly attention, and as an introduction to the nature of Soseki's literary theorizing, this essay is also a highly useful one. Tsukamoto draws our attention to S6seki's ever-expanding awareness, not only of foreign literature, but also of how this foreign literature compared with and, inevitably, challenged that of the Japanese tradition.

One of the finest, and most comprehensive, essays in the collection is that by Jay Rubin, entitled "The Evil and the Ordinary in S6seki's Fiction." Rubin is able in a short space to demonstrate most convincingly why S6seki should be considered "a major voice of the twentieth cen- tury," and a thoroughly "modern" writer. After explaining S6seki's particular conception of the way in which all human beings may

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Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese

"become" evil, Rubin goes on to show how this human "unreliability" functions as a literary and philosophical force in S6seki's various novels. Rubin devotes the greatest space to evaluating the novel Kofu, the

significance of which has apparently eluded most critics up until the

present. S6seki's manner of constructing a narrative, denying a "clear and centered meaning" to reality and the human personality, Rubin asserts, has much in common with Western writers who would not appear until

long after S6seki's death. It is this intellectual daring that established S6seki as "Japan's great modem writer." Rubin's identifying the "earth- bound" tragedy contained in S6seki's notion of "human unreliability" as the central feature of that daring is enlightening.

Three essays deal especially with S6seki and women. The first is Yoko McClain's "Soseki's Views on Women Writers." McClain has

investigated the precise nature of S6seki's feeling toward women writers, and discovered that he preferred works by Western women of the past to those by Japanese women of his own time. Her detailed account of how S6seki reacted to reading Jane Austen and George Eliot is highly reveal-

ing, and it is quite impossible to disagree with her conclusion that "so far as his view on women was concerned, [Soseki] still seems to have been a man of the past who believed that men were intrinsically superior to women."

The second, Alan Turney's "S6seki, Women and Hininjo" examines the reappearance throughout Soseki's fiction of the "fascinating woman" character, and how his concept of "hininj6" came to control his narrative stance toward these "unattainable" women. "Hininj6," as the subtraction (in both S6seki's personal life and fiction, apparently) of an emotional, involved response to these women, Turney sees as an attempt on Soseki's

part (and, of course, that of his male characters) to "avoid temptation." This attempt is traced to Soseki's own unhappy experiences and great fear of betrayal, a fear which kept him from ever "giving himself up to a

great passion," or from describing such a letting go in his fictional works.

Turney believes that it was S6seki's personal observation of betrayal, egotism, and triangular romantic situations which became the direct source for the moral concept of "hininjo," which in turn became a deep and recurrent informing principle for his literary work.

The third, Lynne Kutsukake's "Cherchez la Femme," gives an

analysis of the enigmatic character Mineko who appears in Soseki's novel Sanshiro. Kutsukake sees this novel as one which reflects Soseki's transition from the world of satire to that of tragedy, standing between

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Volume 22, Number 1

the "social world" of the early works and that of the "dark and isolated world of the human mind" which will become so prominent in the later fiction. We are shown how Sanshir6, fresh from the country, encounters "modem life" in the person of Mineko, an Ibsenesque woman, both angel and temptress, and personification of the light/dark contrast which is such a favorite motif of S6seki's. Mineko as a character, Kutsukake writes, has been "created out of a combination of European fin de siecle imagery and ancient Japanese archetype." Kutsukake points up Soseki's heavy identification of Mineko with death and eternity, although the ultimate significance of this association is left in its original mystery.

Takehisa Iijima's "Criticism of Twentieth Century Civilization in Wagahai wa neko de aru" focuses on ideas fundamental to understanding Soseki's philosophical stance: the moral inferiority of modem industrial society, and the hypocritical egotism of human beings. Iijima shows how S6seki's feeling of enmity towards modem materialist culture is reflected in his literary forms and style.

Other more specialized essays include Kii Nakano's assessment of Christian influences on S6seki in "Christian Milieu and S6seki's Sanshiro and Mon," James Vardaman's exploration of the way money operates within S6seki's vision in "Money in Meian," and Peter Milard's historical and textual comparison of S6seki and Shakespeare in the essay of that title. Detailed textual analysis is to be found in "Point of View in Higan sugi made" by Frank Kavanagh, and in "On the Point of View in Meian" by Sakuko Matsui. These essays are well worth reading, as is Etsuko Nakayama's "Images of Conflict in Natsume S6seki's Meian," which brings the reader through the events of that novel while isolating its many "unquiet" metaphors.

The essay by Edwin McClellan, "The Language of Michikusa," rewards us with far more than is hinted at in the title. McClellan dis- cusses S6seki's experimentalism in narrative techniques and concludes that despite Soseki's undeniable genius, it is the very richness of his virtuosity which can become "overwhelming." Yet even in an intensely private novel like Michikusa, McClellan states, S6seki never loses his sensitivity to the social context in which his characters must exist. I am in complete agreement with McClellan's contention that, in comparison with a writer like Shimazaki T6son, S6seki's scope and vision are far more comprehensive. McClellan traces the way in which, through a par- ticular use of language, Soseki "transcends" the naturalism of his time and lends clear, unmistakable significance to his characters' gestures.

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Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese 127

"So often in Japanese literature of [Soseki's] time, 'alienation'-or whatever it was called then-is some kind of vague concept that is indistinguishable from romantic loneliness," McClellan writes. Yet Soseki's metaphors, he argues, have clear social contexts, and it is this difference in breadth and clarity which account for his literary greatness.

As the diversity of this essay collection, and indeed the very fact that it has appeared, indicate, the complexities of S6seki's literary output must continue to invite much critical attention. The numerous

approaches taken within this book alone-historical, social, psycho- logical, linguistic and so forth-suggest areas of investigation in S6seki studies yet to be fully covered. Particularly as a recognition of S6seki's stature and influence, the collection is a significant contribution to the study of modern Japanese literature in the West.

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