The General and I

I used to read a lot of Ryuzo Saki's crime non-fiction and reportage.

Although it is written in the style of a novel, I was surprised to find that, following Ryuichi Matsushita, he wrote about Tomoyuki Murohara, the elderly protagonist who fought in the Hachinosu-jo (Beehive Fortress) struggle against the construction of the Matsubara Dam.

It is a masterpiece that depicts Mr. Murohara—a true 'Higo-mokkosu' (a stubborn person from Higo) who, like a Showa-era Shozo Tanaka, whipped his aging body to fight against state power—from the perspective of an employee who was his comrade.

While Mr. Murohara dealt with the situation by meeting 'force with force and law with law,' he often said that rather than just stopping the dam construction at all costs, 'I am demonstrating what democracy is with my own body. I want each and every person to think about the meaning of what I am doing.' His lonely struggle exposed the relationship between the individual and the vague, ambiguous democracy and capitalism of the post-war era, forcing one to consider what human rights truly mean within that context.

There is also an exchange with a character who seems to be director Nagisa Oshima, who came to the site wanting to film a documentary. It is refreshing to see the spirit of Mr. Murohara, who shouts 'Go home!' at the director, who is ill-informed about everything and questions the meaning of a struggle that isolates itself rather than forming solidarity.

The other two novels included in the collection contain content that seems to foresee an era in which almost all Japanese people would possess a 'middle-class consciousness.'