Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

A Letter to Kawabata Yasunari

A Writer's Life for Me - A Letter to Kawabata Yasunari

My search of the Internet convinces me that I am laying before you rare and precious information. I have translated the second piece by Dazai, as promised. I wanted to write an informed introduction to this piece, and, not having many of my books with me, I have made a search of the Internet, but can find no mention of the incident that forms the piece’s background. I am reminded once again what a pitifully small number of people share my interests and are likely to appreciate my efforts.

Anyway, this just means I will have to provide the background from my memory. This is it, and I am afraid that, because of monumental public apathy, I am unable to supply dates and so on:

Early in his career, Dazai Osamu was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize, the most prestigious literary prize awarded within Japan. It seems that he was likely to receive the prize, too, if it were not for the opposition of someone on the panel of judges. That person was none other than Kawabata Yasunari. When Dazai learnt of this, he wrote an open letter to Kawabata. Many people thought that Dazai was mad to make such an open attack on one of the most prominent figures of the literary establishment. After this, it seems, Dazai became even more isolated.

Dazai eventually went on to write a scathing, merciless and comprehensive attack on the entire literary establishment, under the title, ‘Nyoze Gamon’ or ‘So I have Heard it Spoken’. I really wanted to translate this, but it is a much longer and more challenging piece, and it will have to wait till a later date. Dazai begins this piece with the declaration that to attack an enemy is a trifling matter – what one must do is attack the enemy’s god. And he proceeds to take a crowbar to the gods of the self-satisfied old men who controlled literature at that time, and who no doubt control it still.

Kawabata Yasunari, incidentally, was the first Japanese to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature, for his novel Snow Country.



I am not confident that my translation of ‘A Letter to Kawabata’ is without mistakes. If I can I shall post it here with the original text. If anyone can spot any mistakes, I would be grateful if they let me know.

I dedicate this translation to all the editors and publishers who have stood in my way. And I thank my good friend, Gareth Henderson, wherever he now is, for introducing me to Dazai. I would also like to thank Fukaya Mami for her help with both of the translations below.

A Letter to Kawabata Yasunari

In the September issue of Bungei Shunju you wrote of me disparagingly: “... After all, ‘The Flowers of Buffoonery’ is full of the life and the literary views of its author, but it seems to me that there is an unpleasant cloud surrounding the author’s personal life at present, and, regrettably, this prevents his talent from being expressed as it should be.”

Let us not bandy inept lies. When, standing in the front of a bookshop, I read the words you had written, I was deeply aggrieved. From the way you had written, it was quite as if you alone had decided who should and should not receive the Akutagawa Prize. This was not your writing. Without doubt, someone had made you write this. What is more, you were even exerting yourself to make this obvious.

‘The Flowers of Buffoonery’ is a piece I wrote three years ago, in the summer of my twenty-fourth year. Then, it bore the title, ‘The Sea’. I gave it to my friends, Kon Kani’ichi and Ima Uhei, to read, but compared with the version that exists today it was a very rough piece of work with none of the monologues now belonging to the ‘I’ of the narrative. It was simply the narrative itself – a plain but structurally sound story. That autumn I borrowed Gide’s essay on Dostoyevsky from Akamatsu Gessen, who lived in the neighbourhood, and reading it set me to thinking; I took that primitive – even formal – work of mine, ‘The Sea’, tore it to pieces, and put it back together as a work in which the face of the ‘I’ was to be found everywhere in the text. In this way I believed I had created a work the like of which had not been seen before in Japan; boasting as much, I passed it around my friends. I had my friends Nakamura Chihei and Kubo Ryuuichiro, and also Mr Ibuse, who lived nearby, read it, and it was well received. Encouraged by this, I revised it further. I made deletions and additions, and wrote the whole thing afresh five times before putting it away carefully in a paper bag in the cupboard.

At around New Year this year, my friend Dan Kazuo read this manuscript.

“Hey,” he said, “This is a masterpiece! You must send this to a magazine. I’ll try taking it to Kawabata Yasunari. Kawabata is sure to understand a work like this.”

Soon after that I came to an impasse in my writing. I went on a journey, prepared, in my heart, as it were, to die in the wilderness. This incident caused a little stir.

