The IAFOR
Academic Review
Volume 1 | Issue 3

In this edition
The Style of Interiority: The ZenModern Self in Shiga Naoya’s An’ya
kōroMusicians’ Enigma in Kazuo
Ishiguro’s Nocturnes
The ‘otherness’ in the Literary
Experience of Endo Shusaku:
Encounters and Exchanges“Mukouda Kuniko no Koibumi”: A
Woman Writer’s Lifelong Secret
From Her Family
Exploring Nagusamegusa (1418):
The Semiotics of Encounter andExchange for a Poettraveller in
Muromachi, Japan

Essays in Japanese
Literature
ISSN: 2188-9570

THE IAFOR ACADEMIC REVIEW

3

CONTENTS

14

7

1-2

7-13

University of Central

Editorial Committee

Musicians’ Enigma

Lancashire, UK

Introductionin Kazuo Ishiguro’s

An introduction to theNocturnes

20-24

latest edition of The IAFOR Yu-min Huang, National“Mukouda Kuniko no

Academic Review by

Changhua University of

Koibumi”: A Woman

Michael Liam Kedzlie

Education,Taiwan

Writer’s Lifelong Secret
From Her Family

3-6

14-19

Megumi Ohsumi,

The Style of Interiority:

The ‘otherness’ in the

Université de Neuchâtel,The Zen-Modern Self

Literary Experience of

Switzerlandin Shiga Naoya’s An’ya

Endo Shusaku:

kōro

Encounters and

25-29

Jacob Lee, Brigham

Exchanges

Exploring

Young University, USA

Justyna Weronika Kasza,

Nagusamegusa (1418):

THE IAFOR ACADEMIC REVIEW

20

25
The Semiotics ofEncounter and Exchange
for a Poettraveller in
Muromachi, Japan
Penelope Shino, Massey
University, New Zealand
30-33
Table of References

Cover Image
Shiga, Naoya (1883 - 1971)
Image sourced Gendai
Shosetsu Zenshu vol.8

The IAFOR Academic Review
Volume 1 | Issue 3

Editorial Committee
Rev. Professor Stuart Picken – Chairman of the IAB
Dr. Joseph Haldane – IAFOR Executive Director
Mr. Michael Liam Kedzlie – IAFOR Research andPolicy Manager
IAFOR Cultural Studies, Arts & Humanities &Literature Conference Chairs & Advisory Board
Professor Baden Offord – Director and Professor,
Centre for Human Rights Education, Curtin
University, Australia
Professor Donald E. Hall – Herbert J. and Ann L.
Siegel Dean, Lehigh University, USA
Dr. Thomas French - Ritsumeikan University, Japan
Professor Myles Chilton - Nihon University, Japan
IAFOR Publications © Copyright 2015
ISSN: 2188-9570

Editorial Committee Introduction
Kazuo Ishiguro’s perspectives on a musicians’ career,
their aging, marital relationships, separations and theirreunions, through the eyes of the protagonous Mikhail
Mikhailovich Bakhtin’s in Ishiguro’s Nocturnes: Five
Stories of Music and Nightfall (2009). Yu-min Huang
argues that Ishiguro intends to provide his readers withconsciousnesses in the various examples of musicians andcouples in relation in the novel to arouse open-ended
meanings of career and marriage in the musicians’ world,which the readers comprehend by themselves throughthe relation of the hero and the characters in each story.
Yu-min Huang’s papers reveals that the novel focuses its
attention on what challenges a musician encounters in
different stages of career and how he faces the music andstruggles for marriage and love in different career
situations, either rising or falling in the fierce businessworld.

One of the central missions of The International
Academic Forum (IAFOR) is to provide avenues foracademics and researchers to be international,
intercultural and interdisciplinary. One of the ways inwhich we do this is through our in-house magazine Eye,our various conference proceedings, our Journals, andnow beginning in 2015 are our special editions of the
IAFOR International Academic Review. In this editionof the IAFOR International Academic Review we theeditorial committee bring together a selection of the mostinteresting research contributions from our recent
conferences with respect to Japanese Art. The papers
selected by the editorial committee for this special edition
certainly reflect the international, intercultural andinterdisciplinary approach that lies at the heart of both
IAFOR and Cultural Studies.
We hope you enjoy reading the selection of papers fromthis IAFOR special review edition.

The ‘otherness’ in the Literary Experience of Endo
Shusaku: Encounters and Exchanges
Justyna Weronika Kasza, University of Central
Lancashire, UK

The Style of Interiority: The Zen-Modern Self in Shiga
Naoya’s An’ya kōro
Jacob Lee, Brigham Young University, USA

In her paper The ‘otherness’ in the Literary Experience ofEndo Shusaku: Encounters and Exchanges Justyna
Weronika Kasza, from the University of Central
Lancashire in the UK discusses the category of“otherness” and the Other in the works of acontemporary Japanese writer Endō Shūsaku (19231996). Broadly understood “literary experience” of Endō,
first as a reader of Western literature and further as anovelist, is based on constant transition from the“encounter” with what to him is foreign, distant and alien
within the Western world to the definitive attempt toappropriate this “otherness” into his fictional works.
“Otherness,” in Endō Shūsaku’s literary experience isdiscussed by Kasza through the confrontation of various
literary forms, enabling us to acknowledge the writer’s
encounters with “otherness” and the Other.
Thesignificance of his texts lies in exposing the exchange thatwas developing in a parallel way between what was alien
and what he Endo recognized as his own Japanese self.

Shiga Naoya 志賀直哉 is famously known as the “god of
the shōsetsu” 小 説 の 神 様 for his pristine style andcommanding personality. In his paper The Style ofInteriority: The Zen-Modern Self in Shiga Naoya’s An’yakōro Jacob Lee examines the consistency of Shiga’s styleof interiority and suggests that a knowing naiveté of thelimits of language does not hinder the reader from fillingin their own gaps or indeed imagining the paradoxicallyindescribable. Lee notes that words such as hen’na,
fushigina, myōna, and shikashi are eached characterized
by their ability to signify alterity and negativity, yet arealso concrete in their typographic and prosodic
materiality. The ‘self’ in An’ya kōro is rigidly persistent in
its internal structure yet ultimately characterized by its
relation with the absolute, and in fact a relationship that
may be inexpressible but nevertheless intuitable. Leecontends that perhaps sincerity itself is a matter of being
open to such possibilities as intimated incompletely by
Shiga’s text. If that is the case Lee proposes that, An’yakōro therefore still has value for in imagining not only
our continued encounters with texts but also encounterswith ourselves.

“Mukouda Kuniko no Koibumi”: A Woman Writer’sLifelong Secret From Her Family
Megumi Ohsumi, Université de Neuchâtel,Switzerland

Musicians’ Enigma in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nocturnes
Yu-min Huang, National Changhua University of
Education,Taiwan

Megumi Ohsumi, in her paper “Mukouda Kuniko no
Koibumi”: A Woman Writer’s Lifelong Secret From Her
Family reveals the life and work of Kuniko Mukoda(1929-1981) of writer who for the most part has eluded
scholarly criticism, especially in the English language andYu-min Huang examines in his paper Musicians’ Enigma
in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nocturnes, the Anglo-Japanese novelist1

in terms of their highly transitional, symbiotic andsocially mobile characteristics of Muromachi society, andthe penetration of the culture of the capital into theprovinces, and warrior uptake of aristocratic tradition.
Shino also explores Shōtetsu’s need to compose his
poetry at richly literary sites so as to show his ‘culturallydetermined’ drive to construct a ‘proper' identity forhimself as a poet.

the English-speaking world. Neither a novelist nor apoet, Kuniko Mukoda was one of the most celebrated
writers in Japan and a winner of prestigious literaryprizes, for her works as a scriptwriter for television.
Tragically killed in airplane accident she left many things
about her private life untold. Megumi Ohsumi reveals by
examples from Mukoda’s fictional works and theposthumous Mukoda Kuniko no Koibumi (The Love Lettersof Kuniko Mukoda) work published in 2002 that Mukoda
incorporated elements from her real life when writing
fiction, including her secret decade long affair with amarried man 13 years her senior.

Exploring Nagusamegusa (1418): The Semiotics ofEncounter and Exchange for a Poettraveller in
Muromachi, Japan
Penelope Shino, Massey University, New ZealandIn exploring explores the fifteenth century Japanese
travelogue, Nagusamegusa (‘Grasses of Consolation', 1418),
by the influential poet and Zen priest Shōtetsu (13811459) Penelope Shino examines in her paper Exploring
Nagusamegusa (1418): The Semiotics of Encounter andExchange for a Poettraveller in Muromachi, Japan theencoded significance in historical, social and cultural
terms, the encounters contained within Shōtetsu’s travels
within provincial Japan. The paper interprets encounters

2

The Style of Interiority: The Zen-Modern
Self in Shiga Naoya’s An’ya kōro
JACOB LEE
BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY
emerges as central: does Tokitō Kensaku 時 任 謙 作
achieve an authentic epiphany after his long journey ofself discovery? Or does a domineering solipsism
compromise his supposed sincerity? Answering yes tothis latter question, Cody Poulton criticizes the book forhaving “absolutely no sense of Kensaku’s internal
development” (Shiga Naoya’s 23) even while recognizingthat as a shōsetsu it is not obligated to do so, at least in
the traditional Western sense of the novel. He sees,
rather, only a stylistic expansion and maturation as thestory progresses and no change in the narcissism of
Kensaku—or Shiga, for that matter. In contrast, Kin’ya
Tsuruta and Janet Walker seek to validate theprotagonist’s spiritual journey by applying more
traditionally Eastern models, the former in terms of amae

Shiga Naoya 志賀直哉 is famously known as the “god of
the shōsetsu” 小 説 の 神 様 for his pristine style andcommanding
personality.
While
his
technical
achievements in modern Japanese literature’s colloquial
prose style is virtually undisputed, some critics have beenless reverential when it comes to the ethics implied in his
autobiographical I-novel writing. Yet many, including
Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, have attributed Shiga’s lucid styleas a direct product of his sincerity in living life: “志 直哉
⽒氏は僕等のうちでも最も純粋な作家――でなければ最もな作家たちの⼀一⼈人である. . . . 志 直哉⽒氏の作

品は何よりも先にこの⼈人⽣生を立派に⽣生きてゐる作家の作品である” (“Shiga Naoya is the most genuine of

甘え ‘dependency wishes’ and yurushi 赦し ‘forgiveness’

writers—more genuine than the rest of us. . . . Shiga’s
literature is above all the work of a writer who leads arespectable and dignified life”; 11; Suzuki 95–6).

and the latter using Hindu concepts of pleasure, success,duty, and deliverance as the narrative structure. Walker,
in this article and elsewhere, also suggests that Kensaku’s
spiritual journey that culminates in an epiphanic, mysticalunion with nature merits consideration within a global
Modernist context (Walker). Susan Napier sees Kensaku
developing his identity primarily through his interactions
with the women of the story, who allow him to explore“various forms of identity” and “get somewhat outside his
self-absorption and link himself with the collectivity”(Shiga Naoya’s 146) of a mythic past.

As Tomi Suzuki explains, a similar sentiment pervaded
much of the Japanese critical dialogue on the shishōsetsu
私小 from the 1920s to the 60s—the Japanese I-novel
was not only placed at the polar opposite of the Westernfictional novel but also favored over it for its greater“truthfulness” as “a factual, direct expression of theauthor’s lived experience” (3). Yet on the other hand,
Edward Fowler’s claim—“[t]hat a writer like Shiga really
does sound more sincere than others, then, is a tributenot to his honesty but to his mastery of the rhetoric (theintimate voice, ellipses, allusions, etc.) of authenticity”(66)—demands further investigation into how suchsincerity is performed textually, regardless of whether
such sincerity is real or contrived.

But if this thematic and narrative debate were to bebrought back to the more fundamental building blocks ofthe text in an investigation of style, what could be
gained? Tokitō Kensaku, after all, is not Shiga Naoya,
despite the autobiographical and confessional nature of
the I-novel genre, and remains a textual phenomenon
constructed out of language. Examining in more detail
how this protagonist’s interiority is structured can, I
propose, clarify the nature of the debate on language, self,
and authenticity and move away from merely
condemning Kensaku’s political and interpersonal
naiveté.

The critical divide on Shiga’s sincerity is perhaps mostapparent in debates on Shiga’s magnum opus, An’ya kōro
暗夜⾏行路, where the thematic and narrative issue of thepsychological development of the protagonist is
scrutinized. If the papers presented at a conference
dedicated to the novel and held at the National
University of Singapore in 1994 can be deemed
representative of the scholarship at large, then thefollowing two-part question

And where better to start than with a close reading of the
explicit statements of Kensaku’s interiority? The narrator,
after all, very consistently and almost obsessively tells us
exactly what the protagonist feels after almost any given
descriptive scene, incident, or interaction. Could not a3the limitations and possibilities of the language in whichsuch authenticity is pursued or imagined. I therefore
argue that the style of interiority in Shiga’s An’ya kōropoints to a Zen-modern self that problematizes a linear
narratology of personal growth and provides a naively
rigid yet beautifully fractured textual trail in the search
for an authentic selfhood. Questions of sincerity continue
to be valid, but so are those of difference, negativity, andpersistently imagined possibility on the way to suchsincerity.

general pattern that emerges here be interpreted as a sortof metaphorical structure of the self? What could the
textual stylings tell us about the particular delineations
and directionalities of one of modern Japanese literature’s
canonical selves?

After detailing the two principle aspects of Shiga’s styleof interiority, I illustrate how this style or structure
functions through some examples from the text. I
conclude with a rereading of the epiphanic climax andoffer possibilities for future directions.
First, Shiga uses modifiers such as aru 或る ‘a certain,’nanika, myōna, hen’na, and fushigina to defamiliarize theprotagonist’s feelings, impressions, and intuitions,
thereby highlighting passages of deep feeling against themerely descriptive or cognitive. These passages of deep
interiority offer a kaleidoscopic exploration of the heights
and depths of the self, outlining its contours in relation
to the absolute or absolute nothingness. The consistencyof these modifiers being used throughout the text
suggests a non-linear, non-cumulative narrative
progression that nevertheless cuts through peripheral
material to reveal the many facets of the self-absolute
relation.
Second, Shiga seems to favor contrastive conjunctions
like shikashi and ga throughout An’ya kōro in order tospecify Kensaku’s more important interior experiences; byfirst making a comparatively general statement ofinteriority and then negating it or qualifying it, Shiga not
only foregrounds the second sentence but also suggests
the presence of an intuitive undercurrent by consistently
pointing toward it. Though the use of the conjunctions isarguably habitual—it occurs quite frequently in all sorts
of narrative contexts—shikashi and ga also serve as a kindof marker to signal an important statement of interiority
that, paradoxically, points negatively to the relational
nature of the self to the absolute that is otherwise
inexpressible.

