NEW NOVELS
Then and now
BARRY COLE
Ochikubo Monogatari: The Tale of The Lady Ochikubo anonymous, translated by Wilfrid Whitehouse and Eizo Yanagisawa (Peter Owen 42s) Silence Shusaku Endo translated by William Johnston (Tuttle 45s) The Critic Wilfred Sheed (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 35s) A Fairly Good Time Mavis Gallant (Heine- mann 42s) I Knew Daisy Smuten edited by Hunter Davies (Weidenfeld and Nicolson 36s) I wonder how we would react to •an English novel, post-Fielding in form. which not only depicted life a thousand years ago but was actually written in the tenth century? Per- haps a compulsion to read it; certainly cur- iosity. The same sorts of feeling are aroused by Ochikubo Monogatari and interest shouldn't be diminished by its being Japan- ese—we're all global villagers now.
Unlike the earlier monoqatari, this book is a genuine full-length 'traditional' novel, with a plot, a beginning and an end. What intrigues, and what makes it worth publish- ing, is its detailed description of life in tenth century Japan. The story is simple enough: stepmother cruelly ill-treats aristocratic daughter; daughter rescued by noble suitor, revenge; reconciliation. But the character- isation has all the wit and psychological insight of our own times. The Lady Ochikubo (the name is unflattering) is, like Cinderella, a compliant and unprotesting beauty appar- ently resigned to her discontent (though she frequently wishes she were dead). Her con- sistency as a character, when her situation changes from one of subservience to power, is typical of the author's mastery of his (our) medium. And the majority of the charac- ters (despite a confusing system of appela- tion) are drawn so carefully that they live with as much vitality and idiosyncrasy as do the people of Chaucer.
None of this is meant to suggest that the book is a great novel. It's not. The climax is reached almost a hundred pages before the 'official' end. And the stepdaughter's 'revenge', undertaken on her behalf by her high-ranking husband, seems excessive. For compensation, though, there are a number of tiny poems, usually sent as letters, which occasionally make amends for the more ob- vious faults. The translators suggest that these poems are below the usual standard of the Heian Era, but the following shows the writer at his best : Both of my sleeves were wet With sad tears at the thought of How forlorn I am; And once more the cold rain falls And wets them again tonight.
A millennium has passed, and the effect of reading my contemporaries is like being beaten by the collected works of Krafft- Ebing. Which should indicate, to some extent, how preoccupied we can become with the mere dozen or so years of crea- tivity we become involved with. Silence, in a way, opts out. Shusaku Endo takes as his theme a more 'timeless' subject than his- here—arbitrary companions: the 'conflict between East and West, especially in its re- lationship to Christianity.' In a particular sense the book and its subjects are meaning- less to the non-Christian. But accepting the 'validity' of the author's themes we are left with the question: is what he writes about of interest to us? The answer, if only be- cause of the author's narrative powers, is probably yes.
The seventeenth century saw the advent of the Christian in Japan as a destructive theological force. Any such movement has its heroes, and heroes are this writer's subject. The whole sad, confused, bewildering tragedy of spiritual man is described here in a way which forces us to ask (again): 'Why was I born into the world! Why? . . .' It's a good question. In their treatment of the Christians the seventeenth century Japanese vied, if unknowingly, with the promulgators of the Spanish Inquisition. How many (foolish?) believers died because they refused the prag- matism of apostasy? None was demon- strably served and few more saved by martyrdom. Mr Endo's thesis is that Japan- ese 'Christianity', to succeed, must go its own peculiar way; that in any other direction lies 'failure'. He also suggests, perhaps ironically, that of our emotions only love is not an instinct.
Wilfred Sheed's Critic is Max Jamison, a bitter and beleaguered New York litterateur who refuses (or is unable) to give up what he regards as his 'integrity'. What concerns him, in his failing marriage, his alienation from his children, is the possible sterility of his chosen career. 'The night was filled with old phrases and formulas, bat wings, insects made of black fur. The basic Max Jamison sentence clogged his eardrums. He would never improve on it now. For years, he had been building a cenotaph and calling it a career.' Breakdown seems a natural con- comitant to such an integrity, and break down he does . . . The ending implies recon- ciliation—no martyr, this mini Herzog/ Ferreira (see Silence); but a neat delineator of our search for a way out, intact, of the twentieth century.
Analogous is Mavis Gallant's A Fairly Good Time. Set in the Paris of de Gaulle Old!, it tells of twenty-seven year old Shirley, a reluctantly francophiliac widowed Cana- dian would-be-sideways-moving female Wal- ter Mitty (get it?). Pleasantly dotty, under- standably confused, she spends her time helping archetypal French patriots (includ- ing her new husband) in a manner which suggests it is she who is in need of assistance. A poignant acknowledgement that she has failed Philippe. her second husband (to him she is 'a problem in logic'), concludes a rambling tale redeemed by genuflections less to Krafft-Ebing than to R. D. Laing. As a bonus it should perhaps be pointed out that her first novel has been compared with the writings of Jane Austen. Twentieth century apart, I see no particular reason to quibble.
Though American in conception. I Knew Daisy Smuten remains unequivocably Eng- lish. Deliberately 'sexy', the seventeen Sunday Times authors do their Sunday Times best to rouse whatever it is is meant to rise when reading of Daisy, a Lolita turned Fanny Hill/Princess. That their best, for me, is not good enough doesn't really matter. The concoction, like a mixture of Spanish fly and milk of Magnesia, pacifies as it stimulates. Three asides: Hunter Davies's editing is more than competent; Alan Brien. in a poor Nabokovian parody, shows just why he may be incapable of writing a full length book; and Jilly Cooper (predictably?) becomes the most tumescent. Nothing, as Lady Ochikubo may have remarked, changes.
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