Pathway to Japanese Literature

Today, I believe Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō’s readers exist across a remarkably broad spectrum of society.

While the works of Mr. Ōsugi Jirō and others may share with Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō the fact of having many readers in spheres distinct from where Ms. Yoshiya Nobuko is read, I do not believe the nature of the empathy existing between author and reader is necessarily identical in these two writers.
Even when observing Mr. Ōsugi Jirō’s recent works such as *Avalanche*, it seems readers are drawn to him because they find allure in the literary flavor of this author’s distinctive contemplative mood regarding life—a certain intellectual-emotional disposition that a portion of today’s intelligentsia either genuinely possesses, for better or worse, or adopts as a performative guise.
Mr. Ōsugi’s readers discover fragments of their own real-world selves within his works; through this discovery, they further learn to embellish their surprisingly meager reality in substance with a modicum of atmosphere.

The readers of Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō—those who expect something from his works—approach the author not with such mood-driven sentiments but rather with what might be called a far more earnest disposition, I think.
Something life-defining, something socially directive, something embodying sincere human perseverance—readers are seeking from Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō a portrayal of such qualities.
The connection between Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō and his readers appears to stand upon an unspoken contract that demands something beyond merely an entertaining novel.
And this fact has fostered trust in Mr. Yamamoto as a member of today’s society.

When the Shiga Akiko incident occurred recently, the attitude Mr. Yamamoto demonstrated in his writing remained fresh in public memory; yet not limited to such instances, Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō had long been a person of frequent social action compared to many other authors.

While writing works constituted an intensely realistic social practice, beyond this—as a pre-literary concern in how authors conduct themselves within social relations—Mr. Yamamoto through such conduct protested certain aspects of modern society's irrationalities.
For instance, when he co-edited the Schnitzler anthology with Mr. Kusuyama Masao in 1922 and sent all royalties from it to elderly literary masters of the defeated nation, this likely stemmed from more than just internal motivations arising from Mr. Yamamoto’s background in German literature.
The examples of Mr. Yamamoto—as a playwright—asserting his legitimate rights as an author through legal means when theater companies demonstrated poor attitudes toward staging his works, whether by arbitrarily altering them or performing them without permission, had been numerous up to that day.
More recently as well, when a similar problem arose with a broadcasting station, Mr. Yamamoto had the broadcast of his own work halted.

Mr. Yamamoto, driven by a certain social concern that authors must elevate the traditionally subservient position they had been placed in within the feudalistic world of theatrical works, attempted to endure disputes that were inevitably disagreeable to all parties involved and push through his claims.

Within the machinery of Japanese capitalism, writers and their works were often not burdened with social weight worthy of being called artists and their art, and few authors could make them bear it.
At the foundation of Mr. Yamamoto’s resolve not to shun direct confrontation with the broadcasting station lay a discernible accumulation of frustration and eruption regarding this matter.
It was natural that this activation of Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō’s social justice sense—to some degree—touched not insignificantly upon the common sense that could not approve of contemporary people’s mentality, which desired to act solely based on personal calculations and peace of mind.
Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō’s sense of justice moved along while precisely matching the measure of justice harbored within the hearts of today’s commonsensical general public; it knocked on its door, then passed unchanged through the mundanity of daily life.
It neither stirred new doubts within readers to ignite anxieties so profound that they could not help but take up a mirror to reexamine their own visage, nor did it deliver shocks profound enough to make them feel the very foundations of their present existence had ruptured.
When people read Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō’s works, they sympathetically resonated with the author’s sense of justice, delighted in their own sincere human emotions through this connection, had their sense of daily endeavor stimulated, and were simultaneously encouraged to increasingly affirm the shape of their present-day existence.
Now, since the foundation of our daily existence was so thoroughly riddled with contradictions, the satisfaction derived from author Mr. Yamamoto’s particular brand of justice sense inevitably bore—as its inherent quality—a significant compromise with modern conventions.
No—or rather, in contrast to many other authors who showed no resistance whatsoever and utterly submitted to reality’s dominant powers, Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō, both as a person and an artist, first identified contradictions and gave voice to the sincere human emotions that compelled protest; yet ultimately, he revealed a path toward fundamental compromise, much like the docile citizens at large.
Was it not precisely this conscious compromise that allowed Mr. Yamamoto’s readers to all the more intimately perceive his unflinching sense of justice as something close to themselves?
I was deeply stirred by the intricate patterns with which the manifestation of social justice was woven into Mr. Yamamoto’s art.

Five or six years ago, a single large-format volume of Yamamoto Yūzō’s complete works was published by Kaizōsha.
Finally, a chronology up to 1931 was appended.
Although this chronology was recorded in an extremely concise manner, it plays an essential role in understanding Yamamoto Yūzō as a writer.

