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 4.3: 'Island of Fire'
Read other chapters in My Mentor, Shintaro Ishihara
The discourse between Mr Ishihara about his next book, Island of Fire, began on May 10, 2002. Mr Ishihara came to my law firm, and we exchanged questions and opinions about the book's plot using a whiteboard in one of the firm's meeting rooms.
As a side note, when the book Island of Fire (火の島, by Gentosha) was published, someone from Shintaro Ishihara's office kindly brought a copy to me at my firm. That was on December 3, 2008.
On the bright red endpaper, to my surprise, there was a message in Mr Ishihara's own handwriting: "Without you, this book would not have been possible. Many thanks." To the left of the endpaper, called the flyleaf, was the note, "To Mr Shin Ushijima." It was also in his own handwriting.
I had no idea when or how the book title "Island of Fire" was decided.
Clearly, the galley proof was sent to me on November 6, 2006, by Shintaro Ishihara's office. The Azabudai address was printed on the envelope. I must have been aware by then that the book would be called Island of Fire.
"Island of Fire?" Ah, a volcano. I had just imagined that it must have been one of the Seven Islands of Izu, possibly Izu Oshima, where Ishihara often sailed. But I had not paid close attention at the time. Later, I found that it was, actually, Miyakejima, which also appeared in Sea of Men (男の海, Shuesha, 1973).
I mentioned Miyakejima earlier in this book. There's a scene where a bystander says, "You're all looking at Yujiro, but nobody's paying attention to Shintaro. What a shame ー he deserves your attention too."
A Man, A Woman, and a Hostile Takeover
Whenever we had a chance to talk about his new novel, I remember Mr Ishihara saying with delight that it's a story about a man and a woman. He described the two as having had a long-time, complex relationship, and this time there was a hostile takeover involving big money.
On May 10, when we first discussed the storyline of his new novel, Mr Ishihara began by saying, "It's a family company, not a public company ー like Takenaka Corporation."
He emphasized, "That company."
"The younger brother of the president of Company A is actually the de facto head of management at its parent company, A Holdings," said Mr Ishihara, explaining the plot.
Every time I found something unfathomable, I would interrupt. Mr Ishihara would go into more detail, and I would comment that such a company didn't make sense. In response, Ishihara would suggest an alternative approach. Thus, the novel's plot expanded more and more. My firm's meeting room became like a workshop for building storylines for the novel.
On the whiteboard, a left-pointing arrow that started from A Holdings reached toward Company A. The figure "100%" was inscribed under the arrow, indicating A Holdings' shareholder ratio in Company A, meaning that Company A was a wholly owned subsidiary of A Holdings.
But another figure, 51%, was written immediately under the figure of 100%. And there was a small arrow pointing up just to its right. Would that have indicated a decrease in the number of shares held, followed by an ensuing increase? Was it something that might have been needed in Mr Ishihara's plot?
Diagramming the Plot
I was the one who wrote on the whiteboard. Of course, I made the diagrams while listening to Mr Ishihara's ideas. However, I cannot recall the details around them. Anyway, it was just the two of us, spending time together, consolidating the plot of Mr Ishihara's new novel.
One shareholder of A Holdings was "the younger brother," with 51%. There were some outward-pointing lines indicating the existence of other shareholders.
An arrow pointed right from the younger brother toward a sign for "woman." To the side of the woman, there was an encircled "ex," as though indicating something meaningful. To me, this indicated that, as the story developed, there was a plan to transfer shares from the brother to the ex-girlfriend.
An arrow pointing up from the "C" reached the encircled "woman/ex." Another arrow from the T in the lower left reached the C. There was also an arrow from T directly pointing to the circled "woman/ex," but that arrow was crossed out with diagonal lines.
Perhaps I crossed it out while explaining the company's pyramid organizational structure to Mr Ishihara.
"This 'C' is a yakuza," said Mr Ishihara.
While watching Mr Ishihara intently discuss his ideas in the privacy of our meeting room, a statement of his from decades earlier ー something I had read ー came to mind. It was in a dialogue with Kenzaburo Oe, if I recall correctly.
