Grass For My Pillow

by Saiichi Maruya, Dennis Keene (Translator)

First published in Japanese in 1966, the debut novel of the critically acclaimed author of Singular Rebellion is an unusual portrait of a deeply taboo subject in twentieth-century Japanese resistance to the draft in World War II. In 1940 Shokichi Hamada is a conscientious objector who dodges military service by simply disappearing from society, taking to the country as an itinerant peddler by the name of Sugiura until the end of the war in 1945. In 1965, Hamada works as a clerk at a conservative university, his war resistance a dark secret of the past that present-day events force into the light, confronting him with unexpected consequences of his refusal to conform twenty years earlier.

Genres: Japan, Fiction, Japanese Literature, War, World War II, Historical Fiction, Historical

320 pages, Hardcover

First published October 15, 2002

About the author

Saiichi MARUYA (丸谷 才一), a Japanese author and critic was born in 1925 in Yamagata Prefecture, grew up in Niigata, and graduated with a degree in English literature from the Tokyo Imperial University. After completing his Master's degree, he taught at Kokugakuin University and then at the University of Tokyo, while publishing a series of translations of English literary works.

Reviews

[Praj]

What has your country offered you? What has it done for you?...... What have you accomplished for your country? What have you given back to your birth land? The notion of 'patriotism' charred in the rebuttals and accusatory insinuations; the double-edged sword seeped in the ironies of free will conflicting patriotic legitimacy probing the sovereignty of allegiance v/s rebellion. The devout ready to defend his or her country, does it signify blind devotion without having to question the socio-political dogma? The status of Patriotism positioned on shaky grounds during war-time. Is it criminal to raise scepticism over the transgressions of one’s motherland, the land on which freedom must breathe? Are we, the honouree of domicile identities become vulnerable pall bearers of humanity clashing into the stoic walls of fragmented patriotism? Where do the institutions of human rights survive in this pandemonium; the major causality of the war? Is being anti-war the sign of a deserter? Is the rebellion against the nationalistic doctrine of a total entity, an act of cowardice? The nationalistic ideologies favourably tipping the war-time scales. The societal product (individual) disseminating in it very own organic design; the man being the eventual scapegoat of history.

“Scattered like blossoms, down the soldiers fall.” Had he been a coward? Had he been afraid? Was he still afraid, even now it was over? No, nothing was ever over.

Saiichi Maruya’s sublime, conscientious contention travel beyond the socio-political assumption and implications of war , looking deeper into the multifaceted coherent societal constitution shifting in time, grasping the reality of a pre- and post-war Japanese society , the history of a nation state and the repercussions on its populace flowing in continuity dissolving dual societal disparities. The validity of free will v/s patriotic obligations enclosed in a foreseeable rebellion negating the virtues of social mores. The truth of a country’s war, the dissension society v/s man, the flotsam and jetsam of human rights v/s annihilation and the impenetrability of war v/s anti-war jingoistic ethos during war-time tumbling into disconcerting nostalgic restraints of human demeanour and compensated beliefs.

But how could one die in a meaningless war? How could one go about killing people for no reason? Regret was useless. Regret was a bottomless swamp, a quicksand......

To those trapped amid a neurotic wheel of recovery and revaluation, the analysis of the past becomes the worst punishment sentenced by the howls of time. Nothing is ever over. Death of the past elements slowly unlocks the shackled melancholia of the present, the ghastly anguish of panic unleashed through a single black-bordered postcard. The quagmire of regret festering in gritty waters of ignominy, self-inflicted torment and alienation dragged the 45 yr old registry clerk- Shokichi Hamada, the past clinging onto the pervasiveness of his guilt , the feeling of relief a far-fetched dream, the puppetry of Hamada’s clandestine past manipulating his pugnacious present; suffering had become his entire being.

A draft-resister, Hamada successfully evaded the Japanese military conscription at the height of the Pacific War ( WWII), the act of resistance and rebellion had bestowed upon Hamada , a life of a vagrant perpetually on run for five long years ( Oct’ 1940-Aug’1945). The consequences of the clandestine lifestyle Hamada inhabited in his 20s nagged the resisting conscious two decades later in a society that in spite of adopting anti-militaristic regime as a diplomatic post-war approach, perceived the act of rejection to enlist during war-time, a dishonourable conduct. Maruya accentuates the martial atmosphere predominant in Japan under the Meiji constitution and the nationalistic vehemence intensifying the war-time attitudes in the Japanese society. Contradictory to numerous other esteemed Japanese literary conjectures of Japan being two segregated entities(pre- and post-war) , Maruya explicates the continuity of Japanese society as a whole ,flowing from militaristic to anti-militaristic era and then later to booming socio-economic prosperity , the peripheral objective war long ended but the influential war still operational within the terrains of civilization. An analogy glimpsed in Osamu Dazai’s erudite literature.