Vincent_AF Creative Commons
I here submit that such a pattern indeed emerges, andthat the most significant aspects of these statements ofinteriority are (1) what I will call “defamiliarizing”
modifiers, such as nanika 何か ‘somewhat,’ myōna 妙な‘strange,’ hen’na 変な ‘strange,’ and fushigina 不思議な‘mysterious’; and (2) the use of the contrastive
conjunctions such as shikashi 然し ‘yet’ and ga が ‘but.’
Furthermore, I propose that Shiga uses thesedefamiliarizing modifiers and contrastive conjunctions tomark or tag moments when the self experiences its own
directionality in relation to an absolute other, which, in
Shiga’s contemporary discourse of Zen, is a paradoxical
relation with absolute nothingness. This self can also becharacterized as modern in the sense that it provides alonging directionality in the quest for personal andinterpersonal authenticity that, while narratively
culminating in Kensaku’s apparent enlightenment atop

The first vignette recounted in the Prologue, entitled“Shujinkō no tsuioku” 主 ⼈人 公 の 追 憶 (“The Hero’sReminiscences”), stands out from the other four in that it
most clearly establishes Shiga’s descriptive style of
Kensaku’s interiority that continues throughout the restof the story. Consider for example the second paragraph:“或る⼣夕⽅方，私は⼀一⼈人，門の前で遊んでいると，見知らぬ老⼈人が其処へ来て立った。眼の落ち窪んだ、Mount Daisen ⼤大⼭山, leaves many questions unansweredin the denouement. But again, whether or not Kensaku
achieves authenticity is not as important as considering

猫背の何となく すぼらしい老⼈人だった。私は何と4いう事なくそれに反感を持った” (“It was evening, andI was sitting idly outside our front gate. A strange old
man came and stood over me. He stooped a little, hiseyes were sunken, and there was about him a general airof seediness. I took an instant dislike to him”; Shiga 5;
McClellan 15). The reasserted first-person subject,

and uncannily intuitive does seem to underlie most othernarratively significant passages. Late in the narrative, forexample, Kensaku finally begins to analyze this structureof interiority during a conversation with a friend:watashi 私‘I,’ the defamiliarizing adverbial phrase

事を考え，それが結局外界のものとの争 ではなく

nantoiukotonaku 何という事なく ‘somehow,’ and the，自身の内にあるそういうものとの争 であった事

directly stated deep feeling, hankan 反 感 ‘dislike’—を想わないではいられなかった. . . . 作はこれまで

combine to form the prototypical structure of thedescriptions of Kensaku’s ever-moving interiority.

，暴君的な自分のそういう気分によく引き廻されたThe narrative pattern of distilling explicitly stated, deeply
intuited feelings from passages of detailed objective
descriptions continues in the next paragraph, albeit at afaster tempo, as causation is implied by juxtaposition: “釣々の事を考えると，多くが 局⼀一⼈人角⼒力になる所を然し 作は自身の過去が常に何かとの争闘であったが，それを敵とは考えない⽅方だった。然し 去の数
想うと，つまりは自分の内にあるそういうものを対⼿手に戦って来たと考えないわけには⾏行かなくなった

上がった⼝口元，それを囲んだ深い皺，変に下品な印. . . . 知らず知らず解決を⽮矢張り自身の内だけに求め象を受けた” (“The turned up mouth, the deeply creased
skin around it—everything about him was common”;
Shiga 5; McClellan 15). Here a more obviously uncannyていた事に初めて がついた。実際 な事だと思った。(Shiga 490)

adverb, hen’ni に ‘strangely,’ qualifies the determinant

He was nevertheless forced to think that his struggle in
the past had indeed been with something inside him, notoutside. . . . Kensaku had always allowed his emotions totyrannize over him; but he had not before thought todescribe his own condition quite in these words. Now, as
he remembered the various incidents in his life, he had
again to grant that more often than not he had been
wrestling with himself, that his enemy had been acreature residing within him. . . . All he was saying, he
now realized, was that their problem was entirely his tosolve. What a strange thing to have said to her, hethought. (McClellan 341)

gehin’na 下品 ‘vulgar’—a polarized term of good/bad,like/dislike—which in turn modifies inshō 印 象‘impression.’ This sequence of adverb, determinant, andnoun repeats in the second sentence of the fourthparagraph with myōni 妙に ‘strangely,’ itatamaranai 居堪らない ‘unbearable,’ and kimochi 気持ち ‘feeling’ (Shiga
5). The conjunction shikashi debuts in the eighth
paragraph and introduces another similar statement of
Kensaku’s interiority: “然しこのうわ⼿手な物⾔言いが に私を圧迫した” (“The familiarity of his tone filled mewith foreboding”; Shiga 6; McClellan 15).

In a sudden moment of enlightenment, Kensaku realizes
that the restless despair of his life thus far has been
coming from a misrelation within himself as opposed tovarious external causes such as the frantic will ofmodernity, his incestuous origins, his first child dying,and his wife being raped by her cousin. Shiga once again
seems to suggest the authenticity of this realization
through the use of shikashi and hen’na, even though heruns the risk of naiveté in using his stylistic pattern todescribe his stylistic pattern.

Finally, just before the old man walks away and the scene
ends, Shiga summarizes Kensaku’s interior experiences
thus far in a couplet of sorts: “この老⼈人が何者であるか，私には解らなかった。然し或る不思 な本能で，それが近い⾁肉親である事を既に感じていた” (“I had
no idea who this old man was; but already I had thepremonition that here was someone closely tied to me byblood”; Shiga 6; McClellan 15). Shiga thus seems toprivilege certain signifiers by virtue of their function topoint away from themselves and towards alterity in orderto suggest that authenticity can be approached byintuiting or feeling this alterity within oneself.

But perhaps where an awareness of this structure ofinteriority is most crucial is in a reading of the climactic
epiphany atop Mount Daisen. In light of this stylistic
pattern of pointing to the authentic through words thatcan only signify a difference and a negativity, what seems
to be experienced is not a mystical union with nature but
a dissolution of a concretized concept of the self into a
relational one with the absolute or absolute nothingness.
The self is no longer set up antagonistically against
nature, which is compared to a “limitless body of air” but

Of course, Shiga does not mechanically apply what I callthe style of interiority at every juncture of the book. Yet
such a pattern or structure that emphasizes the affective
5

is “restored” to it in some sort of harmonious relation.
While the rapturous experience is directly described as a

Full references are found in the Table of References
section.

fushigina tōsuikan 不思 な陶酔感 ‘strange intoxication’and a “kotoba ni hyōgen dekinai hodo no kokoroyosa” ⾔言
葉 に 表 現 出 来 な い 程 の 快 さ (“pleasure beyond thepower of words to describe”; Shiga 578; McClellan 400),
perhaps the most compelling description of thisindescribable relationship is in the gradual unfolding of
the panorama of the mountainside and the view below as
the sun rises behind him. That is, Kensaku does notdirectly see the sun, but sees the “sharply delineatedoutline of the shadow [of the mountain] as it retreatedfrom the bay and crept toward him over land” (402).
Shiga’s concluding phrase of the chapter, sore kara
Kensaku wa aru kandō o uketa それから 作は或る感動を受けた ‘from this, Kensaku was moved to feeling’(Shiga 580), in a similar beauty of linguistic inadequacy,
points strongly and longingly towards the ineffable.
In conclusion, the consistency of Shiga’s style ofinteriority suggests that a knowing naiveté of the limits oflanguage does not hinder the reader from filling in thegaps or imagining the paradoxically indescribable. Just aswords such as hen’na, fushigina, myōna, and shikashi arecharacterized by their ability to signify alterity andnegativity yet are concrete in their typographic andprosodic materiality, the self in An’ya kōro is rigidly
persistent in its internal structure yet ultimately
characterized by its relation with the absolute, arelationship that may be inexpressible but neverthelessintuitable. Perhaps sincerity is a matter of being open tosuch possibilities as intimated incompletely yetcompellingly by the text. If so, An’ya kōro still has value
for imagining not only our continued encounters withtexts but also with our selves.

Photo by Tanaka Juuyoh (Creative Commons)6

Musicians’ Enigma in Kazuo Ishiguro’s
Nocturnes
YU-MIN HUANG
NATIONAL CHANGHUA UNIVERSITY OF EDUCATION (NCUE), TAIWAN
all walks in the twenty-first century; fortunately, I was
saved by Angus and Sharon in their OPEN-chan waffles,
Gangnam Style and ballet.

Abstract
The globe citizens in the highly competitive material
world in the twenty-first century immerse themselves inan enigma, an enigma where they inevitably struggle intheir career for fame and fortune as success but they
insensibly alienate from their family in daily life. Kazuo
Ishiguro, a newly-rising Anglo-Japanese novelist,
explores musicians’ enigma of how they can achieve
success in the music circle in relation to how they can live
a happy marriage in Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music andNightfall (2009). The novel focuses its attention on whatchallenges a musician encounters in different stages ofcareer and how he faces the music and struggles formarriage and love in different career situations, either
rising or falling in the fierce business world. In this essay,
I examine Ishiguro’s perspectives on musicians’ career,aging from old to youth together with their marital
relationships, ranging from separation to reunion,
through Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin’s lens. In myargument, Ishiguro intends to provide his readers withconsciousnesses in various examples of musicians andcouples in relation in the novel to arouse open-ended
meanings of career and marriage in the musicians’ world,which the readers comprehend by themselves throughthe relation of the hero and the characters in each story.
He aims to further provide his readers with an insight
into both issues and with motives to reexamine, revalue
and rectify theirs, from the constant alienation frommarriage to the close connectedness to it, leading to true
happiness in life. The novel as an utterance consists offive stories, each as an utterance per se, embedding
Ishiguro’s suggestion as authorial intent, in the ongoing
dialogue with other utterances in the aesthetic literary
world.
Keywords: Kazuo Ishiguro,
Dialogism, marriage, career

Nocturnes,

Kazuo Ishiguro, a newly-rising and award-winning
Anglo-Japanese novelist with his serious purpose, prefers
themes on universality and people’s daily life experience
to over-plottiness; his novels share psychologicalconcerns and follow Western tradition, especially English
and Russian writers in the nineteenth century like
Dostoevsky, Chekhov, Charlotte Bronté, and Dickens(Krider 153-54; Matthews 116, 118; Shaffer 4, 6, 8-11).
He includes in Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music andNightfall (2009) themes like fame, love, marital discord,
impossibility of perfection, the inevitability of regret, themarriage of convenience, ambition, and “[t]he beauty, joy
and meaning of music”; he portrays acts, emotions andideas of characters as realistic and vivid, which throughrepeated encounters and careful study can light up theirsignificance, clarity and power (Robson 44; Garrett 174;
Shaffer 11). In this essay, since Mikhail Mikhailovich
Bakhtin discusses Dostoevsky’s polyphonic novel, I
examine Ishiguro’s perspectives in the novel on two main
directions, the musicians’ career, aging from old to youth,
together with marital relationships, ranging fromseparation to reunion, through Bakhtin’s lens. In myargument, Ishiguro, dialogical with readers, provides
many examples of musicians and couples in relation in
the novel to arouse open-ended meanings of career andmarriage in the musicians’ world, which readers
comprehend by themselves through the relation of thehero and the characters, inclusive of their psychology andemotions; and the novel as an utterance consists of fiveutterances, embedding Ishiguro’s suggestion as authorial
intent, in the ongoing dialogue with other utterances in
the aesthetic literary world (Matthews 121). There are
four sections in the essay: Bakhtin’s Dialogism; Nocturnes
as Musician’s Career in Relation to Marital
Relationships; Kazuo Ishiguro’s Authorial Intent; andConclusion.

Bakhtin,Introduction
It happens. I had been struggling for my essay formonths but felt like I could never achieve anything. I felt
haunted and overwhelmed by the fear that the deadline
approached me, one day after another, until my temper
exploded to my dear family. Suddenly, I realized that I
was a common victim to no victor, trapped in Kazuo
Ishiguro’s description as enigma for every globe citizen ofI.

Bakhtin’s Dialogism

Bakhtin bases his idea of self-other relationship, authorhero relationship and utterance on dialogism or
Dostoevsky’s
polyphony,
wherecommunication,interaction and dialogue are significant for identity
7

and a literary work is an utterance and a rejoinder,
responsive to other utterances, preceding and following
in its manifestation of the specific historical situation andprovides an arena where people utter theirconsciousnesses or values, agreeing or contending in a
dialogical relation of the “complexly organized chain ofother utterances” (Emerson and Holquist 67-71, 84-87,
90-93; Holquist 1990: 38, 68; Dentith 44, 46; Todorov
52-54; Morris 76-78; Holquist 1981: 279-80). An
utterance, a double-voiced discourse, provides readerswith unsecured position, since the becoming of
dialogization cannot be secured, nor can the angle andknowledge of the utterance (Dentith 48) Accordingly, apolyphonic novel emphasizes a dialogic relationshipamong a plurality of consciousnesses in their truth
generation, “an active creation in the consciousnesses of
the author, the readers, and the characters” as equals(Bressler 46; Holquist 1981: 253). The truth in a
polyphonic novel is neither single nor certain, but instead
there are many truths in many characters’ articulating
consciousnesses in their manifestation and performancefrom their perspectives, all directed to the hero as self andto one another in their dialogical influence, all of whichin the reader’s watching and hearing, the reader is shaped
into his value as the truth from his own perspective,
comprehension and judgment (Bressler 46; Holquist
1981: 254).

construction and truth generation; and the social, culturaland historical background plays important in a literarytext. Bakhtin emphasizes transgredience, or extralocality,
the idea that the external elements of consciousness in its
surroundings are indispensable for the making of its
completion. Accordingly, this idea manifests itself clearlyin Bakhtin’s dialogism, where self and other standseparately in different positions simultaneously with theirsurplus of seeing/vision respectively to each other; whereother is defined as other value, consciousness or
perspective which he bears on self; where self constructs
his identity through other’s consciousness, and vice versa;
and where the discourses of self and other penetrate eachother as co-consciousness or “co-being of being” in theirdialogical relation without directly finalizing or
explanatory word and judgment (Todorov 94-98; Slater
3; Clark and Holquist 63-73, 77-79, 245-46; Holquist
1990: 18-22, 32-33, 35-37, 68, 164-169; Dentith 12-13,
41-44).
The dialogic self-other relationship in Bakhtin’s
inference can be applied to the author-hero relationship;from this dialogic relationship between author as otherand hero as self, the aesthetic form is generated withmoral values, where authors and characters are coauthors and are not objects but independent subjects intheir interaction and contention (Dentith 5; Clark andHolquist 63, 245-46). On one side, either hero or
character is “a man of the idea” and thus synonymous asconsciousness; characters, carrying values or perspectives,
are “a plurality of consciousnesses, with [equal weights and]equal rights and each with its own world, combined but[unmerged] in the unity of the event”; and each is thehero’s other voice dialogical to him (Emerson 6-7, 85;
Bezeczky 321; Bonetskaia 15). On the other, the author
as other, in a privileged position with creative reaction to
the hero, serves as a reflector for emotional and volitional
position of the hero as self, accompanies his life path, andmakes him express himself in his identity construction
toward the locus, where truth is generated through his
perspective without making author’s direct judgment butwith author’s rearrangement of consciousnesses astransgredient to him in the aesthetic literary discourse(Holquist and Liapunov 90; Clark and Holquist 88-89,
244-46; Todorov 100; Patterson 57-58; Bonetskaia 15;
Dentith 44; Bressler 46).
Bakhtin emphasizes “nonauthor/itarian,” signifying thata polyphonic or dialogic novel has “no overall outlined
structure or prescribed outcome, nor … a working out of
the author’s worldview or understanding of truth;” andthe novel is “a process that never achieves a resolution”
but refuses “to unify the various points of view expressedin the various characters,” which neither merge with nor
subordinate to the author’s but “retain an integrity andindependence” (Selden 40; Dentith 44; Bressler 46). For
Bakhtin, an utterance is suffused with “dialogic overtones”
and expressive intonation, to convey the authorial intent
and attitude toward other utterances in concrete reality,

II. Nocturnes as Utterance of Musicians’
Career and Marital Relationships
Criticisms on Nocturnes are various but partial. Firstly,
Barbara Hoffert is right not that the novel conveys scary
insights into human misbehavior but that it is about thecharacters’ lives in music (55). Also, John Salinsky stands
neutral that the “quintet” in it shares certain common
themes with one another, particularly “a tangential
relationship” between a musician and a woman in theirencounter without her entering his life (419-20). Besides,
Stefan Beck plays fair that Ishiguro “forces his creations[,
characters,] to tell us more than they know about
themselves,” and success “will be worse than thealternatives;” but biased that characters lack selfawareness, the theme is in variations of success andfailure, or happiness and self-hatred, and “Ishiguro’s
dialogue, and even his [narrators’] voices, can have analmost spookily stilted quality” (31, 32).
None abovementioned can be sufficient enough toillustrate the novel. Since an utterance, declares Bakhtin,
is the manifestation of thought and deed and is sizedfrom a single word to a literary work, I argue that
Nocturnes is an utterance, composed of five stories, i.e.
five utterances, themed on both musicians’ career andmarital relationships (Clark and Holquist 64; Emerson
and Holquist 81-82). The novel, an utterance, portrays
musicians’ five different stages of career as a reversed life
direction, aging from old to youth, similar to8

Benjamin’s1; they are five utterances: old age, ambition,perseverance, talent/efforts, and education, respectively
and sequentially. The novel, an utterance, also conveys initself among all the characters as consciousnesses the
produced message of significant elements in marriage
management: communication, reliance, tolerance,
sacrifice, and responsibility.

others to “stay at the top of their respective career paths”
before too late (Hagen 66). Namely, they expect theirdivorce to create another sensation, fame for Tony andvanity for Lindy in another successful career and richmarriage simply like theirs; otherwise, their career inTony’s falling and Lindy’s fading beauty will bedisadvantaged in music business.

