In my PhD thesis on Yoshimoto Banana, I discussed the shift in her more recent writing to a focus on the environment as part of her ongoing interest in New Age themes such as healing, spiritualism and E.S.P. and communication between humn and non-human characters. This is part of a wider shift in Japanese culture from post-war concerns about nuclear catstrophe to a concern for the environment.
After the
dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in 1945, Ôe Kenzaburô (1995) argues
that writers such as Ôoka Shôhei, Takeda Taijun and Mishima Yukio took on the job
of making sense of Japan’s defeat in the war as well as the new realities of
the nuclear age and in doing so ‘provided a comprehensive image of their times’
(Ôe, 1995, 66). For many readers, the fears of nuclear annihilation during this
period were realised most explicitly, perhaps, in the nihilism of Dazai Osamu’s
novels. Six years after the dropping of the bomb, Tezuka Osamu’s manga Tetsuwan Atomu (Atom Boy) first appeared. Interestingly, under
pressure from his publishers, Tezuka modifed his original vision to ‘stress a
peaceful future, where Japanese science and technology were advanced and used
for peaceful purposes’ (Tezuka, Quoted in Shiraishi, 2000, 295). In this way, the atomic age also gave birth
to what Shiraishi describes as technological optimism. Nevertheless, the
reality of living with the fear of nuclear annihilation was central to the task
taken on by the writers identified by Ôe which elevated their writing with a
sense of great importance.
In terms of
his own writing about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Ôe argues that his experience as
the parent of a mentally handicapped child was fundamental to his realisation
that healing is possible even after such a calamity and that:
…the victims and
survivors of the atomic bombs have the same sort of power to heal all of us who
live in this nuclear age (Ôe, 1995, 34).
Given his
criticisms of Yoshimoto’s writing, it is interesting to note that healing is a
major preoccupation in both Ôe and Yoshimoto’s writing. This can be seen in Ôe’s
Moeagaru no Midori no Ki (The Flaming Tree) trilogy (1993 – 1995)
and Yoshimoto’s novel Amrita (1994a).
Despite Ôe’s general criticism that Japanese literature was ‘decaying’ in the
1990s, Yoshimoto’s interest in healing combined with her interest in
reconnecting with nature and an ongoing search for spiritual meaning gives it
an extended relevance beyond the enclosed world of the shôjo.
In Spirit Matters: the Transcendant in Modern
Japanese Literature (2006), Philip Gabriel identifies Ôe as being part of a
‘general post-Cold War shift from concern for a nuclear holocaust to a more
generalised threat of environmental pollution and destruction’ (143). This is a
shift that can be seen in Kurosawa films such as Ikimono no kiroku (Record of
a Living Being) (1955), which focuses on fears of the H-bomb and atomic
extinction and Dreams (1990), in
which various segments deal with exploding nuclear power plants, an earth populated
by ogres that has been turned into a tip for deadly chemicals and a vision of Eden
in which a one-hundred-and-three year old man tells the narrator that people,
especially scholars, have forgotten that they are part of nature. Gabriel is
wary, however, and qualifies the association he makes between Ôe’s writing and
a concern for the environment when he states that Ôe’s novel Somersault (2003) is not an
‘environmental novel’. Rather it explores the relationship of God and man
(143). While Gabriel does not identify Yoshimoto as being part of this trend,
he observes that the New Age influenced narratives of Yoshimoto Banana, whom he
describes as a ‘pop novelist’, are evidence of the interest the Japanese
reading public has in spirituality (4). Whilst Gabriel is dismissive of
Yoshimoto as a ‘pop novelist’, she reflects the same shift in concern from the
politics of nuclear annihilation to that of global warming and environmental
degradation.
The power of nature is often evoked in Japanese popular culture. Reader (1991), Kinsella (1995) and Ueno (2004) have all argued that nostalgia for the past is a modern construct in which the furusato (rural hometown) is seen as a powerful antidote to the pressures of urban living. Thus in Miyazaki Hayao’s animated film Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbour Totoro) (1988), Mei and her sister Satsuki plant some seeds. During the night, they dance with the mythical creature Totoro and the seeds begin to sprout with such violent force that an enormous tree grows before their eyes. The power of nature is elsewhere more subtle. When her father is stuck for ideas, Mei places some flowers on his desk and asks him to play the role of ohanaya-san (a flower-seller). Her father absent-mindedly picks up the flowers and, whilst toying with them, is struck by a new idea and is able to make progress with his work.
The destruction of the environment, however, is increasingly central to the sense of ecocrisis in much popular culture in contemporary Japan. One of the most graphic images of this environmental destruction appears in the 1994 animated Studio Ghibli film Heisei Tanuki Gassen Pompoko (English title: Pom Poko) by Takahata Isao. In this film, bulldozers are shown crisscrossing leaves like tiny insects as they chew their way through the forest building new towns. Summoning all their magical shape-changing powers the tanuki try to stop the advance of the new town and protect the forest but ultimately fail. This is the same theme that Miyazaki Hayao takes up in his 1997 film Mononoke Hime in which the wild boar of the forest form a large army to protect the ancient forest against the arrival of human beings.
