Shusaku Endo Books

SEA AND POISON by Shusaku Endo

Reading Shusaku Endo's Sea and Poison was such a delightful experience I was reluctant to close the book. Granted, it is sad to read about cruel and heartless experiments on living human beings but that is not what the book is about. From the vantage point of Japanese/Christian culture Endo courageously shines his compassionate light into the dark crevices of our souls and makes us confront our own demons nesting there. In doing so he helps us become better persons. Robert Wright in his often quoted The Moral Animal points out that "Human beings are a species splendid in their array of moral equipment, tragic in their propensity to misuse it, and pathetic in their constitutional ignorance of the misuse." Endo does us a service by diminishing our "constitutional ignorance of the misuse" [of our moral equipment]"

Endo traces the inner development of his characters with such a deep understanding of the human condition that I was astounded and moved to tears and joy. He placed two aspiring medical doctors, Toda and Sugura in a University hospital in southern Japan now seemingly under the control of the military establishment. The end of the Japanese/American war was quickly approaching. Daily bombing of the nearby city flattened the city and killed thousands of civilians and gave rise to implacable hatred directed towards two enemy airmen the military captured and brought to the hospital for experiments to determine how much could be surgically removed from a person before the person died. Toda and Sugura are assigned to assist the chief medical doctor who controls the future of the two aspiring doctors. Endo explores how Toda and Sugura deal with the conflicting demands of society, the medical establishment the nation and their conscious. Endo gently opens a window into their souls and allows us to witness the mighty clash between the demands of self preservation and the importuning of their conscious.

Endo writes so evocatively, with such elegance and grace and without a trace of judgment or preaching it was like reading a book length haiku. I recommend that the readers read Bushido the Soul of Japan by Inazo Nitobe, (it's in the public domain and several sources allow a free download). Reading Inazo gave me a deeper and broader understanding of Endo's perspective and I intend to return to reading his books.

My compliments to the reviewers who have contributed to the further publicity of this harrowing and psychologically complex novel, an exploration of those who have denounced their spirituality in exchange for social acceptance, and the consequences they have to suffer. I would like to just add one side note. There is an excellent film adaptation of SEA AND POISON, directed by Kumai Kei in 1986. Because of the controversial subject matter, no major studio would finance the film and it took Kumai years to finish it. (It would certainly not be made in today's Japan, considering the strength of revisionists and glorifiers of the imperial past) This movie has also been nearly completely neglected in the US, no doubt due to its unflinching realism, thoroughly unexotic visuals and political content, something we do not expect from the country mostly known to us through bubblehead animation, Power Rangers and Godzilla. Please do seek it out, if you have wherewithal to do so, and show it to as many Americans (and Chinese, etc.) as you can. I believe the US distrubtor in 1987 was Gates Films.

Obedience to authority and power leads people to harm others, and not being able to resist authority of someone higher is human weakenss. It seems that the Intern named Toda is the one Endo wanted to emphasize upon. The charactor of Toda remainds me of Albert Camus's "The Stranger," and Dostoevsky's "Devils," and it can also be related to other charactors Endo draws in his other novels. Can people feel guilty without punishment of the society? What is morality? What is "right" and "wrong" in such an absurd world like today?

There is a sequel to The Sea and Poison. I do not believe that it is published in the United States, but it is about Dr. Suguro's later life. People judge him and punish him under the name of "democracy" and its "justice." Dr. Suguro ends up hanging himself. Can people judge and punish others? If judging and blaming are the meaning of justice, how does it differ from what is unjust?

I am Japanese, and I personally think that Endo is the best writer from our country. I strongly recommend all his work to Americans.

This short, dark, psychologically gripping novel is an indictment of militarism and its corrupting effect on the individual and society. The old, the young, the innocent, the pure of heart, caregivers, families, traditions, institutions - all will be degraded if not destroyed by it. It is, for me, Endo's most important and accessible work; it is also that rare thing, a Japanese artist's unsparing summation of the worthlessness and hideousness of The Fifteen Year War.

Edmund Burke would have agreed with Endo's novel "The Sea and Poison". Although a short novel, it is one that delves into some very deep issues about morality and the ethics of passively accepting evil in one's presence.

Contrary to another review, "The Sea and Poison" is not based on the activities of Unit 731 in Manchuria at all. The novel is based on the vivisection of 8 B29 crewmen at Fukuoka Imperial University. These experiments involved removal of lung tissue, puncturing hearts and other experiments, while the airmen were alive. None survived the experiments.

Returning to the novel, Endo focuses on a medical intern, Suguro, and his friend Toda. Both characters represent very different responses to the proposal to vivisect the airmen. Toda feels no guilt or remorse, and has no issue with taking part. It is not even matter of justifying it to hinmself: he just has little response in his conscience. Suguro, on the other hand, is flooded with doubt, ethical problems, and his own conscience. Shown to be a basically kind man, the novel reinforces Burke's suggestion that all evil needs is for good men to do nothing.

A burning look into the morality of the passive, "The Sea and Poison" will challenge and provoke. Despite its brevity, it packs a punch, and will leave you thinking for long after you have turned the last page. As usual, Endo has written a fantastic novel with real weight.

I have enjoyed several of Endo's novels, including The Girl I Left Behind, Deep River, and Silence. My feeling is that he was worthy of the Nobel Prize, and I am disappointed he didn't win it. He works at the edge. His characters encounter the unusual in the midst of ordinary life, and they are changed by the encounter. In Scandal the unusual is embodied in masochism, the love of the pleasure in pain and self-annihilation. In parallel with the out of body joy of masochism, the protagonist has his own epiphany. This is all served up in a stylish and enjoyable confection. As always, the author hints that God is hiding in the interstices, waiting to appear in refracted light, darkly.

A wonderful novel. A great novel. A very enjoyable read.

Just when you think you have Endo Shusaku pegged, he comes out with a king-hitter like "Scandal". I have been reading Endo for a couple of years now, being a big fan, and "Scandal" has been one that has just further confirmed Endo's versatility and insight.

