Spirit Matters: The Transcendent in Modern Japanese Literature (review)

Philip Gabriel has written a welcome book that fills a much-needed gap in our knowledge about some key writers in modern Japanese literature. But it may also prove to be the "groundbreaking work" it is described as being on the book's dust jacket. Gabriel's vision cuts against the grain of the most influential, if often only implicit, assumptions of the field of Japanese studies and in the study of non-Western cultures more broadly: to wit, "they" cannot share "our" religious values, but nonetheless "we" can and must learn something from "their" exotic spiritual practices. Moreover, there has been a long-standing unease within literary studies in general about dealing with overtly religious, especially Christian, themes, an unease that is often expressed as a conflict between "art and religion," with echoes of an earlier debate over "art and politics." The assumption is that religion (or politics) can only dilute the inherent dignity of the artistic work, since it presumably acts as an external restriction on the freedom of the artist's hand. Gabriel's book confronts these questions directly and allows us to see how Christian themes continue to animate some of the very best literature being written in Japanese today.

The first two chapters treat in detail the most explicitly Christian authors of the volume. Chapter one provides close textual analysis of Miura Ayako's well-known novel Hyōten (Freezing point, serialized in the Asahi shinbun, 1964–65) and its sequel Zoku hyōten (serialized 1970–71) around the theme of sin and forgiveness. In Gabriel's analysis, Miura signals the necessity and possibility of forgiveness that comes from someplace outside of nature: the images of the ice floe on fire, the "freezing point," must be interpreted as an image in the mind's eye, not an objective, natural phenomenon.

The miracle of forgiveness is then pursued in chapter two through a discussion of self-sacrifice in two Christian works. The first is Sono Ayako's nonfiction Kiseki (Miracles, serialized from 1972–73), which explores the case of Father Maximillian Kolbe, the Polish Catholic priest with ties to Japan who was martyred at Auschwitz after he volunteered to take the place of another man who had been selected for death. Sono is drawn to the nature of miracles that are offered as evidence for Kolbe's canonization, and her reflections on miracles are worth repeating here (especially since she does so even while confessing her own weakness of faith): "Whether you see it as a miracle or not depends entirely on your way of thinking . . . . And at that point, I'm back to where I began. Is everything that happens in the human world a result of human power, or not? And if miracles are not simply miracles, but 'coincidence,' then what is coincidence, and where does it come from?" (p. 62). Gabriel then returns to Miura Ayako, discussing her Shi-okari tōge (Shiokari Pass, serialized 1966–68), a historical novel about a Japanese Christian railway worker, Nagano Nobuo, who appears to offer his life in an effort to save his passengers. Conceding Asai Kiyoshi's point that Miura writes "evangelical literature," Gabriel then presents Shimao Toshio as an example of a Christian writer at the other extreme, someone whose texts deal with Christian themes so subtly that many readers may not realize it is Christian literature at all. Although the discussion on Shimao is only a few pages, it is extremely valuable since no less an authority than Karatani Kōjin has declared Shimao as one of the major writers of postwar Japanese literature, even better than Mishima Yukio.¹

The next two chapters explore religious themes in two well-known writers who are not normally thought of as authors of Christian literature. Chapter three deals with Murakami Haruki's post-Aum literature, beginning with Andāguraundo (Underground, 1997) through Umibe no Kafuka (2002; translated...