ogai historical

The Historical Fiction and Biography of Mori gaiAuthor(s): Eric W. JohnsonSource: The Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, Vol. 8, No. 1, TenthAnniversary Issue (Nov., 1972), pp. 7-25Published by: American Association of Teachers of JapaneseStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/489089 .Accessed: 22/05/2014 23:14

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"The Modern Japanese Novelist and the Historical Process" A panel presented at the twenty-fourth annual meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, March,1972

THE HISTORICAL FICTION AND BIOGRAPHY

OF MORI OGAI

Eric W. Johnson

The University of Michigan


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With the shocking self-immolation of General and Madam Nogi on Friday, the thirteen of September, 1912, the day of the Meiji emperor's funeral, whose death that July marked the start of the Taisho period, Ogai's fiction suddenly and dramatically shifted from contemporary settings to the historical past. The reversion was so swift and so compelling that the first of Ogai's historical works was conceived and completed in the five day period between the deaths of General and Madam Nogi and their funeral on the eighteenth. The entry in Ogai's diary for that day, the eighteenth, mentions both his attendance at the funeral and that this first historical work, "The Testament of Okitsu Yagoemon" (Okitsu Yagoemon no isho, published 1912), had been finished and sent to Chuo Koron for publication.1 The story, told as a formal letter by Okitsu to his children and heirs, probes Okitsu's motivations for self-immolation the second day of the twelfth lunar month in the year 1647,2

The influence of Nogi's death on the writing of this story, as on several that followed, is clear. Not so clear perhaps is, first, why that influence should have been or what it means and, secondly, that these stories give clear indication of a long stand- ing interest in Japanese history on Ogai's part. They could not have been written simply through a shift of interest brought on by Nogi's death, but must have been the product or culmination of longer range influences, which Nogi's death triggered. The stories clearly indicate familiarity with Japanese history that could not have been acquired in a few days or months as would otherwise have been necessary.

The evidence of historical competence expressed by these stories indicates that Ogai might have turned to historical fiction eventually even had Nogi not committed suicide, although this is of course speculative. Be that as it may, the death of Nogi did crys- tallize ideas and impressions that had been accumulating over a period of many yeras but which might not have found expression without the shock of Nogi's death. Once Ogai tried his hand at historical fiction he not only found it congenial to his sensibilities, but appropriate as his mode of self-expression as a writer. Thus, it would appear that while the death of General Nogi had a powerful and immediate effect-after all, Nogi was a personal as well as professional friend and a national hero whom Ogai deeply admired--other more subtle things were at work which ultimately are of greater importance to us than the fact of Nogi's suicide but which are commensurately more difficult to talk about.

This is not to say that Nogi's death is irrelevant to these deeper and more difficult arguments; clearly the contrary is true. On one level it is quite possible to state that Ogai's never turning away from historical fiction until he quit writing,with few exceptions,


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indicates that the death of General Nogi influenced him in a very personal and lasting way. Had Nogi not committed suicide and Ogai eventually turned to historical fiction, I dare say the stories would not have the richness and impact that they do. The relationship between Nogi's death and Ogai's historical fiction, therefore, is important in helping us to understand these works on a level that is not possible if one were to confine his interpretation to the works alone. But this is true of other aspects of these works, such as, for example, their relationship to the tenor of the years in which they were written. Nogi's death is but one facet of a complex set of special interrelationships that combine to give these stories their magnitude.

In all, Ogai wrote twenty-four historical works, including: five novellas, eleven short stories and short biographies in the years from 1912 to 1916; and, finally, from the years 1916 to 1918, three long and five short biographies.3 With the exception of three works, two of which are set in T'ang China, all are incidents from the Tokugawa period, or related to it,4as in the case of "Sahashi Jingoro" (April 1913) which treats an obscure incident in Tokugawa Ieyasu's rise to power prior to the battle at Sekigahara.

These nineteen historical works take up nearly four volumes of the eight volume edition of the Complete Works of Mori Ogai (Mori Ogai zenshu) published by Chikuma Shobo in 1959.5 Of the remaining four volumes in the set two and a third are devoted to short stories and novels written in the Meiji period (nearly all during the last four years of Meiji from 1909 to 1912), one volume of translation and some poetry, and one volume of essays and literary diaries in prose and poetry, also done during the Meiji period. Thus, although we tend to think of Ogai as a Meiji writer, the bulk of his fictional writing--if the historical works can properly be termed fiction and if we do not include the essays, diaries, poetry and translation-- was done during the Taisho period. In addition, the bulk of that fiction from the Meiji period was written following the Russo-Japanese War, during the final four years of the Meiji period immediately preceding Nogi's death in 1912. Yet Ogai essentially was a Meiji writer, not only because he was supreme in Meiji literary circles, in one fashion or another, for twenty years and because memorable works, in particular The Wild Goose (serialized from September 1911 to May 1913), seem to epitomize one's good impressions about Meiji Japan, but because this also involves those more subtle aspects of the historical fiction.

In temperament Ogai was part of the Meiji period. He was one of many Meiji intellectuals who seem to have felt something alien and even frightening about the Taisho era, not that the Taisho era intrinsically was different from the final years of the Meiji period.