"Scandal" is very much full of self-references to Endo's own life. The main character, Suguro, is a Christian author, who has written novels called "The Life of Christ", "The Voice of Silence" and so on. Fans will recognise the echos to Endo's other works. Additionally, the characters often share names with other Endo novels. Suguro also appears in "The Sea and Poison", the highschool girl Morita Mitsu comes from "The Girl I Left Behind" and Naruse comes from the pages of "Deep River", (though with a changed given name, but life details are similar).

The similarity to Endo's other works ends there, however, and "Scandal" takes a no-holds-barred look at the depravity of the human heart and the urges that lie suppressed by the individual. As Suguro hears repeated rumours that he visits some extremely questionably places in Tokyo, he begins a hunt for the presumed imposter. Along the way, he encounters much that is disturbing about himself.

"Scandal" is a book that looks unflinchingly into the darkest recesses of the human heart. Endo seems unafraid to address those issues some would prefer to be hidden away, and he makes us look at them in ways that might make us feel uncomfortable. While not shocking in the explicit sense, the book does succeed in making one feel a touch uncomfortable with the matters dealt with. Endo shows a great deal of understanding for the nature of sexuality.

Although I would not recommend the book for everyone, I would recommend it for fans of Endo and those interested in the secret desires of people and the concealed corners of our own souls. This is an excellent book.

Scandal is the story of an acclaimed Japanese Christian novelist in old age named Suguro. At an awards ceremony honoring his distinguished career, Suguro hears disquieting rumors that he has been seen carousing in the red-light district. He enters the district to investigate the rumors and safeguard his reputation, but is unprepared for what, and who, he finds there.

Shusaku Endo uses this story as a kind of autobiography, accurate in depth of feeling, if not character and circumstance. He said in his A Life of Jesus that he thought of the Gospels as collectively forming a true portrait of Jesus, even where he saw them as fuzzy on the details. That is a good way to read Scandal, as a portrait of Endo.

Suguro struggles with old age, oncoming death, and the dissonance between his private self and his public reputation as an upstanding Christian. In many ways, Suguro is forced to confront himself; he learns that the foundations he has built his life upon are unsound, even his work, his marriage, and his religion. Endo's unflinching portrayal of himself in the figure of Suguro is thus poignant and, at times, tragic.

Scandal is about, among other things, a man going to a dangerous, uncertain place with his religion. Some religious people will not want to follow him there. On the other hand, this is not an exclusively Christian novel, and readers of any religion, or none, would have much to gain from it.

It is helpful, but not necessary, to have read some of Endo's other work to put Scandal in context. Silence and A Life of Jesus are classics. At least ten other works are in English translation.

Scandal is so rich and complex, and finally, so human, that it practically requires a second reading. But I am beginning to find that each time I read it, I demand another reading myself. I doubt that I will ever come to the end of it.

I just finished "Scandal" by Shusaku Endo which makes it the third book I've read by this author. All of the books have been excellent with "Silence" being my favorite. Endo is a Christian Japanese author and "Scandal", like "Silence" give an insight to the theological questions that go through his mind. The basic issue in Scandal is the relationship between good and evil in all of us. The main character in the story is a Japanese Christian writer (this whole book is pretty autobiographical with little attempt to hide that fact). At an awards ceremony he is confronted by the possibility that he has a double and that double has been spending a lot of time on the seedier side of life. The actions of his double threaten his reputation and he searches out this "doppleganger" to resolve that threat. Along the way he becomes interested in the nature and motives of the underworld people he comes in contact with.

Mr. Endo poses a variety of questions for the reader. As I previously mentioned, the main question is the level of good and evil in all of us. He seems to suggest that those of us who worship Jesus have within us the potential to have been one of those who stoned Jesus on His way to the Cross. While this is a shocking proposition to many, Endo's tale leaves one pondering the issue.

This book, like the other two I've read (including "The Sea and Poison"), is written in a compelling style that moves the reader along without any literary roadblocks. Even though you may quess correctly at some of the outcome, you want to see how the author gets you there. I rated this a "4" instead of a "5" because it fell a bit short of "Silence" so I knew he could do better.

Endo doesn't give you easy answers. This book explores the darker side of human nature, the side behind easy domestic life, beyond common decency, beneath worldly success. It may not be a pleasant book to read, as it doesn't gloss over the capacity for evil in a human being, but it is a book that will leave you thinking about just how authentic you are. If you're not ready to face brutal honesty, don't read this book. But if you're prepared for some deep insights into the nature of man, you shouldn't let this one pass you by.

Didn't Mr Endo pass away in 1996?

Being a large fan of Shusaku Endo, when I saw this book with an interesting title, I decided to read it. I was very happily surprised. Not only is this excellently written story a very moving tale, but it is often very funny. Endo has used his talent to tell the story of an often foolish man named Gaston Bonaparte, a man with a passion for Japan. He travels to Japan and stays with a small Japanese family. While his old pen pal, the only son of the family, is very supportive of him, the only daughter does not like him at all. Things get even worse when he is abducted by an angry gangster, and eventually forced to make the greatest sacrifice of all. If you like dramatic, moving, and funny stories, make sure you read this one.

I first read Wonderful Fool in a high school English class, it was out of print so my teacher photocopied 60 copies of the entire book, and it was wel worth it. I loved both the story and the way it was told, with vivid colors and moods. Highly recommended

I just finished Wonderful Fool by Shusaku Endo, the fifth novel I have read by him. Like the others, this one was outstanding. He wrote very skillfully and deeply perceptively about human nature. Endo always chooses topics, it seems, which are uncomfortable, which draw up against the reader's "flesh" or that part of them that is worldly and selfish at the expense of others' wellbeing. (As a Japanese too he chooses topics which are particularly unflattering for the Japanese people like the crucifixtions of Portugese missionaries in Silence, the experimentation on POWs in The Sea and Poison, and the pornography industry and sex trade in Scandal. In Wonderful Fool his readers see some of the gangs, spend time with the prostitutes, and go around the slums of Tokyo with a hitman, but all as seen from a holy heart of love, it seems clear to me. Endo is not content to remain on the surface of things- his art is nobler than that and his love more burning than that. He brings his reader with him to touch the nerves that run so deep they cross beyond his cultural moment to the universal heart of mankind.

