The Frontier Within

Abe Kōbō: education of, 80–81, 87; experience as writer, 31–32; and Japanese literature, xvii–xviii; leftist allegiances of, xiv; poetry of, 1; reputation in English-speaking world, ix–x; works: Bō ni natta otoko [The Man Who Turned into a Stick], 161, 162; “Chinnyūsha” [The Intruders], xiii; Enomoto Buyō, 95, 100; Furyō shōnen [Juvenile Delinquents], 31; “Hakuchō goroshi no uta” [A Song of Swan Killing], 171; Kabe atsuki heya [The Room with Thick Walls], 31; Seifuku [Uniforms], 31; Suna no onna [The Woman in the Dunes], x; Tanin no kao [The Face of Another], x, xvi, 95–96

abstraction, 27, 69, 74

affirmation, 4, 6, 16

agrarian society, x, 152–153, 157–158, 166

alienation, 159, 167

Amerika (Kafka), 48

The Angelus (Millet), 156, 170

animals, 62–63, 66, 67; conditioned responses of, 81, 83

antiliterature movement, 63, 69–70, 78; and artistic revolution, 75–76, 77

anti-Semitism, 128, 130, 136–137, 142, 159; Hitler and, 127, 141, 155; reinforcement of, 138, 141; in Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 132–134, 135–136, 137, 143, 155; in U.S., xiv, 134–35; Zionism and, 141–142. See also Jews

art, 65, 75, 166; contemporary, 68, 90, 165, 168; as disruption of perception-reason balance, 70–71, 72–73, 76, 77; genre in, 78; of its time, 74; and knowledge, 27, 66, 163; and literature, 68, 71; and realism, 27; and tradition, 88; and writing/style difference, 165, 171

artistic revolution, 75–77, 78

Australopithecus, 111–114, 117

authenticity, xvi; Jews and, 136, 137, 138, 140, 142

Balzac, Honoré de, 74

Beckett, Samuel, 137

being-in-the-world, 13–17

blacks, xiv, xvi, 54, 56–57

Brecht, Bertold, 78, 144–145

cause and effect, 6, 9

Celui qui doit mourir (Dassin), 55, 58

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 60

Chaplin, Charlie, 50, 53, 144

Chinese characters, 85

Choseed, Bernard J., 132

cities and urban society, 151, 153, 166, 170; alienation in, 159; community in, 158, 159; fixity of, 147; Jews and, 128, 130–131, 136–137, 153, 154–155; prejudice against, 130, 136–137, 156; state and, 131, 147

citizens, xv, 136, 137, 140, 142, 147

classification, 157, 169

class society and divisions, 21–22, 26, 120

commonalities and differences, 157, 169–170

Communist Party, xiv, 92, 95, 98, 99

community, 95, 139–140, 151, 158, 159

conditioned responses, 81–83

consciousness, 4; and existence, 2, 12; and language, 3, 4, 65

“cosmopolitanism,” 133, 143

Crèvecoeur, J. Hector St. John de, 56

culture, 76, 89; in America, 57–59; Jewish, 143–144, 155; popular, xi, 52

Czechoslovakia, 48, 137

Dasein, 10, 16, 17

Dassin, Jules, 55, 58

Death of a Salesman (Miller), 144

democratic literature, 21

deserters, xvii, 167

Dōketsugaku koto hajime [Introduction to Speleology], 156, 168

Dos Passos, John, 59

Dostoevsky, Fyodor, 155, 164–165

dropout mentality, 106

Ehrenburg, Ilya, 133, 134, 155

Eisenstein, Sergei, 57, 134

evolution: of human society, 94, 116–118, 119–121; theory of, 22, 72, 111–114, 117

existence, 3, 4, 72; and consciousness, 2, 12

experience, 9, 11–12, 24

expression, 163; enriching, 86; and knowledge, 22, 23, 27–28, 40, 45–46

external world, 14, 15

farmers and peasants, x, 115, 118–119, 127; attachment to land, 157–158; legitimacy and goodness associated with, 114, 136–137, 146–147, 155–156; as Tolstoy motif, 125–126, 145–146

fascism, xiii–xiv, 134–135

Faulkner, William, 52

fiction, 34, 36, 65; basic elements of, 35; form and content in, 44; as national in form, 133–134; novels, 19, 165–66; and reality, 37, 40, 42, 43; as social product, 43; structure of, 40–41; and transformation of reader, 42–43. See also literature

fixity, 117–118, 147, 148; and state, 120, 121, 152–153; as virtue, 114, 119

Flaubert, Gustave, 22

Foucault, Michel, xiii

frontier, 118, 119, 120, 128, 139, 147

Fukuzawa Yukichi, 96

Gazzo, Michael V., 73

Goldstücker, Eduard, 132

Gombrowicz, Witold, 144

Gorky, Maxim, 41–42

Guevara, Che, 127, 148

Guterman, Norbert, 134

harvest peoples, 116–118

A Hatful of Rain (Gazzo), 73

Heidegger, Martin, 10

Hemingway, Ernest, 52

heresy, 114, 115, 118, 147; Jews and, 137, 138, 142, 143, 146; legitimacy and, 148

