|
December 29, 1974
The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima By HAROLD CLURMAN MISHIMA A Biography. By John Nathan. THE LIFE AND DEATH OF YUKIO MISHIMA By Henry Scott-Strokes. Before I met Yukio Mishima I had read four of his novels: "Confessions of a Monk," "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion," "After the Banquet," "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea." I had also read his "Five Modern No Plays" and the sensational short story "Patriotism." The novels and the short story fascinated me. When as a tourist I went to Tokyo for the first time, Mishima was the person with whom I was most eager to become acquainted. We had a brief conversation at the old Imperial Hotel. On my return to Tokyo in 1965 to direct "Long Day's Journey Into Night" Mishima greeted me as a friend, invited me to dinner and to see one of his No plays given by a theatrical company of which, I was informed, he was the guiding spirit. On another occasion he accompanied me to a performance of the Osaka puppeteers and to a nightclub. When I returned two years later to direct "The Iceman Cometh" we met once more just before he planned to leave for India to prepare for the completion of his four-part novel "The Sea of Fertility." Reading of Mishima's suicide in 1970 I tried on the evidence of the books and plays mentioned and of my encounters with him to fathom the possible source for his terrible act. At present there is less reason for conjecture. Two biographies have now appeared: we have facts. The first of these books, "The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima," is the work of a former London Times bureau chief in Tokyo, Henry Scott-Stokes, a friend of Mishima since 1968. The second book entitled simply enough "Mishima: A Biography" is by John Nathan, Princeton University professor of Japanese literature, who translated "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea" in 1964 and came to see quite a lot of the novelist. Both biographies are good books--well worth reading even for those not particularly interested in Japanese literature. For Mishima the man suggests a psychological paradigm which has its counterpart in other cultures. Besides his 40 novels, 18 plays, 20 volumes of short stories and as many literary essays, Mishima was also an actor, an expert swordsman, a world traveler and a would-be "prophet." How explain that this man who was nominated three times for the Nobel Prize carefully planned his own death at the age of 45? His career, as we gather from both the Scott-Strokes and the Nathan biographies may be traced in a continuous line from weakness to strength and then back from strength to weakness. Brought up by a grandfather jealous of all outside influences on the boy (including that of his parents), which led to his being sickly, he later trained to build powerful muscles in his arms, chest and shoulders. An ardent patriot, frightened by the prospect of combat as a soldier, he steeled himself to assume the demeanor of heroic bravery. An impassioned writer, he declared, "There was something inside me that cannot be satisfied with art alone." Homosexual, he married a very pretty woman who bore him two children and with whom he conducted himself as a model husband. Apolitical, he organized a para- military group--the Shield Society--which might easily, though mistakenly, be identified as fascist. He was above all a romantic esthete. Elegance, refinement of manners, courtliness of behavior held him spellbound. He compensated for his shyness by becoming something of a poseur, a show-off. He disguised his inner frailty by bravado; he aimed to shock. The chivalric prowess and grandeur of the samurai (lordly warrior) tradition fired his imagination like some epic spectacle which was not only to be admired but emulated. A fascination with blood was not so much a trait bespeaking cruelty as the visible symbol for him of human vitality. He could fancy nothing more marvelous than death on behalf of a great cause. Quintessentially Japanese, he ascribed this configuration of attitudes to the persona of a god-like emperor. But it was not, it must be stressed, the real emperor (Hirohito) he idealized but the emperor of ancestral memory. A Freudian might deduce from this complexity symptoms of a homosexual disposition unconsciously prompted to punish itself. Both Nathan and Scott-Stokes alternate between finding the key to Mishama's personality in its erotic core or in his esthetic nature. What for me is most significant is a matter which extends beyond the individual case of Mishima himself. "All I desire is beauty," Mishima wrote in his diary. He wanted to make himself beautiful as well as strong. Beauty for him was purity, a purity which might realize itself in noble action. He did not want to grow old for then he would not die beautiful. But his love of beauty was not simply personal. Partly on its account he hated postwar Japan. "We watched Japan become drunk on prosperity," he said, "and fall into an emptiness of the spirit." The absence of a high ideal or grace in the contemporary world was what led Mishima to forming his Shield Society (consisting of no more than 100 men) which would exemplify the aristocratic or ﾈlitist posture of a bygone age. Its activity was largely ceremonial. As politics his call to fight for the Emperor was absurd. As Nathan points out, "Having established the crucial necessity of defending the person of the emperor, Mishima defined His Majesty's principal enemy as 'any totalitarian system on the left or right.'" What Mishima invoked was "a cultural emperor"--a figment of a poet's mind. Like many artists, Mishima arrived at what he supposed to be a political position through his esthetic sensibility. "The