NOTES ON RECENT READING
Edwin McLellan’s WOMAN IN THE CRESTED KIMONO: THE LIFE OF SHIBUE IO AND HER FAMILY DRAWN FROM MORI ŌGAI’S “SHIBUE CHŪSAI”
Having recently come across a couple of strongly positive comments about Edwin McLellan’s rendering of material from a much longer work by the great Meiji period (1868-1912) novelist, Mori Ōgai, in a work he called Woman in the Crested Kimono (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1985, 192 pp.), I decided to order it online and see for myself. Unfortunately, while the title seemed familiar, I didn’t realize until I started reading it this week that I not only already had a perfectly good copy, but that I’d reviewed it for Amazon.com in 2008! Here, then, is that review, slightly edited.
As with another book recently discussed here that uses "Kimono" in its title, Rebecca Copeland's novel, The Kimono Tattoo, this book about Japan is not about theatre. On the other hand, it's based on a book by Mori Ōgai, a versatile writer who was one of the earliest modern Japanese playwrights, so there's that.
It also happens to be a delightful read, one I came across by chance when it was mentioned in Hanley's Everyday Things in Premodern Japan. It tells the story of a Japanese woman named Shibue Io, who lived during the mid-19th century and died in the 1880s, her life spanning the late Edo period and the early Meiji. She was the wife of a scholar-physician named Shibue Chūsai, the subject of a long and very detailed biography by the great Meiji writer Mori Ōgai. Edwin McLellan, rather than translating Ōgai’s book itself, extracted only those parts concerned with Chūsai’s remarkable wife, Io, and then interpolated his own musings and commentary on the woman and her times. He also provides excellent documentation in the form of endnotes, which give the book a necessary grounding in historical research.
We follow the life and times of Io as she marries the well-respected Chūsai, bears a sizable brood (not all of whom lived long), raises and educates her children, is widowed, and endures the hardships that came to families associated with the samurai (or bushi) class during the time of the Meiji Restoration (1868). This exceptional woman was extremely well educated for her time, and several of her children were themselves involved in scholarly pursuits. Io was not only intellectually inclined, she also—having been given martial arts training—had considerable physical bravery, as described in several vivid anecdotes.
The book pursues the story of her husband, and each of her children, and by the time the volume concludes, after only 150 pages of narrative, we feel we have come to know not only Shibue Io, but her entire family, and a few persons closely associated with the Shibue. Moreover, we get a marvelous picture of what life was like for an upper middle-class Japanese family living in Edo during the closing days of the shogunate, and how topsy-turvy things became when it had to adjust to the social, economic, and political upheavals surrounding and succeeding the Restoration.
McLellan's commentary has just the right touch; knowledgeable and sensitive, and always helpful in engaging the reader's interest in and sympathy for the cast of characters whose story he (and Ōgai) is telling. He keeps the narrative clear, reminding the reader of who individuals are when they reappear in the story, and continually offering valuable insights into the cultural and historical circumstances of the times, including the place of women. This is a book that anyone interested in 19th-century Japanese life should read; since it was published in 1985, I regret not having known of it before.
In
2008 I concluded by saying, “I'm delighted to have finally made its
acquaintance,” but now, 16 years later, I can happily add that I’m equally delighted
to have been reacquainted with it.
