Novelist as a Vocation(7)

I don’t mean to go on and on about how hard we had it, only to stress that life wasn’t easy when I was in my twenties. Certainly there were others who were far worse off than me. From their vantage point, the way I lived would hardly qualify as “rough.” I can’t disagree with that; yet even so, it was plenty harsh enough for me. That’s all I want to say.

Still, it was fun. No doubt there. I was young and strong, and able to listen to the music that I loved all day as the ruler of my own little domain. I didn’t have to commute to work on packed rush-hour trains or attend boring meetings or suck up to a boss I disliked. And I was blessed with the chance to meet some really fascinating people.

I learned a lot about the world during those years too. “Learning about the world” sounds rather presumptuous, but what I mean is that I grew up. It was a perilous time, spent banging my head against the wall and fighting my way through. Terrible things were said and done to me, things that often left me frustrated and bitter. In those days, working in the entertainment industry—the “water trade,” as it’s called in Japan—meant putting up with a good deal of social prejudice. I worked myself to the bone and held my tongue about lots of things. I had to learn how to toss angry drunks out of the café and how to keep my head down when an ill wind blew. All I had time to think about was paying back what we owed and keeping the business afloat.

This desperate frame of mind helped get me through the hard years without major injury until, somehow, I came out on the other side into a space that was slightly more open and relaxed. When I stopped to rest and looked around, I discovered—to put it as plainly as I can—a landscape I had never seen before stretching before my eyes, and a new me standing there looking at it. I was slightly tougher than before, I realized, and a (very little) bit wiser.

Now I am not suggesting that the more hardship you endure the better off you will be. If you manage to get through this life without suffering, so much the better. I know there is nothing at all pleasant about hardship—it can drive you so low you can’t get up again. Nevertheless, if you are dealing with adverse conditions and the painful thoughts that come in their wake, you should take it from me that what you’re going through now may bear fruit down the road. I don’t know if this will help or not, but you should try to bear it in mind and keep moving forward.



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Looking back, I think I was just an “average boy” until I started working. I grew up in a quiet suburb in the Kobe and Osaka district without either causing or experiencing any special problems, and managed to do so-so in school without working very hard. One thing I always loved, though, was reading. I doubt any of my peers in junior high and high school read as many books as I did. I was also absorbed in listening to all kinds of music. As a result, I spent little time studying. I was an only child, well looked after (in other words, spoiled), who had led a protected life. In short, I was hopelessly ignorant of the world.

I entered Waseda University in Tokyo in the late 1960s at the peak of the student protests; the university was shut down and the gates closed for long stretches while I was there. At first, the cause was a massive student strike; later, it was the university that locked us out. Almost all classes were suspended during this time, which meant that (luckily?) my college days were a pretty haphazard affair.

I have never been comfortable in groups or in any kind of collective action with others, so I didn’t become a member of any student groups, but I did support the movement in a general sort of way and tried to do what I could within my own private circle. As time passed, however, and internecine warfare between the student factions grew more and more violent and senseless—an apolitical student was murdered in the classroom we often used, for example—many of us became disenchanted. Something criminally wrong had wormed its way into the movement. The positive power of imagination had been lost. I felt this strongly. As a result, when the storm passed, all we were left with was the bitter taste of disappointment. Uplifting slogans and beautiful messages might stir the soul, but if they weren’t accompanied by moral power they amounted to no more than a litany of empty words. That was the lesson I took away from those events, a lesson that has only been confirmed by everything I have seen since. Words have power. Yet that power must be rooted in truth and justice. Words must never stand apart from those principles.

From that point on, I shifted my focus once again, this time to more private things—namely, the world of books, music, and movies. For a considerable time I worked at night in the Kabukicho area of downtown Tokyo, where I encountered a wide variety of people. I don’t know what Kabukicho is like these days, but back then it was a fascinating place, with sketchy characters of all kinds clustered on every corner. These were interesting and fun times, but things could also get intense and even a little dangerous. Whatever the case, though, I’m pretty sure I learned more about life in its many forms and grew appreciably wiser hanging around such a lively place with its motley—albeit rough and occasionally unsavory—crowd than I would have in a college classroom, or with a group of people much like myself. In short, I became streetwise. That gritty environment was a much better fit for me than university life would have been. I just couldn’t get into studying.



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As I was already married and working, I had passed the point when a college degree would have been helpful. Nevertheless, since the Waseda University system at the time allowed credits to be purchased on a course-by-course basis, and I had accumulated almost enough to graduate, I managed to find time outside work to attend classes and finish within seven years of when I started. In my final year, I enrolled in a course on Racine taught by Professor Shinya Ando, but my spotty attendance meant I was bound to fail, so I went to his office. “With a wife and a full-time job, I have a hard time getting to class,” I explained, whereupon he came all the way out to my club in Kokubunji to see for himself. “Yeah, you’ve got it pretty rough,” he said, and gave me the credit I needed to graduate. I don’t know how things are today, but back then there were quite a few bighearted professors like that. Can’t remember much about his lectures, though (sorry!).