His given name at birth being Yūzō, Yamamoto Yūzō was born in Tochigi Town in 1887, the twentieth year of the Meiji era.
His father had been a samurai retainer of Utsunomiya domain but worked as a court clerk after the Restoration; by the time Yūzō was born, he operated a small textile business.
Records describe him as a frail infant from birth, and since no siblings are mentioned anywhere, we might surmise he was an only child.
The physically weak Yūzō was dispatched straight to a kimono merchant's apprenticeship in Asakusa upon graduating from higher elementary school.
How agonizing must this have been for a bookish boy of delicate constitution who found apprenticeship unbearable?
Treated as an eccentric and useless trainee, he endured this torment until fleeing home the following year. When he expressed his wish to attend school, his father refused outright—declaring education would breed insolence—and put him to work in the family trade.

Compared to the general mindset of fathers from former samurai families at that time, this was unusual.
Because at that time, it was customary for former samurai—if they had a son—to somehow send him through even one school, mold him into an official of the then-fashionable sort, and nurture futile fantasies of obtaining even a fragment of rank or decoration within Meiji society.
What lay behind Yūzō’s father’s feelings—his refusal to permit his son an education, his impassioned resolve to prevent such impudence?

The concretization of this writer’s childhood intellectual curiosity consistently manifested through clashes with his father’s attitudes; traces remain of how it was ultimately forged through the rigors of his arduous self-education.
At eighteen, after repeated clashes with his father, he finally went to Tokyo through his mother’s mediation.
When Yūzō entered Seisoku English School Preparatory at this time, he knew nothing of geometry.
He read it as “geometry” and was laughed at by his friends.
Yet by autumn of the following year, he had passed the supplementary examination for the second term of the fifth year at Tokyo Middle School.
When he entered Sixth Higher School, it was specially noted that “his father rejoiced for the first time,” but that autumn, “as his father had passed away, he canceled his enrollment, shouldered his luggage to settle household affairs, and took up business.”
1908.
“While managing household affairs, he prepared for entrance exams and retook the higher school entrance examination.
He passed the academic examinations with excellent grades, but during the physical examination—having caught a cold—was deemed unfit for academic pursuits due to frailty and thus disqualified.
He requested a physical re-examination but was not permitted.”

1909.
He took the higher school entrance examination for the third time and entered the First Higher School’s humanities department.

1910.
Due to a German professor’s unreasonable grading method, seventeen out of thirty-five students were failed in the annual examination.
He became one of them.
In August, he visited Ashio Copper Mine and wrote his debut work, *The Hole* (a one-act play).
This work was published in Ihara Seiseien’s *Kabuki* through Mr. Kawamura Hanabishi.

1911.
"The Hole" was performed by an amateur theater troupe from Nagoya.
At that time, he would often skip school to attend packed theaters and watch plays.
Though he had been a reasonably diligent student before, after failing his exams he completely lost motivation to study.
This mindset persisted until his university graduation.
That summer, he traveled to Hokkaido and Karafuto.

1913.
Tokyo Imperial University German Literature Specialized Course second-year student.
He hardly attended school and led a drifting life.
He collaborated with Inoue Masao, Mr. Masumoto Kiyoshi, and others to create an outdoor theater production.

1914.
He launched the third iteration of *Shinshichō*.
He published *The Mother* (three acts) in the same journal.
At the Second Higher School, he took and passed the higher school certification examination.
He became a regular undergraduate student.
His tuition funds became insufficient, and he borrowed from Mr. Ōtsuka of his hometown for ten months.

1915.
He graduated from university.
He mediated arrangements for Inoue Masao's performance in Asakusa.
He became a playwright for the same troupe but clashed over creative differences within two months and left abruptly. By year's end, he joined the Akizuki, Kawakami, and Kitamura troupe as both playwright and stage director.

1916.
Unable to endure life within the troupe, he fled this one too in its third month.
He keenly felt his own powerlessness.
His resolve for self-cultivation abruptly intensified, and he borrowed the minimum living expenses for ten months through the kindness of Mr. and Mrs. Okamoto Ichitaro.
He devoted himself entirely to his studies.
He also translated Strindberg’s *The Dance of Death* and published it through Rakuyōdō.

1917.
He became director of the Stage Association and directed Mushanokōji's *His Younger Sister*.
He married that year but soon divorced by mutual agreement.
Through Dr. Yamagishi's recommendation, he became a lecturer at Waseda University.

1918.
Nothing worth recording occurred.
Yet as he had continued studying with earnest diligence, he began to feel something within him was finally starting to take shape.

1919.
He published *Professor Tsumura* in Teikoku Bungaku.
It received not a single line of criticism and was completely ignored.
He married Honda Hanako.

