'Deep River' by Shusaku Endo (Review)

Shusaku Endo is one of our recent additions to the J-Lit Giants hall of fame, and a well deserved one.  I've enjoyed several of his books, and I've had this novel, highly recommended, on the shelves for a long time.  Fortunately, it didn't disappoint...

*****
Deep River (translated by Van C. Gessel, published by New Directions) is centred on a package tour to India by a group of Japanese tourists in October 1984 (the date is significant...).  Over the course of just over two-hundred pages, we meet many people, all with different motivations for making the trip abroad.

Four of the group members stand out.  There's Numada, a children's author, who finds peace in nature, preferring animals to people; old soldier Kiguchi, returning to the subcontinent to make offerings to his dead colleagues;  Mitsuko, a single woman searching for meaning in her empty life; and Isobe, an old man whose wife recently died of cancer.  Her last wish was for him to look for her after her death - you see, she believes in reincarnation...

The story starts off slowly as we learn about the background of the main characters and their reasons for joining the tour.  While interesting in its way, I was a little impatient at times, with the writer taking half the book to get us to India.  It is important though, as these first chapters set up everything that happens when we arrive.

Of the main characters, it's perhaps Isobe and Mitsuko (who nursed Isobe's wife in hospital) who stand out.  Isobe is a typical, unemotional Japanese salaryman, learning to cope with life alone after decades of being cared for in a conventional, dry Japanese marriage.  His wife's death throws him off guard, leaving him unable to quite grasp what has happened:

"Isobe could not bring himself to believe that the strangely pallid fragments of bone strewn in the box were those of his wife.  What the hell is this?  What are we doing? He mumbled to himself as he stood beside his weeping mother-in-law and several other female relatives.  This isn't her."
p.18 (New Directions, 1994)

He doesn't believe in reincarnation, but with his life partner gone, he decides it's worth thinking about.  And so he sets off to look for his wife...

Mitsuko is a very different case.  Divorced, jaded, angry - she's looking for something to occupy her as she exclaims:

"Just what the hell is it I want?" (p.68)

Despite her affluence and attractive appearance, she's trapped in an empty life, seeing herself in the tragic heroine of a French novel she reads, Thérèse Desqueyroux.  Her fate is linked with that of an aspiring catholic priest Otsu, her former lover, who she attempted to seduce and steal from God during her university years.

Otsu, while absent for long periods of the novel, is another important figure.  He's a Japanese Christian with dangerous heretical opinions, views which prevent him from ever progressing in his quest to become a priest.  Pantheistic and inclusive, he's a Christian of the east, unable to accept the strict doctrines of the Catholic church.  In many ways, it's inevitable that he'll end up in India.

When he sees the Ganges, it's as if he's found what he's been looking for all this time.  It's a river of life and death, inclusive and welcoming:

"The river, as always, silently flowed by.  The river cared nothing about the corpses that would eventually be burned and scattered into itself, or about the unmoving male mourners who appeared to cradle their heads in their arms.  It was evident here that death was simply a part of nature." (pp.144/5)

The river is a backdrop to the later story and the scene of several pivotal events.  Those who stay by the river, giving up on the usual tours, get to catch glimpses of the 'true' India.  There are weddings, beggars, caste discussions and filth...

The tour group, of course, is no homogeneous unit, but a small microcosm of society.  It consists of many people with different reasons for making the trip, each of whom sees India in their own way.  In addition to the main characters, we also have a young married couple who loathe the dirt and noise of the country - and a tour guide who loves the country and hates the people he has in tow...  The tourists are chance fellow travellers, people with little in common thrown together for a short time - but isn't that exactly what life is?

Deep River is a beautiful novel containing stories about people with issues in the late 20th century.  In a consumer society which has lost its way, it seems that everyone has their own cross to bear.  In discussing pantheism and Christianity, reincarnation and nihilism, Endo (along with his creations) asks us how we should live our lives.  Otsu, who perhaps has thought most about this problem, eventually finds an answer of sorts in the words of Gandhi:

"There are many different religions, but they are merely various paths leading to the same place.  What difference does it make which of those separate paths we walk, so long as they all arrive at the identical destination?" (p.191)

That could just about be a fitting epitaph for a great book.

'Volcano' by Shusaku Endo (Review)

Of the three books I received for review from Peter Owen Publishers last year, there was one that I immediately earmarked for reading during January in Japan.  Shusaku Endo is fast becoming one of my favourite J-Lit writers, and having heard good things about today's book, I was sure it wouldn't disappoint.  Luckily enough, this was Endo at his explosive (!) best...

