Narrating the Self: Fictions of Japanese Modernity 9780804764759

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NARRATING THE SELF

Fictions cifjapanese Modernity

Narrating the Self ,....;1

Fictions ofJapanese Modernity

TOMI SUZUKI

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Stanford, California

Stanford University Press Stanford, California

© 1996 by the Board ofTrustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University Printed in the United States of America CIP data are at the end of the book The costs of publishing this book have been supported in part by an award from the Hiromi Arisawa Memorial Fund (named in honor of the renowned economist and the first chair of the Board of the University of Tokyo Press) and financed by the generosity ofJapanese citizens and Japanese corporations to recognize excellence in scholarship on Japan.

For Kuniichi and Keiko Suzuki ,...~

Acknowledgments

I owe a great debt of gratitude to many teachers, friends, and family members, not all of whom I can mention here. First and foremost, I thank Edwin McClellan, my dissertation advisor at Yale University, who has been a source of inspiration over these many years. His detailed comments on the early drafts as well as his enthusiasm for this project were truly invaluable. I am also grateful to Shoichi Saeki, my teacher at the University of Tokyo, who first encouraged me to consider the problem of narration and the selfin modern Japanese literature. His readings of a wide range of narratives had an immense influence on my formative years. I also acknowledge Sukehiro Hirakawa, Toru Haga, Mark Morris, Georges May, Peter Brooks, and Shoshana Felman for their guidance and encouragement during my graduate days at the University ofTokyo and Yale University. I also thank those individuals who offered valuable comments on the manuscript: Janet Walker, Phyllis Lyons, William Sibley, Marston Anderson, Paul Anderer, Mary Elizabeth Berry, and Kazuko Ouchi. I am especially grateful to Janet Walker for her advice, which proved critical in the revision of the manuscript. The astute comments of the two anonymous readers for Stanford University Press helped to clarifY the focus of this study. I express my deep appreciation for the intellectual and moral support of my colleagues Joel Lidov and Susan Spectorsky. Kazuko Ouchi, Mihoko Suzuki, Sawako Shirahase, Jahar and Sunita Bhattacharya, and Gen and Sakae Shirane provided continuous encouragement. I feel especially privileged to have worked with John Ziemer, a thoughtful and exemplary editor at Stanford University Press. I must also mention Helen Tartar at Stanford University Press, who first took an interest in publishing this project. Generous funding from the Japan Foun-

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Acknowledgments

dation enabled me to conduct research in Tokyo, and successive grants from The City University of New York PSC-CUNY Research Award Program helped me prepare the manuscript. Last but not least, I give my deepest thanks to Haruo Shirane, who contributed beyond words in shaping this book and who enabled me to complete what turned out to be a long and complex undertaking, and to our son Seiji, who showed great patience as he grew up with this project. I am grateful to my parents, Kuniichi and Keiko Suzuki, who gave me warm support whenever I needed it and wherever I lived. T.S.

New York City

Contents

Introduction: Narratives ofJapanese Modernity

I

Part I: The Novel and the Self as Master Signifiers I.

2.

3-

The Position of the Shosetsu: Paradigm Change and New Literary Discourse

15

Self, Christianity, and Language: Genbun-itchi and Concern for the Self

33

The Furor over the 1-Novel: The Question of Authenticity

48

Part II: Rereading the I-Novel 4·

5-

Love, Sexuality, and Nature: Tayama Katai's Quilt and Japanese Naturalism

69

Shaping Life, Shaping the Past: Shiga Naoya's Narratives ofRecollection

93

Part III: Traces if the Self 6.

Crossing Boundaries: Truth and Fiction in Nagai Kafii's Strange Tale from East ofthe River

135

Contents

X

7·

Allegories of Modernity: Parodic Confession in Tanizakijun'ichiro's Fool's Love

151

Epilogue: Tanizaki's Speaking Subject and Creation ofTradition

175

Reference Matter Notes Bibliography

221

Index

235

NARRATING THE SELF

Fictions