He must never forget that he'd broken the most powerful of all the commandments our society imposes, stronger than the commandment not to steal, stronger even than the commandment not to kill. He was a man who had gone against the stream...........

Two worlds, two divergent individualities assimilating in an illusion of a unified existence, the mirror-image polarized in dual identities grappling to find a niche in the desperation of resistance. Twenty-six year old Kenji Sugiura, the vagabond sand artist chose freedom from the authoritative nation state sacrificing his civil liberties. The rebellion against the highest societal establishment; the decisive farewell instigated the daunting dispute over citizen and its civil duty. Kenji Sugiura, the war-time alter-ego of Shokichi Hamada became a social prisoner of pledged virtues and time. The uncertainties of Sugiura contemplating over life and death coagulated within Hamada’s aspiration for a tranquil survival. The disbelieve in the workings of the Japanese society , the victor being the life-long prisoner, the free renegade will of a renegade , the remnant of a man haunted by the remnants of war , of his past.


........There is no other path for him. There is no way back. All he can do, forever and ever, is continue on his perilous voyage, continue his restless journey, and lie down each night with only bamboo grass for a pillow...

Hamada/Sugiura was unable to recover from the illusion of being attuned to the changing world, a much evolved Japan, now feted for anti-war ideological propagandas. The existence of Shokichi Hamada trembling in self-pity and alienation, the guilt of being a draft resister rendering him to a life of vagrancy irrespective to the prosperous social environments. Maruya exemplifies philosophical scrutiny of the crude temperament of a society rooted in its history and succeeding social conduct, the problematical dogma inimitable in the virtue of chronic nostalgia dissipating in passage of time, irrevocably pushing the pigeonholed rebel into carrying the sins of the society along with his own sense of guilt. The divine clemency pleaded by the “mere remnants of a man”.

A country, its middling populace and a few fated ones, the hero of an anti-war and a war-time scoundrel, evolving from a treacherous past, perceiving a calm and untainted future by rectifying the afflicted sentient of the present , sharing the swaying bamboo grass for a pillow ,the conventional nomad resting the homeless head, a pictogram of transience . The doctrine of man and the society intertwined amongst the changing tides of time, embarking on an eternal restless journey.

...in this fitful
slumber bamboo
grass for my pillow
one night of dreams
alone to bind us.

[Tony]

This is the story of Shokichi Hamada, a doctor's son, a 20 year-old as 'The Great Pacific War' begins. But he will not be a soldier. To be a draft resister in 1940 Japan was to be worse than a burglar, worse than a murderer. It was a capital offense. Yet Hamada somehow survived as an itinerant repairer of clocks and as a sand artist.

The story is told in constantly shifting time frames, the war years shuffling with Hamada 20 years after the war, working as an office clerk in a conservative university. While Hamada never doubts the correctness of his resistance, the shadow of his decision haunts him.

The title comes from an old poem:

Again this fitful
slumber bamboo
grass for my pillow
one night of dreams
alone to bind us.

Bamboo, we are told, is a very tenacious weed, prickly stuff. It rustles. It provides not sleep, but a restless journey. And so it is for Hamada.

This is Hamada's story, sure, if twenty years apart in the telling. Back and forth in that restless journey. But then, fairly in the middle, there is a chapter about Nishi. His voice. In 1966, Nishi and Hamada work side by side. Desk jobs. Nishi has less talent, more demons. But in the petty world of office politics, Nishi has a trump card. He knows about Hamada's draft dodging, and there is still an audience to hear it. Nishi is not likable, not at all. But he served when called, and it gnaws at him that Hamada didn't and that he got away with it.

Let me interrupt myself here to say that I am no warrior. I'm not a draft dodger; I got a lucky-enough number. I love reading about soldiers and heroism. I honor them. Intellectually, however, in the abstract, I abhor War. So as I was reading this, it was easy to take Hamada's side. He had four reasons: a) he was opposed to war; b) he was opposed to this war; c) he was opposed to armies; and d) he was opposed to this army. So, yes, I understood, agreed, and wished 20 years later the revisionists would let him alone.

