“Hyaah!” A queer squawk erupts from below. It’s the cry of our beloved and decidedly impure thirty-seven-year-old male, Tanuki-kun. “It’s water! My boat’s leaking! Yikes!”
“Quiet. It’s a boat made of mud, for heaven’s sake. Naturally it’s going to sink. Didn’t you know that?”
“What do you mean? No! What? I don’t get it. Wait. It doesn’t make sense. You’re not going to... No, that would be too fiendish. You’re my woman! I’m sinking—that’s the reality here, and if this is your idea of a joke, you’ve gone too far, you know. It’s domestic violence! Ah! I’m going down! Help me out here, sweetie. The lunch will be ruined! I brought worm macaroni sprinkled with weasel poop. What a waste! Glub. Argh! Now I’m swallowing water. Hey! Seriously, enough with the nasty prank. Wait! Don’t cut the rope! Together till the end, man and wife, in this life and the next, the unbreakable bond of romantic— Oh no! You cut it! Help! I can’t swim! I mean, I used to be able to swim a little, but when a tanuki gets to be thirty-seven all the sinews start stiffening, and— Yes, I confess. I’m thirty-seven. The truth is, I’m way too old for you. But you need to respect your elders! Remember your duty to be kind to senior citizens! Glub. Argh! You’re a good girl. Be a good girl and reach that oar over to me so I can— Ow! Ouch! What are you doing? That hurts! You’re hitting me on the head! Oh, so that’s how it is. Now I get it. You’re trying to kill me!”
It isn’t until moments before his death that the tanuki sees through the rabbit’s evil scheme, by which time of course it’s too late. The merciless oar comes down on his head with a thwack, and then with another thwack. The surface of the lake glitters in the setting sun, and his head appears there as he comes up for air, disappears as he sinks again, then reappears as he bobs back up. “Owww! How could you? What did I ever do to hurt you? Was loving you a sin?” Those are his last words before he goes down for good.
The rabbit wipes her brow and says, “Phew. I’m perspiring.”
So, is this an admonition against lust? Or is it a satiric tale with a hint of friendly advice against getting involved with sixteen-year-old maidens? Or is it, rather, a sort of textbook of courting etiquette, teaching that it’s best to exercise moderation in wooing your dream girl, no matter how smitten you might be, in order to avoid earning her hatred and possibly even getting yourself murdered?
Or maybe it’s not about right and wrong at all but simply a humorous story suggesting that in our daily lives the people of this world abuse one another, punish one another, praise one another, and serve one another all on the basis of feelings—their likes and dislikes.
No, no, no. There’s no need to scramble for any such literary critical conclusion. We need only take heed of the tanuki’s dying words. To wit: “Was loving you a sin?”
It is hardly an exaggeration to say that all the tragedies of world literature have this question as their subject. Inside every woman is a merciless bunny, and inside every man a virtuous tanuki who’s forever floundering as he tries to keep his head above water. The author, in light of his own thirty-odd years of a remarkably unsuccessful career, can tell you unequivocally that this is true. Perhaps you’ve noticed the same thing. That’s all for now.
The Sparrow Who Lost Her Tongue
I’ve been writing these fairy tales little by little in what spare time I’ve had, what with being mobilized for civilian duty and dealing with the post-bombing remains of my house and what have you, and despite a persistent fever, hoping only that they might prove a mild diversion suitable for any moments of leisure afforded those fighting courageously to help Nippon through her national crisis. My intention was to follow up “The Stolen Wen,” “Urashima-san,” and “Click-Clack Mountain” with “Momotaro” and “The Sparrow Who Lost Her Tongue,” and then to bring my fairy tale book to a close.
