Confession: I love Shusako Endo. Like, more than I love my pet. Seriously. I mean, I don’t know what he’s like in the original Japanese—and it may be worth it to me to learn to Japanese just to find out—but, at least in English translation, he’s one of my favorite writers. The reviews I’ve read that describe him as the “Japanese Graham Greene” perhaps help explain this irrational adoration of all his work; he is one of the few Japanese authors that I really get. Many foreign authors, particularly Asian ones, write from such a completely different cultural paradigm that, while I appreciate their literary value, their works really offer me nothing on a personal level. Endo, though, is a Catholic and therefore maintains some philosophical ties to the West; this makes him that perfect blend of foreign and familiar, and, with that blend, he brings unique insights into the psyche and experiences of a Christian. Moreoever, even his non-Christian characters are understandable, as they are cast in opposition to the Christians; in his works, the adrift soulessness of modern Japan, best exemplified in novels such as “Confessions of Love,” is not just presented as the norm, but identified for what it really is. With this positive identification, I can begin to understand, and even sympathize (since the West, of course, also suffers from its own brand of modern souless anomie). I have been deeply touched and impressed by all of Endo’s major works that I’ve read.
With that confession in mind, then, I can continue with the actual review. This book, a collection of short stories is, while enjoyable enough, far below Endo’s usual works in quality. I can think of several reasons for this: first, as a good postmodernist, I should confess to a bias of mine (other than the aforementioned fondness for Endo). I do not like short stories. They are, in my mind, the literary equivalent of a romantic fling: just as they suck me into the plot, just as I begin to understand and be fond of the characters, they dump me again, leaving me unfilled and frustrated. So, usually, no matter how good a collection of short stories is, any review I write will be less than glowing.
However, that wasn’t the only problem with this collection; I could forgive Endo nearly anything, after all, even having chosen the wrong medium. The main problem was that I had read it before.
Not in this form, of course. But let me explain. Endo writes in the introduction to this collection that he basically uses these short stories as practice, alternating between writing short stories and writing novels as a way to keep his creative juices flowing. As he says, “I can only assume that the characters who appear in the short stories collected here must be living in some form or other in the longer works that I am composing even now.”
Some form or other? Try “exactly the same form.” I recognized most of these characters—they were precisely the same as those in his novels, with the names changed to protect the innocent. So, while I appreciated the characters, it was hard to see them in this form, like seeing someone I know intimately reduced to a two-line description in a personals ad: single white female searching for single white male who likes eating ice cream and dancing in the dark.
So while these short stories are certainly good, in a very competent translation by Van C. Gessel (a professor at BYU, my former university—I’m proud!), and while they are certainly a fair representation of Endo’s genre--Catholics in Japan suffering persecution, Catholics searching for meaning in suffering, non-Catholics searching for meaning in suffering, former Catholics searching for meaning in suffering—they are but pale shadows of what he can really do, simple little warm-up exercises for the real performance. Unless you only have one day to understand Endo, don’t bother. Go read “Deep River” or “When I Whistle” or “Silence” or “Volcano” or “Wonderful Fool” instead. Oh, and prepare to be amazed.
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