Don Quixote was translated into Japanese for the first time in 1887. Compared to other classical works of European literature, such as Shakespeare and Goethe, the novel's influence certainly pales. But this, says Seiro Bantaro, in a great article about the novel's influence in Japan, is perhaps simply a matter of the global order. During the Meiji period, the literature of economically significant nation-states was given more weight. That means novels and poetry from the US, the UK, Russia, Germany, and France tended to be prioritized.
Even today Don Quixote is more obscure than Shakespeare of Goethe (the same could be said for the novel in America). And yet, there is so much in Don Quixote that resonates with a Japanese literary sensibility, as I described here. From samurai stories and tales of wandering ronin to Soseki's I am a Cat --and even Tora-san, there is something that feels so Japanese to me about the novel.
Longing for Japan...
Perhaps most famously was the influence the novel had on Oe Kenzaburo. But what about Shiga Naoya. I studied Shiga Naoya in grad school and loved it that he used Dulcinea (read in English, says Seiro) in his novel A Dark Night's Passing , to evoke a more enlightened kind of love (!!) Pure Shiga Naoya that he presented Dulcinea as a lady by whom Don Quixote was purified....
In Japanese texts, you see again and again the Spanish novel praised for its "gentile" aspects. I think English readers will always be struck overwhelmingly by the comedic aspect--and so I am struck by the Japanese reaction as being concerned with Don Quixote's very gentle and almost aristocratic longing for days past. This idea of a man who turns away from a corrupted present to dress in the styles of bygone days and concern himself with chasing ideals is something universally interesting, I think.
Along these lines, the Quixote appears in Mishima's autobiographical work, Confessions of a Mask.
There were a great number of people absorbed in tales of knights in the time of Don Quixote. Yet in a world that was completely corrupted by tales of chivalry, it was essential that there be one Quixote. My case is no different from this.
That is pure Mishima. To hold on to ideals in the face of a corrupted presence is very much how Mishima saw himself.
More than anything I learned in Seiro Bantaro's article I was delighted-no thrilled!-- to find out that one of my favorite Japanese modern poets, Hakiwara Sakutaro, was also crazy about the Quixote. He wrote this in an essay:
When I first read Cervantes' original work , I was twenty-one, Though I forget the name of the translator, it was a huge volume packed with words and required both hands to carry. I can recall spending three days straight at the University library in order tho read the entire thing. I was constantly laughing as I read this comedic work. But what remained in my mind thereafter was an infinite respect and deep affection for that person of incomparably naive righteousness, Don Quixote. For me, he was not an imaginary character, but was actually a real, living person, whom I thought of as being somewhere in a world nearby, breathing with eternal life.
Dear Sakutaro--torn between his duty to take on the family business (medicine) or follow his heart, identified with the "blunderings" of the "drop out" Don Quixote. This reminds me of a novel about a Japanese monk by Yasushi Inoue. The monk in the story had traveled to China during the early Tang dynasty, where he had spent his entire adult life—thirty some years-- translating all the great Buddhist sutras from Chinese into Japanese so that the people of his country would also have access to the true teachings of the Buddha. Thirty years—it was a long time. The joy he must have felt at returning home after all those years, his mission completed, must have been immense. But, it wasn’t to be; for on those perilous seas that have long plagued sailors between China and Japan, the monk would watch as all his life’s work washed overboard during a terrible storm.
Countless volumes of his work—all lost in the blink of an eye.
It is the type of story that appeals to the Japanese heart and mind, I think. My beloved tea teacher often spoke of fate. Once she had surprised me by bringing up Napoleon during a tea lesson. She said, “We should never forget that even the seeming failure of our own individual lives can have tremendous impact in the longer sweep of history. We are making history by the stories we tell—and that includes even our noble failures. I suppose Napoleon was more interesting in his failures than in his successes, right?"
My teacher's words have echoed in my mind for many years.
Sakutaro wrote an early poem about Don Quixote. I am hoping to track it down in the original but not having much luck....
Cocktail recipe here (it is a winner!)
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