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The ambivalent national mood which seems to have prevailed during the early years of Taisho began developing in late Meiji at the end of the Russo-Japanese War with the announcement of peace terms that shocked and disappointed the nation. At the same time, it became clear that the national goals established in early Meiji had been achieved, although perhaps not with that final touch of glory the Japanese might have wished for. Japan had empire, equality as a nation, military and naval strength, colonies, and so forth. Yet it was an era of uncertainty and disquiet, especially in the year or two following the death of the Meiji emperor. Partly this was because there were no clear national goals or threats to take the place of those of the Meiji period, partly because the Russo- Japanese War had been too costly for what was gained, and partly because future threats, such as the Russian presence in the Far East, were still largely unarticulated.

What seems to have emerged in these years from 1905 to the outbreak of World War I in Europe was a peculiar kind of nationalism distinctly ambivalent in nature and quite chauvinistic, as perhaps nationalism is in its essence. On the one hand there was pride in the state and its achievements, but on the other there was fear for the future. It should not surprise us to find that the new generation which emerged after the war was subjected to drastic criticism for its indifference to the dangers facing the nation and for its lack of ethics and moral fiber.6 Indeed, this new generation was itself often represented as one of the great dangers. The anarchists who had represented little threat prior to the war were now viewed by the government with alarm.7 This new generation, so criticized as unworthy by so many, was the offspring of the Meiji era and its headlong plunge into nation building. In the frenzy to secure its shores, the nation had produced a new generation trained in Western nation building ways, with Western ideas and Western mores, although we might well question what this really means. The older generations were shocked to find that the youth had cast off those very values they the older generation had strug- gled to preserve--at least that is the way it appeared to them.

In a very real sense, the victory of the Meiji state was at the same time its loss. The implication, for those who were aware of them, were difficult to cope with. Ogai developed the poignancy, bitterness and irony of this theme of ambivalence perhaps better than any other Meiji or Taisho writer or intellectual. Had the struggle been worth the sacrifice? It was Nogi's suicide that seems to have crystallized this question in Ogai's mind and forced him to struggle with its deeper, emotional implications.

Until 1912 the European world had largely dominated Ogai's thinking, although one can see its influence receding in his fiction from 1910 to 1912. As the shift to historical conscious-


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ness in 1912 indicates, something began surfacing, something more authentic, something which in essence was more Japanese.8 This pattern of early infatuation with the West (which in Ogai's case was quite sophisticated) followed by a rediscovery of one's native Japan to the exclusion of the West is common among modern Japanese writers and intellectuals. In addition, given Ogai's idiosyncra- cies as a writer, we find that in terms of technique and psychology Ogai's approach to the writing of fiction made the Tokugawa setting more congenial to him. That he continued to write in the historical setting even after purging his consciousness of Nogi's self-immolation attests to this. Thus, one can argue that in turning to Tokugawa history for his story material Ogai was able to achieve full maturity as a writer.

Ogai possessed a restless mind and grew bored easily. And while, thematically speaking, his works are remarkably consistent, he constantly experimented with new forms, new genres, new techniques and new approaches, borrowing and altering whatever suited his style. He was greatly influenced by the activities of other writers, and was not always the leader, especially following the Russo-Japanese War. And he was not always successful with his experiments. One genre which was developing rapidly following the war, and which Ogai tried his hand at, was the so-called psychological novel form. It is quite clear from the trends we see in his several novels written between the years 1909 and 1912 immediately preceding the historical fiction that he became increasingly uncomfortable with this genre. At the same time, one suspects too that the short story form as he was practicing it could not satisfy him.

The fiction that began to emerge following the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-05 was not congenial to his sensibilities as a writer. One senses an acute awareness in him after 1910 of being unable to compete with new writers, most of them members of the new generation, and of realizing that something within would not permit him to write the new kind of modern fiction that was developing around him. Call it arrogance or whatever--it affected him pro- foundly as a writer, perhaps turning him increasingly to the study of history, an activity well suited to his inclinations as a scholar. At the same time, the themes of youth prevailing in the fiction of late Meiji influenced him to turn to his own youth in his stories. Out of this tendency toward youth one sees the beginnings of a very definite trend toward the past in his fiction as early, perhaps,as 1909, the very year he emerged as a full-fledged writer of fiction.9

Another aspect of the shift to the Tokugawa period for the setting of his fiction was that, in a sense, Ogai was already practiced in historical fiction. That is to say, one can speak of his imaginative fiction-as opposed to the historical fiction--which


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were written during the last four years of the Meiji era as historical interpretations. These works, which are set in mid and late Meiji, very much deal with the interpretation and implications of late Meiji history and society from the point of view of one contemporary to them. They are, therefore, more overtly a part of an historical process than are the works of most other writers of that period. One senses in them an increasing alienation from society and a growing apprehension toward the implications of events taking place about him. There are many examples of this, such as in the stark contrast between his novels The Wild Goose, which is set in the idyllic past of early Meiji, and Ashes(Kaijin, serialized September 1911 to December 1912), which is set in the dark contemporary world of the naturalists of late Meiji. The two novels, which read like opposite sides of a coin, were published simultaneously in serial form, but Ashes was never finished. Ogai set the novel aside at the time of Nogi's death and never took it up again. Ashes is perhaps the clearest expression in all of Ogai's writing of his frustration with the psychological novel form.

