Japn 314 Auestad on Sōseki

From her Preface:

She opens with an epigraph from a book of literary criticism where the author is reminding us that when we see a "house" in a novel, there really isn't anything concrete there: it is just "a cultural artifact, a cultural phenomenon with recognizable signs" which tell us what kind of house it is, the social class it is linked to, etc. But all these signs depend on Ideology--the vast signifying system that makes things mean something to a culture and to individuals in that culture--so it probably makes sense to clue ourselves in to that ideology or system of signs. To a certain extent, the Burch reading has already alerted us to the value of doing just that.

Auestad feels, then, that the value of a Sôseki novel is enhanced when we understand how the "social-historical reality [that he presents to us] was deeply affected by the great paradigm shifts in the wake of Meiji modernization." In other words, besides being "about" several other important issues, this novel is also about the Japanese experience of "becoming modern."

Quoting Frederic Jameson, she says that Sôseki's works can be thought of as a "great laboratory experiment," one that brings specific features of Japanese modernity into focus, features that are "concretized in certain objects and institutions," because this is what made his work speak to Japanese readers of his own day.

 

Saying that she wants to "restore to the surface of the text some of the buried socio-historical realities in Sôseki's work which made it what is was to Japanese readers at the time," Auestad further points to these certain "objects and institutions." What do you think? Can you name a few of these "objects and institutions"that appear in the novel? How would we go about restoring these socio-historical realities?

 

If Kokoro is, indeed, a kind of great "Laboratory Experiment," on what aspects of Japan's modernity do you think the text is asking us to focus our attention?

 

From the Introduction (on the Second Page of the PDF):

Here, Auested brings up contemporary literary critic Karatani Kōjin who wants readers to alter their view of Sôseki, and the way we usually think of him. He argues that we should not regard him so much as a "champion of the modern"--something most critics take for granted--but as a skeptic who did not see the European novel form as the inevitable model that had to be followed by Japanese authors. Interesting idea.

Auestad has this to say about Karatani's ideas:

The standard view, which posited the nineteenth-century European novel as the inevitable model, thus missed an opportunity to appreciate Sôseki's genuine accomplishment, which lies elsewhere. In Karatani's view, it is his extraordinary ability to see the historicity of the modern in the European novel, which distinguishes him from his contemporaries.

What do you think this suggestion means, i.e., that more than his fellow Japanese writers, Sôseki understood the "historicity" of the modern Europen realist novel?

 

 

Does it perhaps mean that the novel was tied to a particular time and place and sought to perform certain tasks appropriate to the specific needs of that venue?

In which case, if Karatani is right about this, we should not expect the Japanese version of the modern novel to do the same things that the European version does. Apparently, Karatani's argument is that Sôseki totally gets this.

Of course, this brings to mind some of Burch's admonitions that we SHOULD NOT expect the Japanese version of the novel to necessarily follow the same path as the European one.

 

Therefore, Auestad sees Sôseki as "one of the few writers who was not bound by the straitjacket of the realist novel, which haunted many Japanese writers around the turn of the century. As a result, he was able to freely explore Japanese narrative potentialities both new and traditional, cutting across diverse genres in a way that was not possible for his naturalist colleagues."

Doesn't this mean that he was free to open up some diverse narrative possibilities that his contemporaries may have taken a pass on because they might not seem sufficiently "realistic?" Why would they do that?

Well, it is quite true that Japanese writers did get caught up in western crazes and were often eager to adapt the latest literary fashions that Euopeans and Americans were in to. "Naturalism," which features a kind of gritty, even shocking, hard-nosed realism, was a very popular European literary genre that was very much in vogue at this time.

Followers of Naturalism--which was heralded by writers like Emile Zola, etc., and was also very popular in Japan--were therefore often bound by models of "realistic description"--even to the point of being shocking!--but Sôseki did not necessarily feel obligated to follow them.

 

Karatani believes that one important thing to understand about the modern novel is that it can be seen as "the form that deconstructs genres as they had existed previously," and therefore is a form capable of "accommodat[ing] the most diverse type of writings." In other words, the novel can come along and challenge the way we think about the form, the genre, and of literature in general, and how it transmits meaning. More to the point, this is what novels are supposed to do!

So Karatani is arguing that Sôseki appreciates the power of the novel to "deconstruct" the normal way we think about literature, and the genre of the novel, and what it can do for us. Therefore, he is willing to push the boundaries of the form, and see the flexibility that the novel form offers readers and writers if they don't limit themselves to a narrow variety of "realistic" description. This is what defines Sôseki's unique contribution to the evolution of the novel form in modern Japan.

Don't be too surprised, then, to read later on in Murakami's works, for example, how Sôseki is often mentioned as a key figure for him. Without doubt, Murakami is a writer who takes a very creative and innovative approach to the novel form so this helps us see why!

