Customer Reviews

Broken Commandment (The Japanese Foundation Translation Series)

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Shimazaki's life-like portrayal of a young man's struggle with prejudice and his own hypocrisy in Hakai create a delicate tension. Shimazaki's draws heavily on the sights, sounds and sense of natural things for his backdrop. Repeatedly I was reminded of the Japanese appreciation for nature as the main character, Ushimatsu hurried home to his father's funeral. Along the way, Shimazaki takes the time to describe the sky, the river waters and the flowering weeds growing beside the dirt road. Although it was his heavy use of nature that moved me, Okazaki was moved most by Shimazaki's depiction of humanity. "This spirit of religious self-examination extends through all of Shimazaki's works. This is Shimazaki's humanism rather than his naturalism." (p. 241) An additional strength to Hakai is the vivid detail Shimazaki uses in describing his main character's living quarters, the hard life of the drunkard's family, and the rigid caste system employed during that time. The reader has a full sense of being a member of the eta outcast group and a full sense of being a Japanese person in a complicated, striated social system. It simplifies these issues from a standpoint of historical study because instead of rote memorization of various levels of the community, literature allows the reader to mentally walk among the people, live with them and relate to them. The images created by his character bring such life to the community that it becomes easy to understand the structure. Even the simplest of scenes illuminates life in that time. This description of the funeral for Ushimatsu's father provides a vignette of life, religion and the relationship between people and nature: "The rough wooden coffin was draped in a white cloth, and before it stood a newly inscribed memorial tablet, offerings of water and sweets, and bunches of chrysanthemums and anise leaves." "Shimazaki Toson's Broken Commandment is another step in the right direction," Kojin says on page 76 before going on to explain that genbun itchi (written and spoken language as one) "was a literary form of the confession - confession as a system - that produced the interiority that confessed the 'true self.' " While it is certainly true the reader sees the world from the inside of the main character's mind in Hakai, Armando Martins Janeira compliments Shimazaki's humanistic approach in his book Japanese and Western Literature: A Comparative Study, page 129. "In 1906, Toson Shimazaki published the most significant novel of shinzenshugi (naturalism) literature, Hakai, about a young outcast who rebels against conventions which banish him from society." My only concern about Janeira's critique is that he credits Christians with giving Shimazaki and other Japanese Meiji era authors their insight to write against the social system. While I don't doubt that contact with external agencies helped bring new perspectives to Japan, I question whether anyone can accurately trace that origin to source. After making this questionable parallel on page 144, he pays a compliment to the author that I feel is absolutely correct. "Toson Shimazaki's Hakai is the first important novel inspired by deep humanist intention." I can't say whether it is the first, but it is deeply humanistic and inspiring because it holds such a valuable message that still has application today. Although humanism is a defining aspect of another novel from that time, Tsuchi (1910) ties humanism so tightly to naturalism that it is hard to say where humanity stops and nature takes over. Perhaps it is best defined by the author who links The Soil to the people: "Hardly a day passed in Oshina's life when she had not felt the soil beneath her feet. Barefooted except in icy winter, she had been its creature. And now, in death, she was it's creature still. Separated only by a thin layer of pine, her feet would rest on the soil forever." (Page 25) The power of Tsuchi lies in the reader's sense of the onerous tasks of daily existence as a poverty-stricken farmer in Meiji jidai Japan. I came to empathize with Kanji's hard work and failed attempts to improve his painfully meager existence as the years kept flowing past him and his life did not change for the better. At heart, he seemed to be such a genuine human and yet cursed by birth to be a Japanese farmer in the late 1880s. The complete poverty of his existence and the other farmers in his categroy described as mizunomi or water drinkers. His food seemed so scarce that he could not have afforded to subsist on much more than water. Both Tsuchi and Hakai give detailed descriptions of rural funerals during a similar time period. However, they differ in some interesting ways. "Ushimatsu's uncle, faithful to the old way of doing things, had provided for the journey to the next world a sunshade and a pair of straw sandles. A knife to ward off devils lay on the lid of the coffin. The praying and the beating of the drum began again, and talk of the dead man, punctuated by artless laughter and the clatter of dishes, was sad and at the same time lively," Shimazaki wrote in Hakai. (Page 138) In contrast, Oshina has no knife to ward off spirits, nor does the author mention any sunshade to cover her during her journey in the after world. Instead, she gets a shave. This difference may have been due to gender or to the difference in various regions at that time. "The acolyte lifted the lid of the casket, removed Oshina's hood, and stroked her cheeks with a razor. In as much as the hard life and hard labor of Tsuchi appears to have deeper roots in realism, the birth or rebirth of realism in Japanese literature took place in the late 1800s. Authors began to mimic the language of everyday use in their novels creating a direct form of literary realism.