Thus, in terms of approach and technique, both fictional and non-fictional, one can argue that the two periods of Ogai's writing- the period of imaginative fiction from 1909 to 1912 and the historical fiction of the period from 1912 to 1918-- are inseparable. They flow logically one to the other and their works are all, in a sense, part of Ogai's personal reaction to one continuous historical process.

But if Ogai was reacting to an historical process which finally brought him to the writing of historical fiction, that is not to say that he was therefore an historian,even though he does exhibit many characteristics of the good historian, especially in his research techniques and methods, and in his apparent attention to factual accuracy. What marks him as a writer rather than as an historian is what he did with the fruits of his research. Ogai's historical fiction is primarily dramatization of personal interpretations of the past and of history, and not expository delineation of impartial investigations. The eye of the novelist is more in evidence than that of the historian, even though admiration for Ogai as a writer tends to center on his prowess as a scholar and stylist, and not necessarily upon his expertise as a novelist and writer of fiction. This is true even though the effectiveness of these stories depends very much upon his skill as novelist and storyteller. Furthermore, some of the historical fiction is quite a historical, "Takasebune"(January 1916) is a good example, as is the biography Shibue Chisai (January to May 1916), which often seems to express a curious non-historical quality. And on more than one occasion he ignored historical evidence in favor of dramatic or


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thematic effect, as in his story about the life of T'ang poetess YU Hsuan-chi (Gyo Genki, July 1951).

What Ogai wrote does not constitute a systematic scheme of historical interpretation; rather, the stories are a series of excursions into certain areas of Japanese history almost exclusively involving obscure samurai or little known women of the Tokugawa period. The subjects he wrote about seem to have appealed to him at a particular moment in quite a personal, and often revealing, way. Ogai's primary interest, despite Nogi's death and other factors, seems to have been that of storyteller, as he conceived the storyteller's role. It was partly his conception of this role that gave this historical fiction shape and made it something new in Japanese letters. This in part is why these stories do not seem to reduce down to a consistent view of history. That was not Ogai's purpose. Yet, to view these exclusively as works by a gifted storyteller does not satisfy one's impressions of them either.

Ogai does seem to have believed that the historical novelist, like the historian, should seek after the truth of what happened and that from his understanding of this truth his story will derive its power as a work of fiction. Furthermore, he should not specu- late except within careful guidelines, although to some extent such a condition too severely interpreted might limit unnecessarily the range and power of his imagination, as seems to have happened to Ogai at times. Choice of story, then, would be crucial for expressing meaning beyond the historical truths of the stories themselves. That is to say, Ogai would not select just any story, but would choose only those which seemed to express something of personal and pressing importance to him, such as those which reflect the death of General Nogi. And a carefully selected story could speak for itself and exist on its own terms--a not unimportant consideration for a writer. Additionally, Ogai was not always consistent in his expression of factual or historical truth, which seems to indicate greater truth to these stories than mere factual interpretation of the past. Choice of story was indeed important. Too often fictional truths overshadow factual ones--and yet ultimately is this not as it should be in works of fiction? And does this not represent a kind of truth in itself?

In Japan, Ogai's historical novellas and biographies have not enjoyed great popularity among the general reading public, who are not entertained by them and who do not seem sensitive to what they contain. The reason for this lack of popularity is not just the apparent difficulty of reading these works--many are quite easy. Rather, we find that those who most appreciate Ogai's historical works are particular kinds of intellectuals who have reached a


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certain stage in their life when they feel Ogai says something of great importance to them as Japanese, Whatever this may be, it is as though Ogai manages to touch a chord of an intellectual arche- type. These Japanese intellectuals, who include scholars, critics and writers--and generally their response is genuine--regard Ogai's historical fiction and biography as among the great works of Japa- nese literature. Some say that Ogai's biography of Shibue Chusai is the great masterpiece in modern Japanese letters,10

Ogai has not enjoyed much appeal among the students of Japa- nese literature in this country, perhaps because he does not, for the most part, appeal to our literary sensibilities. But then, neither does he consistently excite and entertain the general reading public in Japan. It seems to require a certain kind of person, who has a certain understanding of Japan, Japanese life and Japanese history, who has perhaps reached a certain stage in his maturity, to appreciate the sophistication and depth represented by Ogails historical novellas and biographies. This person is often a dilletente, in the first sense of the word, one who appre- ciates literature of a certain kind of high intellectual and emotional caliber, qualities which make these particular works often seem cold and forbidding. Although such people seem to get won over in thorough fashion, the problem is not so simple for the rest of us. Not only do we in this country know very little about the significance of Ogai's life, which seems to be embodied in these works, but we seem to expect something quite different out of fiction from Twhat he gives us,

Style is one of the important holds that Ogai seems to have on the kind of Japanese intellectual I have been describing. Ogai is renowned in Japan as a stylist. His first work, "The Dancing Girl" (Maihime, January 1890), is written in a beautiful style which is basically classical, but which is also filled with western and Chinese phraseology,11 The work is romantic, yet not sentimental, It is a pity that Ogai did not write more than he did at that stage in his career. His translation of Hans Christian Andersen's Improvisatoren (Sokkyo shijin, September 1902) apparently has considerable influence on late Meiji and Taisho letters.12 Kafi and Kyoka both expressed admiration for this work. The young writers that emerged following the Russo-Japanese War evidently owed something to this translation, although just how is not clear. Rather difficult to read, its classical style is nonetheless quite capti- vating. Interestingly, the work shows that even at this late date (1902), Ogai still preferred classical Japanese as his writing medium. But the influence of this work, for the standards it set in translation and style, seems to have little to do with the story that is told, although it is a kind of auto-biography, largely about youth told in the first person by a poet. Its power in the


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Japanese seems to be its style--the same is perhaps true of the historical fiction.

