Chapter 1.4: Letters and Politics

Mr Shintaro Ishihara was the Goethe of Japan. I was his pupil, a person in the same profession, and his escort runner. Here in Chapter 1.4, I have woven together what I learned from others along with my private recollections, which span as long as twenty-plus years, and "my unfulfilled promise" to him. ー Shin Ushijima

(Trigger Warning: This chapter contains references to suicide.)

Chapter 1.4: Letters and Politics

Read other chapters in My Mentor, Shintaro Ishihara

There are two reasons why I considered Shintaro Ishihara to be unmanly. First, in high school, he repeated a grade. Later, he explained that something unpleasant had happened to him, and on no account was he able to bear it. Therefore, he said, he had spent time painting pictures.

However, I suspect that the true reason was reflected in a passage in A Bleak Classroom (灰色の教室, Hitotsubashi Literature, Reprint No 1).

Some people may not realize this, so let me set the record straight. Season of the Sun was not Ishihara's debut work. It was initially published in the periodical, The Literary World (Bungakukai 文學界) in July 1955, while A Bleak Classroom was published by Hitotsubashi Literature in December 1954. Before he could publish it, Ishihara visited Sei Ito, a popular writer at the time and a Hitotsubashi University alumnus, and beseeched him to finance the publication. Even then, Mr Ishihara was very keen to publish his work. He was such a lover of literature.

'A Bleak Classroom'

A senior high school student named Katsuhiko Miyashita appears in A Bleak Classroom. He had been chronically suicidal, the story relates.

In the story, the boy makes his last suicide attempt, but he returns to life and tells his friend that he will never try it again. Asked why, the boy says, "When I took the sleeping pills and felt myself being dragged into sleep ー like it always happens ー suddenly I got worried. Did I forget to close the lid of the ink pot? And while trying to recall, I was struck by unfathomable fear welling up within me for the first time in my life. It was truly terrifying. I came to know for the first time that dying was something really lonely and desolate, and it scared me." (P 129, The Bleak Classroom (also in Season of the Sun).

This particular scene has remained impressed upon me ever since the first time I read it. People nowadays may not be familiar with the ink pot, living in an era long past the fountain pen's time. But that's how people used to compose letters and script, dipping their pen tip into an ink pot and writing a few strokes, then repeating the same movements, again and again.

In my bones, I felt instinctively that this passage exactly reflected Ishihara's own experience. I am still sure of it. It explains, I believe, why he missed a whole year of school. Of course, I may be wrong. However, there is no longer any opportunity to get the truth out of him. Sadly, I never personally asked him about it. But as his novels left in this world have now become part of the history of literature, this kind of whimsical speculation should be permitted.

Whose 'Season of the Sun'

Ishihara said that he had lived a humble and simple life until he rose to fame for Season of the Sun. This remark helped spark my imagination a step further ー he must have been a misfit, immersing himself in the study of literature at a university designed to produce elite white-collar corporate executives. He said proudly that he had spent his days playing soccer. In judo, he was nicknamed "Jet Shin-chan" because he flew in the air like a jet when he was thrown.

*Book cover, "Season of the Sun" by Shintaro Ishihara*

That was Ishihara ー the man whose father gave him a dinghy sailboat during his junior high school days. In a way, he must have been living his own "season of the sun," although his life was completely different from what is described in Season of the Sun. That story, after all, depicted how his younger brother and his friends spent their adolescent days.

Then the question arises as to why Mr Ishihara wrote The Bleak Classroom.

Lasting Impressions

According to his Hitotsubashi sempai, Sei Ito, the young Ishihara came to him begging for money because he was short of funds needed to collect the magazine from the print shop.

"I was impressed by the manner in which he received the money, and I liked it. He was not intrusive, nor was he making a verbose explanation or treating it as a joke. Rather, he was like a combination of unvarnished honesty and sheer audacity, liberating a special impression. Instantly, I was driven to give him the money. After that, the idea occurred to me that, as a student of such strange character, he might be the one who was destined to become a winner in whatever he took on." (Collection 24 P 141, The Complete Works of Sei Ito, on "About Ishihara Shintaro-kun.")

That is how Mr Ito related his impression of Ishihara.

