Kazuo Ishiguro's Interview contains 18 interviews over a long period of 20 years. In these interviews, Kazuo Ishiguro explains his creative process and the evolution of his self-knowledge. In 1989, thirty years after leaving his hometown, Kazuo Ishiguro returned to Japan and had a very wonderful dialogue with the Japanese writer Kenzaburo Oe, involving topics such as reading and writing, Eastern and Western culture, etc. The two asked me and answered, and the exchange was sincere and warm. The dialogue article is also included in the interview, and this article is an excerpt from the book for the benefit of the reader.
Interview with Kazuo Ishiguro, Brian Schaeffer Cynthia Huang, eds., translated by Hu Yue, Shanghai Translation Publishing House
Kazuo Ishigai, Kenzaburo Oe
Oe: It's interesting that you ask that, because I think what makes you unique is that you have a good grasp of the distance between you and the era and characters that your work shows. These works all have distinct styles, although on a deeper level, they are related to each other. So thank you very much for your comments on the tone and distance of my work.
I think the humor issue you just mentioned is very important. This is one of the things that sets me apart from Yukio Mishima.
Yukio Mishima is deeply rooted in the Japanese literary tradition and is also the center of tradition – urban traditions such as Tokyo or Kyoto.
I come from a more remote tradition, a remote corner like Shikoku Island. It's a very strange place, with a long tradition of abuse, and it's a place where traditional culture can't reach it.
I think my humor is the humor that people who live in that place have.
Yukio Mishima is confident in his humor, so to be precise, his humor is the humor of the center, and my humor is the humor of the edge.
Yukio Mishima
Ishiguro: I find it interesting how you feel about Yukio Mishima. In Britain, I am often asked about Yukio Mishima – it should be said that it has always been, journalists will ask. Because of my Japanese background, they counted on me to be an expert on Yukio Mishima. Yukio Mishima became a household name in Britain, or rather throughout the West, mainly because of the manner in which he died.
But I also wonder if this is because Yukio Mishima's image in the West confirms some stereotypes of Westerners about the Japanese nation. That's part of the reason I say he's more acceptable to Western readers. He meets certain characteristics. Of course, it is repeatedly mentioned that the suicide of the abdomen is cut. He is very extreme politically.
The problem is that Yukio Mishima's overall image in the West does not allow Westerners to form a correct understanding of Japanese culture and the Japanese nation, but rather makes people cling to prejudice and refuse to change their very superficial stereotypes of Japanese people. Many people seem to see Yukio Mishima as typical of Japanese in a sense.
Of course, I never knew how to respond, because I myself knew very little about Yukio Mishima and very little about modern Japan. But that's the impression I got — in the West, he was used to corroborate some rather negative stereotypes.
I would like to know what you think about Yukio Mishima and the way he died. What does this mean for the Japanese people? What does it mean for a writer of your name?
Oe: Your comment about Yukio Mishima's reception in Europe is very accurate. Yukio Mishima's entire life, including, of course, the way he killed himself by cutting his stomach, was a performance intended to show the typical image of the Japanese, and this image is not the spontaneous mentality of the Japanese, but the superficial sketch of the Japanese from a European perspective, which is a fantasy.
Yukio Mishima really staged this image. He created himself strictly in accordance with this image. That's the way he lived, and that's how he died.
Professor Edward Said used "Orientalism" to refer to the European perception of orientals. He insisted that Orientalism was the view of Europeans and had nothing to do with people who really lived in the East. But Yukio Mishima's view is diametrically opposed. He said the Japanese in your eyes is me.
I think he was trying to show something by living and dying exactly in that image. That's the way he is, and that's why he has a literary reputation in Europe and the whole world.
But Yukio Mishima is in fact presenting a false image. As a result, most Europeans have two extremes of japanese perceptions, one is Yukio Mishima, and the other is someone like Sony Chairman Akio Morita. In my opinion, both extremes are wrong.
But if this is the case, where can we find a more accurate image of the Japanese nation?
"Ukiyo Painter", by Kazuo Ishiguro, translated by Ma Ainong, Shanghai Translation Publishing House
Back to your work "Ukiyo Painters", the book ends with many young Japanese employees, and the painter Ono looks at them with satisfaction. I think what really lives in Japan is such a group of young people, a group of people who can bring prosperity to the Japanese economy. Of course, Yukio Mishima did not discuss them. And writers like me, because of their negative views on Japan, have not captured them. So I think your novel has played a good role in improving the perception of the Japanese in Europe, like an antidote to the image of Yukio Mishima.
I want to ask a question. Whether it's reading your work or chatting with you, people don't think of it as a Japanese-born person at all. As far as my favorite writer, Conrad, is concerned— and in my opinion, he is a perfect novelist — one would feel strongly that he was a true British writer and a true European.
On the day you won the Booker Prize, the Japanese media reported your comments about Salman Russidi. (Note: In his booker prize acceptance speech, Kazuo Ishiguro said, "Tonight it's best not to forget Salman Rushi, to forget the frightening situation and suffering he found himself in.") ”)
Cover of the first edition of Salman Rushi and his work Children of Midnight
A lot of people were impressed by those comments, including myself. We feel that he is a real European writer, with a real European character, and this is the real European wisdom.
The Japanese themselves want to be seen as peace-loving and docile, like Japanese art, such as landscape painting. They do not want to be seen as economic imperialists or military invaders. They hope that when others think of Japan, they will think of flower painting, a very idyllic and beautiful thing.
When your books first appeared in Japan, that's how they were introduced. You have been described as a quiet and peaceful writer, and therefore a very Japanese writer.
But from the beginning, I was skeptical. I think this is a stoic and intelligent writer. Your style is always a dual structure, with two or more blended content. In fact, your work has confirmed my thinking time and time again. At the same time, I don't think this power is very Japanese, but rather this person should be from England.
ISHIGURO: Well, I'm not trying to be a quiet writer. It's really a matter of skill, and nothing else.
My work seems calm on the surface – not a lot of people have been killed or anything like that. But for me, they're not quiet pieces, because they deal with what bothers me the most, what worries me the most. They are by no means idyllic to me.
As for the question of being a European writer, I think part of the reason is that I don't know much about Japan. So I was forced to write in a more international way.
If I had gone back to Japan in 1960 and grown up to know more about Japan, I think I might have felt a greater responsibility to reproduce the Japanese people in one way or another, in other words, to become some kind of spokesperson for Japan in Britain.
But the truth is, I didn't go back to Japan. This is the first time in thirty years that I have returned to Japan. I was very aware that I knew very little about modern Japan, but I was still working on works set in Japan, or perhaps in Japan.
In my opinion, it was precisely because of my lack of authority and understanding of Japan that I had to use my imagination and see myself as a homeless writer. I don't have an obvious social role to play because I'm neither a very British Nor a very Japanese Japanese.
So I have no clear role, and no society or country to speak for or write for. No human history is my history. I think this must have pushed me to try an international way of writing.
I started by using history. I search through history books, just as a film director looks for a location for a script he's already written. I will look for the historical moments that best suit my purpose or the historical moments I want to write. I knew that I wasn't too interested in history itself, and I used British history or Japanese history just to clarify what I was concerned about.
I think that makes me a writer who doesn't really belong to either side. Neither Japanese nor British history has a strong emotional connection, so I can use it to serve my personal ends.