Yet there in the middle of everything, everything I agreed with, was Nishi. One chapter. Nishi wasn't a good man and wasn't even a middling soldier. But he suffered a Hell that Hamada sidestepped. A reader trips - is meant to trip - over Nishi.

My father hated Gene Kelly.

I'm singing in the rain
Just singing in the rain
What a glorious feelin'
I'm happy again

Yes, that Gene Kelly. My father heard, or mis-heard, that Gene Kelly had evaded the draft. Took measures. Whether true or not, it became a hardened fact in my father's heart. Fifty years after the War ended, my father still carried that hatred, seethed at the mere mention of his name.

Bamboo finds its way inside all our pillows.

_____ _____ _____ _____ _____

This book is part of the Columbia Asian Studies Series, Modern Asian Literature. The edition is attractive and the translation is superb.

[Capsguy]

How can I review a book so unique, and yet so foreign to me?

To the core, this is an anti-war work written during the Vietnam War. It is decades after World War II, and yet the draft resistance of an individual who spent a large period of Japan`s involvement in World War II traveling around Japan escaping detection as a draft-resister.

The plot is non-linear, with multiple narrators.The book is pretty bleak, especially during the flashbacks of Japan during World War II and the repercussions for an individual who chose to do the unthinkable at the time, a crime worse than murder in Japan, to escape service for the Imperial Army years later.

Even after the war, with Japan`s economic growth and independence, resistance to the pointless war that destroyed Japan was and probably is still frowned upon. I don`t know what I would do if I was ever drafted into a war that I found pointless.

Nonetheless, a great take on the perception of the Japanese about such a sensitive topic.

Interesting note, author was heavily inspired by James Joyce and even translated Ulysses and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man into Japanese.

[Stephen Rowland]

I once named Muraya's "Rain in the Wind" the most boring thing I had ever read, and while this novel is sometimes too dense for its own good, it is still mostly fascinating, and gutsy.

[Taylor Lee]

A fascinating fictional account of Japanese draft resistance during the Pacific War of the early 1940s. As before, Maruya’s hero is the individual at odds with the collective. Grass for My Pillow, the aptly-titled 1966 novel, investigates the lifelong implications of youthful rebellion against wartime injustice, as, like waves made upon entering a pool of water, they reverberate through the years of this character’s life, coming to saturate his thoughts and the environment in which, one quarter of a century into the future, he finds himself. The novel’s structure is playful and a source for the tale’s engrossing nature. Maruya’s hand, here, as it has done in other works and seems wont to do, flexes with light comic artistry, though on the whole the narrative is colored sombre and one is left leaving its space observing threads of bleak sadness at the story’s edges trailing into the wind.

[Diane]

An amazing but difficult book. This is story of a draft resister in Japan in World War II. Apparently this was an offense punishable by death and an act that was not ever discussed in Japan and that is still rarely talked about - the position of society is that there were no draft resisters in Japan. The story is told from the point of view of the same man 20 years later - he is married and works as a clerk in the registry office at a University - with flashbacks to various events of his life as a draft resister when he roamed about the country fixing radios and clocks and doing sand paintings. Not for everyone but I loved it.

[Yasu]

I've read this book repeatedly since when I was 13. Each time I read I was absorbed into it in different ways. For example, I didn't understand office politics when I was 13 but now I do. Coincidentally I'm now at the same age as Shokichi in the book and some of the remarks made by him along the story touched me even though my life to reflect is much more mediocre than something extreme of his. I found the translation was excellently done. In my opinion, this is one of the best modern Japanese novels.

[Mathew Gonzalez]