Hijikata Toshizō, 98–99

hippies, 108, 122, 123

history, 114; traces from, 88–89, 90, 97

Hitler, Adolf, 126–127, 133, 170; and Jews, 127, 141, 155

Hoffmeister, Adolf, 49

Hofmannsthal, Hugo von, 144

human sensibility, 67, 167–168

images, 62–64, 74–75

Informel painting, 69–70

I-novel, 21, 25, 38, 101

Ionesco, Eugène, 137

Israel, 138, 140, 142–143, 146

Itard, Jean-Marc Gaspard, 67

Japan: agrarian society in, 155–156, 169–170; and America, xiv, 49–50, 51–52, 53, 59, 60; cities in, 156, 170–171; concept of Jews in, 136, 159; education system in, xi, 80–81, 86, 87; gangster films in, 98, 158; history of, 95–96, 136, 153–154; Korean residents in, xvi; as “ruined nation,” 162, 163; Self-Defense Forces of, 162

Japanese language, 91, 92, 93, 170

Jasieński, Bruno, 134

Jews: and authenticity, 136, 137, 138, 140, 142; and heresy, 137, 138, 142, 143, 146; Hitler and, 127, 141, 155; and Holocaust, 131–132, 141, 153; as intellectuals and writers, 124–125, 143–145, 144, 155; and Israel, 138, 140, 146; Japanese conception of, 136, 159; and legitimacy, 140, 141, 146–147; and national ethnicity, 138–139; particularity of, 126, 129, 145; in revolutionary movement, 155; in Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, 132–134, 135–136, 137, 155; statelessness of, 130, 137–138; urban nature of, 128, 130–131, 136–137, 153, 154–155; in U.S., xiv, xvi, 134–135; and Yiddish, 154. See also anti-Semitism

Kamei Katsuichirō, 85

Katherine Dunham Dance Company, 57

Katsu Kaishū, 100, 101, 154

Kaufman, George S., 59

Kawabata Yasunari, ix

Keene, Donald, 163–164

Keller, Helen, 81, 83

Khrushchev, Nikita, 51

knowledge, 3, 84; and art, 27, 66, 163; dialectical development of, 24–25; and expression, 22, 23, 27–28, 40, 46; and language, 23, 40; and perception, 27, 66, 68; and practice, 21, 23–24, 26–27; rational, 27, 66, 68; realism as form of, 25–26

land, 154, 156, 157–158

language, 61, 81, 91; acquisition of, 62, 83; and consciousness, 3, 4, 65; and images, 63–64, 74–75; and knowledge, 23, 40; and literature, 19, 65, 71, 77; and reality, 65; as sign of a sign, 23–23, 71; structure of, 92–93; and thought, 71–72, 82, 93; translatability of, 94

legitimacy, 148; Jews and, 140, 141, 146–147

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich, 21, 28–29

Lips, Julius E., 116–117

literary criticism, xi, 20–21

literary superiority, 76

literature, 18–29; antiliterature movement and, 68, 70; and language, 19, 65, 71, 77; for literature’s sake, 70, 71, 72; as opposition, 77, 148; partisanship of, 28, 29; as subservient to reader, 36–37; and theory, 19–20, 27, 28, 36. See also fiction

Löwenthal, Leo, 134

loyalty, xii, 98, 99

Lucian of Samostata, 99

Lu Xun, 42, 46, 100, 101

Malamud, Bernard, 144

Mandelstam, Osip, 134

Mandingo (Onstott), 128–29

man’s being, 7–8, 9–14, 15, 17

Marxism, 55, 72, 152

materialism, 21, 23, 24–25, 40

Materialism and Empirio-Criticism (Lenin), 21, 28–29

Mathieu, Georges, 55

Matsukawa Incident, 31

Mayakovsky, Vladimir, 30, 31, 45–46, 57

meaning, 15, 16, 68–69

meat eating, 112, 117

Meiji Restoration, 95–96, 136

Melville, Herman, 52

Meyerhold, Vsevolod, 134, 144

military uniforms, xii–xiv; American, xiii–xiv, 103–104; Nazi, xii, 103, 104–105; and state, 105–106; as youth fad, 106–110

Miller, Arthur, 144–45

Millet, Jean-François, 156, 170

Mishima Yukio, ix, 100, 151, 162

mobility, 114, 115, 117

money, 151–52, 153

mother earth, 114, 115, 118

musicals, 58–59, 78

Nakaya Ken’ichi, 52, 53

national borders, 123, 139, 147, 148, 151

nation-state, xviii, 91–92

Nausea (Sartre), 61

Nazi Germany, xiv–xv, 103, 104–105, 131–132

neighbor, 98, 160, 166–167; and other, 95–96, 97

Nietzsche, Friedrich, 6

night, 16–17; intuition of, 5; and man’s being, 10–12; meaning of, 14; self-disclosure of, 11, 15

