PART ONE: YOSHIMOTO BANA AND THE 'NEW BREED'
There has been a generational change in Japanese literature. In 2021 Banana Yoshimoto published a new collection of short stories declaring that she is happy to consider 'retirement' at this point. This, after a career spanning more than three decades.
The daughter of literary critic and poet Yoshimoto Takaki, Banana Yoshinoto embraced popular culture and made literature accessible to readers alienated by a masculine literary culture dominated by politics, history and an engagement with a 'serious' existential angst that inevitably led to nihilism and annihilation of the self. In its place Yoshimoto focused instead on healing, recovery and mental health.
As a voice for her generation Yoshimoto Banana created a more feminine rather than feminist approach that avoided politics and embraced the connection between human beings and the environment. In a world of increasingly fluid gender identities her's was a voice in the right place at the right time.
As a consequence of Yoshimoto's success, a rearguard action was fought in literary circles. Perceived as a threat, she was accused of lowering literary standards. Junsuibungaku (pure literature) was seen to be at risk from this 'new wave' of popular fiction that masqueraded as 'literature'. Yoshimoto Banana was further blamed for the alleged 'feminisation' of Japanese literature. The masculine literary culture based on the works of writers like Soseki,Tanizaki, Kawabata and Mishima was seen as the foundation for modern Japan's national identity in literature. The fact that the foundations for this national identity were built on tradional gender binary constructs andcracial views that promoted a sense of Japanese uniqueness was largely ignored until the post-war period when the dismantling of this system became inevitable. The fact that a 'masculine' culture could be so easily feminised was a shock. The idea that young women putting on their make-up on a train in public could become a topic for national debate was astounding.
In the wake of the success of the so-called 'New Breed' writers (Shinjinrui) like Yoshimoto Banana, Murakami Haruki, Murakami Ryu and Shimada Masahiko, there was a redefining of contemporary Japanese literature. Subsequently, writers like Kanehara Hitomi, following in the footsteps of Yamada Emi, have pushed the boundaries further redefining women's writing, giving graphic accounts of sex that rival those of their male counterparts. As a result, visiting a Kinokuniya bookstore in Japan, in September 2022, is a very different experience compared to what it used to be. Books by 'male' writers and 'female' writers used to be placed on different shelves. To day they are all on the same shelf.
Which brings me back up Yoshimoto Banana who has built on a legacy created by female writers in Japan going all the way back to the Heian Jidai period (Murashiki Shikibu and Sei Shonagon). Like those earlier writers who broke the mould of a serious masculine culture based on Chinese learning, Yoshimoto broke the mould in the 1980s by liberating literature from an equally stagnant 'masculine' culture. She helped drag literature instead into a newly emerging world of fluid gender identity. The decades of self sacrifice for the nation comprised of an army of salarymen and O.L.s were over. A new time for healing andxself-expression had begun.
For over thirty years Yoshimoto Banana has been a prolific writer of novels, short stories and essays. The shock of the new wore off over this period of time and Japan today is in many ways a different country. Despite the fact that Japan is the only G7 country in which... there is a growing recognition of individual difference and discussion in the media of a broad range of topics ranging from kinetic violence to transgender identity to racism. Significantly, the assassination of former prome-minister Shinzo Abe has raised new questions about the influence of cult-like religious groups.
In his essay on 'white magic', Murakami Haruki argued that he was using his powers as a writer to wrestle with the 'black magic' of cult leaders like Asa Shoryu to win the hearts and minds of young Japanese people during period of the 'bubble economy' and after itsxsubsequent bursting. This was a period of spectacular economic growth and material prosperity but it also produced a spiritual vacuum in which young Japanese professionals were vulnerable to various cults that thrived at this time.
Like Murakami, Yoshimoto Banana's writing was a response to this spiritual vacuum and her 'retirement' can be seen as the beginning of a new phase in Japanese history in which the role of women advances while men struggle adapt to the changes.
PART TWO: KAWAKAMI MIEKO AND A NEW GENERATION
Today in Japan with its ageing population and low birth rate a number of conservative politicians still argue that a woman's function is to breed healthy babies for the nation. New generational writer Kawakami Mieko questions this narrative examining the biological and social consequences of being born a woman in Japan. Unlike Yoshimoto Banana whose focus was on the healing of the individual, Kawakami is more focused on the choices available to women in their lives and the consequences of those choices.
