The Japan Society Review 83
Book, Stage, Film, Arts and Events Review

Issue 83 Volume 14 Number 5 (October 2019)

For the October issue of The Japan Society Review we haveselected a mixture of books that illuminate different aspects ofmodern Japan. The opening review focuses on the catalogue ofthe exhibition Conflicts of Interest: Art and War in Modern Japan
held at the Saint Louis Art Museum, October 2016 to January
2017. Illustrated with a collection of visual works, this volume
chronicles Japan’s rise as a modern nation from the beginningof the Meiji Restoration in 1868 to the aftermath of Pearl Harborin 1942, shedding light on Japanese visual culture and thenarratives it circulated for its citizens, allies, and enemies on theworld stage.
Living during those turbulent decades, Japanese poetand writer Noguchi Yonejiro (1875-1947) had a fascinating
life travelling between Japan, Unites States and the UK.
Yone Noguchi: the stream of fate is the first volume of a new
biographical work about him which examines Noguchi’s life
to the year 1904, when he returned to Japan after his sojourns
abroad. Based on extensive research and including archival
documents and several illustrations, the book offers new insights

into this interesting transcultural figure, an early example of aJapanese achieving literary recognition in the English-speaking
world and writing on Japan in English.
The second part of the Review is dedicated to three literaryworks published in translation in the recent years. Life for Saleis a little known novel by the celebrated author Mishima Yukio
who explores the meaning of life in post-war Japanese society
from a ‘pulp’ perspective. Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa
is a poignant meditation on contemporary issues such as
stigmatization and prejudice in Japan through the relationshipof two contrasting characters working together in a dorayaki(bean paste pancake) shop. Finally, Kinshu: Autumn Brocade byMiyamoto Teru tells a story of love, loss and karma, conveyed ina series of letters between a divorced and thoroughly estranged
couple.
As always, thank you to the wonderful volunteer reviewers
who have made possible this issue.
Alejandra Armendáriz-Hernández

Contents
1)

Conflicts of Interest: Art and War in Modern Japanby Philip Hu, Rhiannon Paget, Sebastian Dobson, Maki
Kaneko, Sonja Hotwagner and Andreas Marks

EditorAlejandra Armendáriz-Hernández

2)‘Yone Noguchi: the stream of fate by Edward Marx by
Edward Marx

Reviewers

3)

Life for Sale by Mishima Yukio

Paul Weston.

4)

Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa

5)

Kinshu: Autumn Brocade by Miyamoto Teru

Chris Arning, Laurence Green, Peter Kornicki ,Susan Meehan and Robert

Image: Hasegawa Sadanobu III, Japanese, 1881–1963; The Three

Brave Bombers, 1932; triptych of color woodblock prints; 15 1/8 × 28
15/16 inches; Saint Louis Art Museum, Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Charles A.
Lowenhaupt 818:2010a-c.

Conflicts of Interest: Art
and War in Modern Japanby Philip Hu, Rhiannon Paget,
Sebastian Dobson, Maki
Kaneko, Sonja Hotwagner andAndreas Marks
University of Washington
Press (2016)
ISBN-13: 978-0295999814
Review by Laurence Green
Released to accompany the Saint Louis Art Museum’s
collection of over 1,400 objects relating to the Japanesemilitary (largely focusing on colour prints), there lies
a neat play of words at work in this lushly illustrated
exhibition catalogue. Is it the literal conflict of interests
between two rival nations, set against each other in
open, bloody conflict? Or perhaps it is the conflict ofinterests within ourselves as we – viewers at a calm,
composed remove from the horrors depicted – lookon and find a kind of fascination, if not outright beauty,
in these depictions of violence and martial prowess.
It is the latter of these that perhaps makes thiscollection of artworks so visually arresting. With acore focus on the Sino-Japanese (1894-1895) andRusso-Japanese (1904-1905) wars, these prints take us
through the gamut of Japan’s intensely rapid periodof modernisation from the beginning of the Meiji
Restoration in 1868 to the aftermath of Pearl Harbour
in 1942. As such, we not only get a vivid sense of afast-moving evolution in military technology, but a
palpable air of the idea of ‘modernity’ itself; of new
ways supplanting the old as Japan rushed to equip
and attire itself in the guise of a powerful, Westernised
nation.
The catalogue’s introduction gives ample space
to dismissing the received idea that Japanese printsof the Meiji era (1868-1912) were somehow an elegiac
last gasp for the woodblock format, so popularised in
the ukiyo-e of the Edo period (1603-1868). But perhaps
there is some argumentative weight to be found in
why this misconception holds such currency in thefirst place; that it is the very romanticism of this ‘last
gasp’ image that makes it so compelling to Western
audiences numbed to countless re-presentationsof undisputed masters like Hokusai and Hiroshige.
In these Meiji era prints, we find two distinct worlds
collided together: the classical two dimensionality andlinework of the woodblock print paired with the cold
steel of battleships and sleek black Imperial uniforms.
Just as the original proponents of the Japonisme
2

