Shusaku Endo Books

I'm still in the process of reading this book, but I picked it out of a small collection of contemporary world novels at the library due to the fact that I was assigned to read over the summer. I started to read it, and didn't think much of this story, but as I continued when I got home with it, I couldn't put it down! I can relate so much to this book in so many ways. I know it might seem strange, but I love it when I become best friends with the books I read. Thumbs up to this one!

It was written by Shusaku Endo. So, of course, I was almost fated to read it. Once again, the plot didn't sound like my usual choice in novels, (a refrain all too common in my reviews), but Endo always seems to be able to sucker punch me. And this novel is no exception.

The basic plot shadows Yoshioka Tstomu, a poverty stricken student with an overlt developed libido. Yoshioka encounters Morita Mitsu, a somewhat naive obsessive who cannot tolerate other people's suffering without getting involved. The resultant divergence of paths is nothing compared to the enduring impact that the encounter had on both people. Both of the main characters are distinct not only in their ethical and moral values, but also in their responses to the encounter between them. While Yoshioka continually tries to justify himself and his actions in using Morita, Mitsu heads off on a far different path.

The book is a great tale that delves into human thought and psychology, and Endo's confessed immaturity of style really only comes through in a couple of places. For those familiar with Endo's later works, these points will be noticeable, but newcomers to Endo will probably not find them too noticeable.

Once again, Endo has delivered a gritty story flooded with real-life sufferings of two people and their own walks of life. I loved the book immensely and was hooked to the very last word. I was actually depressed that it ended, to be perfectly frank. Great book for all Endo fans and people wanting to be Endo fans. Of course, as a fan, I am biased.

My continued fondness of Endo's writing has brought me to this book. It is a wonderful example of Endo's early writing, set in Japan with well developed characters and interesting plot. This is particularly true when compared to his more recent book, Deep River, which was disappointing, badly researched and an unsuccessful move away from his best genre - Japan. Set in post-war Japan, the story is about the interwoven lives of Yoshioka and Mitsu. As a university student, Yoshioka deflowers Mitsu and then shuns her, only to have Mitsu crop up repeatedly in his life. She is a country girl unable to get over her fondness for Yoshioka, tainting the rest of her life. However, she never looses her tragic flaw of over-caring towards other people. Endo, a Christian, tries to interweave the fate of Jesus with that of Mitsu. Possibly his way of telling the Christian story in a Japanese setting. Although I'm not sure how many readers would actually draw this parallel, it is an interesting theme in this book and recurring theme he uses in his other books as well. In the afterword, Endo explains how some western women may misunderstand the submissiveness of the female characters in his book, I find that statement superfluous and somehow trying to be politically correct in an afterthought. For me it is rather more interesting to think of what Yoshioka felt and what his actions may have been after having learned of Mitsu's fate. Is Endo trying to send a message to Japanese men? Or Japanese salarymen in particular? I, in particular, enjoyed Endo's modern description of the life of a salaryman. Yoshioka comments during his wedding: "Our entire lives as salarymen are conducted like episodes on a conveyor belt...companies these days don't recognize the differences between individuals" (p.178). Taking into consideration that this book was written some thirty years ago, it is amazing to think how little Japanese society has changed to date. Endo also criticizes his writing technique in his afterword and I have to add that the comedy-like tone at the beginning of the book is inappropriate and immature, when contrasted to the story and the tone of the remainder of the book. I would like to end by quoting a remark that Yoshioka makes at the end of the book: "If Mitsu has taught me anything at all, it was that every single person with whom we cross paths during our journey through life leaves an indelible mark on us." (p.192).

I stumbled across this novel in the library and picked it up merely because I am an Endo fan. I experienced the book on two levels. On one, the novel relates the trauma of unreturned love. Most people can relate to that theme, and it tended to draw me through the story. The parallel with Jesus' life is not meant to be exact. Mitsu represents the suffering of humanity, as she suffers in her one way. Every episode of Mitsu's life is tragic. For some people, the tragedy might be oevrdone, but I was left sleepless by it. I would recommend The Girl I Left Behind to anyone who enjoys Shusaku Endo's novels.

The eleven short stories contained in Stained Glass Elegies span nearly two decades of Shusaku Endo's life and literary career, and concisely show the development of their author's moral and spiritual thinking, albeit in much easier-to-swallow fashion than his novels (and, moreover, chronologically). Some of the situations and characters that are focal points in the stories hearken directly to longer Endo works, such as the myna bird in "A Forty-Year-Old Man" and "Retreating Figures" that reappears in Deep River, or Kichijirou in "Unzen," who is a major character in Silence. Other stories may have no direct equivalencies in Endo's more famous work, but thematically are very much linked. Stained Glass Elegies can be appreciated not only for its stories' inherent quality, but also as an excellent survey of a Endo's thought between the years 1959 and 1977.

