Showa Fantasy with the Feeling of Extensive Reading of Foreign Books: "Denshin Yuraku"

Finished reading Shizuo Fujieda's "Denshin Yuraku".

Since an author I admire highly praised it as a "wild Showa-era I-novel," I borrowed it from the library to read. Actually, I had planned to read two of his representative works, including one called "Kukizama," but the public library didn't have a book containing both, so I started with just "Denshin Yuraku".

It was wild from the moment I borrowed it. Its appearance, that is. It was falling apart.

What's more, this was the only copy available in the entire city... Is it a vintage item?

Alright, I got myself pumped up to read it, but then I hit the first hurdle.

It was a parade of difficult kanji and vocabulary, with absolutely no furigana reading aids. To begin with, I couldn't even read the title. When I looked it up, it seems to be "Denshin Yuraku." It apparently means something like a country gentleman enjoying himself. Since this isn't in the dictionary, it's likely a neologism coined by the author, Fujieda.

There were four or five words I couldn't read on every single page. You could say that's just because I'm uneducated, but this isn't a technical book or a philosophy book; it's a novel.

I had no choice but to make full use of my smartphone to look up how to read the words and confirm their meanings. As it turned out, most of them were names of plants and animals, or terms related to Buddhism. In other words, the majority of the difficult vocabulary consisted of proper nouns. Oh, well then, I'll just skim over them. I should still be able to understand the story.

I recognize this feeling. Yes, it's the feeling of extensive reading of foreign books.

"Even if there are words you don't understand, don't look them up in a dictionary; just keep reading to grasp the big picture."

When I read Harry Potter in the original language, there was a succession of words I didn't understand and couldn't even pronounce, and I almost gave up... though most of those were just lists of incomprehensible imaginary creatures, plants, magic, and coined words. It's that same feeling.

"Having two or three words you don't understand on a page is the level that suits your language ability."

No, no, this novel is way beyond my Japanese level...

With that mindset, I decided to just treat it as extensive reading in Japanese and skipped over the words as I read. The subject of the first-person narrative changes frequently. The first "I" (though, typically for Japanese, the word "watashi" never actually appears) seemed human, but when I moved to the next chapter after about 10 pages, it suddenly became "I am a sake cup." Pottery? And a piece of pottery that lives in a pond and falls in love with a goldfish... Then the "I" in the next chapter is a matcha tea bowl. It seems it can travel anywhere in Japan where there is water. And the next one is, believe it or not, a rice bowl that can fly through the sky.

Since the author strongly insists that this is an "I-novel," there must be some meaning behind the perspective of "I" changing so frequently... and the fact that all these "I"s are non-human. (Even the first human, who seemed like the protagonist, was actually the Maitreya Buddha in human disguise.)

Not only are they non-human, but each "I" is an "ikamono"—a fake—that differs from its appearance, possessing special abilities that the original objects do not have. In addition to the eccentric actions of these "I"s, some incomprehensible Buddhist elements are added, and a fantastic world unfolds in rapid succession. I don't know much about Buddhism, so I don't know where the truth ends and the fiction begins.

That aspect, too, is similar to the feeling of extensive reading of foreign books, where you keep reading while feeling hazy because you can't grasp the details.

When one speaks of an I-novel, it is supposed to be about realism, but it seems this I-novel by Fujieda is different.

An I-novel with a setting clearly far removed from reality becomes increasingly suspicious and chaotic.

The erotic mating between a "sake cup" and a "goldfish." (It's genuinely erotic. Perhaps it wasn't banned because they aren't human?)

Buddhist training in the depths of Tibet and a detailed description of a spectacular sky burial.

An assassination plot by a fake Acharya in the form of a snake, carried out by a 'me' who is also an impostor.

Discussions on the end of the world between 'me,' who is Maitreya in human form, and Jizo, Myoken, and Daikoku, who are also hiding on Earth.

