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 5.3: Hands On the Narrative
Read other chapters in My Mentor, Shintaro Ishihara
We hardly ever talked politics. However, as I've said before, I asked Shintaro Ishihara to become the Charles de Gaulle of Japan.
Did he therefore see in me, someone engaged in the legal profession, something he, the man of letters, "The" Shintaro Ishihara himself, had not been able to accomplish in his life ー the illusion of complete fulfillment and satisfaction?
Perhaps even someone like Mr Ishihara kept his eye on the beautiful, greener grass that he was not blessed with.
But if that's the case, when did his expectations of me vanish?
It must have been when he resigned as a member of the Akutagawa Prize selection committee.
That's why he went out of his way to pay me a farewell visit. It was 2012, and Mr Ishihara was 79 years old.
The Akutagawa Prize may have been his only fulcrum to move me. He had his own expectations for me, but I did not write. Why not? Was I preoccupied with something more important? He must have been mystified.
Following Somerset Maugham
Ishihara once recommended Social Consciousness, a story by W Somerset Maugham in the collection Cosmopolitans, saying that it was too interesting not to read.
One essay is about the death of the man who was a woman's longtime lover, and the woman's outwardly callous attitude toward the world after learning about his passing.
Cosmopolitan Magazine published the collection of Maugham's short stories over six years from 1924, before they were compiled into the volume, Cosmopolitans. Among them, I prefer Mayhew. (Translated by Naotaro Tatsuguchi, included in the volume Cosmopolitan I, published in Japanese by Shincho Bunko). I read it on December 16, when I was 20 years old. At the time, I never imagined I would become a lawyer.
It is a story about a 35-year-old lawyer who abandons his thriving legal practice in Detroit and moves to Capri. He must have been unmarried, judging from his easy decision to relocate. A friend of his who recently arrived from Italy described a house he had seen on Capri, "a house on the hill, overlooking the Bay of Naples," emphasizing its beauty and scenic landscapes. (P 5) It must have sounded irresistible, because he decided instantly. "He did not care for wealth" and believed "there must be more to do in life than spend time mediating the trivial quarrels of unimportant people." (P 6)
Reflecting 'Mayhew'
"I never met a more interesting man than Mayhew," Maugham wrote (P 5). But he doesn't explain further. That fact, along with the choice of Capri, suggests the work reflects on Maugham's own temperament and tendencies.
In Capri, he encountered the remains of Tiberius, the second emperor of the Roman Empire, and decided to write about the empire's second-century history. His ideas expanded further, and he imagined himself destined for recognition alongside prominent historians of the past, such as Edward Gibbon and Theodor Mommsen.
Being a lawyer, he got things done swiftly. He gathered a vast collection of books and secluded himself in his study from noon to five o'clock in the morning. Indeed, he worked harder than he had ever worked in Detroit. "On this island that stirred the senses so extravagantly, he lived a purely spiritual life" (P 6). For 14 years, he toiled unremittingly. He made thousands upon thousands of notes. At last, he was ready to begin and sat down to write. But he died. The body that he had treated so cavalierly took its revenge on him.
Yet, Maugham says, "To me his life was a success. His way of life was undeniably good and complete. He did what he wanted, and he died when his goal was in sight, never knowing the bitterness of an end achieved." (P 8)
I wonder whether Mr Ishihara "never knew the bitterness of an end achieved."
His book, The Life of a Man Called ”I” (Gentosha, 2022), was a self-portrait, depicting a man satisfied with his life. But was it really so?
After the Pinnacles
I think that Mr Ishihara would have known the bitterness of an end achieved. For a man who reached such pinnacles, a long life can only lead to decline. Indeed, that is what happened to him in the world of politics. He returned to the political world past the age of 80, having abandoned the Tokyo governor's seat in pursuit of "something substantial." But a much younger politician told him, "Why don't you leave the party?"
In The Illusion of a Nation, subtitled "My Counter-Recollections of Politics" (Bungeishunju, 1999), Mr Ishihara proudly refers to a passage about Okinori Kaya in A Public Figure. "This book is one of my best works, worthy of comparison to Maugham's masterpiece 'Social Consciousness'" in Cosmopolitans. (P 132)
Immediately after that, he quoted a passage of Fruits of the Earth by Andre Gide:
"Nathaniel, I will teach you fervor...I hope that after I have expressed on this earth all that was in me waiting to be expressed ー I hope that I may die satisfied and utterly hopeless."
That he chose "expressed" here and not "realized" was typical of Gide, and also very much like Mr Ishihara.
For my own particular reasons, I was eagerly looking forward to reading each monthly installment of The Illusion of a Nation, serialized in the monthly magazine, Shokun! (諸君). I was 47 at that time. It was two years before I was introduced to Mr Ishihara.
Mr Ishihara apparently told Toru Kenjo about me. "He's amazing. Kenjo, why don't you understand that?"
Am I amazing?
Perhaps so, if Mr Ishihara said so. At least, I am still alive. So, nobody, even I myself, has any idea as to what I will be transformed into in the years to come.
Controlling the Narrative
Anyway, the question is, why did Mr Ishihara write The Life of a Man Called ”I”?
Why did he wait to have it released after his death?
Did he intend to organize the whole history of Shintaro Ishihara before that? Or was it a preemptive measure because he did not know who the hell would talk and what they would say about him after his death?
Perhaps it was like Ogai's "The Dancing Girl" or Shuichi Kato's A Sheep's Song. He was attempting to establish his true and official history in his own hand. Did he have something he wanted to hide, I wonder.
Very famous people are truly vulnerable after their death. Jun Eto had a mistress. Of all the rotten luck, that mistress, though 10 years younger, died a week after his wife, who succumbed to cancer. That is the kind of skeleton in the closet that can be unearthed after death.
"The woman in Kyoto" that Shuichi Kato described in his book turned out to be his wife, whom he had just married in an unremarkable way. Having left that wife in Japan, he headed to France. On his way, he met an Austrian woman in Italy and promised to marry her. But instead, he nonchalantly returned to Japan to his married life. Then, the Austrian woman suddenly arrived, demanding that he fulfill his promise. Devoted fans dig up and expose the most embarrassing secrets.
In Mr Ishihara's case, was it his unique way of showing gratitude to the women who had been involved in and enriched his life? Or was it a remembrance, an unexpected parting gift?
Above all else, it was a confirmation of who he really was.
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(To read the book in Japanese, please visit the publisher's website.)
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Author: Shin Ushijima
