Black Rain
by
by
John Bester (Translator)
BlackOxford's review
it was amazing
bookshelves: japanese, biography-biographical, war, historical-fiction What Are We Now?
Only in Japan could the dropping of the atomic bomb be written about in the same even tone as the stocking of fish in the local lake. The details of death, injury, radiation sickness and physical destruction are given equal billing with the care and feeding of farmed carp, their preferred ambient temperature, and the use of abalone shells as weasel deterrents.
Is there a way to describe Black Rain as anything other than Zen? What happens, happens. War happens; pain happens; disappointment happens. But the comforting routines of daily life, and the familiarity of friends and family, and the joy of food also happen. The neighbours may get on one’s nerves from time to time; but they remain neighborly. Tragedy is embedded in success and vice versa. All is there to be lived. How could it be otherwise?
The most enduring part of the bombing in Ibuse’s novel is not the memories of its immediate or direct physical effects but the underlying cultural implications. The post-explosion black rain, although not in itself lethal, is a serious issue that impedes an arranged marriage for the protagonist’s, Mr. Shizuma’s, niece. Was she corrupted by her exposure to it? The question is not so much medical as spiritual. This obviously makes it more difficult to answer. It also makes the bomb something central to Japanese life in a way which challenges its phlegmatic equilibrium.
Ibuse’s prose is meticulously delicate. This more than anything else, it seems to me, is his Japan: intricate, balanced, confident in its abilities, its history and its worth. It was less than one hundred years since the American-provoked demise of the shogunate and the economic and social disruption which ensued. But Japan had recovered itself then; so why not now in the wake of the latest American invasion? Ibuse’s objections, for example, to the use of inferior ‘Western ink’ - with its tendency to fade with age - for the making of a copy of his diary of the bombing is but one indication of his confidence in what is traditional. This, even as he must deal with the untraditional problem of his niece.
Japanese stoicism and apparent tranquility mustn’t be confused with lack of emotion. Mr. Shizuma’s immediate reaction to the blast at Hiroshima is “Why don’t people realize how we feel?” He means his own government as well as the Americans. Perhaps because they haven’t been told? He then realizes that the survivors of the blast don’t recognize even members of their own families. Something profoundly more important than the vulnerability of the human body has been revealed by the bomb. Only years later, however, in dealing with his niece’s problem does he begin to understand what that revelation might be.
But stoicism may be functionally indistinguishable from fatalism. At what point does a cultural virtue become an impediment to cultural regeneration? Mr. Shizuma’s “best to leave everything in the lap of the gods” may longer be an adequate response to the new world signaled by the bomb. As he transcribes his diary, the individuals he encountered during his escape from Hiroshima come to mind. Why had they been absent from the diary? He doesn’t pose the question. That’s up to the reader, who in Ibuse’s narrative has a superior point of view. It’s as if Ibuse is seeking guidance.
Only the reader as detached observer can make a judgment about how the tragedy has affected both Japanese culture as well as the marriage prospects for his niece. Mr. Shizuma rebukes his wife for thinking he might harbor a theory that implies such a judgment; he wants only to describe circumstances as realistically as he can, however inadequate that may be. Besides, the condition of his carp is a more pressing matter. And tomorrow is the annual ceremony to commemorate the insects that might have been killed during the harvest. Tradition calls,... and binds. But is it the balm of tradition itself which created the war? The dropping of the bomb? The misery and confusion that has resulted?
The tension between Mr. Shizuma’s culture and the realities of his world persists throughout the novel. As an outsider to Japanese culture, I cannot know whether Ibuse resolves that tension or makes it more pronounced. What is clear is that he has turned a profound tragedy, one not just for Japan but also for the world, into a profoundly moving work of art that has relevance for us all. Japan was uniquely affected by the destruction of the atomic bombs. But no culture can be free of their insidious effects, nor of the question of the adequacy of any culture to deal sanely with the power it has at its disposal.
Only in Japan could the dropping of the atomic bomb be written about in the same even tone as the stocking of fish in the local lake. The details of death, injury, radiation sickness and physical destruction are given equal billing with the care and feeding of farmed carp, their preferred ambient temperature, and the use of abalone shells as weasel deterrents.
Is there a way to describe Black Rain as anything other than Zen? What happens, happens. War happens; pain happens; disappointment happens. But the comforting routines of daily life, and the familiarity of friends and family, and the joy of food also happen. The neighbours may get on one’s nerves from time to time; but they remain neighborly. Tragedy is embedded in success and vice versa. All is there to be lived. How could it be otherwise?
The most enduring part of the bombing in Ibuse’s novel is not the memories of its immediate or direct physical effects but the underlying cultural implications. The post-explosion black rain, although not in itself lethal, is a serious issue that impedes an arranged marriage for the protagonist’s, Mr. Shizuma’s, niece. Was she corrupted by her exposure to it? The question is not so much medical as spiritual. This obviously makes it more difficult to answer. It also makes the bomb something central to Japanese life in a way which challenges its phlegmatic equilibrium.
Ibuse’s prose is meticulously delicate. This more than anything else, it seems to me, is his Japan: intricate, balanced, confident in its abilities, its history and its worth. It was less than one hundred years since the American-provoked demise of the shogunate and the economic and social disruption which ensued. But Japan had recovered itself then; so why not now in the wake of the latest American invasion? Ibuse’s objections, for example, to the use of inferior ‘Western ink’ - with its tendency to fade with age - for the making of a copy of his diary of the bombing is but one indication of his confidence in what is traditional. This, even as he must deal with the untraditional problem of his niece.
Japanese stoicism and apparent tranquility mustn’t be confused with lack of emotion. Mr. Shizuma’s immediate reaction to the blast at Hiroshima is “Why don’t people realize how we feel?” He means his own government as well as the Americans. Perhaps because they haven’t been told? He then realizes that the survivors of the blast don’t recognize even members of their own families. Something profoundly more important than the vulnerability of the human body has been revealed by the bomb. Only years later, however, in dealing with his niece’s problem does he begin to understand what that revelation might be.
But stoicism may be functionally indistinguishable from fatalism. At what point does a cultural virtue become an impediment to cultural regeneration? Mr. Shizuma’s “best to leave everything in the lap of the gods” may longer be an adequate response to the new world signaled by the bomb. As he transcribes his diary, the individuals he encountered during his escape from Hiroshima come to mind. Why had they been absent from the diary? He doesn’t pose the question. That’s up to the reader, who in Ibuse’s narrative has a superior point of view. It’s as if Ibuse is seeking guidance.
Only the reader as detached observer can make a judgment about how the tragedy has affected both Japanese culture as well as the marriage prospects for his niece. Mr. Shizuma rebukes his wife for thinking he might harbor a theory that implies such a judgment; he wants only to describe circumstances as realistically as he can, however inadequate that may be. Besides, the condition of his carp is a more pressing matter. And tomorrow is the annual ceremony to commemorate the insects that might have been killed during the harvest. Tradition calls,... and binds. But is it the balm of tradition itself which created the war? The dropping of the bomb? The misery and confusion that has resulted?
The tension between Mr. Shizuma’s culture and the realities of his world persists throughout the novel. As an outsider to Japanese culture, I cannot know whether Ibuse resolves that tension or makes it more pronounced. What is clear is that he has turned a profound tragedy, one not just for Japan but also for the world, into a profoundly moving work of art that has relevance for us all. Japan was uniquely affected by the destruction of the atomic bombs. But no culture can be free of their insidious effects, nor of the question of the adequacy of any culture to deal sanely with the power it has at its disposal.
posted by The Mind of BlackOxford @ October 09, 2018
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