Japanese Tales by Royall TylerReview by: Susan MatisoffThe Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese, Vol. 22, No. 1 (Apr., 1988), pp. 120-123Published by: American Association of Teachers of JapaneseStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/489344 .

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Volume 22, Number 1 Volume 22, Number 1

and abroad. Regardless of the methodological problems cited above, the wealth of information, especially on performance, offers English- language readers new insights into the world of the noh.

JAPANESE TALES, edited and translated by Royall Tyler. Pantheon Books, 1987. Pp. lvi + 341. $19.95.

Reviewed by Susan Matisoff

The newest addition to Pantheon's "Fairy Tale and Folklore Library," Royall Tyler's selection of Japanese materials takes its place in a distinguished series in which most volumes bear either the term "Fairy Tales" or "Folktales" in their titles. As the simpler title, Japanese Tales, suggests, the stories Tyler has edited and translated are not ones he has heard "told by little old women" (in the words of Italo Calvino, the editor of Pantheon's Italian Folktales). Just over half of the 220 tales come from Konjaku monogatari shu, with selections from Uji shu2i monogatari representing roughly another quarter of the total. The remainder vary greatly in their origins: several examples each from other setsuwa collections, but also a story or two from such diverse sources as the surviving fragment of the eighth century Tango fudoki; the early fourteenth century emaki, Kasuga gongen genki; the undated Nara ehon, En no Gyoja, and the Tamon'in nikki, described as a "massive diary of a series of monks at Kofukuji, covering the years between 1478 and 1617."

Though the primary audience for this collection is surely not Japanese literature specialists, one of the pleasures of the book for such readers is the combination of the familiar and the unexpected its pages contain. Tyler picks up a good tale wherever he finds it; his knowledge of a broad range of medieval popular religious narratives subtly enriches his choices; his appendices enable the specialist to find his sources and see just what he has done with them; the chosen tales are translated with verve and polish; and the result seems a labor of love.

and abroad. Regardless of the methodological problems cited above, the wealth of information, especially on performance, offers English- language readers new insights into the world of the noh.

JAPANESE TALES, edited and translated by Royall Tyler. Pantheon Books, 1987. Pp. lvi + 341. $19.95.

Reviewed by Susan Matisoff

The newest addition to Pantheon's "Fairy Tale and Folklore Library," Royall Tyler's selection of Japanese materials takes its place in a distinguished series in which most volumes bear either the term "Fairy Tales" or "Folktales" in their titles. As the simpler title, Japanese Tales, suggests, the stories Tyler has edited and translated are not ones he has heard "told by little old women" (in the words of Italo Calvino, the editor of Pantheon's Italian Folktales). Just over half of the 220 tales come from Konjaku monogatari shu, with selections from Uji shu2i monogatari representing roughly another quarter of the total. The remainder vary greatly in their origins: several examples each from other setsuwa collections, but also a story or two from such diverse sources as the surviving fragment of the eighth century Tango fudoki; the early fourteenth century emaki, Kasuga gongen genki; the undated Nara ehon, En no Gyoja, and the Tamon'in nikki, described as a "massive diary of a series of monks at Kofukuji, covering the years between 1478 and 1617."

Though the primary audience for this collection is surely not Japanese literature specialists, one of the pleasures of the book for such readers is the combination of the familiar and the unexpected its pages contain. Tyler picks up a good tale wherever he finds it; his knowledge of a broad range of medieval popular religious narratives subtly enriches his choices; his appendices enable the specialist to find his sources and see just what he has done with them; the chosen tales are translated with verve and polish; and the result seems a labor of love.

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Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese

Though I do not propose a systematic comparison of Calvino's work (or rather Calvino as translated by George Martin) with Tyler's, a few points of contrast are telling. Near the beginning of his introduction, Calvino asserts that "It is generally accepted that Italian tales from the oral tradition were recorded in literary works long before those from any other country." His earliest examples are from sixteenth century Venice. The sixteenth century would seem to be the latest possible date of origin for any of Tyler's examples, so it is readily apparent that devotees of western literature of this sort will find themselves radically adjusting their assumptions upon reading Japanese Tales.