His characters always act from weakness and sorrow and struggle and failure. Gaston, the socially inept, the ugly, the slow-minded, reaching out to Japan with the most powerful thing in the world, love, but covered in a ball of rags.

Like Scandal this novel contained characters deeply effected by warcrimes that those close to them had participated in. The hitman Endo (Endo likes to make the criminal characters reflect identity with him in some way in some of his novels, naming the hitman Endo or making the main character of Scandal a Christian writer, like Endo, of a Life of Christ.) turns to a life of hatred and coldblooded murder when faced with his brother's having carried out orders to burn the occupants of a village and the brother's subsequent framing by his commanding officers. Gaston persistantly, doggedly, beyond all civil tepid-ity, urges Endo from a position of weakness not to go through with his plot of revenge on the officers. Gaston, despite his outer weakness and failure, is a real man, as the character Takamori discerns, because he takes a stand for the right thing despite his weaknesses that he could have so easily taken as excuses not to do what he should. It is integrity to the gospel that Endo has witnessed, bears witness to, keeps within himself. The "fool" is wonderful for this integrity, this sacred obedience, this longsuffering love, which endures blows and persecutions by the ones he is trieing to help, and which has takes the courage to recognize that he can and must help, that he must, despite all his weakness and absurdity in the eyes of the world, come to Japan for love. Hallelujah!

Endo ends by tieing Gaston's mysterious end into the early Japanese story, "The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter."

Endo's novel is a marvelously winning and affecting story about the wanderings of a saintly Frenchman (and descendant of Napoleon) through the mean streets of post-war Tokyo.

You have maybe met someone like Gaston Bonaparte? The sort of man who apologizes when you step on his foot; who'd rather be cheated than think someone dishonest. Who is, naturally, held in a sort of weary pity by his family and in complete scorn by almost anyone else.

Endo addresses in this novel what it is that world values and what it does to a man who who is apart from those values. While the rest of the world cannily pursues it's own ends (survival, or better, and reproduction) Gaston is --quite unintentionally--pursuing that proffession which is revered in name but entirely held in contempt in actual practice. Gaston is maybe not a man who is good for much, certainly not in the world's eyes -but sainthood has ever been the most egalitarian of vocations.

There is a powerful case made for man's free will implicitly in this, but also in the novel's character, Endo, who is the opposite and the reflection of Gaston. He too though, is pursuing his end regardless of even himself -to the extent of refusing to take antibiotics for a tuberculosis infected lung.

Perhaps the novel's most poignant theme is it's message that even at our most debased and broken, God has not forgotten or given up on us. Endo's illustration of this is original and startling; Gaston chooses to follow after Endo at a cost and in a way that could only be called insane by anyone the world would call sane.

Endo's writing is simple and elegant and executed in an exciting, almost cinematic manner. It keeps the reader turning the pages through the book's all too short duration. If I had to say something critical about this book, I might mention that the writing is not as smooth as some of Endo's later works -it lacks subtlety at moments and there are plot possibilites which are raised and not pursued. That is just nothing though, to the whole of how wonderful this book really is.

The best books I've read didn't end up in my hands by random selection, but they were recommended to me by a friend or teacher. Without the friend who sent me 'Crying for a Vision', I most likely would not have set eyes on the book. Steve Scott was unknown to me (I've never run across him in the underground music scene); and who would have expected a rock-n-roller to have much to say about religion and the arts? Steve Scott has a message, and he delivers it well.

The primary audience for this book is the Christian artist. That said, I am Christian but not an artist (at least not in the traditional sense); I work as a software engineer; but maybe I am a poet at heart: because Steve Scott's book nudged at my heart and mind. His book needs to be widely read.

The book titles itself a collection of essays, and you could pick and choose which to read in whatever order; but there is a flow and order in their presentation, and the collection is best read from beginning to end ... like a book of chapters. Some of the text toward the beginning was the driest for me (how to look at art so you can form a response, or rather, how different personalities and cultures respond to art). But don't stop too soon. This chapter is important background. Read it and move on to the meat.

You can consider the 'Crying for a Vision' book to be a guidebook for the Christian artist. Not a guidebook with all the answers, but an aid for you that asks so many questions. And if Steve Scott's writing doesn't provide you with all the questions, then the study guide appendix should satisfy. It is not a book to be blown through like a NY Times Bestseller novel. Take some time to chew on it.

One thing that I took away from reading this book is the importance of a sense of wonder. The writer who has most influenced me, G.K. Chesterton, had this sense of wonder in his life and in his art; so this element is often in my mind. Scott's book reminded me of the need for Christians to evangelize through this sense of wonder (the apostolate of wonder??) when he wrote: "I believe that Christian artists can take on the prophetic mandate in their work, and confront more deeply than others who try." It is needed in our post-grunge world.

I'm revising this review for two reasons. One, now that Larry Norman, who was Only Visiting This Planet, has gone home (1947-2008), Steve's reflections about his time working with Norman in the interview section are even more timely. Hopefully Solid Rock will bring out the Steve Scott album that Larry Norman produced, but which, as yet, has not seen the light of day. I found out about Steve in the liner notes of a Larry Norman album called Barking at the Ants, and was knocked out when I heard him for myself on his Exit label mid '80s record, Love in the Western World (which came out on CD in a limited run in 2000). The band on that record was the 77s, and Steve wrote their early songs when they were still the Scratch Band. My title comes from a Steve Scott song on this album that he got from beat/ zen poet Jack Kerouac, and Steve is in many ways his latter day descendent.