I wondered what kind of ending it would have, but there was no so-called 'conclusion.' Instead, it ended with a lively and comical Himalayan Buddhist music ensemble scene featuring all the characters.

Jalan jalan jarajara
Gong poran,
'Pei, pei'

It was reminiscent of that classic ending in the Showa-era TV variety show 'Hachiji Dayo! Zen'in Shugo,' where just as the Drifters' skit reached its climax, noisy music would start playing, the stage set would begin to rotate, and the curtain would fall amidst the chaos.

What is this I-novel? Well, I enjoyed reading it, but... how is this an I-novel? I could only think of it as fantasy or science fiction.

Looking up the author, Shizuo Fujieda, briefly, it seems he was a writer who opened up the realm of the 'psychological novel' (shinkyo shosetsu) using the form of the I-novel. In other words, this incomprehensible story is a manifestation of Fujieda's state of mind.

In the author's afterword, there were two points that made me think, 'I see, that's why it's like this,' and I was convinced.

One is that this novel was not written in order from beginning to end. Instead, he wrote a certain scene first, then added to the story before and after it. In terms of a building, he said he built a shack first, then added a second floor and an annex, creating something like a 'deformed child' using a 'building block method.' That convinced me why 'I' kept changing without any logical connection.

The other point is that he said he imagined the composition of 'Stationery Pictures' from 'Joseon Dynasty Folk Art.' Looking it up on the web, it is true that various stationery items are arranged in a cluttered manner, ignoring perspective. Fujieda at the time was attracted to such 'incomprehensible' and strange paintings. I thought this also represented the cluttered composition of this novel.

Combining these two, it means that Fujieda's inner mind was swirling with 'incomprehensible,' 'deformed,' and disconnected chaos, and he expressed it in this form...

Fujieda was not an eccentric person; rather, he seems to have been a very serious man. He was a writer influenced by Naoya Shiga, possessing a 'concise, hard, and powerful writing style and a cold, objective eye that does not distinguish between self and others' (self-proclaimed and otherwise).

Looking at his chronology, he suffered from tuberculosis from childhood until the end, and it seems his life was one where he lost his family and wife because of it. So, I personally thought that this work, written in his later years, might have been an attempt to express some kind of antithesis to the heavy shadow of death he had carried for so long.

Here, I remembered one quote. It is a quote from Shigeru Mizuki.

'This world is just a place to pass through, so don't try too hard.'

I believe it was a line he had a cat say in one of his works. Shigeru Mizuki was also a person who had miserable experiences in the war. He expressed how to overcome unbearable suffering through a manga featuring an anthropomorphized cat.

I thought that Fujieda, too, might have been tired of the unbearable, eternal suffering and wanted some kind of salvation. As proof, the story effectively ends in the final part where Myoken Bodhisattva says to Maitreya Bodhisattva:

'(According to the latest science, before you, Maitreya, save the sentient beings in 5.6 billion years, the whole world will be swallowed by a black hole, so) the darkness of this world is the Pure Land (therefore, it is useless to worry; let's just take it easy here).'

With that scene of admonition, the story effectively comes to an end.

Miroku, the only character in the story who is human-like, constantly feels an intense itch all over his body, and there are descriptions throughout of him scratching vigorously. Myoken Bosatsu, who appears as a human midway through, also suffers from the same itch the moment he becomes human.

I felt that this description of itching might be an allergic reaction to the 'desires and sufferings of the human world.' As if to say, I want to be free from such things...

I cannot analyze or evaluate Fujieda based on this single I-novel alone, and to delve deeper, I would need to read many more of his works. However, since this is his most famous work, and the next most famous one, 'Kuki-atama' (Air Head), seems to be a rather dark piece containing explicit vulgar content, I do not feel like reading anything else and intend to end it with this one book.

Enjoying Showa fantasy with the feel of extensive reading of foreign books: Denshin Uraku.
Pei, pei