A Tale of False Fortunes (2 page)

It has been argued that
A Tale of False Fortunes
represents a third and “final stage” in the quest for female empowerment,
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Introduction

one in which “Enchi tired of conventional realism and began exploring the world of myth and fantasy, producing texts in which the antirational and the transtemporal were the norm” (Hulvey, 215). For Enchi, the world of fantasy appears to have been more accommodating to a depiction of love, but just as the narrative of this work maintains an equilibrium between doubt and belief, fantasy is likewise everywhere balanced against a compelling sense of realism. One realistic feature of
A
Tale of False Fortunes
is its convincing portrayal of men, a notable contrast to the often caricatured or stock male figures in such works as
The Waiting Years
or
Masks.

The structure of Enchi’s narrative has been described as tri-partite: the fictitious document, the account as recorded in an existing source
(A Tale of Flowering Fortunes),
and the author’s own commentary. When one considers the role played by spirit possession
(mono no ke)
in the development of the narrative, the structure is arguably quadripartite, because here also the text creates a balance in the reader’s mind between doubt and credulity.

Spirit possession is a ubiquitous presence in Heian literature.

A medium voicing the resentment of a departed person’s spirit
(shiryò)
is common to many cultures, but less familiar is possession by the “living ghosts”
(ikiryò)
of those still in this life who may be quite unaware of the hauntings by their spirits.

Unplacated spirits on either side of the grave could wreak havoc, but significantly, both the possessed and the possessor were most often female. The function of spirit possession

“within the politics of Heian polygynous society” has been cogently interpreted “as a predominantly female strategy adopted to counter male strategies of empowerment” (Bargen, xix). Through much of
A Tale of False Fortunes,
even this female strategy is appropriated by Michinaga to further his own ambitions until Teishi thwarts his plans with what is ostensibly an actual possession, one motivated not by resentment but by genuine love. The balance between the believability and implausibility of such a possession occurs within a larger balance: Enchi’s reconstructed text as historical or fictive. Thus, in

“Enchi Fumiko’s fictional adaptation of Heian supernatural
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5

material . . . spirit possession functions both as plot line and as critical reflection or metafictional discourse” (Bargen, 304), enriching the narrative with yet another dimension.

Miko
(female shamans) and mediumistic women are a perennial presence in much of Enchi’s fiction, and it has been argued that her “fascination with
miko
is related to her desire to recapture the empowered role played by women in Japanese history” (Hulvey, 193). However, this interest in spiritualist powers appears not to have operated consciously in her writing. In response to Nakagami Kenji’s comment that her works contain a mediumistic element
(miko-teki na mono),
Enchi said: “I myself do not feel that there is a mediumistic element. I am often labeled [as being preoccupied] with female vindictiveness or karma, but I myself do not really see that. I suppose it might be there subconsciously” (Enchi 1986, 177).

In introducing a work like this to a Western audience, it seems appropriate to give an accounting of what is unavoidably lost in translation. Most regrettably in the present case, the distinction between Enchi’s prose in modern Japanese and her unusually adept rendering of Heian-style language is here nec-essarily leveled into undifferentiated modern English, and this detracts in no small measure from its effectiveness in maintaining the balance between verisimilitude and unbelievability that is so essential to the working of the narrative. The possibility of rendering the “ancient” passages into archaic English was considered, but since a pre-Chaucerian style would be necessary in order to approximate the degree of difference in the original, I felt the result might be uninviting to readers. In an attempt to compensate visually and psychologically for what has been lost stylistically, a contrasting typeface has been used for the passages from Enchi’s “source” document. I have also endeavored to employ a perceptibly dissimilar style in translating these sections. Further, the rendition of the complex system of honorifics found in the speech of Heian courtiers into English—that most democratic of tongues—inevitably results in an effect palpably different from the original, and I can only hope that my attempts sound neither stilted nor too demotic.

For translations of ranks and titles, I am indebted to William
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Introduction

H. and Helen Craig McCullough’s usages in their translation of
A Tale of Flowering Fortunes,
the historical source to which Enchi’s work is intended to provide an alternative perspective.

To emphasize the intended parallelism between the two works, I have rendered the title as
A Tale of False Fortunes,
although

“A Tale of False Oracles” or “A Tale of a False Shaman” would have been more literal. I wish to take this occasion to thank the two anonymous readers of the University of Hawai‘i Press for their thoughtful criticism and constructive suggestions.