For those to whom Endo's overarching literary career is of little interest, however, this collection provides an extremely worthwhile read all the same. Endo's writing style is deceptively simple and quietly profound, like the best writers of the Japanese tradition. Endo's work is all the more meaningful for the way it unabashedly stares into the face of human conflict and presents moral dilemmas without any holds barred (and with a marked disregard for easy answers and shallow solutions; see "Despicable Bastard" for the most raw example).

Above all, however, the stories are simply beautiful. They burrow into your heart without your noticing, and only when you find your thoughts constantly straying to them days later that you realize how much they affected you. The strength and sincerity of Endo's spiritual questioning - as exhibited, for example, in the grim humor of "The Day Before" or the personal reflections of "My Belongings" - make it impossible to remain unmoved. Endo treats his subjects with breathtaking gentleness; the utter lack of judgment or condemnation in his stories is welcome and refreshing in an era when so-called `Christian' thought is often equated with intolerance and hypocrisy.

Stained Glass Elegies is recommended to anyone looking for a collection of short but thought-provoking stories, told from a very human perspective. It ranges from despair to hope and in the bizarre but hilarious "Incredible Voyage" even to humor, leaving few meaningful human emotions untouched. Moreover, it is a good sample and jumping-off point for readers interested in getting to know Endo's literature further. Buy this book and treasure it.

This is a collection of short stories spanning a twenty year period from the late 50's to the late 70's, and in these stories we come across most of Endo's favourite themes - martyrs of Christianity in Japan, the stories of those who apostatized (gave up their religion for fear of torture and persecution), Endo's own prolonged illness and his fear of suffering, and his own religious uncertainty.These themes sound altogether pretty depressing, and yet when you read his writing, the crisp, clear style seems so effortless that you might think,like I did, that you could gladly read anything he wrote, on any topic no matter how turgid. His ability to contrast the depth of one person's belief with the weakness and uncertainty of another's is genuinely masterly. I think he manages to do this so well because he is able to comprehend both types perfectly, and he clearly does not favour one over the other. His message is ultimately humanist - that we are none of us perfect, n! either those who seek perfection nor those who give up, knowing perfection cannot be achieved, neither those who face fear and suffering nor those who run from it, and furthermore that the idea of sin should not be used by one person to chastise another, but rather to help guide each of us in our own lives. Endo is able to conjure up powerful emotion in only a few pages, as he does recounting his own feelings of guilt towards his mother in one story, or his joy at a reunion with some childhood friends, or the ambiguous guilt of the 'kakure' apostates on a small island off Kyushu. Though I cringe to admit it, I honestly thought on reading these stories 'If only I could write like this!'

I've found it to be the case that short stories often make a greater impact and impression on me than novels. That is, I wasn't as captivated by these stories as I was with some of Endo's novels, but now a year or so later I can remember the events in them almost as though they happened to me myself. Please allow me to try explaining how I mean that by way of an example: when I was younger, I often had to walk several miles through the cold to get to school. I dreamed one year that I'd been given a pair of blue gloves, and for a long time afterword, on these walks, I'd sometimes wonder why I hadn't brought my gloves. The dream was so detailed, so mundane that I'd momentarily confuse it with reality. Perhaps a short story is similar in the respect that it gives us a level of detail which can't be easily sustained through a novel? At any rate, I'll ask you to take my word for it that I can recall making a war-time, school trip to a run down Japanese leper colony on a grey winter day as though it happened.

The subject matter is rather typically grim, for Endo. It mostly concerns sick, dying men, crisis of faith, the Japanese inquisition, dour war-time Japan then dour post-war Japan, etc.. Endo's talent makes this much less painful reading than it may sound. One of the author's primary plot concerns is the fate of religious apostates -does grace extend to those who believe but aren't strong enought to endure? It's a question that makes for compelling literature, but for Endo, a religious minority in an often hostile land, we may assume that this wasn't a strictly academic concern! If I could just throw my humble own opinion in, it always seemed to me that the point of Christianity was that people had utterly failed to stay to the law, thus it'd be odd if grace was denied to any but the perfect. That's what I hope anyway.

There is one very odd thing about this book (it's the reason I'm hurrying to write this review on new years eve.) A science-fiction story, set in the year 2005, is included in this collection. Not just a science-fiction story but a toilet humored (literally) science-fiction story. That Endo would write such a story is pretty remarkable in itself, that such a story can still be of an overall dour tone is truly amazing. Dissapointingly, the technology in Endo's 2005 doesn't bear much resemblance to that of the year that just ended. Personally, I'm so amazed that I lived to see the year 2000 that none of the years that followed have made much of a numerical impression on me. Anyway.. happy 2006 (and beyond) everyone! Maybe this will finally be the year that our scientists crack the riddle of the shrink ray.

