A Feeling of Beauty. Natsume Soseki's Ichiya Author(s): Alan Turney Reviewed work(s): Source: Monumenta Nipponica, Vol.

33, No. 3 (Autumn, 1978), pp. 285-288 Published by: Sophia University Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2383992 . Accessed: 10/12/2012 11:58
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A Feeling of Beauty
a NatsumeSoseki's Ichjy

Hototogisu school of writers, originallyfounded by Masaoka Shiki2 and carried on afterhis death by one of his followers,Takahama Kyoshi.3 The type of The termshaseiliterallymeans writingfavored by this school is called shaseibun.4 fromnature; as the word implies,it was originally painting,drawing,or sketching used with regard to graphic art, but it also was applied to waka poetry as well. The termlater came to suggestan objective attitudein observingthingsand, with this connotation, was applied to certain haiku. Although there are examples of haiku dating fromas early as the Genroku period (1688-1704), it was shasei-type not until the Meiji period that Masaoka Shiki took thisidea and turnedit into an 'ism'. Shiki considered that the haiku had degenerated since the Tempo era (18301844) because of the intellectual and subjective approach which had developed among writersof thistype of poetrysince thattime. He laid emphasismainlyupon the minute observation of nature and upon its objective portrayal. But at the same time it was not merely the appearance of things which the writer had to portray,but the 'shadow' (kage)5 which lies at the heart of the thing under observation. Beside being a poet, Shiki also wroteprose, and he triedto apply the principleof shaseito some ofhis shorterpieces such as ShIennoKi ('Record of a Small Garden') and Jojibun('Narration').6 This trend was taken up by his pupils, particularlyby no Kusagusa7 ('The Takahama Kyoshi, who produced such works as Asakusadera and term the Asakusa Temple Miscellany'), shaseibun gradually came to be used to describe this kind of prose. Shaseibunstood in complete contrast to the style of the Naturalist school of
in the is Assistant Professor Departmentof English Literaturein Seisen JoshiDaigaku, Tokyo.
THE TRANSLATOR 4 fg/*S;
5 Wf 6 /O 3

by ALAN TURNEY

was closelyassociatedwiththe NatsumeS6sekiV his earlydays as a writer

1874-1959.
R-1,1898; ;IRIV , 1900. Qj_4, 1898.

1 XHM;, 2 ]EN-TS,

1867-1902.

1867-1916.

7 &

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286

Monumenta Nipponica, XXXIII, 3

writing,which was also extremelypopular at the time, as the followingpassage fromthe February 1907 issue of WasedaBungaku clearly shows: On the one hand, thereis theconspicuoustrendtowardNaturalism,developed forthe most part by Toson and Doppo,8 or toward cherishingphilosophical and criticalconcepts about real life,as is the case withup-and-comingwriters of shortstories.[On the otherhand] thereis what perhaps ought to be called 'a taste forthe world of haiku', which is peculiar to Japanese literatureand which, since Shiki's time, has remained in a corner of the literaryworld, having little contact with the general stream. At last, however, because of people such as Soseki, it has shown the power to permeate the whole of the literaryworld.9 One of the main featuresof shaseibun writingwas an objectivitywhich Soseki later came to express as hininjo in Kusa Makura.10 Other characteristicswere a certain 'poetic' quality and a lack of plot, neitherof which was very conducive to clarity.Both Morita Sohei and Komiya Toyotaka state that when Soseki's Ichiya"1 ('One Night') appeared in ChIO Koronin September 1905, it was generally considered to be incomprehensible.12 In a letter,dated 2 March 1906, to Kawamoto Binry6,13Soseki observes, In the first place, people oftensay that what I writeis difficult to understand. Since when I write fictionI thinkin the same way as I do when composing haiku, I think, 'This much will be understood.' But there are very few people who are prepared to read a novel as they would read a haiku, and I believe that it is forthisreason that thereare many who feelthatit [the novel] and who do not understandit. Looked at in one way, it is ridiculous is difficult to break one's back so that people will not understand.'4 Of S6seki's 'poetic' prose, Komiya remarks: If, as in the West, a formof poetryhad been perfectedin Japan into which Soseki could have poured his feelings,thereis no doubt that he would have chosen one of these formsand expressed this 'poetry' as poetry.However, in Japan, at least as far as Soseki was concerned, therewas no suitable form of poetry at the time. Of course, one cannot doubt that Japanese poetry was in a flourishing state even then. But the My5j515 school of poetry, to take
8 A ft, 1872-1943; 1M*7NW+P, 18711908. - Ifl 9 Waseda Bungaku , 14, February 1907,pp. 1-2. 10 OMEN. :gtt, 1906, literally'The Grass Pillow', but translatedby the presentwriter World, under the title of The Three-CorneredTuttle, 1965. 11 -Tk. The translation that follows is

based on the text in SosekiZenshu f Iwanami Shoten,1966,ii, pp. 125-37. 12 Morita S6hei AMITZ, Natsume Soseki, K6ch6shorin, 1942, pp. 262-3; Komiya Toyotaka l in Soseki Zenshu7, ii, p. 842.
14 Soseki Zenshiu, xiv, pp. 15 P

13 JI1*IX

30-31.