Grass For My Pillow also known as Sasamakura is an intricate novel that recounts the story of a Japanese man named Shokichi Hamada presently known as Kenji Sugiura who avoided the draft into World War II from 1941 until their surrender in 1945. Hamada was forced to assume the name of Sugiura after abandoning his past life. The story presents itself as an anti-war novel but in fact, has many complexities within its main character and his personal life. Hamada was clearly against the war efforts and the story mainly focuses on the present day where he is forced to face the people around him and the backlash that comes with it. A society that views resistance as a crime and the rejection of his culture and the values of Japanese patriotism. The story mainly takes place in the present but is confusing at times with its change of settings and timeframes without any clear indication. Hamada currently works as a clerk in a conservative university, a place that becomes troubling as the story unfolds and Hamada’s efforts of concealing his war past catch up to him. Throughout much of the novel, there is a back-and-forth remembrance of Akiko, Hamada’s love interest during the war as well as his encounter with Inaba, a sand painter who he ended up apprenticing under.
The protagonist’s character is an interesting one in that there are actually two identities that are associated with him, Sugiura, his present self that sees him working at the university and experiencing the effects of his past encounters, and Hamada, his former self which was abandoned in order to disassociate himself with the war and the reality of his draft evasion. Both of these identities can be seen throughout the story, and they are both present with respect to each of their associated timeframes. Much like Sugiura, Hamada is on the run from his past but more importantly his responsibilities of disappointing and disrespecting the whole of Japan. In the book, there are several examples that showcased the severity of rejecting the army. It stated, “National conscription was the basic thing that sustained the militarist prewar Japanese government, and naturally anyone who rejected conscription faced either the prospect of death at the hands of a firing squad or being sent to one of the most dangerous sectors of the front line,” (Maruya 50-51). This trauma had been set from the start and now Hamada faces the repercussion of neglecting his duties, regardless of his opinions and values on war.
The setting of the novel was interesting, to say the least. For one, a large portion of the locations and expressions would have gone over my head if not for the use of the internet and the Postscript section of the book that explained the places and geographical aspects that were discussed in the book. The reality is that many foreigners have difficulty understanding this novel due to historical and cultural awareness. Nonetheless, the novel was fairly enjoyable even with this barrier. The time differences and flashbacks that occurred were also difficult to recognize because of their subtle shift in narration.
In relation to the setting, there is a shift nearing the end of the text where Hamada has made a decision on his occupational path. The book reads “Because of the way things are changing in the outside world, my wartime behavior has become a subject of debate recently. It’s made my position there very difficult. In fact, it’s more than that, the general attitude being that I ought to be gotten out of the way” (Maruya 294). This is a clear indication of change beginning to befall Hamada’s life after being in contentment all these years. The ending of the novel was by far the most satisfying and had left us with the questions that we were asking at the beginning of the narrative. The setting takes place in the past, and we see a young Sugiura, initiating the abandonment of Hamada as his identity and taking on a new persona.
In all honesty, this book was quite difficult to read at times. The overall vocabulary was not an issue, in fact, the only true indication of its complexity was the language barrier that was a result of a lack of an understanding of the historical and cultural references. This, paired with the sudden reminiscence and flashbacks made the book challenging but enjoyable, nonetheless. I found the book available online for free but decided on buying it used on amazon. I prefer reading physical copies as it allows me to appreciate and relate to the context within the book. The book is quite expensive (nearly every ebook store selling it for $30) if purchased new, so I bought it used for around $7.

[William Kirkland]

Avoidance of conscription in Japan during WWII was the most heinous of crimes: worse than rape, or murder. Those who were caught were beheaded. And yet some did refuse. At least some were fictionally imagined to have done so, as in Saiichi Maruya’s 1966 novel, Grass for My Pillow / (,em>Sasamakura), translated by Dennis Keene in 2002.

Shokichi Hamada is an assistant Registrar’s Clerk at a Japanese university in the 1960s. When he receives a death announcement for his lover of twenty years before, memory begins to surface. Their time together had been during four war years he had spent moving from small town to small town in Japan, avoiding the authorities and certain conscription.

He was “quite convinced that what was euphemistically referred to as ‘The China Incident’ was merely the prosecution of open war under a false name, and that the Japanese army was a totally corrupt and terrifying institution. For this reason he’d decided he could not ally himself with that institution, preferring to sacrifice his liberty as a citizen for the sake of his freedom as a human being.”

A thoughtful young man, he had classified his reasons for refusing conscription:

One: opposition to war in general,
Two: opposition to this particular war,
Three: opposition to armies in general,
Four: opposition to this particular army.

Nor was he alone in his opposition. Others talked about how they might avoid the army, and apparently in enough numbers that the army had to respond.