“Crooner” as Utterance of Old Age andCommunication

However, I believe that Janeck disagrees on their divorce.
It is pitiful that they follow the business trend and lack
communication but sacrifice their true love and happy
marriage for an illusional and uncertain career in musicbusiness despite Tony’s greatness in Janeck’s eyes
(Ishiguro 33). It occurs to me how many times ofcomebacks a life can achieve and what can be better tolive in happiness at an old age. If they reach fullcommunication in their achieved true love, they willrealize the worthlessness to risk their true love andmarriage for another unguaranteed career comeback indivorce. Regrettably, the couple neither seize the timely
moment nor take instant action to cancel their agreed
divorce after the song “One for My Baby,” but one awaits
the other to change each mind, in his hesitation and her
sobbing (Ishiguro 28-29). Janeck is constructed byconsciousnesses to the truth that no musician, even Tony
the greatest, can always keep the highest status in thecruel real music circle throughout his life and that despite“schlemiel” in his peers’ crooked eyes, he with Mother’s
love is more successful than those materially successful(Beck 32). “Crooner” is an utterance of a musician’s
falling at old age combined with a produced significant
element of marriage, communication. It is a tragedy thatthe couple’s happy marriage, without communication,end in divorce and that they jump in an endless vicious
circle in career and marriage, from falling to rising andrising to falling, leading to an enigma of meaningfulness.

Each story in Nocturnes, in my suggestion, consists ofmany characters, bearing their consciousnesses in theposition of others, joining their dialogical relationshipwith self for his identity construction toward the truth
generation; each is an utterance, forming a meaningful
sequence with Ishiguro’s authorial intent in the novel.
“Crooner” is the first utterance, a musician’s old age in
relation to his marital relationships lack ofcommunication. As self, Janeck, a young café guitarist
from Eastern European in Venice’s Piazza San Marco on
his journey to music, encounters many consciousnesses in
Ishiguro’s plan. He bears his nostalgia for Mother,consciousness of love and admiration, who appreciates
Tony Gardner’s music and always keeps his worn-out
albums in the communist days (Ishiguro 5-6; Beck 31).
He meets Tony in his sixties, consciousness of fame,“some crooner from a bygone era,” who invites him toteam up for a croon in a gondola to Lindy in her fifties in
his attempt to divorce for a career comeback; it is a sendoff “to commemorate the end of their loving marriage (adivorce of convenience),” believed beneficial to both
(Ishiguro 12, 16; Beck 31-32; Garrett 174; Seaman 9).
Then, Janeck experiences Lindy, consciousnesses ofvanity, in her marriage of convenience. Lindy seems
ambitious and determined to stand in spotlight to hook arich and famous husband since youth in a restaurant in
California like “her Harvard,” where she learns tricks andmaneuvering from Meg the “fountain of wisdom”(Ishiguro 20, 21). Lindy marries Dino Hartman, whom
she divorces in his falling career to remarry Tony inVegas in his rising, neither accused by Dino nor anyone(Ishiguro 21-22). Obviously, Tony and Lindy follow
marriage of convenience, the trend that marriage in themusic circle is business; they get married for “the trophy
the other partner represent[s],” despite true love ensued(Robson 44; Hagen 66).

“Come Rain or Come Shine” as Utterance of
Ambition and Reliance“Come Rain or Come Shine” is the second utterance of
ambition in career coupled with marital relationships lackof reliance by Ishiguro’s broad definition of musicians. As
self, Raymond leads a content life in school with his
students and colleagues on his journey to happiness. He
encounters Emily, consciousness of ambition, andCharlie, consciousnesses of fear in their dissonant
marriage, which Charlie claims “superbly well” butcounts on him, a reliable mediator to resolve, since he is“the material failure” to sustain their marriage and thus
Mr. Perspective for Emily to compare which is the
successful (Ishiguro 41, 42-52; Seaman 9; Hagen 66).

It is lack of communication in marriage of conveniencethat leads to divorce of convenience, the turning point
where Tony turns from consciousness of fame to loss andLindy, from vanity to sacrifice. Because of business andlove, they both agree on their divorce and remarriage to

Emily, consciousness of ambition, marries Charlie inuniversity, because he, a potential success, compared with
Raymond, satisfies her requirement and offers her certain
reliance in the material life. She always expects Charlietalented enough to be a head of some worlds whereas he1	
  Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key. The Curious Case of BenjaminButton: And Two Other Stories. 3rd ed. London:	
   Penguin Books,
2008. Print.	
  9

deems himself ordinary (Ishiguro 50). It seeds Charlie’s
fear that if someday his career cannot meet her highexpectation and ambition, he will lose her to thosesuccessful possible rivals in his imaginary competition,and it creates their marriage lacking mutual reliance andin long disagreement (Ishiguro 59).

Raymond’s imitation of Hendrix offers the best solution
to this dissonant marriage. Under Charlie’s instruction,
he imitates a dog’s habitual action to destroy their livingroom and finds himself more skilled than Charlie inmerging into a dog and its destroying things (Ishiguro68). He sees things from a dog’s perspective, in its
posture, with its vision, hinting a satire that the couple
cannot immerse themselves into each other’s spirit andvision as the way he does in a dog’s (Hagen; 66; Ishiguro
76-77). Conversely, if the couple are in each other’s shoewith mutual reliance, they will reach real communicationand true happiness. Raymond is constructed by the
couple’s different values to the truth that career should bebased on moderate ambition and marriage, on mutual
reliance.

Their lack of mutual reliance contributes to their difficult
communication in events like phone calls and sawing
balls off, even with their mediator Raymond, andreasonably their communication cannot be easier withouthim. On the phone, the two gentlemen talk about
different things. Raymond discusses his trouble about
peeping into Emily’s intimate diary and crumpling thepage whereas Charlie expresses his love for Emily,
without affairs involved, and complains about his possible
rivals, those with high status and achievement like David
Corey, Michael Addison and Roger Van Den Berg
(Ishiguro 58-61). Subsequently, the couple interpret thesawing-balls-off event differently to Raymond. In
Charlie’s version, six years ago, Emily is so annoyed
about his opening her diary that she threatens to saw off
his balls, this anger triggering his suspicion of her love.
However, in Emily’s, to make him realize his self-worth,
she threatens him last year in his depression and inquiry
about her reaction to his committing suicide; theemphasized self-worth exposes her ambition about
Charlie’s career again (Ishiguro 60, 80).
Ironically, the couple, lacking mutual reliance, turn tosomeone else for reliance. Charlie places reliance on afemale dentist by pretending to have tooth problems intheir regular appointments because he feels her drawing
the real Charlie closer, being trapped inside by Emily,
wondering whether he may have a different life with her
in marriage (Ishiguro 73-74). It explains why Charlie
instructs Raymond to conceal the trouble by destroying
their living room, the way he frequently releases hispressure as fightback against Emily and the material
world where he is long confined, and the way he tricks
Raymond into being humiliated before Emily. Likewise,
Emily places her reliance on Raymond with love in her
keepsake, “her treasured vinyl collection,” because musicconnects them since college and bridges her true self tohim, with whose musical taste, she once belittles Charlie;
her act of hiding music is in fact hiding love, whichCharlie senses and avoids Raymond’s discussion about
with her (Garrett 174; Ishiguro 55, 63). However, in his
visit, she recalls her old passion for him in her expressionof being bothered and disturbed in the handwriting: “Buywine for arrival of Prince of Whiners,” while in fact it isher material world being unwrapped by his spiritual
world, which terrifies her (Ishiguro 56). When Raymondand Emily share music like their good old days in theirdance, he feels remorse in tears and she confesses
discontent with her marriage and desires him in the
manifestation of their shared music like Sarah Vaughan(Ishiguro 84-86).

Andrew Price Creative Commons“Malvern
Hills”
asUtterance
Perseverance and Toleranceof“Malvern Hills,” is the third utterance of perseverance
and tolerance entangled. To my disbelief, the narrator isan uncreative and selfish young singer-songwriter in his
sister’s inn (Hoffert 55; Seaman 9). However, I argue
that the songwriter, self on his journey to success,encounters many consciousnesses in Ishiguro’s
10

wonderful beyond his imagination in Elgar’s music;
however, Sonja deems the real hills as a common park,
unmatched with “majestic and mysterious” Elgar’s hills,
which offends Tilo to walk away from Sonja, in tears,
gazing at his figure walking in the distance (Ishiguro
121). Sonja, like Mrs. Fraser, is impetuous and criticalbut learns to tolerate different perspectives in viewing theworld and settling disagreement; hence, not in Fraser’s
example, she saves her marriage. The songwriter on his
journey to music is constructed by love, discipline,
disapproval and encouragement toward the truth,
perseverance and tolerance.

organization.
Heencounters
Malvern
Hills,
consciousnesses of love, belongingness, affection,
nostalgia, calmness, warmth, music inspirations andimagination, in his pleasant memory with his parents andMaggie (Ishiguro 94, 104). He meets consciousnesses of
discipline and loneliness, Mrs. Hag Fraser, a twisted
teacher in his teenager’s years who treats him meanly andisolates him from peers (Ishiguro 95-96).
The songwriter encounters Maggie and Geoff,
consciousnesses of disapproval of his music, during his
stay in their café to “write a brand-new batch of songs” toplay in London in autumn (Ishiguro 93). They holddifferent values toward music from his. They regard a
musician as an indecent career in a practical life andexpect him to work hard in their café, where he isconsidered lazy and loose, whereas he values the contrary.
He desires to share his music with Maggie as they did inchildhood and win her support and encouragement but
in vain. She values family time to watch movies far morethan appreciates his music when he in his room
endeavors to write songs, noisy to Geoff’s ears. In theirquarrel over whether his music composition is as decent
as Geoff’s café work, she favors Geoff’s practical side
(Ishiguro 115-17). The songwriter, despite his family’s
disapproval, is perseverant in his dream.

“Nocturne” as Utterance of Talent/Efforts,
and Sacrifice“Nocturne” is the fourth utterance of talent/efforts andsacrifice intertwined. Steven, “[a] gifted yet unheralded[jazz and] saxophone player[,] is persuaded [by his wife
Helen and by his manager Bradley Stevenson] toundergo plastic surgery to enhance his visual appeal in a[business] world that values image over talent” for the
improvement of his career (Seaman 9; Robson 44).
Despite whim, sympathy and vanity, I believe that
Steven, self on his journey to success, encounters Helen,
consciousness of sacrifice (Garrett 175). Out of love,
Helen divorces Steven for Chris Prendergast’s sponsor toa face surgery for his music career to go right to the top
with appealing image and his talent (Hoffert 55; Ishiguro132). Helen is not simply consciousnesses of courage andsupport, the same as Tilo and Sonja’s to the songwriter in“Malvern Hills” but that of sacrifice as Lindy’s for Tony.
Meanwhile, she saves Steven’s dignity by announcingthat he deserves the compensation Chris makes due totheir happy marriage. Helen sacrifices her love for
Steven’s success in the same way as Lindy does for Tony’s
while Steven’s divorce with Helen echoes Tony’s with
Lindy.

The songwriter encounters Tilo and Sonja,
consciousnesses of encouragement, two professionals
from Swiss, tour-playing music across the Europe with
their parents’ support but at cost of their son Peter(Garrett 174; Ishiguro 113). Unlike the manager in the
London audition, Tilo and Sonja, the songwriter’saudience on the hill, enjoy his guitar performance of his
composition in “a look of happy amazement, the way
people gaze at a baby. …[and] the woman was tapping
her foot to [the] beat” (Ishiguro 105). Tilo and Sonja, intheir big smiles and applause, compliment him on hismusic and talent, echoing around the hills, as fantastic,
splendid and on the radio someday (Ishiguro 107, 114).
Tilo even shares with him that their professional musiccareer counts not on material comforts but on their music
belief, which they feel content with and the same as his(Ishiguro 108-09). Conversely, Sonja discusses about theJanus-faced music world. She suggests from Tilo’s ideal
perspective that he should form a band in London andwill succeed and from her practical perspective that life isuncertain and sometimes disappointing. She finallyfavors Tilo’s in her reassurance that he, resembling Tilo,
can realize his dream even in disappointments anddifficulty (Ishiguro 122-23).

Steven meets Lindy as Janus-faced consciousness oftalent/efforts in a luxurious hotel in Los Angeles for theirrecoveries from surgeries. In their encounter, thestereotypes of talent and efforts collapse. On one hand,
Lindy believes that everyone has his own position in thehierarchical society, which explains why Jake Marvell, an
untalented and even a phony or bluffer in Steven’s eyes,
wins the statuette, Jazz Musician of the Year, andbecomes popular in the music circle. She fights for thoseuntalented or unblessed musicians who pay efforts for aplace in the world but being unnoticed in her example
and Jake’s, since they are supposed to be understood bythose God-gifted and to deserve recognition, award andhonor like them. In her lecture to Steven, both thetalented and the diligent have a place in their career orchance to succeed (Ishiguro 152, 164-166, 175).

Sonja and Tilo match each other perfectly in music andthey manifest in the marriage their mutual tolerance ofdisagreement despite their different perspectives, Tilo,
the ideal and bright versus Sonja, the practical andrealistic, particularly in their different opinions on thereal views in Malvern Hills. Tilo considers views

On the other, Lindy appreciates talented musicians. To
Lindy’s surprise, Steven is as talented as her ex-husband
11

Tibor encounters Eloise, consciousness of untimely
education and proper instruction. She recognizes theirtalents as inherent, not through instruction and practice,and their music life as diverged. She insists on protecting
her talent from being ruined by untalented professionals
and refuses formal education until one talented
professional’s instruction, which she reminds him to do
the same. However, she waits thirty years for regret andlost chance for formal education, unlike Tibor, talented
and well-formally-educated, which she feels envious ofand ambivalent to. She thus loses temper to him whenrequired to demonstrate her skills in playing the cellosince she cannot, but she expresses her inspiration inwords. Therefore, he learns not by copying her skill
demonstration but by practicing his comprehension ofher verbal instruction and inspiration, which opens
windows to him (Ishiguro 195-98, 207-08, 211-14).
Ironically and surprisingly, it is Eloise informallyeducated who instructs Tibor well-formally-educated,
and without her, he quits his passion for music but works
to manage hotel business in Amsterdam (Ishiguro 219).
Tibor is constructed toward the true education that ateacher teaches not by imposing ideas on students but by
inducing them and that students learns not by copying ateacher’s work but by comprehending the instruction,and toward another that the right and timely education isessential.