But in view of the grandeur of style Ogai employed in much of the historical fiction, it is nonetheless troubling that he should have selected such obscure people to write about, people who played no great role in the development of modern Japan, but who merely represent and exemplify. At times characters appear ludicrous, which, one should add, Ogai does cleverly exploit, even though the works themselves clearly are serious in intent. And that one should find these stories at once depressing, and yet exhilarating, is a complicated effect to interpret. It is his style which seems to impart the exhilaration. Yet while the style at times seems to approach epic proportions, none of the stories or subjects of his biographies do. Perhaps this was deliberate, One can only say that style is an important element of the historical fiction and the impression these stories ultimately make on the reader.

The stories and biographies all are written in a kind of sinicized Japanese. "The Testament of Okitsu Yagoemon" is written in sorobun, but this style as used in this story is not so different from the other stories, particularly the biographies. The general language used in these stories is the modification of a style prevalent in the Tokugawa period used for rendering Chinese into Japanese, and which was popular among samurai scholar-officials as a documentary and narrative style. Ogai refined it, apparently bringing it to heights not equaled before or since, The style somehow is admirably suited to the historical fiction, whatever the misgivings one might have about the stories themselves.

Ogai added modern colloquial sentence endings and simplified the grammatical forms, and he used German tense aspect. Unques- tionably his language is more modern than that of the Tokugawa period, although one sees in these stories clear indication of the Tokugawa writer and the influence of Chinese belles-letters, but without the floridity one usually associates with the letter. The vocabulary is heavily Chinese, in the fashion of the samurai bureau- crat-historian of Tokugawa Japan. And Ogai so often uses the Chinese reading of a character where today the Japanese reading would be used almost exclusively. The heightening of this old language with new forms and modes of expression imparts to the reader a remarkable sense of historical presence. The stories clearly belong to the past, but the writer has made them part of the present as well. On the whole, the technique and approach used in these stories is quite modern, while the psychology is pre- modern, although, not to contradict myself, the reverse often seems


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true also. In short, as one can perhaps see in analyzing the language and style of these works, there is an effective assimilation of the modern with the pre-modern writer.

Ogai used technical vocabulary with almost natural accuracy and facility and in such a way that he could imply much without lengthy explanations. On occasion he is explicit, as in describing the meaning of "dog's death" in The House of Abe(Abe ichizoku, September 1913), when such explanations are crucial to the story, but as a rule he does not do this, Ogai did not waste words. He assumes a certain level of knowledge on the part of the reader, a knowledge of Tokugawa history, as well as of its literature and romance. And although he does not demand thorough knowledge, the more one can bring to these stories, the more one can appreciate them. Aside from language, this is one element which makes these stories difficult to read and appreciate. But this was his style and his art. It is part of what makes his better stories move with power and drama.

His prose is pure, austere and clear, and combines dignity with often irresistable rhythm and movement. One can perhaps hear the narrator weaving his tale with exquisite language and sensitiv- ity, something like the traditional storytellers of old. In the novellas the ring of authority imparted by the style--perhaps deriving from the strength of his moral judgement--tends to over- whelm the reader such that he cannot doubt the truth of what the author is saying. At his best Ogai combines a sense of mystery with a hint of inevitability, and the outward calm with which he writes adds to the sense of inward tension and restrained power. Even the dry, traditional geneology is used with great effect. These techniques and aspects of style are those of the writer rather than of the historian.

At his best Ogai sets scenes with care and economy, and with an eye to the dramatic, building steadily to climaxes that strike swiftly. Suddenly, for example, there is a flash of the sword and a man is cut down, in one or two phrases, Ogai does not dwell on the gruesome aspects of violence when he depicts it; rather, the sword swoops, cuts the flesh, and the narrative moves on. We are told in the Tokugawa fashion how many inches deep the cuts were, what bones were severed, and little more. The effect is sometimes chilling. A number of such scenes can be found in the novella Oshio Heihachiro (January 1914), and although quoting such scenes out of context reduces their impact, in one the magistrate and his men try to capture for interrogation one of Oshio's conspirators. Their plan hinges on the rule that anyone entering the office of the magistrate must do so unarmed. In their nervousness they bungle their task completely:


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Koizumi came down the hall alone and removed his short sword in order to lay it down. To one side of the hallway was the room of the magistrate's personal aide. As Koizumi laid the sword down a man leaped out of the aide's room and held the sword to the floor. The startled Koizumi grabbed for the sword. In the scuffle, the sheath slid off, leaving Koizumi armed with a naked blade, Atobe ( the magistrate), who had been watching, said, "Cut him down:" Koizumi reached the archery room before he was struck from behind by Ichijo whose blow cut two inches into the top of his head. The next blow cut four inches into his right shoulder through the tip of his collar bone. As Koizumi staggered he took a full thrust into his right side. A senior officer for the east magistrate, Koizumi Enjiro, whose existence numbered a mere eight- een years, lost his life as the first victim of the plot. It is said that his promised wife was like a flower. (OZ, V, 159)

Lesser writers might have given in to long and sentimentalized descriptions or have concentrated on the gore, but Ogai disposes of events such as this with swiftness and impersonality.