*****
Volcano (translated by Richard A. Schuchert) introduces us to Junpei Suda, an old man about to retire from his position as section chief at a Kyushu weather observatory.  The town he lives in is overlooked by the (fictional) volcano Akadake, and ever since arriving in the town fifteen years earlier, Suda has been obsessed by the mountain which, literally and metaphorically, casts a shadow over his life.

Asked by a local councillor and businessman to give assurances that the volcano is unlikely to erupt again (and thus endanger a hotel project he is planning), Suda is able to trot out the results of his (pseudo-scientific) research.  Comparing himself to Akadake, he believes that they are both moving closer and closer towards death.  However, what if the research he has poured his heart into turns out to be wrong?

You'd be forgiven for thinking that this is the set-up for a Hollywood disaster movie, but that is most certainly not the case.  This is J-Lit, and the volcano is not here to destroy the city but to act as a symbolic backdrop to Suda's story.  The words of the professor whose research Suda is attempting to carry on compare the volcano's actions to human life:

"What a mount of heartache it is.  A volcano resembles human life.  In youth it gives rein to passions, and burns with fire.  It spurts out lava.  But when it grows old, it assumes the burden of those past evil deeds, and it turns quiet as a grave.  You younger man can hardly fathom the pathos of this mountain."
p.27 (Peter Owen, 2012)

Suda swallows the professor's opinions whole - which makes it even more upsetting when the volcano shows unexpected signs of life in its old age...

This side of the story, one in which the ailing old man, loathed by his family and quickly forgotten by his colleagues, has to face up to his life's shortcomings, would be interesting enough.  However, this strand is contrasted with another story, one in which Durand, an apostate Catholic priest, begins to meddle in the affairs of his former parish.  The new priest attempts to treat the Frenchman with respect, but Durand has no interest in fitting in.  Having lost his faith in the work he was sent to do in Japan, he intends to spend his final few hours proving that there is no point in spreading Christianity among people who are unable to understand it.  As he says to the shocked priest:

"...it's because there isn't a single one of them that pays any attention to that enigma in the Japanese heart which makes their work completely sterile."
"Give me an example, Durand San.  What are you talking about?"
"For example...," Durand grinned again.  "For example, among the Japanese people there seems to be absolutely no concept of sin." (p.44)

Durand's views on sin and shame lead him to tempt a member of the congregation into behaving improperly.  After all, if you don't really feel guilty, where's the harm...

Suda and Durand end up in neighbouring rooms in a hospital, and there are many things which connect them.  Both are on their last legs; both are facing massive disappointment after the failure of their life's work; both are a burden on (and an embarrassment to) the people closest to them.  There is one major difference though - Durand would like nothing more than to see Akadake wipe the city off the face of the earth...

Volcano isn't overly long (only about 180 pages), but it packs a lot of ideas and imagery into its story.  Akadake looms over the town and the novel, but we don't really need to know whether it is going to erupt or not.  It represents everything that affects our lives, the ideas we are unable to escape from, despite living the fantasy of a 'free' existence.  Suda, typically, attempts to ignore the signs he sees on his trips to the mountain, just as he deliberately ignores the growing coldness of his wife and children.  Durand though attempts to fight against his 'volcano' with his petty attempts at corruption.

All in all, this is another success from a wonderful writer.  Combining the Christian elements of Silence with the more contemporary setting of When I Whistle, Volcano shows that Endo rarely fails to deliver with his novels.  I'd certainly recommend this one, and I'm already thinking about which of his I can get next.  Any suggestions will be gratefully received :)

Whistling in the Dark

Were it not for the fact that in 2011 (like every year) I cheated by choosing a series, Shusaku Endo's Silence may well have been chosen as my book of the year - which makes it surprising that I still haven't got around to reading the other of his novels lying on my shelves (Deep River).  Luckily, the sound of another couple of books dropping through my metaphorical letter box recently (the real one's actually outside...), allowed me to renew my relationship with this Japanese writer, as Peter Owen Publishers were kind enough to send me copies of a couple of recently reissued novels.  While I wasn't expecting them to measure up to Silence, I was very keen to see what else Endo was capable of...

*****
When I Whistle (translated by Van C. Gessel) introduces us to Ozu, a typical middle-aged salaryman on a business trip to the Kansai region of Japan.  This return to his childhood home evokes a feeling of nostalgia for the past, and he begins to relive certain pivotal experiences from his high-school days.  Anyone who is immediately reminded of the start of Haruki Murakami's novel Norwegian Wood is in very good company (i.e. me); however, where Murakami's book is a story which lives entirely in the past, Endo's novel is a two-track tale.

One strand follows Ozu down memory lane, describing his life after the arrival of a new student at his school, the enigmatic (and curiously-named) Flatfish.  The arrival of his new friend, an easy-going, smelly, oafish boy from the sticks, is a memorable event in Ozu's youth, not least because it leads to an encounter with a high-school girl, Aiko Azuma, with whom the two boys are doomed to be obsessed.