whole of Japan," Scott-Strokes repeats Mishima as having told him, "was under a curse. Everyone ran after money. The old spiritual tradition had vanished: materialism was the order of the day. Modern Japan is ugly." The unquenchable thirst for beauty in him developed into a destructive force. The thirst turned against itself. For just as a drive turned against itself. For just as a drive toward absolute purity may lead to a self-imposed martyrdom so extreme estheticism may prove self-depleting, a humiliation. The same is true of a mythmaking romanticism. In "The Temple of the Golden Pavilion" Mishima has his stuttering "hero" destroy that exquisite historic edifice because it shamed his own deformity; in "The Sailor Who Falls From Grace With the Sea," a band of adolescents murder a seaman because he is about to abandon his (to them) romantic and noble calling by marriage with mediocrity as the husband of a fashionable modiste. Mishima was forever seeking a faith, a religion, a God he could not find. Man cannot live by beauty alone: the esthetic and the romantic idea, when divorced from the whole context of existence, contains the seeds of extinction. They are death bearers, and the Mishima formula, as John Nathan makes clear, was one "in which Beauty, Ecstasy and Death were equivalent and together stood for his personal holy grail." The equation is suicidal. Mishima's life was the enactment of a fiction. Every aspect of his final solution: the frenzied harangue from the high point of a public monument to the assemblage below, the preconceived order to have his head struck off by a sword in the hand of his closest friend in the company of his other companions, were, all part of an elaborate ritual. Scott-Stokes's book begins with that last day; Nathan's ends with it. Scott-Stokes is a highly intelligent journalist, and his account in its first chapter at least resembles a film script. Nathan, whose knowledge of the Japanese language and literature is much broader, is on the whole more consistently thoughtful. Scott-Stokes emphasizes the erotic roots of Mishima's character though he does not neglect other influences. Nathan rightly, I believe, makes the esthete in Mishima the crux of his interpretation. In both instances, however, their sights are directed toward Mishima the person rather than the artist. Both would agree, that, as a professor at Kyoto University said to me, Mishima was a man of a "frightening talent." Harold Clurman is a critic and stage director; his most recent book is "All People Are Famous." |
日本とは何か
[ リスト | 詳細 ]
コメント（0）
|
November 26, 1970 Mishima: A Man Torn Between Two Worlds By PHILIP SHABECOFF Washington, Nov. 25--The morning before he killed himself, Yukio Mishima reportedly handed to his publishers in Tokyo the final chapter of the fourth volume of a tetralogy titled "The Sea of Fertility." Perhaps the title helps explain why this 45-year-old writer, who enjoyed fame, wealth and critical acclaim, took his own life. The title refers to the moon's Sea of Fertility--a dry, cold, sterile place. That "sea" was Mr. Mishima's metaphor for the world and perhaps for Japan, which was for him the world. "Mishima was torn apart by the Japanese transition to modernism," Harold Strauss, his long-time editor at Alfred Knopf, said during a telephone interview today. "He had one foot in the past and one in the future. He was able to articulate this change as no other Japanese novelist was able to do. Older writers such as Yasuhari Kawabata can write only of the past and younger writers such as Kobo Abe can write only of the present." Mr. Mishima was split between East and West as well as--or because of--being torn between past and present. By his writings and by example, he constantly urged his country to return to what he saw as the purer values of traditional Japan. Although his private army--the Tate no Kai--or Shield Society--led many Westerners to believe that he sought to revive Japanese militarism, he actually loathed the militarism represented by the Japanese Army of pre-World War II years. He regarded that militarism as a foreign import alien to the Japanese spirit. What he really was seeking was a return to the samurai tradition, which he saw as an ethical and esthetic system truer to the spirit of Japan than a modern army. He deplored most of the signs of Westernization in Japan. Western influence, he felt, was corrupting Japan and robbing her of her essential spirit. The title of the final volume of his tetralogy, called "Tennin Gosui," which can be translated literally as "Heavenly Being--Five Marks of Decay," may have been a projection of this revulsion with Western influence in Japan. Had Western Elements And yet, Mr. Mishima's own life style had many distinctive Western elements. He lived in an Italianate villa in Tokyo crammed with baroque and rococo art objects. He sent his wife to a Western cooking school. He could communicate with Westerners as well as anyone in Japan today and seemed to take pleasure in doing so. Death and blood and suicide play important roles in many of Mr. Mishima's writings. In his first novel, the autobiographical "Confessions of a Mask," the protagonist is enveloped by a morbid fascination for the martyrdom of St. Sebastian. It was written when he was 19 years old. Death and suicide often are associated with sexual ecstasy of both homosexual and heterosexual variety in Mishima's books. One of his most famous short stories, entitled "Patriotism," is about a young army officer and his wife who commit ritual hara-kiri, described in explicit detail, after a night of violent love-making. The story was later made into a film in which Mishima himself played the lieutenant. 