Nagai Sokichi, who later took on the pen name of Kafū, was born into a wealthy family in Tokyo in 1879. His father was a scholar, poet and businessman, and his mother was a musician. As a child, Kafū was sent to live with his mother’s family for several years, but he returned home in 1886 when starting elementary school. From 1891, he attended an English-language school. In 1897 he failed to pass the university entrance exams, and went with his mother and brothers to join his father in Shanghai. On returning to Tokyo, he began writing short stories, studied with a Kabuki playwright, and worked briefly as a newspaper reporter. In 1902-1903, he published three novels which brought him some success.
However, in 1903 Kafū’s father insisted he travel to the United States to study banking. He started in Tacoma, Washington, enrolled for a while in Michigan’s Kalamazoo College and then worked for a Japanese bank in New York City and in Lyon, France. He visited Paris and London before returning to Tokyo in 1908. Once there, he soon began publishing prolifically, plays and stories, some about his travels (such as in Amerika Monogatari) and some about traditional Japanese culture. During the 1910s, he served as professor of French literature at Keio University; he also launched various literary journals.
During this period, Kafū’s was briefly married twice - to Yone, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, and to Yaeji, a geisha - though each marriage faltered quickly because of Kafū’s infidelity. He resigned his academic position in 1916 to focus exclusively on his literary work. Udekurabe, published in 1918 and translated as Geisha in Rivalry, was notable for its unromantic descriptions of a geisha’s life. Thereafter, he published little. Bokuto kidan, from 1937 (translated as A Strange Tale from East of the River), is considered his late masterpiece and tells of a writer who has an affair with a prostitute. Having refused to help the war effort, he was prohibited from publishing during the years of the Second World War, but continued once it was over. He died on 30 April 1959.
Encyclopedia.com has this assessment: ‘Kafū’s writing brings an unusual blend of Western and traditional concerns to the Japanese literary tradition; the individualistic spirit of America, for example, informs his books even as traditional Japanese culture acts as their protagonist. His work thus tells the story of the painful transition from traditional cultures, when the beautiful old arts are lost and no invigorating spirit is won.’ Further information is also available at Wikipedia and The Japan Times (which said in 2009, ‘among the major Japanese writers of the early 20th century, [
Kafū kept diaries throughout his life, starting when he was abroad in the United States - indeed he is often referred to as a ‘diarist’. Several tomes of these diaries have been published, but they haven’t, as far as I know, been translated into English. However, Donald Keene’s 1999 work, Modern Japanese Diaries (Columbia University Press) contains a chapter on Kafū including translated extracts. According to Keene, there are three published works of
Keene explains that the second of these ‘is unquestionably a work of fiction cast in the diary form’ even if ‘the opinions expressed by the diarist so closely reflect Kafū’s at this time that the work can be read as a diary, at least in the sense that we read the diaries of the Heian court ladies or Bashō’s Narrow Road of Oku.’ Of the third diary, Keene says it is extremely detailed: Kafū ‘traces, day-by-day, the changes in the world around him’ - but often giving the impression of bitterness.
The following extracts (all undated) are from Kafū’s first published diary (written while in the US) as found in Keene’s book.
‘Perhaps it is because I am now living abroad that of late I have somehow found it hard to stop thinking about the special flavor of the old writings, so rich in artistic effect. I take from my suitcase such works as The Tale of the Heike and A Tale of Flowering Fortunes and read them at night by the fire.’
‘The newspapers and magazines I have been sent from Japan all report the death of Saitō Ryokuu. As I read the accounts I felt a sadness that was definitely not that of a total stranger - sadness that Ryokuu’s life had been a tragedy created by his own character. Ah, I thought, the last man to delight in the Edo pleasure quarters as a connoisseur of their charms had in the end been unable to survive the struggle for existence of twentieth-century society.’
‘I have always loved southern ways, and that is why I wanted to go south, following the flow of the Mississippi River. I planned to enter Louisiana University. When I heard that even now there are many French people living there, and that they use the French language in their daily conversations, I was extremely eager to go, but people warned me not to. saying the climate was unhealthy. I had no choice but to head north instead.’
‘The dream of a beautiful, fragrant, fan-shaped city [Kalamazoo, Michigan], has at last faded from my heart, and I have come to enjoy instead a snowbound life of absolute tranquillity.’
‘Ah, nothing can be agreed on between my father and myself. Why should I, who have grown accustomed to failure and disappointment, be surprised or lament at this late date? Sooner or later I shall leave Washington and hide myself in some alley in New York, never to return to Japan again.’
‘I suggested we [he and Edyth] go into the park. As we walked along a deserted path, the moonlight filtering through treetops that had begun to lose their leaves was misted over. There was no wind that night, and the strong fragrance of the cosmetics she wore made me think I was in a garden where roses bloomed on a spring night. When presently I informed her that I would be leaving the city and going to New York, she said nothing tor a while, but merely kicked angrily and noisily with the point of her narrow shoes at the leaves that had fallen and accumulated. Suddenly she threw her arms around me and, embracing me tightly, said in a voice clouded with tears, “Then you must come to my place every night from tonight on. I probably won’t be able to follow you, much as I’d like to, but please come to see me every day without fail until the day we must part.” So saying, she pressed her face closely against my chest.’
‘I feel as if I have become exactly like a character in a French novel. I all but weep out of happiness and gratitude, but at the same time, when I think of how much sadder the second parting will be when, inevitably, it presently comes, it seems that the best thing would be to make a clean break now. Mulling over such thoughts keeps me from sleeping. A fierce struggle in my breast between love and my artistic dreams is about to be proclaimed. Should I stay permanently in New York with Edyth and become an American? If so, when will I able to visit Paris, for which I have longed all these months and years? Recalling the sadness of Tannhäuser who, sated with the love of a voluptuous goddess, attempted to escape from her grotto, I despondently looked at her as she slept. Ah, nothing is so sinful as a man!’
‘On the way she kissed me again and again, inside the carriage, then on the ferryboat. As the time for the train to depart approached, she threw from the train window the rose she wore at her throat, as a keepsake until we should meet again. I suddenly felt that I could not abandon her, no matter what sacrifices this might involve.’