The other takes place in the present, about 30 years later, and is focused on Ozu's son Eiichi, a doctor at a Tokyo hospital.  Greedy, self-centred, and ruthlessly ambitious, Eiichi blames his underachieving father for his lack of progress in the highly nepotistic hospital environment.  To make up for his social shortcomings, he is prepared to sacrifice any morals he may have, ready to prescribe useless medicine and experiment on dying patients - which is when a certain Aiko Nakagawa is admitted to his hospital...

When I Whistle is an excellent novel, switching between the two stories to examine the differences in Japanese life in the 1940s and the 1970s.  We get to look back at what was and what might have been - before being shown what actually eventuated.  There is an overwhelming sense of a loss of a simpler way of life, one which may have been less comfortable, but perhaps more ethically right.

While Ozu is a decent, helpful soul, his son is, simply put, a nasty piece of work.  To say that he has dubious morals would be flattering him to the extreme.  In his quest to "make it" (whatever that may mean), he is prepared to keep quiet when necessary and betray colleagues when it will advance his career.  In a typical conversation with a patient, Eiichi shows how immune he has become to his way of life:

"Doctor, will I have to have surgery?"
"That's the reason you were hospitalized, isn't it?"
"If the surgery is successful, will I be able to work the way I used to?"
"Of course.  You can play golf and do anything you want."
Eiichi had got used to lying to cancer patients.  Lying to them was part of a doctor's job.
p.56 (Peter Owen, 2012)

Ozu's son is contrasted with another doctor, Tahara, who stands up to his bosses and is promptly sent packing to the provinces.  However, what would have been a fatal blow for Eiichi is actually a Godsend for his colleague.  The time away from Tokyo allows him to appreciate the freedom to work for his patients rather than himself - something Eiichi could never understand.

One of the more interesting aspects for me of this novel was the treatment of the war experience, something I haven't read too much about in Japanese literature.  Of course, it is seen from a very different, Asian perspective: 

 "The war spread to Europe the year Ozu and Flatfish entered their fourth year at the school.  Hostilities were no longer limited to the struggle between Japan and China." p.62

A statement which would probably bewilder those Europeans who assumed that the war started over in Poland!

Endo uses the earlier side of the story to set the scene of the war years: the hysterical patriotism of the early years, the constant drilling students had to go through each week, the going-away parties for new recruits...  Once the tide of the war turns though, we can also see the effects of the lengthy conflict, with food and clothes shortages.  Ironically, in the later half of the story, the children of the survivors seem unappreciative, to say the least, and are sick of hearing the old people talk about the war all the time...

What also comes through again and again in When I Whistle is the corruption of the powerful and the consequences of the Japanese tendency to blindly follow authority.  Officers beat new recruits half to death, and nobody bats an eyelid.  Surgeons prescribe useless drugs because of links to pharmaceutical companies, and the doctors nod and scurry off.  Those same doctors lie through their teeth to cancer patients, and the patients treat them like Gods.  At times it's all a little depressing.

This is a very different book to Silence, and while it never reaches the heights of Endo's masterpiece, it's still a very good novel.  With its setting in a Japan which has moved on from the war, it reminds me a little of Kenzaburo Oe's A Personal Matter, another Japanese novel which doesn't need to emphasise its Japanese-ness (for want of a better word!).  However, it is also a trip down memory lane, allowing the reader to reflect on the price of the progress that has been made.  As Ozu returns to his old neighbourhood, lamenting the disappearance of his old train line and the beautiful pines surrounding his old school, we share his disappointment.  Change is not always for the better...

It's Oh So Quiet...

Last year, I read David Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, a novel set in 17th-century Japan at a time when Dutch traders were the only westerners allowed into the country.  While I enjoyed the book (it is a David Mitchell creation, after all), I couldn't help but feel that he had missed an opportunity as I was eager to learn more about life in Japan at that time, rather than just the trading post at Dejima where most of the novel was set.  Luckily for me, Shusaku Endo's Silence (translated by William Johnston) fills that gap nicely - and, more importantly, is a very, very good book.

Silence follows a Portuguese Catholic missionary,  Sebastiao Rodrigues, on a quest for the truth behind a rumour which makes its way back to Europe.  Cristovao Ferreira, the most senior priest left in Japan, has apparently committed apostasy (the act of renouncing one's religion) and has taken on a Japanese name.  In order to ascertain the truth of the information that has leaked out from behind Japan's curtain of exclusion, Rodrigues and two colleagues set off amid pomp and cheering on the long voyage to the Orient.  While the start of the quest is a joyous affair, the enormity of the task, and the strength and faith required to undertake it, gradually begin to sink in.  Having picked up an expatriate Japanese in Macao, the suspicious, cowardly and sly Kichijiro, Rodrigues eventually manages to reach his destination, where he goes into hiding and prepares himself for his greatest test of faith...