Tony when he plays the proud version of his band’s “TheNearness of You” to win her approval. In listening, Lindy
sways dreamily to slow beat, stands still sometime, bends
her head forward sometime, slumps into the sofa like atense model, and stays stiff and awkward (Ishiguro 15354). Steven’s music reminds her of Tony: She is very
astonished at his personal performance and the songinterpretation and her love for Tony are aroused at the
moment of listening to his CD recording. To her
admission, she cannot get the song out of her heart andhe is a genius, blessed by God. To express her honor for
him, Lindy steals a statuette at night and awards Steven
Jazz Musician of the Year. Afterwards, she returns thestatuette by stuffing it into a turkey, a hint of failure andan irony itself to compensate or comfort Steven despite
fake statuette-awarding, which she intends to make aworld of unforgettable significance to him (Hagen 66;
Ishiguro 157-59, 172-73).
Despite a good chance that Steven may succeed with
Lindy’s admiration and support, he knows that Helen is
the price he pays. Lindy comforts Steven by persuading
him that he will win a place in the world at the sacrificeof Helen, which reveals Lindy’s values of vanity andsacrifice: Helen is great but if she does not come back toyou, you should get a perspective that “life’s so muchbigger than just loving someone” (Ishiguro 182). He
finally agrees with her that leaving Helen for a surgery isa turning point with a big league awaiting him (Ishiguro185). Steven is constructed by Helen and Lindy toward
the truth that with talent and an appealing image, he iswell-prepared to embrace a new career and life.

Eloise is consciousness of responsibility to Tibor.
Surprisingly, Tibor gradually grows love for Eloise under
her instruction in their sessions and he fears that she will
leave him sooner or later, which “began to haunt him,
disturbing his sleep, and casting a shadow as he walked
out into the square after another exhilarating session”(Ishiguro 202-03). However, she feels sense of mission to
train Tibor and correct his misleading way of playing thecello with his potential (Ishiguro 195-97). In their
sessions, Eloise also interprets love as essential in music
and life. She evaluates Tibor performance ofRachmaninov in great emotion of romantic love andabandonment because he once experiences lost love, theGerman girl in Vienna, despite no physical intimacy(Ishiguro 204-05). She shares with Tibor that Peter
Henderson, a golfing businessman in Oregon, feels
uneasy to live with her because a musician on the music
path has difficulty forming a family with someone notthere. In her regret for Tibor, she announces her possible
marriage with Peter: “she looked at him earnestly, thenlooked away” (Ishiguro 206-07, 218). Eloise finallychooses Peter her secular love in the material world,
expressing her responsibility even in audience’s shrug,
and in return Peter expresses his with tolerance andpersistence in their disagreement, toward which Tibor isconstructed (Robson 44; Ishiguro 218).

“Cellists” as Utterance of Education andResponsibility“Cellists” is the final utterance of education andresponsibility interrelated. Tibor, self in quest ofmusician’s success, encounters two different teachers,
Oleg Petrovic and Eloise McCormack, consciousnessesof education, formal and informal. Tibor receives formal
education from Oleg, formally-educated yet untalented
in the Royal Academy of Music in London and lives
under his fame and certificate. Later he meets Eloise,
informally-educated yet talented, who informs him of his
incorrect path but instructs him by inspiration andintuition in their sessions in Excelsior, where they
appreciate music, share sense of belongingness and match
their talents perfectly. Eloise disapproves of thoseuntalented professionals like Oleg with their teachingapproaches and certificates, and to Tibor’s realization,
Oleg’s certificate may not carry the supposed weight as
he has expected (Hoffert 55; Ishiguro 198-99). Too
intangible as her instruction, it does show a great effecton his playing skills for further improvement and he feels
being led to a brand-new beautiful distant garden(Ishiguro 201-02).

III. Kazuo Ishiguro’s Authorial Intent
12

As a reader, I endeavor to probe into Ishiguro’s authorial
intent and the dialogic overtone in the novel: Tony at hisold age should focus not on comeback but on happy
marriage with Lindy in full communication; Emily andCharlie should pay full mutual reliance in marriage withproper ambition; the songwriter in “Malvern Hills”
should balance between ideal and practical in his
perseverance and seek mutual tolerance with family;
Steven, talented, should praise the efforts of theuntalented and estimate whether his career is worth love
loss; and Tibor should employ his talent and formal
education independently and respect responsibility,
except love. In Ishiguro’s employment of the characterstransgredient to the hero toward the produced truth ineach story, he intends to solve an enigma for every globe
citizen of all walks in the twenty-first century who pursue
fame and fortune, that every career has its rising andfalling and it is impossible to always stay at the top; thatto pursue a career requires both talent and efforts whereas
they are likely to contribute to something as expected, or
nothing; and that one may lose life to his ambition andneglect his family.

IV. Conclusion
In Nocturnes, Ishiguro’s utterance, he employs theexamples of musicians’ career in the reversed life
direction intertwined with marriage to create a zoom-inand-zoom-out effect like the effect in Laurence Sterne’s
Tristram Shandy (Briggs 77 in Freeman 154)—zoomingin the old and zooming out the young—for readers to
shift their focus from what their ambition may lead to in
the future to what they decide to do with their ambition
presently, signifying the importance to live a day rather
than a life. This way, he provides readers with openended meaning of success and happiness; namely, successand happiness should be measured not from one single
perspective but from many, where truth will be produced,
ensuing a free choice: how one leads a life to achieve
success and happiness in his struggle between reality anddream, in thoughtful employment of education,
talent/efforts, perseverance and ambition, and in healthybalance of family. It is true that no one can predict the
future but the fortune indeed lies in one’s hand, which is
my utterance, a reader’s, in my dialogue with
Ishiguro.
Full ref erences f or this paper are f ound in
the Table of Ref erences section.

13

“Otherness” in the Literary Experienceof Endō Shūsaku: Encounters and Exchanges
JUSTYNA WERONIKA KASZA
UNIVERSITY OF CENTRAL LANCASHIRE, UNITED KINGDOM
themselves in their different experiences in Europe(Watanabe, 2002: 123).

Introduction
This paper discusses the category of “otherness” and the‘Other’ in the works of a contemporary Japanese writerEndō Shūsaku
(1923-1996). Broadly understood“literary experience” of Endō, first as a reader of Western
literature and further as a novelist, is based on constanttransition from the “encounter” with what to him isforeign, distant and alien within the Western world tothe definitive attempt to appropriate this “otherness” into
his fictional works.

When discussing the category of “otherness” in Endō’s
writings what we want to find out is not how the writer’sliterary identity was shaped through the Western
influences. Rather than particular literary or aestheticalinfluences, what will be of significance are the ways thewriter articulates and expresses the experience of“otherness” depending on the means provided by thenarrative forms he chooses in order to render thisexperience: diary, essay, travelogue, fiction. The“otherness” in Endō’s writing takes a number of multiple
shapes; it is unavoidably linked to two other important
categories: the “distance” and the problem the writer’s
subjectivity, his cogito.

The “otherness” of the West is not unfamiliar to modern
Japanese literature. The works of leading writers andintellectuals of the Meiji (1868-1912) and the Taishō(1912-1926) periods – Mori Ōgai, Nagai Kafū,
Kawabata Yasunari, Watsuji Testurō, Nishida Kitarō –testify to the multiform, multilayered encounters withvarious Western aesthetical or intellectual currents. The
concepts of the Orient (tōyō) and the Western world(seiyō) were employed in the cultural and literary
discourse as the means to define Japan’s place in theworld. The “otherness” of the West left its trace on the
consciousness of the writers and intellectuals but its
significance lasted as long as it could be referred to andincorporated to the context of Japan. The binary
oppositions of what “belongs to me” (uchi) and “what isforeign” (soto) was clearly delineated, and the point ofreference always focused on Japan.

In my discussion on “otherness” in Endō’s works, I referto the category of the ‘Other’ as it was formulated by
French philosopher Paul Ricoeur (1913-2005). In his
interpretative project, which the philosopher classifies asphenomenological hermeneutics, the category of“otherness” is included in the long and complicatedprocess of “acquiring identity.”In this process, the subjectivity, identified by Ricoeur as
cogito - shattered cogito emerges. Ricoeur refers in thisway to the Cartesian tradition of thinking on subjectivity
but his cogito is neither the framework nor thefoundation of cognition.

While for the aforementioned writers “otherness” wasunidirectional as it referred to the sphere of theforeignness of Europe, for Endō it initiated the sense of
the “otherness” towards his own cultural background –that is Japan. This particular approach was linked to bothEndō’s faith as a Christian convert and the historical andpolitical conditions that his generation (senchū-ha; wartime generation) experienced. As the critic Watanabe
Kazutami argues: [this generation was forced to] ‘rediscover their proper Japan through their Western
experiences’. And concludes that:

Discussion
Ricoeur’s “shattered cogito” renounces the ambition to be
the foundation, the basis of cognition; it does not havepretence to direct insight and self-knowledge throughauto-reflection but it is still the same cogito thatmaintains a relationship with the horizon of experience.
The path that such a weakened, “shattered cogito” takes
in the process of regaining its identity leads through anumberofintersubjectiveandtrans-historicalconnections, and this in turn leads to the requirement torelate them, to give an account of them; that is, tointerpret them as a kind of experience. In this sense,“shattered cogito” is touched by “otherness” and its
characteristic feature is, according to Ricoeur, polysemy.
The philosopher expresses this through three figures of

Before the war it was widely believed that there indeed
existed an actual Japan to return to. After the war,
however, all of the myths attached to that Japan had
dissolved and there no longer was an “actual” Japan that
could be shared. The postwar students discovered this for14the genres of writing employed by Endō, and focus on
how the notion of the “otherness” of one’s body wasarticulated.

“otherness” that shape the image of the “shatteredcogito”:
1. The “otherness” of one’s own body or flesh that
implies strangeness towards the world and towards the‘Other’.

One of the first open depictions on the skin colours that
determined Endō’s view of the self and the others – andthe self as the other – is the story Aden Made (To Aden)from 1954. In this first person narrative set in early 1950s
France, we encounter the Japanese student, Chiba (thenarrator) who, forced by his deteriorating health, ispreparing to return to Japan. These circumstances direct
his memories to the time spent among the French, inparticular to his close relationship with a white woman
called Maggie. The narrator recalls how despite being
treated decently and with respect, he nevertheless was notable to create the harmonious unity with the white
woman he came to love. Here is how Endō, through thewords of Chiba, reveals the dissimilarity between whiteand yellow:

2 The ‘Other’ that functions as the interlocutor on thelevel of discourse and the protagonist and the antagonist
on the level of interaction. It is the ‘Other’ who possesses
other ‘stories that require to be told.’
3. The third, separate figure of “otherness” is the‘“otherness” of conscience’. Ricoeur himself admits that
this last voice of “otherness” brings identity into question.
When considering the figure of conscience in relation to
the two former figures of “otherness,” Ricoeur admits aninability to point out one single source of the third figure
and at the same time, he singles out the number offactors that make up the third figure of “otherness.”

She was pure white, and my body sank into the light (…)
in a dark yellow shade unlike the brightness (…) of thewoman. (…) And the two colours of our entangled
bodies had no beauty, no harmony. Rather it was ugly. It
was like a yellow ground beetle clinging on to a purewhite flower. (Logan, 2009: 33)

That is why, Ricoeur wonders, whether this Other, thesource of the injunction, is another person whom I canlook in the face or who can stare at me, or my ancestors
for whom there is no representation, to so great an extent
does my debt to them constitute my very self, or God –living God, absent God – or an empty place (Ricoeur:
1992: 61).

In the further part of the story, we read that:
Just by loving me, the woman would not become a yellow
person, and I was not to become white. Love, theory or
ideology, were unable to erase the differences in the skincolour. (…)

1. Encounter with the Othera) First figure of the “otherness”: white man/yellow man
Following Ricoeurian classification of the “otherness,” webegin with the “otherness” of one’s body that implies thesense of strangeness towards the world and the ‘Other’. It
results from the physicality that affected the most basic
experiences of difference. In case of Endō, it is thephysiognomy that distinguishes him from the Europeans.

The white people are ready to let me into that part oftheir world that does not harm their self-respect and
pride. They have given me a permission to wear their
Western-style garments, to drink red wine, and to love
their woman.

Endō registers and vividly portrays this form of the“otherness” in his early short stories written soon after his
return from Europe, after having spent three years as aforeign student in France (1950-1953). The bodily
experience of the “otherness”, led Endō to formulate theconcepts of the “world of the white man” and the “worldof the yellow man”.
Structurally, the narrative forms that the writer chose as ameans to deliver the experiences of being the ‘yellow man
in the white world’, remains on the fringe upon fiction
and autobiography. Endō either opts for clearly
identifiable narrator in first-person (where ‘I’ equals theauthor) or invents the imaginative ‘I’ that neverthelessremains in accurate relation to the author. If one wants tomake a precise classification of these texts, they could, tosome extent, be viewed as an example of auto-fictional
writing. Let us however put aside these structural
dilemmas, as this would necessitate further exploration of

However, they categorically could not accept the fact thata white woman could love me. It was because the skin of
the white people remains white and beautiful. The yellow
skin is vague, and indistinct. It was intolerable that awhite woman could love someone who possesses suchlifeless yellow face. (Endō, 1954/2004: 16).
In his initial testimony to the “otherness” of the skin,Endō emphasises the apparent dichotomy between theWest represented by the white race and Japan – thecountry of yellow people without getting deep into – atleast at the moment – the area of more profounddeliberations on the nature of the differences. The“otherness” remains on the level of surface. Thus, Endō
discovers the meaning of the “horizon of the surface.”
The bodily experience of “otherness” is gradually
reinforced by two other experiences that accompanied15

experiences. At the end of the diary, Endō awaiting his
return to Japan reveals his longing for his homeland. He
notes enigmatically and hastily but tellingly: ‘The
unbearable loneliness…the love of Japan. No matter how
beautiful France could be, I still miss Japan…’ (Endō,
1980/2007: 432)

Endō during his stay in Europe: Christianity and theaftermath of the war. Endō elaborates the trichotomy ofwhite/yellow-Christianity and war further in his writing,often replacing the issue of the skin colour by themonotheism of the West and the pantheism of the East.
This enables him to explore and, with time, expand thenotion of “otherness” of the skin to the dissimilarity on
the spiritual level. As he noted in the essay ‘Shusse saku
no koro’, (The Time of My Promotion, 1967), during his
stay in France Endō realized that the Christianity heknew from Japan had an entirely different form in
Europe and it was in the post-war Europe that he cameto perceive himself as “haisenkoku no ichiseinen” (ayoung man from the defeated country). These were three
features that composed the distance that separated himfrom the West at that time.

Before we move to the second form of the “otherness,”
let us quote the section from the essay, ‘Awanai yōfuku.’(Ill-fitting
Western
Garments,
1967),
which
demonstrates how Endō was conscious that ‘the body is(…) the body of the subject (…) and is the body alreadygiven same time it is the anchoring already given andprior to it’, as would Ricoeur say.
Basically, we have no choice when it comes to our body.
Therefore, the body is both something that is one’s own
and something that is alien. According to Ricoeur: ‘one’s
own body is revealed to be the mediator between theintimacy of the self and the externality of the world.’(Ricoeur, 1992: 322).

