Nihonjin no biishiki

by Donald Keene, Hisao Kanaseki

Japanese, English (translation)

251 pages, Tankobon Hardcover

First published January 1, 1990

About the author

Donald Keene was a renowned American-born Japanese scholar, translator, and historian of Japanese literature. Born in Brooklyn in 1922, he developed a love for foreign cultures early in life. He graduated from Columbia University in 1942 and served in the U.S. Navy during World War II, where he studied Japanese at the Navy Language School. After the war, he returned to Columbia for his master’s and later earned a second master’s at Cambridge, followed by a PhD from Columbia in 1949. He studied further at Kyoto University and became a leading authority on Japanese literature.
Keene taught at Columbia University for over fifty years and published extensively in both English and Japanese, introducing countless readers to Japanese classics. His mentors included Ryusaku Tsunoda and Arthur Waley, whose translations deeply influenced him. After the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami, Keene retired from Columbia, moved to Japan, and became a Japanese citizen under the name Kīn Donarudo. He was awarded the Order of Culture in 2008, the first non-Japanese recipient. Keene remained active in literary and cultural life in Japan until his death in 2019 at the age of 96.

Reviews

[Taka · Rating 2 out of 5]

The only reason I bought Donald Keene's translated work on Japanese aesthetics was that, well, I couldn't find the book in English. Then I realized after getting the book that it's basically a collection of scholarly articles Keene wrote mostly in the 60's, meaning I could have easily gotten individual articles I was interested in on, say, Jstor.

At any rate, the first four essays, "Japanese Aesthetics," "Feminine Sensibility in the Heian Era," "Individuality and Pattern in Japanese Literature," and "Realism and Unreality in Japanese Drama" were golden. Exactly what I was looking for, though I would've liked to see them treated at more extensive length and depth. The rest of the book wasn't all that exciting, as it more about the influences of the Sino-Japanese war on China-worshipping Japanese culture, Arthur Waley, portrait of Ikkyu, and a few more pieces I wasn't particularly interested in.

His analysis of Japanese aesthetics in terms of suggestion, irregularity, simplicity, and perishability is so simple and elegant that it persuades almost viscerally.

Probably not worth the price of the book for those essays (and I would've loved to learn more in depth), but they're definitely well written and eye-opening.

Will be keen on reading more of work by Keene.

NOTES:
-ink drawing leaving the imagination to fill in the color (p.16): "The use of color can be brilliant, but it inevitably limits the suggestive range: when a flower is painted red, it can be no other color, but the black outline of a flower on white paper will let us imagine whatever color we choose."

-MacGilchrist's idea of seeing through: "Suggestion depends on a willingness to admit that meanings exist beyond what can be seen or described." (p.20); "The full moon or the cherry blossoms at their peak do not suggest the crescent or the buds, though the crescent and buds (or the waning moon and the strewn flowers) do suggest the full moon and full flowering. Perfection, like some inviolable sphere, repels the imagination, allowing it no room to penetrate" (p.21)

-By the Kokinshu era, appropriate subject for a tanka/poems did not include deaths, natural disasters, fear of war, and other tragic events (p.47). Something the earlier Man'yoshu poets would have disagreed with.

-The paradox of Kabuki: men playing the role of women, and not women actors, can get closer to the ideal woman (p.113)

-Chikamatsu's definition of realism (p.117): 芸というももは実と嘘との皮膜（ひにく）の間（境目の微妙なところ）にあるもの也。なるほど今の世実事（じつじ）によくうつすをこのむ故、家老は進の家老身ぶり口上をうつすとはいえども、さらばとて真の大名の家老などが立役のごとく顔に紅白粉（べにおしろい）をぬる事ありや。また真の家老は顔をかざらぬとて、立役がむしゃむしゃと髭ははえなり、あたまは剥（はげ）なりに舞台へ出て芸をせば、慰（なぐさみ）になるべきや。皮膜（ひまく）の間というが此也。虚にして虚にあらず、実にして実にあらず、この間に慰が有たもの也」