Foreign Studies (Peter Owen Modern Classics) [Paperback]

Shusaku Endo (Author), Mark Williams (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Peter Owen Modern Classic | Publication Date: March 1, 2010

Elegantly divided into three sections, this ... calibrates the dislocation of Easterners transplanted to the West. ""A Summer in Rouen,"" set shortly after WW II, follows the recipient of a church-sponsored scholarship that has brought him from Japan to France to study Christian literature... ""Araki Thomas"" tells of the first Japanese student in Rome, a Christian sent there at the dawn of the 17th century who...renounces his faith after he returns home, choosing survival for himself and for his people. The themes of these two sections are deepened in ""And You, Too,"" in which an ambitious academic named Tanaka goes to Paris in the 1960s to become an authority on the Marquis de Sade... Tanaka feels as alienated as the hero of Rouen, ""constantly experiencing the sense of distance between himself and a great foreign spirit""... Paradoxically, Endo transcends all cultural barriers; far from foreign, his work has the intimacy and the vastness of the universally true.""--Publishers Weekly. ""An accomplished piece of writing - as well as an instructive insight into Japanese reactions to Western religion, culture, and the tolls these reactions can exact... Endo's delineation of isolation, of feeling terribly and irrevocably foreign, is moving and effective ... A thoughtful and timely book.""--Kirkus Reviews. ""Everything Shusaku Endo writes is worth reading - as good literature ... but, more importantly, for his exploration of human nature.""--New York Times.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Elegantly divided into three sections, this 1965 novel by the celebrated Japanese author of Scandal calibrates the dislocation of Easterners transplanted to the West. "A Summer in Rouen," set shortly after WW II, follows the recipient of a church-sponsored scholarship that has brought him from Japan to France to study Christian literature; his interest in the West is returned by his well-intentioned hosts' paralyzing inability to view him as more than a blank canvas for their own designs. "Araki Thomas" tells of the first Japanese student in Rome, a Christian sent there at the dawn of the 17th century who, realizing that the importation of the foreign religion brings with it certain death, renounces his faith after he returns home, choosing survival for himself and for his people. The themes of these two sections are deepened in "And You, Too," in which an ambitious academic named Tanaka goes to Paris in the 1960s to become an authority on the Marquis de Sade. Despite the presence of a community of Japanese scholars and artists, Tanaka feels as alienated as the hero of "Rouen," "constantly experiencing the sense of distance between himself and a great foreign spirit, and keenly aware of his own inferiority." The effort destroys his health; as in "Araki Thomas," the price for integrating the force of a foreign culture is life. Paradoxically, Endo transcends all cultural barriers; far from foreign, his work has the intimacy and the vastness of the universally true.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Review

An accomplished piece of writing - as well as an instructive insight into Japanese reactions to Western religion, culture, and the tolls these reactions can exact. European in setting, except for a brief interlude in Japan, the novel is divided into three complementary sections, which illustrate the theme rather than share any common narrative. In the first part, Kudo, a young Japanese student - a Christian - has come to France, just after the end of WW II, to study on a scholarship provided by the Far Eastern Mission of the Roman Catholic Church. Staying with a French Christian fancily, Kudo is aware not only of the great gulf between the two cultures but is depressed by these good and well-meaning people's implicit wish that he become a priest who will return to Japan to proselytize. In the second section, set in the 17th century, Japanese apostate Araki Thomas, of whom the Church expects great things, is appalled by the brutal persecution of Christians in Japan. Araki feels that the Church in distant Rome, which does not appreciate the tremendous sacrifice Japanese Christians are making, is asking too much of Japanese converts. Tanaka, of the third and longest section, visits France on a research grant. He increasingly feels not only isolated from the French, but from his fellow Japanese in Paris, and doubts whether his projected study of the Marquis de Sade is even possible, given the great gulf he perceives between the two cultures. The futility of the whole experience is further underlined when he has to return prematurely to Japan because he has tuberculosis. Endo's delineation of isolation, of feeling terribly and irrevocably foreign, is moving and effective, with implications that go beyond the specificity of his Japanese characters to the wider problems of communications between all cultures. A thoughtful and timely book. (Kirkus Reviews)

Set in post-war Rouen, 17th century Rome and Paris in the 1960s, these three linked stories concern the experiences of Japanese students abroad. In describing their feelings of alienation, the author provides an insight into the differences between Oriental and Western cultures. A powerful, thought-provoking novel. --Kirkus UK

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Product Details

• Paperback: 240 pages
• Publisher: Peter Owen Ltd (March 1, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0720612268
• ISBN-13: 978-0720612264
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 6.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #769,114 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stranger in a Strange Land, August 7, 2007

By 

Randy Keehn (Williston, ND United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Foreign Studies (Paperback)

I am impressed with what Shusaku Endo has accomplished in "Foreign Studies". I have read 4 or 5 other books by this author and have been impressed with them as well although on varying levels. I, frankly, did not expect this book to rate as one of his best. However, in his ability to create an image of what it is like to live and function in a very different culture, Endo touched me with a message that may be easier to experience than to explain.