Second, a few reviews of this book are now out, particularly one by Chris Well in CCM, where he called it a "must- read" and quoted Steve Turner, author of The Gospel According to the Beatles, from the editorial review above. There's also one where Peter Banks, keyboardist for UK rock/ pop band, After the Fire, known for the songs, "Der Kommissar", "Laser Love" and "One Rule for You" said, "A uniquely gifted musical poet? One thing you cannot do with Steve Scott is categorise him".

Nigel Goodwin wrote that Steve Scott's previous book, Like a House on Fire: Renewal of the Arts in a Postmodern Culture, "gives fresh light and insight into how not to retreat into the margins of postmodern analysis. This book is a wake-up call for the Church and will shake the arts world to its foundational roots." Dr. Colin Harbinson called that book "timely and thought- provoking", and wrote that it "inspires us to abandon our ethnocentric worldviews and embrace the arts as a bridge to other cultures. This is especially relevant as Scott is currently director of CANA (Christian Artists Networking Association) which holds conferences in Asia, Africa, India, Bali, and other parts of the majority or third world.

These comments also hold for the present book, as Scott says in the introduction that "All the material in this book in your hands (Crying) either leads up to the Fire material, flows around it, or builds upon the ideas sketched in that book. This book and Like a House on Fire complement each other, and read together, provide a fair picture of my ideas and opinions. There's also an essay in Artrageous from arts workshops/ seminars Scott did at the Cornerstone festival.

Part one of this book contains the entirety of Crying for a Vision, Steve's exploration of art and creativity in relation to the Bible, the church, and the world. Four new essays in part two show Steve's way of working as an artist. Part three provides a sixty question study guide for the book for use in arts groups and individual study. Steve wrote a new introduction, and in a brief interview comments on the "state of the arts". He also did a new interview about the book at alivingdog and has an essay in the new edition of It Was Good, a collection of ruminations about faith and art. So let me invite you, in my best Ed Sullivan voice, to meet him. "Ladies and gentlemen, Steve Scott."

Contents:

Introduction: A Horse of a Hundred Colors

Part One: Crying for a Vision

1. Are You Responsible for This Monstrosity?
2. The Act of Seeing With One's Own Eyes
3. How Can You Use Something That Leaks?
4. Nothing More Than Dirt?
5. Freedom, Power, and Creativity
6. Living Sacrifice/ Transformed Mind
7. Where Language Ends?
8. Towards a Lost Wax Mind
9. Only a Beginning

Part Two: Scratching the Surface

10. The Light By Which We See
11. Crossing the Boundaries
12. Fear and Multicultural Trembling
13. When Worlds Collide: The Novels of Shusaku Endo

Part Three: Work in Progress

14. Emotional Tourist: An Interview with Steve Scott
15. Crying for a Vision Study Guide
16. Endnotes

If ever there were an author who could wedge a knife into the cracks of the human soul, it must be Shusaku Endo.

In these five stories -- Unzen, A Fifty-Year-Old Man, Japanese In Warsaw, The Box, and The Case of Isobe -- Endo draws back the curtain on a group of people obsessed with such themes as cowardice, sex, martyrdom, death and the love of animals.

With bleak eloquence and hard-edged compassion, Endo creates a banquet of irony and emotion that succeeds in filling the void created by 95% of modern fiction.

If you are weary of the predictable and formulaic fiction churned out by the big publishing houses, I recommend this slim volume. Shusaku Endo's stories feel like a gust of cold, clean and pungent mountain air from the top of Japan's highest mountains.

Mr. Endo is a rarity: a Japanese Catholic novelist, a literary Sadao Watanabe. His Catholicism and literary studies in Europe have made him the most accessible of Japanese novelists to the western reader. Those who know and appreciate his work will welcome these five short stories, and will recognize his usual style and typical concerns. A novelist retraces the steps of the Christian martyrs of Shimabara, but he is more interested in and identified with the apostate who agonizes spiritually because he did not have the faith to suffer physically. Japanese tourists on the make and their impassive guide wander Warsaw and find in the strangest of places St. Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish missionary to Japan who died in Auschwitz. A box of old postcards uncovers the secret life of a missionary's daughter during wartime Japan. A fifty-year old man takes dancing lessons amid intimations of mortality. A man who could not share his feelings with his wife watches her die and then wonders about her possible reincarnation. The last of these short stories is in fact the opening chapter of the novel "Deep River," but it becomes more intriguing on its own. Those who don't know Endo yet will find this a tasty and representative sampling of his work. Van C. Gessel, who has translated at least six Endo novels, has provided a very readable text.

Anyone interested in post-war Japan, or in Endo's other books, will be fascinated by this translation of a novel never before available in English.

The plot revolves around Suguro, a physician who is also at the center of Endo's earlier novel "The Sea and Poison." Suguro was forced by the circusmtance of war to participate in medical experiments on POWs during WW2 (that is the subject of "The Sea and Poison"). "Song of Sadness" revisits him thirty years later, when he is at work in a small clinic in Tokyo's Shinjuku district. An ambitious, self-righteous journalist seeks to expose him, under the pretense of writing a disinterested series of articles about aging war criminals. But that is only one element of a very complex plot, which interweaves four or five stories to make a kind of total portrait of life in Tokyo in the changing 1970s.

The novel tackles a number of big questions having to do with medical ethics, war guilt, the possibility of forgiveness, but its touch is always deft and gentle, and there are real moments of humor in it that display Endo's wide range (from the tragic to the satirical to the comic).

The translation is among the best ever done of Endo's work--vivid, nuanced, and smooth. In a word, this novel is simply essential reading.

When this book was selected by my book club, I did not want to read it. Christians being tortured in 17th century Japan. Also, it seemed very Catholic to me and I am not a Catholic. It just didn't sound good. When I finally overcame my reluctance and started to read it, I found myself mesmerized by the beautiful writing, the sense of time and place and, surprisingly by the story itself. By the time I finished the book, I found myself profoundly moved and forever changed by the questions and conclusions it posed. A book that I did not want to read has become one of my all-time favorite books. I suspect I will still be thinking about it until the day I die.