R. K. T.

Sources

Bargen, Doris G.
A Woman’s Weapon: Spirit Possession in the The
Tale of Genji.
Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 1997.

Enchi Fumiko.
The Waiting Years.
Trans. John Bester. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1971.

Enchi Fumiko.
Uen no hitobito to: Taidanshû.
Tokyo: Bungei Shunjû, 1986.

Gessel, Van. “The ‘Medium’ of Fiction: Fumiko Enchi as Narrator.”
World Literature Today
(1988): 380–385.

Hulvey, S. Yumiko. “The Intertextual Fabric of Narratives by Enchi Fumiko.” In
Japan in Traditional and Postmodern Perspectives.
Ed. Charles Wei-hsun Fu and Steven Heine. Albany: State University Press of New York, 1995, 169–224.

Kamei Hideo and Ogasawara Yoshiko.
Enchi Fumiko no sekai.

Tokyo: Sòrinsha, 1981.

McCullough, William H., and Helen Craig McCullough, trans.

A Tale of Flowering Fortunes: Annals of Japanese Aristocratic Life in the Heian Period.
2 vols. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1980.

Rimer, J. Thomas. “Japanese Literature: Four Polarities.”
Japanese
Aesthetics and Culture: A Reader.
Ed. Nancy G. Hume.

Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995, 1–25.

Takenishi Hiroko. “Namamiko monogatari ron.”
Tenbò
(Jan.

1976): 162–171.

“Teidan: kyûtei saijo no miryoku.”
Kyûtei o irodoru saijo.

Ed. Tsubota Itsuo. Nihon hakken jinbutsu shiriizu 12.

Tokyo: Akatsuki Kyòiku Tosho, 1983, 29–36.

Introduction
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7

Historical Figures in
A Tale of False Fortunes
L Morosuke

(908–960)

L (Takashina no) Naritada

(926–998)

L Kaneie - - - -G Tokihime

(929–990)

(d. 980)

L Michitaka - - -G Kishi

L Michikane L Michinaga- - - G Rinshi

G Senshi---- L Emperor

(953–995)

(d. 996?)

(961–995)

(966–1028) (964–1053) (962–1002)

En’yû

(959–991)

G Shòshi------------ L Emperor Ichijò

L Korechika

G Teishi

L Takaie

(988–1074)

(980–1011)

(973–1010) (976–1001) (979–1044)

G Shûshi

L

G

Atsuyasu

Bishi

(997–1050)

(999–1018) (1001–1008)

L Emperor Go-Ichijò

L Emperor Go-Suzaku

(1008–1036)

(1009–1045)

Prologue
c

When I was young, I knew Dr. Basil Hall Chamberlain by the name “Mr. Chamberlain.” Of course, I had not actually seen him, but I had become accustomed to hearing the name “Mr.

Chamberlain” interspersed in my father’s conversations. My father, who had formerly studied philology under Dr. Chamberlain, always spoke of him casually as Mr. Chamberlain, in much the same fashion as university students even now refer to their professors behind their backs.

I was probably six years old when my young ears committed Dr. Chamberlain’s name to memory. I am able to recall my exact age because that year we had moved from Fujimi in Kòji-machi to Yanaka Shimizu in Shitaya, and upstairs in our new house there were tall stacks of old books I had never seen before. For some time, scholars acquainted with my father and people from newspaper offices made frequent visits for the purpose of exam-ining those tomes. Now as I commence writing, I open the
Encyclopedia of Japanese Literature,
where I find the following entry on Chamberlain:

Basil Hall Chamberlain. Philologist. Born 1850 in Portsmouth, England. Died Feb. 15, 1935, at the age of 86. As a child he studied languages at a school in Versailles, France, and grew up aspiring to literature. . . . Illness resulted from excessive study and, on the advice of a doctor, he set out on a long ocean cruise.

