“The Sting of Death” and Other Stories

Front matter

Shimao Toshio Translated with an Introduction and Interpretive Comments by Kathryn Sparling

MICHIGAN PAPERS IN JAPANESE STUDIES NO. 12

MICHIGAN PAPERS IN JAPANESE STUDIES No. 1. Political Leadership in Contemporary Japan, edited by Terry Edward MacDougall.

Preface

The stories of Shimao Toshio were first called to my attention in 1972 by a Japanese friend and classmate who was herself a writer of short fiction. Finding them compelling, horrifying, and ultimately wonderful, I thought of putting them into English some day.

I actually began this project in 1976, with Shi no toge [The sting of death], ineluded in this volume, and have worked on them intermittently ever since. Sometimes the contagious hysteria—of the "sick wife" stories in particular—has overwhelmed me, and I have had to stop. I have always come back to them, mostly because they made intimate sense no matter what turn my own life was taking, and because they seem to represent a commitment, rare in modern Japanese literature, to life and to the responsibilities it brings. So the characters in these stories have been with me for nearly ten years, continuing to fascinate me. I introduce them here in the hope that even in pale translation they may seem as real and as valuable to other readers.

These stories are more dense and difficult in Japanese than in this English version, which inevitably conveys, in other respects as well, a slightly different impression. My aim was to be rather more literal than otherwise in my translation; I hoped to avoid smoothing over the unusualness of Shimao's prose by preserving (even at some cost) subtle echoes of the recurrent images embedded there, resisting the temptation to explain, rationalize, or otherwise unmix metaphors. Often I have not succeeded.

For one thing, I have generally not been able to retain ambiguity—a striking characteristic of Shimao's prose—but have had to make exclusive choices. Through several stages of editing, I have done away with unclear antecedents and other obstacles to immediate comprehension of the literal meaning of the text. Long sentences and in some cases paragraphs have been broken up where I was finally convinced that the length exceeded what normal English prose would tolerate.

Kakeromajima, where the first two stories are set, is one of the larger islands of the Amami Archepelago of the Ryukyus, which stretches from about 200 x Preface miles south of Kyushu to Okinawa. Since Meiji the Amami Islands have been part of Kagoshima Prefecture, except for the Occupation years, 1946 to 1953, when they were under American military rule along with Okinawa. From ancient times until they were taken over by the Shimazu of Satsuma in 1609, they were part of the Ryukyu Kingdom ruled by Okinawa. The culture and the language combine elements from both the Ryukyus to the south and mainland Japan to the north. The climate is subtropical. Even today the industry is mostly fishing and agriculture; sugarcane (the brown sugar candy Toé serves the lieutenant in "This Time That Summer"), bananas, and pineapples are the major products. The largest island in the archepelago, Amami Oshima ("Great Island"), where Shimao and his family lived until 1975, produces the famous Oshima tsumugi, a kind of pongee. During the Second World War the Amami Islands were the site of many secret military bases, where special attack-foreé units (suicide squadrons) like Shimao's were stationed. Like Shimao's wife, many of the people are Christian, as a result of Catholic missionary activities in the nineteenth century, but in general, traditional ways, including religious and folk beliefs, prevailed until well after the war, though they are now quickly disappearing under the influence of national education and, inevitably, television.

Many people have helped me with this manuscript, more people than I can thank individually here. Wayne Lammers, now teaching at the University of Wisconsin, did a directed reading course with me several years ago, for which he prepared a good translation of about the first third of Shi no toge. Undoubtedly, some of his phrases have found their way into my version. I am grateful for his help and generosity. I am greatly indebted to Shun'ichi Kato and Yoko Kato, Susumu Nagara, and Mutsuko Endo Simon, all of the University of Michigan, for their invaluable and most gracious assistance in reading the Japanese texts. Advice from native speakers is especially reassuring when venturing to declare a sentence ambiguous. James I. Crump kindly helped me with English word choice, particularly military terms.

Most of all, I am grateful for the help and moral support of John Campbell, Director, Elsie Orb, Administrative Associate, and the editor of this series, Bruce E. Willoughby, at the University of Michigan Center for Japanese Studies, and to Cindi Larson, who typed and retyped my almost illegible manuscript, on my capricious schedule, more times than I care to admit.