Pathway to Japanese Literature

Last year, I heard that Kobayashi Hideo fell from Suidobashi Station’s platform and miraculously escaped death. According to accounts, he had been dead drunk while swinging a large sake bottle and tumbled down with it. When I heard this story, I found myself gripped by unease. This was because I had convinced myself that Kobayashi—this bony, meticulous man who seemed impervious to any method of preparation—would never suffer such indignities as being struck by cars or plunging into rivers. Yet this conviction itself amounted to a desperate sort of blind faith, born from my own excessive history of being hit by vehicles and tumbling into waterways. When I reflect on it, this blind faith sprang from my own profound carelessness—after all, my past experiences had provided the clearest possible evidence against believing such things.

Sixteen or seventeen years ago, there was a Buddhist service for a relative in Echigo, and I left my home in Tokyo wearing a morning coat.
At Ueno Station, I happened to meet Kobayashi Hideo. He was on his way to give a lecture at Niigata High School, so the two of us boarded the dining car of the Joetsu Line and continued drinking until we reached Echigo-Kawaguchi, the small station where I was to get off.
For someone like me with a weak stomach, there’s no more comfortable place to drink than a dining car; the constant swaying keeps the alcohol from settling heavily in my stomach, allowing me to enjoy a pleasant drunk.
I got drunk, and Kobayashi did as well.
Kobayashi, despite his stern face, was at heart a kind and considerate man; when we arrived at the station where I was to disembark, he said, “Ah, I’ll carry that for you,” hoisted my luggage, and strode ahead.
There, I picked up the luggage that Kobayashi had hefted onto the station steps with a grunt, said, “Ah, thank you,” and disembarked to part ways.
I was impressed that this small station in the mountain hamlet truly lived up to its reputation as a place where people don’t get on or off—first of all, there wasn’t even a station attendant.
There wasn’t a soul in sight.
This was another thoroughly deserted station—since people didn’t get on or off there, the platform wasn’t even a few shaku wide.
Right behind me was a freight train.
Before long, after the train Kobayashi was on had passed, on the opposite side where the train had vanished appeared an actual platform one level higher than where I stood.
People were indeed milling about in great numbers.
At that time, I was stunned.
Since I had not gotten off on the opposite side of the platform, it was Kobayashi Hideo who had set me down.

Thus, even back then—sixteen or seventeen years ago—there had already been ample basis to believe that Kobayashi Hideo was precisely the sort of man who might tumble from Suidobashi Station. Yet I had convinced myself of the exact opposite, for no other reason than my own recklessness as a reader: I had let Kobayashi’s writings deceive me, warping my very capacity for insight.

Upon reflection, Kobayashi’s writing possesses a peculiar genius for warping one’s insight.
I have played Go with Kobayashi before. He would give me a five-stone handicap—though in truth, he should have given more, but he refused to go beyond five, saying it would look bad—and he never engaged in what you might call a quarrel.
In handicap Go, he adhered strictly to textbook standard moves, focusing solely on securing territory and never employing aggressive interference tactics.
He played Go that was textbook to the core—to the point where one felt almost guilty for aggressively harassing him.
Go is said to be less capable of concealing one’s character than writing, and though the Kobayashi of literature appears like a Dogmatic Sensei, I had thought from that moment on that he was truly a formulaic orthodox.
However, the force of verisimilitude arising from the literal surface of his writing still had the power to distort my insight—which, in essence, stems from his belief that his conviction in his own writing (and the very act of believing) is the fundamental force that brings that literature into existence, and that he had mastered this belief exactly as professed—or so I think.

When I revisit his old critical works now—starting with his essay on Shiga Naoya and including his other pieces on writers—many of them strike me as rather slipshod.
However, at that time, that approach fulfilled its role.
We must not forget the great literary role he fulfilled—that it was not so much that he was immature, but rather that we, that Japan was immature; Japan learned Kobayashi’s methods and grew alongside him, and though lately the master’s flaws have come to grate on us inversely, the very fact that we’ve come to understand Kobayashi’s flaws is itself due to having learned his methods.

