J-Lit Review 1: Japan Sinks! by Sakyo Komatsu (1973)

So er, my first article here was supposed to be about Skulduggery Pleasant, kids books reviewed for adults. I just finished a rather marvelous, practically ancient (shush) Japanese sci-fi novel though, so you’re getting that first.

I’ve been getting kind of fed up with recent anime and manga. It used to be that only the very best and the very worst made it to our shores, but now that J-media has hit main stream the American networks and publishers are shipping it over in bulk with no care for content or quality. What am I to do but move over to novels.

There are some nice big Japanese names you’ll find in Waterstones or Barne & Noble, such as Natsuo Kirino or Haruki Murakami (both of which I highly recommend and will likely blog about at some later date). Sakyo Komatsu, sometimes called “the King of Japanese SF”, is not to be found on the shelves of your local paperback emporium… or at least not any of the ones in Edinburgh.

I picked up my copy of “Japan Sinks!”, printed in 1978, from an Oxfam book shop for 99p, along with a few other titles by other more obscure authors. Want something a bit different? Go to a second hand bookshop and always, always judge a book by it’s cover… then go for what looks trashiest. You’ll likely be pleasantly surprised.

Premise

The blurb on the back of the book doesn’t really do it justice;

“A fissure in a wall - a land survey mysteriously out of true - a small island     disapperaring overnight - and one of the worst disasters in the history of the world is born. Only one man suspects the truth, but his theory is so unprecedented, his predictions so horrifying that even his fellow scientists ignore him.

Then a series of devastating earthquakes strikes, and suddenly the authorities are prepared to listen. But time is short and as they frantically try to ward off disaster the crust of the earth begins to shift.”

All that stuff in the first paragraph happens within the opening chapter. The Japanese government accepts the possibilities quite quickly, though with reluctance and Plan D is set up to a) follow the course of geological activity around the islands and b) come up with a contingency plan for when the archipelago does, finally, go the way of the dinosaurs.

The book follows the comings and goings of various members of the commity for Plan D, as well as a few other characters, including a rich eccentric (who gives international governments, as well as the Japanese government, a swift boot up the behind to get them to act) and a few foriegn officials and diplomats. The closest person to a main human character is Onodera, who we follow most often, through his Plan D obligations and through his somewhat disjointed and ethereal personal life.

Reasons To Read

The earthquakes and sinking of the Japanese archipelago are simply the backdrop for an exploration of the Japanese mentality, written by a native Japanese who has travelled the world and studied other countries’ literature. As such it has an unusual outlook on Japan.

Due to this view of Japan, Komatsu asks a lot of questions; How do Japanese politicians fulfil their role as samurai (those who serve) when under great pressure? How do the Japanese, as a whole, react to nation wide catastrophes? What role did The Great War and events pre-Meiji http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meiji_period play in shaping the people of Japan and the ways in which they act? How does a nation go about defining itself if it has no homeland (the Jews and their plight are brought up now and again)? How do history, geography and mythology shape a cultural conciousness? How do the Japanese view international opinions of them and theirs? What is the Japanese idea of “duty” and what sorts of duty are there?

The few solid answers that are proferred do not always shine favourably on the Japanese, but this does not mean that Komatsu has nothing good and positive to say about his people. The depictions of some other nations are also unusual and interesting, especially America, Australia, Great Britain and South Africa. Again, those insights may not always be favourable but Komatsu offers them with an almost wistful tone, like a person talking about the character flaws of a lover; not reprimanding, just noting those flaws.

If you have any interest in learning about Japanese mentality and character this is a good place to start (I can give a few others, such as ”Geisha of Gion” by Mineko Iwasaki or “Geisha” by Liza Dalby**).

Like depressing endings? Without giving anything away I can say that no one comes out as a winner in this one… except maybe Prof. Tadokoro, in a very nihilistic way. Komatsu holds no punches as he destroys Japan piece by piece. I felt the blows as he described the loss of Mt Fuji, the washing away of Kyushu, the flattening of Odawara. It left me quite tearful at times and I don’t even know these place! Komatsu plays the heart strings very well.

Reasons Not To Read

70s… sci-fi… sex. I don’t know why (maybe someone who’s studied it more would) but science fiction literature from the late 1960s to the mid 1980s is littered with pointless sex. “Japan Sinks!” is no different.

Let me explain, as a yaoi fan, what I mean by ‘pointless sex’. There are several reasons to put a bit of hanky panky into a story, the main two being;

    ~ Erotic stimulation of your reader.
    ~ To show a character has reached a certain point in their life or relationship.

For the former, you get down and dirty with your thesaurus and go all out with the saucy adjectives. With the latter, there’s a build up of some kind (boy meets girl, boy likes girl, etc) and then there’s a ‘fade to black’… so as not to embarrass your naive readers with naughty words.

For some reason this doesn’t seem to be what sci-fi writers went for (at least of short stories and though it is counted as a novel by Japanese it barely reaches modern standards for a novella). Two characters met, they had sex. There’s no build up, they don’t connect emotionally with each other (hate each other, either/or). They don’t even seem to enjoy/dwell on it. Nothing previously suggested they might want to bed each other. Yet there’s no epic, filthy descriptions going on; nothing to titilate the reader.

Pointless sex. It’s almost as if someone said “from now on, all sci-fi must include a sex scene… doesn’t matter if it suits the story or not, it has to be there.”

Maybe I’m missing the point… but the relationships that Onodera has with women seem to be there just… to be there. Maybe Komatsu simply can’t write a good relationship for toffee, but then Brian Aldiss was guilty of it. Philip K. Dick too. Asimov, on the other hand, wasn’t… though his portrayal of women was waaaaaay ahead of it’s time… another discussion, another place.

Ahem.

Second; OMG, I know what causes an earthquake, stop explaining it to me!

The first half of this book could easily be editted down into one chapter. So much ink was dedicated to explaining to us the theories behind techtonic activity that it took me a month longer to get through than it should have done just because I got bored of the high school geography lessons.

To be fair though; when “Japan Sinks!” was written geology, volcanology etc. were not taught outside of university. Hell, Mt. St. Helens hadn’t even gone off (April, 1980). Your average reader knew very little of what was going on beneath their feet.

It’s a forgivable offence, but it does make the first half a very hard slog.

Favourite Scene (No Spoilers)

Various national diplomats sit around a canteen in America, discussing the Japanese ‘problem’ (where to put the evacuees as opposed to how to stop the sinking). Everyone get’s up and starts to leave to watch the first public announcement of the sinking on TV.

One man is seen by two stragglers as he stares out of the window, with teary eyes, to the East. He is Japanese.

A simple and short scene, but a terribly powerful one.

Overall

If you can drag yourself through the mass of geological babble at the beginning it’s a fascinating read and insight into human nature. The main character isn’t any one person but Japan herself; the Sleeping Dragon, and the outlook of the nation that has called her home for 2000 years.

It’s a nice bit of classic science-fiction, in the psychological vein, written by an author you’re probably not familiar with, about a culture quite disimilar to your own. Something novel, yet a good read in its own right (once again, if you can put up with the geology lessons).

** Don’t go anywhere NEAR “Memoirs of a Geisha” till you’ve read accounts of geisha life written by geisha or people who have actually spent time living within the flower and willow world.