 

So, what do we think the message here to us is as contemporary readers of Sôseki? Should we dial back our expectations that Sôseki--or any Japanese writer for that matter--is always going to closely follow the western model of realistic fiction? Do we as readers need to be open to other stylistic conventions that might appear in the text? What might they be?

Perhaps for one thing, the reliance on linearity and causality-- which seems to come naturally to western novelists--may not appeal so much to Japanese readers and writers. It may not be their number one concern, or their highest priority.

As Burch suggests, Japanese writers might be less concerned that readers can SEE right into their PROCESS. They are not afraid to admit that a Japanese author embraces the fact that writing a novel is a fabrication. So, as a writer, s/he is not going to try and hide that fact from you, or try to disguise it. But that doesn't make it any less a form of the truth.

Of course, the real truth is that everything can't be known and certainly cannot be reproduced in the pages of a novel. Some things are better left unsaid, or understated, perhaps hinted at rather than made clear and concrete in the text. This just might be how the modern Japanese novel "rolls."

 

Note: Auestad does not actually discuss Kokoro in her book at all, which may mean that she thinks her argument applies less to this novel than to some of Sôseki's other works. I am not sure. But one could argue that his decision to end his novel in the middle wnd present half of it in a different narrative voice, was innovative. It took until 1994 and Quentin Tarrantino's Pulp Fiction to make a film that starts in the middle and works both forward and backwards in time!!

Auestad may well be more interested in his more experimental works. But after all, since the material in Kokoro about the Meiji Emperor and General Nogi are very much the stuff of that socio-historical reality in which she seems so interested, it does suggest that this might have been something she would enjoy discussing.

 

That is why I think her point is still worth considering, especially since she seems to suggest that at least one of our SLOs, i.e., the idea "texts embody cultural values and are products of particular times and places" is, indeed, an important thing to keep in mind when reading literary works that originate outside of our time and cultural sphere.

 

But please look below at some of the "data" about the Meiji Emperor's last rites and funeral see how they are integrally related to the fabric and the very "heart" of Kokoro.

 

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The Deaths of Emperor Meiji and General Nogi

 

There has always been the issue of how the Meiji emperor's death, and especially that of General Nogi, somehow liberated Sensei to take his own life. How does that work? Does it operate as a signal illuminating the end of an era? Does it reduce Sensei to becoming an anarchronism with his older, out-of-fashion values?

 

 

On July 30, 1912 at 12:43 am, the emperor died of uremia complicated by diabetes. 

On September 13, 45 days later, on the military terrain in Aoyama, the funeral was held.  At 7:00 pm the body was carried from the palace and placed in a gold and lacquer decorated chariot drawn by five oxen.

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The chariot was followed by 300 persons carrying torches, drums, gongs, banners, bows, shields and lances.  The streets had been covered with sand and decorated with white and black cloths and lanterns, and soldiers lined the roadway. 

At 10:00 pm the procession arrived at the site of the ceremony.  At 11:15 last rites, salutes, offerings and funerary eulogies started. 

 

During this late hour of the night General Nogi and his wife committed suicide against the backdrop of his sovereign's funeral rites. Most likely, this is what Sôseki was referring to when he has Sensei recall on p. 246 that:

A month had passed. On the night of the Imperial Funeral I sat in my study and listened to the booming of the cannon.  To me, it sounded like the last lament for the passing of an age.  Later, I realized that it might also have been a salute to General Nogi.  Holding the extra edition in my hand, I blurted out to my wife, “Junshi! Junshi!”

This is a powerful passage. We can hear the booming of the cannons that signal the end of an age, the passing of an era, and this becomes a "trigger" for Sensei. He no longer feels that he belongs--if he ever did feel that way. It is why he and this work are so closely associated with the Meiji-seishin, or the "Spirit of the Meiji Era," to which Marvin Marcus refers.

The deaths of Emperor Meiji and General Nogi act as "intertexts" in that they come into Kokoro and recreate for readers the very feeling of those moments, those deep emotions that accompanied the end of the era. And no reader in Japan at the time would have missed those references!

 

Sôseki was focusing his readers' attention on a specific point in time, something which took place in the world, outside of his novel. He takes his readers back to the night of September 13, 1912.  Sensei writes that a month had elapsed, and that would be about right.

In Part II of the novel, when "I" recalls the Emperor Meiji's death, he comments that “The incident was still fresh in our minds when, to my surprise, a telegram arrived from Sensei” (109), and it seemed to me that it was only a few days later that another telegram arrives from Sensei; and then, only a few more days after that, Sensei’s bulky letter arrives which includes his recollections in his Testament of the night of the Imperial funeral. 