The Bleak Classroom was published in Hitotsubashi Literature in December of Ishihara's junior year at university. Then, half a year later, he was encouraged by an editor to contribute Season of the Sun to the magazine Bungakukai. And he won the magazine's Newcomer of the Year award. This led to his ensuing chance to win the Akut a gawa literary prize.

Bungakukai was a magazine of the major publishing company, Bungeishunju Ltd. Putting two and two together, it appeared a path may have been paved by Bungeishunju Ltd for Mr Ishihara to enter the world of letters and become a popular writer. Although I may have read too much into it, I also felt the shadow of Sei Ito behind his success.

'Unmanly' Expanded

Secondly, in The Complete Dialogues between Ishihara and Yukio Mishima, mentioned in Chapter 1.3, the two engage intently on the assumption of whether a novelist is inherently "unmanly."

Mishima states, "If novelists are masculine, they are fake. Novelists are generally mostly unmanly. They try to survive and sustain and go on living, no matter what disgrace they bring on themselves." Then, he says to Ishihara, "Literature haunts me day in day out, trying to bring out the effeminateness in me." (PP 127 – 128)

Ultimately, Mr Ishihara was above all a novelist, more than anything else. I read somewhere that in his later years, he said there were few people in the political world to whom he was strongly attracted. At first, it surprised me. But at the same time, I was persuaded that it may well have been so, or rather, convinced that it must have been so.

Letters and Politics

Having come this far, I finally figured out what it was that Mr Ishihara expected of me. I think he would have liked me to write my own Season of the Sun. That is why he introduced me to a famous editor and gave me some tips on how to write novels.

One day, he called to ask me if I had ever read Metamorphosis, by Sei Ito. That was before he gave up on me, when my promise still remained unfulfilled.

"It happens to be one of my favorite books," I replied. To this, Mr Ishihara added his own impression: "It's so funny, isn't it? I often find myself bursting out laughing while reading it." It may be a wild imagination, but I wanted to believe that in those moments, Mr Ishihara may have been playing the role of Sei Ito for me.

Never once did he talk politics with me. "No, don't expect him to," Gentosha Publishing's Toru Kenjo told me, "cause he won't make it happen." He was absolutely right.

I also hold the view that people who write novels are basically "unmanly," including me.

If a novelist acts like Junichiro Tanizaki, it's easier to make out what kind of person he is. Mr Ishihara was not like Tanizaki, but Ishihara may have been unmanly in his own way, too.　

However, Mr Ishihara had evolved into a man defined by more attributes than unmanliness. He had risen to stardom in the blink of an eye and became a politician. And both letters and politics were professions he had entered by choice.

A Fortune for His Short Stories

Reflecting on his life, Mr Ishihara recalled that he had met few people of significance in the political world. And near the end, he uttered, "I'll end up dying in a pathetic and unmanly manner as possible."

Meanwhile, I recalled buying The Complete Short Stories of Shintaro Ishihara, Volume 1, mentioned in Chapter 1.1, from a bookstore called Horindo located at the west exit of Ikebukuro Station. That was on July 1, 1974.

From the same bookstore, I also bought the book titled Evening Tea (夜の紅茶) authored by Jun Eto. It cost me ¥760 ($5) on April 17, 1972.

Even I find it a bit surprising that I allowed myself to pay as much as ¥4,000, a fortune in today's dollars, for Mr Ishihara's complete works of short stories when I was just a student. It was a two-volume set placed in a blue box with a short, small yellow paper band plastered across it ー a truly exquisite presentation. The set was close to 10 cm thick.

After thinking long and hard about whether or not I could afford it, I finally decided to go ahead. For me now, it might be the equivalent of buying a first-rate bespoke (tailor-made) suit. Well, no ー the relative financial burden must have required even a greater sense of resolve, like the choice whether to dive off a cliff. Certainly, it was a big decision, and I could not afford such expensive things in those days.

Of course, I finished reading all of the essays in no time. That compilation was where I likely read The Bleak Classroom for the first time.

Find the Table of Contents

(To read the book in Japanese, please visit the publisher's website.)

Author: Shin Ushijima
Ushijima & Partners, Attorneys at Law

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