This is a book of three stories very properly woven into one theme. The initial two are very brief but help set the table. The first, "A Summer in Rouen" gives an excellent snapshot of a foreign student's trials and tribulations of dealing with different cultural standards. I, as a Westerner, sense the over-reaction that the student makes. Presumably someone from and Eastern culture would be more sensitive to the "saving face" that the Japanese student has to contend with. As someone who was a foreign student and has worked with foreign students, I wouldn't mind making this short story mandatory to all traveling abroad as a foreign student. For the record, tourists cannot understand the experience that a foreign student goes through. A tourist is sightseeing; a student becomes a part of the community. The essential challenge for the foreign student is how deeply are they able to integrate into a different culture.

The second and briefest of the three stories is "Araki Thomas" which is a biography of a 16th Century Japanese Christian priest who journeyed to Rome. He returned to a Japan that had banned the Christian faith and persecuted those who continued to practice and preach it. The common ground with the other stories lies with a man's struggle to accept a faith that has been molded into a European interpretation. His acceptance of the faith defined by another culture alienated him from his own culture and his fall from grace was a tragic comment on the pitfalls he faced in doing so.

The final story comprises over 3/4's of the book and is titled "And You, Too". It is the story of a Japanese professor who goes abroad to research in France in the 1960's. He experiences, on a grander scale, the problems of the character in the first book. The story of Tanaka is in more detail and includes many examples of fellow Japanese living in France. All of them seem to experience their own complications in being who they are in a world that seems to have neither the time nor interest to understand things on their level. Adding to the impact of the book is the subject that Tanaka i researching; the Marquie de Sade. While I struggled somewhat with this analogy, I understood that the author was comparing a man nearly 2 centuries earlier who was alien to his own culture and surroundings.

It is difficult to always empathize with Tanaka's problems as he seems to become his own worst enemy. However, Endo has created an image in "Foreign Studies" that I felt was profound. I will not try to explain the gist of Endo's theories as portrayed in "Foreign Studies" because that is the whole point of reading "Foreign Studies". If any of this seems the least bit interesting you really should read the book. If not, read "Deep River" instead with its' compelling analogy of the commonality of world faith.

4.0 out of 5 stars A window into the solitary Japanese traveling abroad, September 14, 2003

By 

Govindan Nair (Vienna, VA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Foreign Studies (Paperback)

Although this is one of Shusaku Endo's earliest novels (published in 1965, with this English translation completed in 1989), I only stumbled upon it in January 2003 in a Tokyo bookstore. Many of the themes that pervade Endo's later novels in modern settings (see for example, Deep River, which I have also reviewed on this website) are found here in more historical settings. The book comprises three seperate narratives, all of which speak poignantly of the plight of the solitary Japanese man caught in cross-cultural currents abroad and at home. Any student who has studied in another country will be able to partly relate to sense of displacement and alientation in the first story of a young Japanese exchange student who finds a host French Christian family in Rouen shortly after Japan's defeat in World War Two. The second narrative is based on a seventeenth century Japanese character who found himself studying theology in Rome with the prospect of returning to his homeland when the Japanese persecution of Christianity began in 1614. In the third narrative, the protagonist is a Japanese man who finds himself in a more accomodating setting of Paris in 1965. You will recognize in these three characters some of the same anguish which confronts one of the main characters in Endo's more recent novel Deep River whose situation I also describe in my review of this other book as he converses with a fellow Japanese in Paris. Both these novels have strong autobiographical antecedents. Endo himself converted to Catholicism at the age of eleven, studied French literature in Japan, before going to Lyon on a French government scholarship, and then becoming one of the rare Christian Japanese writers. While it is not always easy to sympathize with Endo's characters, they do bring out the best in this genre which speaks to issues of identity and displacement of individuals whose lifes are swept by different cultural currents.