The axis delineated by the physical and spiritual
discrepancies between East and West complemented by
the consciousness of the historical and political burdens
moves the writer’s reflection towards the question ‘what
is Japan?’Being aware of that, Endō created one of the mostappealing metaphors that illustrate the experience of“otherness”: “Western garments” (yōfuku). In the essay,
he elaborates the notion of “Western garments” andconfesses how writing became a means that enabled him
to adjust “Western garments” – literally his adopted faith(Christianity) to his Japanese silhouette.

Okada Sumie in her study Japanese Writers and theWest aptly points out that:For Endō Shūsaku (…) it was far more significant to takenote of the yellowness of his skin when he was in France
than to focus on the impact of cultural differences inFranco-Japanese relationships. Indeed, the physicalfactor was for him the clearest indication of his national
identity, a symbol of his Japaneseness (…) There was a
conscious awareness of defeatism in the 1950s as
consequence of the misery of loss in the Second World.
(Okada, 2000: 95)

I eventually realized that my faith was like the Western
clothes I was made to wear (…). Those Western clothes
did not fit my body at all. Some parts were too baggy andloose, other too small. Being finally aware of that, I
thought I should take off my Western clothes. These
were, I thought, Western clothes, not Japanese kimono,that would fit my body. Between my body and that
Western clothes there were empty spaces, that I could
not consider myself. (…) But I could not simply take off
and abandon my cloths (Endō, 1967/2004: 395)

The “otherness,” he describes in his texts, progressively
initiates the questions concerning his “subjectivity” – hisplace in the world. The skin colour is being put aside andas seen in the passage below from Endō’s diary he kept
his during his stay in Europe, he was determined todefine himself; to know ‘who am I?’b) Second figure of the “otherness”: from distance toappropriation

I have started to consider my place in the world. I cannot
find the answer to that question, because in my world myposition is not established yet [my position does not existyet]. No, definitely I do not have the consciousness of
being in the world. My world is limited to my family,
friends – to all those matters that surround me. Whatshall I do to extend my awareness of being in the world?
(Endō, 1980/2007: 49).

The second forms on the “otherness” is what Ricoeurterms as the “narration of the Other” and in the case ofEndō this form is present and the most pronounced in
the texts which constitute the writer’s dialogue with theculture and the thought of the West.
Endō’s initial “encounter” with the West takes place inthe late 1940s, when he enters French Department at
Keiō University in Tokyo. Here, under the guidance ofprominent scholars, Yoshimitsu Yoshihiko and SatōSaku, Endō undertakes the academic exploration ofleading themes in contemporary French literature andthought: existentialism, personalism and Neo-Thomism.
The area of his particular interest would be, however, theReading Endō’s diary, we observe the changing attitude
towards the self. It is the transition from the position of
the observer registering the outside world as the ‘Other’(For example the Japanese in France) to more personal
character of the account where the outside world is
becoming the source of impulses for the intimate
16

foreigner, non-Japanese, stranger), establishing his
position towards the West and Japan.

milieu of French Christian writers: François Mauriac,
Georges Bernanos, and Julien Green. Their works would
inspire young Endō in an attempt to undertake theliterary endeavours in the subsequent years; they would
become the point of departure for deep and meaningfulconsiderations of the themes that would bind his criticaland essayistic writing.

In university I began to study French Catholic literatureand to specialize in twentieth-century Catholic literature.
(…) As I read the works of [Claudel, Mauriac, Green], I
kept feeling there was a gulf between us. Theirconversion accounts implied to me that they had returned
to Christianity as to their own homeplace. But myself
had no such feeling. (…) Nowhere in those authors that I
studied did I discover what I felt: the anguish of an alien.
(…) All I can say at this point is that I have stayed withthe theme of anguish of an alien, which sets me apartfrom foreign Christian writers. (Endō: 1974:179-180 and
183).

However, already in his initial contacts with French
literature and thought Endō recognizes “distance” (inJapanese kyorikan), as an important interpretative
feature. Distance, as it later turns out, plays a crucial rolein his entire relations with foreign literature. It is
probably the very first way of speaking about the“otherness.” In his first essay, ‘Kamigami to Kami’ (TheGods and God), from 1947, Endō states that:

Ihōjin incorporates considerable burden of emotions andat the same time it implies “subjectivity”. This is the term
full of ambiguity. Adriana Boscaro describes this as the“double-foreignness” of Endō (Boscaro, 1981: 85). It
seems that the term ihōjin refers to the image of his “self”
both towards Europe and towards Japan. Consequently,
what emerges is the picture of the writer’s “divided self”:
it would manifest in the ambivalent affiliation to one
cultural sphere and his hesitance in absolute rejection of
the other. In the diary and in the essays, for example‘Watashi to kirisutokyō’ (Christianity and I, 1963) weread that for Endō this constant oscillation between
being Self and the ‘Other’ consists of being between what
he specified as ‘Eastern passive attitude’ and ‘Western
active attitude’.

When reading Catholic literature, one of the mostimportant issues is absolutely not to respectfully sidestep
the ‘sense of distance’ that is naturally evoked in us by thedifferent nature of these texts. Quite the contrary, we
should rather start from an awareness of this distance andresist it. But what exactly is this “sense of distance”?
What is the basic factor that arouses in us the “sense of
distance”? I shall try to investigate this issue (Endō,
1947/2004: 20)
In Ricoeurian hermeneutics, “distance” (or distanciation)
is a significant element in the process of grasping andunderstanding the surrounding world. Ricoeur sees it as a
medium in an area where a complicated process oftransformation takes place. This process obtains on theaxis “otherness – appropriation”. Ricoeur expresses it asunderstanding ‘through distance and in distance’. It
allows applying precisely the interpretative practice that isformulated from within the distance and assumes
constant dialectical tension between what divides andwhat mediates. This hermeneutically roundabout way
should lead, according to Ricoeur, to the discovery ofeffectiveness and productivity of distancing that may takevarious shapes: historical, geographic, spatial or cultural.
Ricoeur sees it as a battlefield between “otherness” and“appropriation”.

The second form of the “otherness” deeply affects Endō’s
identity as the writer. The question that is continuously
posed in his essays and critical works is ‘how am I
supposed to write?’, ‘how am I supposed to deal withcertain topics as a writer – as a Japanese writer?’Ricoeur says the ‘Other’ who possesses ‘stories thatdemand to be told.’ The Western literature that Endōreads and his discussions with Western thought,
constitute a multilayered encounter with texts “narrated”
by the Other on the themes that, as he states, interest
him the most and which he further elaborates in his own
writing.

The encounter with the Western culture and thought
motivated Endō to undertake studies abroad – and thiswas his main purpose to go to France in 1950.
The question is: did Endō manage to comprehend the‘sense of distance’ and did he manage to overcome it?

The significance of the figure of the “otherness” comesout most evidently in the specific relation that the writer
built with the French novelist François Mauriac.
Although they had never met personally, it was Mauriac’s
literature that shaped and formulated Endō’s literaryworkshop. Mauriac was the guiding figure in Endō’s
wanderings through Western literature, history, andthought, eventually inspiring the latter to embark on his
own literary projects. He appears in Endō’s earliest essays– ‘The Gods and God’, ‘Katorikku sakka no mondai’(Dilemmas of Catholic Writers, 1947) and occupies
prominent place in Endō’s diary.

I have already discussed the skin complex. I have also
pointed out how the issue “yellowness” of his skin –being physically Other in the world of the white – grew
wider into the sense of being the Other in the Christianworld and the Other in the post-war political context. In
the essay ‘Ihōjin no kunō’ (The Anguish of an Alien,
1973, tr. 1974), Endō finds the most appropriate termthat defines his predicament: ihōjin (the other, alien,17detailed analysis of Thérèse Desqueyroux. The choice ofthe topic testifies that the encounter with the story of the
Other – Mauriac’s novel – is for Endō not finished yet,but conversely he appears to anticipate further
confrontations, possibly further attempts to overcome thedistance.

The novel written by Mauriac – Thérèse Desqueyroux(1927) – was the piece that became particularly important
to Endō. Thérèse Desqueyroux leads him towards andthrough other literary works of the West. What is more,Endō employs the interpretive remarks he makes upon
reading this novel while critically approaching Japanese
literature.

(…) saying ‘I have read’ and ‘I have finished reading’ are
two different things. I have not entirely closed the bookyet. The novel has given me many questions to think
about and it confronted me with many problems and, at
this stage of my life, it conveniently imposed on me apainful topic (Endō, 1985/2004: 123).

In 1952 Endō wrote the travelogue “Terēzu no kage oōtte” (Following the Shadow of Thérèse) as an accounton his trip to southwest corner of France, the settings ofMauriac’s works. In order to deepen his knowledge ofFrench literature – to appropriate the essence ofMauriac’s prose – he considered it vital to visit places,
which became the settings for the novel ThérèseDesqueyroux. This was clearly the Japanese way ofacquiring the real meaning of the novel through the formof “pilgrimage” – the practice known in Japan since the
Heian period (8th – 11th century) , which consisted of“being here and now”, physically through his own body.
During his trip Endō plunges himself into the landscapesof Mauriac’s Landes; alongside the characters of thenovels, he wades through the dense pine forests andmarshes in order to confront the imaginary world offiction with reality. By doing so, Endō seems to discoveranother aspect of distance and “otherness” that allows us
to recognize them as tools applied in order to reconcile,
appropriate, make more understandable. It is the featureof “distance” that aims at moving the “otherness” closer,
making it ‘one’s own’.

2. Exchange
Oneself as Another: Deep River
Finally, we arrive to the last figure of the “otherness”,
named by Ricoeur ‘the otherness of the conscience’. I
refer to it as the exchange that is a kind of transformationof “otherness” that can be seen in Endō’s last novel,
Fukai kawa (Deep River 1993, tr. 1994).
The plot of the novel can be briefly summarized as anaccount of a journey to India undertaken by a group ofJapanese people who do not know each other. In spite of
the fact that the action takes place in present-day Japan,
through the characters’ memories it switches back to thepast and that includes the time of the (Pacific) war. Whatis significant for our considerations is that the augmented
form of “otherness” is introduced into the sphere offiction.

Mauriac represents the ‘Other’ with his own story, withhis own narration, whose essence Endō struggles toappropriate, to make it his very own. However, as amature writer, conscious of his literary heritage, Endō
would assume more critical standpoint towards Mauriac’s
prose and towards his attachment the French novelist. In
the essay ‘Furansuwa Mōriakku to watashi’ (François
Mauriac and I, 1970), he openly speaks about theaccompanying sense of distance that emerged from hisreading of Mauriac:

On the one hand we are dealing with the form of“otherness”, that, to some extent, is comparable to thedepiction of the encounter with the Other (from theWest) that Endō registered in his essays and criticalworks. The selected characters of Deep River read andinterpret exactly the same pieces of Western literature(i.e. Mauriac’s novels) as Endō did or they embark on
identical journeys to the corners of France that Endō
recorded in his own diary and non-fictional works.

(…) for a writer like myself, coming from as distant a
country as Japan, there have been times when his
literature was helpful and supportive, but at the sametime, it provided dissatisfaction. (…) Mauriac’s thought
developed in France, a country with a Christian tradition,and it turned out that this kind of thinking is absolutely
out of reach of the emotions of a man baptised in acountry like Japan. At that point, it seems to me that I
ultimately started feeling distance towards the writer.
(Endō, 1970/2004: 80)

For those characters of the novel, the “otherness” thatstems from the encounter with the culture of the West
constitutes a significant, momentous event. In thisregard, it can be suggested that Endō’s last novel is built
upon the polyphony – the multiple voices of invented“selves” (characters) – that make and sort out the author’s
biography, his own experience of encounter with the
Other. Endō himself confirmed that the characters of his
novels are the ‘portions of myself’.

Endō would challenge once again the “otherness” ofMauriac’s prose in his later years when he publishes
collection of essays Watashi no aishita shōsetsu (TheNovel I Have Loved, 1985), which constitutes the

However, apart from the form of the “otherness” thatrefers to particular characters, their singular experiencesin the conditions of their joint journey to India, anotherform of the “otherness” emerges that initiates a radical
revaluations in the lives of each of them.

18the condition of the novel, these speak in the mannertermed by Ricoeur as “otherness of conscience” that
result from a number of various factors which in turn leadto the Self becoming obliged to restrain itself and to
display respect that is directed to the outside, towards the‘Other’.

The whole of the universe where the characters of thenovel enter brings to life a series of memories, feelings,
experiences whose poetics is grounded on theaccumulation of deeply traumatic events that areaugmented in the physical reality of the places that they
visit in India.

Cogito that has a story to tell is an aggregate ofsubsequent confrontations and disintegrations. It is a
dynamic structure ‘since it comes into being within the
dialectical processes, within contradictions, between
being oneself and being the ‘Other'. It is something notconstant or material; it comes into being while following
the changing experience so as to capture what is crucial
in it. It is a result of a process of which the mostsignificant medium and its subject was Endō himself asihōjin. Ricoeur would say that ‘the self could return home
only at the end of long journey. And it is

The descriptions of nature, darkness, dusk intertwine
with the cultural context they found themselves. In thisspecific reality, “otherness” becomes closely linked withthe tension constructed around the continuum “suffering- death – life”.
The ‘Other’ appears as the one whose “otherness” isculturally and historically determined; it is the subject of
this cultural “otherness”. But the Other that is
encountered by the Ganges is the same other that speaksof the commonality of destiny and co-sympathy insuffering, features that permanently determine humancondition regardless of the cultural context.

Conclusions:“Otherness” in Endō Shūsaku’s literary experience
discussed through confrontation of various literary forms
enables to acknowledge that the significance of thewriter’s encounter with “otherness” and the Other
included in his texts lies in exposing exchange that wasdeveloping in a parallel way between what was alien andwhat he recognized as his own –that is – Japanese.

In this way, India and the Ganges River become places
where a transition that is fundamental for thecomposition of the novel takes place. It is a transition
from the level of individualized, particularly expressed
questions of each of the characters to the problem
perceived on the principle of the generic, common
destiny. As we read in the novel:

The category of “otherness,” as understood by Ricoeur,that has been employed to investigate a number ofphenomena characteristic of Endō’s works – including
the problem of distance and the writer’s subjectivity –could be of considerable research interest. It stimulates us
to approach the oeuvre of this writer as well as perhaps
many others in a way that does not eliminate the writing
persona, the author, contrary to the claims made bycontemporary literary criticism that announces the ‘deathof author’.

The holy river took not only humans, but all living thingsin its embrace as it flowed away. (Endō 1994: 143-144)
As it flows, the Deep River meanders through features of
Hindu and Buddhist religiosity, a certain form ofanimism, and Christianity that interweaves with them asconsubstantial with and complementary to the momentof universality. This moment is expressed through thenecessity to resign to the uncertainty, helplessness andfragility of human existence.

Ricoeurian category of “otherness” reminds us that the
subject – the human being, in the form of the “shatteredcogito” that has its own story to tell – cannot be
eliminated from a series of questions that emerge withincross-cultural contemporaneity.

The category of “otherness” captured in Endō’s lastnovel, collects and makes audible what might have goneunnoticed in his essays and critical works. With somerisk, it may be argued that “otherness” in this novel is to acertain extent of confessional character. We hear the
confession (the voice) of Endō the writer who throughhis characters was able to retrieve many of his own
dilemmas scattered among his non-fictional writings. In

Full references for this paper are found in the Table ofReferences section.

