On reflection, I know that my life has been lacking in concrete substance. I do not easily recognize within myself or in the world around me people whose feet are planted firmly on the ground or who have the features of social beings. I can more easily recognize the face of that abstraction called the “city person,” who might have been born anywhere, than a Tokyoite born in the city of Tokyo. No doubt a meditation on the various components of this abstraction may produce a certain type of literature, although it will be deficient in real substance. The spirit in exhaustion takes flight from society and is moved by the curiously abstract longing to commingle with Nature. It may well be that a world of actual substance is to be found in the beauty of Nature isolated from society, yet there is no reason to believe any real writing will come of it.
In his essay, Mr. Tanizaki referred to a “literature that will find a home for the spirit.” Of course, for me, this is not a mere literary issue, since it is not at all clear that I have any real and actual home.
The other day, rereading Dostoevsky’s Raw Youth in the Yonekawa Masao translation, I was struck by several things that had not occurred to me when I first read this book. In particular, I sensed the importance of the title chosen by the author. Illuminating the world seen by a single youth through the language of a single youth, the author revealed all the attributes of youth in general: its beauty and ugliness, hypersensitivity and insensibility, madness and passion and absurdity; in short, its authentic shape. I was left with an almost unbearably strong feeling that it is incorrect to call young people “youth.” They are, rather, a species of animal that must be called by some other name. It struck me, too, that Dostoevsky’s youth is no stranger—a youth whose mind is in turmoil because of Western ideas and who, in the midst of this intellectual agitation, has utterly lost his home. How very closely he resembles us. Indeed, I repeatedly ran into scenes that made me feel the author was describing me, that he had me firmly in his grasp.
“Our so-called bundan is in fact a special world populated almost entirely by like-minded literary youth,” Tanizaki writes, “and this situation has not changed since the days of Naturalism.” However, the role of youth in literature seems to me to have grown steadily more blatant. In the days of Naturalism, issues of social order or social chaos were not so clearly pressing as they are today. As a consequence, we are overwhelmed and prone to sacrifice our reflective spirit for the sake of dreams about the future, our ideas for the sake of action, our feelings for the sake of ideas, facts for the sake of theories, the ordinary for the sake of adventure. In short, we might say that as society has assumed a youthful character, it has cheapened the value of a mature spirit. It is then perfectly natural that the bundan, too, should become increasingly a special world of youth, although this is not reason enough to question the value of the literature it produces. Still, I believe that formerly literature brought as many benefits to society as it induced any evil. Given our situation today, I can only feel that the evil, by degrees, is spreading.
It cannot be claimed that mature adults necessarily have no interest in literature about youth. For example, The Sorrows of Young Werther is a type of “youth writing,” yet it has been able to attract great numbers of people. It is not, then, just a matter of recent Japanese literature being literature by and for youth. Rather, ours is a youth literature that has lost its youth. And whatever its intentions may have been, in practice is it not the distinctive trait of such literature to be fundamentally conceptual and abstract, and, at least since turn-of-the-century Naturalism, to come more and more to lack a taste for reality? Of course, we should not always overlook literary motives or intentions and regard only practice or results. But it is in the practice of such “youth writing” that we are able to discover not only these current, vigorously debated issues regarding society and economics but also the peculiar context and inevitable fate of the literary youth of our nation, who feel the urgent sway of Western models and influence and who have lost a sense of tradition.
Popular writers have emerged recently to attack the narrowness of “artful” literary fiction, proclaiming its demise. However, these popular novels also exhibit a spectacle unique to our country. The readership of our literary fiction may be young, but it takes a certain literary sophistication to understand such work, and there are a number of very fine books that could not be fully appreciated were they to be read by adults, sophisticated only in worldly affairs. Of course, I cannot imagine mature adults reading the alternative: modern popular fiction. Adults are not about to read a story, however interestingly written, about what they already know and that reveals no further discoveries. And so they turn to historical romances, magemono. Surely it is not so elsewhere, but in our country conditions are such that most popular writing relies not on contemporary incidents but on historical tales for its contact with an audience of adult readers.
This becomes all the clearer if we turn to film. From the outset, our film masterpieces were done in the old style, on historical themes. The fine actors and directors all tended in that direction. In comparison to literature, film is a far more immediate artistic medium, and so one need hardly argue the point that the average fan would likely wish his masterpieces to be based on contemporary events. In Japan a contrary situation exists, although we must admit that if not for Japanese films, we would not recognize so clearly the true strangeness of our cultural condition.