Another example of this technique is to be found in his story "Sahashi Jingoro," In this story Tokugawa Ieyasu dispatches the young Sahashi Jingoro to assassinate General Amari Shigoro. One evening, after a moon viewing banquet--complete with waka--at which Amari drank rather heavily, Sahashi and Amari are left alone. Amari lays his head in Sahashi's lap and asks Sahashi to play the flute. As the night deepens, the candle burns low. Crickets chime in, and Amari feels drowsy. Suddenly Sahashi stops playing, and asking the general if he isn't cold, lightly touches him on the left breast:

Amari, almost asleep, thought to himself: he's straight- ening my open robe for me. Simultaneously, something as cold as ice, which Amari thought now is the open palm of his hand that touches, sank deep into the base of his breast. Some- thing strange and warm rose from his breast to his throat. Amari lost consciousness, (OZ, V, 88)

As perhaps these two passages suggest, Ogai was a visual writer. One fine example of visual scene setting, which seems to depend on Ogai's skill as a poet, is the first chapter of his in- complete novel Ashes. There, however, one not only can visualize the leaves blowing about the temple garden described in that chapter, but one even hears them. This sense of the visual is in keeping with the dramatic quality of the historical novellas, which often read as though they were written for the stage, although clearly a novella such as Oshio Heihachiro would have required drastic reworking in order to adapt it to the stage. At times one can visualize camera angles, elaborate sets and ruth-


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less editing as for the cinema when reading this novella, yet its dramatic impact depends upon a kind of narrative flow that might not translate well into film. Thus, while Ogai does use stage and "cinematic" techniques,13 these techniques do not dominate the stories, but rather help to give them shape and structure.

Despite the dramatic nature of the historical works, Ogai seems to have had difficulty writing convincing and natural dialogue. Often it seems to detract from the overall effect of a particular work, making characters appear comical, though at times this was done intentionally. Some of the passages of dialogue in Incident at Sakai (Sakai Jiken, February 1914) are good examples of deliberate, but heavy-handed comedy. As a general trend, there seems to be a steady decrease in the amount of dialogue as the historical fiction develops, and in the biographies, dialogue is minimal, although I perhaps could be challenged on this point. It is in The House of Abe that we perhaps see most clearly the alternation of sonorous narrative with dramatic staging and dialogue. The House of Abe was the first historical novella, and is, in some ways, the least polished.

Ogai also had difficulty depicting the inner workings of the minds of his characters. His novella Oshio Heihachiro perhaps epitomizes the lack of sustained psychological treatment in the historical fiction, although Ogai did not lack psychological insight into his characters. The novella has some quality about it which makes this lack more noticeable than in most of his other historical fiction. However, the reader is comfortable for the most part, for when Ogai in the novella does indulge in psychological analysis and probes motivation those few places that he does, the result seems forced and contrived. Perhaps these few passages are what make the lack noticeable and which make one dissatisfied that Ogai did not do more with psychological analysis in this work. Ogai seems too austere, too inclined to move on, although on the whole this quality does enhance the comical effect he seems to have been trying to create in the work. Is it simply that one's curiosity has been whetted that makes one wish to know more about Oshio? Or is it that one is not quite willing to accept Ogai's interpretation of him? What were Ogai's motives for writing the work? It adds to one's curiosity that however repugnant Ogai felt Oshio fascinated him.

Why did Ogai not take that extra step and sketch Oshio a bit more fully? Partly it might have been arrogance. Or it might have been Ogai's conception of the scale of the work. Perhaps more compelling as a reason is that this lack seems to have everything to do with Ogai's reasons for turning to historical fiction in the first place. As the hero of Ashes laments all through that work as he tries to become more than a would-be writer, he cannot iden-


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tify with the main character of the novel he is trying to write. Psychologically Ogai was not equipped to tackle the kind of psychological interpretation we might expect in Oshio Heihachiro. That is not a judgement we make necessarily, but one we sense Ogai to have made himself. Although he tried, he found that his nature dictated a different approach to writing, an approach he exploited as fully as he could in his historical fiction. He was, afterall, as all writers must be to some extent, a creature of his times and personal circumstances. Although he experimented widely with a great many forms and techniques, a kind of virtuosity in itself, he could only go so far as an artist. I think Ogai understood his limitations quite well, as he understood that in certain contexts weaknesses become strengths. Many of his weaknesses as a writer became strengths in the historical fiction, Ogai did not lack imagination; rather, his imagination was quite different from someone like Soseki. Paradoxically, this very trait of not being able to conduct sustained exploration of the inner life of his characters, which in part caused him to drop the imaginative novel as a writing medium after 1912, somehow seems to impart to these historical works their awful, impersonal truths. At the same time we find in these works a kind of empathy expressed for the Tokugawa period that makes many historical works by other Japanese writers seem shallow in comparison.