In Yoshimoto's writing this can be seen there are a number of scenes in which her characters comment explicitly on the destruction of the environment. In Amrita, Sakumi writes to Ryuichiro:
I feel bad when I think that people gave up on mountains, the scent of the ocean, and the commotion in the trees just to build an upper-class suburban neighbourhood (Amrita 1994a, English Translation 1997, 250).
Further to this, in Umi no Futa (There is no Lid on the Sea) (2004), Mari wants to cry when she remembers the sea creatures that are missing in the harbour which has been ‘developed’ (60). Umi no Futa, like Tsugumi, is set in a seaside town on the Izu Peninsula and tells the story of ‘two young women who meet in the town and who gradually come to find joy in the work they do together one summer season’ (Yomiuri Daily Online, 2004). The novel is interesting because Yoshimoto not only articulates an awareness about environmental issues but also what she considers to be the best options for dealing with this problem. On the other hand, in response to the question ‘What can we do to restore the former beauty of the Japanese landscape and start living a healthy life again?’ Yoshimoto is typically reluctant, however, to advocate any large scale action. Instead she advocates that ‘such a place can be revived without much investment’. To this extent, she continues to show a preference for individual action over large-scale organised action. Thus, when the heroine starts her own business Yoshimoto says she wanted to ‘show that it’s possible for people to realize their dreams if they have firm ideals – and they don’t have to borrow money from adults to do it’ (Yomiuri Daily Online, 2004).
In Ôkoku Sono1. (2002), Shizukuishi, the narrator, lives with her grandmother on a mountain where they make herbal teas with healing properties. Despite their lifestyle being poor, people bring them food such as wild rabbits and pig while they can get fish from the river (21). In some ways, Shizukuishi reflects, it was a ‘luxurious life’ as they had a television, a video, a big stereo and the internet (25). The mountain is ‘fatally changed’, however, when the river is dammed. Shizukuishi reflects that the people who ruined the mountain are ‘hateful’ and it is observed that although the flow of the river has been altered only a little, the mountain will take decades to recover (32-3). When asked by Sugiyama Yumiko (2002) what kind of reader she had in mind when she wrote Ôkoku Sono 1., Yoshimoto replied ‘People who are tired of living in big cities’. In response to Sugiyama’s suggestion that it is an ‘ambitious’ work, Yoshimoto replies that she would like it to be part of a long running series. She sees it as ‘philosophical’ in nature and compares it to Sophie’s World (1991) and the writings of Carlos Castañeda. By ‘philosophical’ Yoshimoto is presumably referring to the increased amount of authorial commentary in her writing on topics such as the impact of environmental destruction on the lives of her characters. Whilst this destruction has a significant impact on Shizukuishi and her grandmother, Yoshimoto is, however, more interested in exploring Shizukuishi’s subsequent relationships with Kaede and Shinichiro and her grandmother’s new life in Malta, courtesy of a chance relationship formed on the internet. Thus, Yoshimoto’s interest remains fixed on the individual and in her reassuring, homespun philosophy it is the individual, rather than movements, that can make a difference.
The power of nature is often evoked in Japanese popular culture. Reader (1991), Kinsella (1995) and Ueno (2004) have all argued that nostalgia for the past is a modern construct in which the furusato (rural hometown) is seen as a powerful antidote to the pressures of urban living. Thus in Miyazaki Hayao’s animated film Tonari no Totoro (My Neighbour Totoro) (1988), Mei and her sister Satsuki plant some seeds. During the night, they dance with the mythical creature Totoro and the seeds begin to sprout with such violent force that an enormous tree grows before their eyes. The power of nature is elsewhere more subtle. When her father is stuck for ideas, Mei places some flowers on his desk and asks him to play the role of ohanaya-san (a flower-seller). Her father absent-mindedly picks up the flowers and, whilst toying with them, is struck by a new idea and is able to make progress with his work.
The destruction of the environment, however, is increasingly central to the sense of ecocrisis in much popular culture in contemporary Japan. One of the most graphic images of this environmental destruction appears in the 1994 animated Studio Ghibli film Heisei Tanuki Gassen Pompoko (English title: Pom Poko) by Takahata Isao. In this film, bulldozers are shown crisscrossing leaves like tiny insects as they chew their way through the forest building new towns. Summoning all their magical shape-changing powers the tanuki try to stop the advance of the new town and protect the forest but ultimately fail. This is the same theme that Miyazaki Hayao takes up in his 1997 film Mononoke Hime in which the wild boar of the forest form a large army to protect the ancient forest against the arrival of human beings.
In Yoshimoto's writing this can be seen there are a number of scenes in which her characters comment explicitly on the destruction of the environment. In Amrita, Sakumi writes to Ryuichiro:
I feel bad when I think that people gave up on mountains, the scent of the ocean, and the commotion in the trees just to build an upper-class suburban neighbourhood (Amrita 1994a, English Translation 1997, 250).