As a member of a minority (based on my sexual orientation) that had been frequently cursed and despised by various religions and societies -- and also a minority where one can remain hidden and concealed -- I related readily to this book. Does a person hide his or her despised minority status and thus attain and maintain one's position as a part of the privileged majority -- even if this position is based upon a false and dishonest premise? Or should a person come out and reveal membership as part of a despised minority and achieve a certain amount of freedom from having been honest and open? However, this revelation can likely carry grim consequences: the economic hardship of loss of job and career, the social hardship of isolation and rejection, the personal hardship of being a target of overt or covert violence. The temptation can be overwhelming to hide one's status as a member of a minority on the basis that it is "private" and also that it would unjustly deprive the person of the protection, privileges, and rights that such a person would normally be entitled to as a human being within a society. However, there is a drive to openly reveal one's self in order to join with other members in order to engage in a struggle for human justice.

So what does a member of a despised minority do? How to solve this dilemma? This is what the main character of THE BROKEN COMMANDMENT faces. The book was written in 1905, set in the author's native Japan. It was a time when the previously-segregated "outcast" classes of Japan, the eta ("abundant filth") and the hinin ("non-human"), were supposed to have been freed from the forced segregation and degradation, existing on the bottom rungs of the feudal class structure that had recently been set aside. Ironically, at the time that the alleged abolition of these pariah classes took place - practically at the same time, another pariah group in the US, African-Americans, who had been enslaved, were supposed to have been freed from their slavery. In both cases, however, the former outcasts (or slaves in the US) continued to be subjected to segregation, harsh discrimination, and violence; perhaps things aren't so different after all in various parts of the world.

A note here: it was not until the 1920's, many years after the novel was written, that the term "burakumin" began to be used to refer to the former outcasts of Japan. So this would explain the author's use of the word "eta" rather than "burakumin" in the book.

Specifically, in THE BROKEN COMMANDMENT, Segawa Ushimatsu, a young teacher in a Japanese village, happens to belong to the old eta class. His father had gone to great pains to cover up this ancestry, so that Ushimatsu can have the opportunities that he would never have as an open member of the eta. He has literally laid down a commandment to his son to never reveal his membership as a part of an "unclean" outcast class. The novel goes on to explore the onerous burden that Ushimatsu must carry in concealing his true self. When others talk about the "unclean" eta, when a wealthy eta gentleman is refused admission to a hospital and then evicted from his rented lodgings, Ushimatsu feels unable to express any sympathy toward his fellow outcast. This is similar to the times when a hidden Jewish or gay person in the US would have felt as if he/she had to laugh at Jewish or gay jokes in order to conceal one's true identity. As the novel progresses, Ushimatsu feels the pressure of his secret more and more. The writings and activities of a prominent eta who has become an activist for his people make it even more difficult for Ushimatsu to continue in his deception. He longs for the freedom to come out and reveal who he truly is. But he feels burdened by his father's original commandment to him. The martyrdom of the eta activist, who dies from being stoned by violent, anti-eta bigots, finally motivates Ushimatsu to break his father's commandment and come out openly at his school and in his community. Though he faces the consequences of loss of his position and some condemnation, he is also admired by his former students and others who can perceive his courage.

The ending is a bit controversial. Some people have said that it is unsatisfactory, a sort of "deus-ex-machina" ending. The book could have ended tragically, with Ushimatsu forced into ruin and degradation, and possibly his own martyrdom. However, instead, the author is able to impart a feeling of freedom inside Ushimatsu's mind. Ushimatsu has lost a lot in freeing himself of his secret. But he has gained a remarkable measure of freedom. He has also won over many people who have experienced his break from engrained prejudice. He ends up allying himself in an act of solidarity with the man who had been evicted from both hospital and home at the beginning of the story. There are vague plans made about Ushimatsu and his colleagues possibly emigrating from Japan to the US (where a few decades later, he and his colleagues would have been interned in detention camps as "Japs"), but there is an "open-ended" feel to the story's end. The final impression is of a person who has flown freely out of a prison that had been built by ancient prejudices.

This novel, written 100 years ago, finds its place easily in modern literature. Its theme is authenticity: A real life and real happiness can only be achieved if someone recognizes, internally and externally, who he is. "Passing," which is the strategy advocated by the protagonist's father, necessarily inovolves a lack of authenticity and a lack of completeness. The only way to achieve wholeness is to "break the commandment."

This book is secondarily a social novel about discrimination against the "eta," a form of class prejudice that persists in Japan today.

This is Shimazaki Toson's first novel, self-published in 1906. It created an instant sensation in the Japanese literary world. Shimazaki combined a new stark realism and a radical compassion for oppressed people with a traditional feeling for nature. The effect was totally original.

The story follows the personal crisis of an eta "passing" as an ordinary Japanese - and in grave danger of exposure. Eta (meaning full of filth) were the lowest of the low in the Japanese social hierarchy - beneath even such "non-persons" as beggars and prostitutes. They were segregated from other Japanese first by strict laws and then by strong prejudice.

I'm always pleased to encounter books that teach me something about the various movements in Japanese literature. Shimazaki was a pioneer of the modern spirit in the Japanese novel and shows the influence of Japanese Romanticism.

I found Shimazaki an engaging writer. His story is highly dramatic, his dialog crisp, and he has a sharp eye for the telling psychological detail. He gives us a fascinating picture of snow country at the turn of the century. Shimazaki lived in this area for some years.