A simple but a great story that explores some very important issues. Do you wonder why God is silent while people suffer and die? This book explores that issue, and I think it does offer some worthwhile insight.

The book was in great condition and arrived promptly to my door. For me, the typeset was a bit small, but the book appeard to have been brand new. Silence has been very thought provoking. A must read for anyone of Catholic background.

As author stated in the preface of "The Life of Jesus", he is for "Japanese readers who have no Christian tradition of their own and who know almost nothing about Jesus"
1. Two Roman Catholic priets/missionaries from Portugal crossing dangerous oceans to reach Japan. Then giving up everything:Pride,
faith, freedom, and love(?)
2. Courageous Native Christians. Accepting their martyrdom with silence.

There is no balance between these two. There is no reality.

This is a book written by a Japanese for Japanese readers.

How proud is God? How should God's people uphold his honor? How exactly should the gospel transform human society?

These questions lie at the heart of Silence. Written in the wake of World War two by the Japanese novelist Shusaku Endo, Silence tells the story of the persecution of Christians in seventeenth century Japan.

Although proselytizing efforts by Francis Xavier had been successful in the previous century, the 1600s brought about ecclesiastical quarrels between Roman catholic and protestant missionaries. These squabbles often went hand in hand with political and military shenanigans between competing European powers in Japan. Japan's leadership came to view Christianity as an essential part of this distasteful western mess, and severe persecution quickly became standard fare for the newly budded Japanese church.

Endo's protagonist, the young Portugese priest Sebastian Rodrigues, enters Japan secretly in the midst of these persecutions, along with a monastic colleague, Francis Garrpe. They encounter crude but strong faithfulness among the Japanese believers, who undertake great sacrifice in order to protect the padres from the authorities.

Eventually, however, they are betrayed by a weak-willed Japanese Christian, and their trials begin in earnest. Rodrigues's faith is tested to limits which comfortable modern western Christians may never be able to properly understand. His captors torture him psychologically in order to make him renounce his faith. This is not a simple temptation or test of honor; it is not Rodrigues's mere conscience at stake. If he submits to the authorities by trampling on Christ's portrait, his peasant flock goes free. If he does not, they will be tortured to death.

This test is one of the most soul-churning passages of literature I have read. What will Rodrigues do? Will he apostatize? How important is his honor? How important is God's? As the pastor of these simple peasants, is it better to renounce his faith to save their lives, or better to embrace martyrdom and doom them?

Initially, I found myself cheering for Rodrigues's perseverance and martyrdom, but by the novel's end, I was shaken and unsure. In the West, Christendom has a long and hallowed tradition of persecution stories, from the early believers in Jerusalem, to the church in Rome, and in various places throughout the centuries. Although Christ gives approbation to those who are persecuted for his sake, human sinfulness, such as it is, can even distort the meaning and value of martyrdom. Even the brightest lights in Christian history sometimes succumb to an unspiritual triumphalism. With the benefit of time, we often come to see some of Christendom's triumphs as accreted with sin and pride.

The first believers in Japan did not have this cultural background narrative to inform their consciences. They had only an immediate pagan background confronted with the fresh, non-accreted startling news that God has suffered, endured shame and humiliation, and forgiven their sins. This gospel surely would have motivated them to endure great persecution, but at the same time, the gospel is the story of a man who suffered in order to release his friends from condemnation. In that light, martyrdom for its own sake is dubious at best.

What is true religion? The bible maintains that true religion consists in looking after orphans and widows in their distress, and keeping oneself from being stained by the world. Those two mandates, it seems to me, should never be at odds with one another. If Rodrigues had refused to trample on the fumie (the term for the sacred image of Christ), he would definitely not have been looking after orphans and widows, but rather sending them to certain doom. However, would his simple act constitute "being stained by the world?" Would he be a Judas and an enemy of the gospel? There is a prominent strain of Christianity, very much in the tradition of the western theology of glory, which says "yes". Endo's answer, more in tune with the theology of the cross, is "no".

I am inclined to agree with the latter.

Deep River by Shusaku Endo is of centered on a few individual that are part of a group Japanese tourists who had journeyed to the Ganges River in the middle of India. Throughout the story, he unveils their individual spiritual and emotional pasts, together, they had ventured there in silent separation in search for inner restoration. Whether in a spiritual or literal sense, every character has faced some sort of death, and was or waiting for a rebirth; the theme of death and rebirth could be found throughout the story.

Endo surrounds the story on five main characters. Might they lead their own separate paths, they have found themselves ventured in a land so foreign to their mind-frame for a purpose they might not be able to justify logically. There is Isobe, who was seeking for his dead wife reincarnated. Numada, who had went all the way to India to pay homage to a bird he believed has died in place of him. Mitsuko is a woman who never felt loved or alive and wanted to reconcile her past to Otsu, a former college "loser"--who desired to become a priest, but was rejected by the Catholic Church--whom she never was able to escape the wrong she has done him, but was drawn to him for reasons she never could understand. And Kiguchi, a former World War II veteran who was seeking for inner peace from the former horrors of deaths he had experienced.

This story can be view as a challenge taken by the author over the Western theological and cultural ideals, particular the Catholic Christian. I believe he has deliberately posed the question of just what might salvation look in light of his characters' long-sufferings. Death is an inevitable and inescapable part of life, and in order to attain wholeness, one needs face of his/her pain. As Otsu--whom I could rightly call Mitsuko's "object of rejection" than of affection--responds to Mitsuko's indignation over his choice in life, he speaks of his savior's death and rejection as the key to humanity's transgression. It was the betrayal by mankind that made Christ's message so powerful, for "as a result, he was etched into each of their guilty hearts, and they were never able to forget him...He died, but he was restored to life in their hearts"(Deep River 185). Endo reinforced his point by noting Otsu has not the "fluid flavored rhetoric," whose convictions can go no further than his lips, rather "Otsu's words were substantiated by the life of misfortune he had led" (Deep River 185). While the story ended in an unresolved peak, I wonder what he seeking to communicate, and just what might he want for those to take from the thresholds of life to his readers? Regardless, whether it is pain or healing, rejection or forgiveness, Endo has successfully woven a story that connects life to death and rebirth.

