The Heart of Nami-San (Hototogisu) - A Story of War, Intrigue and Love

An excerpt from the beginning of the:

INTRODUCTION

WITH the rapid rise of Japan as a power, especially since the outbreak of the present conflict, has come an increase of interest in the land of the Rising Sun that has not been slow to show itself in the number of books published about Japan. For many years before the war, indeed, Nippon has always been a source of picturesque study and that strange pleasure which comes from an acquaintance with things exotic,—a pleasure often mingled, no doubt, with a sense of our own superiority over the peoples we happen to be reading about. Many of us, too, without knowing a single word of Japanese (except, perhaps, "Banzai," which literally means "ten thousand years" and in practise corresponds to our "hurrah" or shouts of good wishes and victory) have long discoursed quite knowingly about jinrikishas, Japanese prints, Fujiyama, Madame Butterfly, and even hummed the Japanese "national hymn,":—the one, at least, that Sullivan announces with those enchanting strokes of the kettle-drum in the overture to "The Mikado." We have heard something, too, about that ticklish process known as harakiri, and even seen it suggested in the realistic '' movies!" But how near to the real Japan has all this brought us? How near to the flesh and blood creatures like ourselves, with our same joys and despairs, our same aspirations, — how near to the men and women that love and hate and cheat and intrigue and by other similar tokens show that we are brothers and sisters under the skin? What do we know of the Japanese literature that is reflecting modern Japanese life? Something of their stage, particularly the classical stage, has come to our knowledge through various interpretations of the "Noh;" a few stray books and newspaper articles have mentioned the contemporary drama. Art, perhaps, has been better favored. Of the modern Japanese novel, however, we know nothing.

This should lend added interest, then, to one of the most successful books written in Japan in recent years. A book that has sold hundreds of thousands of copies in Japan alone, and that has gone into more than a hundred editions, must contain something that reaches to the heart of a Japanese problem. Such a book is the present novel, '' The Heart of Nami-San,'' by Kenjiro Tokutomi, long known as one of Japan's leading novelists. Tokutomi, because of his leadership of the movement to introduce Western thought into the minds of his countrymen, and because of certain literary resemblances and influences, has been called the Japanese Tolstoi. "The Heart of Nami-San," the Japanese title of which is " Hototogisu," is looked upon as his masterpiece.

The original title itself is at once symbolic, onomatopoetic and deeply expressive. As onomatopoia it represents the cry of the Japanese cuckoo, plaintive in sound and haunting in portent. Among the Japanese, we are told, the cuckoo is considered as the symbol of hopeless love, consuming itself in vain effort and suspense. The actual significance of the characters employed to form the word are "sooner death!" This, indeed, is the name that has been given to the French translation of the work.

In order to appreciate the story to the full we should remember that the matter of marriage and particularly the part played in it by the parents-in-law in Japan has been far different from the customs of our own country. One writer upon the history of Japan and its culture explains that '' The Japanese married woman is no longer considered the daughter of her parents but as the daughter of her parents-in-law. And often her mother-in-law maltreats her, imposing the most disagreeable duties and at times even hating her. I’ll betide her who should dare to cry out against the persecution; her lack of filial obedience would be regarded as a crime. More than one man in Japan has been forced to repudiate a beloved wife whom his mother found not docile enough and too high-spirited."

Another brilliant French writer, in a work that has been crowned by The Academie Franchise (Ludovic Naudeau, in Le Japon Moderne: Son Evolution) gives an even more vivid picture of the general position of woman in modern Japanese society. "In Japan," he tells us, "the social unit is never the individual, but always the family. No matter what should happen, the children may never be removed from the paternal family, the only one that counts, and must there celebrate the cult of their ancestors. Here, too, we find striking analogies between the constitution of the Japanese family and that of the family in Greek and Roman antiquity. In the Japan of our days, as in the Cite Antique that Fustel de Coulanges has so well studied, the young girl, from the moment of her marriage, is severed from all ties and all legal relationships binding her to those who have given life to her. She leaves her home forever and is adopted by her husband's family. . . .