“That era is not at all distant.”
“Because I practically believe it.”
“And furthermore, I considered how Zeami conceived of beauty in such an era when forced concepts did not run rampant, and found nothing questionable about it.”
“After exhausting all quantity and ingenuity, one must discern where the flower does not vanish.”
“There is a beautiful ‘flower.’”
“‘There is no such thing as the “beauty” of “flower.”’”
“Modern aestheticians who agonize over the ambiguity of his ‘flower’ concept are merely being deceived.”
(Taima)

What he claims to be Zeami’s method is precisely his own method, and the attitude he has convinced himself of regarding Zeami is none other than the attitude he demands from readers concerning his own literature.

It came down to this: “Because I believe it.”
Because there was nothing questionable about Zeami’s conception of beauty, he declared that conceptual ambiguity itself constituted reality.
There is a beautiful “flower.”
“There is no such thing as the ‘beauty’ of ‘flower.’”

I never cared for such clever turns of phrase.
Wasn’t this just wordplay?
When I was in middle school, I’d been assigned to interpret a Chinese classics passage on an exam: “In Japan, what is abundant is people. In Japan, what is scarce is also people.” It had rankled me—instead of forcing us to parse such affected wordplay, why not simply state: “Japan has many people but few true individuals”?
We ought to value this attitude of clear expression—phrases like “Japan has many people but few true individuals” were nothing but puns, and we must strive to eradicate such trivial modes of expression.

There is a beautiful "flower."
The expression "there is no such thing as the 'beauty' of 'flower'" differs from "there are many people but few true individuals" in that this one does adhere to meaning in its own way; however, Kobayashi has an ingrained habit of toying with ambiguity, rooted in his self-convinced infatuation with clever turns of phrase and his meticulously composed demeanor.

When he states—so aptly—that even the ambiguity of concepts about beauty holds nothing questionable for Zeami, this demonstrates the very esoteric teachings that have sustained the ambiguity of his own literary concepts, which he himself has never questioned.
Truly, this is the esoteric teaching of the Kobayashi school.

In the end, Kobayashi had recently mastered these esoteric teachings to such an extent that a single line of sacred text held more truth than life itself. Thus, just as a martial artist who attained secret mastery would no longer grasp the sword—choosing instead to detour around a wild horse tethered mid-path like a sage avoiding peril—he reached enlightenment and became akin to the founder of some such-and-such cult.
Kobayashi Hideo too became a cult leader.

However, swordsmanship was originally a discipline of grappling; it was not a tool for enlightenment where one would use grappling techniques before being grappled by an opponent. But if you went to Kobayashi Hideo to learn swordsmanship, he would tell you not to bother studying swordsmanship at all—instead, devise ways to avoid approaching danger. That, he taught, was swordsmanship. This was the literature of the so-called Kobayashi school.

“Living humans are such hopeless creatures. What they’re thinking, what they’ll say next, what they’ll do—whether it’s their own affairs or others’—has there ever been a clear instance where someone understood? They are unfit for either appreciation or observation. When it comes to that, dead humans are truly remarkable. Why is it that they come into such sharp, solid focus? They truly assume human form. So then, living humans must be a kind of animal in the process of becoming human, I suppose.”
(‘Impermanence’)—that was his conclusion.

Thus, in history, only the dead appeared.
Thus, he declared, only the inescapable human visage failed to emerge, and only unshakably beautiful forms emerged.
He declared that merely observing living humans or stripping away their masks brought nothing but divine punishment.
Thus, when one went to Kobayashi to learn literature, things like life and literature vanished like clouds—for he had already mastered esoteric teachings, stood as a revered cult leader, and offered a profound phrase steeped in enlightenment.

Kobayashi, who declares that “living humans are impossible to predict—what they might do next is anyone’s guess—and are unfit for either appreciation or observation,” therefore places his trust in the realm of the dead known as history and speaks of such things as “Historical Inevitability.”

“Historical Inevitability,” you say?
Ah yes—history is inevitable, is it?

No matter how deeply you probe why Saigyō took monastic vows, the mystery remains just that—a mystery yielding nothing of substance. Why Sanetomo built ships? Such matters hold no consequence. That he served as Minister of the Right or Shogun? Irrelevant trifles. One must look solely at the poet, he declares.

