Minae Mizumura - A True Novel

Now that not only the nineteenth but the twentieth century is over, the controversy is almost forgotten, the volumes of debate collecting dust in a corner of the library, ready to be entombed in the history of our modern literature. Today the theory of art as evolving toward ever-higher forms is dead. All kinds of fiction are recognized as equally valid; the term “true novel” no longer sets the standard for any writers. I myself was only trying to write something inspired by a particular nineteenth-century Western novel, not trying to write a “true novel.” In fact, my work deviated from the idea of a “true novel” in its most basic premise: that it must first and foremost be a work of fiction.

Even so, I eventually realized that the problem I faced was not wholly unrelated to the difficulty of writing a “true novel” in Japanese. I felt that the uneasy sense I had—that something important was slipping through my fingers—was part and parcel of the fact that I had moved away from my own life, away from the literary tradition of the “I-novel.”

Of course, one finds in nearly every language books that describe, or that claim to describe, the writer’s life. In whatever language, such stories can be an easy way to invoke the “power of truth”: after all, the real life of a man or woman is involved. For that very reason, writers, in whatever language, must constantly fight against the temptation to sell their lives instead of their writing. Moreover, people invariably take a greater interest in the suffering of others than in their well-being. Hence writers must constantly fight against the most tempting of all temptations—to advertise their misfortunes. Indeed, the greatest misfortune that can happen to a writer is to work in an environment where touting one’s misfortunes passes for literature.

This particular affliction obviously plagues authors in Japan, where “I-novels” continue to flourish. Nonetheless, the facile passing off of a how-I-suffered story as literature falls far short of a tradition that has produced many of the greatest works in the last one hundred and fifty years. Nor does it help explain why, in Japanese, the “I-novel” is so very much better at invoking the “power of truth” than works of fiction.

What exactly is an “I-novel”?

In an “I-novel,” readers expect the writer to figure in the work in one way or another. Whether the work is in fact based on the writer’s life or is a contrivance is ultimately irrelevant. The author-protagonist of an “I-novel” is perceived as an actual, specific individual, one whose face may be publicly known in other media. The work is necessarily assumed to be truthful about that individual’s life. Moreover, readers tend to favor works that have no beginning or ending, and are fragmentary, finding them true to life, as life also has no opening or closure as such and is nothing but an accumulation of fragmentary experiences. In other words, what readers look for in this genre is the absence of the authorial will—of the intention to create, through words, an independent universe.

Why does this quasi-autobiographical genre continue not only to flourish but to achieve artistic excellence in Japanese? Or, to put it another way, why is it that the further a Japanese work strays from this tradition, the harder it is for it to invoke the “power of truth”?

I don’t know the answer. It may have something to do with the structure of the Japanese language itself. Since the only other languages I know are European ones, I have no way of judging Japanese as a linguist might. But I am aware that one of the many ways in which it differs from European languages is in how the personal pronouns—I, you, we, he, she, and they—function. In its European counterparts, these pronouns are the pillars of the language and are essential in constructing a sentence, even if they are only indicated by the inflections of verbs. This isn’t so in Japanese. Here, the personal pronouns are elusive, constantly shifting, often absent, and function like any nouns. This becomes most problematic when it comes to the use of the personal pronoun “I.” In their first encounters with Western thought, Japanese people tried to grasp the concept of a “subject”—a concept that has become increasingly important in the modern West. Yet in Japanese there exists no grammatical equivalent to, for example, the English word “ I .” There is no grammatical “I” that can be used by anybody—which ultimately means no grammatical “I” that can speak as a “subject” independent of its context. In fact, there is no single word for “ I ” in Japanese but a variety of “I’s,” depending on who the speaker is and whom he is speaking to—a linguistic feature perhaps unimaginable to those who only know European languages. All this renders the notion of the abstract and transcendent “subject” difficult to conceive of in Japanese. And that may be one of the reasons why Japanese readers continue to look for an actual, specific individual in a story rather than perceive the story as the work of a writer’s imagination.

Again, I don’t really know the answer. My memory of that stormy night remains vivid, and I still can’t shake off the feeling that Taro’s story was heaven-sent. Yet once I sat down to write that story, what confronted me, obstinately and oppressively, was the difficulty of telling a real “story just like a novel” in Japanese.

I’VE REFERRED TO Taro Azuma by his real name. I couldn’t bring myself to write about him using another name because all my memories of him are linked to that name, beginning with the night my father first mentioned him. If he is still alive, I doubt that he’s living the kind of life where he would be aware of novels published in Japanese. And even if he did find out what I’ve done, I doubt that he would care. Any Japanese person who had lived in New York for any length of time would know who it really was, anyway.

THE STRAINS OF the “Tokyo Ballad” faded into silence.

It was a summer night in the mountains, far from the heat and clamor of the city. The only sound, creaking eerily in the hushed, cool air, was of the old bicycle as he pedaled along.

No matter how far south Yusuke rode from Route 18, he could not find a road that would take him eastward to Middle Karuizawa. Every side road he tried went farther south or just led to a summer house. Once, he found himself standing in a grove thick with briars; he could barely make out any animal trails, let alone a proper road. Another time he ended up in an open field that shone bleakly under the moonlight.

When he had left Route 18 to look for a quieter way through, he’d felt quite confident. Now anxiety was taking over, and he could feel the sweatiness of his palms where they grasped the handlebars.

The moon was full.

Even in the moonlight it was difficult to see where he was heading, with the forest a towering dark silhouette against the night sky. Bright rays wove through the backlit branches, illuminating only patches of the white-graveled mountain road. Once in a while he came across a lamppost, but the next would be far away, and even then it might be burned out or merely flickering, with a sinister, greenish glow. Until a short while ago, he could still see through the trees the lights of what might have been a cluster of summer houses, but he no longer knew if there was any habitation nearby.

Deep tire ruts made by cars prevented him from keeping the handlebars steady, especially as he was going downhill. Hearing the screech of the pedals and the grind of gravel beneath the tires, he began to feel out of control. But he wouldn’t slow down, propelled, perhaps, by the spell of the moonlight. He was jostled against the hard seat as he hurtled down the bumpy road.