movement in the 19th century were charmed by theexoticism of ukiyo-e, so too are we drawn in by the‘newness’ and unfamiliarity of the prints containedhere.
As such, this catalogue is not only a story of theprints themselves, but of those who collected themat a time when they were deemed unfashionable. Ina fascinating opening essay by Philip K. Hu, we arepresented with a contrasting picture between Westernand Japanese collectors – the latter of which remain
far more shrouded in mystery as a result of the cultureof Japanese art collecting in which collectors maintaina high deal of privacy and auction sales records as wellas provenance data are rarely available. The pictureis one of a handful of specialist, private galleries andone-off exhibitions, as opposed to the more publicorientated spirit of Western gallery exhibition.
In the spirit of ‘collection’ an interesting anecdote
is repeated across two of the essays, involving
renowned Japanese novelist Tanizaki Jun’ichiro.
Recalling with nostalgia the Tokyo of his youth, hewrote in 1955:‘The Shimizu-ya, a print shop at the corner of Ningyocho, had laid in a stock of triptychs depicting the war,and had them hanging in the front of the shop... There
was not one I didn’t want, boy that I was, but I only
rarely got to buy any. I would go almost every day andstand before the Shimizu-ya, staring at the pictures, myeyes sparkling...’Tanizaki’s words will no doubt feel familiar tocollectors the world over – the sheer thrill of desiringthat which one does not have. It is an odd sensation to
feel such beauty emanating from such horrific subject
matter. But beautiful these pictures undeniably are,even more so when one considers the craft put into
their creation, something which the catalogue’s
incredibly comprehensive bibliography and reference
notes amply elaborates upon. And yet, as theseprints lost market-share in the face of rising sales ofphotography and picture postcards, the very thingthese prints were able to offer becomes more plain:
the power of fanciful, fantastical imagery to illustrate
what which would be impossible or impractical for a
photograph to; to immerse the viewer in the action
with an intensity and ‘closeness’ that practically leaps
from the page. Indeed, it is rather amusing to see thatthe extent in variety amongst the prints presented
here even reaches to a kind of cut-out, assemblable
3D diorama, complete with gluable tabs and how-to
guide.
Issue 83 Volume 14 Number 5 (October 2019)

The idea of an aestheticised modernity,
fully embodied by the nature and possibilities ofcontemporary media technology is examined in further
detail by Rhiannon Paget in an essay looking at how
imagery of Japan’s wars in the late 19th and early 20th
centuries was consumed in the West. With frequent
references to popular publications of the time such as
the London Illustrated News, we are given a taste of
the thrills the media evidently saw in the awakeningof the ‘slumbering’ Eastern nations and the promiseof a ‘good battle’ between Japan and China. Later,
she observes how media in both the West and Japan
quickly envisioned the attractive, aristocratic young
women who worked as nurses for the Japanese Red
Cross as eroticised figures – a modernised, idealised
evolution of the bijin figures who were such a staple
in the earlier ukiyo-e.
Rounding off the collection of essays, Maki Kaneko
focuses on the case of the ‘Three Brave Bombers’ – asemi-mythologicised trio of young Japanese soldiersin the early 1930s who, each carrying a tube-like
Bangalore torpedo made of bamboo, blew themselves
up against a Chinese barbed wire fence in an attempt
to breach it. The image and power of this story spreadwith an almost meme-like virality across all forms of
media in Japan at the time and was even adapted intoa Kirin beer advert appended with the tagline: “Charge!
Charge! Kirin Beer Always Makes a Path for the Future”.

