Japanese Gothic Tales

Introduction: The Familiarity of Strange Places

¥ 1 ¥ Introduction THE FAMILIARITY OF STRANGE PLACES The comparison can be misleading, but it is a useful one to make for those who are unfamiliar with the general contours of Japanese literature : in the way that American scholars have had to ponder the stature of Edgar Allan Poe, readers of Japanese literature have had to wonder about how best to understand the accomplishments of Izumi Kyòka (1873–1939), another writer whose influence seems out of proportion with the category he has been customarily allotted by literary history. Kyòka’s writing flows from assumptions very different from those that provide the bedrock for Poe’s dank and desolate creations, but to the extent that the term gothic can hold meaning in a crosscultural dimension, it is worth applying to both writers, if only to bring attention to the dissonance the category creates. If anything, Kyòka’s writing is a frontal attack on the barbarous and uncouth values to which European gothic supposedly owes its genealogy. Yet Kyòka does share with Poe a decadent romanticism, and this point of sameness leads us to consider how it is possible that writers of the uncanny and the macabre can be highly regarded at all. The dissonance created by the possibility of “great gothic writers” can be understood on a number of levels. On the plane of literary history , major achievements within minor categories implicate the valid- 2 ¥ Introduction ity of the framework itself, as is made clear by the recent accomplishments of feminist criticism. In this case, the challenge is not to the assumption of female inferiority but to a hierarchy of the imagination . Despite the limitations of Poe’s work, for instance, he remains one of the most influential American writers. Consider his importance to Charles Baudelaire and the French symbolists, his pioneering efforts with the short-story form, his place as the originator of ratiocinative narrative, and, by extension, the presently burgeoning world of the mystery novel. Whatever our opinions regarding the quality of such contributions, there is simply too much symbolism, short fiction, and mystery writing still around to allow us to ignore the creator of William Wilson. Although his impact on subsequent generations is harder to determine , a similar sketch might be drawn of Kyòka. (The Japanese custom is to list surnames before given names and to refer to a writer by the given pen name, if it exists, as it does here.) No one can deny the narrow and obsessive quality of Kyòka’s vision. He had clear ideas about what he wanted to write; and once he had developed a formula that allowed him to make imaginatively present that which he desired , he was largely content to repeat himself. Yet this continuity of focus was also one reason he was able to accomplish so much as an artist: though we might wish for more breadth of subject matter, we hardly question the intensity of his desire or his sincerity. Suffering, like Poe, from the untimely death of his mother, Kyòka sought to memorialize her youthful beauty and maternal gentleness through hundreds of literary excursions into the world of the dead. In a word, this trespass or passing “through reality to gain access to a much greater power,” (28:696) is the essence of Kyòka’s long and productive career.1 This concern determines its fundamental structure, the shape of its moonlit shadows. The force that powers this trespass is fear, in the dual senses of horror and awe. Had Kyòka been driven only by the former, he would be much closer to Poe in sentiment. As it stands, the latter emotion, a profound reverence for the “two great supernatural forces in this world . . . the Power of Kannon (Kannon ryoku) and the Power of the Evil Gods (Kishin ryoku) . . . before which human beings are utterly helpless” (28:677) provides the crucial difference. Poe confronted death with the insistency of his own will, waging a self- The Familiarity of Strange Places ¥ 3 aggrandizing battle of supposedly absolute and equal powers; he ended in despair. Kyòka, writing within a more polytheistic and animistic cultural context, maintained a more passive acceptance of his surroundings and managed to live to the age of sixty-six despite physical and emotional frailty. Although he nearly threw himself into the blackness of the Kanazawa Castle moat, and though he suffered greatly from depression and...