Well, it’s Sunday, and I asked myself if, for once, I might forget about my onerous duties as a writer and just relax a bit. I haven’t really done that so far today, but if I get a little time after writing this entry in my blog, I know the perfect person with whom to relax. That person is Nagai Kafu.
Nagai Kafu is one of my favourite writers. I have yet to meet another human being who counts Kafu as one of their favourite writers, which is a fact both gratifying and rather lonely. At present I am re-reading Mishima’s The Decay of the Angel in the original, and it has occurred to me frequently just how strongly influenced I have been by Mishima in my own writing. But, since few people actually read Mishima, no one seems to notice this influence. It’s there clear as day, mind you.
I have been similarly influenced by Kafu, but if I were to try and pin down that influence in my work, it would be rather a difficult matter. That is perhaps because Kafu himself is so hard to pin down as a writer. What exactly is it that forms his appeal? I do not know if I can answer that question, but I hope I can give a hint or two here.
Kafu is, to me, the gentleman of leisure par excellence. Kafu (nee Sokichi) was born in 1879 in the Koishikawa district of Tokyo. His family was well to do – his father being a high-ranking bureaucrat – but Kafu was of a rebellious nature. From an early age he began to frequent such quarters of the city as were the haunts of actors, artists, geisha and all other such denizens of the demimonde that were execrated by the Confucian values of his family. In the year 1899, at the age of twenty, his first story, ‘Misty Night’ was published, and, in secret he apprenticed himself to a professional storyteller, or ‘rakugoka’. Rakugo> is the Japanese art of reciting comic monologues. The next year, also in secret, he apprenticed himself to a playwright at the Kabuki Theatre. Thus he became steeped in the elegant dissipations and shadowy arts of the Edo Period.
In 1903, however, Kafu was sent to the United States of America. His father, apparently, hoped that an American education might do something for his wayward son. During his four years in America he gathered together the material that was to become Tales of America. His experiences there, as one of the first Japanese to travel to the West, gave him something of the cosmopolitan taste lacking in his contemporaries. Being a devotee of French literature, Kafu made sure he did not return directly to Japan, but came back via France, where he spent, against his father’s wishes, almost a year. There he composed his Tales of France, which were banned upon publication, because of certain sections that were deemed to be liable to corrupt the public morals.
Well, you’re probably beginning to get the picture by now. Think elegance and decadence and you can’t go too far wrong. Of course, I have no intention of writing a detailed biography here, only to offer a few stray thoughts.
If Mishima’s prose is as vivid and brilliant as the colours of a Chinese temple, Kafu’s prose reminds me instead of sunlight shining through the paper panels of a Japanese sliding door. It seems gentle, subdued and monotonous, with a certain sadness about it. But what at first seems a monotone reveals itself gradually as something sophisticated and multi-layered, with a mysterious flavour that lingers stronger and stronger after the first taste.
When I think of Kafu, I think of the Japanese word ‘shibui’. The fact is, I am still not sure of the meaning of this word, and no matter how many times it is explained to me, I still cannot say with confidence that I understand. But I have an impression of it’s meaning, and to give that impression substance, I refer to Kafu. Shibui refers to taste in art and in general, which is not obvious and brightly coloured, but is somewhat more restrained. It is often a word that is associated with an older generation. If a young person is called shibui, it is usually because their taste is like that of someone older than they. I like to think of it as ‘geezer cool’. Take an old geezer, make him unfeasibly elegant and cool, and there you have a personification of ‘shibui’ – IE Nagai Kafu.
When I write, I have a ritual to get me in the right mood. That ritual involves the brewing of green tea with a delicate little tea set I purchased in a teashop near Kyoto. As I pour the boiling water into the vessel for cooling the water, then, after some minutes, pour it into the ‘houhin’ where the green leaves of tea are nestled, and replace the lid, waiting for it to steep, I like to imagine that Kafu might have had a similar ritual as he sat before his ink-stone. In all forms of elegant leisure, and especially those either decadent or literary, I seem to sense the ghost of Kafu.
I have a favourite photograph of Kafu. I don’t expect I’ll be able to find it on the Internet. It shows Kafu quite late on in his life, though I don’t know exactly how old he is in the photo. He is kneeling on the floor in traditional Japanese style, though he is wearing a western suit. His shirt is unbuttoned at the neck, and there is no tie. His glasses are round and black-framed. He is smiling broadly, and exposing a gap in his front teeth where two or three teeth are missing. What I love about this photo is the fact that he so clearly does not give a damn about his missing teeth. That’s hard to imagine in this age of Hollywood actors for whom capped teeth are more or less mandatory (I remember how upset I was when Bowie sacrificed his wonderfully crooked teeth to this trend). Anyway, I look at this photo of Kafu, and, though my understanding of the word ‘shibui’ is not great enough for me to use it with confidence here, I think to myself, now, there’s a geezer!
daniel nagai writes:i would like to be linked to the Nagai Kafus family.
I’m not sure Kafu wanted to be. I don’t know how such a link would be effected. You could try writing to the Japanese publisher of his books.
rhsy writes:I just wanted to say hello as a Kafu fan, having come across your entry on him while Googling to find out if Furansu Monogatari hadn’t yet appeared in English or French. I’m Japanese, live in France, am not in the business of writing, nor an avid reader either, but definitely share your love of Kafu’s style. I wonder if you would agree that his ‘geezer cool’ is but a remnant of the incomparable passion for l’amour and France which he used to harbour as a youth?