Tyler's concise and lucid introduction includes a fine section, "The Sources," in which he discusses the qualities of setsuwa bungaku, its long history as written literature as well as its relationship to the modern folktale, the highly literate nature of the readers and compilers of setsuwa collections, and the individual mark each compiler left on his anthology. In shaping his own collection, Tyler in effect follows a Japanese tradition. The next introductory section, "Translation and Editing," reminds us that translation was also a part of that tradition, though from Chinese to Japanese, rather than Japanese to English.

In his translations Tyler achieves a lively colloquial style, briskly paced, yet with a certain dignity and mystery. Throughout one gets the feeling of narrators speaking directly to listeners. It is a style that fair- ly begs to be read aloud. Though not mentioned in the acknowledgements, I suspect Tyler's young daughter may have enjoyed hearing readings of a good many of these stories. (There's enough sexual earthiness and scatol- ogy among the tales, though, to raise the suspicion that she hasn't heard them all.)

Tyler's editorial hand is steady and apparent, and well explained in his introduction. "These are very old stories, after all, from a distant country. If their genius is to shine for us, in our time, they need a little combing and brushing to rid them of small idiosyncrasies which might turn our attention from what matters" (p. Iv). For the most part it seems to be the heads and tails that have undergone extensive grooming. The selections from Konjaku have all been stripped of their opening and closing formulas. Beginnings are speeded up a bit by leaving out some of the details of location. More often than not a final sentence or two-a moral summation, or an account of what became of a figure in a story in later life, or an explanation of how the tale came to be transmitted-has been curried out. On reading through the whole collection (and again, in

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Volume 22, Number 1

comparison to Italian Folktales with its many concluding marriages to the sons of kings and "happily-ever-afters"), the abruptness of endings is

striking, and in fact truer to the originals than would have been com-

plete, literal translations of the Konjaku stories. What Tyler has removed is largely the bits the earlier compiler added to achieve

uniformity in his collection. The most extreme excision I noticed goes even further. Tale 72, "The Flying Storehouse" is the Uji shu2i narrative familiar to us in illustrated form as Shigisan engi. Here Tyler has omitted almost the entire last third of the story, concerning how the

holy man is visited by his sister from Shinano. The decision is under- standable, as it is a part of the story far more impressive in illustration than in narration.

Tyler has invented new, brief, titles for all the tales he includes.

Konjaku 28/5, the infamous diarrhea tale titled in Marian Ury's Tales of Times Now Past "How Tamemori, the Governor of Echizen, Subdued the Junior Officers of the Six Companies of the Guards" becomes "Salt Fish and Doctored Wine" in Tyler's translation. The unfolding of a story is not so apparent in advance from Tyler's title "The Boy who Laid the Golden Stone" as from Ury's more literal "How a Monk Through Bishamonten's Aid Begot Gold and Obtained a Means of Support" (Konjaku 17/44).

The shape of the book as a whole is arbitrary and interesting. Stories are grouped thematically, generally in sets of five. Each cluster has a title: "Monk Jokes," "Robbers," "Snakes," "Lotus Tales," etc. The pattern of each group is rather flexible, but the norm "is to start with a short tale, continue with two of medium length, feature a longer story in fourth position, and close with another short piece" (p. lvi). The reader steeped in Japanese literary tradition will recognize Tyler's inspiration in the jo-ha-kyui rhythm of noh. But the introduction doesn't burden the reader with such arcana; instead it succinctly gives a general audience just about everything they need to know to understand the stories. It is highly informative while not in the least pedantic. Intriguing references to the stories to come entice the reader. As the geography of the capital is being explained, for example, we are oriented by reference to "The flute-playing demon of 167 [who] lived high in the structure of Suzaku Gate"; and the exposition of the layout of the Imperial Palace mentions "the next gate south [where] lurks the dastardly toad of no. 10."