The first part of the book is written in the form of letters written by the Portuguese priest, and this is apt as the novel as a whole is concerned more with Rodrigues as an individual than with his mission as a whole.  In a country where Christianity, especially for those who refuse to renounce it, can be punishable by death, being a missionary is something of a suicide mission and only possible for someone with the strongest of beliefs.  However, when people suffer for those beliefs, when innocent souls are tortured, burned and killed, when God refuses to intervene... is it possible to maintain your beliefs?  Can you keep the faith in the face of God's continual silence?

As can be expected from the title, silence plays a major role in the novel.  Rodrigues, determined as he is to maintain his faith, must nevertheless question God's lack of intervention at a time when, in his eyes, it is most needed.  As the people he has come to save lay down their lives for his religion, he struggles to accept their sacrifices and see them as part of a greater scheme.

However, it is not only a metaphorical silence which pervades the novel, but also a literal one.  In several important passages, particularly those involving great pain and suffering, God's reluctance to act is married to an eery quiet falling upon events, further trying Rodrigues' strength. Villagers are drowned in the sea, and the only sound is the gentle murmuring of waves; a man is brutally beheaded for refusing to apostatise, and all that can be heard is the occasional cicada; Rodrigues stumbles upon the scene of a massacre, and all that remains are a few cats amidst the wreckage - and still God remains silent...

One of the more interesting points about this book is the idea of a western point of view, written by a Japanese author.  Endo is a Catholic himself, and his sense of confusion and compromise comes across in his portrayal not only of the suffering Rodrigues, but also of the intriguing Kichijiro (of whom more later...).  One thought I had at the start of the story was that it would be very easy to turn this book into a pro-Christian anti-Japanese tale, but the writer balances the sympathies very nicely.  For those Christians among you, it might appear that the Japanese behaviour is unjust, but the reality is that the missionaries were illegal spies in a foreign country, expressly breaking the law and inciting disobedience amongst the local people too.  And let's face it, the Catholic church itself was no stranger at the time to intolerance and cruelty against people with different opinions to their own..

The prevailing opinion seems to have been that whatever the intentions of the Christian missionaries, Japan was a 'swamp', a field in which Christianity's roots could not take hold, and the ensuing perversion of the tenets of the religion (along with the suspicion that conversion was paving the way for later subjugation to the European powers) proved that the best path forward was to eradicate the foreign faith, described by one of the characters as an ugly, barren woman.

Rodrigues suspects several times that the Japanese form of Christianity is not all that it should be, observing that many villagers appear to attach more importance to the Virgin Mary than they should, but is this any different to his own obsession with Jesus - in particular with the beauty and expression of his face?  In fact, in light of the immense sacrifice made by these early Japanese martyrs, who really had the greater belief in God?  This is a thought for the reader to ponder as you follow Rodrigues through all the stages of his own private ordeal, until he is forced to decide what his religion means to him and what is more important - theoretical doctrine or human kindness.

*****
I was going to end my review there until I remembered that I read a short story by Endo in The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories last year - and decided to go back to take a second look.  Unzen is the tale of a Catholic novelist who travels to the scene of the torture of early Christians to see for himself the place of their pain and suffering.  At the time, it wasn't one of my favourite stories among the collection, but after reading Silence, the tale takes on a whole new dimension.

The main reason for this, apart from the continuation in the main theme, is the reappearance of perhaps the most fascinating character in Silence, the apostate Kichijiro.  He plays the role of Judas to Rodrigues' Christ, and in Unzen we get a glimpse of his backstory as the novelist reads of his tearful attendance at the torture of those Christians who refused to renounce their beliefs - and were therefore scalded by hot springs for weeks, before being burned at the stake.

Throughout Silence, Rodrigues views Kichijiro with distaste, bordering on disgust, but despite his obvious cowardice, the Japanese apostate is a much deeper character than first appears.  His weakness is tempered by his inability to truly abandon his religion, and he finds himself continually drawn to his former friends, even following them on the road to their martyrdom, hoping to appease his conscience a little with offerings of food to the doomed Christians.  Indeed, it is also tempting to view his apostasy in a more positive light, seeing as he remains alive, yet still a believer.

Whatever you think of Kichijiro, he is somewhat of an enigma.  Is he a coward, a wise man, a traitor or a fool?  Or maybe all of the above?  Perhaps it's best to avoid judgement and leave the last words to Kichijiro himself:

 "The apostate endures a pain none of you can comprehend"