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Master of the Unnoticed Story
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19041 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
Date : |
1 / 1991 |
3,677 Words |
| Author
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J. Martin Holman
J Martin Holman is a professor in East Asian studies at
Vanderbilt University. He is the editor and translator of
Shadows of a Sound and The Book of Masks, collections of
Hwang Sun Won's later stories by Korean author Yun Heung Gil.
His other translations include The Old Capital and Palm-of-
the-Hand Stories by Japanese Nobel laureate Yasunari
Kawabata. He taught Japanese and Korean literature at
Wakayama University near Osaka, Japan. |
CONFUCIUS
Yasushi Inoue
Shincho-sha, Tokyo
1989
You might not think that a novel about the sixth-century B.C. Chinese philosopher Confucius would land on the best-seller lists in modern industrial Japan, but it has. A few months age, I walked into "Book Bahn," one of several chains of book supermarkets that have sprung up along the roadsides in Japan, glanced at the ten best-selling works of literature, and found Yasushi Inoue's latest historical novel, Koshi (Confucius), sitting in the No.1 spot--a position it has occupied for a number of weeks, ahead of four books by the current hit writer, Banana Yoshimoto.
The novel will have a familiar ring to those who have read any of Inoue's historical fiction. His previous works have sought to illuminate well-known figures in the kind of light that history seldom casts upon them. Often, an associate who saw a side of the character in question that public histories would be unlikely to chronicle narrates the story.
Confucius is narrated in the form of dialogues between a certain "Enkyo," one of the master's lesser-known disciples, and questioners who are trying to find out more about Confucius' life and teachings. Confucius is the latinized version of K'ung Fu-tzu. He was born about 551 B.C. and lived during a time of great turmoil in China, when the central government exercised little power and the country consisted of competing city-states. Little is conclusively known about Confucius' origins and early years; indeed, his life has been obscured by legends that grew up surrounding his name--legends so reverently accepted that they prevented scholarly inquiry into the philosopher's true figure.
Enkyo relates to his questioners incidents that occurred during his master's career as a political philosopher. After having served in important government posts, Confucius set off on a long journey through eastern China developing his philosophy and seeking a ruler who would accept his teaching of the centrality of ethics to government. Displeased with the immorality of government in his day, Confucius emphasized that rulers were obligated to set an example by their moral behavior, which would become a model and encourage their people. Confucius stressed that the educated "man of virtue" would recognize what is right, and so he did not advocate a rigid legal system. Enkyo tells of Confucius' teachings and his meetings with the rulers of the various states,
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