Kaneko observes this dark humourism as an exampleof the ero-guro (erotic grotesque nonsense) culture ofhedonism found in 30s Japan, an atmosphere suffusedwith the glory and sensuality of death, feeding directly
into the wider climate of militarism.
It is against the backdrop of discussions suchas these that we can take in the entire spread of thiscatalogue (a weighty one, at over 140 individual
plates). Time and time again, society has shown thatpeople invariably favour media-constructed images toreality – or at the very least, that media (whatever its
format) contains astounding power to engage us asviewers and subvert our way of thinking. It is the very
nature of the Japanese print as popular media thatmakes it so impactful. These images were designed toentertain, to enthuse, to shock. With hindsight, we lookback on them and see the deeply sinister nationalism
and cruel jingoism written plain. And yet, their visual,artistic vibrancy remains undiminished, their capacity
to offer a window (albeit an often grossly exaggerated
or subverted one) onto a lost world unerringly
engaging. With the British Museum’s landmark 2017
Hokusai exhibition meaning awareness of Japanese
prints amongst a general audience has never been
higher, Conflicts of Interest presents a fascinating
counterpoint, bringing the medium and us as viewers
into modern times with a sharpness and clarity that isthrilling to behold.§

Yone Noguchi: the stream offate

moved to New York, where he published his first novel,
The American diary of a Japanese girl (1901). It was at
this time that he had an affair with the writer Charles
Warren Stoddard, and contracted a secret marriage
with Léonie Gilmour (1873-1933), an American
educator and journalist. Shortly after he moved backto Japan in 1904 and became a professor of English at
Keio University, he learnt that Léonie had given birth
to a son; this was Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988), who
was later to become an acclaimed sculptor and artist.
In 1913 Noguchi travelled to Britain and lectured onJapanese poetry at Magdalen College, Oxford, at theinvitation of the poet laureate, Robert Bridges, and healso lectured to the Japan Society in London.
By the time he made a lecture tour in North
America in 1919-20 he had made the acquaintanceof W. B. Yeats, Ezra Pound and George Bernard Shaw,
among other contemporary luminaries, and alreadyenjoyed considerable fame. He was the first Japanese
to publish poetry in English and he wrote extensively
on Japanese drama and art in English, including studies

by Edward Marx
Botchan Books (2019)
ISBN-13: 978-1939913050
Review by Peter Kornicki
Noguchi Yonejiro (1875-1947), who was known in
the West as Yone Noguchi, had a roller-coaster ofa life but his works have fallen by the wayside. Who
was he? He grew up in Japan and entered Keio Gijuku(now University) but in 1893, before he had turned
18, he abandoned his studies and sailed to California,
apparently without any particular object in view. There
he worked as a journalist and sometimes as a domestic
servant, but he also became acquainted with theAmerican poet Joaquin Miller and other writers of the
San Francisco Bay area. Perhaps as a consequence hedecided that his calling was to be a poet. He published
two books of poetry in English in 1897 and thenLatest reviews: www.japansociety.org.uk/resources/reviews/

3

of the major ukiyo-e artists. At the very least, then,he was an interesting transcultural figure, an earlyexample of a Japanese achieving literary recognitionin the English-speaking world and writing on Japan inEnglish.
On the other hand, Noguchi has been described
as an opportunist, a fifth-rate poet, and as a strident
nationalist, and doubts have been raised about his
command of English. Morita Norimasa, the author of
the essay on Noguchi in the eighth volume of Britain
and Japan: Biographical Portraits (ed. Hugh Cortazzi)
was distinctly unimpressed, describing Noguchi’s lines,‘Mystic spring of vapour:/ Opiate odor of colours:/Alas– I’m not all of me!’, as ‘a mere collocation of unusual
words... many of them lifted from Edgar Alan Poe’s
writings’ (p. 406).

