Jun Ishikawa (1899-1987) remains less known in the West than other Japanese writers of equal stature. With the publication of this volume, however, several more of his works become available in English. This is due to the devotion of William Tyler, whose translations of the 1936 "Fugen" ("The Bodhisattva," 1999) and the 1946 "Meigetsuju" ("Moon Gems," 1985) introduced Ishikawa to English readers.
A reason for the relative neglect in the West is perhaps the difficulty of cataloging him, that is, placing him within the framework of received opinion about Japanese literature. Japanese critics have the same problem -- he does not seem to fit anywhere. Though he is commonly given a place in the "burai-ha" (decadent school), the designation means even less than usual when applied to a writer of such subtle variety.
One of the reasons for dropping Ishikawa in the "burai" bin is that he is not "politically committed," since he often consciously availed himself of earlier styles, such as the so-called "jozetsu" (garrulous) manner typical of the "gesaku" writers of the Tokugawa period. Of his literary life he once said, "I did my study abroad in Edo."
At the same time, Ishikawa was a modernist and was much influenced by Andre Gide. He would seem to have agreed with Nagai Kafu that a day without Gide is a day unlived, and devoted himself to a number of translations of the French author's works. His later preoccupation with symbolism might be seen as a result of the influence of this once-symbolist writer.
Though not politically committed, Ishikawa was capable of political action. His 1938 "Marusu no Uta" ("Mars' Song," translated in the present volume) is an example.
It is about a writer who cannot write because of the constant dinning of military songs. Though no actual "Mars' Song" existed, similar patriotic songs were everywhere in 1938 and shortly became ubiquitous.
To speak out against such jingoism, even in symbolic terms, was a brave political act -- and one for which Ishikawa was punished. The magazine that had printed it was banned by the censors and Ishikawa wrote nothing of any political import until the end of the Pacific War in 1945. Of course, this abstinence, this refusal, was also a political action.
Many other Japanese writers were incapable of it. Some, like Kotaro Takamura, jumped right on the military bandwagon. Others, like Junichiro Tanizaki after "The Makioka Sisters" was criticized, simply stopped publishing but went on writing. Only Kafu stopped (except for his journals) writing at all.
Jun Takami noted that not one literary man in Japan died for the sake of freedom of speech. But several refused to be literary any longer (Donald Keene has an excellent essay on this subject in his 1971 "Landscapes and Portraits"), among them Kafu and Ishikawa.
The war over, Ishikawa began to write again. "Moon Gems" (here republished in an amended translation), "Ogon Densetsu" (1946) ("The Legend of Gold," 1998), "Yakeato no Iesu" (1946) ("Jesus of the Ruins," 1988) and "Taka" (1953) ("The Raptor," 1998), all included in this collection, show the author picking up where he left off.
To be sure, there are stylistic changes and a deepening of tone.
Ishikawa is fortunate in having so skilled, so sympathetic and so devoted a translator as William Tyler. He not only gives us translations that reflect these qualities, but also appends full essays on each work that greatly expand both understanding and appreciation.
In several respects, the wartime and the postwar Ishikawa also share a political bravery. When "The Legend of Gold" was to be anthologized in 1947, the Occupation authorities suddenly took exception to it (an American soldier purveys black-market items to his Japanese girlfriend) and refused to allow it to be published.
Thus, the brave Ishikawa, true only to himself, had the honorable distinction of being banned by both the Japanese and the American censors. If his personal, layered, sometimes involuted style demands careful reading, it is that utterly intimate loyalty to self that makes reading him worth all the effort.
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