School Study Guides

band’s senile father, and the despair she sometimes suf-

fers. This is the work that sold more than a million copies

in only a year (it was later published in paperback and in a

new hardbound edition and to date it has sold 2.63 million

copies). It is clear evidence of the unspoken (or overt) and

widespread concern about what people should do (how

they should provide care) should a member of their family

(a parent or spouse’s parent) develop symptoms of de-

mentia.

By coincidence, Japan’s first organization aimed at the

study of the mental and physical health of the elderly, the

Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology was founded

in April 1972. The purposes of the Institute are to conduct

advanced basic scientific, clinical, and sociological re-

search about aging and the diseases of old age, in order to

contribute to the improvement of welfare for the elderly

living in the Tokyo metropolitan area. Its research is con-

ducted in close cooperation with hospitals specializing in

gerontological care and is intended to help enhance stan-

dards of diagnosis and treatment. (From Tôkyôto Rôjin

Sôgô Kenkyûjo nijûnen-shi [The Twenty-year History of

the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology]). 

After its founding, the Institute set up a team to pursue a

ten-year research project on overcoming dementia and

achieved remarkable results, particularly regarding

Alzheimer’s disease and other ailments of old age. 

Probably the next book to draw the most attention, al-

though I hesitate to make this claim myself, was my book

Nagai inochi no tame ni [For Long Life] (Shinchôsha,

1981). This work, significantly enough, is nonfiction.

Since the end of the war, old age had been mainly the

stuff of fiction writing, but by the 1980s it was a very real

and immediate issue. As described on its back cover, this

book is “written by a newspaper reporter who was

brought up completely by his mother after his father’s

early death, but was ultimately forced by circumstances to

place her in a home as she entered advanced age.” It is

based on my own firsthand research and information-

gathering in welfare-related offices and homes for the el-

derly, and incorporates a wide variety of data and actual

accounts of the dedication as well as frustration of welfare

workers as they confront the day-to-day problems of the

aging society. The book was awarded the 1981 Ôya

Sôichi Nonfiction Prize.

Little was known about the special nursing homes for

the elderly founded in 1963. 

Nagai inochi no tame ni pre-

sented for the first time, in exhaustive detail, thorough re-

search on the inner workings and conditions of these

homes. Since that book came out, a large number of non-

fiction works have been published on the problems of

aging. It prompted the appearance of stories of personal

experience such as by well-known actress Takamori

Kazuko and popular singer Hashi Yukio.

The impact on women’s lives of the emerging problems

of the elderly has brought to the fore a whole new set of

issues. (See Okifuji Noriko, Onna ga shokuba wo saru hi

[The Day Women Leave the Workplace], Shinchôsha,

1974.) Until the end of the war in 1945, the role of

women was overwhelmingly as housewives, and they

were considered responsible for all the work in the home

(housework, child-rearing, and care of the elderly). After

the war, however, family configurations gradually

changed and the number of women continuing to work

after marriage steadily increased. The proportion of mar-

ried women who work is now higher than those who do

not work. Even women who do not work rarely stay at

home, but are active either in various personal pursuits

and hobbies or in volunteer or organizational endeavors.

In the absence of adequate public welfare services for the

aged, women—or even men—may be forced to leave their

jobs and abandon their activities outside the home to care

for them.

Recently talked-about and much-read books include

Sae Shûichi’s 

Kôraku [Withering Leaves] (see Japanese

Book News, No. 14, p. 17) and Oikata no tankyû (Quest

for the Best Way to Age) (Shinchôsha) and Saku Sôgô

Byôin [Saku General Hospital], ed., Jibun rashiku shinitai

[To Die in Your Own Way] (Shôgakukan), and Ôkuma

Yukiko et al., Fukushi ga kawaru iryô ga kawaru [Wel-

fare Will Change, Medical Care Will Change] (Budô

Sha). 

Kôraku, though presented in novel form, is essentially a

nonfiction account of the author’s experience caring for

his mother (age 87) and father (92) especially during the

difficult times when they require intensive nursing care in

advanced age. This book was much discussed as soon as it

appeared in 1995 and is still widely read.

As described in Kôraku, there are increasing cases

today in which the caregivers themselves have already

crossed the threshold into advanced age, and the situations

are such that one never knows whether it will be the recip-

ient of the care or the caregiver who succumbs first. This

is one of the new dilemmas being faced among the prob-

lems of aging.

All living beings, certainly not human beings alone,

eventually die. Especially for human beings, the eternally

compelling questions are how to live well and how to die

well. (Hayase Keiichi is a nonfiction writer.)  

5

Japanese Book News

Number 17

Continued from p. 2

indigenous nationalism. This tendency, aided by the in-

crease in political apathy, could create a vacuum that

would allow Japanese politics to move in a dangerous di-

rection. It would be a mistake to view the recent develop-

ments too optimistically. There are fewer people in Japan

today who are willing to point out and critize the malaises

of society as Maruyama did. There is also a tendency to

attack those who do as advocates of the universalization

of Western ideas. This situation suggests to me that all the

more attention should be given to Maruyama’s achieve-

ments in social analysis and criticism, which display a

most admirable consistency that goes all the way back to

his pre-1945 study of fascism. (Mamiya Yôsuke is asso-

ciate professor at Kyoto University.)

---