Chapter 3.5: Readers Want Romance

Mr Shintaro Ishihara was the Goethe of Japan. I was his pupil, someone in the same profession, and his escort runner. In this chapter, I have woven together more of my private recollections, spanning as long as twenty-plus years, and "my unfulfilled promise" to him. ー Shin Ushijima

Chapter 3.5: Readers Want Romance

Read other chapters in My Mentor, Shintaro Ishihara

When it comes to Shintaro Ishihara, the public's impression is far removed from what he was really like. He wrote Season of the Sun (The Literary World (文學界), July 1955). But later that year, he published the novel Cold Face (冷たい顔, September 1955) in the same literary magazine. The two stories have a totally different touch, as though written by different authors. Truth be told, Mr Ishihara may have secretly admired unrequited love as the truest form of love in his mind.

I remember him saying, "I told Saburo Shiroyama about you.

"'Compared to Shin Ushijima, you have less than 1/1,000th as much knowledge, and you've used up all your materials for stories and have nothing left now, right?' I told him so. From the start, he was a man incapable of portraying human relationships."

Mr Ishihara uttered those thoughts at the end of a long, 50-minute phone call, from 12:13 PM to 13: 01 PM on December 31, 2005.

"Saburo Shiroyama has withered," so Mr Ishihara would often say when we met. As an author, Shiroyama was famous for "The Takeover" and was one of the authors I respected. Having done some research, I found that he was five years older than Mr Ishihara. But it was two years after Ishihara that he won the Bungakukai Newcomer Award. Therefore, in that sense, he made his debut as a novelist later than Mr Ishihara.

I mentioned Shiroyama in the Afterword of my first novel, The Shareholders Meeting (Gentosha, 1999): "Had I not read Mr Shiroyama's The Takeover, it would never have occurred to me that such a business topic would be able to spawn a novel." (P 150)

I had been absorbed in reading it with great interest.

'The Takeover'

In particular, I was drawn to the scene where the protagonist of The Takeover, Fumimaro Aoi, modeled after Mr Hideki Yokoi (owner of the Hotel New Japan), drove a Cadillac to the airport to greet the president of Kanto Bank, a local financial institution.

Saburo Shiroyama wrote The Takeover in 1960. The book was written based on the takeover of Shirokiya Department Store, which continued from 1953 until 1956. The book mentions a Cadillac, but in those days, it was not really the same as a Cadillac nowadays. Maybe the luxury vehicle wasn't at the level of a Rolls-Royce, but it was close to a Maybach. However, taking into account the fact that cars were still not common vehicles for ordinary people, it was probably more comparable to a corporate helicopter in prestige.

In The Takeover, the protagonist waits at Haneda Airport for the president of a local institution called Kanto Bank, who is flying back from a business trip to Sapporo. He wants to ask the bank president to finance the takeover. (There is a disclaimer at the end of the book saying that the Kanto Bank in the novel is fictional and has no relation to the real Kanto Bank. It's rather puzzling ー didn't Shiroyama know that Kanto Bank actually existed?)

The protagonist, Fumimaro Aoi, greets the bank president, accompanied by a newly-hired, young, beautiful secretary holding a large bunch of flowers in her hands. In the novel, taking advantage of the chance that the Kanto Bank employees who are supposed to meet the president are not aware that his flight arrived 30 minutes early, Aoi reaches him first. Then, he invites President Gondo into his Cadillac. He instructs his secretary beforehand to repeatedly call him "Mr President, Mr President." It was quite a compelling read.

A Writer's Collection

"There was a time in the past when the presidents of regional banks, which copiously held deposited savings without any particular borrowers, were treated and valued more highly than the presidents of city banks." (The Takeover, p 231)

That was a story, a long time ago.

"Shiroyama would complain: 'I envy you, Ishihara-san. Since you're a politician, you have lots of new, different experiences.' He was really lamenting that he had run out of stories to write anymore."

That's what Mr Ishihara told me.

Saburo Shiroyama passed away in March 2007 at the age of 79. It was only a year and three months after I had talked with Mr Ishihara on the phone.