Historical romances and chanbara movies exert a profound influence over the masses. Although this peculiar phenomenon may not be long-lived, it cannot be argued that it will easily pass away. Its roots are quite strong. Some suggest that in a period of social collapse, when no definite or stabilizing ideas are in force, people have a renewed desire for sensual stimulation or excitement. Still, I do not feel this alone can explain the popularity of such fare. If that were the only reason, these popular entertainments would have no hope of such success. Far-fetched subjects and convoluted plots alone would not spark the interest of the masses, no matter how culturally naive they may be. I believe that the hearts of the masses are captured almost involuntarily along a slower but surer path. Their interest turns on the capacity of a film to make them unconsciously surrender to a stream of real emotions. This stream flows through our chanbara movies, though not through our gendaimono—movies about modem life.
I often go to the movies with my mother. Of course her preference is the period film, as she finds nothing of interest in gendaimono. Once I took her to see the Western film Morocco. It occurred to me that this was quite futile, but to my surprise she was greatly moved by it. She has since cultivated a taste for Western movies. Even my old mother, then, has been overwhelmed by the complications and confusions of our modem Japanese art forms and has turned away.
Morocco has been called a modem masterpiece, but its content is in fact quite shallow, and in this respect there are a number of our gendaimono that address more serious concerns. However, Morocco has a certain style that our films about modern life cannot match. It possesses a wholly captivating charm that leaves no room for discussion about its plot meaning this or that. And what is most lacking in our gendaimono, as well as in our current popular fiction, is just this inexplicable style. Were we to inquire why such entertainment, utterly lacking in such style, nevertheless has fans to see it or read it, we might find the reason is that the majority are satisfied simply with the plot. Being young, of an age when the world is seen through movies and life is known through fiction, this audience does not question whether a given work lets flow a stream of real emotions so compelling as to overpower a mere plot. Only when such youths reach maturity will the plot seem silly to them, and all but unconsciously will they begin to look for the kind of style that might conceal the silliness.
In film, this demand is presently met by period pieces or by Western movies; in literature, by popular renditions of historical adventure. The manners and mores that appear in chanbara movies and in magemono fiction already seem as distant and removed from us
as the manners and mores depicted in Western films. Still, the psychology and emotional temperament expressed in such works seem perfectly in harmony with the social scenery of that time. And the expression of such human feelings, free of contradiction, possesses an unimaginably powerful charm and fascination. This style elicits a sense of intimacy, so that we feel closer to the Moroccan desert we have never seen than to the landscape of Ginza before our eyes.
Some speak of the modern world as one beset by a common, universal social crisis, although I can only feel that contemporary Japanese society is collapsing in a quite distinctive way. Obviously, our modern literature (for all practical purposes, we might substitute “Western” for “modern”) would never have emerged without the influence of the West. But what is crucial is that we have grown so accustomed to this Western influence that we can no longer distinguish what is under the force of this influence from what is not. Can we possibly imagine the profound emotion and wonder that Futabatei Shimei’s Ukigumo (Floating Cloud) or Mori Ōgai’s Sokkyō shijin (Improvisation) aroused in the youth of their day, we who came of literary age when translations were so numerous that they could not all be read? Can we fear that anything remains to be taken away, we who have lost a feel for what is characteristic of the country of our birth, who have lost our cultural singularity? Is it any consolation to think that those writers of a preceding generation, for whom the struggle between East and West figured crucially in their artistic activity, failed to lose what we have succeeded in losing?
It is a fact that ours is a literature of the lost home, that we are young people who have lost our youthful innocence. Yet we have something to redeem our loss. We have finally become able, without prejudice or distortion, to understand what is at the core of Western writing. With us Western literature has begun to be presented fairly and accurately. At this juncture, it is indeed pointless to call out for the “Japanese spirit” or the “Eastern spirit.” Look wherever we might, such things will not be found. Or what might be found would prove hardly worth the search. And so Mr. Tanizaki’s notion that we must “return to the classics” will not readily be embraced and passed on. It speaks simply to the fact that Tanizaki himself has chosen a certain path and matured in a certain direction. History seems always and inexorably to destroy tradition. And individuals, as they mature, seem always and inexorably to move toward its true discovery.
SATŌ HARUO
Satō Haruo (1892–1964) was highly respected as a poet and novelist, and his essays even today continue to receive the attention of contemporary readers for their evocative reflections on Japanese culture. In his influential “Discourse on ‘Elegance’” (Fūryū no ron), written in 1924, Satō attempted to define a traditional aesthetic term in contemporary terms.
DISCOURSE ON “ELEGANCE” (FŪRYŪ NO RON)
Translated by Francis B. Tenny
III. The Main Theme
I said earlier that elegance was “the pathos of things,” or “the lonely moment,” or, rather, it was the assimilation of those feelings into everyday life. I conclude that the essence is what scholars call “the sense of impermanence.” You can’t say in a word that “the pathos of things” and “the lonely moment” are the same thing. As the words differ, there is no question that there is some difference in their spirit and their content. I intend to explain later just how they differ. Even as they differ, they are like a couple of twists and turns in the same stream as the water flows back and forth from one bank to the other. That’s my conclusion. In stating my conclusion so clearly, I may be making an arbitrary decision. . . . It is not that I haven’t thought about this at great length. Even if I can’t get beyond this point however much I think about it, I have no doubt about my decision. I intend, therefore, to base my theory on this judgment.