This explains why a third-rate writer like Sakaguchi Ango might chase women, drown himself in drink, occasionally attempt monastic life, spend five years pining only to panic upon finally kissing someone and dispatch a breakup letter ending in heartbreak—and lately, with all this decadent posturing, who knows what fresh idiocy he’ll commit?
Naturally unworthy of appreciation.
“No matter what that wretch has done,” he insists, “those acts reveal nothing of his true nature.”
This verdict comes as no surprise.
To grasp what that wretch truly is, one need only read his third-rate novels.
When confronted by the Cult Leader, such pitiful specimens—third-rate writers laid bare—are toyed with and contemptuously cast aside: a spectacle of utter wretchedness.

However, the third-rate writer devotes himself entirely to falling for women and drinking himself ragged, giving no thought whatsoever to things like posthumous fame.
As for Mr. André Gide—who stands as master to the Cult Leader’s own teacher—and his claim that “my literature will be understood fifty years later”: nonsense! Even were I beloved after death, that would amount to nothing more than a trifling anecdote. When I die, I end.
Together with me, my literature ends.
Because I end.
I am nothing more than that.

He declares, “You never know what those alive might do.”
One truly never can tell.
That supposed inevitable path—where if things stand thus now, they must proceed thus next—simply doesn’t exist for living humans.
Even dead people were no different when alive.
Just as there’s no inevitability in humans, there exists no such thing as historical inevitability anywhere.
Humanity and history are one.
History has already concluded; those within it can no longer act—yet that they threaded through every possibility and chance remains undeniable proof of their humanity.

In history, only the dead appear—so to claim that they reveal the most precarious human aspect and display unwavering beauty is an outright lie.
If the traces of the dead are inescapably precarious, then what living humans do is equally inescapably precarious.
If what living humans do were not inescapably precarious, then the footprints of the dead would not have been inescapably precarious either—there can be no distinction between the living and the dead.

In other words, the Cult Leader was neither an original thinker nor a creator.
The Cult Leader was essentially an appraiser.
It was no wonder the Cult Leader had lately taken to loving antiques—for as I had discerned through that game of Go, he was by nature a formulaic dogmatist, an advocate of standard moves, a conservative, and a conformist. The dead, at least, had already died; there was no worry of them slipping and falling. But when it came to the living—who knew what they’d do? Even without any intent to cause trouble like the Cult Leader, they might slip off the platform—who knew where ambushes lay hidden?
Truly, living was such a troublesome affair.

This was why the Cult Leader’s methods required a mold—formulas and fixed rules. The dead and history no longer slipped their footing, so they could be neatly prepared within this mold. But the living? You never knew when they’d break those rules—such creatures were unfit for appreciation.
He concocted a monstrous seasoning like “Historical Inevitability” and wielded his culinary skills.
The cooking of living beings was repulsive—no matter how you boiled or grilled such things, they were no good, unfit for appreciation.
The seasoning didn’t take.

The Cult Leader’s cooking was far too self-centered.
What’s more, while it sported a grotesque, unparalleled flavor, at its core this cooking remained conservative—adhering strictly to mold, formula, and common sense itself.

Living humans—or rather, even the dead—in other words, humans are beings who don’t even know what they’ll do next, nor have any inkling of what they themselves are. Humans are wretched creatures, yet they strive to live on regardless, groping blindly for something—anything—better to cling to. And when cornered, they’ll resort to who knows what—unreliable even to themselves.
They doubt and believe; they strive to believe and convince themselves; they charge headlong and flee—it’s a desperate struggle through and through.
Why do they live like this?
Literature, philosophy, religion—all such ideologies were born and have grown from there.
They are all things for living.
Living is riddled with contradictions—indecision, the inexplicable, utterly unpredictable outcomes—and literature is but one of those broken sticks we can’t help but brandish in our desperate struggle, whether as weapon or toy.

Isn’t it precisely because humans are unpredictable in what they might do that literature exists? If things like historical inevitability—human inevitability—could have been neatly resolved or made fit for appreciation through such notions, then literature would have had no reason to exist.

Therefore, Kobayashi was, at the very root of his soul, completely cut off from literature. Yet he concocted esoteric teachings of literature and became the founder of a sect—this was truly heresy.

Both Saigyo and Sanetomo saw hell. A dismal, sin-laden hell; a melancholic, gentle, beautiful hell. And Saigyo’s entire life never ceased its wordless agonizing over “What should my heart do?” and the unfathomable thing called loneliness; Sanetomo was assassinated, yet it was said that his heart might have seen this as suicide. Exactly so. Does heresy too preach the truth? Jikō-sama as if reborn of Amaterasu Ōmikami.

