School Study Guides

14

Japanese Book News

Number 17

MIND AND BODY

Kokoro to karada [Mind and Body].

Itsuki Hiroyuki. Shûeisha, 1996.

195\134 mm. 206 pp. ¥1,200. ISBN

4-08-774198-2.

This author (b. 1932), a well-known

novelist with a number of bestsellers

to his credit, including Seishun no

mon [The Gate of Youth] and

Rennyo: Ware fukaki fuchi yori [The

Monk Rennyo: Up from the Abyss]

(see Japanese Book News, Vol. 12, p.

16), has not been to see a doctor in

the entire fifty-year postwar period.

Not that he is in especially robust

health. On the contrary, he suffers

from an array of chronic ailments,

from ulcers and migraines to heart

spasms. “Weaker than most people,”

he admits, “I am perpetually in and

out of bed.”

Even so, he has made it to his mid-

sixties without rushing off to the

doctor, as many do, at the slightest

twinge. He attributes this condition

less to good luck than to his singular

attitude toward sickness, a stoic phi-

losophy by which, rather than trying

to treat an illness, he comes to terms

with it and gets on with life. He notes

his debt to Buddhist, Taoist, and

other teachings in the development

and refinement of this personal creed.

This essay collection brings to-

gether the author’s unique experi-

ences living in accordance with his

instinct to “live as I am, and die 

when I die.” A thought-provoking

challenge to contemporary medicine

and conventional attitudes toward

health.

Shinkeishô no jidai [The Age of 

Neurosis]. Watanabe Toshio. TBS

Britannica, 1996. 193\35 mm. 234

pp. ¥1,500. ISBN 4-484-96210-1.

The method of psychotherapy known

as Morita therapy is named after its

founder Morita Masatake (1874–

1938). Though not entirely approved

in Morita’s time by the psychiatric 

establishment, which then had its

roots in German medicine, Morita

therapy has nonetheless been prac-

ticed to the present day by some of

his students and adherents as an ef-

fective treatment for neurosis.

This book examines both the ideas

of Morita and the man himself. In

Morita’s view, people remain subject

to anxiety and fear for as long as they

live. Every person experiences these

feelings to some degree precisely be-

cause they represent the strength of

the desire to live. Neurotics, how-

ever, feel them with particular inten-

sity and fall into a vicious circle

whereby, attempting to escape such

unpleasantness, they are beset with

further anxiety and fear. The essence

of Morita therapy is that if one ac-

cepts one’s anxieties and fears as 

they are, and furthermore exercises

the mind and body freely in accor-

dance with the desire to live, one can

free oneself from oppressive anguish.

More than a biography of one psy-

chotherapist, this book offers lessons

on life-enrichment that are especially

valuable in today’s high-stress so-

ciety.

Tensai no tanjô: Aruiwa Minakata

Kumagusu no ningengaku [Mina-

kata Kumagusu: The Birth of a Ge-

nius]. Kondô Toshifumi. Iwanami

Shoten, 1996. 194\132 mm. 238 pp.

¥2,400. ISBN 4-00-002710-7.

Minakata Kumagusu (1867–1941)

was a self-made intellectual giant

whose achievement cannot be fully

appreciated under the usual labels of

“biologist” or “folklorist.” Like many

geniuses, he was an enigmatic and 

eccentric figure whose life in many

respects remains wrapped in mystery.

This book is an attempt to unravel

some of those mysteries of Mina-

kata’s attitude and behavior, such as

why he wrote tortuously in Japanese

but with decorum and clarity in En-

glish; why, just when he was begin-

ning to gain a reputation in London 

as a scholar, he knowingly risked his

future by assaulting an Englishman at

the British Museum library; why he

never settled on a permanent job; 

why he was given to bouts of

drinking; why he discoursed cease-

lessly on his dreams and visions; and

what lay behind his tremendous urge

to record the world and express him-

self almost to the point of graphor-

rhea. Through a combination of

extensive perusal of documents and

insights from the fields of psychology

and neuropathology, the author sug-

gests that the roots of Minakata’s

prodigious character lie in a kind of

epilepsy known as Geschwind’s syn-

drome. This discovery reveals hith-

erto unknown facets of Minakata’s

personality.

Less as an exercise in pathography

than as a study of human nature, this

is a penetrating and intellectually

stimulating work.