After all, isn’t any theory based on the judgment of its advocate? When people agree with that judgment, they call it original. I think it rather doubtful that people will call my conclusion an original one. But for me, I have nothing else on which to base my inescapable conclusion. For people who agree with me, or at least for people who find no contradiction in my proposition, I will speak a bit about my theory. From those who at the start do not accept the basis of my theory, I would be happy to learn what is unreasonable about my conclusion after I have heard their explanation of the theory of elegance that they would substitute for mine, and the basis for that theory. . . . First, let me say this in extenuation. . . . Then add another thing. I don’t myself know whether my interpretation of elegance is the same as that conceived by the ancients. How can anyone know the “authentic mental state of elegance among the ancients” when we cannot call them from their graves and hear it from their own lips? What we can do, though, is to look into those impressions of elegance living in our own hearts. We can delve in to see where we can agree, what we can explain for ourselves, what satisfies us. Therefore, if I find no impressions of elegance within me, my view of elegance will be total nonsense. I have no intention of ever explaining anything to those who are prepared from the start not to understand me. But I do not demand that everyone agree with my ideas. I would just like to have you, my readers, see that it is natural for me to hold my ideas. I should like to have it understood, too, that if your ideas differ from mine, it is most natural for me (though not, of course, for you!) to oppose them. No matter how discordant your ideas may be with mine, so long as they are consistent I will have no thought of criticizing them, even though I may disagree. Everyone should look on things from his own viewpoint; that’s all we need. . . . I’m an individualist, don’t you see?
I just make the length of my sleeve fit my stature.
I have said that one kind of sensibility, the “sense of impermanence,” was the basis of elegance. What is this thing called “the sense of impermanence”?
“The sense of impermanence” came in with the introduction of Buddhism. As evidence, literary historians have generally said there was no “sense of impermanence” in the Manyōshū.1 I don’t disagree with this established view. As Buddhism, that religion with the most philosophical background, was being propagated among our people but before it was adopted as a philosophy, the sensibility to or the sentiment for “impermanence” took root first. This is an interesting point in considering the ethos of our people. The bent or the ability for speculative thinking is actually very weak in our people. It is our national character to look down on those with a propensity for speculation. We call them disputations. It seems that from olden times we have been a people without thought and without philosophy. That being so, where and from what class of people did the “sense of impermanence” first spring? “With a cherry blossom in our hair, let us enjoy today as well.” Living thus, didn’t the court nobles, tiring of their play, express their sadness on the edge of joy? It was the court nobles of the Kokinshū2 who discovered the poetic world of the “pathos of things.”
As the “pathos of things” is the sentiment or the sensibility drawn from Buddhism as a pessimistic religion, it is quite natural that elegance built on that world has a religious aroma to it. This is not what interests me. It is like people who say there is no problem in knowing that tofu is made from soybeans because tofu has a bean flavor to it. What interests me is that what was simultaneously a religion and a philosophy was perceived only as sentiment and sensibility and was later transformed into the artistic sphere of “the pathos of things.”
Then what is the true nature of “the sense of impermanence”?
In thinking about humanity, whether as a people or as an individual, humans become aware of the existence of self at an age when one can think about such things, perhaps in one’s youth. It doesn’t take too many years to reach the age of discretion. A person must notice the existence of “nature,” of things quite different from the other human beings who are like himself. A person will stare in wonder at the contrast between nature and mankind. That very wonderment will change into a feeling for the total contrast between the eternity and infi
nity of nature and the momentary and minuscule status of man. After sensing the infinitely vast, a person will see the thing nearby as infinitely small in contrast. The self that they had felt was rather large they now see to be infinitesimally small. . . . You may say this is the beginning of wisdom. You may say it is the awakening of the soul. . . .
Friends, don’t you remember ever being struck, at some moment when you were low in body and spirit, by a weird feeling? You thought a part of you, like a hand or a head, had suddenly grown infinitely large and then, in a twinkling, had shrunk to become small as a pinhead. I’ve had this feeling again and again. I’ve interpreted it to myself as follows. . . . There came a moment of wonderment for our ancestors or for ourselves when we were too young to know on our own, and we perceived in a flash the grandeur of nature and the smallness of ourselves. Don’t we now unconsciously recall when that vague moment was first etched deeply into the bottom of our hearts? Our hand, uncannily so big, that hand uncannily shrinking as if to disappear, wasn’t that a symbol of the universe and of man? . . .
The Columbia Anthology of Modern Japanese Literature: From Restoration to Occupation, 1868-1945: vol. 1 (Modern Asian Literature Series) Page 97