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TURNEY:

A Feelingof Beauty

287

to Soseki both in formand, more especially, in one example, was distasteful content. Soseki had to attempt something new: the vigorous expression of ['The Tower ofLondon'], Gen'eino 'poetry' in prose. The resultwas Rondon-to ['Funeral Song'].16 Kairo-ko and Shield'], Ichiya, Tate ['The Phantom All of the above-mentioned works were writtenin the same year, 1905, and each has a ratherdreamlike,unworldlyquality. Moreover, Gen'eino Tate, Ichiya, of love in some way. But whereas Gen'eino all deal with the mystery and Kairo-ko Tate and Kairo-koderive their inspiration from English literature,being really Medieval Romances writtenin Japanese, Ichiya owes a great deal to Oriental in particular. In this respect it is literatureand, in point of language, to kanbun very like Kusa Makura. Ichiya,like Kusa Makura, depicts a hininjo(non-human) approach world. The talk of viewing thingsas pictures,that is to say, the hininjo to reality, is common to both. Moreover, the woman in Ichiya,with her uninhibited speech, is a prototype for O-Nami, the protagonist of Kusa Makura. but the conversationin Ichiyadoes not followany logical progression Furthermore, jumps frompoint to point. This is very similar to the conversationsbetween the artist and O-Nami but is even more pronounced in this short story-probably one of the reasons why people said that theycould not understandthe piece when published. it was first Kusa Makura (a much longerwork Morita suggeststhat Soseki may have written which serve as an expositionof many passages contains one which and than Ichiya his ideas on hininjo)as a means of helping readers to understand what they had found incomprehensiblein Ichiya. Whether this is true or not, remarks Morita, Ichiyais certainlyeasier to understand if one has read Kusa Makura first.17 Ichiyahas no point, if by 'point' one means plot or didactic significance.It is a picture in words and, as such, is mainly an attempt at creating an atmosphere by means of objective description. Soseki eschewed the analysis of character so approach aims at viewing people in beloved of Naturalist writers,and his hininjo in at an nature, withoutany consideration look object as one would the same way of profitor loss, that is to say, without any emotional involvement,since only in this way can human beings be seen as beautiful. In answer to the charges that Ichiyawas incomprehensible,Soseki replied that the piece was meant to be felt,not understood. His aims in writingIchiyaare perpart of man's expressionof beauty, then the novel, which is a part of literature,
should convey a feeling of beauty .
.

haps best explained in what he said about Kusa Makura: '.

. if literature is a

remains with the reader. Thus, if Kusa Makura conveys no feelingof beauty at all, it is a complete failure; and if it conveys it in some part, then it is a partial success.'18
16 II, p. 3t$, Og , Mgg. SOsk enhJ 18 Yo ga Kusa Makura xvi, p. 544. Zenshfi,

. I will be content if a feeling of beauty

17 Morita, p. 263.

850.

in Soseki F rftJ,

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288

Monumenta Nipponica, XXXIII,3

On the last page of Ichiya the word ichi ('one') occurs time and time again, a nightmareto the translatorsince it is sometimesinevitably submerged in an indefinitearticle in the English version. In this last part of the story Soseki is emphasizingthe superiority of quality over quantity and statingthat everymicrocosm is a reflection of the macrocosm. Soseki was very fond of pointing to some moral or making some philosophical statementat the end of his works,as witness ('The Red Poppy'), where the point of the novel is summarized in the GubijinsJ'9 concluding six pages or so. In Ichiyathe point Soseki is making is a literaryone, namely, that it is not necessaryfora storyto have a beginning,a middle, and an end; nor need one describe the whole of a person's lifein order to grasp the nature of that life. A descriptionof onenight is enough. This is a point which may seem somewhat triteto modern readers,but S5seki, as a member of the shaseibun movement,feltthatit was necessaryto make it at that time in view of the writings ofthe Naturalists. If one had to select the feature that above all else makes this short piece exto translate into English, it would be the surfeitof adjectives tremelydifficult which weigh down the sentences. Were the object of the exercise merely to produce an English text which flowssmoothly,a translatorwould gladly discard quite a number of such words. But to cut out these adjectives would go directly to do, since each word is a detail in an overall plan against what Soseki was trying ofimagerydesignedto appeal to the senses.Indeed, on occasion it was even thought advisable to supply descriptive detail in the translation,in order to add point to what otherwisemighthave been meaninglessto a Westernreader. For example, when the two ants meet on the border of the tatami mat, the explanatorysentence, 'The borderwas ofwhitetwillwith a black pattern,'has been added to the English to a kiraiberi20 border would in no way have hinted version,since merelyreferring at the fact that the black ants had now become a part of the pattern. Viewed purely as a work of literature,Ichiya may or may not, according to one's tastes, be a major piece. But in that it is a forerunner of Kusa Makura, an undoubtedly major and representativework, it occupies an important place in S5seki's early works.

19 ,A)

, 1907.

20

-i

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