nomadic peoples, xvii, 116, 117, 119–120, 123, 156

Nusinov, Yitzhak, 134

Of Thee I Sing (Kaufman and Ryskind), 59

O’Neill, Eugene, 53

Onstott, Kyle, 128–129

other, 138, 167–168; and neighbor, 95–96, 97

particularity, 125–26, 129, 145

Pasternak, Boris, 144

patriotism, xii, 163

Pavlov, Ivan, 26, 62, 81–83

perception, 27, 71; and reason, 66–67, 68, 70, 72, 73, 75, 77

philosophical principles, 7 Picasso, Pablo, 25

Poe, Edgar Allen, 53

Portrait of the Anti-Semite (Sartre), 128

practice, 22; and knowledge, 21, 23–24, 26–27; Lenin on, 28–29; and reality, 25, 26, 28

pragmatism, 52, 54–55

Prophets of Deceit: A Study of the Techniques of the American Agitator (Löwenthal and Guterman), 134

prose, 19, 45, 71, 133–134

Pushkin, Alexandr, 134

Racine, Jean, 128, 129

rationalism, 21–22

Rauschning, Hermann, 126–127

readers, 46, 89, 90; emotions of, 45; internal, 90; transformation of, 42–43; and writers, 37–39, 41–42, 43–44, 89–90

“The Reader” (Gorky), 41–42

realism, 25, 28; and art, 27; and knowledge, 25–26; literary, 29, 42; socialist, 29, 132, 133

reality: and artistic abstraction, 27; and fiction, 37, 42, 43; and knowledge, 24; and language, 65; and practice, 25, 26, 28; writers and, 36, 40

reason: and perception, 66–67, 68, 70, 72, 73, 75, 77; thought as systematic, 71

Records of the Grand Historian (Sima Qian), 121–122

revolution, 99–100, 167

Rilke, Rainer Maria, 15, 16

Salacrou, Armand, 37

Salinger, J. D., 155

samurai, 99, 153–54

Sartre, Jean-Paul, 19, 61; on America, xv, 48–49, 50–51, 56; on Jews and anti-Semitism, 128, 138, 140

science: and knowledge, 24, 66; tradition in, 100

self-awareness, 25, 140

self-recognition, 10–11

Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (Beatles), 109–110

Shakespeare, William, 163

Shaw, George Bernard, 31

Shisō no kagaku [The Science of Thought], 96

Shostakovich, Dmitri, 133

Sima Qian, 121–122

social, xi, xvi–xvii

socialist realism, 29, 132, 133

socialization, 114, 117

Soviet Union, 142, 155; anti-Semitism in, 132–134, 135–136, 143; Russian Revolution and, 57

Spillane, Mickey, 53

Stalin, Joseph, 42, 133, 170; and Hitler, 133; on linguistics, 23, 26; Soviet critique of, 51, 134

Stalinism, 99, 143, 155

state, xvi, xvii, 99, 151, 160; and city, 131, 147; and fixity, 120, 121, 152–153; mediated institutions of, xi, xii; and military uniforms, 105–106; as universal value, 152; and violence, xii, xv, 141

style, 166, 168, 171; and theme, 73–74; and writing, 164, 165

Sugawara Takashi, 73

sustained flight, xvii, 159

Tanizaki Jun’ichirō, ix

television, film, and radio, 71, 76, 77

theory, 21; and literature, 27, 28; and practice, 26

thought, 71, 85–86; and language, 71–72, 82, 93

Tōhō Gakuen College, 161

Tokugawa shogunate, 98–99

Tolstoy, Leo, 125–126, 145, 148, 155

tradition, 91, 101, 139–40; invisible traces of, 88–89, 90–91; readers and, 90, 94–95; revolution and, 99–100

translation: politics of, ix, x–xi; and writing, 164–165

The Trial (Kafka), 129

A True Story (Lucian), 99

truth, 2–3, 6–8, 10, 46

Tsurumi Shunsuke, 50, 52, 55

United States, 47–60, 99, 139; Abe critique of, xiv–xv; anti-Semitism in, xiv, xvi, 134–135; blacks in, xiv, xvi, 54, 56–57, 128–29; culture in, 57–59; democracy in, xiv, 54; and Japan, xiv, 49–50, 51–52, 53, 59, 60; Jewish writers in, 155; “myth of the people” in, 55–56; Nazi Germany compared to, xiv–xv; neofascist movements in, xiv, 134–135; repression in, 53–54; Sartre on, 48–49, 50–51

Vietnam War, xiv, 100, 107, 148; deserters from, 167

violence, 113; state, xii, xv, 141

visual images, 62–64

Whitman, Walt, 52, 53

writers, 34, 42, 46; and directors, 164; Jewish, 144–145; life and work of, 20, 44, 100, 101; motives of, 35–36, 38, 39–40, 44; and readers, 37–39, 41–42, 43–44, 89–90; relation to their works, 38; and structure, 40–41; and tradition, 93–94

writing: manuals on, 31–32, 33–34, 38; methods of, 32–33; and reality, 40; and style, 45, 164, 165; and talent, 32; and technique, 33, 34–35, 42; and translation, 164–65