“The idea of cutting off your right index finger so you couldn’t pull a trigger had the disadvantage of maiming you for life, and the authorities had also gotten around this trick recently by sticking you into some branch of the service other than the infantry. One method was to wet your bed every night in the barracks, but the M.P.s would soon be onto you The traditional method was to drink soy sauce just before the physical, as it gave you a high temperature, but there was a considerable danger that you might do yourself real harm. Pretending you were insane was another possibility…”

... In alternating chapters, we learn of his four years on the run and of his current life, competing for advancement in the university while his colleagues and supervisors, aware of his non-service in the war, and sharing in the 1960s change of mood from war-shame to national pride, mock him for cowardliness and lack of patriotism.

It would seem unlikely that a conscription-aged young man could escape notice for four years in a highly-militarized and emperor-obedient nation. But taking up a life of vagrancy, dressed shabbily and road-worn, unshaven and hair uncut, he does not look like potential soldier material. He learns to repair clocks and radios; he does sand paintings for local festivals. He ekes out a living, learning from other vagrants and cast-offs until he meets a young woman, Akiko, who shares his adventurous spirit and easy sexuality, even in 1940s Japan. Together they travel from “one obscure fishing village to another,” with nothing but “grass for a pillow. ” Mysterious men seem to be tracking him. A casual conversation turns to battleships and armaments: what can it mean? What may have been a policeman turns out to be a recruiter for the mines — a tempting possibility– where outcasts, drifters and army refusers can hide away. For a time the two cohabitate with her mother, he doing gardening and staying out of sight.

Along the way, we get quick views into the condition of war-time Japan, as black tea leaves are mixed with rice to provide meals, as well as the rising nationalism in the 60s: acquaintances are circulating right-wing magazines denying war crimes and arguing the necessity of Japanese acquisition of an H-bomb.

Maruya himself was of the generation which fought in the war. He was drafted while still in high school though the war ended before he was sent to an active unit.

For the complete review see http://www.allinoneboat.org/war-resis...

[Logan Mancini]

Grass For My Pillow is a fictional story of a draft resistor of the Pacific War in Japan named Shokichi Hamada. The story, while generally being about the experiences of Hamada as he deals with both his past of resisting conscription, taking on the name Kenji Sugiura, and the consequences of it during his present over twenty years later, places heavy emphasis on the theme of true personal freedom. The story takes place as a confusing yet intriguing jumble of events at separate times in Hamada’s life, jumping from his current situation as a clerk in university administration to random moments of his past during the war as he fled from the military police. This perspective of hopping back in forth in time seemingly at random forces the reader to think heavily about who Hamada is as a person, with the true answer being that he is a person desperately longing for his own personal freedom. In the end, the title Grass For My Pillow fits the story perfectly because it encapsulates a very simple aspect of the life of a vagrant, that being the resting of one’s head on the grass after traveling with no real destination.
The author of Grass For My Pillow, Saiichi Maruya, known for his five novels Fleeing from the Face of Jehovah, Grass For My Pillow, Singular Rebellion, Sing the National Anthem in Falsetto, and A Mature Woman, expertly crafted this story with this key idea of freedom in mind. Maruya effectively utilizes setting and characterization to immerse the reader into the life of Hamada and his struggle for freedom, most notably using the rapid jumps in setting through shifting of time to show how Hamada subconsciously relates moments in his present life to moments in his past. For example, he thinks on the state of his current job and how things could have gone, recalling a time in his past where he considered becoming a coal miner but turned it down due to an uncomfortable experience with a coal mining recruiter named Asahina (Maruya 85-93).
Additionally, the story is made believable through the eyes of Hamada because no character is introduced with a name unless they have at least some level of significance to the plot beyond basic interactions. A character that shows up frequently throughout the story, Akiko, mostly appears in Hamada’s past, yet she remains relevant throughout the entire book, repeatedly thought of by Hamada in his flashbacks as he relates his past to his current situation. The same can be said with Hamada’s wife, Yoko, who shows up all the way to the end of the story, almost to the very last scene.
The only major point of criticism that I could bring up about Grass For My Pillow is the ending. The ending, in my eyes, is incredibly well done, as nothing is stated explicitly, and the fate of Hamada is left up to the interpretation or inference of the reader. Through this style of ending, emphasis is placed on the symbolic meaning rather than the literal. The reason for criticism, however, is that with the introduction of a loose end as the ending, many readers might be turned off from reading the story, leaving a general taste of dissatisfaction as no solid answer is given at the end. In this regard, enjoyment of the book may truly depend on the readers’ tastes.