Morita goes on to quote what he calls a ‘piece ofdoggerel’ entitled ‘Butcher Americans and British, Our
Enemies’, which shows how wholeheartedly Noguchi
adopted wartime rhetoric. What is more, Edward
Marx, the author of the book under review, admits
that Noguchi’s moral failings included ‘dishonesty,
deception, plagiarism, bigamy, warmongering,cowardice, hypocrisy, racism, recklessness, anddownright stupidity’ (31). If readers are not already put
off by this catalogue of failings, they may neverthelesswonder if Noguchi is worth such close attention, forthis substantial volume takes readers only up to theyear 1904, when he returned to Japan.
Marx first came across Noguchi in the context ofmodernist English poetry when doing his PhD at the
University of New York. His avowed aim here is to write
a biography that steers a middle course between theadulation and the criticism, but he is all too aware of
the unreliability of Noguchi’s own autobiographicalwritings, which seem to be riddled with invention. Marx
has clearly conducted extensive research in various
archives, as is obvious not only from his footnotes but
also from the many contemporary illustrations he has
managed to find.
The book would have benefited, however, fromthe attentions of an editor, for several reasons. Firstly,
there is a great deal of uninteresting quotation fromletters and other writings that could more economicallyhave been summarised or omitted. Do we really needto know, for example, that Stoddard wrote in his diary,‘all of us at home all day’ (264)? Secondly, wheneverNoguchi makes a new acquaintance Marx launches
into a digression in the form of a potted biography.
While some of these are interesting, they do disrupt
4

the narrative and in most cases go into more detailthan seems necessary. The subject of the book, after
all, is Noguchi. Thirdly, it is surely no longer necessary
to rearrange all Japanese names to suit Western norms.
What do we learn from this exhaustive biography?
First of all, the extensive quotations from Noguchi’scorrespondence and writings reveal an uncertain grasp
of English idiom, and this raises the question of how
much his various friends and lovers revised his poetry.
Marx is not afraid to describe some of it as ‘gibberish’and shows in a telling comparison of a draft with the
published poem how much had been changed (195).
Secondly, it is clear that Noguchi’s activities andreputation were shaped by some of the events he lived
through. His move away from California was probably
occasioned by the rising tide of opposition to ‘Oriental’
migration; his success in England (both Thomas Hardy
and Laurence Binyon were impressed by him) was tosome extent due to the good will generated by the
Anglo-Japanese Alliance; and his journalistic successes
in 1904 were due to his ability to translate Japanese
reports on the outbreak of war with Russia into aform suitable for an American audience, although his
writings were, as Marx notes, ‘heavily propagandistic,
promoting views of the Japanese as ultra-patriotic,
self-sacrificing heroes’ (376).
Thirdly, he had roles to play both as an interpreterof Japan to the West, explaining haiku to Englishspeaking readers, and as an interpreter of the West
to Japan, being the first Japanese to write on Yeats,
whom he had met during Yeats’ American tour (354,338). In addition, there is much fascinating detail on
the Japanese community and press in California in the
1890s and on American japonisme in general, much of
it informed by impeccable research.
Noguchi himself, it has to be said, does notcome across as an appealing character or even aninteresting writer. What is interesting, though, is thatmany Americans and Britons were attracted by his
writings. Exactly what they were attracted by is difficult
to say. Willa Cather, writing in 1898, long before sheachieved fame as a novelist, provides some clues in areview: ‘While Noguchi is by no means a poet in thelarge complicated modern sense of the word, he has
more true inspiration, more melody, from within thanmany a greater man’, she wrote, and she described hisverse as ‘simple, spontaneous, unstudied songs’ and‘conspicuously Oriental’ (177).
Perhaps that was the point. In 1900 Otono
Watanna published a novel entitled A JapaneseNightingale which enjoyed much success, but she
Issue 83 Volume 14 Number 5 (October 2019)was no Japanese: she was in fact a Canadian of mixed
Chinese-British ancestry named Winnifred Eaton who
had adopted what she supposed to be a Japanesepseudonym. There was evidently some cachet inbeing Japanese. It seems likely that Noguchi madethe best of his advantages as a Japanese in America,
but he remains, to this reviewer at least, an enigmatic
figure. Perhaps the best thing that can be said about