“As for why Saigyō became a monk—Saigyō researchers are busy investigating the cause, but I have no interest in such matters.”
“To understand a poet,” (Saigyō) “one should focus on thoroughly grasping what they earnestly sought to express—for even if one investigates what they endeavored to forget and conceal, nothing can be gained.”

"And as for modern literature—'Take off your masks! Show your true faces!'—they did nothing but shout such slogans and charge forward, until their effeminate spite spread uncontrollably and they were struck by retribution," he declared.

Indeed, to understand a poet, reading their poems alone suffices.
Even if one delves into what he did or what facets he had, delighting in discovering kindred traits, it does not mean they have understood the poet; truly, reading his poems alone constitutes the method to comprehend him.
Kobayashi declares that he interprets poetry.
Indeed, appreciation requires nothing beyond that.
Such is the way of appreciators.

However, here existed the writer. His reading was an act of study—to learn was to contend. And for a writer, a work was not merely something to write; a work was living itself. When Kobayashi read the poems of Saigyo and Sanetomo, it became the shadow of their lived experience; through reading, he too came to be moved by the hell they had been forced to confront through living.

The command to “Take off your masks and show your true faces” had brought retribution precisely because they enacted it in their works—for in the case of novels, a writer needed to be both thinker and entertainer. To remove one’s mask and reveal one’s true face was not a novel. If you mistook this for a novel, punishment was inevitable. Yet in a writer’s private life, unless that writer knew existence stripped of masks—life spent confronting one’s naked self to the bitter end—their ideas and playfulness became transparently predictable, their work doomed to be unworthy of appreciation.

The novel (or art) is said to be the discovery of the self.
It is said to be the creation of the self.
Should a writer come to fully understand themselves, their works would become constrained by that understanding, limited to traversing only predetermined paths.
However, as Mr. André Gide, the literary technician, opines: a true novel must always create one self and discover a self at the moment of its completion.
Incidentally, while Mr. Gide is a literary technician—thoroughly versed in literature, mastering all techniques, freely wielding knowledge, exhausting his craft, at times breaking conventions to construct novels—I do not consider him a true novelist.
As for whether Mr. Gide actually created or discovered any self within his own novels—this I doubt.

Our Cult Leader, Mr. Kobayashi, also declares that art is both the creation and discovery of the self.
When facing blank paper, there exists nothing.
Through writing alone does it become created and unearthed, he proclaims.
I too wholeheartedly concur.

However, this emptiness before paper does not signify total self-ignorance.
One comprehends oneself up to certain boundaries.
No person who hasn't thoroughly understood themselves within these confines could possibly write novels.
Without fundamental comprehension of both self and humanity itself, novel-writing remains impossible.
Yet beyond this foundation lies discovery and creation.
For writers find their creative drive precisely in this inability to endure existing limitations and constraints.

Nearly all of Mozart’s works were forged amidst frantic mental strain in response to the world’s foolishly random or unjust demands; he had no time to set objectives or devise plans for deep contemplation of his works—yet Mozart left behind great art without complaint, answering even those unjust calls.
It is said geniuses possess the ability to perceive external chance as internal necessity.
This was not limited to Mozart.
Chekhov’s plays too were crafted in mere days under unjust demands, as were Chikamatsu’s dramas.
Dostoevsky, hounded by debts, wrote like a draught horse—a self-abandoned rigor that even bent Stavrogin’s path to readers’ tastes.
Precisely this alchemy of transmuting external chance into internal necessity gives life to works of genius.

Yet even if one has no time to set objectives, devise plans, or devote concentrated contemplation to their work, at least in the case of novelists, possessing a fundamental understanding of humanity remains an absolute requirement; this insight into human nature is sustained through self-reflection, and it is upon completing one work that they invariably set out anew.
For a single work brings both discovery-creation and limitation—thus the writer cannot linger there but must stir up discontent and rebellion against oneself.
When one becomes entrenched, their life as a writer concludes; yet even mid-creation, what drives a writer's absorption stems from the novel delight of startling oneself through discoveries born from transgressing boundaries.

Kobayashi, who had shut out living humans from his literature, had severed ties with literature itself and fallen from its realm—a literary renunciation and seclusion.

My calling him a cult leader was no offhand remark.