The novellas written between 1912 and 1914 display rather profound insight into Tokugawa society, insight and feeling quite beyond the violence that seems to dominate in these works. The people who populate these works live in a society of very strange impersonality, strange to us at least. The violence is secondary to the theme of any individual work, although the violence is not intended to be dissociated from either theme or drama. The violence, in fact, seems to underline the impersonality and thematic structure of Ogat's historical world. In The House of Abe the reader watches, perhaps with horror, as an entire warrior family-- not just the men and the sons, but the women, the children, the servants and the retainers--is destroyed. Event follows upon irrational event in an unbreakable chain leading to the inevitable annihilation of the entire Abe family--and all stemming from a perverse whim of the fief's dying lord.

The violence in this story is secondary to the primary theme of the arbitrary and impersonal cruelty of samurai society in the 1640's. In contrast, Oshio Heihachiro depicts the cowardly Osakan samurai of the 1839's. These Osakans are men afraid to die, yet take one- third of a city with them in flames, all because their ties to one irrational but well-intentioned zealot prevented them from doing otherwise. Again, the violence seems to be secondary to the major theme of the work, which centers on the relationship of


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these men to their society at a particular time of crisis, in this case famine and bureaucratic indifference.

Incident at Sakai dramatizes the forced suicides of soldiers who killed French sailors at the port of Sakai in the last year of the Tokugawa period, 1868. The story seems to imply that the spirit and code of the warrior was now harbored in the ranks of the lowly foot-soldier, not in men of samurai rank. These men echo the cou- rageous spirit of the Abe warriors, but at the same time seem to depict the ludicrous qualities found in Heihachiro and his men. When Leon Roche departs because he can no longer stand to watch the barbaric violence of the ritual disembowelment of the twenty condemned men, one soon realized that these low ranking "patriots" were victims of barbaric necessity. The primary concern of the governmental leaders, to whom we are not endeared, was to appease the French and maintain their country's integrity and to keep it free from foreign domination. The condemned soldiers, although not realizing the consequences of their actions at the beginning of the story, appreciated their role at its end more fully than perhaps the reader does. For men not even samurai until necessity made them so, their deaths are pitiful, and yet the ritual of suicide was in this case their country's first line of defense. The ironic implications of this story and the way Ogai tells it turn this incident into something quite horrifying. The violence is but one aspect of the horror:

The heralding official read, "Minoura Inokichi", Everyone in and near the temple grounds fell silent as if hit by cold water. Minoura, wearing formal warrior's trousers beneath a formal black woolen coat, stepped up to the disembowelment platform. His second, Baba, stood about three feet behind him, Minoura bowed once to Governor Nomiya and his subordinate officials, drew to himself the plain wooden stand set out by the intermediaries and took the short sword in his right hand. Suddenly his thunderous voice resounded.

He said, "Listen, Frenchmen, I do not die for the likes of you. I die for the empire. Watch carefully this death by a man of Japan."

Minoura loosened his clothing, and, holding the short sword with the point down, thrust it deep into his left side, and cutting downward three inches, pulled it across to his right side and then cut upward three inches. With the blade in so deeply, the wound gaped open. Minoura, glaring at the Frenchmen, discarded the sword, inserted his right hand into the wound, and grasping the peritonital membrane, pulled it out.


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Baba drew his sword and struck him once across the back of the neck, but the blow was shallow.

Baba's second stroke severed the cervical vertebrae with a crunch.

Minoura let out a scream once again. "I'm still alive" Cut more"" His voice was three times louder than before.

The French minister, who had been watching Minoura's behavior from the start, was at once struck with fright and awe. Already ill at ease in the gallery, the minister, when he heard this unexpectedly loud voice at this unexpected moment, stood up, not knowing what to do in his bewilderment.

Baba finally lopped off the head on the third try. (OZ, V, 274) Taken together the three novellas perhaps document the decline

of the samurai tradition and the need for a new order. At the same time, one senses in these works admiration for men of action-- men who did things, not because they necessarily believed in what they did, but because they had no choice.

The GojiinAahara Vendetta (Gojiingahara no katakiuchi, Oct- ober 1913) is the depressing account of the practice of katakiuchi, or vendetta, whereby the family of a murdered samurai could obtain from the shogunate a stipend for the sons or brothers of the de- ceased and leave from their lord to hunt down the perpetrator and kill him, Tokugawa storytellers and writers of fiction romanticized this institution, lavishing praise upon it and making the avengers into legendary heroes who sometimes fought whole bands of men, defeating every one. Ogai did quite the opposite of this in his novella. He depicted the practice as something shabby, which it probably was. It had no place in a modern state. After reading this work, one can never again read vendetta stories set in Japan with the same thrill and excitement. This work changed forever the vendetta story in Japan. I should think that for this reason alone, The GoliinAahara Vendetta must occupy some place of importance in Japanese historical fiction aside from whatever other merits the work might possess.

