It is not just Japanese writers who use traditional ideas and culture to “influence” them, every author is guilty of this in some way. In the case of Tanizaki’s In Praise of Shadows he uses specific cultural cues to invoke cultural pride in his readers, thus allowing him to make his writing appear more significant to the time period. He does this especially in his mini essays on the toilet, paper and lighting. When talking about toilets in most western cultures there is an awkward silence, so reading a whole section of Tanizaki’s essay that was all about toilets was amusing and different for me. However, this is not the reaction Tanizaki expected, rather he expected most of his readers to be Japanese, who could understand and share his feelings. He explains the atheistic of the Japanese bathroom with such reverence that even people who would use such a bathroom daily suddenly feel privileged to use it, for example “…must agree that the Japanese toilet is perfection.” (5) He describes the calmness that surrounds him, and the feelings that other famous historical people such as Natsume Souseki (a famous novelist) have felt using the bathroom. While I can agree to having a wonderful trip to the bathroom, the way Tanizaki describes the experience of utilizing a Japanese toilet is something else. By referencing famous temples and authors Tanizaki creates a culture link between him and the reader. He calls upon them to remember the historical information regarding that place or person and to make the connection to his topic. For example, his reference to Natsume Souseki acts as a support to his argument that Japanese toilets are awesome, because by quoting Souseki, Tanizaki borrows all the respect people have for Souseki and uses it to support his idea. The same is done in other texts we read this semester; poets borrowed the idea of dew drops that the ancient Heian poets created to add depth to their topic. Tanizaki does a similar thing, but he uses the information that is in the minds of his readers to confirm what he writing. The drawbacks to this are that he eventually sides with an in between version, which does not please him to the extent at an all wooden bathroom would, but pleases him more than a completely western tile bathroom would. When Tanizaki writes about lighting and his problems with the fluorescent light bulbs that are used, he goes into detail about how much the dishes of tradition have changed. I agree with him that lacquered dishes look stunning in the darkness that would have been a traditional Japanese house, in fact I believe even people look better when lit with candlelight, because as it is the nature of the flame to shift and hide while showing small pieces with a warm, beautiful glow. And although I can respect the “sheen of antiquity” that appears on all loved items, I feel that sometimes it is inappropriate to have it, because it does not look always look well aged but it can look very dirty and uncared for. In the end Tanizaki says that Japanese paper is the best out there because of its texture and that if the Chinese or Japanese had made the mechanical pen then everything would be completely different from how it is now. (8) But I can agree with him to some extent on this, I also feel that Japanese paper is more durable and feels nice to the touch, but I still feel that he is being too biased. All in all, Tanizaki uses a common trope that all writers use in order to create a bond with their audience. They depend on the audience to know about the cultural cues that they are referencing and then they depend on them to make the connections. I would not say it is a cheap tactic, but rather a intellectual one, because it depends on the audience being educated. However As with everything in the world, there are drawbacks, and that is Tanizaki comes off as a person who accepts modern advancements but resents the Western culture, someone who is very much a nationalistic person.
In our class we read and discussed many stories, plays and poems that were about passion, often passion that was related to love. Since I am a sappy teenage girl I thought that there was no better topic for me to write about than these two. As I reviewed the materials covered this semester, I remembered my great fondness for Ono no Komachi, with her witty love poems, and decided I would look for other pieces focusing on love and, by extension of that, passion. I then ventured back into the ‘Noh’ territory and chose Matsukaze, and finally The Calendar Maker’s Wife as my final piece to write on. All three are great examples of passionate women and their love, and all three were pieces that I really enjoyed because of that.
Ono no Komachi
Ono no Komachi was a character, she was filled with sass and out of all the poets we read this semester, she is the one, that if I could, I would like to meet the most. I loved how progressive and individualistic she was, even if that ended up making her have a bad reputation in later literary works. Because of this, I paid special attention to her poetry, and I especially enjoyed reading her dream poetry because of how beautiful it was. To me, her poems are filled with passion that no other poet we read matched, and these love poems specifically were some of the best.
To realize how saturated her poetry is with passion, I begin with #552 found on page 129 in the text book.
Longing for him
I fell asleep –
is that why he appeared?
Had I known it was a dream
I would never have awakened.
This poem paints the scene of a woman who wants to see the object of her affections so much that she falls asleep and dreams of him. Then she is finally able to meet with her love, only to realize that it was not reality, but only a dream. Every time I read this poem I get shivers down my spine, because although our cultures and our time periods are completely different, this poem is still applicable to most of the (teenage) population that is in love. The passion in this particular poem is not just love, but longing, which is a side effect of love, and the bittersweet realization that what you thought was true, was actually a dream[1]. Although something similar to this could be on a girls blog, knowing the significance to this poem makes it all the more wondrous to me. Also interesting is to read this knowing that she ‘believes’ in Buddhism, because she longs for and desires this person with such a passion that to be awake is torture is against everything that Buddhism stands for. She should be renouncing such passions, but instead she dives into them, and whole heartedly falls for fleeting loves.
Moving on to the next two poem that she wrote, I am again struck by how passionate she is. In these poems she stops trusting in anything but her dreams which are her really her fantasies, and we see how desperate she is to meet with her lover.
Since seeing in my sleep
the one whom I love,
it’s these things
called dreams
I’ve learned to trust.
----
In desperation,
pressed hard by longing,
this berry-black night
I wear my robes
turned inside out.
