“Reading Japanese Literature Will Change Your World” (or your money back)¹
Mark Gibeau (Australia)

My introduction to Japanese literature came in the form of Arthur Waley’s translation of The Tale of Genji. I’d just been accepted to go on exchange to Japan and, being an avid reader, I thought I should familiarise myself with its literature. I decided to try my hand—or head—at the eleventh century work I’d been reliably informed was ‘the world’s first novel’. The main thing I remember, however, is just being very, very confused. After all, when Genji—the eponymous hero of the story—dies, there’s still 500 pages to go! How is that supposed to work? I persevered to the end, but it was with brows deeply furrowed. Yet this confusion contained a valuable lesson, if only I’d had the wit to see it.

When I teach modern Japanese literature, I ask my students to focus on ‘points of resistance.’ I call it ‘resistance’ rather than ‘confusion’ because it makes me sound smarter that way but, in the end, it’s the same thing. What makes us shake our heads in puzzlement, what seems illogical, incomprehensible, or irrational? Those are the places that require careful attention.

An example. One text we read is Hayashi Fumiko’s (1903-1951) brilliant, semi-autobiographical poetic diary Hōrōki, published in the late 1920s and elegantly translated by Joan Ericson as Diary of a Vagabond.² A massive bestseller at the time, the narrator recounts her wanderings, her poverty, her cravings for fried pork cutlets, her faithless lovers, and binge drinking. What’s not to love? When I first started using the text, I was surprised by my students’ frustration. Why doesn’t she just save her money and improve her situation instead of wasting it all? Why is the story so repetitive? Why is it so disjointed—we can’t tell what is happening to whom. Excellent points all, but far more important is the question of how we respond to them. Do we dismiss the text as illformed and poorly written? Or do we consider the possibility that, rather than being defects, these elements might be features?

The disjointed and repetitive aspect of Diary of a Vagabond is only a defect if one reads it as a conventional novel—something that it, like The Tale of Genji, decidedly is not. It is, at least in part, her take on the ‘poetic diary’, a genre of writing dating back to the Heian period (794-1185), in which predominantly female narrators weave prose and poetry together in the form of looselyrelated diary entries highlighting, amongst other things, the faithlessness of men, loss of status, and the pain that comes with living in the world. Again, what’s not to love? As for why she did not

simply save up her pennies (or sen) and improve her situation, well, there is a poverty so entrenched that saving becomes meaningless and one must take pleasure when and where one can. What is more, women’s opportunities for self-improvement in 1920’s Japan, particularly women of the lower classes, were few and far between. For someone like Hayashi’s narrator, determined to avoid becoming either mistress or caged housewife, they were almost nonexistent. This contrast between the narrator’s outrageous ambition, erudition, elegance, and talent, and the vulgar, desperate straits in which she finds herself serves as the ‘engine’ for the work and endows it with such startling resonance.

However, I was not asked to write an exposition on Diary of a Vagabond but rather to address the question of why I read Japanese literature. To my mind, the transformative power of literature lies in its ability to force us to conceive of the world differently. That, of course, sounds horribly cliché but what if we dig more deeply? What, exactly, does that mean? What processes are involved? Firstly, I think, we must be made conscious of the limits of our existing world view. There is a very human tendency to universalise personal experience and to mistake subjective for objective. Being disabused of these notions can be a confronting experience. Common sideeffects may include confusion, irritation, frustration, or even anger—in short, precisely exactly the reaction I had to reading of The Tale of Genji and the reaction many of my students have to Diary of a Vagabond. That is, we feel confused and frustrated not merely because these works challenge assumptions, but because they challenge assumptions that we never realised were just assumptions. We thought them to be ‘the way things are’.

When I was a student, I had no understanding of what the modern novel was or of the historical conditions out of which it arose. I had no real understanding of class (social class, that is—I cut quite the elegant figure) and, naturally, no idea what it might have meant to be a member of the Heian period Japanese nobility. I had no conception of how radically the concept of literature had transformed over the centuries and across cultures and languages. Of course I was baffled by the text—how could I not be? My failure to understand the text, however, was less significant than my failure to ask myself why I didn’t understand it. What elements of the text were irreducible to my way of making sense of the world and why? Once it occurred to me to start asking myself those questions, my approach to reading changed. Reading became as much about reflecting on and reframing my assumptions as it was about the novels and writers I was poring over.

Of course, this transformative power is not limited to Japanese literature, but given how very different the cultural, linguistic, and historical contexts of Japan are from those of Australia, there are many rich veins to be mined. Read Japanese literature to learn more about Japan, certainly—but read it also to learn about yourself, and about the assumptions that construct your understanding of the world.

1. ¹ Money back guarantee applies only to worlds returned in unsealed, original condition. Postage and handling not included.
2. ² See Joan Ericson, Be A Woman: Hayashi Fumiko and Modern Japanese Women’s Literature. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1997.

（Senior Lecturer, The Australian National University）