19

Mukoda Kuniko no Koibumi:
A Posthumous Discovery
MEGUMI OHSUMI, UNIVERSITY OF NEUCHÂTEL
which were based on elements from real life. The
comparisons will render apparent that Mukoda
incorporated elements from her real life when writing
fiction. This tendency will then be contrasted to voicesfrom a contemporary critic and a family member who
maintain that Mukoda revealed close to nothing about
herself. Citing principally from the Koibumi, an attempt
will be made to uncover the private side of Mukoda’s life,
which she never disclosed to the public or to her family.
This entails her affair with N-shi. I will then proceed todescribe her amorous life, or rather, the lack thereof, after
she ended her decade-long relationship. I argue in thispaper that it was with due deference to her family,
especially her parents, that Mukoda never acknowledged
the extramarital affair with her clandestine partner.

Introduction
Neither a novelist nor a poet, Kuniko Mukoda (19291981) for the most part has elided scholarly criticism,
especially in the English language and the Englishspeaking world.1 Albeit winning the eighty-third Naoki
Sho in 1980, one of the most prestigious literary prizes inJapan next to the Akutagawa Sho, she neverthelessremains most celebrated for her works as a scriptwriterfor television. However, Mukoda’s life was cut shortwhen she died in a tragic airplane accident on 22 August
1981. She left many things about her private life untold.
Mukoda Kuniko no Koibumi (The Love Letters of Kuniko
Mukoda), first published in 2002 by Mukoda’s sister
Kazuko, shed light on Mukoda’s relationship with amarried man thirteen years her senior.

It is not uncommon to find objects, images, or
experiences of an author reflected in her works. In her
essay “Satsumaage,” Mukoda describes a pair of green
high heels, which was on display behind the front
window of an old shoe store in Kagoshima. The delicate
form of the shoes, with green ankle straps, led the young
Mukoda, then only a child of about ten years, to assume
that they must have been imported from abroad. In theyears before World War II, no female member in her
family was a “modern woman” (“modan na onna”) who
would wear high heels, and she writes that upon
returning home that day she practiced walking on her
toes, imagining that she was wearing a pair of heeled
shoes.2 Those green heels, which attracted Mukoda as achild, must have remained somewhere in her mind wellinto adulthood. Decades later in her 1983 A, Un, thecharacter Toyoko Mitamura enters the scene wearing apair of “modern” green heels (“midoriiro no modan na
hai hiiru”). 3 In addition, Toyoko is described as being
wrapped in a fox fur scarf, sporting a stylish haircut, andwearing bright red lipstick. In the plot, she is a young
woman who is impregnated by the protagonist, a middleaged and married factory owner, Shuzo Kadokura. Like
the imported heels, which she first saw in pre-War
Kagoshima, for Mukoda, the character Toyoko isrepresentative of a chic, “modern” woman who has a
special and youthful allure.

Referring to him only as “N-shi,” the book reveals
evidence of the affair, which spanned over a decade. I will
first introduce examples from Mukoda’s fictional works,

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
1 	
  Although	  Mukoda’s	
   works	
   have	
   been	
   included	
   in	
  collections	
   such	   as	
   Trevor	
   Carolan’s	
   The	   Colors	
   of	
   Heaven:	
  Short	
  Stories	
  from	  the	
  Pacific	
  Rim	   (1992),	
   The	  Name	  of	
  the	  Flower:	
   Stories	
   by	
   Kuniko	
   Mukoda	
   (1994),	
   translated	
   by	
  Tomone	   Matsumoto,	
   remains	
   the	   only	
   edition	
   readily	
  available	
   in	
   English.	
   Interestingly	
   enough,	
   some	
   of	  Mukoda’s	
   stories	
   have	
   recently	
   been	
   translated	
   into	
   non-­‐English	
  languages,	
  including	
  the	
  French	
  Menteur!	
  (Philippe	  Picquier,	
   2000).	
   A	
   Chinese	   edition	
   of	
   the	   Love	
   Letters	
   has	  also	
   appeared	
   (Guangxi	
   Normal	
   University	
   Press,	
   2011).	
  For	
   the	   most	
   part,	
   Mukoda	
   has	   only	
   been	
   mentioned	
   in	  critical	   biographies.	
   Sachiko	
   Shibata	
   Schierbeck’s	
   Postwar	  Japanese	
   Women	   Writers:	
   An	
   Up-­‐to-­‐date	   Bibliography	
   with	  Biographical	
   Sketches	
   (1989)	
   allots	
   only	   a	
   few	
   pages	
   to	  each	
   writer,	
   and	   Chieko	
   Mulhern’s	
   Japanese	
   Women	  Writers:	
  A	
  Bio-­‐Critical	
  Sourcebook	  (1994)	
  attempts	
  to	
  cover	  authors	
   from	
   the	   ninth	
   century	
   to	
   the	   postwar	
   era.	
   Of	
   the	  latter,	
   Kohl	   1997,	
   143	
   remarks	
   that	
   it	
   is	
   “a	
   good	
   place	   to	
  start”	  for	  beginners	
  in	
  Japanese	
  studies,	
  but	  the	
  ambitiously	
  wide	
   chronological	
   coverage	
   does	
   not	   allow	
   for	   in-­‐depth	
  analysis	
   of	
   each	   writer.	
   Fowler	
   1992,	
   31	
   has	   stated	
   his	  surprise	
   at	
   the	   mention	
   of	
   Mukoda’s	
   name,	
   as	
   one	   of	
  “popular	   writers	
   rarely	
   heard	
   of	
   in	
   academic	
   circles,”	
   at	
   a	
  
1988	
   press	
   conference	
   hosted	
   by	
   the	   Japan	   Foundation	
   in	
  Tokyo.	
   Although	
   some	
   publishers,	
   which	
   Fowler	
   mentions	
  have	
  since	
  closed,	
  such	  as	
  Kodansha	
  International	
  (in	  2011,	
  
much	
  of	
  its	
  operations	
  being	
  taken	
  across	
  the	  continent	
  to	
  Kodansha	
  USA,	
  Inc.),	
  his	
  article	
  is	
  a	
  valuable	
  source	
  on	
  the	  history	
   of	
   English	
   translations	
   of	
   Japanese	
   works	
   in	
   the	  postwar	
   era	   and	   the	   commercial	
   issues	
   involved	
   in	
   their	  publications.	
  

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
2
3

20

Mukoda 2012, 266.
Ibid. 2009, 35.	
  

Similarly, in the 1979 Ashura no Gotoku, there is a scene
in which the Takezawa family orders sushi. At the table
are the mother Fuji, the four Takezawa daughters
Tsunako, Makiko, Takiko, and Sakiko, and Makiko’s
husband Takao Satomi. Takiko points out that Fuji isdevouring more than her share of conger eel (“anago”)
and eggs, that she is eating those of others.4 The author’s
family also had four children, though they were threedaughters and one son. Mukoda’s sister Kazuko has
recently commented on the novelized version of thework, in which she mentions that the scene of themother stealing conger eel and eggs of others wheneating sushi is reminiscent of her own family, as it isexactly what their mother Sei used to do.5

Ashura no Gotoku and A, Un, in which extramarital affairs
are a major theme.9

Albeit clearly drawn from the author’s experience,
especially the latter regarding the predilections of her
mother, Mukoda in fact barely reveals anything about
herself. The Japanese nonfiction writer Kotaro Sawaki
has commented that while Mukoda colorfully describes
her father and mother, siblings, cats, and friends across
many of her essays and offers glimpses of her family life
in her fictional works, she rarely incorporates anecdotes
about herself, particularly her experiences after reaching
young adulthood.6 Kazuko commented much the samething. Even regarding the essays, which Mukoda draftedlater in life, Kazuko expresses her impression that her
sister did not expose herself completely. In her family,
too, Mukoda seldom spoke about herself, Kazuko writes,and she believes that it is not attributable to the nine-year
age difference between the siblings.7 Thus Mukoda had atendency to disclose, not only nothing about her loveaffair but also, close to nothing about her own person andher own experience.

Photo by Born1945 (Creative Commons)
Mukoda was an exceptional woman of her time in that
she expressed a desire to receive higher education. After
graduating from Jissen Women’s College in 1950, she issaid to have asked her parents if she could pursue another
degree at a different university yet was unable to obtain
their permission. She subsequently found employment on
her own as a secretary at a company that madeeducational films. Though a small company, theemployees ranged from translators, cameramen, to artists.
It is there that she seems to have met N-shi.10 Kazuko
can recall only one instance on a Sunday afternoon inwhich Mukoda stopped by at her house with N-shi. She
describes his physical appearance to have been about thesame height as Mukoda, stout, and kind-looking. He
may have spoken a few words with her mother, Kazuko is
not sure, he then exchanged nods with her father from a

However, Mukoda did incorporate objects and habits ofothers from real life. Furthermore, Yasunari Kawabata
once stated of Japanese women writers: “[they] inevitably
reveal their true selves. Even though she may not noticeit herself, she is bared naked by her work.” 8 It is notuncommon that an author, regardless of gender, bases hisor her fiction on a true, personal experience. The plot
and characters may have been altered enough for thework to be called fiction, but the depth of character
development and setting, especially when placedalongside the author’s biographical data, may uncover thefact that the author has in-depth knowledge of thesubject matter about which she writes. Such, I argue, isthe case with Mukoda and many of her works, including

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
9

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
4

Ibid. 2011, 61.
Ibid. 2002, 172.
6
Sawaki 2012, 297.
7
Mukoda 2002, 155 and 2010, 58.
8
Copeland 2006, 7 and 52; translation was done by Kathryn
Pierce and Mika Endo. The original may be found in Kawabata(1982).
5

21

Cf. Allinson’s depiction of Mukoda’s female characters: “Herwomen are often outspoken, assertive, and venturesome. They
expect the worse and often experience it. But they seem more
resilient and less self-destructive than the men and better able
to adapt” (1999, 198). Likewise, Hara observes: “Mukoda’s
modern Japanese women are bound by cultural prescriptives…
[yet they] usually anticipate all consequences as well” (1994,
252).
10
Mukoda, 2010, 71-72.

distance, and the two departed. Nobody seemed to noticeor take heed of who N-shi was to Mukoda, and Mukoda
never brought up his name or volunteered information
about him to her family.11

suggest that no three days passed without them seeing
one another.
However, even though she continued the relationship,
she remained cautious about leaving any evidence of theaffair to her family. Her efforts to keep the presence ofher lover a secret are apparent in at least two points.
Mukoda had always lived under the same roof as her
family. It had become customary for Mukoda to stay at
hotels to write in peace in order to meet deadlines. The
letters, which she addressed to N-shi were often written
on hotel stationery. This suggests that she did not deem
it a sagacious decision to write to her lover in thepresence of her family at home. Furthermore, N-shi,
when sending letters to Mukoda, often used the addressof the hotel where she was staying. It may be presumed
that Mukoda, and perhaps N-shi as well, did not wish
that letters from her lover arrive at her residence, where
they may incite unwanted attention from her family.19

Mukoda’s correspondence with N-shi was found only
posthumously. In the aftermaths of the fatal accident, herfamily sorted through Mukoda’s possessions in her
apartment. It was Michiko, the middle sister between theauthor Kuniko and Kazuko, who found a brown envelope
which contained five letters by N-shi addressed to
Mukoda, three letters from Mukoda to N-shi, N-shi’s
diary, one telegram, and two of N-shi’s pocket schedulebooks.12 Michiko, though she never questioned Mukoda,
seemed to have been aware of the affair and sensed
immediately that the contents of the envelope may beconnected to N-shi. Without examining the details ofeach page, she entrusted the envelope and all of its
contents to Kazuko. It was only later that Kazuko
learned, that the envelope, had been given to Mukoda by
N-shi’s mother, following his death in 1964. 13 Kazuko
did not feel prepared to uncover the private life of her
oldest sister until the spring of 2001, almost two decades
after Mukoda’s tragic death.

Mukoda was also careful about the time of day in which
she visited N-shi and always made sure that she returned
home every day, albeit often towards midnight. Kazuko
remembers that, although her sister also worked fromhome and it was not infrequent that she composed
scripts from night until dawn, Mukoda usually left thehouse at three or four o’clock in the afternoon andreturned at around eleven o’clock. She also remarks that
Mukoda was seldom present for dinner. 20 This
recollection corresponds to the time, which N-shi notedin his diary of Mukoda’s visits. In his entries N-shi
recorded at what time he rose in the morning, his daily
walks to Koenji in Tokyo, the items and prices of what
he purchased that day, details of his meals, and at whattime Mukoda arrived and departed. For example, on 28
November 1963, he noted that Mukoda visited him atfour o’clock in the afternoon and left at half past ten,adding a comment that she showed signs of fatigue. The
last record remains from 17 February 1964, possibly thelast time Mukoda saw N-shi. That day too, the two haddinner together at his home and she left at half past ten
at night.21 These serve as testimonies to the heed, which
Mukoda took to keep her relationship - an illicit affair - asecret from her family.

N-shi was a married man with children. Kazuko heard
later that the couple was already separated when Mukoda
began seeing the man. 14 Though his occupation was aphotographer for documentary films, he seems to havesuffered from an illness, which incapacitated him fromworking. He lived alone, in a separate quarter, on thesame family plot where his mother also lived. 15 The
remaining correspondence between Mukoda and N-shi isfrom 1963. N-shi’s diary entries are between October
1963 and February 1964. Assuming that the two met in
the early 1950s, their relationship must have continued
for over a decade.
In the letters to her lover, Mukoda shows a side ofherself, which she never revealed to her family. At home,
she was a dependable eldest child who contributed large
portions of her income to the family, took care to sew
uniforms for her younger siblings, and was even a
confidante to her mother. 16 However, in her
correspondence, Mukoda calls her lover by theaffectionate, and even childish, nickname “Babu.”17 N-shi
also records in his diary and letters that Mukoda often
prepared stew and other meals for him, which theyshared together or which she left for him for the next
day.18 The dates in the correspondence and diary entries

The affair came to an abrupt end when N-shi committed
suicide on 19 February 1964, perhaps due to the forlorn
state, which he found himself in as a disabled personwith scarce hope for recovery. N-shi would have been
about forty-seven years old, and Mukoda, thirty-four.
About this, too, Mukoda remained silent and expressed
no grief in front of her family. In October of that year,

11

Ibid., 73.
Ibid., 57 and 86.
13
Ibid., 96.	
  14
Ibid., 73 and 84.
15
Ibid., 33 and 93-94..
16
See, among others, ibid., 76-77 and 82.
17
Ibid., 8 and 13.
18
See, among possible others, ibid., 15, 28, 31, 37, and 39.	
  