Further to this, in Umi no Futa (There is no Lid on the Sea) (2004), Mari wants to cry when she remembers the sea creatures that are missing in the harbour which has been ‘developed’ (60). Umi no Futa, like Tsugumi, is set in a seaside town on the Izu Peninsula and tells the story of ‘two young women who meet in the town and who gradually come to find joy in the work they do together one summer season’ (Yomiuri Daily Online, 2004). The novel is interesting because Yoshimoto not only articulates an awareness about environmental issues but also what she considers to be the best options for dealing with this problem. On the other hand, in response to the question ‘What can we do to restore the former beauty of the Japanese landscape and start living a healthy life again?’ Yoshimoto is typically reluctant, however, to advocate any large scale action. Instead she advocates that ‘such a place can be revived without much investment’. To this extent, she continues to show a preference for individual action over large-scale organised action. Thus, when the heroine starts her own business Yoshimoto says she wanted to ‘show that it’s possible for people to realize their dreams if they have firm ideals – and they don’t have to borrow money from adults to do it’ (Yomiuri Daily Online, 2004).
In Ôkoku Sono1. (2002), Shizukuishi, the narrator, lives with her grandmother on a mountain where they make herbal teas with healing properties. Despite their lifestyle being poor, people bring them food such as wild rabbits and pig while they can get fish from the river (21). In some ways, Shizukuishi reflects, it was a ‘luxurious life’ as they had a television, a video, a big stereo and the internet (25). The mountain is ‘fatally changed’, however, when the river is dammed. Shizukuishi reflects that the people who ruined the mountain are ‘hateful’ and it is observed that although the flow of the river has been altered only a little, the mountain will take decades to recover (32-3). When asked by Sugiyama Yumiko (2002) what kind of reader she had in mind when she wrote Ôkoku Sono 1., Yoshimoto replied ‘People who are tired of living in big cities’. In response to Sugiyama’s suggestion that it is an ‘ambitious’ work, Yoshimoto replies that she would like it to be part of a long running series. She sees it as ‘philosophical’ in nature and compares it to Sophie’s World (1991) and the writings of Carlos Castañeda. By ‘philosophical’ Yoshimoto is presumably referring to the increased amount of authorial commentary in her writing on topics such as the impact of environmental destruction on the lives of her characters. Whilst this destruction has a significant impact on Shizukuishi and her grandmother, Yoshimoto is, however, more interested in exploring Shizukuishi’s subsequent relationships with Kaede and Shinichiro and her grandmother’s new life in Malta, courtesy of a chance relationship formed on the internet. Thus, Yoshimoto’s interest remains fixed on the individual and in her reassuring, homespun philosophy it is the individual, rather than movements, that can make a difference.
The need to reconnect with nature in Yoshimoto’s writing then can be traced to influences from both the West such as Carlos Castañeda as well as traditional Japanese spirituality. There is a long tradition in Japanese literature, for example, that takes in the writings of wandering yamabushi (holy men) such as Ippen (1239 – 1289) and poets such as Basho (1644 – 1694). J. Baird Callicott writes that upon the introduction of Buddhism to Japan it was ‘inevitably modified by the Shinto intellectual climate’ in Japan (1997, 96). According to Callicott, pre-Buddhist, Shinto Japan pictured a natural world ‘teeming with kami, or gods, associated not only with the sky and upper atmosphere but with mountains, streams, lakes, and caverns’ (ibid.). Callicott argues that when Indian Buddhism was introduced to Japan, it was slowly transformed over the centuries so that even plants and animals were classified as sentient beings capable of reaching enlightenment (ibid.). Japanese Buddhism has influenced not only Japanese writers but also writers from the Beat generation in the 1950s such as Jack Kerouac and Gary Snyder who dreamed of a ‘great rucksack revolution’ (The Dharma Bums, 2008, 73). Gunter Grass notes in his memoir Peeling the Onion (2007) that after their defeat, German prisoners of war organised various classes for themselves including Bible circles as well as a popular introduction to Buddhism (Grass, 2007, 176). The origin of Yoshimoto’s New Age interests is to be found in the meandering route these cross-cultural influences have taken.
The growing popularity of what are now identified as New Age themes in the works of these writers can be interpreted as a rejection of the nation-building goals of the industrialised nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the face of international concern about global warming, overpopulation and diminishing energy and food supplies, Yoshimoto’s writing in the second phase of her career demonstrates that the shift from concerns about the nuclear age to concern for the environment is complete. The politics of the Cold War and the leaning towards the left which dominated the thinking of the previous generation is absent in her writing. The politics that inspired Ôe Kenzaburô and her father Takaaki have largely disappeared. Yoshimoto does, however, take a polemical stand against greed and environmental issues like overdevelopment, which can be seen to share the concern felt by D.H.Lawrence who railed against ‘the destruction of the organic purpose, the organic unity, and the subordination of every organic unit to the great mechanical purpose’ (Women in Love, 1969, 260).But it must be acknowledged that Yoshimoto is more of an environmentalist, as defined by Greg Garrard (2004), than an advocate for deep ecology. The term 'environmentalist' referring to someone with concerns for the environment but who wishes to ‘maintain or improve their standard of living as conventionally defined and who would not welcome radical social change’ (Garrard, 2004, 18). Yoshimoto is clearly exploring environmental issues without advocating ‘radical social change’.