"I am busy as a politician, but that is exactly why something rich and flavorful is being created, just like percolating coffee."
Kenzaburo Oe's Dilemma
Recalling that statement, I was less convinced about his conclusion. I figured that Mr Ishihara had tried to speak boldly because he had left the literary world for the world of politics. So I had assumed. But thinking further, coffee made in a percolator might not be rich, let alone flavorful.
Incidentally, I also recalled a newspaper article quoting Kenzaburo Oe immediately after Ishihara's announcement that he would go into politics. Ishihara had decided to run for a seat in the House of Councillors. Oe was quoted as saying something to the effect: "You, Shintaro Ishihara, why are you abandoning the world of literature? What is there in this world that a novelist cannot understand?"
I was 18 at the time and felt that so much of what Kenzaburo Oe had said didn't add up. Probably, I sensed some deep-seated jealousy that Oe could not escape. He had no way to run for office to become a politician, but Ishihara had pulled it off effortlessly.
Around the same time, I read a newspaper article by Nada Inada. It said that, by hook or by crook, the Social Democratic Party of Japan should persuade Kenzaburo Oe to run for the House of Councillors since Shintaro Ishihara was running in the same election. That also sounded strange to me because, from an election standpoint, Kenzaburo Oe did not have Ishihara's popular appeal.
Mr Ishihara announced he would enter the world of politics at the age of 35. It was a momentous deal that only Mr Ishihara could have pulled off.
Listening to the person before me expounding earnestly on the plot of his new novel, I was momentarily induced to forget that he was the Governor of Tokyo.
The 'Shintaro Cut'
I have kept a small, light blue piece of paper, half of a B6 sheet, obtained at the time of the publication of the complete works of Norman Mailer. That was in 1969, when I was nineteen years old.
Phrases such as "Shinchosha Version, the complete works of Norman Mailer, Recommendations" were written horizontally in three lines. Below them were photographs of the incredibly young-looking Shintaro Ishihara and Kenzaburo Oe, followed respectively by their brief comments. I had kept that piece of paper carefully for a long time. Of course, all those years later, Mr Ishihara still had the same Shintaro-style haircut he wore in the photo.
Ishihara wrote, "I would say that what Japanese contemporary writers should learn from Norman Mailer is not his writing style but his hope and faith in novels."
Looking at their photos, I wondered whether Yukio Mishima's later change to a short hairstyle had something to do with Ishihara's Shintaro-style cut. It seemed like Yukio Mishima had such an inferiority complex toward Shintaro Ishihara. I thought about the photo of the two taken on the terrace of Bungeishunju Ltd. At that time, Mishima had long hair neatly slicked down with hair wax. I had also seen a photo of him with the same hairstyle taken near Yotsuya Station immediately after he entered the Ministry of Finance.
Unanswered Questions
Mr Ishihara was blessed with too much. When he was very young, he wrote Season of the Sun (1955), which instantly won the Akutagawa Prize, even though it was regarded as disrupting the values of the time. After that, he had even appeared in some movies.
Probably in rivalry with Mr Ishihara, Yukio Mishima had also appeared in movies, but ultimately, their looks were quite different. Mishima was no match for Ishihara in terms of appearance and height. Of course, that was not Yukio Mishima's fault. It was just that Mr Ishihara was way too stylish and dashing. As Ishihara once said, there was probably no way for a person who was not athletic to close the gap with someone who was.
And I privately suspect that this had something to do with why Yukio Mishima was eventually driven to the wall, with no way out but to commit seppuku and die. Surely, Ishihara and Mishima died in decidedly different manners. Mishima died at the age of 45, while Ishihara was 89. Of course, Mr Ishihara had never wanted to die, even though he once said to me, "If I'm ever driven to die, I'll douse myself with kerosene and burn myself to death."
But whose death will be remembered in history? Absolutely, it is the death of Yukio Mishima. No one ever asked would say otherwise. I wonder whether immediately before his death, Yukio Mishima shouted in triumph, "Finally, I've got the better of Ishihara." But I don't know the answer.
Find the Table of Contents
(To read the book in Japanese, please visit the publisher's website.)
RELATED:
Author: Shin Ushijima
