Even without being told, the nature of what Shōno describes and his manner of describing it would, I believe, lead most experienced readers to suspect he is writing autobiographically. The family of five in Evening Clouds (as well as in a career-long series of other stories about the same family under different names) is in fact modeled on Shōno’s own, and the events he describes are based closely on his family’s real-life experiences. While we cannot know how often he may tailor details—i.e., fictionalize them—to fit his thematic purpose, every detail he provides has the ring of authenticity; everything about his narrative suggests that Shōno is faithfully recording events exactly as he experienced them, and that the exceptions to this rule, if any, are extremely few. Shōno has spoken of all literature as being a “human document,” using the English term. Although he does not mean by this that all literature should be of a documentary nature, that has indeed been an enduring characteristic of his own writing.
It is interesting to note in this connection how Shōno manages to tell the reader—indirectly, as always, but with remarkable clarity—some of the thinking behind his stance as a writer, and perhaps a little bit about its origin as well. He does this in an episode that describes the family working together to make yam soup, which reminds Ōura of a rather tall story about a yam contained in an Edo period (1603–1867) travel diary by Tachibana Nankei, a Kyoto physician, which had made a strong impression on him when he first read it as a student. Shōno’s narrator proceeds to tell us a little more about Nankei and the record he made of his travels to Eastern Japan:
Nankei writes, “I undertook my tour of the East primarily for the sake of medical study, so anything having to do with medicine, even if it came up only in passing conversation, I intend to record for the benefit of my colleagues.” He did not expressly seek out stories that would amuse or astonish for his journal; rather, he simply recorded any and all things that touched on his own personal interests in some way.
In any case, there can be little doubt that he was a man of remarkable curiosity. For one thing, he surely would not otherwise have set out on such a lengthy journey with no concern for the hardships he was certain to encounter along the way. He apparently wished simply to document what he saw and heard, exactly as he experienced it. He declares, “Although there is a great deal more I could say about the matters I have set down in this book, I am purposely refraining from offering my own foolish opinions about them, so that the reader can deliberate and discard as he sees fit.”
Even without knowing that Ōura is Shōno, attentive readers will note that the author of the book they are reading also seems to be documenting what he has seen and heard “exactly as he experienced it,” recording not “stories that amuse or astonish” but “any and all things” that capture his interest in some way, and presenting his description of events, at least much of the time, without explicit interpretations—allowing the reader to “deliberate and discard as he sees fit.” Within the confines of his story, Shōno cannot overtly tell us that these are his own principles of writing. But he is able to suggest it to the reader indirectly by having the narrator describe Nankei’s writing and what he says about it.
In a subsequent passage, when Ōura reflects on the gap between what actually occurred to him in naval officers’ training camp and what he wrote home to his parents, he pointedly notes that he never lied but merely avoided saying anything that might distress them. Given the way Shōno works, it is not unreasonable to view this, at least in part, as his way of telling the reader that he is shaping his narrative through selection, but not through outright fabrication. By reminding us that we can never get the whole truth and suggesting that the distressing parts have been left out, Shōno brings back a hint (found also in a few other fleeting references) of the dark shadow of foreboding that hung so heavily over the earlier stories he wrote about this family, including many of those in the Still Life collection. But in keeping with Ōura’s stance elsewhere in the novel, Shōno has deliberately chosen not to dwell on such things here, for the fragility of the family itself is no longer his theme.
It is a tribute to the authenticity of Shōno’s record, and to the lightness of his touch in remolding events to his own design, that the result is both a vivid and true picture of a single Japanese family in early 1960s Japan and a timeless, placeless tale of Everyman and Everywoman that can resonate for readers of any generation the world over. Evening Clouds is not a closed book, but an open one. Different readers, especially those of different cultures, will find themselves deliberating on different passages and discovering different truths as they watch the members of this Japanese family putting down new roots, growing up, being buffeted by relentless winds and violent thunderstorms, slowly losing their sylvan landscape to the inexorable sweep of human progress, and transplanting a small portion of what is being displaced into their own back yard as a memento of what they once had.
According to one of his literary friends, Shōno hit on the title for this work as he was lying on the grass gazing up at the sky one evening, watching a succession of beautiful colors transform the clouds overhead in a continuously changing display. Indeed, this is a story about gazing at the changing sky and watching the trees grow; about experiencing each day to the fullest, not as a series of mechanical routines but as a work of wonder that merges the past with the present and with the future. Read it in that spirit, and it may be just the antidote you need for the high-stress, hyperdrive pace of the age we live in.
Acknowledgments
This translation was supported in part by a generous grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. It was only with this support that I was finally able to dedicate regular blocks of work time to the translation so that it could emerge from its almost constant state of suspension. I am deeply grateful to all those who made the grant possible.
My thanks go also to Mr. Shōno, for his patience during the long periods when I had to suspend work on the translation, as well as for freely giving of his time to answer questions that I had about his work; to the subscribers of the Internet mailing list honyaku, for providing me with invaluable help in determining how best to render a number of plant and animal names as well as cultural terms; to my publisher, Peter Goodman, for his enthusiasm and expert advice; and to my wife, Cheryl, and son, Michael, for their interest, encouragement, and support over the many years this translation has been in the making.
Finally, I would like to dedicate this translation to the memory of the late Robert Lyons Danly, who first introduced me to Shōno’s writings and who must be credited more than anyone else with teaching me the art of literary translation. I hope I have produced a translation that would have made him proud.
Wayne P. Lammers
one BUSH CLOVER
“JUST LOOK AT THE SIZE of these things!” Ōura exclaimed in surprise, standing alone in the yard.
Three vigorous clumps of bush clover grew in a neat row directly in front of the sitting-room veranda, nearly brushing the sliding glass doors. The branches of the tall one on the right stretched all the way up to within a foot of the eaves.
Approaching that part of the yard had become like suddenly wandering into a dense thicket of wild bush clover.
Since the outdoor faucet was located in back of these plants, Ōura had to push the arching branches aside and duck in behind them whenever he needed to water the shrubs in the yard. He had actually been aware of the plants’ increasing size for some time now.
“This’s getting to be a pain,” he’d been grousing to himself every time he lifted the branches out of his way.
Yet just now, on this cloudless morning near the end of August, when he emerged from his study and came up to the thriving plants, he exclaimed in amazement as though he had noticed their lusty growth for the very first time.
It appeared no one inside the house had heard his sudden outburst, though, for it provoked no response. His wife was busy rinsing out some hand wash in the bath, and the three children had withdrawn to their rooms.