The tale of Momotaro, however, has undergone a process of such simplification, the hero himself made into such an idealized symbol of the Japanese male, that it has more of the flavor of a poem or ballad than a story. I was, of course, going to recast the yarn, making it my own. In particular, I intended to portray the Oni of Ogre Island as utterly depraved and despicable characters, genuinely worthy of our hatred. I would have shown them to be a race capable of such unutterably monstrous atrocities that subjugating them was simply the only option left to mankind. In doing so, I would evoke in readers so much sympathy with Momotaro and his mission that they would be biting their nails as I unrolled a stirring description of the battle itself—a touch-and-go, breathtakingly suspenseful affair.
(When describing their plans for unwritten works, authors are prone to naïve exaggeration. Everyone knows it’s not that easy. But let it go. It’s all just hot air anyway. Stifle the jeers and hear me out.)
In Greek mythology, the most repellent, perverse, and disgusting monster of all was snake-haired Medusa. Wrinkles of deep distrust creased her brow; the brutish embers of murderous intent glowed in her small gray eyes; her pale cheeks twitched with menacing fury; and her dark, thin lips twisted with loathing and scorn. And, yes, each long strand of her hair was a separate, live, red-bellied, poisonous snake. Emitting a horrible hissing sound, these numberless snakes would rear their heads as one to face any enemy. One glance at Medusa and an unsuspecting man would suddenly begin to feel ill; before he knew it, his heart would freeze solid and his entire body would turn literally to cold stone. Medusa wasn’t terrifying so much as skin-crawlingly creepy. The worst part was not what she did to the flesh but to the heart and mind. A monster like this deserves mankind’s most righteous hatred and must be exterminated with all due haste. Compared to her, our monsters in Japan are innocent and even endearingly charming creatures. The Onyudo, with his telescoping neck, or the one-footed umbrella goblin, for example—they rarely do any harm but tend merely to ease the tedium of a drunkard’s wee hours by performing artless dances in dark old temples. As for the inhabitants of Ogre Island, they’re physically large enough, according to the picture books, and yet when a monkey scratches one on the nose, for example, the victim lets out a squawk, topples over, and surrenders.
There’s nothing the least bit scary about the Oni in “Momotaro.” They even seem like fairly nice chaps, all in all, which rather takes the air out of the whole subjugate-the-ogres storyline. What one needs are monsters who inspire even more revulsion than the head of Medusa. Without such antagonists, one can hardly expect readers to be biting their nails. And then there’s the fact that the conquering hero, Momotaro himself, is so overwhelmingly strong that the reader at times feels almost sorry for the ogres and experiences none of the thrill of the hair’s-breadth escape. Even the illustrious hero Siegfried had that vulnerable spot on his shoulder, didn’t he? And they say that Benkei too had his Achilles’ heel. In any case, a completely invincible hero just isn’t good story material.
Further complicating the matter is that, while I presume to understand to some extent the psychology of the weak, perhaps because I’m a helpless sort myself, I’m afraid I don’t really have a clear understanding of the psychology of the powerful—particularly the absolutely invincible variety, which I’ve never met or even known to exist. I’m a story writer with such feeble imaginative powers that unless I myself have experienced something, I can’t write a line—can’t write a word—about it. It would have been impossible for me to describe Momotaro as one of those invincible heroes I’ve never seen. My Momotaro would have been a crybaby as a child, a weak, timid, and basically useless young man who, after running up against merciless and incomparably foul ogres who destroy human hearts and souls and drive people into hells of eternal hopelessness and horror and resentment, realizes that, weakling though he may be, he cannot back down from this fight. Taking, therefore, a truly courageous stand, he sets out for the Oni’s island lair with a sack of millet dumplings tied to his waist.