I had to read this for my Asian history class. It's a quick read, something that can be easily read in two hours. It's also fairly understandable. Endo's depiction of each character on their journey to India is amazing. Mitsuko, the self-abosorbed, divorced, cynical woman and her friend Otsu, a Catholic priest who is more pantheistic than he is Catholic, Numado, a meloncholy man who writes children's books and can talk to animals, Isobe, a widower trying to make sense of his life and his wife's death, Kiguchi , a sickly war vet in which everything around him reminds him of combat, and the Sanjos, the yuppie, naive couple going to India on their honeymoon.

There is great significance in each of the characters. Ostu being a Christ figure, the Sanjos representing the "Westernized" Japanese who are almost ignorant of the Indian culture and religion. Although I cannot agree with some of the worldviews discussed in the novel, it's a great book and the most symbolistic book I have read in years.

It is no accident that Ostu gave God the name of "Onion." An onion has several layers to it. Ostu believed that the God of Christianity was also the God of Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam, etc. This is where I give this book 4 stars instead of 5. The God of the Old and New Testaments cannot be the same as the ones of Buddhism, Hinduism, etc.

"... in every companionship there remains a mutually insoluble loneliness." This quote from 'Deep River' decribes the void within all 5 of Endo's protagonists. All 5 Japanese end up in India after a life of loss and suffering has led them there, 4 of them on a tour (each seeking their own form of closure) and the fifth, Otsu, a failed seminarian, is there, for it was the endpoint of his own spiritual struggle and reconciliation with modernity. Endo's writing is crisp and effortless and defies you to put it down. Endo is known as a 'Catholic' writer, but in the end I think it's fair to say that he takes all (organized) religions to task in this novel - and rightly so. Everyone's struggle is personal, w/ life and death, and it's our aggregate struggle with our 'insoluble loneliness' that leads to the strife and suffering in this world. This is a powerful novel, a masterpiece.

This is a beautiful story of 5 people searching for the inner peace that has eluded them throughout much, if not all, of their lives. The cause of their inner turmoil comes from a variety of sources but their emptiness and incompleteness is very real. Shusaku Endo introduces us to each of them seperately and then has them all, for seperate reasons, journey to India. They are in a guided tour that will supposedly show them a number of Buddhist shrines and historical sites. Their trip leads them to the Ganges River where they initially off at and then are all drawn to its' sacredness. The author gives us a serene glimpse of a sort of peace descending upon the 5 pilgrims. It may not be the peace they sought or would recognize, but it seems to be the peace they needed.

Shusaku Endo is a Japanese Christian who writes challengely about his own faith. To me, the core of his message in "Deep River" is the universal nature of faith and the universal nature of God. He exists for all of us but we come to know Him through the religion of our culture. Thus the Hindus, Christians, Moslems, Buddhists, etc are all seeking the same ultimate oneness with God (i.e.; peace) but they are each traveling different paths outlined through them in a theology passed along through the millennia. To illustrate his point, Endu shows us the five seperate tales of redemption and has them all come to salvation at a Hindu holy site. God DOES work in mysterious ways.

During a tour in India, five very different Japanese characters meet near the holy Ganges river: a man who grieves the death of a wife he had neglected; a woman bitten by her own cynicism and growing sense of inner void; a Japanese man who disaffection for the Christian life he adopted leads him to seek spiritual renewal elsewhere; and a former Japanese solider still haunted by the memories of atrocities in war-time Japanese-occupied Burma. Shusaku Endo masterfully builds up these full bodied characters through deft brushstrokes of key passages in their lives. Individual chapters show the inner turmoil and personal changes which lead these characters to their encounter (or re-encounter) in India, including a young Japanese who becomes disatisfied with the Christian life to which he had converted in his early youth and later followed in France; a widower in quest of the soul of her husband; and others.

Looking at a few quotes extracted from a dialogue between two Japanese characters in the novel will give you a sense of the encounters and re-encounters between individuals and the cross-cultural encounters, all of which are a strong feature of the play. In this dialogue which takes place in Paris, a Japanese woman talks to Otsu, one of the main characters who became a Christian early in his life in Japan.

The woman declares: "...It makes my teeth stand on edge just to think of you as a Japanese believing in this European Christianity nonsense." Otsu replies: "I've been here three years. For three years I have lived here and I have tired of the way people think. The ways of thinking that they've kneaded with their own hands and fashioend to meet the workings of their hearts..they're ponderous to an Asian like me. I can't blend in with them. And so everyday is hell for me..."

The reader of this novel who is not Japanese will gain some interesting insights into how Japanese might react to these different cultural settings, as characters move from Japan to France to the United States, and finally meet in India. Endo delivers a very personal sense of cross-cultural encounters, recognizable to those of us who have gone through similar journeys in different parts of the world.

Since I have only read Japanese novels in translation into either English or French, I cannot fairly judge Endo's style against other Japanese writers who are also well known to foreign readers, like Mishima and Kawabata. But while Endo may not share the grace and delicacy of these writers, his novels, including this one, are very human, and bring us very close to the inner lives of his characters.

If you want to better understand how Japanese come to view the rest of the world, or more generally how different cultures can collide, Endo's novels and his characters are a good place to start, or to continue, your journey.