1920.
He published "The Crown of Life" in the January issue of Ningen.
It was performed at the Meiji-za in February.
The following month, it received additional performances at Osaka's Naniwa-za.
He gained recognition as a playwright for the first time.
He published a play collection titled *The Crown of Life* through Shinchosha, combining it with *Professor Tsumura*.
This marked the first compilation of the author's works into book form.
In April, he published *Infanticide* in Daiichi Gi.
In October, Bungei-za gave *Professor Tsumura* its premiere performance.
He co-founded the Playwrights Association with Kikuchi, Kume, Okamoto, Mr. Nakamura, and others.
He was thirty-four years old that year.

The following year, 1921.
He published *Sakazaki Dewa no Kami*.
The following month, it premiered at the Ichimura-za.
*Infanticide*
was premiered at Yūraku-za.

1922.
*The Mother*
*The Mother* premiered at the Imperial Theatre.
When Okura Kihachiro bought out the Imperial Theatre for a night and had parts of *The Mother* altered for performance, Yamamoto stood up with the Playwrights Association to condemn this violation, ultimately forcing the Imperial Theatre to apologize.
That same year saw him compile the Schnitzler anthology and donate all royalties.

1923.
Resigned as lecturer at Waseda University.
*Comrades*, *Umibiko Yamabiko*, and others.

1924.
After theater magazines were devastated by the earthquake disaster, the Playwrights Association spearheaded the publication of *Engeki Shincho* through Shinchosha.
He was recommended to serve as its editor-in-chief for one year.
*Kumagai Rennobō*; *Ōiso ga Yoi*
*The Maid’s Illness*; *The Life of Susanoo*.

1925.
Since Shochiku Kinema’s film *Sakazaki Dewa no Kami* had clearly infringed upon the copyright of the play *Sakazaki Dewa no Kami*, he filed a lawsuit against President Ōtani with support from the Playwrights Association. Moved by mediation efforts from members of the National Literary Arts Association, they reached a settlement.
The funds submitted by Shochiku at that time were donated to the Playwrights Association under the condition of being used for the Copyright Law Revision Movement.

1926.
He worked diligently to merge the Playwrights Association and the Novelists Association, establishing the new Literary Artists Association.
In this year, when the author turned forty, his first novel, *Living Beings*, began serialization in the Tōzai Asahi Shimbun.
Subsequently, numerous plays (including *Woman’s Lament*) and novels such as *Waves* (1928) and *Wind* (1930) were published.
The final entry of that chronology, which ends in 1931, was concluded as follows.

"In response to the government’s Copyright Law Amendment Bill submitted to the Diet, the Literary Artists Association presented their own proposal and pressed for revisions."
In relation to this, he authored "The Fundamental Tenets of Our Position" (primarily concerning unauthorized reprinting in textbooks under the Copyright Law) in the Tokyo Asahi Shimbun.
Our opinions were almost entirely accepted, and the aforementioned bill passed the House of Peers at the end of February.
Its passage through the House of Representatives was all but assured.
He published the play collection *Woman’s Lament* through Shirokuro Shoin.
*Wind* remained ongoing.
“Scheduled for completion by the end of March.”
Following that, after *A Woman’s Life* and *The Path of Truth*, *The Stone by the Wayside* was currently being serialized in both the Eastern and Western Asahi Shimbun newspapers.

Now, what impression would readers gain from this outline of an autobiography? Here lay the figure of a man possessing tenacity that took firm root in life—an indomitable spirit planting his feet steadfastly against the waves of this transient world. There was the figure of a man who, through efforts recognized as legitimate by society—efforts born of his own striving—would not allow what he had achieved to be infringed upon from without without reason. There existed the figure of a tenacious human nature that did not forget to record the daily kindnesses received on life’s path and could not forget throughout life the unjust contempt and neglect encountered on that same journey. When someone underestimated him and tried to move him lightly, he flew into a fierce rage; yet when approached with thorough reason and consideration in a manner that also preserved his dignity, his resolve to push through wavered—there emerged the semblance of a scrupulous, common-sense citizen. Through many bitter tears and wounded defiance in his fifty-year life, the assertion of his existence had been made. In the preface to *Living Beings*, this author wrote: “I believe that all who are born into this world—regardless of their form—must in some sense reach toward the sun.” These words carried the resonance of one who had endured a soundless yet fearsome competition—struggling against adverse circumstances to secure a survival seat bearing his nameplate within this contradiction-ridden society.

Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō appears to have gradually grasped what could be called the core theme of his art—a theme derived from the life experiences that led him to his present-day success through such means.
It is a consistent moral framework that acknowledges—as a precondition—the inevitability of the utterly mundane struggle for existence arising from conventional social structures among individuals, yet ultimately asserts that life’s significance lies not in immediate human victories or defeats. Rather, life’s value resides within the sincerity, duty, endeavor, and profound emotion of those who single-mindedly pursue what must be done: “Advancing without misdirecting what one is born with—this constitutes discipline.”
The play *Kumagai Rennobō*, while by no means an outstanding work among this author’s scripts, possesses an indispensable quality in that it transparently reveals Yamamoto’s life and artistic framework as described above.
Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō, setting out from this core lifelong theme, seeks to explore and depict—within the daily conflicts of small factory owners, elementary and middle school teachers, university instructors, lower- to mid-level salaried workers, and working women—the substance, process, and consequences of what humans ought to do as moral beings.
In his plays, while the subject matter at times reaches back to mythology, returns to feudal warrior life, and spans from Saigō Nanshū to O-Kichi, the fundamental themes remain unchanged.
And as for the characters and casting—at least from *Professor Tsumura* to *The Path of Truth*—while there are some differences between novels and plays, even these cannot help but reveal to any moderately attentive reader a recurrence of wives who have had romantic entanglements with men other than their husbands.
The man who acts out of an awareness of moral duty toward such women.
Moreover, through entanglements involving motherless sons, resentful sons, children born unwanted, and those of uncertain parentage emerge variations on obligations requiring fulfillment.

The characteristic clarity of Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō’s prose had already been sufficiently recognized as one of this author’s merits. Taking a step closer and viewing it literarily, the plainness of this author’s prose lay not in vivid three-dimensional imagery evoked through sharp description, but rather in explanatory writing that earnestly conveyed the author’s intentions through easily digestible language. Literary fragrance proved sorely lacking. Yet within the scope of what the author intended his characters to express, their words came thoroughly masticated for easy comprehension. Alongside this highly valued clarity, even the human speech presented by this author showed remarkably faint personality tones—the characters themselves lacked distinctive hues.

In stark contrast to figures seemingly carved raw from reality—those occasionally demonstrating physical,sensory movements threatening to overpower their creator—each character emerged before us readers through a refined sieve: speaking and acting as narrative devices to develop circumstances woven by author Yamamoto Yūzō.When closely examining the reality within these works, we discovered that the substance of morality, justice,and sincerity—subjectively presented by this writer as central themes supposedly demanded by society—rotated like ill-fitting gears against society’s objective justice and morality.This objective morality must inevitably be acknowledged to enable their realization,yet stood fundamentally at odds with the author’s professed ideals.

Among this author’s famous novels, there is one titled *A Woman’s Life*.
This work was created about four years ago, around the time when Japan’s entire leftist movement began to be forced into historic decline.

If you go to a bookstore and ask for *A Woman’s Life*, the clerk will bring out Maupassant’s *A Woman’s Life*.
But it was precisely in bestowing the same title as this masterpiece that one discerned Mr. Yamamoto’s lofty ambition as an author.
It is self-evident that Mr. Yamamoto sought to show us a woman’s life distinct from that depicted by Maupassant in *A Woman’s Life*.
Confined within France’s Catholic convent education, a noble daughter—like a white, fragile petal of innocence—was deceived by her husband from the very first day of marriage, later abandoned by her son, and met a tragic end in this world.
Rather than such a passive existence, this work attempted to portray through Yoshiko’s way of life a woman’s purposeful and determined existence—one where she chooses her own path, takes responsibility for it, and strives to fulfill herself both as a human being and as a woman.

Yoshiko deeply suffered when a close friend became the lover of a man she had cherished since childhood. However, she came to criticize societal customs that assumed women of marriageable age had no life outside marriage, adopting a mindset that viewed marriage itself as “merely an incident in life at best.” Motivated by her brother’s marriage, Yoshiko began studying medicine.
Yoshiko likened herself to a milk bottle, reasoning that to prevent it from being overturned by minor emotional turmoil, she needed to fit a heavy metal frame around its base.
Difficult academic pursuits and challenging professions were, so to speak, such metal frames.
“Only with this foundation,” she concluded, “could the bottle stand upright on its own.”

Yoshiko had become a medical student through motivations she couldn't wholeheartedly accept. As she neared graduation from her professional school, she began suffering intensely from life's emptiness and dryness, when once again a question surfaced before her.
"If there were no one doing this dirty work," she thought, "academic progress would never advance—but does a woman like me really need to do such things?"
If not tasks even men could perform—if it must be work only women can do—then what exactly was that?
In Yoshiko's newly skeptical mind—she who had chosen medicine's difficult path to anchor her precarious self—there now floated an image of her childhood friend as a young mother carrying the child born between them.
Until now she had believed herself decisively superior to Yumiko through her pursuit of advanced scholarship, but Yoshiko suddenly felt as though she'd plunged into an abyss.
The author's tenaciously conscious sense of victory and defeat—and his unshakable view that "a woman exists through a man"—stood sharply etched here.

Yoshiko formed a bond with Kōsō, a German language teacher, in such an internal state.
This suddenly advanced relationship filled Yoshiko with unease, yet she reasoned: "If he were someone of unknown character, that would be different."
"If he were a man with neither status nor character, then of course I would have to consider it."
"However, the other party is a university graduate."
She found reassurance in the fact that "He’s a high school instructor."