Following these novellas, Ogai entered a second phase in his development as a writer of historical fiction. This second phase lasted from roughly the spring of 1914 to early 1916. The stories in this phase tend to be short and less violent. They give the impression of hasty composition, as though Ogai could not sustain interest in them. World War I was in progress and seems to have affected him, although there is no direct evidence of this that


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I am aware of. Closer to home, Ogai's mother Mineko, was terminal- ly ill, She died in 1916 at the end of this second phase, not long after Ogai began publishing serially his biography Shibue Chusai which marked the start of the third and final phase.

A romantic, a historical quality, at times bordering on sen- timentality, seems to predominate in the works of this second phase. As an overall theme one might say that in contrast with the first phase of man destroyed by events, in this phase man survives events. We also find that many of these stories center on women: "Madame Yasui" (Yasui Fujin, April 1914), "Yii Hsiian-chi", "The Last Word" (Saigo no ikku, October 1915), "The Old Man and the Old Woman" (Jiisan-baasan, September 1915), and "Suginohara Shina" (January 1916). "Takasebune" and "Han Shan and Shih Te" (Kanzan Jittoku, January 1916) belong to this phase, as does Sansho Dayu (January 1915). This phase represents, I think, the low ebb of Ogai's historical works, but not necessarily of Ogai as an imaginative writer,

Some of these rather romanticized stories apparently have considerable appeal in Japan, partly because several are widely read in high schools and partly because they seem to touch certain emotional wellsprings within the Japanese psyche, despite almost sentimental insight into the past. They do exhibit Ogai's sense of the historically proper, but not to the same degree as some of the earlier and more important statements in novella form. Their historical propriety stems from Ogai's technique of anchoring any story, no matter how fictional, into a definite historical setting whatever little evidence there might have been to justify such an adaptation. The result, as in the case of "Takasebune", was to lend an air of historical authenticity and verisimilitude which is quite deceptive, but not ineffective. That is to say, one accepts the historical framework in which these stories are cast and accepts the stories as part of it. The psychological basis of these stories may have little to do with actual historical circumstances, and in fact may be quite "ahistorical", "Takasebune" again is an example. The death of the younger brother, who tries to cut his throat with a razor and pleads with his elder brother, the prisoner, to help him die by pulling it out, could have been set at any point in history. The scene is reminiscent of the description Ogai's sister, Koganei Kimiko, gives in one of her books of the death of Ogai's younger brother, who suffocated from internal hemorrhaging within the throat. This image appears a number of times in Ogai's stories and seems to have haunted him. In one story not published until after his death, Ogai describes the dissection of his brother's throat at the autopsy, which he attended,

The most flagrant example of pinning a story down to a par-


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ticular year on the basis of little or no supporting evidence is "Han Shan and Shih Te". The story is set in a specific year of the T'ang dynasty, when scholars are not even sure of the century Han Shan lived. It is no accident that "Han Shan and Shih Te" is the weakest of all of Ogai's historical fiction. In stories such as Oshio Heihachiro, in which not only the date, but the specific hour of events can be pinned down through historical records, Ogai uses this technique, albeit more subtly and with much greater effectiveness, "Han Shan and Shih Te" is useful in calling attention to this device which at times seems to help impart verisimilitude. If one looks, he will find this technique and variations of it used all through Ogai's stories and novels, not just in the historical fiction,

Sansho Dayu, which is quite long, is based on legend, but set in a definite year (or years in this case). Ogai wrote an essay, which discusses this story, entitled "History as is and History Imagined" (Rekishi sonomama to rekishi banare,January 1915). In this essay Ogai confesses that he found Sansho Dayu uncomfortable to write. Perhaps it was uncomfortable to write because the story has no firm basis in fact, Sansho Dayu is fiction, or at the very least, legend. Ogai's writing of the story does seem to show that he tried to break out of the confinement of the factual past and tried to write something more purely imaginative, but at that stage in his career this seems to have been very difficult for him to do.

Although we find the principle of subjective interpretation in operation all through Ogai's historical fiction, which at times led him to ignore factual evidence or broader contexts that would suggest interpretations different from his, Ogai felt most comfortable shaping his imagination through the use of factual settings. The three biographies written in the last phase are final testament to this. The novella from the first phase Oshio Heihachiro, on the one hand a subjective interpretation of the uprising in Osaka in 1837, is, on the other, convincing as a work of fiction in part because it is based on fact. It is not surprising that Ogai felt uncomfortable with the imaginative novel form, because, as all this perhaps suggests, psychologically it was not congenial to his temperament. He was not unlike the old-fashioned teller of tales, the transmitter of oral history who depended upon tradition and prede- cessors, but who, when he mastered his art, created his own reper- toire,

In the final phase from 1916 to 1918, Ogai wrote biography, specifically three long biographies of obscure Tokugawa doctors, as well as five short biographies of other doctors and Confucian scholars. The scale and approach employed in these biographies is


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very different from the historical fiction that preceded, although all nineteen historical works have roots and qualities in common. The first biography, Shibue Chusai, is a strange intermingling of the present with the past. It possesses a dynamic quality, an underlying tension, that belies its apparent scholarly foundations. Ogai feels close to his subject, but never really makes Shibue come to life. Either he was afraid to take that last step or could not. There is a peculiar distance between the author and his subject, despite their obviously being kindred spirits. Ogai can never come to grips with Chusai the living man as we should like to see. There is perhaps a peculiar lack of commitment, a subconscious desire not to make the bridge too complete. There is very little dialogue in the biography, almost none of it spoken by Chusai, who speaks, in total, only a page or two of lines in this three hundred page work,14 When Chusai dies midway through the biography, one is left with the peculiar feeling that he has known only the shadow of the man. We know him mostly by his works, which Ogai describes in rather sparse detail, by his circle of friends, and by the major events in his life. The impression one gets, despite some interest- ing scenes and descriptions, such as ChusaiTs activities at the time Perry's black ships arrived, or life in the back rooms of the Shbgun's palace, is that one is cut off from this past. Ogai car- ries the work forward to the present through Chusai's descendents, but to little avail, even though we do learn a little more about Chusai, If anything, this use of Chusai's descendents emphasizes the gulf between author and subject.

