Manufacturing Modern Japanese Literature: Publishing, Prizes, and the Ascription of Literary Value (review)

Edward Mack’s new book is another compelling addition to a scholarly trend that can be traced back to the 1970s and ’80s when scholars began to question the naturalized set of criteria to evaluate literature and turned to a more ideological/historicist approach that explores how such criteria were constructed. The book marks an attempt, as Mack says in his introduction, to offer “a historical reconstruction of the sociology of modern Japanese literature” (p. 7). In order to do so, Mack highlights two primary events: the publication and distribution of Kaizōsha’s Gendai Nihon bungaku zenshū (Complete works of contemporary Japanese literature) and the subsequent establishment of the Akutagawa and Naoki prizes for literature. The book offers a detailed account of how these two events contributed to the production of “modern Japanese literature” and its “literary value.”

Mack analyzes modern Japanese literature as a “literary field” and conceptual space; he does not engage literary texts per se. This in no way takes away from his study, as he focuses on the “multiple value systems and the extraliterary forces behind the material reproduction of texts” (p. 3). Mack first surveys the history of book production in Japan, tracing the expansion of the Tokyo-based publishing industry and its role in distributing a uniform supply of texts (p. 4). In the process, he interrogates what he calls the “discourse of rupture” too often instituted to situate the premodern/modern divide and successfully questions such characterization. In Chapter 2, his detailed discussion of the publishing industry in Tokyo following the Great Kanto Earthquake explains the subsequent “zenshū boom” by exploring the manner in which technological renovation and demand set the stage for the production of “modern Japanese literature.”

By detailing the circulation processes of these texts, Mack compellingly traverses two layers of discussion: what “modern Japanese literature” purported to represent and how the distribution of the anthology simultaneously disrupted and reinforced that image. While paying attention to the ideological nature of modern Japanese literature as an all-encompassing, all-powerful medium possessing the cultural authority that applies to all of Japan—Mack insightfully exposes the great influence of the Tokyo-based publishing industry. His detailed treatment of such critics and editors as Kimura Ki and Yanagida Izumi demonstrates that a surprisingly small number of individuals were responsible for creating the canon. He also displays much sensitivity to the definition of “Japan” at this historical moment, as Japan oscillated between the nation and empire.

Both the anthology and the literary prizes played an influential role in the production of modern Japanese literature, but Mack also notes the differences between the anthology, which only looked backward and hence produced what he calls a “static” canon, and the selection of prizes, which was “dynamic” as it had the capacity to affect the future direction of modern Japanese literature. Mack’s informative discussion of the “selection critiques” (senpyō) attests to this shifting criteria of literary value. He inquires into the many debates that produced contested values, tracing the history of selection for both the Akutagawa and Naoki prizes.

All the chapters are extremely informative, and the book constitutes a wonderful addition to our scholarly corpus. The book is not without weaknesses, however. In Chapter 4, for example, Mack offers a useful survey of central debates over “literary value,” taking up Kikuchi Kan’s early writings, the I-novel, and pure fiction in setting the ground for his discussion of the Akutagawa and Naoki prizes. Yet it is rather surprising that he does not include the debates about proletarian literature that were so central to the 1920s and early ’30s. (The book of course covers more historical ground than this, but its primary focus is on the 1920s to the ’40s.) These debates make a fleeting appearance here and there, but Mack never foregrounds them in his exploration of what constitutes “literary value” or...