Five Modern Japanese Novelists by Donald Keene

Author:Donald Keene [Keene, Donald]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Literary Criticism/Asian/General
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2011-11-29T05:00:00+00:00

Abe Kōbō

(1924–1993)

I first met Abe Kōbō in the autumn of 1964. He had come to New York in connection with the publication by Knopf of the English translation of his novel The Woman in the Dunes (Suna no onna). I forget why he decided to visit Columbia University, but I distinctly remember his arrival in 407 Kent Hall. He was accompanied by Teshigahara Hiroshi, the director of the celebrated film made from this novel, which had won the Grand Prize at the Cannes Film Festival that year. With them came a young Japanese woman. I confess that I was rather miffed when I was informed that the young woman was their interpreter, and in order to demonstrate that I had no need of an interpreter, I studiously avoided even looking at her. It was only years later that I learned that she was Ono Yōko.

It was about lunchtime, so I invited all three of my visitors to a Chinese restaurant on 110th Street. I was suffering from jet lag, having only recently returned from Japan, and I suppose that I may have acted in a somewhat somnolent manner. Abe, a graduate of the medical school of Tokyo University, observed me carefully and concluded from my manner of walking that I was a drug addict, as he later informed me. All in all, one could hardly say that our first meeting had been a success.

Three years later, in the spring of 1967 while I was on sabbatical leave in Japan, Ōe Kenzaburō, with whom I had become friendly, suggested that we invite Abe to join us for dinner. I welcomed the suggestion, but Abe evidently did not. He went instead to a prizefight. It was later explained to me that Abe was a devoted fan of Fighting Harada, who had a match that night, but Ōe and I, watching the television of the bout, searched in vain for Abe—or anyone at all wearing dark-rimmed glasses—among the spectators. It seemed likely that the dismal impression I had created on Abe in New York, even more than devotion to Fighting Harada, accounted for his unwillingness to dine with us. It took Ōe considerable time and effort to overcome Abe’s resistance to meeting me again, but once it happened, with the aid of a considerable amount of liquor, we became friends and remained close until his death in 1993.

I did not know Abe’s writings very well at this time. The first of his works I read was The Woman in the Dunes in the fine translation by Dale Saunders. Later, I read in Japanese Abe’s novel The Face of Another (Tanin no kao) and some stories of the 1960s. This was a period of extraordinary activity for Abe. For example, in 1964, the year of our disastrous first meeting, he was publishing serially two major novels simultaneously in different magazines. He also published a collection of short stories and a collection of essays, and he won a prize for the best radio drama of the year.

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