Atsuko Nishikawa: Questioning Everyday Values

2024/03/08

Students sometimes ask me, "Is literary research useful?" Listening to them, it seems that "useful" means being able to use it for employment or leading to skill improvement. However, in the first place, what constitutes being "useful" varies from person to person and is likely not a universal value.

At such times, the essay "Kumo no Kage" (Shadow of a Cloud, 1907) by Koda Rohan comes to mind.

Even when the weather is not so bad, there are phenomena where a cloud's shadow passes and things darken, and then it shines again once the cloud has passed. However, when the place where you are is in shadow, it is difficult to think of it as a temporary cloud shadow, and you end up believing that it has become cloudy everywhere. Using such familiar examples, he discusses how what is considered correct or interesting for people at a certain time and place changes depending on the time and place—that values change.

My research subject is modern and contemporary Japanese literature, but recently I have been interested in detective novels, especially "unorthodox detective fiction" (henkaku tantei shosetsu) with strong elements of the bizarre and fantastic. In detective novels, the standard pattern is that a mystery is solved from a state of chaos following an incident, and order is restored. However, not everything returns to normal after the incident. Especially in unorthodox detective fiction, alien elements excluded from everyday life are emphasized, mysteries are not solved rationally, and the stories often end by highlighting only the absurdity of daily life.

For example, Yumeno Kyusaku's "Koori no Hate" (The End of the Ice, 1933), set in Harbin during the Siberian Intervention, is a novel in the form of a suicide note by "I," who is fleeing after being falsely accused of embezzlement and murder. Just because he played at being a detective, "I," a Japanese soldier, gets caught up in an incident, is pursued by the Japanese Army, the Red Army, and the White Army, and flees Harbin with a White Russian girl. Not to mention being falsely accused, the Siberian Intervention itself is nothing but an absurd situation for "I." This work confronts us with the fragility of the order that sustains "I's" daily life.

What is considered "alien" changes depending on the environment one is placed in at that time. We are under the "shadow of a cloud" of each moment. That is precisely why the moment when one's own values are questioned and common sense is shaken through the words of others is thrilling. —To notice the "shadow of a cloud" and become able to see things differently. I believe that one of the significances of literary research lies there.