A charming tale of pre-war Japan and modern Japan. Ozu, Flatfish and Aiko are suprisingly sympathetic, and Ozu's son is despicable but believeable. I enjoyed it very much. If you like the Japanese or their style of fiction, this is the book for you.

Shusaku Endo draws on a well of personal experience as well as powerful, thoughtful philosophies concerning family relationships, the trauma of war, transistion to the modern age, generative versus stagnant personality types and basic human nature in order to create this vivid, yet restrained, novel. 'When I Whistle' is the story of Ozu, a man whose simpleness betrays the depth of his expreience, and his son Eichi. Their contrasting attitudes and views on morality allow Endo to masterfully weave a conflict which not only entices the reader to the plot, but forces the reader on a journey of questioning personal philosophies and beliefs. Though When I Whistle is a moving literary work and exemplarary of Japanese aesthetic principles, it is an easy read. I thoroughly reccomend it.

As translated by Van C. Gessel, _When I Whistle_ uses spare, simple prose in switching back and forth between the stories of Ozu, a nostalgic World War II veteran, and his son Eiichi, an ambitious doctor. As Ozu's reminiscences move closer to the present, the two narratives interlock with devastating effect. Like much of Endo's other writing, _When I Whistle_ is elegaic and concerned with serious moral issues; however, it is not overtly theological (Endo's Catholicism has led some to describe him as a Japanese Graham Greene). Plot points and themes which could be oppressively heavy in the hands of a lesser writer are here leavened by humor (notably in the character of the hapless Flatfish) and unspooled in beautifully observed scenes. The sentences may be easy to read, but it is difficult to reach the end of the novel unmoved...

I am impressed with what Shusaku Endo has accomplished in "Foreign Studies". I have read 4 or 5 other books by this author and have been impressed with them as well although on varying levels. I, frankly, did not expect this book to rate as one of his best. However, in his ability to create an image of what it is like to live and function in a very different culture, Endo touched me with a message that may be easier to experience than to explain.

This is a book of three stories very properly woven into one theme. The initial two are very brief but help set the table. The first, "A Summer in Rouen" gives an excellent snapshot of a foreign student's trials and tribulations of dealing with different cultural standards. I, as a Westerner, sense the over-reaction that the student makes. Presumably someone from and Eastern culture would be more sensitive to the "saving face" that the Japanese student has to contend with. As someone who was a foreign student and has worked with foreign students, I wouldn't mind making this short story mandatory to all traveling abroad as a foreign student. For the record, tourists cannot understand the experience that a foreign student goes through. A tourist is sightseeing; a student becomes a part of the community. The essential challenge for the foreign student is how deeply are they able to integrate into a different culture.

The second and briefest of the three stories is "Araki Thomas" which is a biography of a 16th Century Japanese Christian priest who journeyed to Rome. He returned to a Japan that had banned the Christian faith and persecuted those who continued to practice and preach it. The common ground with the other stories lies with a man's struggle to accept a faith that has been molded into a European interpretation. His acceptance of the faith defined by another culture alienated him from his own culture and his fall from grace was a tragic comment on the pitfalls he faced in doing so.

The final story comprises over 3/4's of the book and is titled "And You, Too". It is the story of a Japanese professor who goes abroad to research in France in the 1960's. He experiences, on a grander scale, the problems of the character in the first book. The story of Tanaka is in more detail and includes many examples of fellow Japanese living in France. All of them seem to experience their own complications in being who they are in a world that seems to have neither the time nor interest to understand things on their level. Adding to the impact of the book is the subject that Tanaka i researching; the Marquie de Sade. While I struggled somewhat with this analogy, I understood that the author was comparing a man nearly 2 centuries earlier who was alien to his own culture and surroundings.

It is difficult to always empathize with Tanaka's problems as he seems to become his own worst enemy. However, Endo has created an image in "Foreign Studies" that I felt was profound. I will not try to explain the gist of Endo's theories as portrayed in "Foreign Studies" because that is the whole point of reading "Foreign Studies". If any of this seems the least bit interesting you really should read the book. If not, read "Deep River" instead with its' compelling analogy of the commonality of world faith.

Although this is one of Shusaku Endo's earliest novels (published in 1965, with this English translation completed in 1989), I only stumbled upon it in January 2003 in a Tokyo bookstore. Many of the themes that pervade Endo's later novels in modern settings (see for example, Deep River, which I have also reviewed on this website) are found here in more historical settings. The book comprises three seperate narratives, all of which speak poignantly of the plight of the solitary Japanese man caught in cross-cultural currents abroad and at home. Any student who has studied in another country will be able to partly relate to sense of displacement and alientation in the first story of a young Japanese exchange student who finds a host French Christian family in Rouen shortly after Japan's defeat in World War Two. The second narrative is based on a seventeenth century Japanese character who found himself studying theology in Rome with the prospect of returning to his homeland when the Japanese persecution of Christianity began in 1614. In the third narrative, the protagonist is a Japanese man who finds himself in a more accomodating setting of Paris in 1965. You will recognize in these three characters some of the same anguish which confronts one of the main characters in Endo's more recent novel Deep River whose situation I also describe in my review of this other book as he converses with a fellow Japanese in Paris. Both these novels have strong autobiographical antecedents. Endo himself converted to Catholicism at the age of eleven, studied French literature in Japan, before going to Lyon on a French government scholarship, and then becoming one of the rare Christian Japanese writers. While it is not always easy to sympathize with Endo's characters, they do bring out the best in this genre which speaks to issues of identity and displacement of individuals whose lifes are swept by different cultural currents.