Based on historical fact, Shusaku Endo's The Samurai tells the story of a zealous Franciscan priest named Velasco (based on a priest named Luis Sotelo) and a rural samurai named Hasekura Rokuemon whose paths cross when Velasco leads a mission to Spain and then Rome with an entourage of Japanese envoys and their men, ostensibly in order to develop trade between Spain and Japan and to gain proselytizing privileges under the authority of Velasco, who seeks to become Bishop of Japan. During the protracted journey, most of the Japanese--all of them of lower rank than would normally be the case for international envoys--agree to convert to Christianity, although their motives are more selfish than profound. Since the events on which the novel is based took place during a period of increasing oppression and persecution of Christians in Japan, the mission is doomed to failure, and both protagonists end up dying for their faith, although Endô leaves vague the depth of Rokuemon's religious commitment. The descriptions of the mission's travels are well researched and hypnotic, the prose is often lyrical, the religious disquisitions are engrossing (even for nonbelievers, like me), the bitter sectarian rivalry between the Jesuits and Franciscans is vividly portrayed, and the world of early seventeenth-century Japanese politics and its evolving attitude toward Christianity is superbly interpreted. Also noteworthy is the depiction of Velasco's complex character as a man of faith struggling with his own worldly ambitions and sensual desires, and that of the humble samurai who is uprooted from his barren homeland and family to travel all the way to Rome while increasingly pondering the significance of the emaciated, ugly figure hanging from crucifixes he sees everywhere in Europe respected as a symbol of man's salvation. The translator, Van C. Gessel, provides a brief introduction and a very useful postscript in which he discusses the novel's relation to historical fact. This novel can be appreciated as both a terrific historical novel about an important subject not well known in the West and as an exploration of the suffering and elation experienced by men in the search for spiritual meaning in Christian faith. Endo's approach to Christian theology is considered highly individualistic, which will be clear even if you don't know much about the subject. Believers and nonbelievers alike will find this novel compelling.

The samurai Hasekura Tsunenaga Rokuemon has been assigned a mission: to establish commercial ties with the Spanish government and to bring back "padres" to the region of Sendai. With that purpose he crosses the Pacific, Mexico, and the Atlantic in a trip towards Madrid, Barcelona and Roma full of sacrifices and spiritual challenges. This is the account of a historical mission that failed from the start. The exposure of the samurai to Christianity marks in him a path that will accompany until his last days once back in Japan. Although most of the tale reflects the historical facts, some parts of Shusaku's novel were of his own making. It is a book of adventure but as many reviewers I was drawn by the religious inside which looks for a purpose of existence in each of its characters. I missed a more in depth intrusion into the Spanish culture of that time. Cities like Madird, Toledo, and Seville... were at that time filled with strong cultural, political and economical changes. It was close to the time when Cervantes wrote his Don Quijote de la Mancha and I'm sure the "real" emissaries where also swapped into those events: the homeless in the streets, people that abandoned the villages to find better chances in the cities...

At first sight, a book about Japan, Mexic, Spain and Italy, a book about religion in Japan and religion in medieval Europe. However, it is actually a book about people, but in its story religion plays an important role.
It is a book written by a (Christian) Japanese, in which Japan is not regarded as the end of them all, instead it contrasts - many times negatively - to other parts of the world. In these pages you can find people for which adopting a religion is just a means for better business, where earthly life is everything that matters. And yet, there are also people who found happiness, and act divine while still in a human body.
There is a Spanish priest who is very proud and acts selfish while pretending - even to himself - to be following the orders of God, and there is the samurai - the title character - who has nothing to do with Christianity, and yet has probably lived by it his whole life. They both come to a better understanding of life just when theirs ends.

After reading The Samurai I couldn't help to compare it with Clavell's Shogun: this one is written by a Japanese trying to see the good parts in other countries, Shogun is written by a Westerner who found in medieval Japan a much superior civilization. Read them both! They are masterpieces!

Okay first of all, don't let the title mislead you. One of the two main characters is a samurai but don't expect sword fights and bloody battles in this book. With that said I very much enjoyed this book and thought the author does an amazing job with making all the scenes come alive simply by his descriptions of the settings. I would certainly recommend this book to a friend and even though this is an religious novel, I don't believe you have to be a religious person to get something out of this book.

I have read a number of other books by Shusaku Endo and I have come to appreciate his unique (to me) Christian theology. He made a very powerful statement in "Silence" and another one in "Deep River". Endo doesn't trumpet his points but they are clear nonetheless. He is even more subtle in "The Samurai". It doesn't take long for us to pick out a most unusual "bad guy". Father Velasco, despite his continuous efforts to overcome his sinfulness, depicts everything that is wrong with modern Christianity. I use the term "modern Christianity" to refer to when the Church became more important than the Word. As a counterpart, we have Rokuemon Hasekura, the title character. He has no need whatsoever for Chritianity but it is through his eyes that we are able to glimpse the true nature of Christian faith. The subtlety of "The Samurai" lies in how the majesty of Velasco's Christianity overshadows the simple understanding of Christianity that Hasekura uncovers. At times I thought Endo had so lopsided the comparisons as to lose the meaning of it all. Only later did I realize the beautiful way that simplicity won out by its' own nature. I suppose it is possible to enjoy "The Samurai" without being touched by this comparitve examination of Christianity. This is an excellent work of historical fiction that focuses on Japan, the New World, Spain and Rome in the early 1600's. However, for me the book challenged me to examine my own expression of faith, both outwardly and inwardly, and see if I was Velasco or the Samurai. I'm still in the process of that examination.

The more we study other perspectives, the better we form an idea of the presence of Jesus Christ within our own life and situation, and of how to bring His love, and peace, to where we see so very little.

Shusaku Endo is called one of Japan's greatest modern writers. Born in 1923, at an early age he converted to Christianity, a difficult step in Japan. See for instance his history of the early Portuguese mission in Japan, Silence as well as his other works. The back matter of this present volume, published thirty years ago by the noted Roman Catholic printing house Paulist Press, in an excellent English translation by the scholarly and Reverend Father Richard A. Schuchert, SJ, calls Endo's extensive body of work an "attempt to integrate his religious faith with Japanese culture." And so this beautiful, illuminating, challenging Life of Jesus.

