Nagai Kafu - American stories: [a Japanese writers classic account of turn-of-the-century America]

A PACIFIC BASIN INSTITUTE BOOK

American Stories is the eighth volume to be published in The Library of Japan series, a selected cross-section of modern Japanese fiction and nonfiction in translation for presentation to American readers. Produced by the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College, as part of a plan evolved under the aegis of the JapanUnited States Conference on Cultural and Educational Exchange (CULCON), this series is designed to make Americans aware of the social and cultural underpinnings of modern Japan, offering works either unavailable in English translation or difficult for most general readers to obtain.

Volumes previously published include Silk and Insight , by Mishima Yukio; The Autobiography of Fukuzawa Yukichi ; Labyrinth , by Arishima Takeo; Konoe Fumimaro, A Political Biography , by Oka Yoshitake; Kokoro and Selected Essays , by Natsume Sseki; The Spirit of Japanese Capitalism , by Yamamoto Shichihei; and o ka Shheis Taken Captive: A Prisoner of Wars Diary . Frank Gibney and J. Thomas Rimer are the editors of the series. The editors and the publisher would like to thank the Japan Foundation for its generous support in making this publication possible.

Nagai Kaf

translated and with an introduction by Mitsuko Iriye

Columbia University Press wishes to express its appreciation for funds given by The Japan Foundation toward the cost of publishing this volume.

Photograph of Nagai Kaf reproduced from Kaf zenshu
(Collected works of Kaf), vol. (Tokyo: Iwanami, 1964 ).
Nagai Kafs personal seal reproduced from Kaf zenshu , vol. 4
(Tokyo: Iwanami, 1992 ). Use d by permission of the Estate of Nagai Kaf.

Columbia University Press
Publishers Since z893
New York Chichester, West Sussex
Translation copyright 2000 Columbia University Press
All rights reserved
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Naga i, Kaf, 1879-1959 .
[Amerika monogatari. English]
American stories / by Nagai Kaf ;
translated and with an introduction by Mitsuko Iriye.
p. cm. (Modern Asian literature)
ISBN 0-231-11790-6 (cloth)
I. Iriye, Mitsuko. II. Title. III. Series.
PL812.A4A8413 2000

895.6 ' DC21 99-33508

Casebound editions of Columbia University Press books are
printed on permanent and durable acid-free paper.
Printed in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Nagai Kaf ( 1879 1959 ), whose real first name was Skichi, was one of the major writers of modern Japan. On September , 1903 , at the age of twenty-three, he left for the United States, and he did not return home till July 1908 . He spent his last year abr oad in France, mainly in Lyon, but it would not be an exaggeration to say that it was his stay in America that made a major impact on Kafs formative years as a writer. Yet the scarcity of his written work during this period makes it difficult to assess p recisely what happened to him abroad and how his writings were intertwined with his experiences there.

As the eldest son of a high-ranking bureaucrat turned businessman, Kaf had been expected to follow in his fathers footsteps. Nagai Kyichir had married the daughter of his teacher, a famous Sinologist, and was himself well known for his poems written in the Chinese style. At age ten, Kaf was taught classical Chinese, but he was particularly influenced by his mother, an avid reader of popular literature and Kabuki theatergoer who collected colored woodblock prints depicting actors. She was also good at nagauta (long epic songs) and koto (Japanese harp). Through her, Kaf was drawn to the world of literature and arts of the Edo period.

He belonged to the second generation of Japanese in the modern era, who began their careers after their country had gone through the initial and generally successful process of modernization following i ts encounter with the West. Japan had established a constitutional form of government, carried out administrative and fiscal centralization, adopted the gold standard, universalized military training, induced the Western powers to revise the unequal treaties, and launched ambitious programs of industrialization and mass education. In the name of enriching the nation and strengthening the army, Japan built up a formidable military force and fought successfully against China and, later, Russia, in the process acquiring overseas colonies as well as the coveted status of a great power. In less than half a century after the arrival of Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853 , the country had emerged as the first modern nation of Asia.

Japans political and economic transformation had been achieved through contact with and learning from Europe and North America, but the modern transformation had not necessarily meant the Westernization of Japanese culture, such as literature, music, and fine art. Nevertheless, there was no doubt that the countrys values, mental habits, and tastes were subtly changing as more and more Japanese came into contact with Westerners and their ideas and arts. It was natural, then, that the intellectuals of Kafs generation should have become fascinated by the implications of modernization for Japans cultural life and for the mental and psychological identity of the individual. Underneat h the surface glamour of treaty revision and military victories, Japanese writers, artists, and musicians were beginning their long and serious quest for meaning. Each sought to find his or her own point of connection between Japan and the West. The sum to tal of these quests made up Japanese consciousness at the turn of the twentieth century. Among those who grappled with the problem of Japanese-Western relations in the field of literature, Nagai Kaf is significant not only because many of his writings ref lect his self-conscious encounter with Western (in particular, French) literature but, more fundamentally, because his experiences and perspectives were among the most unique and sophisticated of that time.

Kafs interest in literature intensified during his years at a middle school. At this time, he even began visiting the pleasure quarters of Tokyo. The school, whose principal was the founder of the jd hall, Kdkan, was known for its stress on martial values, something Kaf did not appreciate. Upon gr aduation from the school at age eighteen, he tried, and failed, the entrance examination for the prestigious First Higher School, known as a preparatory academy for future bureaucrats, lawyers, and businessmen as well as scholars. He then spent three months in Shanghai with his father, who was sent there as branch manager of the Japan Steamship Company. At the end of 1897 Kaf returned to Japan and enrolled in the Chinese language department of the Tokyo Foreign Language School. However, he hardly attended his classes and instead immersed himself in the lifestyle of a typical late Edo dilettante: writing short stories; frequenting the pleasure quarters, yose (variety halls), and the Kabuki theater; and taking shakuhachi (bamboo flute) and samisen lessons. He also had an equally brief stint as an apprentice Kabuki playwright.

In September 1898 Kaf showed a short story he had written to Hirotsu Ryr ( 1861 1928 ), a popular writer at that time who belonged to Kenysha, the first modern literary society in Japan (founded in 1895 ). But unlike the mainstream of this group led by its founder, Ozaki Ky, Ryr had started writing so-called serious novels dealing with the darker and pathetic aspects of life, particularly the demimonde. For this reason, and also because his style stressed dialogue rather than the mixed gaTokubun (colloquial-literary style) of Ky and others, Kaf decided to become Ryrs literary disciple.