When Yoshiko discovered her own pregnancy and requested formal marriage，Kōsō—who had a sick wife he had not told Yoshiko about—pressured her to have an abortion.
Yoshiko strongly rejected this.
It’s not so much fear of breaking national law that terrifies me—it’s the dread of withering what has sprouted within my womb.
If it can somehow be raised，then for that purpose—even if I must endure humiliation—the life that is to be born must be brought into this world.
And so，Yoshiko gave birth to her first child as an illegitimate child.
The boy who was born was named Yoshio.
Yoshio!
Yoshio! For Yoshiko，Yoshio was more important than anything else.
Before long，Kōsō’s wife died of illness，and Yoshiko lost her job.
As her life with a child began to be threatened，Yoshiko thought：When all was said and done，wasn’t being a housewife the only truly secure occupation left for a woman?
With this，I’d never have to worry about putting food on the table for my entire life—she had even turned down a marriage proposal to become a doctor’s second wife after his wife passed away，yet now found herself wondering：Perhaps I didn’t need to reject it so hastily after all.
But if I were to marry someone，rather than a complete stranger...
[she could marry] Kōsō—someone whose temperament she already understood—and completely wash away the past...
She thought they could become husband and wife.

Even after starting a family with Kōsō, Yoshiko continued working as a doctor, but upon realizing a mother needed to be home for a child’s education, she quit her job.
"When asked, ‘Which do you prefer, Papa or Mama?’ I wonder if I can answer ‘Both are fine.’"
The life of doting parents and an only son unfolded through the author’s patient prose, addressing matters from childhood curiosity to sex education like a parenting manual.

Yoshio now became a young man.
The twenty years that made Yoshio a second-year high school student gradually transformed Kōsō and Yoshiko’s lives too, leading them to build a compact wooden Western-style house in the suburbs.
The house stood completed, financial stability was secured, Yoshio’s academic performance remained excellent, and harmony filled the home.

However, while Yoshiko had lived devoting all her care to preventing Yoshio from catching colds, the times had grown increasingly turbulent. Even when Yoshio returned late, Kōsō and Yoshiko would think, “Surely such a thing couldn’t be happening...” “It’s just a passing trend,” they would mutter, remaining vigilant against their son turning red as they searched his study. “If he seems to be reading Heine’s *Atta Troll*, we must be extremely vigilant.” “Of course. If we leave it be, that would spell real trouble.” Despite such vigilance, just as the very fear they voiced—“If only we didn’t have to worry about red influences, there’d be nothing else to fear”—began to materialize, their son was arrested. Yoshiko met her son at the police station and attempted to sway him emotionally by disclosing matters such as the risk to his father’s position and revealing the name of one of his close friends.

After being released, Yoshio tried to make Yoshiko read Gorky's *Mother* and similar works, but Yoshiko's reasoning—"Our lives and upbringings are too different"—could not simply convince her that "seizing hold of my son like this was wrong."
Contrary to Pavel's mother [in Gorky's *Mother*], she persisted in believing that "suppressing a son leaning toward radicalism was precisely a mother's duty under present circumstances."

Yoshio had finally left home.
Kōsō died in grief.

Yoshiko, during her subsequent life of unending anxiety, one day watched the film Over the Hill and resolved to make a fresh start.
Stimulated by the ineptitude of the mother’s way of life in Over the Hill, Yoshiko thought: Isn’t it wrong for women to have nothing beyond their children as they grow older?
Mothers shouldn’t cross the hill into a nursing home—they must cross a more important hill. Women have two childbirths.
The physical childbirth and another childbirth.
Through physical childbirth, a woman becomes a mother.
And through another childbirth, a mother becomes fully human.
Yoshiko came to realize through this that children are born into society, and mothers must live within society.
And amidst long suffering, she recognized light for the first time and resolved to return to her original work.
This work, far more ambitious than *Waves* or *Wind*, concludes with Yoshiko—the woman doctor who took in a certain laborer’s baby—listening contentedly to the cheerful calls of early morning radio calisthenics.

I could not help but profoundly sense the significance of that youthful era's pressures—the very forces that elevated and empowered this author's social consciousness up to this work. Yamamoto Yūzō, galvanized by social provocations and conflicts that denied his spirit complacency, shattered the limitations that had confined previous Japanese novels of this kind to climaxes of human drama tragedies. Alongside the first childbirth, he definitively anchored within common understanding the necessity of a "second childbirth."

There is no doubt that this work stands out among at least the previous works written by the same author in that it actively addresses the author’s primary theme of what ought to be done.

