25 Years Since the Death of Shusaku Endo: Shusaku-ki, Unpublished Diaries, and More

2021/12/13

Shusaku-ki Venue Scenery (Keio University Mita Campus East Building)

At the beginning of the year, Shusaku Endo's wife, Junko, passed away. She was 93 years old. It was January 17th of this year, the 25th year since her husband's passing, and shortly thereafter she was laid to rest in the crypt (underground ossuary) of St. Ignatius Church in Kojimachi. Her husband's remains are flanked by his mother, Iku, and his wife, Junko... I recall the words the deceased once let slip: "I was blessed with both a mother and a wife." "How lucky I have been with women. I have never even associated with a woman I disliked."

Setting aside whether one's own mother counts as luck with women, as someone who witnessed the life of the writer Shusaku Endo from a relatively close distance, I cannot help but acknowledge that "blessed luck with women." His circle of female friends consisted of innocent, cheerful women who would burst into peals of laughter, but among them, Keiko Toyama—whom he described in his own essays as his "best friend"—passed away on March 29th.

Regarding that, there is a bit of a coincidence. I was at my desk in my room just after noon, playing a CD. In the bay window in front of me, geraniums and bougainvillea were blooming in red and white, catching the afternoon sun. However, when the music changed to Mozart (Piano Sonata No. 15 in C major) played by Keiko Toyama, the necks of the flowering stems swayed slightly. This was despite the windows being closed and the air conditioning being off. As a test, when I changed to other pieces, the flower stems did not sway at all. Even when I played pieces by other performers, they did not move. Only with Keiko's Mozart did they sway as if laughing. I took out a postcard and reported this to Keiko with a strange sense of urgency. ...One week later, I received a phone call from her son, Koichi Toyama.

There is a passage in one of Shusaku Endo's essays: "I still want to believe. That not only trees, but even small flowers, can understand human feelings. (...) They do not understand our so-called 'language.' Among the human emotions that echo behind those words, they respond very sharply only to the two waves of love and death" (from "Kaleidoscope").

Twenty-five years have passed since his death, and it feels as though all of Endo-sensei's acquaintances have gathered in heaven. However, there are still many people in this world who admire him or empathize with Endo's literature—this year's Shusaku-ki made me feel that once again.

This memorial gathering, which started on the first anniversary of his death, was initially held at the Tokyo Kaikan, then moved to the Chugoku Hanten in Mita, and later to the Josui Kaikan in Hitotsubashi. Last year, it was cancelled to prevent the spread of COVID-19. However, for this 25th anniversary, it was held on Saturday, October 2nd, at the G-Lab on the 6th floor of the East Building at Keio University in Mita, using a "venue participation & remote" format (Co-hosted by the Shusaku Endo Memorial Committee, Mita Bungaku-kai, and the Shusaku Club).

With the remote format, distant facilities and participants can be connected to the venue (67 people attended at the venue that day, and 70 participated remotely). At this Shusaku-ki, for example, the Nagasaki City Shusaku Endo Literary Museum was connected via live broadcast. Along with the sunset over the Sumo-nada Sea visible from the building and the cosmos flowers spreading across the garden, the contents of the museum's new exhibition, "From 'Silence' to 'The Samurai'—A Journey Around the Mother," were introduced. Also, Mr. Van C. Gessel (a scholar of Japanese literature who has translated eight of Endo's works) spoke to the venue and remote participants from America, despite it being 2:00 AM local time. And in the "G-Lab" venue, which is likely equipped with the most advanced equipment at Keio in Mita, footage of Shusaku Endo dancing and singing in his own amateur theater troupe, "Kiza," was projected onto a screen covering the entire wall. Amidst the aftermath of COVID-19, it was an unprecedentedly fresh Shusaku-ki.

Last year, the unpublished novel "Against the Shadows" (Mita Bungaku, Summer 2020 issue) became a topic of conversation for its subject matter of parental discord and separation. This year, a new unpublished diary was discovered and published in the Autumn issue of "Mita Bungaku" under the title "Shusaku Endo Diary—Death, Christ, and Literature."

The diary was written between 1961 and 1974, when the author was between 38 and 51 years old. While parts of the diary have been published in books and magazines before, most of it is previously unpublished. It is a daily record of what could be called his prime as a writer, but the highlight is likely the Israel travelogue for the research of "Beside the Dead Sea" (the full-length novel written after "Silence"). It is fascinating to see how the concept and specific images of the novel were built up during this research trip, which could be called a pilgrimage to Jesus.

Additionally, the sections where he was shocked by the "Mishima Incident" on November 25, 1970, immersed himself in reading Mishima's work "Runaway Horses," and continued to ponder the meaning of the death of the writer Yukio Mishima are also impressive. However, what is most admirable is the vast amount of reading he did to write his novels. The books he read, the books he should read, the books he packed in his travel bags, his empathy for them, and sometimes his doubts and rejections, as well as his frustration at being interrupted from reading and his thirst for reading, overwhelm the reader. It strikes me that a writer is a reader before they are a writer.

In 2023, Shusaku Endo will mark the 100th anniversary of his birth. This year, the 25th anniversary of his death, truly made me feel that it suggests a writer who lived in the 20th century will surely continue to gain new readers in this century as well.