[Marisa Santiago]

Maruya Saiichi’s debut 1966 novel, Grass for My Pillow, tells the story of an unassuming middle-aged clerk working at a conservative Tokyo university. The clerk, Shokichi Hamada, appears to be just like any other average Japanese citizen living a mundane yet, comfortable life in the city. As is the expected belief of the ordinary Japanese citizen, “It would be asking for trouble to be seen not to comply in most matters, no matter how trivial” (Maruya 27). Hamada lives his life cautiously to not infringe upon the rigorous rules set in place by his society. During one of his rare walks outside, he is overcome with unsettling amounts of fear and loss as he notices some of his fellow pedestrians pursuing a runaway thief.

Triggered by this incident, Shokichi recalls the five years he spent evading military conscription under the alias Kenji Sugiura. For twenty years, he suppressed these memories as a means of protection against the ever-growing nationalist sentiment in Japan. He told no one the complete truth about his past: “Nobody pursued him now; only in his past was he pursued, a past he tried so hard to forget but that still lived on as it did this day, come back again although he'd thought he was about to dispose of it forever” (Maruya 51). Shortly after this, records of his wartime escapades are leaked to the public which, causes society to label him an outcast. Alienated by his peers, Shokichi now has to face the consequences of his actions.

Despite being the same person, Hamada and his alter-ego represent two sides of the same coin while behaving as two polar entities. Shokichi lives as a bystander in nearly every aspect of his life. Yet, he is content living “at the end of a long cul-de-sac" (Maruya 41) and busying himself over his dead-end job only to obsesses over “the surface meaning and hidden implications” (Maruya 241) of every word his coworkers speak. Conversely, Kenji is anything but content. He is morally opposed to the act of war and any military entity.

The two characters desire to appear commonplace and be inconspicuous. To do so, they need to assimilate. For Shokichi, it is out of his need to remain complacent and not his will to live a moral life in the face of death like Kenji. Hamada is a reflection of the Tokyo he calls home. He mirrors the idealized post-war 1960s Japan that shows “a real talent for behaving as if the past no longer existed” (Maruya 22).

Saiichi’s Grass for My Pillow was one book on a list of many provided to my class by our Introduction to Literature professor, Dr. Nicole Spottke. This list was full of novels sourced from various parts of the world and, we students were to choose which was to be the subject of our end-of-term book reports. We were then provided our selection by our college in a digital format. E-books are not my preference, so I decided to look elsewhere and purchase a print of my own.

My search found it available digitally on sites like Scribd, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. The physical copies appeared to have listings on eBay, AbeBooks, and Biblio. My purchase was from Amazon, which turned out to be a mistake as it was very overpriced when compared to the other listings. However, the shipping was quick and convenient.

While I did select this novel myself—the summary of the plot for Saiichi’s work caught my eye immediately—the time I spent reading it was not particularly enjoyable. I don’t believe my lack of delectation for this novel was due to the plot or protagonist but perhaps the pacing. The constant flashbacks although, they do make sense contextually, disrupted my flow of comprehension when reading. I ended up using a decent amount of time trying to figure out what I had just read instead of relishing the story as it continued. Nonetheless, I was able to grasp that Maruya Saiichi’s Grass for My Pillow is a character study on the duality of Shokichi Hamada’s present-day self, Kenji Sugiura—Hamada’s wartime persona—and the state of Japan’s nationalist society during the 1960s.

[Daniel]

Grass for My Pillow, written by Saiichi Maruya, is a timeless piece, a story set World War II Japan. Maruya writes of a draft resister, Shokichi Hamada, who spends years under an alias, Kenji Sugiura, in efforts to avoid the government. While this novel addresses strong, controversial issues, the writer builds up the story strategically and carefully. Maruya addresses multiple timelines of Hamada’s life, often referring to his life in the current present, working as an office clerk in a conservative university, and his past ventures, his life during the war. Maruya handles multiple timelines beautifully, as he intertwines characterization as well as setting in both. During Hamada’s “fugitive” times, he was written as a character hungry for survival and he often justified his actions. It is almost as if he knows the intensity of what he has done, but often must soothe himself to remind himself that he remains a good person. Maruya writes Hamada as cynical at first but as the setting changes, there seems to be character development. Hamada meets Inaba, an ill man, at a hostel. There, Hamada is seen to have much character growth. He learns new things, such as sand painting, and even succeeds well at it. This is significant, as Hamada has relied of his repairman skills throughout his life for survival. Resisting from the draft has affected his chances of career opportunities in life, so to trust another in learning another skill, shows more dimension to the character. As the setting shifts to the present day, Hamada, although in a stable job, still gets haunts from his decisions made in the past. Even then, he remains firm in the decisions that he has made. Maruya writes the setting in a strategic way to tie Hamada’s character and personality to certain points and places in his life. The writer builds up the character as a once cynical, instinctual, chaotic, young man, to a more thoughtful, reflective, older man. This building of character would not have been done carefully without the use of setting and circumstance. Maruya gives Hamada a reason to his character at the time. With the circumstances of World War II, it is almost as if Hamada was given no choice but to act the way he did. However, when flashed forward to his current life, Hamada reflected on his actions and the circumstances which brought him to that current point in his life. All in all, Saiichi Maruya writes Grass for My Pillow in a beautiful, thoughtful way that shows how setting and circumstance can intertwine with a character’s actions and choices. The writing of multiple timelines kept the reading alive and vivid.