Now, I would like to dive back into this work once more together with the readers and examine it.
And I would like to consider one or two questions that have been imprinted on my mind.
It would be unreasonable to criticize Yamamoto Yūzō for not objectively critiquing and observing the parental sentiment of "as long as they don't become red."
Perhaps behind this narrative technique—where the author abruptly had Kōsō, a father who held a relatively liberal stance, die midway through in such a commonplace manner, treating these ideologies as pressures of the times—lay Yamamoto’s own unspoken hardships, such as being summoned by the Metropolitan Police Department during the writing of this work.
As readers, we today maintain a well-measured restraint regarding such points; yet for Mr. Yamamoto—operating within the scope of this author’s professed stance—how is it that the evaluation of conventional notions of good and evil in Yoshiko’s world, alongside the uncomprehending separation from the historical significance of Yoshio’s actions, remains undifferentiated and not deepened even an inch beyond worldly divides?
The author depicts Yoshiko as a woman who once fought against an unjust town doctor out of a sense of justice.
He depicts her as a young woman who refused to have an abortion not out of fear of legal sanctions, but because her heart would not allow it.
Yoshiko is someone who cannot help but feel public outrage at the tax evasion and bribery incidents reported in the newspapers.
She was a mother who tried to teach her son the truth and, as a mother in today’s Japan, had even ventured into sex education in the most progressive manner.
That Yoshiko cannot act like Pavel’s mother is understandable given her petit bourgeois environment; yet if she truly lives harboring infinite love for her child, such “naive about the world,” “single-minded”...
I think it is precisely in the pure hearts of these young people—driven by the irrationalities of this society to plunge into various hardships—that there first lies an unbearably poignant torrent of tears.
Yoshiko’s heart—which, believing herself to be in the right, had endured humiliation to bear an illegitimate child—becomes thoroughly conventional when facing her son, unwittingly conflating her desire to “make him someone who loves truth and lives authentically” with her wish for him to “stand at society’s core and work splendidly.”
This conflation is not something the author deliberately addressed; rather, what lay within him had spontaneously manifested its reflection within the work.

Human society—this life—should indeed be such that the daily lives of people who “love truth and lead authentic lives” must directly coincide with their “standing at society’s core and working splendidly.” However, the reality of today’s society was such that within this socially harmonious life, it nearly completely deprived each person of the possibility to develop their innate talents honestly and without error. I believe it was precisely because there existed a ceaseless conflict between working splendidly at society’s core and loving truth while leading an authentic life that modern earnest youths suffered. There existed the deep sorrow and heartache of such youths’ parents. And was it not precisely those who bore such pain that constituted the majority of readers drawn to Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō’s novels? Amidst these social contradictions, what must one do to live humanly? How should one live? I think the theme that Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō had consistently maintained within his art for over a decade had now become, with new breadth, a theme in the lives of many people.

Fundamentally, this author has repeatedly explored parental attitudes toward "one’s own child" with distinctive tenacity. In *Waves*, the author argues that children should ultimately be viewed as belonging to society and that the parent-child relationship resembles a medicine ball. He reached the conclusion: "The foremost thing is to pass it to the next person without dropping or dirtying it." In *A Woman’s Life*, the passage of about five years has further likened parents whose expectations were betrayed to those disillusioned by stock market losses. In response to Yoshiko’s disappointment, her old childhood friend Shōjirō states:

“(Omitted) The child turns out well.”
“So they pour their investment funds into sending them to university.”
“They dreamt of their child’s success, only for them to stray onto a wayward path.”
“Couldn’t it be that their calculations went completely awry, making things turn out that way?”
“There are often people who lose their minds after stock failures—that seems rather similar in essence.”
“It’s like investing in their son, waiting for his value to rise, then suddenly getting hit by a crash.”

The author acknowledged that even when attempts to raise a steadfast child failed to go as planned, it was not solely the mother's fault.
The era when children's matters could be resolved entirely within the home had passed.
The author also acknowledged this fact.
But regarding readers' most pressing question—what moral connection existed between the necessity of these so-called wayward youths' divergence and conventional notions of good and evil—author Yamamoto Yūzō evasively remarked, "Young people want to climb high mountains that no one has ever scaled before."
Through expressions like "Why they want to attempt such dangerous, laborious things remains beyond us older folks' understanding," he cunningly sidestepped the issue.

In *The Crown of Life*—written by this author in 1920 and what could be called his breakthrough work—how did Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō bring to life its tragic protagonist Arimura Tsunetarō?
This protagonist declared: “A merchant’s duty isn’t merely to make profits.”
“A merchant’s primary duty is to uphold contracts.”
“(Omitted) Whether money follows or not, one must do what needs to be done,” he declared, and for the sake of fulfilling the transaction contract with Britain, he allowed himself to be bankrupted by business rivals without hesitation.
The author wholeheartedly supported this protagonist and had one of the characters, a doctor, clearly state the following.

“It is not that one refrains from doing bad things because bad results will come.”
“Regardless of the outcome, people must do what they must do.”
“Hey, Mr. Arimura.”
“Don’t you agree?”

