Exercises in Biography: The Case of Takebe Ayatari

Takebe Ayatari's poetry and prose are as delightful to read as his drawings and paintings are to contemplate. Since Lawrence Marceau's book contains generous translations and is lavishly illustrated, we have every reason to be grateful to him for this comprehensive study of Ayatari's life and works. The book offers the reader ample opportunity to acquaint him- or herself with a versatile genius, an artist of many talents and, at the same time, a most intriguing human being. It is not a book, I fear, that one can praise for methodological or theoretical rigor, or for the logical consistency of its argument, but if one reads it for the information it provides about Ayatari (1719-1774), it is a rich book indeed.

The story of Ayatari the poet is told in chapters 2 to 5, in which Marceau follows Ayatari from 1738, when he left his hometown, Hirosaki , until his death in Edo in 1774. In chapter 6, devoted to Ayatari the painter, Marceau discusses Ayatari's paintings and haiga . Youth, family, and ancestors—important in Ayatari's case, because he was related to the two renowned military theorists Yamaga Sokō (1622-1685) and Daidōji Yūzan (1639-1730)—are treated in chapter 1. The book also includes an introduction, conclusion, and two appendices, one of which is a discussion of five extant portraits of Ayatari and the other a useful chronology, nenpu-style, of Ayatari's life.

As Marceau makes abundantly clear, Ayatari led an eventful life. In his twentieth year (kazoedoshi) he was cut off by his family, banished from his domain, and cast adrift into the world without a penny to his name. For the second son of one of the highest-ranking samurai families of the Hirosaki domain, who could with some confidence have expected an honorable appointment and a comfortable adoption into one of the lesser families of the domain, if not leave to establish a branch family of his own, this was a devastating turn of fortune. The unpardonable thing he had done to deserve this fate was laying plans to elope with his elder brother's wife, with whom he was conducting an affair. At least, this is the now-accepted explanation of what happened, backed up by documentary evidence in the form of an autograph account titled Kōshakai([An Upturned Wagon Is] a Warning for Wagons [That Follow] Behind), written by the brother, Kitamura Hisamichi (1712-1748). Marceau translates and discusses this document (pp. 28-36), so the reader can form his or her own opinion regarding its reliability. Ayatari himself, however, never once refers to this incident or, more generally, to the reasons why he left the domain. The opening passage of his autobiographical account, Kikō , simply states brightly, "On the twenty-fifth day of the third month I leave Kubota" (p. 37). (Kubota was the name used during the Edo period for the present-day city of Akita .)

The remainder of Ayatari's life began on this day when he left Kubota, and it was, in one sense, an exercise in survival. The interesting thing is that he did not fall back on the military studies and lore of Yamaga Sokō and Daidōji Yūzan, to which he was heir through his grandmother and his mother respectively, and in which his father had distinguished himself. Instead, to make a name and earn a living, he chose purely civilian pursuits. It was not the most obvious thing to do. He had a solid pedigree and some expertise in military studies, and his brother writes that when he forced Ayatari to leave the domain, he suggested through an intermediary that his younger brother take up a career of teaching naginata and sword fighting (p. 34). Marceau speaks of Ayatari's "conscious rejection of his military background (bu), with a concomitant espousal of the civil and expressive arts (bun)" (p. 27). In view of his...