Novelist Todd Shimoda Discusses New Book and Japan
October 6, 2009
Nobody could accuse three-time novelist Todd Shimoda of sticking to familiar ground. After acquiring an undergraduate degree in civil engineering, he obtained a master’s in technical communication and a doctorate in science and mathematics education. In the mid-1980s, he spent two years in Japan teaching English and Spanish in Numazu, a city in Shizuoka Prefecture. His early novels (365 Views of Mount Fuji and The Fourth Treasure) covered topics as wide-ranging as Japanese woodblock prints, robotics, Japanese calligraphy, and neuroscience. The latest novel, Oh!, explores both Japanese poetry and group suicides. Shimoda, who still dabbles in science education, has made an impressive name for himself as a novelist. His first two novels have been translated into six languages, with more than one hundred thousand copies printed worldwide. NPR nominated Oh! as a “Recommended Summer Read.”
Despite his obvious desire to venture out into new territories, Shimoda also exhibits a strong tendency to return to the lands of his father’s ancestors. Todd’s mother’s family comes from Germany and England, but his paternal grandfather moved from Hiroshima Prefecture to the United States. Todd’s paternal grandmother was a nisei; her parents had immigrated from Japan to Hawaii, working first on a Big Island plantation, then in an Oahu dairy. Todd’s grandparents (now deceased) had six sons and one daughter. Three (including Todd’s dad) live in Colorado, whereas two are in California, and two have died. Todd was born in 1955 and grew up in Fort Collins, Colorado. Five years ago, he and his artist-wife moved to the Hawaiian island of Kauai. In this way, he has come full circle, just as he repeatedly returns to Japan on the page.
Shimoda has two upcoming events in the San Francisco area. On October 17, he’ll read at the Modern Times Bookstore in San Francisco as part of the LitQuake Festival. And on October 20, he and author Liza Dalby will do a joint reading at the Capitola Book Cafe near Santa Cruz.
Eve Kushner: How did it affect you to live in Japan for two years?
Todd Shimoda: Growing up Japanese-American and not being exposed to too much Japanese culture, other than food and some minor things, I found it a real shock to be in Japan, as much as for anybody who’s gone there for the first time and hasn’t known much about the culture. Whenever you go somewhere and aren’t initially comfortable with the surroundings, you really tune in to your own self. It makes you feel your foibles and your fears-where you’re confident and where you’re afraid. For a writer, that stimulates a sense of what people really experience and how our environments and our relationships with people create internal conflicts and good stories.
EK: Why do you write about Japan?
TS: I find it fascinating that there’s so much tradition built up over thousands of years. There are a lot more underlying causes for conflict-societal constraints and cultural constraints that create different kinds of conflicts. I find those more interesting than typical American conflicts, which almost seem to be stuck in the Wild West. Like you have good versus bad. Japanese conflicts are more subtle and philosophical.
EK: In one endnote, you cite your communication with Professor Takahisa Furuta of Gunma University in Japan. You say, “To the professor, modern Japanese have forgotten the spirit of mono no aware. One possibility for the change, he hypothesizes, is that the modern Japanese needs a strong stimulus to be moved. Their minds are blunter, or more dull, than they used to be one thousand years ago in the Heian period.” I felt like it would split Japanese society open if they heard this!
TS: Yeah, he said that, so I can blame him! [Laughs] Just kidding!
EK: Are you intending to shock the Japanese world with this? Or do you think they won’t take notice of it, since they don’t care about mono no aware?
TS: I think Japanese people would agree that they don’t really relate to mono no aware as a day-to-day term anymore. They would also agree that modern-day living is pretty numbing. But they may not agree with the words he chose, as far as “blunt” minds. He might have picked a better word for it. [Both laugh]
EK: Did you try to talk to any Japanese people about these things?
TS: I did try to talk to several Japanese people. And I got no response. They didn’t know what to say. [Laughs]
EK: If the modern Japanese needs a strong stimulus to be moved, it’s interesting that your book is about a Japanese-American who’s numb and who also needs a strong stimulus to be moved. What does that say? Is it a comment about Americans? Or did Zack come by this emotional deadness more easily because he’s ethnically Japanese? And if he was looking to come awake, did he go to the wrong country?
TS: [Laughs] I don’t think Zack’s being Japanese-American would necessarily have anything to do with his emotional numbness. It could happen in any country, so it’s more of an individual characteristic. But going to Japan lends itself to a deep appreciation of emotional awareness. You can’t just go there and take a half-day seminar on an art form or on mono no aware. You actually have to live the idea or the art before you can grasp its significance and practice it.
EK: Why does it take so long to grasp the idea of mono no aware? What’s complicated or slippery about it?
TS: I think the Japanese tend to take complex ideas and distill them down into a really simplistic approach. If you start with the simplistic way, you lose the complexity.
EK: It often feels like Japanese people want the outside to stay out. And with concepts like kanji or the spoken language, they sometimes act like people who aren’t from there will never really get it or be good at it. It’s as if they want to amp up that sense of the impossibility of learning it so that you keep away.
TS: Sure, sure.
EK: Do you feel like that with mono no aware?
TS: Yeah, I think the idea that only the true Japanese mind can grasp something would apply to mono no aware, particularly for Japanese haiku, which is really the genesis of mono no aware. A non-Japanese trying to learn haiku from a Japanese person will probably hear, “You’re just not getting it.”
EK: And you didn’t feel deterred by that? Or is that because you’re part Japanese?! [Both laugh]
TS: No, I never felt deterred by it. I don’t necessarily agree that mono no aware can be understood only by Japanese people. Zack is my attempt to show that it can be achieved through a Western mind.
EK: Did you yourself go through a long period of trying to understand the concept? And did you parrot back the concept, only to have Japanese people say, “No, you haven’t gotten it”?
TS: Yeah, exactly. Everything I read had a different way of describing it and different definitions, some completely different. I tried to come up with my own definitions. And I asked Professor Furuta if I was getting the idea. Several times he said, “Well, no, not really.” [Both laugh] In particular, I always thought it was about the sadness of beauty. And he kept saying, “No, no, no, it’s about any kind of emotional reaction that makes you want to express yourself in a poetic way.”
EK: You seem to feel comfortable with where you came down with it.
TS: I do! What happens to Zack is probably the most dramatic demonstration of mono no aware, in that he’s come from so low a level of emotional awareness and gone to such a height that it’s this huge leap. And I think that’s what a mono no aware moment is. It’s a leap of perceptive feeling.
EK: Now that you understand mono no aware, has it changed the way you see the world?
TS: It has, in that when I feel things about the world or events or objects, I realize that that’s mono no aware. I could list the mono no aware moments in my life. And it’s good to have a big collection of those. [Laughs] It adds a nice fullness to your life. You can also apply what you learn about mono no aware to your interactions with other people and even things.
EK: How?
TS: When you walk down the street, and somebody’s kicked over a plant, you have to go put it back. The plant has its beauty, and it doesn’t necessarily have to be dead now. You want to perpetuate the beauty in the world, because you know that things will always end. If you can perpetuate it, people will see that the beauty is there. Hopefully, it will bring a little light into their lives.
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Based in Berkeley, California, Eve Kushner (www.evekushner.com) is the author of Crazy for Kanji: A Student’s Guide to the Wonderful World of Japanese Characters (Stone Bridge Press, 2009). She also writes the weekly blog “Kanji Curiosity” for JapanesePod101.com.
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