He arrived in Tokyo, where he devoted himself to research in Japanese literature. . . . In 1886, at the invitation of the Ministry of Education, he became a lecturer in the College of Humanities at the Imperial University, where he taught Japanese language and philology. In 1890, he resigned because of illness, and
Prologue
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returned to England. . . . After that he made frequent trips to Japan and continued his research. In 1910 he made his last research trip, and bade farewell to nearly forty years of living in Japan. . . . Over many years, he had collected 11,000 volumes of rare and unusual books in Japanese and Chinese, known as the Òdò Library. Upon his departure for England, he considered it unbecoming for a scholar to take this collection to Europe, where there were few who would be able to use it, and gave the entire library to Ueda Kazutoshi. Such an act stands as eloquent testimony of his character.

As we see here, Dr. Chamberlain’s final stay in Japan was in 1910. It was probably 1911 by the time the library was put in order and moved into my father’s house, or about the time we moved. If my mother, who died last year in her eighties, were here I could verify the date, but there are few among my acquaintances now who clearly recall those times.

Dr. Chamberlain’s books bore a red stamp in large, square characters: “Òdò Library.” I had heard so few anecdotes about Dr. Chamberlain from my father that it was not until I consulted the
Encyclopedia of Japanese Literature
that I learned

“Òdò” (King Hall) was a Japanization of Chamberlain’s own name—“Basil” from Greek
basileus,
or king.

And so I ended up not knowing what sort of “rare and unusual books” the Òdò Library contained, but even now I clearly recall as a child, when I would go upstairs, seeing in my father’s study Japanese-style lidded book boxes made of unfinished wood and piles upon piles of old books in the sunlit area of the narrow, tatami-matted hallway. Most of them, of course, were stitch-bound books printed on light Japanese paper or handwritten texts in beautiful, flowing cursive. As a child I could not very well read such characters, so I looked at them with a curiosity peculiar to children—a strange blend of scorn and reverence—much like what I felt at seeing the contents of an old-fashioned wardrobe chest. From summer into autumn, I would dash about the parlor among books set out with their pages open for airing, and sometimes I would even try leafing
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A Tale of False Fortunes
through a worm-eaten volume. But when I was in the upper level of grammar school and had learned to read the old cursive syllabary at calligraphy lessons, my browsing turned into reading as I carefully followed each line of characters in books written in understandable styles of script.

The story that I propose to write now is from one of the handwritten books I read in this manner upstairs in my father’s house; however, relying only on the uncertain memory of my childhood, I cannot say whether it was one of the “rare and unusual” books of the Òdò Library. It was possibly one of my father’s own books that just happened to get mixed in with the Òdò Library. At any rate, no matter whom I asked later, no one had heard of it. Judging from that, the story must have been a transcription of an older book from the Kamakura or Muro-machi period, or possibly a fictional work by a not-so-famous literary scholar of the Tokugawa period—perhaps a second-rate work by Takebe Ayatari.

It was forty years ago, and many details of the book’s appearance now escape me. I am certain, however, that a rectangular strip of thick vellum speckled with gold and silver was mounted on the left side of its cover of navy blue Japanese paper, and that on the vellum, written in somewhat blurred
Man’yò
script in the style of the Heian-period calligrapher Fujiwara no Yukinari, was this:
A Tale of False Fortunes.
What were the “false fortunes”? Goaded by the curiosity these strange words aroused, I opened to the title page, where the title appeared again in running cursive followed by the subtitle:
Gleanings from “A Tale of
Flowering Fortunes.”
Only upon seeing the Chinese characters used in the inside title did I realize that the book was about a spirit medium.

A Tale of False Fortunes
tells of the life of a lady-in-waiting in service to the consort of Emperor Ichijò. A young girl reader like myself was naturally interested in the stormy fate of the heroine, and I plowed through the difficult cursive writing, reading it over and over until I understood it. Much later, when out of some necessity I read
A Tale of Flowering Fortunes
in the anthology of classics edited by Yosano Akiko and others, I
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noticed that some of the passages I had read long ago in
A Tale
of False Fortunes
had been borrowed intact from the more famous work. By that time my father had already died and his library had passed into another’s possession, and I had no way of determining the whereabouts of the original manuscript of
A
Tale of False Fortunes.
In all probability, however, that one volume was the sole copy. But the reason I took it into my head to compare the two works was not because
False Fortunes
quotes many passages intact from
Flowering Fortunes,
but rather because things not found in the latter appear in the former; in other words, because of what is summed up in the subtitle:
Gleanings from “A Tale of Flowering Fortunes.”
It is well known that the principal part of
A Tale of Flowering Fortunes
was written by Akazome Emon, who served Shò-