Return to Japan: the Case of Endô Shûsaku

Many critics, including Doi Takeo, Kawai Hayao, Etô Jun, and Karatani Kôjin, ¹ have pointed out the mother-oriented nature of Japanese culture and literature, and there is a long list of mother-obsessed modern Japanese male writers: Izumi Kyôka, Dazai Osamu, Tanizaki Jun'ichirô, Kawabata Yasunari, and Endô Shûsaku (1923-1996). Of these, Endô is perhaps unique in that, as a Japanese Catholic writer, he was constantly and consciously concerned with the problem of reconciling and harmonizing his Christian faith with what he perceived as his "native Japanese sensibility." ² He compared his Catholicism, and by extension Western sensibilities in general, to a Western-style suit that had been placed on his Japanese body. He constantly felt this clothing ill-suited to his mental body, and this feeling was further intensified during his few years' stay in France where he went to study French Catholic writers such as François Mauriac and Georges Bernanos. He had thought of discarding this uncomfortable Western suit many times, but ultimately was unable to do so, because, he said, it was his mother who made him wear it, much as, at her instigation, he was baptized at the age of eleven. This fact may not be a mere coincidence, as upon close examination, one notices strong maternal elements in Endô's version of the Christian God as expressed through his literature and other writings.

In this essay, I will focus on the role of the mother in Endô and his fiction to explore its implications in his return to his native Japanese sensibilities and his later journeys not only back to the West, but also to the Middle East (Jerusalem) and India. Through this examination, I will also try to shed light on more general issues such as encounters between the Western and non-Western sensibilities, and relationships between religion (personal salvation of one's soul) and society ("salvation" of its entire members).

I. Journey to the West

Endô's journey to the West and his return to Japan can be discussed on two levels: physical and metaphysical. Endô's physical round trip to and from the West seems to parallel his metaphysical trip to the West and return to Japan. If his trip to the West corresponds to his metaphysical journey from the phenomenal (corporeal) to the noumenal (spiritual), his journey back to Japan may correspond to a dialectical synthesis of the phenomenal and the noumenal. My thesis is that Endô's journey to and from the West is a kind of dialectical synthesis (sublation) and sublimation. Endô "negated," so to speak, the indigenous Japanese sensibility in himself through his journey to the West, while his return to Japan is a kind of dialectical reaffirmation and synthesis/sublation of his indigenous Japanese sensibility on a higher or deeper level. In this section, I will examine the crucial role which the mother sensibility played in this dialectical process.

In 1950, soon after his graduation from Keiô University (1949), Endô was given the opportunity to go to France to study French Catholic writers. Japan at that time was still recovering from the devastations of World War II and studying in Europe would be like a dream come true. Even though getting a visa would take nearly a year, and studying in France as a citizen of a defeated country would be a difficult experience, Endô was overjoyed at the opportunity. ³ He further recalls:

I departed from Yokohama on a French ship in June. Studying abroad sounded nice, but the space I and three other students were given on the ship was not in a passenger cabin, but in the hold under the deck. There, there were also twenty African soldiers from the Foreign Legion. They were on their way home after escorting Japanese war criminals from Indochina to Yokohama. (380)

From this quote, we can surmise the nature and degree of Endô's euphoria upon seizing the opportunity to...