Writing the Love of Boys: Origins of Bishonen Culture in Modernist Japanese Literature

Acknowledgments

It was several years ago on a warm afternoon in the book-filled study of the brilliant poet Takahashi Mutsuo that I first heard the name Murayama Kaita in a conversation about erotic desire and poetry. Since it was this bit of karma that eventually led me to the topic of this book, it is only appropriate I begin by thanking Mr. Takahashi. Over the years, he has been a great source of knowledge about Japanese stylistics and poetic history, and his wisdom and friendship have encouraged me in more ways than he will probably ever realize. The members of my dissertation committee at Ohio State University, Richard Torrance and Naomi Fukumori, were instrumental in helping me think about the subject of this book several years ago when this project was first beginning. My biggest debt, however, is to my advisor, William J. Tyler, whose wise and gracious touch is evident on nearly every page. It is my greatest regret he did not live long enough to see the publication of this book. Bill Tyler was an extraordinary scholar, author, and translator who wrote not just with an amazing eye for detail but also with great elegance. He will always remain a profound inspiration. I am grateful to MEXT (the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology), The Ohio State University, and the International Research Center for Japanese Studies for their generous support while I worked on this project as a graduate student. The final stages of writing were made possible through Western Michigan University’s Faculty Research and Creative Activities Award. The gracious guidance and incredibly vast erudition of Suzuki Sadami was instrumental in the early days of this project and once again while I was doing the final polishing of Acknowledgments 247 248 Acknowledgments the manuscript, back again at the International Research Center for Japanese Studies, where I spent the 2009–10 academic year as a visiting research fellow. Professor Suzuki is a living, breathing encyclopedia, unmatched in his knowledge of twentieth-century literary and cultural history, and his inspiration shaped this text in many significant ways. I am also grateful for the counsel of the brilliant cultural historian Inaga Shigemi, as well as to the members of the center’s research group on the history of sexual desire. Inoue Shōichi, Furukawa Makoto, Saitō Hikaru, and Mitsuhashi Junko responded to my thoughts about this project with great enthusiasm and several helpful suggestions. The largest collection of Kaita’s works and original manuscripts is housed in the Mie Prefectural Art Museum in Tsu, and I thank curator Ikuta Yuki not just for giving me access to their manuscripts and library but also for her continuing friendship over the years. I will never forget our trip through the same islands in southern Mie Prefecture that Edogawa Ranpo and Iwata Jun’ichi had visited so many years before—a trip that inspired Ranpo to write Kotō no oni, one of the novels I examine in this book. Many scholars and fans of Kaita, Ranpo, and Taruho gave me great encouragement as I worked on this project. I am deeply grateful to Aizawa Keizō, Fukushima Yasuki, Sasaki Teru, Hayashi Michiko, Sunaga Asahiko, Naka Shōsaku, Mark McLelland, and James Welker for providing both materials and inspiration essential for the production of this book. The following individuals and organizations have been a great help in securing permissions for the illustrations in this book, and for this they deserve special gratitude: Ranpo’s grandson Hirai Kentarō, Iwata Junko of the Toba Minato-Machi Bungakukan in Mie, Koike Tomoko of the Setagaya Literary Museum in Tokyo, Arayashiki Tōru and Hayashi Michiko of the Pola Art Museum in Kanagawa, Kuboichi Seiichirō of the Shinano Drawing Museum in Nagano, and Kaneko Yukari of the Takemura Eitarō Memorial Museum in Yamanashi. I am particularly obliged to Inagaki Miyako, the stepdaughter of Inagaki Taruho and executor of his estate. Over the past several years she has been a valuable informant about Taruho’s life as well as a dear friend whose long, lively conversations made my years in Kyoto a great deal of fun. Jim Reichert and the anonymous reviewer for the University of Minnesota Press provided extremely valuable suggestions that helped give this book its final shape. Sue Breckenridge did a fine job with the copyediting, catching many infelicities and ironing out countless wrinkles inadvertently Acknowledgments 249 left behind in my sentences...