Hello Rhsy.This is a hard question to answer. Which came first? Was Kafu as fond of these things as he was because he had the makings of the geezer already, or did they quite change him?I’ll have to ponder this and try to reply at greater length later.
rhsy writes:My gut feeling is that it’s both. I suppose he had the makings as a young man, being the Bohemian that he was. But then as years went by he must have added more layers of ‘shibusa.’ Re-entry shock in Japan could have been a factor too. The best clues might lie in his diary. Would be delighted to hear further from you.
Hello again Rhsy.I actually possess the Kafu zenshuu, in about 29 volumes, I think it is, but unfortunately it’s in storage, because I move around a great deal.I’ve read a little of his diary, but it’s somewhat harder to read than the fiction. I hope someday that my level of Japanese will be sufficient that I can read that kind of prose without having to crawl at an ant’s pace and flick through the dictionary every other sentence.Amerika Monogatari I read with relative ease – the level of difficulty of Kafu’s texts varies enormously.Anyway, this is preliminary to me saying that, although I know there is still a vast amount of Kafu’s work for me to discover in my short lifetime, I’ve read enough to get an idea of progression in his work, and I find it quite interesting. In fact, Tanizaki, in one of his essays, describes this progression quite wonderfully when reviewing Tsuyu no Atosaki. I’m not sure I’ve yet read anything by Kafu that I don’t love. The ealier works do seem more effusive, but I also like the colder, more detached later works. Perhaps my favourite pieces – perhaps – is Ame Shosho. By the way, I have started a translation of Okamezasa, which I wonder if I will ever finish. If you were interested in reading what I’ve got so far, let me know, and perhaps I can send you a file of it.
rhsy writes:Thank you Quentin. Your comments prompted me to run to one of the Japanese book shops in Paris and get a copy of Tsuyu no Atosaki. My memory fails me but there’s a strange feeling that I’ve read this before. Browsing the net for ‘Kafu – Tanizaki,’ I learned that the two writers developed a cordial relationship over the years. I suppose this isn’t news to you but there seem to be quite a few entries in Kafu’s diary about his encounters/correspondence with Tanizaki.Another interesting piece of observation from Seigou Matsuoka（松岡正剛,literary critic): he chooses ‘Kenkai-kokou’（狷介孤高）as an apt description of Kafu’s character. From among the words used by Kafu himself in his diary, ‘Tyouzen’（悵然）comes home the most. That’s what Matsuoka says, but it had occured to me too. I don’t know how to put it in one English word. It’s pretty tough. Any idea?I wish you well with your translations.
ps i forgot to answer the point: the geezerdom. the source of the geezerdom is obvious from the diaries: he is a quintessential pre-Meiji gentleman scholar; from a good home; of good means — meaning able to dedicate himself entirely to aesthetics; with impeccable manners; a solid grounding in the classics; master of the classic virtues of politeness, reserve and decorum; the diaries record his consternation as the world around him grows crass, vulgar, and uncouth; he’s shocked that men unfamiliar with the classics aspire to write; or that writing is for them a career, a way to become famous, to get ahead in life. perhaps i am especially fond of Nagai because he reminds me so much of my grandparents, themselves raised in the decorum and cultural richness of the upper classes of an old feudal society and subsequently forced to live through indecorous modernization. this is the great theme of the nineteenth/twentieth centuries all over the world. anglo-saxon scholars aren’t aware of that — their own modernist cultural revolution dates to the gilded age — it’s way back in the past, no one has personal experience of it; but interestingly, modern Japanese scholars don’t see it, either: raised in modernity, they are blind to it like fish are to sea water.
i’m reading his diaries now and am very much under his spell; i am not sure that i would rush out to look for his novels, perhaps because the diaries give me so much: he writes in beautiful bungo, long thoughtful entries in which he records his reactions to the world around him which he finds increasingly vulgar, disgusting, sick and unlivable; and to the art he consumes — he is incredibly cultivated and has super taste (incidentally, I don’t think Snyder realizes Kafu read much French literature in the original); he also records faithfully all the shenanigans of his sex life — food for thought re my own life. perhaps the last great Japanese “retired Chinese scholar”; an artist in the sense that he himself was his most important work of art. i’ll try to write a better essay about him back home http://humidfruit.wordpress.com, maybe next week or so
Hello Rene.Thank you for writing. Good to hear from another Kafu enthusiast. Although I have the diaries – the entire set – unfortunately, I have not been able to take them with me in the last few changes of address I’ve had to make in my life, so I am parted from them. They are vast, as you know, and I’ve only read a little of them. My Japanese grows rustier with each passing year, too. But I always hope that some day I can find the time to just spend time with them.I also find that, for some reason, I left rhsy’s last comment unanswered. I’ll have to come back to that – work beckons.
Hello Quentin.Thank you for information about Kafu. Could you please write a little bit more about Tanizaki and Kafu’s thoughts concerning Junichiro’s works? I will be really greatful for any information.
Hello Nam.Thank you for writing.I’m afraid I haven’t had the Kafu diaries with me for a long time (my life has been unsettled), so can’t easily look up that information. I’ll see if I can find anything out, however.
Hello again.Thank you for answering so soon and thank you anyway.