Reading Shizuo Fujieda's 'Denshin Yūraku' and 'Kūki-atama'
'Denshin Yūraku' and 'Kūki-atama' are separate works, but I would like to write my thoughts on them together.
※Contains spoilers.
※Page numbers for citations refer to the paperback edition.
What the stories are about
Chronologically, 'Kūki-atama' was written first, followed by 'Denshin Yūraku'. 'Kūki-atama' is the story of "I" caring for a wife suffering from tuberculosis, and while it contains fictional elements, it can be said to lean relatively toward realism. However, 'Denshin Yūraku' is entirely fictional and a nonsensical story. The narrator "I" is at times a piece of pottery, and at other times, the Maitreya Bodhisattva.
Although they are I-novels, both 'Kūki-atama' and 'Denshin Yūraku' contain many fictional parts, and those fictional parts are where Shizuo Fujieda expresses his ideals. I will write about the anguish of demanding such ideals and the ideal world itself.
Ekel (Disgust)
The anguish of "I" (Shizuo Fujieda) in the real world is well depicted in 'Kūki-atama'. If one were to express that anguish in a single word, it would be "Ekel" (disgust).
"I" sometimes feels disgust toward his own flesh and blood. The following citation is a scene where "I" and his wife are riding a crowded train together.
My wife's small, pale face was pressed against the side of the washroom on the other side of the thick crowd of people. And when she looked at me from afar with a painful, ugly expression, as if pleading, I glared at her with a terrifying look.
Why does he feel disgust?
For me, the unsightly appearance of my own flesh and blood is reflected, without any logic, as my own ugliness.
In other words, when he sees the ugliness of his flesh and blood, because his consciousness of the connection between himself and them is strong, the same ugly parts within himself are emphasized, leading him to feel strong disgust.
Through this kind of "mirror" that is his flesh and blood, the ugliness of "I" himself is projected, and the disgust toward his flesh and blood bounces back onto "I" himself. Therefore, it can be said that Shizuo Fujieda is suffering from disgust toward himself.
Shizuo Fujieda's Ideal World: Kūki-atama
In 'Kūki-atama', "I" has a mysterious experience. While drinking at a cabaret, he has an out-of-body experience and floats up to the ceiling.
The high-pitched chatter of people that had occupied my ears until then, the sound of glasses clinking, and the noise of the music that had been stirred up by them, all suddenly vanished completely, and only a uniform, humming sound drifted about. And the doll-like figures of the people, who had become terrifyingly distant, were illuminated uniformly and everywhere by a white light, like the shadowless lamp in an operating room.
And then, he tastes ecstasy.
A feeling of satisfaction and joy began to soak into my chest like a tide. I felt that my spirit was now empty, yet at the same time, completely fulfilled in every corner.
In 'Kūki-atama', he develops a device to pump air into his head to re-experience this. In other words, for "I" (Shizuo Fujieda), this can be said to be his ideal.
Furthermore, in 'Denshin Yūraku', "I" also holds this state as an ideal. In 'Kūki-atama', "I" thinks of the out-of-body experience as something close to a state of enlightenment, but the "I" who is the protagonist of 'Denshin Yūraku' is truly aiming for a state of enlightenment.
Since various characters appear as narrators in 'Denshin Yūraku', a clear protagonist cannot be determined, but based on the frequency of appearance, the central figure is a person named Irokuro Okuyama, and it is thought that Shizuo Fujieda is most projected onto this character. This Irokuro Okuyama is actually the Maitreya Bodhisattva. The Maitreya Bodhisattva is a bodhisattva who will descend to earth 5.67 billion years after the death of Shakyamuni to attain enlightenment and save all living beings, but this bodhisattva has descended to earth as a preview and is living as Irokuro Okuyama. Therefore, because the "I" (Shizuo Fujieda) who is the protagonist of 'Denshin Yūraku' is the Maitreya Bodhisattva, he is aiming for a state of enlightenment.