Cover design: Mimura Jun

Cover design: Mimura Jun

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15

Japanese Book News

Number 17

SOCIETY AND CULTURE

Edo: Oi no bunka [Edo, Culture of

Age]. Tatsukawa Shôji. Chikuma

Shobô, 1996. 194\133 mm. 282 pp.

¥1,800. ISBN 4-480-81801-4.

In its combination of low economic

growth and an aging population, con-

temporary Japan closely resembles

Japan in the latter half of the Edo pe-

riod (1603–1868). Through an exam-

ination of various kinds of records

written by and about Edo people who

spent their elderly years in dignified

leisure, this work reappraises the

values placed on old age.

Whereas present-day Japan ad-

heres to a culture of youth, valuing

“young” qualities such as speed and

energy, Edo society was sustained by

a culture of age which located true

happiness in the later rather than the

earlier half of life. According to the

Edo ethos, the key to enjoying life to

the full in one’s senior years is saving

up during one’s youth. Edo ethics

thus frowned upon libertine ways—

smoking, drinking, extravagant

dining, licentiousness, the night

life—and preached instead such

virtues as industriousness, thrift,

health, and abstinence. This idea of

wholesomeness, of maintaining the

body to cultivate life to the full, was

more than a mere hope for long life;

it was the foundation of everyday life

and attitudes among the Edo popu-

lace.

The author, a university professor

who has probed the issues of sickness

and medicine from the perspective of

cultural history, sees in the wisdom

of the past important lessons for con-

temporary humanity.

Gohan tsû [Rice Connoisseurship].

Arashiyama Kôzaburô. Heibonsha,

1996. 195\131 mm. 198 pp. ¥1,300.

ISBN 4-582-82895-7.

For today’s well-fed Japanese, rice is

no longer quite the cherished item it

was in the past, especially when food

was scarce during and immediately

after World War II. Rice nonetheless

remains the staple of the Japanese

diet.

This volume is a collection of es-

says about rice. Drawing from dictio-

naries and other sources old and new,

he covers the world of rice cuisine

with elegant facility, discoursing on

proper cooking techniques and an

array of rice dishes, including

omusubi (pressed rice balls), kayu

(rice gruel), zôsui (rice and vegetable

soup), sushi, donburi (rice served

with flavored topping in a bowl),

chazuke (boiled rice doused with

tea), ajitsuke gohan (rice cooked with

savory vegetables and sauces), and

itame gohan (fried rice). What makes

the work much more than a recipe

book or a study of trivia is that the

author incorporates his personal ex-

perience and engaging views, be-

traying between the lines his

immeasureable love for rice.

Any writing about food that can

make the reader’s mouth water is fine

writing, but to achieve that effect in

an exposition not on sophisticated

delicacies but on such a common-

place food as rice takes rare skill.

This work offers a vivid insight into

the very heart of Japanese culinary

culture.

Kindai Nihon no media ibento

[Media Events of Modern Japan].

Tsuganezawa Toshihiro, ed.

Dôbunkan Shuppan, 1996. 215\151

mm. 368 pp. ¥3,900. ISBN 4-495-

86281-2.

As defined in this volume, a media

event is an event which a mass media

organization plans as a commercial

enterprise and magnifies through

media coverage, sales, and adver-

tising. This collection of articles is

the product of a joint study by fifteen

scholars of a hitherto unexplored

niche of media and journalism his-

tory.

In Japan’s early modern period,

newspaper companies sponsored var-

ious kinds of public events, including

sporting meets, expositions and exhi-

bitions, concerts, lectures, and social

welfare activities. While some of

these events were one-off oddities,

many became cultural traditions pre-

served even today, such as the na-

tional high-school baseball

championships, the Elysian goal of

every little-leaguer and the object of

frenzied national attention every

spring and summer. Like this tradi-

tion of high-school baseball, which

has developed for over seventy years

within an ethos of Spartanism and

groupism very different from that of

the game’s American origins, many

events sponsored by the media in

Japan have developed against a dis-

tinctly Japanese cultural milieu.

Supplemented by a useful chrono-

logical table, this is a unique work of

cultural history looking back on

Japan’s modern era through a ge-

nealogy of media-sponsored events.

Cover design: Minami Shimbô

Cover design: Kawasaki Gi’ichi

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