The problem of today’s social evils that Yoshiko too acknowledged was never just individual mosquito larvae—as stated in *Waves*—but lay in “the ditch where mosquito larvae breed.” “As long as that large ditch remains uncleaned,” she observed through gritted teeth while adjusting her stethoscope’s earpieces absentmindedly during clinic hours she could barely afford due to rising medical supply costs exacerbated by wartime inflation yet never mentioned explicitly within Yamamoto’s bourgeois narrative framework despite his purported social consciousness—though this last thought remained unspoken—“the mosquito larvae will never cease to exist.”

So how should that cleaning be carried out? In his 1928 work *Wind*, Yamamoto had Motoko articulate this idea through clenched teeth that betrayed her suppressed rage at patriarchal structures masquerading as moral imperatives: “Life flows through fields like a river—not railway tracks.” Her calloused fingers traced imaginary currents across a faded map of rural Nagano prefecture hanging askew on her clinic wall—a memento from her abandoned pediatrics practice after Yoshio’s arrest.

“People think rivers flow between existing banks,” she continued while sterilizing surgical tools with unnecessary vigor—the metallic clangs punctuating her words—“but banks form because rivers flow first.” Her scalpel flashed under lamplight as she dissected Yamamoto’s metaphor: “Even if you forbid straying from these banks”—the blade sliced through imaginary levees—“the river changes course through water’s force and terrain’s contours.”

She paused—the sudden silence making her medical students shift uncomfortably—before delivering Yamamoto’s thesis like a diagnosis: “This applies equally to nations and societies.” Her pointer stick jabbed at concrete levees on an imported German hydrological diagram—purchased with royalties from Schnitzler translations Yamamoto had donated but whose provenance Motoko would never know.

“Laws and morals resemble great riverbanks.” Her chalk screeched across slate-blackboard grooves worn by decades of lectures on bourgeois ethics she now subverted: “People build high embankments and concrete levees”—the chalk snapped—“to maintain flow constancy once rivers form.” She discarded the broken piece like obsolete legislation.

“But structures opposing currents”—her remaining chalk stub circled hypothetical flood zones—“will inevitably be breached when great floods come.” A student sneezed—she ignored it—“Sometimes”—her voice dropped conspiratorially—“the river abandons levees entirely”—chalk dust swirled like sediment—“surges new directions.”

She gestured westward where real levees confined the Tone River—its waters swollen with spring melt from mountains where Yoshio’s student cell distributed banned pamphlets under cover of logging operations Yamamoto’s novels never acknowledged—“You see this often”—her pointer stick trembled slightly—“in countryside remnants continuing like forgotten relics”—she indicated crumbling Edo-period flood controls visible through her clinic window—“symbols of defunct laws”—the stick tapped glass—“obsolete morality.”

The flow of a river may manifest as a massive pressure of water in motion, but there always exists that water along its banks—a vanguard force that ceaselessly gnaws at and rubs against the embankments day and night, inevitably altering its course according to necessity. Why could the author of *A Woman's Life* not acknowledge the significance of this riverside water—which strikes the banks with concentrated core pressure, and at times lies buried beneath the soil of embankments destroyed by the river's force?

“In any case, life is...”
The author, who took up the notion that “life is fundamental” and that “ideology is something far deeper than a mother’s love or familial affection,” observed with a sense of both astonishment and dread how the younger generation’s focus had turned toward society.
In the past, people feared “earthquake, thunder, fire, and father,” but now Kōsō’s wry smile let slip the phrase “earthquake, thunder, fire, and son”—a sentiment that could not be said to belong to Kōsō alone.

From the conclusion that Yoshiko—who prided herself on being a good mother—must nevertheless face her son leaving home regardless of maternal competence, I recognized provisional positive meaning in her psychological process of reestablishing professional independence as a doctor, while simultaneously sensing how this reflected within the author’s inner world both the deepening conflict of interests and separation emerging within contemporary middle-class families, along with parents’ petty bourgeois instinct to defend their conventional lifestyle against their children’s autonomy.
For instance, considering solely Yoshio’s departure from his parental home due to external circumstances, this constituted mere physical separation rather than filial abandonment.
Yet Yoshiko simultaneously perceived both her son’s flight and their own abandonment—a dual perception the author embedded within her subjective experience without critique.
Yoshiko utterly failed to examine why they must feel discarded despite supposedly having been model parents—the very crux of authentic human relational nuance demanding introspection.
I deemed this an uncharacteristic negligence from an author of his caliber.
Why did Yoshiko not contemplate what constitutes fundamental human estrangement before resigning herself to believing her child had been alienated since birth?
How could this writer—whose hallmark lay in pursuing truth through human connections—overlook that Yoshiko’s selfish insistence on reclaiming only her biological child estranged Yoshio at his core? Why did he avoid confronting Yoshio’s public indignation toward his own mother—no less than his flesh-and-blood parent—who betrayed his shielded comrade’s identity while single-mindedly protecting her progeny?
Perhaps he could not elucidate through his trademark moral earnestness—for countless mothers’ sake—that precisely because she was his mother, Yoshio endured amplified agony and resentment culminating in spiritual matricide.
This constitutes precisely the variety of human ethical dilemma demanding this author’s engagement—an issue central to his literary mission.
Such morality transcends questions about Powell’s maternal status or lack thereof.
Parents who maintain steadfast affection while mutually wounding each other through grand existential perspectives on fate do exist in our world—albeit rarely.