This book is a collection of eleven short stories written by Shusaku Endo. Some of the stories are more like essays giving the reader a glimpse of the life of the author.

Endo spent his early childhood in Manchuria before the war. After his father divorced his mother, he went with his mother back to Japan. Divorce was a big issue in Japan then. His mother turned to the Catholic Church for solace, and Shusaku Endo became baptised as well.

Then the war came. Being Christian was once again looked at as following a foreign religion.

Shusaku Endo never felt quite comfortable with the religion.

In the story, "A Forty-Year-Old Man", which is about a man called Suguro who is about to undergo a major operation, there is this scene of Suguro going to confession.

Suguro said these words at confession, "I...When I was a child, I was baptized because my parents wanted me to be, not because I wanted to. As a result, I went to church for many years as a formality, because it had become a habit. But after that particular day, I knew that I could never cast off the ill-fitting clothes my parents had dressed me in."

Was that also how Shisuka Endo felt about his being a Catholic?

In "Despicable Bastard", "Fuda-no-Tsuji" and "Unzen", he makes us realise chances are, we are all cowards and under torture, chances are we will apostasize our faiths! But, and this is the interesting part, what was not written but some how one is made to feel it, is this feeling that Christ would forgive and understand that we are after all human, and therefore, cowards.

This theme of apostasy is further examined in another work of Shisuka Endo, "Silence". The book "Silence" and this book are highly recommended.

Somehow Endo--or, I suppose, his translators--always seem to make simplicity a true virtue. His writing tends to be clear and direct, but not pushy--he lets you draw your own conclusions, a trait he shares with Abe Kobo and most of the rest of their generation of Japanese novelists. Anyway this book is lovely in that tradition, dealing with the conflicts entailed by being Catholic in Japan and living across cultures in general. While I don't have any experience personally of strong religious conflict, the stories he tells ring true on other levels as well. Particulalrly here I liked the story of the Japanese student on exchange in a French university.

This is the first book by Shusaku Endo I have read in a long while, so it has been good to get back into his work. "Final Martyrs" is a collection of short stories on a variety of themes, all of them very human and very much in Endo's usual style and focus.

The short stories are notable for their indebtedness to Endo's life. Many are set in French or European settings, or have elements of Endo's experienmces in Manchuria and his own parents' divorce. There is a lot of biographical content that works its way into the lives of the characters.

Each of the stories deals with issues of humanity, sometimes overtly faith issues, and others deeper, more psychological. All of them are succinct and punchy, often leaving this reader feeling something has been missed in the underlying meaning. However, this has not detracted from my enjoyment of the stories.

Elements of one or two of the stories are to be found in the longer novels that Endo wrote, which adds some richness for fans who might be considering adding this book to their Endo collection.

I took a bit longer to "get into it" than with other Endo books, but I am glad that I persisted and read to the end. The effort was worth it, and I soon warmed to Endo's short story style. Each story has something different to offer, and they are all rewarding, thought-provoking and deep reads.

In short, (pun intended, though cheap), this is an excellent book for Endo fans to increase their intake of Endo. New readers to Endo, I would advise starting with his novels, such as Silence or The Samurai (New Directions Classics). Other than that, "Final Martyrs" is a great book and one worth every effort to acquire.

This is a rather short novel about three different entities dealing with their retiring years. One of the entities is the director of a provencial Japanese weather station who is the local expert on a dormant volcano. Another is an apostate Catholic Priest who senses that his life ceased its' meaning when he ceased his calling. The last entity is the volcano itself. Although we don't sense a personality to the volcano, it is a metaphor to the other two; is there life left in it or has it spent all it had already.

There is a good deal of reflection by the two human characters about their lives. The director discovers that his obsession with the volcano cost him the love of his family. The apostate priest is "tolerated" in his declining years. He is obsessed with proving his theory that Japanese culture is incompatable with Christianity. He bases this on his theory that Japanese do not sense guilt as Western cultures do. Thus Christ's death on the cross loses its' meaning.

We read on in hopes for an epiphany of sorts that would allow the two men to resurrect their lives. In the end we are left only wondering about the future of one of the entities.