However much my elder brother berated me, that was fine, I just needed to borrow five hundred yen. And then, I could try again. I returned to Tokyo. Thanks to the trouble taken by my friends, I managed to secure from my brother, for a two or three year period starting then, an allowance of fifty yen a month. Immediately I set about looking for lodgings, but while I was still searching I was stricken with appendicitis and admitted to the Shinohara hospital at Asagaya. Septic pus had seeped into the peritoneum. I had been diagnosed a little too late. I was admitted on the fourth of April, this year. Nakatani Takao came to visit me. Join the Japanese romantic movement, he urged. To celebrate, I shall publish ‘The Flowers of Buffoonery’. These are the matters we discussed. ‘The Flowers of Buffoonery’ was in the possession of Dan Kazuo. I insisted that it would be best if Dan Kazuo took the manuscript to Mr Kawabata. Due to the pain from the incision in my stomach, I was quite unable to move. Then, my lung became infected. For many days I was unconscious. My wife informed me afterwards that the doctor had declared he could no longer take responsibility for my fate. For a full month I lay in the surgical ward, and even to lift my head was a struggle. In May I was transferred to the Kyodo Hospital for internal diseases in Setagaya Ward. I was there for two months. On the first of July the organisation of the hospital was to be changed, all the staff were to be replaced and so on, and as a result, the patients all had to leave. My brother and his acquaintance, a tailor by the name of Kita Hoshiro, discussed the matter and decided to move me to a place in Funabashi, Chiba Prefecture. I spent the days collapsed in a rattan chair, taking a light constitutional stroll at morning and evening. Once a week, a doctor came from Tokyo. This state of affairs continued for two months, when, at the end of August, I stood in a bookshop, read a copy of Bungei Shunju, and discovered what you had written: “... an unpleasant cloud surrounding the author’s personal life at present…” etc. etc. To tell the truth, I burned with rage. For many nights I found it hard to sleep on this account.

Is breeding exotic birds and going to see the dance, Mr Kawabata, really such an exemplary lifestyle? I’ll stab him! That is what I thought. The man’s an utter swine, I thought. But then, suddenly, I felt the twisted, hot, passionate love that you bore towards me – a love such as that of Nellie in Dostoyevsky’s The Insulted and the Injured – fill me to my very core. It can’t be! It can’t be! I shook my head in denial. But your love, beneath your affected coldness – violent, deranged, Dostoyevskian love – made my body burn as with fever. And, what’s more, you did not know a thing about it.



I am not attempting to engage in a contest of wits with you. In the words that you wrote I sensed ‘worldly ties’ and smelt the bitter sadness of ‘financial concerns’. I merely wanted to make this known to two or three devoted readers. It is something that I have to make known. We are beginning to doubt that there is beauty in the moral path of subservience.

I think of Kikuchi Kan, wiping the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief, grinning and saying, “Well, I suppose it’s better this way. We haven’t lost anything in the end,” and I too smile like a fool. It really is better this way, it seems. I did feel a little sorry for Akutagawa Ryuunosuke, but - what am I talking about? This, too, is part of those ‘worldly ties’.

Mr Ishikawa is an example to us all. In that sense he is dispensing his duties with deep sincerity.

It’s just that I feel dissatisfied. That Kawabata Yasunari tried to assume a casual attitude in his lying, but couldn’t quite cut it – I can’t help being dissatisfied at this. It should not have been this way. It really should not have been this way. You have to be more aware, in your dealings, that a writer lives in the midst of absurdity and imperfection.



川端康成へ

太宰治

　あなたは文藝春秋九月号に私への悪口を書いて居られる。「前略。――なるほど、道化の華の方が作者の生活や文学観を一杯に盛っているが、私見によれば、作者目下の生活に厭（いや）な雲ありて、才能の素直に発せざる憾（うら）みあった。」

