University of Hawai'i Press
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  • The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kōbō by Abe Kōbō
THE FRONTIER WITHIN: ESSAYS BY ABE KŌBŌ. By Abe Kōbō. Edited and translated by Richard F. Calichman. New York: Columbia University Press, 2013. 191 pp. Paperback, $24.60.

Abe Kōbō occupies a slightly unusual position in the canon of Japanese literature. A prolific author of novels, short stories, plays and essays as well as a noted theatre director and educator, his work straddles the boundary between the height of shingeki (new drama) and the birth of the shōgekijō (little theatre) movement in the 1960s. Despite significant [End Page 284] critical attention—Donald, Keene, for example, has translated and published many of Abe's plays; scholars such as Margaret Key and Thimothy Iles have written about his work—Abe seems to have faded from critical interest among Japanese theatre scholars in the past decade. Such a move is unfortunate; Abe was not only a prolific and gifted playwright but also a critically important theatre director, educator, and theorist. In this vein, the recent translation and publication of many of his essays in The Frontier Within: Essays by Abe Kōbō (translated by Richard F. Calichman) is a delightful addition to Abe's catalogue of works in English. This dense volume, containing twelve of Abe's essays on diverse topics and spanning over twenty-five years of his career will be fascinating reading for any scholar interested in Japanese theatre, literature, and literary theory.

Abe is known more as a novelist than as a playwright; works such as Suna no onna (Woman in the Dunes, 1962) and Hakobune sakura maru (The Ark Sakura, 1984) are far more prevalent within the Western consciousness than any of his plays. Moreover, as Calichman notes in his introduction, Abe has suffered in regard to other Japanese writers of his era. In comparison to authors such as Mishima, Kawabata, and Tanizaki, Abe's works fail to place him as uniquely "Japanese"; without samurai/geisha/cherry blossoms, Calichman notes, Abe suffers from "the politics of translation, in which 'western' readers and translators both actively—if unconsciously—sought out those texts of Japanese literature that appeared most exotic and different from themselves" (p. ix). Calichman introduces the essays and gives a broad outline of philosophical ideas contained within the text. It should also be noted that these texts are incredibly dense; Calichman is to be praised for his deft translation of such difficult source material.

The essays contained within the text are indeed highly philosophical; readers familiar with Abe's plays will find numerous parallels between the themes of his dramatic works and the ideas contained within the essays. They delve deep into areas of literary and political theory. The first essay, "Poetry and Poets (Consciousness and the Unconscious)" (Shi to shijin [Ishiki to muishiki], 1944) posits a central intellectual concern for Abe (and one that is subsequently explored in many of the essays), namely the question of individual freedom versus the homogenizing attempts of the modern world. Taking on ontological questions such as "Man's Being" (p. 9) and "What is Truth?" (p. 2), this essay is incredibly dense and difficult for those without a strong background in philosophy.

More useful for the literary and/or performance scholar is Abe's next essay, "Theory and Practice in Literature" (Bungaku ni okeru riron to jissen, 1954). Many Japanese scholars know there was a split in the [End Page 285] shingeki movement between artists who emphasized the political versus those who emphasized the personal and artistic. Examining the usevalue of literature, Abe makes an eloquent case for literature wherein the goal is "the liberation of mankind. This is not the psychological liberation of the soul offered by prison chaplains to condemned prisoners, but rather the real and concrete liberation provided by the liberation forces that opened the gates of the Nazi concentration camps" (p. 28). Quotes such as this place Abe strongly in the camp of those writers concerned not with a specific political issue but rather with those who believe in the possibility of literature to affect direct change.

Other essays in the text contain writings on intellectualization and America (Discovering America [Amerika hakken], 1957), the antiliterature visual art movement (Artistic Revolution: Theory of the Art Movement [Geijutsu no kakumei: Geijutsu undō no riron], 1960), and the effectiveness/efficacy/meaning behind military uniforms (The Military Look [Miritarī rukku], 1968). These essays, while speaking to different audiences and moments in Japanese history, are nonetheless interesting as intellectual discussions. The latter essay, for example, compares the Nazi uniform with contemporaneous military fatigues and youth fashion. Abe notes how the military look in fashion "goes beyond a mere farcifying of military uniforms and even touches upon a farcifying of the state itself in its attempt to preserve the orthodoxy of military uniforms in exchange for the orthodoxy of peace" (p. 110). A fascinating read on how uniforms function and interact with youth fashion, this essay highlights the interactions of ideology and visual rhetoric through the example of military dress.

For theatre scholars, the most interesting essays will be the final two in the volume, "The Frontier Within" (Uchi naru henkyō, 1968) and "The Frontier Within, Part II" (Zoku: Uchi naro henkyō, 1969). The first of these takes on questions of Jewish identity and anti-Semitism—an unusual topic for a writer like Abe. But what is so interesting is Abe's examination of how anti-Semitism thrives and how demagogues use "the rural" to claim nationalist authenticity. Moreover, Abe notes how these demagogic figures locate otherness and intellectualism in the urban world and thus cultivate a suspicion of those ideas. Given the current political climate throughout the globe, this essay feels incredibly timely and important.

The second essay, offered to an audience before a production of Abe's at Kinokuniya Hall in 1969, allows the author room to expand on the thoughts and ideas presented a year earlier. In this work, Abe speaks more about the relationships between the urban and the rural and the relationship of each to the state. In addition, Abe delves into the [End Page 286] efficacy of theatre and the differences between writing and style as they are made manifest in writing and directing. For Abe, "the age speaks thought people's hearts and mouths. Artists just happen to be the receiver and transmitter" (p. 166). Anyone interested in Abe's themes of alienation and urbanization (as seen, for example, in his 1966 play Tomodachi [Friends]) or in the questions of the shōgekijō movement about national identity and theatre will find this essay fascinating reading.

While all of these essays were compelling reading and a true addition to the Abe canon, one does wish that each one had a larger individual introduction. The essays translated here span 25 tumultuous years of Japanese history, covering the end of the Pacific War through Occupation, the post war boom, and the rise of 1960s activism. Moreover, these essays span a large amount of Abe's professional career, from before he was a published author, through his successes as novelist and playwright, to the establishment of his own acting studio. Given the broad historical and personal time frames involved, a ninepage introduction and glossary of names in the back of the text do not give the reader enough background to appreciate the intersections of Abe's intellectual discourse and the world he was writing about in these texts.

Nonetheless, these essays, especially for the individuals familiar with Abe's work or with post-war Japanese theatre and literature, are an invaluable contribution to the scholarly canon. Calichman is to be commended for publishing these essays and allowing a new audience access to the philosophical, intellectual, and artistic accomplishments of one of Japan's leading playwrights.

David Jortner
Baylor University

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