Regardless, I never met Saburo Shiroyama personally. Having heard enough negative comments about him from Mr Ishihara, I just imagined what kind of person he was. Nevertheless, I have read most of his works, including Every Day is Sunday (毎日が日曜日). In particular, I pored through Kinjo the Corporate Racketeer" (総会屋錦城).

If someone has run out of stories to write, it probably means they've lost their motivation for collecting fresh interviews and information for their stories as they get older.

As for me, in a sense, I'm always collecting information for stories from what I do every day, and I am always in the office. So, even though I heard from Mr Ishihara that Mr Shiroyama's creativity had withered, I couldn't make sense of it.

That hasn't changed even now. As a working lawyer, I deal with new clients one after another. Therefore, as a matter of course, I am constantly exposed to new information and circumstances through their circumstances.

One New Year's Eve

Still, I wondered why Mr Ishihara called me in the last hours of 2005, on New Year's Eve.

He began by saying, "Nishiwaki Construction is holding onto the land. The project is in trouble." Then, he added, "My deadline is approaching, and I'm in a jam." He wanted to pick my brain.

I explained, "Then, the president of the bank involved in the project should be aware of it. The president should have been informed."

"Okay, then, why would the bank make a move when the project has been suspended?"

We had such a dialogue. Mr Ishihara might have drawn some inspiration from my response.

Undoubtedly, he was talking about the plot he was working on, which was later given the title Island of Fire (火の島, Gentosha, 2018).

Our conversation on the phone changed to Tokyo metropolitan politics before I knew it. Somehow, it became tricky and somewhat intricate. "I told him not to jump the gun, but the guy…" said Ishihara. Names such as "Hamauzu," "Suzuki," "Matsushita," "Minobe," "Fujii," "Uchida," and "Matsuzawa" popped out, one after another. In the end, Mr Ishihara brought up the name of the Special Investigation Department, but I could not make out what he was trying to say.

After speaking one-sidedly for a while, Mr Ishihara suddenly said, "I know you've got a lot of knowledge about incidents and the business world, but don't think about those. Just write about love stories."

Write Romance!

Anyway, Mr Ishihara and I hardly ever talked politics.

I would like to believe that was because he regarded our talks as something special and that he considered me as someone connected to the most important part of his life.

"How about writing about a love affair between a boss and his secretary? The more extensive the circumstances surrounding the story, the better. And they end up in a love suicide? What do you say? It's interesting, isn't it? The name of the woman…how about Ayako?"

Thus, his storyline was moving forward.

"It would also be fine with the boss and his subordinate. You tend to make human emotions secondary. Forget about the details of corporations. Otherwise, your novels won't strike a chord with many readers, although a certain number of readers may acknowledge them as good. What readers really want is love stories! Romance!" He tried to persuade me.

"There's a book called Moonflower of Heaven (天の夕顔). I think it was published by Shinchosha. Read it, it's good." He said so, and I said yes instantly.

"By the way," I said, "I like your novel about the romance of Okinori Kaya, who searched for information about his former schoolmate girlfriend through the official gazette. It's really good."

So I told him. I had not read Moonflower of Heaven yet at that time. Coincidentally, as it later transpired, the two novels had a lot in common: a romance with a married woman that, although unrequited, lasted for years.

Okinori Kaya's Exception

I had already read A Public Figure (公人), a novel included in the 1992 collection published by Shinchosha. It depicted Okinori Kaya's love affair, so I broached the book when he talked about romance as a topic, as I thought that it was an excellent work.

But much to my consternation, Mr Ishihara snapped promptly, "That kind of novel is no good!" Even looking back now, I can't make sense of it.

I knew Moonflower of Heaven only by name at that time. The book revolves around a long-lasting platonic love affair with a married woman. Written by Yoichi Nakagawa in 1938, it was well received in Europe and America, too.

For the life of me, I could not understand why Mr Ishihara himself said, "That kind of novel is no good!" A Public Figure was a novel he himself wrote. I thought he should have been proud of the book.

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