School Study Guides

17

Japanese Book News

Number 17

Thank you to ieru Nihonjin [To Be

Japanese Capable of Saying “Thank

You”]. Terasawa Yoshio. Yomiuri

Shimbunsha, 1996. 193\122 mm.

248 pp. ¥1,100. ISBN 4-643-96061-

2.

This is a cultural comparison of Japan

and the United States, composed of

articles previously published in peri-

odicals and a newspaper. The author,

who spent many years living in the

United States, first as a student and

later as a businessman, writes: “The

longer I lived in America the less I

understood it and the more, rather, I

came to understand Japan.”

From minute aspects of everyday

life—such as when he discovers the

subtle differences between the mean-

ings he learned for certain English

words as a schoolboy in Japan and

the way he later heard them used in

natural English—he scrupulously re-

counts the experiences that made him

feel so out of place in America. In

this way, he rediscovers his own

Japanese roots and considers how

Japanese people in general ought to

think and behave in the global con-

temporary world.

The author has had a distinguished

career, holding a number of important

posts in business and government.

Working for many years in the securi-

ties business, he was president and

later chairman of Nomura Securities

International in the United States and

vice-president of Nomura Securities

in Japan, and became the first

Japanese member of the New York

Stock Exchange. Devoting himself to

politics upon his return to Japan, he

served as director general of the Eco-

nomic Planning Agency in 1994, and

is currently a member of the House

of Councilors.

ARTS

Edo no kôkishin [Edo Curiosity].

Uchiyama Jun’ichi. Kôdansha, 1996.

215\151 mm. 246 pp. ¥3,200. ISBN

4-06-207600-4.

The pace of Japan’s absorption of

Western science and technology in

the modern period has astounded the

world. The accepted view nowadays,

however, is that the roots of this

sudden flowering of knowledge were

laid well in advance during the Edo

period (1603–1867). The present

volume seeks to flesh out one aspect

of this new historical perspective by

considering how Edo artists re-

sponded to the appearance of

Western science. The author, a cu-

rator at the Sendai City Museum,

specializes in Japanese art of the

early-modern [Edo] and modern pe-

riods.

The voracious curiosity and vig-

orous imagination of Edo Japanese

are truly amazing. The magnified

image of a mosquito or a flea seen

under a microscope would appear as

a monster in popular picture books,

or even as a design on a kimono.

Similarly, Western anatomical charts

inspired designs for ukiyoe prints de-

picting skeletons and ghouls. Despite

having only a single, narrow window

of international contact at Nagasaki,

the general populace soon became 

familiar with aspects of Western 

culture thanks to such efforts by 

Edo-period scholars of European

learning. Though often trifling or un-

refined in themselves, the cultural ar-

tifacts the period produced are

nonetheless graphic testimony to the

stark contrast between the rigid, sys-

tematic reception of modernity

during the Meiji period (1868–1912)

and the unrestrained, self-indulgent

spirit of Edo Japan. A fascinating

book further enhanced by the inclu-

sion of many photographs and illus-

trations.

Eiga janru ron [Genre in Cinema].

Katô Mikirô. Heibonsha, 1996.

193\130 mm. 356 pp. ¥2,600. ISBN

4-582-28232-6.

This work, a study of the heyday of

Hollywood cinema (from the 1930s

to the 1970s), is possibly the first

Japanese cinema critique written

from the perspective of film genre.

The author is an associate professor

in the faculty of humanities of Kyoto

University who has written numerous

works on film theory.

In his view, film theory must ad-

dress the crucial concept of genre. In

this book, he classifies movies into

ten genre-categories—including

gangster, war, comedy, horror and

western—based on the labels at-

tached to them by the Hollywood stu-

dios, which, through mass production

and mass distribution, controlled

every facet of the industry from pro-

duction to screening. Such genre la-

beling, he explains, is one of the key

strategies movie producers employ to

boost a film’s box-office perfor-

mance, but until now this fact has

been largely ignored in film studies.

One cannot gain an adequate under-

standing of this era of Hollywood

cinema in particular, he asserts,

through textual or auteur criticism

alone. Only by discerning the signifi-

cance of a film’s genre, he insists, is

it possible to reveal what it really

contains and conveys.

This is a rigorous study probing 

the very core of the multifaceted art

of cinema.

Cover design: Shibukawa Ikuyoshi

Cover design: Okamura Motoo

Cover design: Murakawa Tôru

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18

Japanese Book News

Number 17

Kuroshiro eizô Nihon eiga raisan

[Black and White Images: A Tribute

to Japanese Cinema]. Shirai Yoshio.