He now merely appreciated literature and interpreted poets.
Through his self-serving lenses of historical inevitability and human inevitability, he had ceased to dispute or grapple with literature and poets.
To dispute or grapple meant staking oneself on chance—and he had reached the enlightenment that “I no longer need chance.”
Exposing what poets strove to conceal and forget served neither appreciation nor understanding them; it was merely the same act of trying to tear off one’s own mask turned outward—not some revelation of universal truth.
Removing one’s mask did not mean unveiling truth—it was simply a condemned struggle born of inescapable compulsion, and such things held no purpose for Kobayashi anymore.

He always saw things.
Humans were visible.
He saw too clearly.
No thought or opinion was sufficient to move him.
And he merely saw and wrote.
Kobayashi said that this was the work of the unparalleled critic known as *Tsurezuregusa*.
This was, in essence, the secret technique of the Kobayashi school: criticism was the faculty of sight. And because Kobayashi saw humans too clearly, no thought or opinion could cloud his vision and move him.
He saw with eyes that saw too much and merely wrote as he appraised.

However, I do not trust Kobayashi’s appraisals in the slightest. What exactly are Saigyo’s and Sanetomo’s poems and the *Tsurezuregusa*? They are third-rate works. I find them utterly uninteresting. I will present an example as well. This is nothing more than an utterly simple poem, yet I far prefer it to the works of Saigyo and Sanetomo or the *Tsurezuregusa*. It is Miyazawa Kenji’s posthumous manuscript titled *Speaking Through the Eyes*.

It’s no use, I suppose.

It won’t stop.

It’s gushing up so violently, you see.

Since last evening, I haven’t slept.

Because the blood won't stop flowing.

Everything here is deeply, quietly blue.

I'll likely die soon.

But what a splendid breeze this is.

Since the Clear and Bright season approaches,

To the maple's tender buds and hair-like flowers

raising waves like autumn grasses

From such a blue sky

surging up as if welling forth

A beautiful wind comes.

I don't know if you've returned from the medical association or something,

Wearing that black frock coat,

If you'd gone to such lengths to provide all these earnest treatments...

With this, even if I die, I at least have no complaints.

Despite the blood flowing,

That I'm this calm and not in pain—

Has half my soul left my body?

But really, because of the blood—
It's terrible that I can't say it.
From your perspective,
It must look utterly wretched to you, but...
What I can see from here is
Still the beautiful blue sky and—

Only a transparent wind.

Writing such a poem while half-dead was the act of a doomed fool—but the reality described by the *Tsurezuregusa* author, who saw and wrote with eyes that perceived too clearly and remained unmoved, and the blue sky and wind witnessed by this fool as he spewed blood were entirely different things.

Eyes that saw too clearly, unmoved by thoughts or opinions.
Such eyes were like knotholes that saw nothing but the deathly aspect of things.
In other words, they could see nothing but the specter called “inevitability” that belonged to Kobayashi.
The moon that the author of *Heike Monogatari* saw—was that moon Kobayashi spoke of, which he claimed could not be seen by the eyes of a fool, really such a splendid moon?
To call something like *The Tale of the Heike* first-class literature—spare us your nonsense, you fool!
The notion that we, whose hearts remained unmoved by such things, were being punished was utterly absurd.

Things that truly move people’s hearts cannot be written except by those who have been struck by poison or afflicted by punishment.
Eyes that see too clearly—undisturbed by thoughts or opinions—cannot discern the blue skies and piercing winds witnessed by Miyazawa Kenji.

There’s no telling what someone alive might do.
For those doomed fools who understand nothing and see nothing—groping in darkness, wandering blindly while crawling along desperate precipices—the inevitability of things remains utterly invisible. Yet they glimpse something uniquely their own.
Because they glimpse something uniquely their own, it becomes something shared by all.
Art is precisely this.
It isn’t what historical inevitability or human inevitability teaches us; only those doomed fools who gamble themselves on chance—groping through darkness and wandering blindly—possess that world of their own revealed through their wager.
Creation and discovery are precisely this—not the trite visions reflected in those all-too-clear eyes unshaken by ideology.

There exists a beautiful "flower"; there is no such thing as the beauty of "flowers"—this is no murky abstraction. The notion that only dead men and history reveal humanity’s desperate edge was a brazen falsehood; it was those unpredictable humans who showed their true form at that inexorable brink when they grappled wholeheartedly and took the plunge. When this manifests as creative work, it becomes nothing more than art; eyes that see things clearly were merely those of an appraiser.

