"I was always quite a philosophical child, asking odd
questions and in a hurry to grow up". Mieko Kawakami
"'Progress' is a modern idea, which is to say it is a
false idea."—Nietzsche's The Anti-Christ, 1888
Mieko Kawakami latest novel, excellently translated by Sam
Bett and David Boyd, is a brutal examination of adolescence in Japanese society.
The book is drawn from her childhood in Osaka, Japan. By all accounts, it was a
pretty bad experience. Her father was never home. Forced into being the main
breadwinner at a tender age to support her family gave her the ability to write
this "novel of ideas" ". As
Kawakami says, "I was always quite a philosophical child, asking odd
questions and in a hurry to grow up".
Kawakami started to write at a very early age. She explains
that "I try to write from the child's perspective—how they see the world.
Coming to the realisation you are alive is such a shock. One day, we are thrown
into life without warning."
In an interview with The Japan Times, Kawakami says, "I
wanted to create a story that examines how religion, ethics and friendship
influence human relationships," she says. "Do we live our lives under
the guidance of something bigger, like spiritual or ethical beliefs, or do we
live as individuals?".[1]
As Elaine Margolin perceptively writes, "Kawakami is
captivated by that precious time of life when one is on the cusp of adulthood
but still really a child. The author's ability to mimic the rhythmic
disturbances of a teenage mind is mesmerising; she is a master of the interior
voice. She instinctively grasps how one can feel silly and light one moment and
be in the throes of anguish the next. In one of her earlier novels, Ms Ice
Sandwich, she describes a lonely boy whose family is in disarray, finding
solace by visiting a supermarket worker each day who kindly gives him an egg
sandwich".[2]
The book's theme of childhood bullying is a universal one. "
Kawakami explains that the nature of bullying has changed. "In the old
days, there were just two places for relationships — home or school — but now,
with social media, there is nowhere to hide, and the pressure is constant.
Victims of bullying think the whole world knows they are being bullied. It is
even crueller today with the way it can be spread."
I still remember my childhood bully. His name was Desmond Kavanagh.
His reign of terror did not last too long. Unlike Kawamaki's character, who
does not fight back, one person in my school had enough of Kavanagh's bullying
and kicked the crap out of him. The bizarre thing is that Kavanagh tried to
befriend me on Friends Reunited a few years later.
Novel of Ideas
Heaven has been described as a novel about ideas. Writing a
"novel of Ideas" is a complicated business. Kawakami draws heavily on
the work of philosophers like Frederich Nietzsche and Kant. A blog that she
started to promote her singing career, "Critique of Pure Sadness,"
displayed an unhealthy fascination with Kant. Her latest book leans heavily on
Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. This is a very unfortunate choice,
especially for such a young writer. Nietzsche's hostility towards the working
class and socialism and his disdain for objective truth made him a favourite
writer of the Nazi movement.
As Stefan Steinberg states, "Apologists for Nietzsche
seek to distance him from the policy and activities of the Nazis. But is
Nietzsche's position here so remote from Adolph Hitler's entreaty, in an
internal NSDAP memo of 1922, for the: "most uncompromising and brutal determination
to destroy and liquidate Marxism"? Adolph Hitler was certainly no
philosopher, just as Nietzsche was not merely a political ideologue. But who
can reasonably doubt that the former had little difficulty in seamlessly
incorporating the latter's thoroughly backwards-looking programme of biological
racism, hatred of socialism and the concept of social equality—together with
his advocacy of militarism and war—into the eclectic baggage of ideas which
constituted the programme of National Socialism"?.[3]
The strength of the novel is Kawamaki's examination of ideas
as a way of writing a novel. As Merve Emre writes, "dreamlike expression
of their fledgling ideas has an artistic value that flies in the face of
critics like Northrop Frye, who believed that an "interest in ideas and
theoretical statements is alien to the genius of the novel proper, where the
technical problem is to dissolve all theory into personal relationships."
But "Heaven" also models a rigorous and elegant process of inquiry
that can transcend its pared-down fictional world. It agitates against the
enduring idea that the best novels concern themselves with the singular minds
and manners of people, offering no resources for the political and moral
demands of "real life." The narrator's persecutor Ninomiya
energetically parrots this argument".[4]
Kawakami, ability to write from a child's perspective is
astonishing at times and avoids what one writer says are "puffed-up
platitudes about the inherent cruelty and sympathy of children".
If I am generous, I would say that Kawakami also avoids
Nietzsche's social and political pessimism and presents the world of children accurately.
One major criticism is that, unlike many great Japanese writers, such as Yukio
Mishima and Kazuo Ishiguro, she does not place her characters in this book in a
social or political context. The reader
would not know that while "Heaven" takes place in Japan, bullying is
rife in Japanese society so much that classroom harassment forced a government
to bring in national legislation because of a growing number of student
suicides.
To conclude, Kawakami's work is well worth reading. Her
fiction deals with the problems of everyday life for working-class people in
Japan. That is one of the reasons behind her popularity. She examines critical
social issues that permeate Japanese society. These include broken families,
absent fathers and children struggling to find themselves in a increasingly cruel
world. It is hoped that she does not spend too much time absorbing Nietzsche's
works and instead let herself be influenced by some more healthy writers such
as Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse. She has a bright future, and I look forward
to her next novel.
Mieko Kawakami is the author of the novel Breasts and Eggs, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year and one of TIME's Best 10 Books of 2020. She was born in Osaka. Kawakami made her writing debut as a poet in 2006 and published her first novella, My Ego, My Teeth, and the World, in 2007. Her writing is deeply imbued with poetic qualities. Her work concentrates on the plight of women in Japanese society. Her works have been translated into many languages and are available all over the world. She has received numerous prestigious literary awards in Japan for her work, including the Akutagawa Prize, the Tanizaki Prize, and the Murasaki Shikibu Prize.
[1] https://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2021/05/27/books/heaven-mieko-kawakami/
[2]https://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2021/spring/heaven-novel-mieko-kawakami
[3] https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2000/10/niet-o21.html
[4] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/06/07/a-japanese-novelists-tale-of-bullying-and-nietzsche
