Exploring the nature of language and literature with Tanizaki Junichiro and transnational literature (Associate Professor Gregory Kesnajat, Department of Global and Interdisciplinary Studies Studies, GIS ( Faculty of Global and Interdisciplinary Studies Studies and Liberal Arts))

A Shocking Encounter with the Works of Junichiro Tanizaki

My specialty is the study of modern and contemporary Japanese literature. My research focuses mainly on Tanizaki Junichiro and his literary works that depict the crossing of cultural and linguistic borders, the so-called "trans-border literature.

Initially, I was interested in the Japanese language because of the difficulty of the language, and my life changed when I came across the works of Tanizaki Junichiro in my reading of Japanese literature.

The first essay I read was "Inei Raisan (In praise of Inei Reisan)," which was translated into English. I was not able to finish the book in a good mood, as I was repulsed by its essentialist discussion of Japanese and Western aesthetics. I became curious as to why I felt this way and who Tanizaki Junichiro was for writing such a work, and I began to explore.

Junichiro Tanizaki was a unique figure, and when he first debuted in the literary world, he was regarded as a heretic. He soon became one of Japan's leading literary figures, and his works have been included in textbooks. Our research focuses on the process of how Tanizaki Junichiro's uniqueness was incorporated into the national literary system.

One of the cross-border literature writers we are focusing on is Professor Emeritus Hideo Leiby, who was a member of the Faculty of Intercultural Communication Hosei University, and who has continued his creative work since the 1980s, opening up new possibilities for literature written in the Japanese language. My encounter with cross-border literature, including the works of Professor Leibi, inspired me to try my hand at writing novels in Japanese.

Novels I could write only because I grew up in an English-speaking country

I started living in Japan in 2007, more than 14 years ago. Soon after arriving in Japan, I was sent to Kyoto as an assistant instructor of foreign languages at a Japanese school, where I spent the next 10 years until I entered and graduated from the graduate school of Doshisha University.

In graduate school, I consciously sealed off my English and struggled to acquire living Japanese by reading Japanese novels as a daily routine and living in Japanese.

At the time, I started keeping a diary as part of my Japanese studies. However, since the contents would become monotonous if I only recorded my actions, I gradually increased the number of descriptions of scenes and sometimes wrote fictional stories. The novel I wrote based on this mixture of fiction and fact is "Kamogawa Runner," which won the Kyoto Literary Award.

One of the things that troubled me when writing the novel was the use of personal names. In "Kamogawa Runner," the main character is referred to in the second person as "you. In English, in addition to indicating "you," the second person subject is sometimes used in generalities to indicate "the world in general. Furthermore, generalizing one's own story involves an attempt to cover up embarrassment. It implies a nuance of "I'm not special; everyone does it. Since the subject matter is similar to that of a personal novel, I thought the second person was the best choice in terms of separating the protagonist and myself.

This is an unusual persona for a novel written in Japanese, and readers may be confused at first, but as they read on, they will become emotionally involved with the protagonist and experience the Japanese language from the perspective of a non-native speaker.

Writing a novel in a second language can be a challenge in terms of expression, but it is conversely an opportunity to deepen the text. What is left when we lose the well-worn idioms and words that we tend to dabble in in our native language? I think that is where the writer's sensibility is put to the test.

I would like to continue to ask these questions through my novels.

Needs a certain amount of workload to grow up

At Faculty of Global and Interdisciplinary Studies, all classes are taught in English, so the Japanese literature we use as our subject matter are translated works that have been translated into English. Although it may seem like a roundabout way to learn Japanese works in English, I believe it is a meaningful method because new interpretations can be created through translation.

In today's society, "words" and "texts" are everywhere around us. In this sense, we are always living as "readers. Who wrote it, under what circumstances, and what did they want to convey? In order to determine this, it is important to develop reading comprehension skills to grasp the meaning of the text from the words and expressions used in the text. Reading comprehension is the " Practical wisdom " to discern the true nature of things, without being distracted by superficial information.

Reading books helps train reading comprehension and thinking skills. I would like you to challenge yourself to read not only easy-to-understand material, but also slightly more difficult material. The content that is carefully understood with a lot of effort and time will give you a deeper learning experience because of the hard work involved. Please do not be in a hurry to face it and think deeply about it. The experience should lead you to growth.

(First published in the January/February 2022 issue of Hosei, a public relations magazine)