Life for Saleby Mishima Yukio
translated by Stephen Dodd
Penguin Classics (2019)
ISBN-13: 978-0241333143
Review by Susan Meehan
In 1967, 42-year-old Mishima Yukio formed a private
militia which he named the Tatenokai (“Shield Society”),
and swore to protect the emperor of Japan. In 1970, he
went as far as trying to organise a coup to restore thepower of the emperor. Mishima failed spectacularly,
and went on to commit seppuku then and there. He
had meticulously planned his suicide for about a year.
In 1968, a couple of years before his death,
Mishima’s Life for Sale was serialised in Playboy Japan.
As with much of Mishima’s work it dwells on death,suicide and the emptiness of existence yet is also light,
fizzing with humour and surreal goings-on.
The protagonist, Hanio Yamada, is a young,handsome and successful copywriter working forTokyo Ad. He wakes up one morning startled to havesurvived a suicide attempt even though it was doneon a ‘complete whim’, as if ‘planning a picnic.’
Unlike Kafka’s Gregor Samsa, an exhausted
travelling salesman who wakes up one morning in
the form of a large vermin or cockroach, the words
and letters Hanio tries to decipher as he reads thenewspaper one morning turn into cockroaches before
his very eyes. He concludes that the world boils down
to nothing more than this. Both Gregor and Hanio
appear weary of life.
Having failed to commit suicide, ‘a wonderfully
free and empty world opened up before him’ as
Hanio makes a complete break from the daily grind,
immediately resigning from Tokyo Ad. He then places
an ad in the newspaper:‘Life for sale. Use me as you wish. I am a twenty-sevenLatest reviews: www.japansociety.org.uk/resources/reviews/

him is, as Marx writes of the journalist Frank Putnam,that he had ‘more poetic ardour than talent’ (232).
Marx has clearly done extensive research andhas presented the most well-documented account of
Noguchi’s life so far. I hope that in the second volume
he will tackle the difficult question of the reasons forthe popularity of Noguchi’s writings and provide anindex.§

year old male. Discretion guaranteed. Will cause nobother at all.’It does not take long for Hanio to be in demand.
He lurches from case to case as an assassin or detectivefor-hire. He becomes involved with characters
including shady mobsters, infatuated women and a
vampire, and somehow rather charismatically bumbles
through. Prepared as he is to be killed, he turns out tobe rather adept at evading death, often leaving demiseand bafflement in his wake.
Full of wild escapades, the novel also contains
saucy passages which I imagine were a concession
to the Playboy readers. They are comical andunsophisticated... a bit like the Carry On films.
In hospital after an anaemic episode courtesy ofhis vampiric lover, the nurse looking after Hanio rolls
up the hem of skirt ‘to reveal white garters around thetops of her white stockings and above that, her fleshy
thighs...’ A startled Hanio exclaims: ‘Wow! Is that what
they meant when they said you get a good view in this
hospital?’
As Hanio is getting ready to leave hospital, thenurse asks: ‘So, are you getting your strength back?’ By
way of reply, ‘Hanio took the nurse by her arms andpulled her onto the bed’. I laughed aloud.
Having concluded his assignments and escapedwith his life intact, it dawns on Hanio that, having been
exposed to the danger of death, he no longer wants
to die.
On the run, it is not long before he is kidnappedby villains as the series of picaresque adventures cometo a climax and ends are tied up. He has never before
clung on to life with such ferocity...
A welcome addition to the English languagetranslations of Yukio Mishima’s work in the lead-up to
the fiftieth anniversary of his death and deftly translatedby Stephen Dodd, it is an exuberant if patchily saucy
read and reveals a different angle to Mishima.§