Such would have been my plotline, I imagine. As for Momotaro’s three vassals—the dog, the monkey, and the pheasant—they were not to be the typical f
aithful, exemplary sidekicks but rather individuals with uniquely problematic character flaws that would have inevitably led to the occasional squabble. I imagine they might have turned out somewhat like Monkey, Pigsy, and Sandy in the Chinese epic Journey to the West. But when I finished “Click-Clack Mountain” and was about to begin “My Momotaro,” a sudden and terrible gloom descended upon me. Isn’t it best to leave at least “Momotaro” alone, to let it remain in its current simplifed form? It’s a national poem, a song that has been passed down through the ages, touching all Japanese. It doesn’t matter if the plot is full of holes and contradictions. To tamper with the plain and straightforward nature of this big-hearted poem would be a disservice to Japan in a difficult time. Momotaro, after all, carries the banner that reads Nippon-ichi—Number One in Japan. An author who has never been number one in Japan—or even number two or three—can hardly be expected to produce an adequate picture of Japan’s foremost young man. The moment his “Nippon-ichi” banner came to mind, I gallantly abandoned all plans for “My Momotaro.”
Having reconsidered, therefore, I would like now to wrap up this my Fairy Tale Book with just one more story, that of the so-called tongue-cut sparrow. In “The Sparrow Who Lost Her Tongue,” as in “The Stolen Wen” and “Urashima-san” and “Click-Clack Mountain,” none of the characters are Nippon-ichi, which relieves some of the pressure and allows me to invent freely. When it comes to Number One in this sacred country, however—even though it may be in the context of a mere children’s story—there can be no excuse for writing irresponsible nonsense. How mortifying would it be if a foreigner were to read my retelling and think that this was the best Japan had to offer?
I would like, therefore, to repeat this ad nauseam, if necessary: The two old men in “The Stolen Wen” were not Nippon-ichi; nor were Urashima-san or the tanuki in “Click-Clack Mountain.” Only Momotaro is Nippon-ichi, and I didn’t write about him. If the true Nippon-ichi were to appear before you, your eyes would probably be blinded by the radiant light of his countenance. All right? You got that? The characters in this Fairy Tale Book of mine are not Nippon-ichi—or -ni or -san either. Nor are they in any way what you could call representative types. They were born of the doltish misadventures and feeble imagination of an author named Dazai, and as such they’re of very little interest. To evaluate the Japanese on the basis of these characters would be like rowing home complacently after marking the spot on your boat where you dropped your sword overboard, as the old Chinese proverb has it. The Japanese people are precious to me. That goes without saying, but it’s the reason I am not going to describe Momotaro or his adventures, and I believe I have made it abundantly clear that the characters I have described are decidedly not Nippon-ichi.
I have no doubt that you too, dear reader, will applaud my oddly fastidious insistence on this point. Didn’t even Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Great Unifier, once say, “Nippon-ichi is not I”?
Now then. The protagonist of “The Sparrow Who Lost Her Tongue,” far from being number one in Japan, is possibly the most worthless man in the archipelago. He’s a weakling, for starters. It seems that a physically weak man is of less value to society than even a lame horse. This man is always coughing feebly. His complexion is sallow. He gets up in the morning, dusts the paper-screen door, and sweeps out the room, and that leaves him so exhausted that he spends the rest of the day at his desk, wriggling on his cushion or nodding off and jerking awake until dinnertime, and as soon as he’s finished eating he rolls out his futon and hits the sack. He has been living this pathetic sort of life for the past ten or twelve years. He’s not even forty yet, but for some time now he has styled himself “the Venerable” and demanded that relatives call him Ojii-san.
Perhaps we might think of him as One Who Has Abandoned the World. Those who abandon the world manage to do so only because they happen to have a little money saved up, however. A penniless man, though he may have every intention of leaving the world behind, will find that the world comes chasing after him. This self-styled Ojii-san resides in a humble thatched cottage now, but a look at his past reveals that he is the third son of a wealthy squire and that he betrayed his parents’ hopes by never acquiring a profession but rather living an uneventful and meaningless life, dabbling marginally in this and that and forever either falling ill or recuperating from something. The upshot of all this is that his parents and other relatives have long since given up on him, regarding him as a sickly halfwit and a pain in the neck, but provide him with a small monthly stipend that allows him to abandon the world and still keep the wolf from the door. And though his home is a mere thatched hut, one would have to say he has a pretty sweet life.
