Grass For My Pillow [Hardcover]

Saiichi Maruya (Author), Dennis Keene (Translator)

Book Description

Series: Modern Asian Literature | Publication Date: October 15, 2002

First published in Japanese in 1966, the debut novel of the critically acclaimed author of Singular Rebellion is an unusual portrait of a deeply taboo subject in twentieth-century Japanese society: resistance to the draft in World War II. In 1940 Shokichi Hamada is a conscientious objector who dodges military service by simply disappearing from society, taking to the country as an itinerant peddler by the name of Sugiura until the end of the war in 1945. In 1965, Hamada works as a clerk at a conservative university, his war resistance a dark secret of the past that present-day events force into the light, confronting him with unexpected consequences of his refusal to conform twenty years earlier.

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

This virtuosic novel was published in Japan in 1966. Its antiwar message is timely, but its delayed American appearance is bewildering, for the book is a cornucopia of delights. Its hero, Hamada, a just individual in an unjust society, was a draft dodger during the Second World War, skulking through the country under an assumed identity, repairing clocks and radios and selling sand paintings. Now middle-aged, with a young wife, he has settled into the dubious comforts of postwar prosperity as a clerk at a conservative university, but his past is catching up with him, and the stultifying pettiness of his workplace is interrupted by flashbacks of his life as a fugitive. He is complicatedly compromised; so is everyone around him, and the inescapably mixed nature of the characters' motives is delineated with wit, economy, and a consistent but ever-surprising compassion. Keene's translation dexterously reflects Maruya's linguistic exuberance.
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

Review

Understated yet powerfully effective.... Maryua's restrained prose mirrors the constriction of Hamada's thoughts and experience, while his amazing attention to detail renders an unquestionably real world for the narrative to exist within.

(Christine Thomas San Francisco Chronicle )

Many artists have either idealized pre-surrender Japan as a golden age untainted by Westernization or criticized the blind acceptance of military objectives, but Maruya refuses to gloss over the former or treat the latter as more enlightened.

(Village Voice )

Virtuosic... a cornucopia of delights... Keene's translation dexterously reflects Maruya's linguistic exuberance.

(The New Yorker )

A masterly realistic novel, and one of the best out of the Far East in many years.

(Kirkus )

This thoughtful book gives a wonderful insight into Japanese life, both the greater cultural beliefs that shape the society as a whole and the minutiae that preoccupy each individual. Entertaining, informative and compassionate, this is a very worthwhile read. A tribute must also be paid to the translator.

(Janet Mary Tomson The Historical Novels Review )

[A] complete artistic success [in] its riddling marrative method... precise, mysterious, and moving.

(Times Literary Supplement )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Columbia University Press (October 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0231126581
• ISBN-13: 978-0231126588
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,363,407 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)