5

Sweet Bean Paste
by Durian Sukegawa
translated by Alison Watts
Oneworld Publications (2017)
ISBN-13: 978-1786071958
Review by Chris Arning
Durian Sukegawa’s Sweet Bean Paste is a tender story
chronicling the unlikely bond between an ex con andan elderly lady with a shadowy past. The novel starts in
a comical vein like a classic ‘odd couple’ narrative but
turns into something else: a poignant meditation on
the generation gap, stigmatization in Japan, the perilsof lazy prejudice in a stratifying society, the value of
devotion to one’s craft and how we can find meaning
in the mundane, no matter how tawdry or hemmed inour circumstances.
The main character is Sentaro, a down-on-hisluck part-time worker who runs a dorayaki (bean paste
pancake) shop on his own in Tokyo. Sentaro is a bitof a loafer and jobsworth; he’s only working in the
shop to pay off debts and doesn’t even like dorayaki.
He is approached one day during cherry blossom
season by a wizened old obaa-san woman called
Tokue, who asks him for job. He dismisses her at first,
but she persists and once he has tasted the exquisite
bean paste she’s left him in a tupperware container,
he is won over. He invites her in to start training him
in the making of proper dorayaki. Customers start tonotice the difference between the insipid flavour ofthe processed stuff he has provided hitherto and thisgorgeous, smooth, tenderly concoction, conjured up
according to a recipe developed over 50 years. As theirawkward relationship blossoms, the business starts topick up and thrive and their lives change.
But just when you start thinking that this story
will turn out to be a sort of twee, Japanese versionof Breaking Bad with Sentaro as Jesse and Tokue as
Heisenberg, teaming up to cook up an all-conquering
dorayaki empire, you’ll find out you’re sorely mistaken!
It is a Lynchian Inland Empire that this novel explores:
finding the meaning in a human life in the face of one’s
disappointment at one’s unfulfilled potential.
Tokue turns out to have been endowed withspecial super powers. But just like many a superhero, her special power – in this case her ability to
conjure up great tasting bean paste and other sorts ofconfectionary – has emerged from an early scarring bytrauma she has spent a lifetime to overcome.
Superficially, a main theme is love of food andfood as symbolic mediator in Japanese society. Think
6of the bento box as a signifier of mother love, or thenabe stew as a metaphor for familial togetherness. The
novel put me in mind of the film adaptation of Joanne
Harris’s book Chocolat (2000) where an outsider
opens up a chocolaterie in a French village and alsoof the classic Japanese film, Tampopo (1985), where
2 truck drivers help a struggling ramen shop improvetheir broth, to rescue the business. Perhaps the film
it reminds me of the most of is Jiro Dreams of Sushi,
the critically acclaimed 2011 Japanese-American
documentary where Jiro’s punctilious attention to
the minutiae and dedication to his own method
for prepping sushi take centre stage. What that film
and this book have in common is both protagonists
cherish the concept of ikigai (‘reason for living’) anda related idea of kodawari. Ken Mogi in his book The
Little Book of Ikigai (2017) defines kodawari as ‘apersonal standard, to which the individual adheres ina personal manner. It is often, though not always, usedin reference to a level of quality, or professionalism towhich the individual holds... Kodawari is personal innature, and it is a manifestation of pride in what one
does’. [1]Tokue’s kodawari is the acute attention she gives
to every stage of the process e.g. the way she listens
to the beans. Early on, Sentaro is baffled as Tokue talks
about the critical importance of communing withazuki, during the preparation process and to ensure
one knows ‘how they feel’ so as to ensure that theirlatent taste is lovingly coaxed out.
The azuki beans are almost protagonists in theirown right. I was reminded of Miyazaki films, the ideaof Shinto animism, bidding us give respect to thehumblest of objects, but also that classic of Japanese
anthropology Rice as Self by Ekiko Ohstuka-Tierney
where she situates rice historically as a Japanesespiritual essence, remarking on the presence in theancient records of the Nihon Shoki of ina damashii orsouls of the rice grains. [2]
For Tokue this simple kodawari is a major partof her ikigai, it endows her a sense of value in a lifeof thwarted ambitions; a life blasted at the root by
misfortune and blighted by prejudice and tragedy.
In the afterword to the book, Sakegawa writes
about his motivation for having written this novel; thatof every life, no matter how futile, being equal in thelight of the universe:‘Some lives are too brief, while others are a continual
struggle. I couldn’t help thinking that it was a brutal