12

19

See ibid., 8-39.
Ibid., 89.
21
Ibid., 11 and 44. See also ibid., 22-43 for other entries
between 8 December 1963 and 16 February 1964 in which Nshi indicates visits from Mukoda at similar times.
20

22

just short of her thirty-fifth birthday, she left thehousehold and moved to an apartment in central Tokyo.
Her apartment also became her worksite where she
wrote, held meetings with publishers, and frequently
invited friends. She was famous and successful. However,notwithstanding her fondness for drinking, the large
circle of acquaintances and friends, and the newly
acquired independence of an apartment of her own, there
were no rumors of romance about Mukoda. Mukoda
never married.22

In middle age, Mukoda also developed a habit of jokingly
wondering aloud to her friends if any widowed
gentleman would take her as a second wife. The critic
Yoko Kirishima remembers inviting some female friends,
including Mukoda, for dinner in the early 1980s. The
critic writes that there as well Mukoda was musing if
anyone might be looking for a second wife. Kirishima
had heard from others that it was by then Mukoda’s
habitual phrase, and she adds that she felt a poignant
sincerity in her friend’s words. 26 Another friend andwriter, Hitomi Yamaguchi, recalls a similar instance. In
the aftermaths of winning the Naoki Prize, Mukoda wasconfounded by the media attention, camera flashes, andeven blackmail recorded on her telephone. Yamaguchi ina conversation with her made a sympathetic commentthat it must be hard during times like that to not have atsureai (partner or spouse), to which Mukoda uttered theby then customary phrase: “I wonder if someone wouldn’t
take me as a second wife.”27
Mukoda was fifty-one years old when she passed away.
The question remains whether, had she lived to anelderly age, she would have written about her affair in an
essay collection or decided to publish an autobiography.
After all, Chiyo Uno did so very late in her life in 1983 in
Ikiteyuku Watashi.28 In Mukoda’s case, it is unlikely that
she would have published a confessional work detailingher private life. While Mukoda’s father passed away due
to a sudden heart failure in 1969, her mother outlived
her. Sei lived to the age of one hundred and passed awayin 2008. Mukoda would not have chosen to shock her
elderly parent or potentially bring public disgrace to herfamily.

Photo by Antonio Perez Rio (Creative Commons)
While the writer was still in her twenties, there was aperiod in which her mother was feverishly intent onmatchmaking (omiai) for her eldest daughter. Perhaps
already in a relationship with N-shi, Mukoda, though
she succumbed to her mother’s insistence and met several
candidates, never married and waited until her mothereventually renounced the idea.23 All in all, it may seem
that, for Mukoda, her career remained a priority
throughout her life. However, although she may never
have been interested enough in marriage, she did notconceal her desire to be married. In her 1978 essay“Adazakura,”
Mukodadescribes
herpaternal
grandmother who never married yet bore two sons by
two different men. In comparing herself to her
grandmother, she wonders whether it is fortunate or notfor her that she remains unable to leave suchaccomplishments (“jisseki”) as her grandmother did.24 In“Chiiko to Gurande,” another essay published the same
year, Mukoda calls herself an “old miss” and remembers a
Christmas one year in which she sat at home alone with asmall cake and beer. In her drunken state, she laughedout, “Merry Christmas!,” only to notice a moment latertears welling up in her eyes.25

In the Koibumi from 2002, Kazuko tells an account of aconversation she held with Michiko after Mukoda’s
death. Kazuko offers her view that Mukoda did not elope
because of her family and the possibly devastating impactthat an elopement may give them. Michiko expresses
assent, saying that their mother is most likely still
unaware that such a man existed in her daughter’s life.
Mukoda must have known, Michiko muses, that theirparents would not express approval and must havereached the conclusion that she better keep it a secretfrom her family.29 In the Koibumi, Kazuko also mentions
that in the 1950s, when Mukoda was in her midtwenties, tension arose in the Mukoda household, as
there was suspicion in the family that their father may
have been involved in an extramarital affair.30 Even if N-

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
26

Kirishima 2011, 194.
Yamaguchi 2011, 91-92; translation is mine.	
  28
For details about this work and the author Chiyo Uno, see
Copeland (1992).
29
Mukoda 2010, 84-85. Cf. Mulhern 1994, 246 who states that
Mukoda had a “domineering father.”30
Mukoda 2010, 74. For the social and legal aspects ofadultery in Japan, which was a crime until 1947, see Suzuki
2013, 330-31.
27

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
22

For possible reasons, Allinson 1999, 197 suggests: “Both theneed to care for her father until 1964 and a bout with cancer
ensured her life as a single woman.”23
Mukoda 2010, 72.
24
Ibid. 2012, 116-18.
25
Ibid. 2009, 142.

23

shi was separated from his wife, Mukoda must haveoverlapped her mother’s pain with that which she, as thelover, may be inflicting on N-shi’s wife.31
The fact that Mukoda held onto the N-shi’s notebooks
and the correspondence with him is testament to thesignificance of the relationship to her. Mukoda’s sisters
agree that N-shi was a partner whom Mukoda could relyon and learn from as a writer and, more importantly, as awoman. 32 Remakes of Mukoda’s television seriescontinue to appear in the twenty-first century.33 Decades
following her death, the posthumous discovery adds
another dimension to the legacy of Japanese poet andwriter Kuniko Mukoda.
Full references for this paper are found in the Table ofReferences section.

Photo Tokyo Forum (Creative Commons)

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
31

Cf. Mukoda 2010, 84.
Ibid., 85.
33
While not an exhaustive list, I mention here several
examples. A television remake of Fuyu no Undoukai (1977)
was aired in 2005. A, Un (1980) was made into a film in 1989,
and a remake appeared once again on television in 2000.
Ashura no Gotoku (1979-1980) was novelized and its 2003
film adaptation, directed by Yoshimitsu Morita, premiered at
the Montreal World Film Festival; see Qualls and Chin 2004.
The work was also rewritten into a play in 2004. Dakatsu no
Gotoku, another television series from 1981, was also madeinto a play in 2004 and a television remake was aired in 2012.	
  
32

24

Exploring Nagusamegusa (1418): The
Semiotics of Encounter and Exchange fora Poet-Traveller in Muromachi JapanPENELOPE SHINO MASSEY UNIVERSITY, NEW ZEALAND
The paper applies the conference theme of 'exchanges
and encounters' to a fifteenth century Japanese
travelogue, Nagusamegusa (‘Grasses of Consolation',1418), by the influential poet and Zen priest Shōtetsu(1381-1459). On a number of levels we can find a greatrichness and diversity of exchanges and encounters; forthe present occasion the paper examines two types ofencounters for their encoded significance in historical,
social and cultural terms. Firstly, on a concrete level,
Shōtetsu's travel from Kyoto to sojourn in the provinces
brings him into contact with a surprisingly colourful castof characters representing many different strands ofMuromachi society – peasants of various kinds, woman
peddlars, merchants, travellers, various types of clerics
and warriors.1 In particular he is welcomed and hosted bya local feudal magnate at Kiyosu Castle 2 who is keen tobenefit from his literary credentials and connections as awaka poet. The paper interprets this encounter in termsof the highly transitional, symbiotic and socially mobile
characteristics of Muromachi society, the penetration of
the culture of the capital into the provinces, and warrior
uptake of aristocratic tradition.
The journey is also one where, in his passage through ageographical locale, Shōtetsu encounters and responds tothe cultural landscape of the literary past: in this journey
the stages of his travel are marked by tributes toutamakura, or places famed in poetry; his need tocompose poetry at such richly literary sites show his
culturally-determined drive to construct a ‘proper'
identity for himself as a poet in the classical modethrough interaction with the canonised voices of the past.

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
1 	
  The	  pages	
   of	
   the	   travelogue	
   provide	
   us	
   with	   vivid	
  documentary	
   evidence	
   of	
   what	   scholars	
   describe	   as	
   the	  ‘Muromachi	
   optimum’:	
   ‘[F]or	
   the	   half	
   century	
   from	
   the	  cessation	
   of	
   widespread	
   hostilities	
   in	
   1368	
   until	
   the	   famine	  of	
   1420,	
   residents	
   entered	
   an	
   age	
   …	
   when	
   the	   new	  shogunate	
   was	   at	
   its	   height	
   and	   social	
   and	   economic	
  expansion	
   most	   vigorous.’	
   (Farris	
   2006,	
   p.	
   95)	
   	
   No	
   more	  vividly	
   does	   the	   reader	
   encounter	
   the	   ‘Muromachi	
  optimum’	
   than	
   in	
   the	   following	
   vignette	
   from	
   the	   journal,	
  where	
   Shōtetsu	
   describes	
   the	   castle	   town	
   of	
   Kiyosu:	
   ‘The	  next	
  day	  …I	  arrived	
  at	
  a	
  place	
  which	  seemed	
  to	
  be	
  the	  very	  centre	   of	
   this	   province.	
   	
   Here	   I	
   discovered	
   all	   manner	
   of	  residences	
   and	   similar	
   dwellings,	
   with	   people	
   rushing	  around	   on	
   provincial	
   and	   district	
   business,	
   zealously	
  looking	
  after	  the	
  needs	
  of	
  their	
  peasants	
  from	  dawn	  to	
  dusk	  -­‐	
   it	
   was	   as	
   busy	
   as	   a	   market	
   town.	
   I	
   felt	
   utterly	
   as	
   if	   I	   was	
  
back	
  in	
  the	
  capital.’	
  (Nagusamegusa,	
  in	
   Nagasaki	
  1994,	
  pp.	
  439-­‐440)	
   All	   subsequent	
   quotations	
   from	
   Nagusamegusa	
  refer	  to	
  this	  edition	
  as	
  translated	
  by	
  the	
  author.	
  	
  
	
  
2
Kiyosu Castle was located in present-day Kiyosu-chō, NishiKasugai-gun, Aichi Prefecture, in the centre of the Owari Plain.
Kiyosu was the territory of the Oda clan; Oda Nobunaga
became lord of Kiyosu Castle in 1555 and it became the basefrom which he set out to unify Japan. The castle town ofKiyosu developed as a post town on the Mino highway. (Nihon
kokugo daijiten) The castle is said to have been built in theearly Muromachi period by powerful Shiba Yoshishige (someother sources give the date 1405), and the present castle wasreconstructed in 1989.	
  	
  (Kiyosu Castle, 2012)	  Thus the paper uses the content of a historical andliterary document, Nagusamegusa, as a vehicle todemonstrate the semiotics of encounter and exchange. It
will focus on the two aspects indicated above, and theirsignificance:••

Shōtetsu’s encounter with the warriors of Kiyosu
Castle;Shōtetsu’s encounter and exchange with the culturallandscape of his journeyFirstly, before addressing the first aspect, it will be
helpful to provide a short description of Nagusamegusa,
and some social information about the narrator of thetravelogue, Shōtetsu.
Nagusamegusa is a literary diary completed by Shōtetsu in
1418. It is the account of his travels from the capital part
way along the Nakasendō 3 around the shores of Lake

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
	
  
3	
  This	
   was	   the	   normal	
   route	
   to	
   Kamakura	
   in	
   the	   medieval	
  25

period,	
   passing	
   through	   Yamashiro,	   Ōmi,	   Mino,	   Owari,	  Mikawa,	
   Tōtōmi,	
   Suruga,	
   Izu	   and	   Sagami	
   provinces.	
  (Shōgaku	
   tosho	
   gengo	
   kenkyūjo	
   1990,	
   176-­‐177)	
   The	  section	   travelled	
   by	
   Shōtetsu	
   roughly	
   corresponds	
   with	  Biwa, through the mountains to the northeast of Lake
Biwa and eventually reaching the town of Kiyosu, in thewestern part of present day Aichi Prefecture. Only aboutfour or five days of his trip were spent on the road, but
the journal itself covers a span of about four months,
mostly relating his stay in Kiyosu, where Shōtetsu was
accommodated in a Zen hall ‘Bamboo Shadows’ in the
castle precinct. During his stay at Kiyosu Castle he isprevailed upon to give an impromptu lecture on The Taleof Genji and a complete reading of the work. The journal
was written retrospectively, at the request of Shōtetsu’s
young lover at Kiyosu castle, a warrior youth, toaccompany a booklet of poems with commentary fromThe Tale of Genji which Shōtetsu had compiled. A
substantial section of the journal lyrically recounts thisrelationship.

His grandfather, or possibly his father, Hidekiyo, hadbeen the first lord of Kōdoyama castle, in Odanoshō (theOda estate), Bitchū province (the western part ofpresent-day Okayama Prefecture) after being appointed
jitō (estate steward) by the Ashikaga shogun and taking
up residence in Oda in 1368, governing four villages.
(Inada 1978, pp.22-23) During Kamakura times the jitō
had been the 'major local figure' (Hall and Mass 1974,
p.256) but after the formation of the Ashikaga Bakufu,
the power of the jitō declined and real power in theprovinces steadily moved into the hands of the shugo, theprovincial military governor. (Hall and Mass 1974,
pp.182-183)

However, Shōtetsu was not particularly disadvantaged bythis provincial start in life, thanks to the combination of
shogunal policy and some fortunate real estate decisions
by his parents． Aged about ten, his family were obliged
to re-locate to the capital, in response to shogunal
requirements for provincial lords to return to the capitaland establish their households there on a semipermanent basis. (Hall and Mass 1974, p.27) Their new
home was on Sanjō-Higashi no Tōin.
(Shōtetsu
monogatari 1:104, in Hisamatsu and Nishio 1961), a
major avenue running south to north through Kyoto, just
opposite the residence of Imagawa Ryōshun, who was
one of the most important and powerful political andmilitary figures of the day as well as an eminent poet andchampion of the Reizei school. Shōtetsu’s home was also
only about half a mile from the quarter between Ichijō
Avenue and Sanjō Avenue where were concentrated theresidences of the military elite, the Hatakeyama, theShiba, the Hosokawa, the Yamana and the Isshiki, as
well as the imperial palace and the Ashikaga
headquarters. (Hall and Mass 1974, Figures 1.2 and 1.7)
From about this age Shōtetsu began associating withboth the military elite and the court. At the age oftwelve, we learn from an entry in Sōkonshū, he saw a hugechrysanthemum at the palace of retired Emperor Fushimi
and was so struck by its beauty that he was moved toplant an identical chrysanthemum in his own garden overforty years later. (Inada 1978, pp. 32-33) Aged about
fourteen, Shōtetsu attended his first poetry monthly
meeting, held by a group of Reizei school poets at
Imagawa Ryōshun’s (1326-c.1417) residence. (Shōtetsu
monogatari 1:104)

Yusuke Kawasaki (Creative Commons)
Of the author, we know that at the time the travelogue
was written, Shōtetsu was a Zen monk, and had recently
retired from the position of shoki (secretary) at the great
Rinzai Zen temple of Tōfukuji in Kyoto. Socially as apriest or monk his status was somewhat ambiguous, andon the margins of the mainstream hierarchy. (Shino,
2006, pp.34-38)
In fact, purely in terms of birth Shōtetsu was of quite
humble origins. He was born a commoner (jige) from the
middle echelons of the provincial landed warrior gentry.

Already therefore, long before taking the tonsure in
about 1414, 4 Shōtetsu was acquiring a hybrid identity,

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
4	
  A	
   poem	
   written	
   on	
   kaishi	
   (loose	
   leaves	
   of	
   paper)	
   which	
  

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
the	
  route	
  followed	
  by	
  the	
  Shinkansen	
  between	  Kyoto	  and	  Nagoya.	
  26

refers	   to	
   his	
   'charcoal	
   monk's	
   robes'	
   (sumi	
   no	
   koromo)	
   is	
  dated	  1414:	  	
  from	  this	  we	
  can	
  adduce	  that	  he	
  had	
  already	
  taken	
   the	   tonsure	
   by	
   this	
   time.	
   (Tanaka	   1977,	
   p.19)	
   He	
  would	  have	  been	
  about	
  thirty-­‐three.	
  domestically warrior, but culturally gravitating towards
court and the aristocratic tradition. In this regard his rolemodel was in all likelihood his teacher and mentor
Imagawa Ryōshun, the consummate blend of the martial(bu) and the literary arts (bun). He was also close to
Reizei Tamemasa (1361-1417), the head of the Reizei
house and poetic line.