Herein may lie the significance of this biography. It is not so much how the work is cast, or that it is a biography in process, or that it represents the pinnacle of style in modern Japanese letters, if indeed it does. The grandeur of the work, if it has any, is its unique impcsition of the present and personal upon the past and the historical, while demonstrating the unbridgeable gulf between them as enforced by the movement of time. The joy of the work is at the same time its poignancy.

Isawa Ranken (June 1916 to September 1917), the next and not as highly regarded biography, is about one of Shibue Chusai's teachers. It runs 900 pages in the complete works15 and seems to be at least one third kambun, Ho i Katei (September to Dec- ember 1917,at 500 pages,lb and also heavily laced with kambun, as well as documents in s6orbun, is highly regarded, but seems peculiarly unfinished, H-oj Katei was one of Isawa Ranken's teachers; thus, the three biographies read chronologically constitute a kind of reverse flow of history, as though Ogai, who was losing his powers, unconsciously was retreating farther and farther into the past and tracing his psychic roots deeper and deeper into Tokugawa history,


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Notes:

1. Volume XI, page 53 of the thirty-five volume Iwanami edition (1938) of Ogai's complete works, hereafter referred to as OZ. 2. There are actually two versions of the story. The later version was written sometime in the first half of 1913. The two versions are quite different in tone, with the revised version perhaps superior artistically. The thirty-five volume Iwanami edition (1938) of Ogai's complete works does not include the first version, although it is contained in the 1959 Chikuma edition. 3. The five short biographies are not discussed in this essay. They include: Juami no tegami, "Toko Tahe," "Suzuki Tokichiro", "Saikai K-i", and "Kojima Moso". All were serialized in the Osaka Mainichi and Tokyo Nichinichi between May 1916 and October 1917. 4. The other exception is the story Sansho Dayu. 5. The Iwanami edition (of which there are several versions) is much more inclusive, but the Chikuma edition contains those works and writings of Dgai's considered to be of literary importance. 6. For a detailed discussion of this problem, see: Oka Yoshitake, "Nichi-Ro senso go ni okeru atarashii sedai no seicho", in Shiso, 1968, part I pp. 137-149, and part II pp. 361-376. 7. Shumpei Okamoto, The Japanese Oligarchy and the Russo-Japanese War (New York: Columbia University Press, 1970) p.94 8. This point was brought out by Professor Peter Duus as discuss- ant for the panel on Japanese literature held March 26, 1972 at the Association for Asian Studies annual meeting in New York. 9. Events such as the Great Treason Trial affected Ogai as a writer, as did increasing government censorship, but discussion of these things is beyond the scope of this essay. 10. For example, Ishikawa Jun, "Shibue Chusai", in Gendai no espuri, VI (1968), 173ff. This essay is often reprinted in collec- tion of essays about Ogai and his works. It originally appeared as part of his biography, Mori Ogai, pp. 11-181. Ishikawa Jun zenshu (Tokyo, 1962). 11. For a detailed discussion see: Masubuchi Tsunekichi, "'Maihime' no bunsho oboegaki", in Bumpo, I (1969), No. 10., pp. 81-85. 12. The English translation is from the Danish. Apparently Ogai worked from a German translation. If true, this might explain some of the variances between the Japanese and English versions. 13. Movies as we know them were, of course, unknown then. 14, 15 and 16. The page counts are based on the 1938 Iwanami edition of Ogai's complete works.


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Issue Table of ContentsThe Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, Vol. 8, No. 1, Tenth Anniversary Issue (Nov., 1972), pp. 1-85Front MatterLetters to the Editor [pp. 1-6]"The Modern Japanese Novelist and the Historical Process" A Panel Presented at the Twenty-Fourth Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, March, 1972The Historical Fiction and Biography of Mori gai [pp. 7-25]The Historical Satires of Yokomitsu Riichi [pp. 26-33]Tanizaki Junichir's Historical Fiction [pp. 34-44]Chinese History in the Writings of Nakajima Atsushi [pp. 45-57]The Changing of the Shogun 1289: An Excerpt from Towazugatari [pp. 58-65]

News of the Profession [pp. 66-67]News of the Association [pp. 68-69]ReviewsReview: untitled [pp. 70-71]Review: untitled [pp. 71-72]

Recent Publications [pp. 73-74]Minutes of the General Membership Meeting of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, New York, March 28, 1972 [pp. 75-77]Comprehensive Index of Volumes I-VIII [pp. 78-84]Back Matter [p. 85-85]

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