ジェイムズ・ジョイスと日本近代小説(二) : 『ユリシーズ』と『鳴海仙吉』

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タイトル別名
  • ジェイムズ・ジョイスと日本近代小説-2-「ユリシーズ」と「鳴海仙吉」
  • ジェイムズ ジョイス ト ニホン キンダイ ショウセツ 2 ユリシーズ ト ナ
  • James Joyce and the Modern Japanese Novel (II)

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抄録

In this essay I attempt some critical remarks on one short story and two novels by Sei ITOH, who, as I have established in my previous essay, greatly contributed to the introduction of James Joyce to Japanese readers, in comparison with the works of James Joyce. After discussing Sei ITOH's "Seibutsusai" ("The Feast of Living Things") and Joyce's short story "The Sisters" in the first section, and ITOH's Machi to Mura (The Town and Village) and the Circe episode in Ulysses in the second, I proceed to a comparative study of Ulysses and ITOH's Narumi Senkichi, which is often referred to as "Sei ITOH's Ulysses. " My conclusions are as follows: 1. Unlike ITOH's earlier more experimental short stories, "Seibutsusai" is written in a traditional style and has much autobiographical content. While we cannot trace any visible influence of Joyce, it is interesting to compare the story with "The Sisters," because the two stories deal with the similar situation of the death of one close to the narrator. ITOH's story is, in a more naive way, the author's confession of the meanness and ugliness of his own self, whereas "The Sisters" is more elaborately fabricated in order to fix the moment of "epiphany" by means of words. In Joyce's interest in "epiphany," we might be able to detect his attempt to comprehend the universe, or his search for some entity, an attitude which seems to have been left over from the Catholic belief he abandoned. 2. Mura to Machi, which consists of two parts, Yuki no Machi (The Town of Ghosts') and Yuki no Mura (The Village of Ghosts), is a fantasy apparently inspired by the Circe episode in Ulysses. The ghosts of the people whom the narrator previously associated with, and in most cases did some wrong to, in the past, throng round him as he rambles in his native town or village, accusing him of cowardice and unfaithfulness. The fantasy, however, lacks the autonomy of the Circe episode, which is sustained by the whole solid structure of Ulysses; in Mura to Machi the author has constantly to revert to t

he details of the actual events in order to explain what happens in the fantasy. It is also noteworthy that the idea of Metempsychosis which underlies Ulysses is incorporated into Yuki no Mura, and treated lyrically rather than ironically as in Ulysses. 3. Narumi Senkichi is ITOH's final and most thorough attempt to assimilate Ulysses into his work. Like Ulysses, the novel is composed in various styles with the aim of achieving a symphonic effect. For the hero we have Narumi Senkichi, a critic and professor. The comparison of Narumi Senkichi with Leopold Bloom, of the milieus in which they are placed, and of the way words are used in each novel leads us to reach several conclusions. In the first place, Leopold Bloom, who looks simply sensuous at first glance, reveals a far wider range of spiritual activites than does Narumi Senkichi. All the words the latter utters and all the deed he does are reduced by the author to impulses of the ego which he regards as ugly and mean, whereas in the case of Bloom the seamy, animal side of the hero is always counteracted by his aspiration for some transcendental values. In the second place, to Joyce words had almost a religious function; they were something to grasp, or even create, reality by. To Sei ITOH on the other hand, words were clothes to wrap things with; they were most effective and valuable when used in exact correspondence with things. It thus seems that there is a fairly side gap between James Joyce and Sei ITOH, even though ITOH called Joyce his master all his life.

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