Literature is living!
It is not about seeing.
The act of living may not necessarily have to be one of doing.
It’s acceptable to shut oneself away in a study.
However, writers must gaze upon the unforgiving brink of human existence, immerse themselves in the agony of stripping away their own masks one by one, and from there sing out the poetry of humanity—or else it’s worthless.
There is no such thing as literature that shuts out living humans.

They say the novel ended in the nineteenth century—here stands exposed the cult leader as nothing but heresy and a mere mouthpiece for divine decrees.
Times change; they change without end.

Japan’s present state marks the greatest transformation since Kaibyaku.
Even without such grand transformations, times inevitably change—in every era exist humans who can only live within their specific age. And humans, unlike Kobayashi who attains esoteric truths and enlightenment, are those who devote themselves entirely to the act of living.
Living humans will naturally create novels and read them; as long as freedom of speech endures, this shall continue through all eternity.
"The novel ended in the nineteenth century"—this amounts to nothing but Jikō-sama’s literary oracle.

Life is something each person creates with their own hands.
It’s safe for human beings to resign themselves to thinking *This is what we are*, shut themselves away in esoteric truths, and attain enlightenment—but there are those who cannot do this.
“Trust nothing in all things.”
To make such calculations, renounce the world, and write the *Tsurezuregusa* with those all-seeing eyes—that’s the work of a failing student. That humans must die does not mean we can conclude they should just hurry up and perish.
Love will inevitably fail; a man’s heart and a woman’s heart are as fickle as autumn skies; resentment will surely arise; even knowing that last year’s love will fade in color this year—still, you cannot tell people not to fall in love.
It’s something you must do to give life meaning—living may be utterly foolish, but there’s nothing for it but to try living with all your might.

Life is something you create.
There is no such thing as a form of inevitability.
Historical models are nothing but crude templates for living; the supreme model lies in listening to one’s own heart.
Strip away the masks, discern your naked self, then take the plunge—walk your own singular path where no models, precedents, or covenants exist.
You must forge your own life.

Kobayashi no longer possessed any passion to forge life.
Trusting nothing in all things—he gazed upon objects and humans with those all-seeing eyes, fixating on their deathly aspect to seek out what he called inevitability.
He was an antique appraiser.

For those who found fulfillment in befriending natural beauty and caressing antiques, literature that contended with human struggle remained utterly foreign.
Kobayashi spoke of the aspect of human loneliness and declared he saw hell.

Alas, alas—be this world as it may, the world to come shall surely be fraught with suffering. (Saigyo)

Though when I gaze upon the flowers, no reason doth appear—yet troubled is the heart within. (Saigyo)

The smoke of Fuji swayed by the wind vanishes into the sky—my thoughts, too, drift away to unknown ends. (Saigyo)

The flames alone in the void—Avici Hell; to speak of its pathless nature is itself fleeting. (Sanetomo)

The blowing wind’s coolness—ah! Unbidden, mountain cicadas cry; autumn hath come. (Sanetomo)

It was an excellent poem.
Undoubtedly, it was the work of one who had lived gazing steadfastly upon the aspect of human loneliness—and just as certainly, it had been a landscape witnessed by a pure soul.

But what, in the end, does observing loneliness amount to in human life?

They say art endures while life is fleeting.
Humans die—this much is true.
Yet works remain.
But this difference in duration cannot measure the worth of life against art.
For writers, what truly mattered was undeniably their own lived existence—not their works.
In a writer’s life, art amounts to nothing more than a commodity or diversion—one that devours vast stretches of time, demands mental anguish and bitter toil, even carves away at flesh and claims lives—yet the force driving authors to immerse themselves in it exists solely because it becomes life’s plaything: a pastime that fills their hearts beyond all else. What else could there be?
Moreover, it served as a tool for securing money through “unjust” dealings and as merchandise to fund affairs or romantic entanglements.

My works will be understood fifty years from now.
I don’t believe such words at all.
Even if Mr. André Gide had convinced himself of that—even if people gulp down and accept magic-spell-like phrases such as “art is long, life is short” as truth—the human heart does not believe them at all in real life.
Once you die, life is over.
Even if I die, my children will live on, and in every era, humans will always be living.
But those humans and this self of mine are separate entities.
The human that is myself exists as absolutely only one.
And once dead, it ceases to exist.
Distinctly, unequivocally—I am just that kind of human being.