Issue 83 Volume 14 Number 5 (October 2019)assessment pf people’s lives to employ usefulness tosociety as a yardstick by which to measure their value.’In this book, there is an implicit contrast madebetween the superficial and speedy materialism ofmodern Japan and traditional Japan and its crafts,
and its dying arts, as epitomised by the recognitionof Ningen Kokuho (Living National Treasure). As
an appreciator of the beauty of lacquerware andpractitioner of calligraphy this spoke to me.In termsof his writing, the book was easy to read. Durian’s
prose is as silky smooth as Tokue’s bean paste and his
preference for the succinct sentence is like her eagle
eye for the best beans. Credit should also be given, ofcourse, to the translator Alison Watts for her easy style.
Later in the novel the epistolary format is used to give
us insight and to eavesdrop on the thoughts of bothcharacters.
The one thing that didn’t ring true for me wasthe character of Wakana, who seemed a little bit of asidekick and lacking her own agency. Kurt Vonnegut
once wrote that every character should wantsomething – even if it is a glass of water – I would have
liked to have seen her character fleshed out. I also feltthat the tension dissolved a little as it entered the final
third and I would have liked to have had an inklingabout how Sentaro would turn out – either by creating
his own dorayaki brand, some sort of reconciliation
with his father or perhaps by returning to writing andfictionalising Tokue’s life.
Nevertheless, I’m quibbling. I really enjoyed thisbook. It was very touching and made me nostalgic
for my time in Japan. Some of my best friends inYamaguchi were elderly obaa-san women. Their

Kinshu: Autumn Brocade
by Miyamoto Terutranslated by Roger Thomas
New Directions (2007)
ISBN-13: 978-0811216753
Review by Robert Paul Weston
When my wife spotted the review copy of Miyamoto
Teru’s Kinshu on the bedside table, the book’s main title
writ large, she assumed it was a treatise on alcoholism.
‘You’re giving up drinking?’ she asked me.

The problem was the final letter u – or lackthereof – in the word kinshu. Written without it, anative Japanese reader might assume the word is an
English transposition of 禁酒, a prohibition on liquor
Latest reviews: www.japansociety.org.uk/resources/reviews/

wisdom, warmth, wit and kindness made it a more
hospitable experience. I also loved the focus on thefood as a Japanese obsession. I also loved the focus
on food as a Japanese obsession. The novel’s take on
Japanese food stuff as metaphor for life resonated withmy memories of a much beloved ex girlfriend whosefamily name was Usuki (the mortar in which mochi arepounded. Finally, I taught in a school for those withlearning difficulties whilst on the JET programme in1999 and felt sad at the prejudice they faced in society
at large. In dealing with leprosy, Sukegawa’s novel
avoids striking a sanctimonious note. He simply tells
a human story with an unobjectionable moral at its
heart: when we look for the humanity in every person– no matter how inauspicious the circumstances, itbrings the best out in them and us.
For me, the main take out was the value of living
authentically and seeing the blessing in every blow.
Last word to Tokue, who writes to Sentaro, inorder to console him when he is feeling discouraged:‘Your life is meaningful too. The time you sufferedbehind bars, your finding dorayaki – I believe it all has
a purpose... All experience adds up to a life lived as
only you could.... You may never become a writer or amaster dorayaki cook, but I do believe there will be atime when you can stand tall...’.

[1] Mogi, Ken (2017). The Little Book of Ikigai: The
Essential Japanese Way to Finding Your Purpose inLife. Quercus Editions.
[2] Ohtsuka-Tierney, Emiko (1993). Rice as Self: Japanese
Identities Through Time. Princeton University Press.§– hardly ideal for a meditative novel on love, loss andkarma. Indeed, Miyamoto’s original title was Kinshuu(錦繍), a multi-layered word for a fabric of beautiful
embroidery; a similarly beautiful and varied poem; ora richly coloured mosaic of autumn leaves. Hence theelucidative English subtitle: Autumn Brocade.
The omitted u is no fault of the translator, Roger
Thomas, who successfully rendered the story’s tender,conversational prose from Japanese. The severed
u is more likely a victim of English’s orthography
and aesthetics, in which doubled vowels appear
clumsy, more like typos than examples of editorialassiduousness.
On the other hand, what’s in a name? Whatmatters more is whether the novel lives up to its multi7