Going from the first poem to the second is really stunning because of the change in passion. The first poem is written almost contentedly, while the second is definitely a desperate plea. Out of the two I prefer the first, because I also trust my dreams to carry me to places where I can be content, but I can understand the desperation that a person in love must feel if they cannot even visit the one they love in their dreams. She needs to see him so much that she does not do the standard turning inside out of the sleeves, but she goes overboard and does her whole outfit, thinking that if she were to do the whole robe, she would see him for sure in her dreams.
Ono no Komachi’s poetry is simply stunning and really quite powerful, and in these three poems, she has put such needy passion that I almost akin her love to an addiction. She gets addicted to a person, and needs to see them day and night, and when she cannot see them, it is like her fix is being cut off- and she goes into withdrawal, which only makes her needier, as seen in the last poem. There is no doubt that she was an excellent poet, who wrote her poetry with much passion, especially her poems that were related to or about love.
Matsukaze
Although Noh plays are not nearly as passionate on paper as Ono no Komachi is, Matsukaze is a very good example of a great Noh play that is about love and the passion of those in love. One reason I liked this play so much was because, although it was a play about attachment and “fervent passion of love” in the end there was a happy ending, which as a teenage girl I am all for. And since I am all for a positive view on love, I was happy to read the description in our text book that said that
“In Pining Wind, the sisters’ longing for Yukihara is repeatedly referred to as a sinful attachment. At the end of the play, however, both surrender to their passion and to the illusion that a pine tree standing on the seashore is Yukihara, who has come back to them at last. Instead of representing torturous retribution in hell, the play displays the deranged dance of a girl enraptured by an illusory reunion with her lover.” (954)
When I read Noh plays I am always struck at how few lines there are, given the long stage performance, and it is hard to not make these plays a quick read. I have to force myself to read each line slowly, just as the actor would slowly and carefully draw out each syllable, and doing this adds drama and passion to the words.
For example, the confession of Pining Wind and Autumn Rain that they are “phantoms” does not seem to call forth huge amounts of emotion, but if repeated slowly and deliberately all of a sudden these lines carry forth a great amount of passion.
“Pining Wind and Autumn Rain.
We before you are their phantoms.
Yes, Yukihira, those three years,
lightened his leisure with pleasant boating
and watched the moon here on Suma shore.
While seafolk maidens each night drew brine,
he chose and courted us, two sisters.
Please with the names that fit the season,
he called us Pining Wind and Autumn Rain.”
This particular excerpt is special because it is when their love chose them, and when they talk about this memory, they have nothing but good feelings. To me this section of their duet is said with a happy tone, if that is possible to do in Noh, but even if not the fact that these two spirits are still on this Earth after so many years shows their love and passion to wait for their beloved. He promised to return and so these two sisters will stay until he comes to retrieve them, if that is not passion, I do not know what is.
I also think the dances that Pining Wind performs at the end of the play are not to be over looked. Although I tried to find actual footage of the two different dances performed and could not, I realize that having two dances so close to each other must be because that the end of the play is such a dramatic and passionate point that words cannot express the emotions as well as the body does. This dramatic and passionate point is when she says that they will say goodbye to the world to be reunited with their beloved, and when she says “I love him still!” (968)
Although it is hard to make Noh plays seem filled with passion and love, this play exists because of these two emotions. It exists because these two sisters would not give up on their passionate love, so they continued to exist in this world long after their bodies perished. It is also important to remember that with Noh, the words are only a tiny part of the whole play, most of it is in the acting; the subtleties of a tilt in the head, or the movement of an actor are what bring the most emotion.
The Calendar Maker’s Wife
This story is all about passion, some love, but mostly passion and how fickle it is. I originally thought this story was unfinished, and disjointed, but the more I read it the more I like how it is formatted. The first part of the story is about beauty and love at first sight, but not the kind of love that will get you past one night. It is also pretty funny how shallow the men are, it makes me think of some popular movies and shows that have similar plot lines. Although I did not start out liking this story because of how shallow the men were, I realize it gave me some insight on the old Japanese view of beauty. I think it also goes to show that even people who look perfect are flawed, but I really enjoyed reading all the descriptions of the outfits and what the women looked like.
The second part is my favorite and least favorite out of them all because it has true romance in it. I talk of Rin’s pure love for Moemon, it is sweet how hard she tries for him, but even in the most innocent love in this story there is deception. I was surprised at how fickle Osan was, but I can kind of understand her logic, but it also ended up reminding me of Rashomon and the wife’s fickleness in that story too. She cannot be had by multiple men, so she must go with the one who will take her knowing that she is no longer pure. However, I do not like this story because of all the deceit and sudden change in emotion, I was bothered how quickly she removed her love from her husband to her new lover and how he did the same.
Although this story follows Osan’s life and love, I feel that her love is filled with fatal flaws and so to follow it will be fatal. And it is filled with foolish passions; passions to go and find lovers no matter the cost, to go with the one you ‘love’ and to find one to love. I liked this story, but at the same time I hated it. It must be the teenager in me that dislikes the fickleness, but I did enjoy the romance found in the story.
All in all, we read a lot of great texts this semester, but I really liked the ones about romance because I am a teenage female and that is what sparks my interest. There were a lot of stories and other works we read that were about removing oneself from all passions, but the ones that I enjoyed the most were the ones that were soaked in passion and love.