　おたがいに下手な嘘はつかないことにしよう。私はあなたの文章を本屋の店頭で読み、たいへん不愉快であった。これでみると、まるであなたひとりで芥川賞をきめたように思われます。これは、あなたの文章ではない。きっと誰かに書かされた文章にちがいない。しかもあなたはそれをあらわに見せつけようと努力さえしている。「道化の華」は、三年前、私、二十四歳の夏に書いたものである。「海」という題であった。友人の今官一、伊馬鵜平（うへい）に読んでもらったが、それは、現在のものにくらべて、たいへん素朴な形式で、作中の「僕」という男の独白なぞは全くなかったのである。物語だけをきちんとまとめあげたものであった。そのとしの秋、ジッドのドストエフスキイ論を御近所の赤松月船氏より借りて読んで考えさせられ、私のその原始的な端正でさえあった「海」という作品をずたずたに切りきざんで、「僕」という男の顔を作中の随所に出没させ、日本にまだない小説だと友人間に威張ってまわった。友人の中村地平、久保隆一郎、それから御近所の井伏さんにも読んでもらって、評判がよい。元気を得て、さらに手を入れ、消し去り書き加え、五回ほど清書し直して、それから大事に押入れの紙袋の中にしまって置いた。今年の正月ごろ友人の檀一雄がそれを読み、これは、君、傑作だ、どこかの雑誌社へ持ち込め、僕は川端康成氏のところへたのみに行ってみる。川端氏なら、きっとこの作品が判るにちがいない、と言った。

　そのうちに私は小説に行きづまり、謂（い）わば野ざらしを心に、旅に出た。それが小さい騒ぎになった。

　どんなに兄貴からののしられてもいいから、五百円だけ借りたい。そうしてもういちど、やってみよう、私は東京へかえった。友人たちの骨折りのおかげで私は兄貴から、これから二三年のあいだ、月々、五十円のお金をもらえることになった。私はさっそく貸家を捜しまわっているうちに、盲腸炎を起し阿佐ヶ谷の篠原病院に収容された。膿（うみ）が腹膜にこぼれていて、少し手おくれであった。入院は今年の四月四日のことである。中谷孝雄が見舞いに来た。日本浪曼派へはいろう、そのお土産として「道化の華」を発表しよう。そんな話をした。「道化の華」は檀一雄の手許（てもと）にあった。檀一雄はなおも川端氏のところへ持って行ったらいいのだがなぞと主張していた。私は切開した腹部のいたみで、一寸もうごけなかった。そのうちに私は肺をわるくした。意識不明の日がつづいた。医者は責任を持てないと、言っていたと、あとで女房が教えて呉（く）れた。まる一月その外科の病院に寝たきりで、頭をもたげることさえようようであった。私は五月に世田谷区経堂の内科の病院に移された。ここに二カ月いた。七月一日、病院の組織がかわり職員も全部交代するとかで、患者もみんな追い出されるような始末であった。私は兄貴と、それから兄貴の知人である北芳四郎という洋服屋と二人で相談してきめて呉れた、千葉県船橋の土地へ移された。終日籐椅子（とういす）に寝そべり、朝夕軽い散歩をする。一週間に一度ずつ東京から医者が来る。その生活が二カ月ほどつづいて、八月の末、文藝春秋を本屋の店頭で読んだところが、あなたの文章があった。「作者目下の生活に厭な雲ありて、云々。」事実、私は憤怒に燃えた。幾夜も寝苦しい思いをした。

　小鳥を飼い、舞踏を見るのがそんなに立派な生活なのか。刺す。そうも思った。大悪党だと思った。そのうちに、ふとあなたの私に対するネルリのような、ひねこびた熱い強烈な愛情をずっと奥底に感じた。ちがう。ちがうと首をふったが、その、冷く装うてはいるが、ドストエフスキイふうのはげしく錯乱したあなたの愛情が私のからだをかっかっとほてらせた。そうして、それはあなたにはなんにも気づかぬことだ。

　私はいま、あなたと智慧（ちえ）くらべをしようとしているのではありません。私は、あなたのあの文章の中に「世間」を感じ、「金銭関係」のせつなさを嗅（か）いだ。私はそれを二三のひたむきな読者に知らせたいだけなのです。それは知らせなければならないことです。私たちは、もうそろそろ、にんじゅうの徳の美しさは疑いはじめているのだ。

　菊池寛氏が、「まあ、それでもよかった。無難でよかった。」とにこにこ笑いながらハンケチで額の汗を拭っている光景を思うと、私は他意なく微笑（ほほえ）む。ほんとによかったと思われる。芥川龍之介を少し可哀そうに思ったが、なに、これも「世間」だ。石川氏は立派な生活人だ。その点で彼は深く真正面に努めている。

　ただ私は残念なのだ。川端康成の、さりげなさそうに装って、装い切れなかった嘘が、残念でならないのだ。こんな筈ではなかった。たしかに、こんな筈ではなかったのだ。あなたは、作家というものは「間抜け」の中で生きているものだということを、もっとはっきり意識してかからなければいけない。