The plot does drag in spots, however. And Shimazaki is not perfectly politically correct, despite his choice of an eta hero. But the book reflects its times and is quite interesting from that point of view.

The excellent introduction is best read after the book. It added greatly to my enjoyment. Kenneth Strong explains the position of eta in Japan through the centuries, places The Broken Commandment in its literary context, and shares some startling facts about Shimazaki's life.

I'd recommend this book in particular to readers interested in the development of the Japanese novel.

The burakumin, or eta as they are called in this book, a derogatory term no longer in polite use, are something that I have always struggled to understand. While the historical basis for the discrimination is easily explained, what with the taboo against working with the dead that was a foundation of ancient Japanese religion, why this problem persists unto the modern age has always been a bit mystifying. I know many perfectly reasonable, educated and modern Japanese people who find burakumin somewhat distasteful, although they can't put exactly into words why. "They are dirty" is the usual excuse, but even then it can't really be elaborated on. Old feelings die hard, even when the reasons for the feelings ended generations before anyone was even born.

With "The Broken Commandment", I was hoping for a little insight into the issue, a little understanding as to how this situation evolved, but this is unfortunately not the book for that. Originally published in 1906, the author Shimazaki Toson is not a burakumin himself, nor did he have any particular involvement with them. In fact, "The Broken Commandment" has continued to draw criticism from burakumin leaders as an exploitative work where the author used their suffering and pain in order to advance his career as a novelist. The book avoids any political or historical discussion of the discrimination, and doesn't really educate the reader regarding the burakumin.

What Toson did have, however, was empathy for the outcast, himself being somewhat alienated from society, and the ability to share this horrible sense of non-belonging with his readers. In that sense, this book isn't really about the burakumin, but about anyone with a secret shame that they must keep hidden. His protagonist Ushimatsu could have been gay, or of a different, shunned religion, or a member of any group that is/was considered distasteful to the general public. "The Broken Commandment" is not a political work, but instead a Humanist novel dealing with themes that can be found in any country, amongst any populous. It is, in fact, one of Japan's earliest Humanists works, and represents a distinct shift in Japanese literature during the Meiji era.

As a book itself, "The Broken Commandment" is not exactly breezy reading, but nor is it as heavy as the subject matter might lead you to believe. The first part is a bit sluggish, but the pace picks up later on, and towards the end, when the characters have been established and their various threads draw towards conclusion, it can be quite the page-turner. The ending is a little unsatisfying, but very atypical of a Japanese novel, which is interesting in and of itself. However, it is still not a Western ending, and maybe floats somewhere in-between.

This book deals with a real aspect of Japanese history, the "non-humans." When the Japanese culture was making a transition toward metropolitan city life and away from agrarian life, the emperor commanded certain families to take certain responsibilities. Later, because of the Buddhist aversion to death and killing, those families with the unfortunate assignment to professions like meat butcher or tanner came to be consider spiritually and later, even physically unclean.
Many such families did, in fact, send their children to far away cities to be educated and changed their names so that the association with the non-human category of Japanese society might be forgotten.
This broken commandment is about a one of these people who makes it all the way to the coveted position of teacher, a highly regarded social position in Japan both centuries ago and today. But he breaks the commandment to his father when he tells someone his true origins.
The most amazing thing about racism is how it makes irrational ideas seem credible. Among the Japanese rumors developed about this class of people ... that they were in fact, Mongols, not Japanese, more like savages and that you could tell as soon as you looked at them.
Such stories were absurd, of course, because these families came from the exact same human genetic background as all other Japanese people.
Rules, similiar to those codified in the United States after the Civil War, prevented non-humans from eating in the presence of "real" humans, prohibited them from wearing shoes and other methods to help distinguish them from "civil society."
Reading this book makes one reflect on racism throughout the globe. How did humans develop such a penchant for enjoying a self-indulgent sense of superiority to someone else? And why does this tendency persist even when so much evidence to the contrary presents itself through scientific discoveries?
Stepping outside the U.S. view of our history of racial tension and looking at it from this new, foreign culture helps one see the consistency in symptoms of this sociological virus. Maybe one day we can develop a vaccine that prevents our children from being infected from this self-destructive form of logic.
A powerfully insightful text that illuminates Japanese history and culture as well as global problems with human compatibility.

If you like books about injustice, this is a must read. The lives of Japan's Burakumin were as hard as those of India's untouchables, and this story of a teacher hiding the secret of his birth is really gripping. You'll definitely feel angry by the end of the book.

I think everyone should read books like this sometimes in order to remind themselves that about standing up for weaker people and not turning a blind eye when you see racism or discrimination.

I usually hate reading Japanese books in translation because the prose always sounds awkward. Kenneth Strong, the translator has done a wonderful job though, and everything sounds natural and the writing flows very well. I wish that more translators would realise that it is impossible to translate Japanese literally and that you pretty much have to re-write it if you want to produce something readable.

The book has a few weaknesses. The bad guys are rather two-dimensional and the ending seems a little contrived but the book is definitely worth reading.

A warning: Although the introduction is very interesting and definitely worth a read, the translator gives away the whole story so save it for the end.