layered title. I believe it does – and does so well – but I
say so with certain reservations.
Kinshu is an epistolary novel, told in a series ofletters between a divorced and thoroughly estranged
couple. Aki and her former husband, Yasuaki, haveneither spoken nor seen each other in over a decade.
Aki’s opening letter describes a chance encounter ona gondola ascending Mount Zao in northern Honshu.
Based on this mere sighting, Aki feels compelled toseek out Yasuaki’s address and write to him, searchingfor the truth about his sordid and bloody departureten years earlier.
Aki’s opening letter tells how, only two years after
marrying, the police telephoned her in the middle ofthe night. Her husband, they explain, has narrowly
survived a suicide pact with another woman, a hostessfrom a Kyoto night club. The two were found in a hotel
room near Arashiyama, the woman dead and Yasuaki
clinging barely to life. Aki rushes to Kyoto and finds her
husband in hospital, emerging from surgery following
the treatment of stab wounds to his throat and chest.
The wounds are not found to be self-inflicted
and, when he regains consciousness, Yasuaki confirms
this. The woman attempted to murder him in his
sleep, apparently in a fit of jealousy, although her fullmotives remain unknown. When he awakes, Yasuaki isgripped with shame, but also with wilful silence. Afteran infuriatingly spare apology, he walks out of Aki’s life
with little more than the clothes on his back.
They will not see each other again for ten years,
when the chance encounter on Mount Zao prompts
Aki to begin the correspondence that forms the novel.
This dramatic opening is followed by ameandering meditation on fate, karma and therandom chaos of the universe, yet always withreference to discrete memories of the everyday – a
fondly remembered meal; the strictures of household
finance; beautiful scenery viewed from a passing train;snatches of half-heard melodies; a subtle expression
on the face of a mother or son. In this way, groping forlinks between the prosaic and the cosmic, Kinshu is abeautiful, melancholic, ultimately hopeful novel.
At the same time, however, the book’s
representation of men and women – or rather,husbands and wives – could be a struggle for some.
Miyamoto’s novel was first published nearly forty
years ago, in 1982. Gender relations have moved on
significantly since then. As a result, the portrayals of
Aki and Yasuaki could come across as products of theirtime, more conservative than they might be today.
In particular, one of Yasuaki’s letters asserts his
belief that men are somehow innately predisposed
to adultery. Aki rejects this, but the notion that maleinfidelity is inevitable may grate on modern readers.
That said, there is a kind of softly brutal frankness tothese letters, written long after the couple’s irreparable
rift. It gives both correspondents a gripping – if attime’s off-putting – authenticity.
Perhaps precisely because so much time has
passed for the characters, as opposed to the reader, astructural mismatch occurs. I could not help wishing
Yasuaki would simply show more compunction.
Certainly, he apologises for the ruin he has made of
the couple’s happiness, but when I imagined myself
in his position, I only saw blinding, all-consuming
guilt. Similarly, when I put myself in Aki’s place, I felt
desperate fury. While she does express anger in her
letters, she finds a surprisingly quick a path to a zenlike forgiveness.
By choosing to tell the tale by way of letters,
Miyamoto has left much room for reflection on thepart of his characters. The result is the description of
events that, when fresh, would leave anyone furious,
confused, shocked into despair. For the reader, thedestruction of the characters’ marriage is fresh. The
characters themselves, however, benefit from the salveof time. They describe their dramatic break, their anger
and sadness, with quiet, wistful, almost lyrical prose.
The danger is this incongruity may alienate somereaders as their anger butts against the characters’
subtle reflection. Or perhaps the incongruity has
a pleasure of its own. Looking back on this review, I
can see how the novel’s structure has deepened mythoughts about it, which is its own success. After all,so much of the novel is about precisely these things:
Time and reflection. A multi-layered brocade indeed.§Interested in writing for The Japan Society Review?

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