Adaptations of Western Literature in Meiji Japan (review)

THE COMPAKATIST ofthe modemist texts and his ability to make clear where biblical references appear, how they function to create new meanings, and how their insights play upon and radically redefine biblical motifs and themes. It is also Alter's intention to show how the writer's assimilation and often radical appropriation of the Bible can inform our understanding ofthe range and nature ofmodernism as a movement. Of the three authors, it is Bialik who makes the most direct use of the Bible. The language, tone, and poetic structure are acutely biblical, yet his intention is radically anti-canonical. In essence, this biblical style is in service ofwholly different values—the heroic act becomes war against God. It is a kind ofNietzschean straggle against the Ultimate that the frozen dead ofthe desert symbolize and celebrate. Kafka blends biblical reference into a mélange ofnineteenth-century biblical conventions, all in the service ofthe grotesque. In Amerika, Alter discovers the banishment from Eden, the conflation of the Jacob and Joseph stories, the Exodus account, and more. But, these biblical narratives are all turned on their head, transformed for comic effect. In Kafka, the "stand-in" for Joseph is not able to escape the "Potiphar's wife" figure or any ofthe other lubricious women in the novel. He is continually overwhelmed by their aggressiveness. Similarly, Joseph's imprisonment in Egypt forms the backdrop for events that lead not to liberation and a brilliant ascent but to a recurring implacable fate that is unrelieved until the very end. Here the Bible becomes material for a nightmare. In Ulysses, Alter finds an affirmation by Joyce that Homer and the Bible provide the two great texts oforigin for Western culture. Joyce's use ofeach is, however , quite different. Homeric myth forms the substructure ofthe novel while biblical references usually come from the mouths ofthe characters. The fact that the references are misquoted or wrongly interpreted underscores the Bible's place in Joyce as part ofthe flotsam andjetsam ofmodem knowledge: familiar yet poorly understood—its potential value lost in a chaos ofideas and perceptions. All three authors discussed are shown to subvert the Bible. Alter illuminates how they all demonstrate the confusing and conflicting values that are the hallmark ofmodernism. None ofthe three authors rejects the Bible's truth claims; rather they show how the Bible's message becomes more an ironic commentary than a central meaning in the modem context. It is not that modem individuals reject the Bible. It is a question rather that, given their unique situations, they cannot make use of what the Bible can offer. Alter is very good at demonstrating that while the Bible is not rejected, it is relativized as embodying one truth among many. Dorothy FigueiraThe University ofGeorgia J. SCOTT MILLER. Adaptations of Western Literature in Meiji Japan. Hampshire/New York: Palgrave, 2001. ? + 180 pp. While political and institutional histories of late nineteenth-century Japan have proliferated in the English language, the popular narratives ofthat age have been given regrettably short shrift. Miller's book penetrates arcane literary idioms and stylized woodblock orthographies to present a refreshingly new perspective on the illustrated narratives ofthe early Meiji period. Miller makes a strong case that these works are hardly the mawkish rehashings ofmediocre antecedents, as prior scholars have claimed, but are richly infused with adaptive creativity. VcH. 27 (2003): 189 BOOK NOTES Miller first considers the problem of literary "translation" (hon 'yaku) versus "adaptation" (hon 'ari) in Japanese and Western contexts, recounting a variety of critical perspectives surrounding issues ofaccuracy and originality. While accuracy was a major consideration in the translation of European political and scientific texts, there was a long-held practice in Japan ofadapting Chinese fictional narratives to fit Japanese social contexts. Miller argues that adaptations ofWestern narratives continued in this vein, showcasing the creative literary talents oftheir Japanese authors far more than they illuminated the underpinnings ofWestern culture. The book then examines the adaptational qualities ofthree popular works by mainstream authors. A chapter on Kanagaki Robun's 1 879 heroic biography ofU. S. Grant, which Miller contrasts to John Russell Young's reportage and to Grant's diary, offers a glimpse ofvarious perspectives on Grant's tour ofAsia...