Bungei Shunjû, 1996. 193\134 mm.

374 pp. ¥2,100. ISBN 4-16-351100-

8.

It is widely thought that in the days

of black-and-white films Japanese

cinema reached a zenith unsurpassed

by any Japanese film in the age of

color. Even younger generations 

of Japanese who grew up with color

are moved and amazed by old

monochrome movies still available to

them through video or rescreenings 

at alternative cinemas.

This work is a critical retrospective

on Japanese cinema written by a vet-

eran film critic whose entry into the

profession was inspired by the trea-

sures of Japanese films of the black-

and-white era. Celebrating the

enduring appeal of those movies and

offering much-needed hints for the

resuscitation of today’s lifeless

Japanese film industry, he covers a

total of twenty-eight films made in

the 1940s and 1950s, including such

classics as 

Muhô-Matsu no isshô

(The Life of Matsu the Untamed),

Saikaku ichidai onna (The Life of

Oharu), Tôkyô monogatari (Tokyo

Story), and Kumonosujô (Throne of

Blood). The author introduces each

work in careful detail, discussing its

historical background, technical as-

pects and social and artistic influ-

ences. The book is especially

entertaining for the glimpses it af-

fords into the behind-the-camera

world of the film industry of the day,

the author recounting a wealth of

anecdotes from his personal acquain-

tance with many of the directors and

actors. The book also includes useful

extra information, such as which

films have been released on video.

LITERATURE

Hori Tatsuo no shûhen [Hori 

Tatsuo and His Circle]. Hori Taeko.

Kadokawa Shoten, 1996. 194\133

mm. 257 pp. ¥1,900. ISBN 4-04-

883439-8.

Born in 1904, novelist and poet Hori

Tatsuo appeared on the literary scene

in the late 1920s but died young in

1953. His writing career thus 

spanned a little more than two

decades, and most of that he spent

bedridden with chronic tuberculosis.

Despite being written during the war,

most of his works are permeated by a

mood of tranquility and pensiveness

that gives no hint of the turbulence of

the times. Though not a prolific

writer, Hori made a lasting impact on

postwar Japanese literature with such

memorable works as Kaze tachinu

(tr. The Wind Has Risen, 1947), and

admirers of his novels still visit the

house in Karuizawa where he spent

years in convalescence.

Written by Hori’s widow, the pre-

sent volume looks back on the

writer’s relationships with key fig-

ures in his career. Among those dis-

cussed are writers he regarded as

mentors, including Akutagawa

Ryûnosuke and Murou Saisei; peers

from his own generation, such as

Nakano Shigeharu and Sata Ineko;

and younger writers who emerged in

his footsteps in the postwar period,

including Nakamura Shin’ichirô and

Fukunaga Takehiko. The account re-

veals profoundly touching aspects of

Hori’s relationships with these 

people amid the severities of the

wartime era. That the book’s por-

trayal of this dark historical period is

not at all gloomy, though in part

probably a reflection of the author’s

own temperament, may also be at-

tributed to the brilliance of Hori him-

self. This volume is a must for

anyone seeking insights into Hori 

and his works.

Kanpon: Kairôroku [Precepts for

Growing Old, Complete Edition].

Sono Ayako. Shôdensha, 1996.

193\133 mm. 274 pp. ¥1,500. ISBN

4-396-61059-9.

It is predicted that people aged sixty

and over will account for one-quarter

of the entire Japanese population by

early in the twenty-first century.

Faced with the combination of a

climbing average life expectancy and

a falling birth rate, the Japanese, both

collectively and individually, are al-

ready beginning to feel the pinch of

the ineluctable onset of the aged so-

ciety.

This book, which in its original

form has continued to sell well for

close to thirty years, appears now in a

revised and enlarged edition. The au-

thor, a well-known writer, wrote the

original work as a kind of self-di-

rected homily on aging when she

sensed she herself had reached the

point where youth yields to the

gradual process of getting old. Now

at age sixty-five, well into her senior

years, she offers this “completed”

edition from a new vantage point.

The book grapples with the diffi-

cult question of how to make the

most of life in one’s old age. Unlike

many such discussions, however, it

confronts the issue squarely, with an

honesty at times even ruthless. Thus

refusing to shrink from the harsh re-

alities of elderly life, the author ham-

mers out a level-headed guide that

Cover design: Naitô Akira

Cover design: Mimura Jun

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