Therefore, I was a bit skeptical, at first, that the timing could be correct; the timeframe seemed too compressed. News of the emperor's death is first mentioned on p. 91 when the narrator rushes out to buy black crepe. This is when he goes back into his room and starts thinking about "far-off Tokyo," picturing it immersed in gloom, with Sensei's house standing out in his mind as the "one light shining" in the great metropolis. (92)

It seems like the next series of events cascade and flow into one another. But actually, at the bottom of p. 92, a new paragraph opens with the lines: "Some time toward the middle of August, I received a letter from a friend of mine..." So, now, the narrative present has been advanced by a couple of weeks. Then, on the bottom of p. 97, "I" writes that "at the beginning of September, I had decided to go to Tokyo."

Then, two days before he was to leave for Tokyo, his father fainted again so he postponed his departure; then, another 3-4 days went by and his father fainted again. His "father's conditon remained the same for a week or so" (102), he tells us, so that means that another week has elapsed.

Then his brother arrives and more time passes. Next, they read the news of General Nogi's death in the newspaper (108), which would have been the night of September 13th, and "the tragic news touched us like the bitter wind which awakens the trees and the grass sleeping in the remotest corner of the countryside," perhaps alluding to how widely the news spread and how deeply its impact was felt.

It is at this point that the first telegram from Sensei arrives, then two days later, the second one. As his father, who had become delerious, falls into a coma, and loses his power of speech, the heavy, bulky letter from Sensei arrives.

So then I was wrong! Sôseki did actually successfully make the timing fit his narrative. He has carefully crafted his narrative in Part II of Kokoro so that when he has Sensei write of hearing the cannons boom and thinking about both the emperor and General Nogi and the whole phenomenon of "junshi," the timing works.

That night of the funeral in Tokyo, when the fictional Sensei was listening to the booming of the cannons, two special trains left for Kyoto carrying the emperor's body. The trains left at 1:00 am in the morning of September 14.  At 7:00 pm, the body was placed in a sarcophagus surrounded by haniwa inside a burial mound situated to the south of the ancient capital, Kyoto.  The next day, on September 15, the last funerary ceremony was conducted there.

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Notes on On General Nogi's Suicide

Below is an excerpt from General Nogi's suicide note, as reported in the English-language press in Japan at the time. Supposedly, the letter was written the preceding night (so, on the 12th of September 1912) and consists of the following:

I am now going to kill myself and follow my Emperor. Pardon me, please. Ever since my losing the regimental flag in the civil war of 35 years ago [i.e., the Satsuma or Saigô's Rebellion of 1877] I have always intended to sacrifice myself, but the favours showered on me by the late Emperor and the want of a fitting occasion have prevented the execution of my wish. As I am growing old, I feel sure I shall not have any further opportunity of rendering special service to the state. The august Emperor's death has caused me deep sorrow. I have made up my mind to take the step.

The newspaper accounts go on to discuss the responses of foreigners living in Japan at the time:

It is interesting to notice how varied the views of foreigners are according to their knowledge of things Japanese. The following may illustrate this: "I have been studying the Japanese language these two or three years," says a certain military attache, "and have come to understand literary treatises fairly well. With most foreigners I believed that 'harakiri ' existed only where one's master had been insulted. I was surprised to see this morning's paper reporting General Nogi's death and explained it away as being in accordance with the ancient custom of 'junshi.' Before reading the explanation I thought naturally that he had died because he held himself responsible for the immense loss of life at Port Arthur. Indeed this is the first time I have ever known anything of the old custom so prized by the true samurai, General Nogi."

Now in my opinion, these two cases of 'harakiri' mean nothing at all. The Japanese do not know that the relation between emperor and subject is nothing more than that of common individuals, and not of kith and kin. Granting for the moment that what they say be true, why do not those most loyal subjects serve their succeeding master with the same loyalty? We have no instance of a subject killing himself in order to follow his dead sovereign. But I cannot but doubt whether the 'junshi' is valued by the present Japanese generally whose mind and conduct are steadily being influenced by European ideas. They will surely think it better to serve the new Emperor with the same devotion they felt towards the late Emperor." General Nogi's death must be an extraordinary instance of exceptions.

Indeed, Sensei himself thought junshi was an echo, a vestige, from a distant path. He writes to "I," his young disciple: "Perhaps you will not understand why I am about to die, no more than I can fully understand why General Nogi killed himself. You and I belong to different eras, and so we think differently. There is nothing we can do to bridge the gap between us. Of course, it may be more correct to say that we are different simply because we are two separate human beings." (246)

An interesting equivocation. Maybe it is not the generational differences that are decisive, Sensei admits; it might just come down to the fact that is always an enormous challenge for any two people at any time, in any place, to truly KNOW and UNDERSTAND each other, and to COMMUNICATE effectively. Bridging that communication gap between human beings, especially in modern times, is no easy matter.

 

What do you think?

 

 

 

 

 

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