Oda Nobunaga in his conquest of Japan. No details areprovided about Shōtetsu’s immediate reception at Kiyosu
Castle. He arrives in the company of an elderly lay priest(ubasoku) he has encountered on the way, and isaccommodated in a Zen hall elegantly named ‘Bamboo
Shadows’, where a couple of other monks were alreadystaying. A telling description of the castle is provided,
indicative of the extent to which a synthesis of thewarrior and the aristocratic was already in progress:

His decision to take monastic vows, and then four years
later to become a wanderer in the tradition of poet-priest
Saigyō (1118-1190) further enhanced his ability to
associate with both classes and act as a cultural conduit
between them. The following remarks from
Nagusamegusa underscore the flexibility conferred by
ambiguity:

There is a watchtower and a palisade, designed
to defend from enemy attack and deter bandits.
Once inside everything is similarly elegant, witha green for archery and arbour6 for kemari. Westof the main shinden hall stands another building
at the end of a gallery. Its name is ‘Bamboo
Shadows’ … (Nagusamegusa, pp.440 -441)

People can tell that I am not a rough warrior, but puzzle
over my real identity. I am like a bat, neither bird notmouse. I have attended the jewelled courtyards of the
highborn, and stayed in the humble dwellings ofcommon people. (Nagusamegusa,
p.430)

His first reference to meeting the lord of Kiyosu Castle
occurs some paragraphs later:
One day the lord of this residence addressed me,saying ‘Well now, I have been informed that you
are very knowledgeable about The Tale of Genji.
For a long time, despite lacking any special
talent, one of my interests was renga poetry but
recently I have given up, too caught up in
everyday business and unable to concentrate on
this artistic pursuit, turning out poetry which isboring and uninspired. Even so I would like tohear about the history of this tale. Please would
you be able to oblige, even if only a small
part?’(Nagusamegusa, pp. 442-443)

It was in this capacity therefore that he made his journeyand eventually reached Kiyosu at the end of the fourth
lunar month where he stayed for three-and-a-halfmonths. And it is the encounter which took place here
which is quite remarkable, not for high drama, but as afirst hand account unequivocally documenting theprocess by which the warrior class accomplished their
uptake of the warrior tradition.
The journal, true to the idealised image of the wandererestablished in its introductory paragraph, ‘I left thecapital to wander, “like floating weeds drawn by thewaters,” entrusting myself to merciful fate,’(Nagusamegusa, p.430) depicts his stay in Kiyosu as
unplanned. But in all likelihood the castle was his
destination from the outset. As Plutschow remarks(1982, p.7): ‘Many linked verse poets, apparently
reluctant to make their diaries official accounts, did not
mention their invitations as the reason for their journeys.’
But these famous poets were often invited by suchprovincial magnates, who welcomed every opportunity toimport the refined culture of the capital. Poets werelavishly treated by their hosts, who supplied them withtransport such as horses, palanquins, and boats assuring aminimum of comfort and security. (Plutschow, p.50)

And so Shōtetsu is urged to expound on aspects of thescholarship surrounding The Tale of Genji,
Eventually he is cajoled to conduct readings of the entire
work: ‘We read it aloud little by little, just whenever we
had spare time. We finally finished it this autumn.’(Nagusamegusa, p.444)
Full details of who attended these gatherings is notprovided, apart from the lord of the castle, and a youth
accompanying a group of travellers breaking their journeyfrom the east to Koshi, 7 possibly travelling to anotherShiba domain in Echizen province. We can also assume
they were probably a warrior group on some business oranother and the youth was a page in attendance. But thisis the moment that we witness the transmission of the

Furthermore Kiyosu Castle was in the hands of the Oda
clan, at this point in history retainers of the powerful
Shiba clan whose patronage Shōtetsu enjoyed,5 and who
may have provided the introductions necessary for his
visit there. It had been built quite recently, possibly in
1405. Later Kiyosu Castle became the headquarters of

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
6

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
5	
  For	
  example	
  Shiba	
  Yoshimasa	
  (1350-­‐1410),	
  referred	
  to	
  in	
  
Nagusamegusa	
  	
  p.	
  450.	
  27

Kakari. The acme of elegance: refers to trees with spreading
branches planted on all four sides of a ground for kemari, or byextension the kemari ground itself (Iwanami kogo jiten).
Normally a cherry tree would be planted in the north east, awillow in the south east, a pine in the north west and a maple
in the south west (Nihon kokugo daijiten).
7
The provinces of Echizen, Etchū and Echigo located on thewest (Japan Sea) coast of Honshu.

aristocratic culture to the warrior class, taking place. The
eagerness of this group of warriors to embrace thetrappings of metropolitan culture is palpable. It is
obvious in the pressure they placed on Shōtetsu to share
his knowledge, and nowhere is this more apparent thanin the entreaties of their page. His aspirations to highculture speak through the observation that:between present day Kyoto and Shiga Prefectures, and it
was regarded as the portal into and out of the capital.
(Kindaichi 1972, p. 36) It had been disestablished in
795, that is, it had not existed for over six hundred years
by the time Shōtetsu passed through, and yet his poetic
homage to it evokes a sense of immediacy and presence.
Today I trod the well-worn path over the rocks of the
Ausaka Barrier.

the boy … was interested in renga poetry and …
his handwriting held much promise. He would
come here with others and to my embarrassment
ask endless questions. He was always asking me
the meaning of vague waka poems and I tried to
explain to him even though frustrated by my own
stupidity. (Nagusamegusa, p.445)

Travellers’ colts
tarry
at the rocksof Ausaka Barrier
where my heart longs to turn back 9

Before long Shōtetsu had developed a special relationshipwith this boy and was eventually persuaded by his towrite a copy of all the poems in TheTale of Genji withcommentary. We do not know the identity of the boy,but presumably this enhanced cultural capital benefitted
his career in one way or another.

Kokoro koso
ato ni hikaruretabibito no
koma dani nazumu
seki no iwakado
Conventionally in poetry, Ausaka Barrier compels
allusion to returning to the capital, or, as in this case, todeparting from the capital, full of apprehension of what
may lie ahead in the strange provinces beyond the barrier.
10
It could also denote ‘crossing the barrier’ in a sexual
sense. (Katagiri 1983, p.27)

Let us now turn to the second dimension of encounterand exchange to which I referred above. This denotes the
symbolically loaded encounters, which Shōtetsu
experiences at certain places on his journey, construed inthis instance as literary and cultural coordinates of theritual landscape referred to in classical Japanese poetics asutamakura. These places are especially conspicuous in
the first few pages of the diary. The concept ofutamakura had existed in poetics since the Heian period,
as indicated by the categorisation of utamakura compiled
by Heian poet Nōin (998 -1050) known as Nōinutamakura. Utamakura denote places redolent withsymbolic significance in the classical poetic canon,reference to which in poetry prescribed the usage of
specific imagistic conventions. As Shōtetsu travels fromthe capital to the provinces, he refers to a succession ofsuch topoynms. 8 At each he offers one poem.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Another set of conventions available to poets involved
allusion to horses, as the Ausaka Barrier was the place
where handlers took possession of horses brought to thecapital from the eastern provinces. (Katagiri 1983, pp.2728) Shōtetsu’s poem refers to both, though the colts of
his poem appear to be on their way out of the capital, notarriving.
The stock associations surrounding the Ausaka barrier
had accrued over the centuries through the poetry ofmany illustrious figures, including the blind semilegendary poet Semimaru, and Ki no Tsurayuki, both ofthe early Heian period. Through composing a poem atthis site, and through the imagistic selection, Shōtetsu
situates himself firmly within the tradition of court

Ausaka Barrier
Shiga no ura
Moruyama
Kagamiyama
Oiso
Ono
Fuwa Barrier

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
9

It is not possible here to share all the poems, and detailthe evocations and significance of each of these places.
Let us take just one example, the first example, whichappears in the travelogue: Ausaka Barrier. This famous
toll barrier on Mt Ausaka existed at the boundary

	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  	
  
8	
  The	
  placenames	
  below	  are	
  listed	
  as	
  utamakura	
  in	
  Yōichi	  Katagiri’s	
  work,	
  Utamakura	
  utakotoba	
  jiten.	
  	
  

28

This poem echoes Shūishū (the third imperial anthology
compiled in1005), poem 169: ‘Over the rocks of the Ausaka
Barrier/ I trod the well-worn path / to see in the mist/ risingfrom the mountains/ the colts of Kirihara.’ Kirihara, located inpresent–day Nagano Prefecture, had been used for grazing
since the Heian period (Nihon kokugo daijiten).
10	
  As	
   in	
   another	
   poem	
   by	
   Shōtetsu	
   alluding	   to	
   Ausaka,	
   on	  the	
   topic	
   ‘Early	
   spring	
   in	
   the	   mountains’:	
   ‘Though	
   we	
  expect	   to	
   meet	   the	   coming	
   spring	
   at	
   Ausaka	
   Pass/	
   amazed/	
  we	
  behold	
  snowy	
  mountains/wintry	
  as	
  those	  /beyond	
  the	
  Shirakawa	
   barrier’.	
   Shōtetsu monogatari 1:	
   100,	
   and	  Sōkonshū	
   2380.	
   The	   Sōkonshū	
   headnote	
   shows	
   it	
   was	  written	
   on	
   New	
   Year’s	
   Day	   1447.	
   Shōtetsu monogatari was	
  probably	
   completed	
   in	
   1448	
   so	
   the	   original	
   source	
   was	   in	  all	
  likelihood	
  Sōkonshū.	
  	  It is not surprising that on his return to the capital after
his absence, Shōtetsu exerted a huge influence in the
poetic milieu as the de facto Reizei heir, actively
involving himself in poetry circles, holding his own
monthly poetry meetings, taking on his own pupils
whom he trained from boyhood (Shōkō became his pupil
in 1424) and becoming very popular with poets from thewarrior aristocracy. (Ichiko 1990, p.339) He associatedparticularly closely with the powerful Hosokawa house.
(Inada 1978, pp. 46-47)

poetry. Also by the power of association he posits himself
as the heir to the tradition of his eminent poetic forbears,
who are as closely linked to this place as the colts or thebarrier. Plutschow calls this an act of ‘poetic ancestor
worship’ (Plutschow 1982, p.21) but it was more than
that: as Donald Keene comments
The reason for traveling to the places …was to steep
oneself in their atmosphere,savoring both what
remained from the past and had changed, and then tojoin the long line of poets who had made these particularspots immortal. (Keene 1989,p. 220)

In about 1421 he was granted an audience with shogun
Yoshimochi, while in 1429 he presented six poems to theretired emperor Gokomatsu (1377-1433) who according
to Shōtetsu was greatly impressed. (Shōtetsu Monogatari
1: 27) The correlation between status movement andchange in spatial position has been commented on byscholars such as Van Gennup in the context of initiation
rituals (Turner 1974, p.196) and Shōtetsu’s journey andensuing poetic status would appear to add weight to thistheory.

Plutschow also remarks that ‘[P]erhaps, by striving toimbue themselves in the spirit of a celebrated poet, his
artistic heirs sought to be graced with his gifts.’(Plutschow 1982, p.57)
This interpretation seems very plausible in the context of
Shōtetsu’s life and career at that time. As we have seen
above, in 1418 Shōtetsu had reached a turning point in
his life and his career. He was thirty-eight years old andhad just retired from the security of his position of scribeat Tōfukuji, to take up the lifestyle of a wanderer ordrifter (fūryū hyōhaku). This constituted for a monastic a‘double vow’: not only to renounce the world throughtaking the tonsure, but also to renounce the monastic
priesthood which had at this stage in Japanese history
become very much part of the ‘worldly realm’. (Plutschow
1982, p.39) In addition, his close mentors and teachers
Ryōshun and Tamemasa had recently died. It issuggested that Shōtetsu’s travels were possibly of amemorial nature, marking the first anniversary of
Tamemasa. (Plutschow 1982, p.57) He was coping withhis deep loss on one hand, but on the other he was facedwith inheriting their status as leaders of the Reizei schoolof poetry. Thus I would propose that Shōtetsu’s
departure from the capital and utamakura itinerary areritual, legitimising steps towards the forging of a new
identity as de facto poetic leader, a process of selfauthentication.

To conclude, I have demonstrated in this paper two ways
in which the travelogue Nagusamegusa exhibits the
dynamics of exchange and encounter, firstly on the levelof the narrator’s interaction with the warriors at Kiyosu
Castle, and secondly on the level of his lyrical exchangewith his landscape and invocation of the literary pastthrough utamakura. I have also read these exchanges interms of their deeper signification: of the ebullient hybrid
and socially mobile society emerging in the early fifteenth
century, the warrior uptake of aristocratic culture, and theneed by rising cultural figures for self-authentication byreference to the canons of the past, a phenomenon which
was endemic in the society of this era. Nagusamegusa inthis way reveals its ‘worldly and circumstantial’ essence,shared with all texts (Said 1979, p.23).
Full references for this paper are found in the Table ofReferences section.

29

Table of References
Musicians’ Enigma in Kazuo Ishiguro’s Nocturnes
Yu-Min Huang, National Changhua University of
Education (NCUE), Taiwan

Matthews, Sean. “‘I’m Sorry I Can’t Say More”: AnInterview with Kazuo Ishiguro.” Contemporary
Critical Perspectives: Kazuo Ishiguro. London:
Continuum International Publishing, 2010.
Morris, Pam, ed. The Bakhtin Reader: Selected Writings of
Bakhtin, Medvedev and Voloshinov. London: E.
Arnold, 1994. Print.
Patterson, David. “The Religious Aspect of Bakhtin’s
Aesthetics.” Renascence 46.1 (1993): 55-70.
Robson, Leo. “Laughter in the Dark.” Rev. of Nocturnes:
Five Stories of Music and Nightfall, by Kazuo
Ishiguro. New Statesman 18 May. 2009: 42-44.
Salinsky, John. “The Green Bookshop.” Rev. of
Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall, by
Kazuo Ishiguro. Education for Primary Care 20.5
(2009): 419-22.
Seaman, Donna. Rev. of Nocturnes: Five Stories of Musicand Nightfall, by Kazuo Ishiguro. American Library
Association 105(2) 2009: 9.
Selden, Raman, et al. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary
Literary Theory. 5th ed. Harlow: Pearson, 2005.
Print.
Shaffer, Brian W.. Understanding Kazuo Ishiguro.
Columbia: U of South Carolina P, 1998.
Slater, Peter. “Bakhtin on Hearing God’s Voice.” Modern
Theology 23.1 (2007): 1-25.
Torodov, Tzvetan. Mikhail Bakhtin: The Dialogical
Principle. Trans. Wlad Godzich. Minneapolis: U of
Minnesota P, 1984. Print.

References
Beck, Stefan. “Margin Walkers.” New Criterion 28.3
(2009): 27-32.
Bezeczky, Gabor. “Contending Voices in Bakhtin.”Comparative Literature 46.4 (1994): 321-45.
Bonetskaia, N. K.. “Mikhail Bakhtin’s Life andPhilosophical Idea.” Russia Studies in Philosophy 43.1
(2004): 5-34.
Bressler, Charles E.. Literary Criticism: An Introduction to
Theory and Practice. 4th ed. New Jersey: Pearson
Education, 2007. Print.
Clark, Katerina, and Michael Holquist. Mikhail Bakhtin.
Cambridge: U of Harvard P, 1984. Print.
Dentith. Simon. Bakhtinian Thought: An Introduction
Reader. London: Routledge, 1995. Print.
Emerson, Caryl, ed. and trans. Problems of Dostoevky’s
Poetics. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1984.
Print.
Emerson, Caryl and Michael Holquist, ed. Speech Genreand Other Late Essays. Trans. Vern W. McGee.
Austin: U of Texas P, 1990. Print.
Freeman, John. “Delight in the (Dis)Order of Things:
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33

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