We have seen several novelists try to present the life of Jesus Christ with greater or lesser fideilty and filters. Nikos Katzanzakis wrote The Last Temptation of Christ, filmed by Martin Scorcese as Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ (Director's Cut) [Import, All-region] (Dvd). We may read VIE DE JESUS by Francois Mauriac, etc., etc., yet I do not believe we can find so delicate, faithful and precise a portrait as we encounter here through Endo, except through the blessed hand of the evangelists themselves.

The conservative Catholic Review determined this a finely sketched presentation by a skilled draughtsman: "His description of the Judean countryside and the little towns that dot it, and of the incredibly bleak and empty desert, are among the most real and poetic I have ever read."

This is direct heart to heart Christology from a brilliant and sincere believer, well read and well written. We find Truth here untarnished. We find in full Isaiah 52, the description of the Suffering Servant which prophecy Jesus fulfills, and which begins: "He was despised, the lowest of men, a man of pains, familiar with disease, one from whom men turn their gaze - despised, and we reckoned him as nothing. But it was our disease that he bore, our pains that he carried . . ." and which ends " . . .He was given a tomb with the wicked, with the evildoers was his sepulcher, Although he did no violence, and there was no deceit in his mouth (pp. 82-83)."

Endo writes of Jesus's ministry and preaching: "The God of Love, the love of God - the words come easy. The most difficult thing is to bear witness in some tangible way to the truth of these words (p. 71)."

Endo writes as directly, purely and truly as a well trained exegete. His meditation of the Sermon of the Mount is as edifying as any now avalable. After the Beatitudes, he copies faithfully this essential passage with commentary following:

" '. . .love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. Bless those who curse you. Pray for those who abuse you. To him who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also. From him who takes away your coat do not withold your cloak as well.'

They had never received any instruction that touched on this sort of love from either the doctors of the Law or the priests. None of the prophets, including John the Baptist, had ever delivered a discourse on love to match this one by Jesus. His principle of love was directly opposed to all causist commentaries regardig the letter of the Law. The teaching of Jesus demanded of men and women an impossible standard of sincerity in heart and soul, of purity, honesty, and self-denial."

' . . .Give to everyone who begs from you, and of him who takes away your goods do not ask them again. And as you wish that men would do to you, do so to them. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? . . .Is that the way to act for sons of the Most High?'"

The spirit of forgiveness . . .the spirit of sacrifice . . .this teaching was altogether in contrast to the prudential maxims concerning success in life which they had always heard read to them from the sapiential books, or had heard from the injunctions of the Pharisees. It was a summons to love which lies prehaps beyond the power of mere human earthlings to attempt (pp. 67-68)."

Read this book. Live this book. Love thy enemy.

A good book, especially towards the end when Endo helps us understand what the life of Jesus means for him. Throughout his book Endo comments on various scholarly interpretations of the life of Jesus.

This is one of the best works ever published on the life of the Jewish rabbi named Jesus. Shusaku Endo brings him to us devoid of our usual inclinations and prejudices. Which of us, having been to church, can forget those pictures of Jesus in which he appears almost Scandinavian or a slightly rumpled European? With an Eastern perspective, Endo can - in many ways - render a more balanced and more authentic saga.

This book is NOT about Christ, the supernatural being who was developed in the decades and centuries afterward. This is, ultiamtely, a very human story of a man, his life and times. Endo himself asks the question that so many recent critics and observers have pondered. Consider, the various books in the New Testament were written decades after the death of Jesus by people who never saw him. They were composed not as historical documents but as religious aids for the faithful. Knowing all this, how can we ever know the historical Jesus?

Endo asks the question then goes on to give this remarkable story of a remarkable life. No deep theology or arguing about the nature of God or the mystery of the Trinity - just a simple moving story of a life.

Apparently Shusaku Endo wrote "A Life of Jesus" in an attempt to better communicate the Christian faith to his countrymen. In his view the Japanese have not embraced Christianity because of the highly judgmental "paternal" aspects found in the Bible. As a remedy to that he tries to paint a picture of Jesus Christ the man, a simple character that unconditionally loved all whom he encountered. For the most part he succeeds and presents a comprehensive narrative that vividly describes the world Jesus lived in.

It's unforunate then that he should spend so much time trying to downplay the supernatural aspects of Jesus' life and Christianity in general. In conclusion he states that "the human condition is not to be curcumscribed by tangible facts" - yet for much of the book he tries on a number of admitedly speculative theories in an effort to rationalize events recounted in the synoptic texts. Considering that many Japanese people are comfortable with Buddhist concepts such as transmigration or Shinto ideas concerning ancestors and spirit worship it's hard to imagine that they would need pages and pages of exposition to arrive at the simple message "love your neighbour as you love yourself". Western critics are quick to point out that the Japanese are not religious simply because they don't practice in a fashion comparable to those in the West. While this may be true their acceptance of a supernatural realm cannot be argued. Why then does Endo spend so much time on this issue?

It almost seems as if he's trying to rationalize his own faith and gets sidetracked with his intended goal. Issues like the virgin birth, stating that Jesus was John the Baptist's "disciple", the feeding of 5000, the account of Lazarus and countless other literal interpretations do little to serve his ultimate goal. The most baffling apology of all is Endo's account of the resurrection which states that the disciples merely concocted this story out of guilt for selling out Jesus to the Sandhedrin. Again he further dilutes his message to embolden his narrative.

Harsh criticism aside, this book is very well written and paints a unique picture of the man Jesus Christ. If nothing else it's thought provoking and well paced. Considering the miniscule impact it seems to have had on Japanese society, Endo would probably consider this work a failure. On the whole though it's another voice and another opinion. If Japan is to ever embrace Christianity they'll likely need more Endos delivering impassioned pleas such as that found in "A Life of Jesus".

Endo's "take" on Jesus is unlike most western accounts. I have found it insightful and, insofar as I am a Catholic priest, expect that, while I don't agree with the author totally, his approach will translate itself into future sermon material.