Opening reflection:
Introduction
No doubt the idiosyncratic character of Part One has alerted you to the painful truth that I am not a Booktok star reviewer. At all. Indeed, no affiliate marketing agreement exists (or has ever existed) between myself and Mr Endลโs estate. My words are, in fact, where book reviews go to die. Rejoice, though, since this is all gift. Firstly, youโll be pulling up a stool at the most exclusive metaphorical beach bar found nowhere on earth. And secondly, dark rum tends to take the edge off any pretence at professional literary analysis, which has its place but not when Iโm talking directly to Mr Endล. Should grander vistas be your desire, brighter lights here abide:
.My working Japanese roughly extends to hello, please, thank you, goodbye and Asahi. As with Sacred Scripture, then, I am conscious throughout that all musings are dependent on English translation (William Johnstonโs), so I tread with comparable care. My poignantly scuffed copy, acquired in a second hand bookstore of faded memory, is a 1988 King Penguin.
If youโve toured The Papal Laundry, you already know of my quotidian obsession with faith and fiction inter-flourishings. What follows reflects this, plus the fruits of those long and happy hours in the company of my senseiโฆ
The Man
A spiritual exchange bubbles away in a story like Silence. By his own silent suffering, the writer has paid the price for the gift now changing your life. For me, indebtedness and gratitude blend inside, firing the desire to understand the authorโs journey and the sacred turns that brought us together. Silence isnโt simply about being a great fiction writer. Itโs about words as destiny.
Mr Endลโs โbiodataโ provide/s the details but, of course, this isnโt the salient story, which for us is, rather, one comprised of signs: the many life events that ultimately form the mosaic of the man. If you will indulge:
Information: born Sugamo, Tokyo 27th March, 1923; youngest of two sons
Significance: born into a Japan slowly stoking an imperialism that will lead to the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Information: age 3, moves to Japanese controlled city Dairen/Dalian, mainland China
Significance: early formative years as โoutsiderโ observing Japanese arrogance and condescension towards the resentful native Chinese; often lonely, feeling of being displaced; strong bond with family dog, Kuro
Information: age 10, parents divorce; returns to Japan with mother and brother, living with her sisterโs family in Kobe
Significance: loss of fatherโs everyday presence; feels the fragility of human relationships
Information: aunt is devout Catholic; mother converts; he too, age 11 or 12, is baptised โPaulโ, and later Confirmed (with brother), in 1934 or 1935
Significance: โoutsiderโ again as Christians form less than 1% of population; unwelcome identity, later compares to an โarranged marriageโ and his new faith โlike a suit of western clothes that doesnโt fitโ
Information: struggles during teen years with devout home life and conflicting sense of identity
Significance: realises will ultimately face a decision: โmake this ready-made suit fit my body or get rid of it and find another suit that fittedโ
Information: stellar scholar older brother, Shousuke, encourages him to apply to better high schools but he repeatedly fails the entrance exams. Upon completing school, gains entrance to Jochi Universityโs Department of German Language and Literature in 1941 but is expelled after a year for poor grades. There follows a period of multiple unsuccessful applications
Significance: knows repeated failure, uncertainty and confusion over future
Information: due to financial burden on mother, he moves to live with father who supports his applications to study Medicine. Depending on the source, he either begins a degree at Waseda University or fails the entrance exams, though passes those for Keio Universityโs Literature department (1943 entry) - a fact he conceals from his father. Upon discovery, his father kicks him out and he lives with a friend for a while and then at a Catholic dormitory. Supports himself with tutoring
Significance: knows rejection, perception of dishonour, estrangement
Information: 7th December, 1941: Pearl Harbor
Significance: War interrupts studies due to civilian mobilisation. Works in airplane parts factory and later deemed too unfit for military due to pleurisy. Loyalty constantly questioned by fellow workers - Christianity generally viewed not only as foreign imported religion but that of the enemy
Information: 15th August, 1945: Japanese surrender
Significance: Defeated nation; shattered imperialism; psychology of collective exhaustion; shadow of atomic catastrophe
Information: throughout war period, immerses himself in Western literature, discovering Rilke and particularly French writers
Significance: post-war, shifts focus to French literature; completes baccalaureate 1948
Information: dorm accommodation bombed during war; brother brings about detente with father and he moves back in. Has number of literary reviews published and becomes editor of Catholic literary magazine
Significance: reconciliation, restored honour, path forward emerging from chosen passion
Information: post-war rehabilitation of Japan opens education exchanges; 1950, undertakes doctoral research at University of Lyon on French Literature, particularly Mauriac and Bernanos, but tuberculosis forces him to return home prematurely, 1953; Graham Greeneโs fiction becomes perennial inspiration Significance: experiences racism in France, particularly rejection by fellow Catholics which sparks a crisis of faith; yet finds fertile common ground in French Catholic fiction writers; recurrence of lung condition that will plague him for life and see him lose a lung (1959) after years of hospitalisation - develops in him a profound empathy for human weakness and suffering; finally identifies what will become his lifetime preoccupation - the difficulties and profundities of faith at the intersection between East and West
Recognition
Like all great Catholic fiction writers, upon return home he kicks off his career with a novella, Shiroi Hito (White Men, 1954), which wins the prestigious Akutagawa Prize. His work is definitely not utterly ignored by all the literary press, including Christian and Catholic media, and also, say, official
if it existed back then, even though they definitely would have received the press release.1 You know, a story, for example, directly inspired by Mr Endลโs very own words:If there is a Christian writer, he or she not only writes about the beautiful and clean parts of humanity. Like an ordinary novelist, he writes about the dirty, ugly parts of humanity, and the parts that we want to turn our eyes away from. What is different from ordinary novelists is that in his works, he does not leave humans who have fallen into evil or sin alone. One of the tasks of a Christian writer is to break through and subdue it, and find in the entangled human being an orientation toward the absolute. [Literary Lectures]
Conclusion
And the rest, as they say, is history. Thereafter, his richly deserved success speaks, I fear, of a very different world. Given all his struggles, though, it feels more an outcome than a goal. His gracious yet pointedly restrained comment to the Press gathered in expectation of him winning the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature says it all, (the award went to fellow Japanese writer, Kenzaburล ลe):
ลe writes brilliantly about the search for salvation in a world devoid of God.
A copy of Silence accompanied the great man into the earth. Yet the earth shall not keep its silence.
Photo by Hiroyoshi Urushima on Unsplash
Countercultural props to our very own Danny Anderson and J M Elliott! โค๏ธโ๐ฅ
I was so looking forward to hearing your narration of this piece.