Based on sound and ample scholarship, elegantly and wittily translated, Japanese Tales is great fun. The volume is richly decorated with black and white designs, some seemingly abstract, many from

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Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese Journal of the Association of Teachers of Japanese

Japanese mon or textile patterns. For a hardback book these days, the

price is modest. It deserves the broadest readership. They have a treat in store.

THE WORLD OF NATSUME SOSEKI, edited by Takehisa Iijima and James M. Vardaman, Jr. Tokyo: Kinseido, 1987. Pp. v + 326. Y4500.

Reviewed by Sara Dillon

It may be only cultural inclination, or it may after all have some- thing to do with more universal "truth," but I personally tend to think of those modern Japanese writers who have grappled openly with the painful issues of cultural influence (welcome and unwelcome) as being the genuinely "great" ones. I am not necessarily referring to those who en-

gage in cultural polemics of any kind, but rather to those who reflect in their work the complexity and ambiguity of modem cultural upheaval in

Japan. It is, indeed, through such work that we have been able to dismiss any simplistic notions about the direction such changes will or ought to take. Certainly Natsume S6seki was one of the earliest of these intel- lectual pioneers, and he has lost nothing of his artistic stature over time. Since his knowledge of the outside world acted as both inspiration and irritant to him as artist, it would be impossible (and obviously unde- sirable) to attempt to identify any set view of history and of cultural influence held by S6seki. What makes his life and work so continually interesting is that he never retreated into any sort of culture-bound, aestheticized version of the "Japanese man of letters," and certainly never succeeded in hiding (if such was ever his intention) his own com- plexes. S6seki was not primarily a philosophical or abstract writer; on the contrary, his work still displays a brilliance and power to move not attributable to anything but his own genius, however problematic a notion that might be for criticism at the present time. The scope and moral rigor of S6seki's work, in fact, become more apparent as his period recedes in time, particularly when we see his work in the context of his contemporaries, whose sense of self and of history seem pale and hazy by comparison. In this sense, a book which attempts to present S6seki's

Japanese mon or textile patterns. For a hardback book these days, the

price is modest. It deserves the broadest readership. They have a treat in store.

THE WORLD OF NATSUME SOSEKI, edited by Takehisa Iijima and James M. Vardaman, Jr. Tokyo: Kinseido, 1987. Pp. v + 326. Y4500.

Reviewed by Sara Dillon

It may be only cultural inclination, or it may after all have some- thing to do with more universal "truth," but I personally tend to think of those modern Japanese writers who have grappled openly with the painful issues of cultural influence (welcome and unwelcome) as being the genuinely "great" ones. I am not necessarily referring to those who en-

gage in cultural polemics of any kind, but rather to those who reflect in their work the complexity and ambiguity of modem cultural upheaval in

Japan. It is, indeed, through such work that we have been able to dismiss any simplistic notions about the direction such changes will or ought to take. Certainly Natsume S6seki was one of the earliest of these intel- lectual pioneers, and he has lost nothing of his artistic stature over time. Since his knowledge of the outside world acted as both inspiration and irritant to him as artist, it would be impossible (and obviously unde- sirable) to attempt to identify any set view of history and of cultural influence held by S6seki. What makes his life and work so continually interesting is that he never retreated into any sort of culture-bound, aestheticized version of the "Japanese man of letters," and certainly never succeeded in hiding (if such was ever his intention) his own com- plexes. S6seki was not primarily a philosophical or abstract writer; on the contrary, his work still displays a brilliance and power to move not attributable to anything but his own genius, however problematic a notion that might be for criticism at the present time. The scope and moral rigor of S6seki's work, in fact, become more apparent as his period recedes in time, particularly when we see his work in the context of his contemporaries, whose sense of self and of history seem pale and hazy by comparison. In this sense, a book which attempts to present S6seki's

123 123

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