In the Akutagawa Prize winning novel 'Breasts and Eggs' Kawakami debates the rights and responsibilities of sperm donors and those who are born in IVF programs. In the novel 'All the Lovers in the Night', (prefaced with a quote from manga writer Ooshima Yumiko, a major influence on Yoshimoto Banana), Fuyuko, the protagonist, is a freelance proofreader who eliminates mistakes from books before they are published. Resisting the need to make choices regarding herself she chooses instead to observe the choices made by other women.
Whilst her social interactions are limited, Fuyuko does gradually come to spend time with her boss Hijiri. Hijiri complains to Fuyuko about the 'heartless women' she has to work with. "All they want is power and recognition. It's all they ever dream about, all they want, and they can never get enough, but they'll look at you like the thought's never even crossed their mind (39). While Hijiri is critical of 'heartless women' Fuyuko's former colleague Kyoko, describes Hijiri as, "a real piece of work" (131). She tells Fuyuko that people like Hijiri, "use people like you to validate themselves." (132) Ironically the gift that Kyoko gives Fuyuko is the same brand of perfume that Hijiri gives her.
The idea of choice and the consequences of choice is central to the novel. And central to the choices made by these women is a debate about the joys of womanhood - what a woman has to give up to get married to "embrace the joys of womanhood to the fullest" versus the benefits of living an independent life. In a book shop Fuyuko observes a group of girls looking through the books. Significantly Fukuyo notices that: "At some point, I felt as though I was being watched and looked up to find a girl looking back at me. She was part of a different group from earlier, but essentially the same kind of girl"(85).
Kawakami suggests that it is through these observations of each other that women place their own lives into perspective. And their assessments of each other are often brutal. Of the original group of young women in the book shop, Fuyuko observes that, "All the girls had dyed their hair the same shade of brown and wore it in the same style. Their make-up was even the same, like they were on some kind of a team. Their tops revealed so much cleavage that I was worried that their breasts would spill out as soon as they bent over, but they didn't seem the least bit concerned, so I felt sort of ashamed for having thought of such a thing." (85)
Early in the novel, Fuyuko is given the opportunity to go freelance and she starts working from home. Her job, she explains to Mitsutake, a man she meets at a culture centre, is eliminating mistakes in books before they are published. "Books are so full of mistakes, it almost makes me wonder if they only exist so that the mistakes can pass their genes on to another generation." (97)
This view of 'mistakes' is presumably at the centre of Fuyuko's decision not to make choices in her life. And in this way she eliminates the need for any proofreading of her life. While she struggles with alcohol and refuses to make choices her reluctance to engage with people is never really explained. When Fuyuko describes her experience of rape at high school, Kawakami frames this experience in terms of 'choice'.
Fuyuko was raped by Mizuno, a classmate.
Afterwards Mizuno apologised in a voice that Fuyuko says was barely loud enough to hear. Having told Fuyuko earlier about his plans to study in Tokyo she then asks him if what just happened was also a 'decision' he had made?
Infuriated, he says he has no idea what she is talking about. He then says, "Know what? I take back my apology... You chose to come over, and you were part of what we did, same as me." Fuyuko reflects, "It was true that I came here by choice. I came to his house, took off my sandals and went up to his room. That was what happened." Significantly, Kawakami frames this experience in terms of 'choice'.
After the breakdown of her relationship with Mitsutake, Fuyuko stops answering the phone and rarely leaves her apartment. Inevitably she questions the decisions she has made in her life. "Had I ever chosen anything? Had I made some kind of choice that led me here? Thinking it over, I stared at the cell phone in my hands. The job that I was doing, the place where I was living, the fact that I was all alone and had no one to talk to. Could these have been the result of some decision I had made?" (182)
In order to find resolution to Fuyuko's dilemma, Kawakami advances the plot. In the final scene, which takes place three years later, Hijiri is now seven months pregnant. Fuyuko listens as Hijiri explains that she will become a single mother. "The guy evidently wasn't interested in having kids, so she thanked him for clarifying and broke up with him on the spot, resolved to have the child on her own" (315).
Where Yoshimoto Banana focuses on the healing of her female characters, especially through their interaction with nature, Kawakami focuses on the relationships women have with each other. Her focus is on how these female characters view each other and subsequently how they view themselves. While Fuyuko chooses to drink alcohol and avoids interacting with the people around her, she is free to observe characters like Hijiri who chooses to become a single mother to the chagrin of her own mother. Evidence of generational change. But given her job, Hijiri has a degree of economic independence that allows her to make this choice. With men reduced to the periphery, the women are free to make meaning for their own lives. And while Fuyuko may be hamstrung by the fear of making mistakes, she watches the women around her as they make meaning of their own lives in a contested space where men are reduced to the periphery.