In *A Woman’s Life*, even Yoshiko’s most significant “second childbirth”—meant to symbolize her refusal to remain a helpless mother clinging solely to her child—was presented through a narrative emphasizing her daily struggle against dependency. Yet the work entirely omitted what should have followed this maternal awakening: had the swelling and expansion of a mother’s love—fortified by her admirable resolve that “a mother exists to give birth and create”—been truly coupled with love’s astonishing wisdom, attempts at new spiritual rapprochement with her estranged son would naturally have emerged. I found this omission deeply regrettable.

In the steadfastness of Yoshiko’s second childbirth, even as the author touched upon her humanitarian medical work, there flowed an inexplicable rigidity—a chill emanating from the depths of a woman resolved to protect herself—that left one wondering about its nature.

The relationship with her son remained severed at the core of their shared existence—a reality accepted as such—and the image of Yoshiko standing straight-backed lacked richness in human depth.

I doubt I am alone in sensing parallels between the maternal emotions depicted in Ms. Nogami Yaeko’s *The Young Son* and those of Yoshiko’s case.
The mother in *The Young Son* was also the mother of a high school student.
She too belonged to a household free from material anxieties.
Though fundamentally a petty bourgeois mother who detested the notion of her son being hauled away and had secretly striven to prevent such an outcome, on the eve of the inevitable event she whispered with bloodless lips to her departing son: “It’ll get cold—don’t catch a chill. Mother...”
“Mother...”

These were fragmented, disordered words.
However, through unsevered love, this mother unwittingly edged closer to something within her son’s heart.

Following the words in *Waves*, I thought Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō was one author attempting to pour clear water into this filthy great ditch we called society.
The readers who loved this writer had to keenly recognize—precisely because of that very reason they themselves were cherished by him—that the life themes characteristic of this author were approaching a certain crisis amid those complex circumstances.
The spirit of doing what one must as a human—portrayed in works like *The Crown of Life* with the lofty resolve to transcend worldly suffering—became significantly entangled in *A Woman’s Life*, emerging without being able to indicate a clear direction.
By the time we reached *The Path of Truth*, the thematic curve that delineated this author’s core had lost its substantial force.
In *The Path of Truth*, the substance of Morikawa Yoshihira’s chosen way of life—based on his subjective perspective—possessed far less social relevance than the actions of Arimura Tsunetarō in *The Crown of Life*, rendering it impoverished.
In *The Path of Truth*, this protagonist could only confess at the end of his life that what he had believed to be his duty had in reality been a series of errors.
When one became aware that their conventional way of life was mistaken, there was no fervor in Professor Tsumura to endure catastrophe in order to avoid compounding errors.
In this work, even the life of Mutsumi—whom the author described as “a person who was happy in a certain sense”—began with a mistaken start in life, descended into nihilistic collapse, and found only a modicum of happiness in being able to share that destruction with a man she loved.

*The Stone by the Wayside* was now being serialized in the Tōzai Asahi newspaper, but I found myself intrigued to see with what new resolve and preparation Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō would answer the question gnawing at his readers' hearts: how one should live in those times.
Where did happiness lie for someone both as a person and as an artist?
Especially in that world where an increasingly enormous contradiction had emerged between “loving truth and conducting a truthful life” and “working admirably at society’s central institutions.”
In the pasture where Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō’s moral principles had been grazing all along—no matter how diligently one cultivated only those conventional grasses discussed in his artistic theories—a calcium deficiency had come to be felt with inexplicable prominence.
This had already become manifest in *A Woman’s Life* through the impossibility of establishing any meaningful assessment of social value between what Yoshiko believed she should do for her son and what her son deemed necessary.
As stated in art theory—that art does not copy what exists but rather depicts what ought to be—if Mr. Yamamoto’s art were to limit itself to merely replicating middle-class life’s existing thoughts and emotions when portraying it, I believe he as an author could never have permitted himself such restraint.

If there existed any external force preventing Mr. Yamamoto Yūzō from writing, it ought to have made this author—who wrote *Infanticide* and composed the essay "Where to Appeal"—increasingly conscious with acute urgency that "just as a circle can only form after meticulously stacking countless squares, people must cry out for justice time and again before attaining that noble state of mind transcending justice" (in progress).
[June 1937]