People who live pretty sweet lives don’t tend to be of much use to others. That Ojii-san is congenitally frail and infirm would seem to be true enough, but he isn’t so ill as to be bedridden, and surely there must be some sort of work to which he could apply himself if he cared to. But he does nothing. He seems to read a lot of books, but perhaps he immediately forgets what he’s read; at any rate, he never discusses his readings with anyone. He just sits there. His value to society is close to zero, particularly in view of the fact that after more than ten years of marriage he still has no offspring or heir. In other words, he has not fulfilled even a single one of the duties expected of a man in this world.
And what of the wife who has stood by this remarkably unambitious man all these years? One can’t help but be curious about her. But were you to peek through the hedge and catch a glimpse of her puttering about, you would be sorely disappointed. She is a dreary person in every respect. Dark of complexion, she is somewhat goggle-eyed and has large, very wrinkled hands. If you were to see her moving busily through the garden, with those big hands dangling before her and her back slightly bent, you might suppose that she’s older than Ojii-san. But she is exactly thirty-three, which makes this an unlucky year for her, according to the traditional view. She was originally Ojii-san’s housekeeper, though scarcely had she taken charge of his house before she found herself accepting responsibility for his life as well.
“Take off your underclothes and pile them here so I can wash them,” she says in a commanding tone.
“Next time.” Ojii-san, sitting at his desk with his chin on his hand, replies in a scarcely audible voice. He always speaks in what is barely more than a whisper. And he tends to allow the words to die in his mouth before he finishes them, with the result that everything he says comes out sounding like “ooh” or “ah.” Not even his wife, after living with him for more than ten years, can make out what he’s saying, much less anyone else. It may be that, being more or less One Who Has Abandoned the World, he doesn’t care whether others understand him or not. However, let us review: no steady job; no attempt to write or speak about his readings; no children after ten years of marriage; no effort to enunciate clearly or even finish his words. This passive nature of his, whether or not we give it the name “laziness,” beggars description.
“Give me them now. Just look at the collar of your undershirt. It’s shiny with grease.”
“Next time.” Again, the words barely escape his mouth.
“What? What did you say? Speak so I can hear you.”
“Next time,” he says somewhat more intelligibly, his cheek still resting on his hand as he peers gravely at his wife’s face. “Cold today.”
“It’s called winter. It’ll be cold tomorrow and the day after too.” The thirty-three-year-old Obaa-san speaks as if scolding a child. “And who do you think feels the cold more—the one who sits by the fire or the one who’s out at the well doing the wash?”
“Hard to say,” he replies with a hint of a smile. “You’re accustomed to it.”
“I beg your pardon?” Obaa-san scowls. “I wasn’t put on this earth to do laundry!”
“No?” he says, and leaves it at that.
“Off with them,” she says. “Hurry up. You have a fresh set in the closet.”
“I’ll catch cold.”
/> Obaa-san throws up her hands and exits the room in a huff.
Our story takes place in the Tohoku region, outside Sendai, at the foot of Mount Atago, on the edge of a vast bamboo forest overlooking the rushing rapids of the Hirose River. Perhaps the Sendai area has boasted an abundance of sparrows since ancient times; the crest of the famous Daté clan of Sendai depicts two sparrows amid bamboo, and in the play Sendai Hagi, as everyone knows, a sparrow performs a role more vital than even that of the lead actor. Furthermore, when I was on a trip to Sendai last year, a friend of mine who lives there taught me an old local children’s song that went something like
Seagull, seagull
See the sparrow in her cage
When is she a-comin’ out?
It seems that the song isn’t limited to Sendai but rather sung by children all across Japan. However, because of the fact that this version bids us to “see the sparrow in her cage” rather than the more common and less specific “wee bird,” along with the hint of northeastern dialect in the last line, which fits the melody so naturally and scans so effortlessly, I’ve come to wonder if we wouldn’t be justified in going ahead and pinpointing the Sendai region as the source of this particular traditional ditty.