For both myself and others, only Ekel, Ekel. But still, the only thing I wish for is, 'No birth, no death, no increase, no decrease'.
In other words, it can be said that both the 'I' in 'Kūki Atama' and the 'I' in 'Denshin Yūraku' hold the same state of enlightenment as their ideal.
Shizuo Fujieda's Ideal World: Denshin Yūraku
However, enlightenment is not something you can achieve just by thinking you want to be enlightened. In 'Denshin Yūraku', the 'I', who is Maitreya Bodhisattva, engages in conversation with Ksitigarbha Bodhisattva.
Ksitigarbha said, 'We are neither one thing nor the other, you see.' 'The Master (Shakyamuni) never once said what happens to people after they die. He never said anything about reincarnation, either. When it comes to that, ever since I came here, I've been exhausted by people talking about Paradise, Hell, the crossroads of the six realms, and the Sai no Kawara. Well, I suppose I accept that lies are a necessary evil and that this trickery is just a stopgap until you arrive.'
'There is no individual existence, nothing at all. You become soil, wind, and water, but there is no self. Not born, not extinguished, not increasing, not decreasing, and so on. He said some bold things. He was a tough person after all.'
In short, although the 'I' in 'Denshin Yūraku' aims to attain enlightenment, he is still a half-baked existence who cannot become like Shakyamuni.
In 'Kūki Atama' as well, the device for pumping air into the head is not perfect, and he has not reached a state of having attained perfect enlightenment.
Once you find the path, the rest depends on your effort. Therefore, I am determined to work hard to improve this device, eventually fill my entire brain with air, and become a perfect air-man to float up and ascend to heaven.
Even though the 'I' tries to reach the ideal of enlightenment, he cannot reach it, and in the end, the ideal is not realized.
However, 'Denshin Yūraku' depicts the pleasures that such a half-baked 'I' can enjoy, another ideal world.
In the first place, 'Denshin Yūraku' itself is a bright novel that makes you feel happy while reading it, and it seems unnecessary to point out specific scenes, but I will quote a part where it is expressed most clearly.
The images of gods filled with obscene, joyful life, carved into the shrine of my hometown village, swarmed behind my eyelids. Those gods, too, were dancing like dust motes, tangled together in the blue-black sky partitioned by the white, shining peaks of the Himalayas.
The rice bowls also floated in high spirits, flying around the room while spinning with a buzzing sound. Thus, the ensemble's performance began slowly, gradually increasing in tempo and pitch, returning to the mountains of the Himalayas, and continued endlessly as they entered a climax that seemed ready to burst with the themes of the transmigration of all things, birth and death, non-birth and non-extinction, and non-increase and non-decrease.
'Om mani padme hum'
'Pei! Pei!'
Pu-pu, pu-pu-pu, den-den, kaan
'Padam, padam'
Jaran, jaran, jara-jara
Gaan, polaan
'Pei! Pei!'
'Denshin Yūraku, Denshin Yūraku'
Here, it is filled with a vulgar joy overflowing with vitality. This is exactly what 'Denshin Yūraku', or 'The Pleasures of a Country Gentleman', is. Therefore, another ideal world that the half-baked country gentleman 'I' can enjoy is depicted in 'Denshin Yūraku'.
Actually, although indirectly, such an ideal world is also depicted in 'Kūki Atama'.
When I was a student, I was doing research using human waste, and I would collect it with a friend, bring it back, and conduct research in a laboratory filled with the smell of feces.
'No, but even so, those days were actually more fun than now.'
'Hmm.'
I also nodded. While sipping whiskey that we had extracted as a tribute from a wealthy graduate student, under a dim light, he peered into a microscope, and I timed the intervals and recorded data every thirty minutes.
That's right, I thought, it was certainly more fun than now.
The 'I' is reminiscing that life in a situation surrounded by excrement—or to put it nicely, surrounded by the stench of living things—was fun. I think this situation has something in common with the vulgar, life-filled pleasure of 'Denshin Yūraku'.