So this talk of art being long—of it outlasting my life—the time beyond my life has clearly nothing to do with me anymore.
Other people are equally unrelated.

Therefore, the self is always a singular, distinct human being; each person is this way, and humans are not entities that can be measured or managed by absurd yardsticks like historical inevitability or human inevitability.
Humanity in general may exist eternally, and within that there can be a concept of eternity—but for the human that is myself, not even a speck of such a concept can exist.
Therefore, the human that is myself is a creature of utmost loneliness and sorrow, a fleeting being—and when I die, it ceases to exist.
For the human that is myself, living—life itself—is everything, and works such as his art are nothing more than the most cherished memento among his personal effects.

The aspect of human loneliness and such—it's all clichéd, too obvious, not worth a damn. There's no need to be particularly conscious of such things. Because it's already utterly clichéd. It is not modernity—stripped of masks and laid bare—that has been poisoned and punished; rather, it is Kobayashi Hideo, who digs up and dramatizes things like the aspect of human loneliness, that has been poisoned and punished.

The human that is myself is an irreplaceable being—and since it is a being that will cease to exist upon death—I must live my life to the fullest, striving to make it better through ingenuity. No portrait of humanity in general or the eternal human can suffice or obscure this fact—there is nothing but to live better, simply and clearly.

Literature, thought, religion, culture in general—their roots are nothing more than this, and the central theme of life is always simply that one lives.

Eyes that see clearly—and Yoshida Kenkō, who is said to have seen humans all too well—what kind of humans did he claim to have seen?
If one cannot see oneself as a human, then no matter how clearly one may see other humans, they are seeing nothing at all.
If one cannot see the ideal, earnest wish, and effort toward their own life—

Humans are sorrowful beings.
They are tormented beings.
They are suffering beings.
They are unfortunate beings.
Because they die and vanish.
Because I alone am that way.
Since each person carries such a self, there can be no happiness in human relationships.
Even so, in any case, there’s no other way but to live.
Since we must live, we must live well rather than badly.

A novel is merely a commodity, a plaything, and moreover, the act of writing dreams.
It is akin to a second life.
It is not about writing what exists; surpassing present limitations, the novel always stretches itself, dashes forward, and leaps upward.
That’s why it crashes and lands flat on its backside.

Beauty is that which adheres to things—it is the thing itself, a support for humans struggling to live as they press onward—not something visible to so-called clear-seeing eyes.
Beauty is a sorrowful thing.
A lonely thing.
An unforgiving thing.
How unfortunate.
Because that’s what humans are.

Kobayashi was no longer a sorrowful human nor an unfortunate one.
What he saw was merely the aspect of human loneliness; the anguish of living humans held no connection to him anymore.
And he was satisfied.
Loving antiques.
Appraising them.
Having unlocked esoteric principles to attain detached insight, he gazed down upon the masses with eyes that saw all too clearly.
He remained unmoved by thought or opinion.
Thus he no longer did anything incomprehensible like those living humans.
Yet he had fallen from Suidobashi Station’s platform—but what did his all-too-seeing eyes and lonely soul perceive?
How pointless—even if I died, wouldn’t my own heart just see it as suicide?
Nothing to it.

Suicide—what is it?
Such a thing requires neither logic nor explanation.
It’s as meaningless as the wind itself.

Compared to the legendary fall of Kume no Senjin—who plummeted from the heavens after glimpsing a woman’s calf—what a difference lay in Kobayashi’s own descent!
This was nothing more than the fall of an object.

The falling object that was Kobayashi Hideo might, through his poetic soul of loneliness, perceive his fall as suicide and compose a poem of nihilism.

However, true literature cannot be created except from the side of Kume no Senjin.
True beauty—truly tragic beauty—was what Kume no Senjin saw.
No—isn't Kume no Senjin's fall itself what we call beauty?

The falling Kobayashi may have seen hell.
Yet the falling Kume no Senjin merely saw a flower.
That very flower might have been the fires of hell.
And the hell Kobayashi saw was a hell as insubstantial as a rice cake drawn on paper.
He was no longer an unpredictable human—he had become a cult leader now.
Only humans see hell.
Yet they don't see hell at all.
They only see flowers.