[Jenn Odd]

**Potentially Great Book Let Down By The Translator**

This was a potentially really interesting book looking at Japan during and after the war, about Japanese society and interpersonal relations.

I loved the narrative style of weaving between present events and Hamada's memories during the war. (Hamada himself, as well as almost all the characters, are unpleasant people, but I liked the narrative.)

However...

The translator ruined my experience of the book. As an academic and translator he translated this novel in a way that made it sound like an academic text. The language was dry, directly translated so conversations read disjointed, not a single character had any personality.

It was also ruined by the extremely long translators note at the start of the novel that SPOILS THE WHOLE STORY. If you do want to read this SKIP the translators note and read it after you finish. He aims to educate the reader but instead ruins the whole reading experience as you, the reader, are no longer surprised by events which happen.

An additional issue, which makes this book inaccessible to the general reader, is the fact that this is an academically published novel. Which means it's incredibly expensive.

Overall a disappointingly dry read.

[JoeG]

To me, Dennis Keene's best translation (with a 14 page introduction!) assists Mr. Maruya's split-time novel ring true. The main character's story as a conscientious objector (Japanese) in WW II and as a university factotum 20 years later is excellently depicted. Many other authors have used this narrative style in many, many novels, but the Shokichi Hamada main character could serve as a illustrative example of the potential within this style.
The two females in Hamada's life, especially his current wife were not as well developed and the ending chapter was disappointing.. Nevertheless, this is the fourth book I have read by Mr. Maruya and all have been worthwhile.

[Laurel]

A challenging book to review. All of the characters go beyond being unlikeable - I had difficulty even respecting them (particularly the rampant misogyny of the 1960s). BUT Grass For My Pillow also raises issues surrounding a subculture never discussed: that of conscientious objectors and draft resistors in wartime Japan. So to learn about the experiences of someone who risked his life to do so - fictional, yes, but clearly heavily influenced by fact - was fascinating, and a story that needed to be told, given the ongoing political context for such a movement even today.

[Praveen]

Draft resistance is a taboo subject in Japan and the general public opinion (during the 1960s, where the novel is set) on this matter is still largely (via characters in the novel) attached to a negative connotation.

That being said, this novel is about how past decisions come back to "unsettle" our draft resisting protagonist in various ways. The story goes back in time, from time to time, in a non linear manner, and we get to see how the young protagonist in the 1940s and 1950s experienced defining moments in his life that shaped him into the person that he is today.

[Samuel Hawley]

A quiet, meditative novel about a Japanese man, Hamada, who dodges the draft during the war (a crime of the worst sort) and travels around the country under an assumed name. Frequent back-and-forth time shifts, from the present (1960s, when the book was written) and back to the war, with wartime chronology all mixed up, but I didn't find it too confusing. Author Saiichi Maruya explores the delayed repercussions that Hamada's youthful act of rebellion has on him twenty years later, when he is a middle-aged office worker at a conservative Japanese university. The past cannot stay hidden, and for Hamada, it doesn't.

[Molly]

Once you dare challenge societal norms, your life will be filled with grass pillows. Therein lies your danger and isolation, but also your freedom and genuine existence. Brilliant writing with perfect ending. Why isn't this book better read and acknowledged?

[Jennifer]

Fascinating and enjoyable read about Japan in the aftermath of WW2.

[Eadweard]

This book tackles such a taboo subject, I wonder if it's still an uncomfortable thing to talk about. I also wonder if it was made into a movie, it has Japanese New Wave written all over it.