'Glorified the Act' "Mishima glorified the act, as opposed to the thought, in many of his books," according to Prof. Edward Seidensticker, a frequent translator of Japanese works who teaches at the University of Michigan. "Many of his novels contain a kind of specious intellectualism," Professor Seidensticker said in an interview here. "But Mishima hated this modern intellectualizing. He was best writing of action. And, of course, suicide is the ultimate act." Mishima's emphasis on action was carried through in his life as well as in his art. A sickly, scholarly schoolboy, he transformed himself into a muscular man, expert at Japanese fencing and swordsmanship and a proficient student of karate. In the course of a long conversation with this reporter last spring, Mr. Mishima said that he worked so hard on body building because he intended to die before he was 50 and wanted to have a good looking corpse. He laughed, but then added, "I am half-serious, you know." Prof. Donald Keene of Columbia University, one of Mishima's translators, saw a large part of Mishima's genius lying in his command of the Japanese language. Dr. Keene contended that the manifest motive for Mishima's death--"his charging into the military headquarters"--was trivial. "But the manner of his death associates Mishima with the deepest Japanese ideals, as expressed in his own fiction," he said. Mishima was born in Tokyo in 1925, the son of a high civil servant. He did not seem destined for a dramatic end at the height of a brilliant literary career. Although he was an outstanding student, he seemed certain to follow his father into the civil service and actually did join the Japanese Finance Ministry after the war. But his literary talent soon was discovered and his literary career began with the stunning autobiographical novel, "Confessions of a Mask." Writing was easy for Mishima, who could not understand why it took his translators so long to render his works into English. He wrote every night from midnight to dawn. The number of his works is over 100 and includes short stories, essays, kabuki plays, noh plays, modern plays and screen plays as well as novels. Until the publication in Japan of the first two volumes of "The Sea of Fertility"--"Spring Snow" and "The Running Horse"--many critics considered "Temple of the Golden Pavilion" to be his masterpiece. This was a novel of a young Buddhist acolyte who is so obsessed with the beauty of his temple that he destroys it by fire. Although Mishima engaged in a bewildering variety of outside activities, including running his little army, acting in movies, directing plays and drinking with foreigners, writing remained the center of his life. His wife probably ordered Mishima's physical life as much as she did the lives of their two children. His suicide perhaps will raise anew the question of Japan's relationship to the Western world. "We always have been an inward-looking people," a Japanese newspaperman said here during a conversation about Mishima today. "I thought recently that, at last, we were starting to be international in outlook, that we would be open to the world once and for all. "But now Mishima has done this and I think Japan will always be turning back into itself." Alternate title: Hiraoka Kimitake Written by The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica Last Updated8-1-2014 Mishima Yukio, pseudonym of Hiraoka Kimitake (born Jan. 14, 1925, Tokyo—died Nov. 25, 1970, Tokyo), prolific writer who is regarded by many critics as the most important Japanese novelist of the 20th century. Mishima was the son of a high civil servant and attended the aristocratic Peers School in Tokyo. During World War II, having failed to qualify physically for military service, he worked in a Tokyo factory and after the war studied law at the University of Tokyo. In 1948–49 he worked in the banking division of the Japanese Ministry of Finance. His first novel, Kamen no kokuhaku (1949; Confessions of a Mask), is a partly autobiographical work that describes with exceptional stylistic brilliance a homosexual who must mask his abnormal sexual preferences from the society around him. The novel gained Mishima immediate acclaim, and he began to devote his full energies to writing. He followed up his initial success with several novels whose main characters are tormented by various physical or psychological problems or who are obsessed by unattainable ideals that make everyday happiness impossible for them. Among these works are Ai no kawaki (1950; Thirst for Love), Kinjiki (1954; Forbidden Colours), and Shiosai (1954; The Sound of Waves). Kinkaku-ji (1956; The Temple of the Golden Pavilion) is the story of a troubled young acolyte at a Buddhist temple who burns down the famous building because he himself cannot attain to its beauty. Utage no ato (1960; After the Banquet) explores the twin themes of middle-aged love and corruption in Japanese politics. In addition to novels, short stories, and essays, Mishima also wrote plays in the form of the Japanese Nō drama, producing reworked and modernized versions of the traditional stories. His plays include Sado kōshaku fujin (1965; Madame de Sade) and Kindai nōgaku shu (1956; Five Modern Nōh Plays). Mishima’s last work, Hōjō no umi (1965–70; The Sea of Fertility), is a four-volume epic that is regarded by many as his most lasting achievement. Its four separate novels, Haru no yuki (Spring Snow), Homma (Runaway Horses), Akatsuki no tera (The Temple of Dawn), and Tennin gosui (The Decay of the Angel), are set in Japan and cover the period from about 1912 to the 1960s. Each of them depicts a different reincarnation of the same being: as a young aristocrat in 1912, as a political fanatic in the 1930s, as a Thai princess before and after World War II, and as an evil young orphan in the 1960s. These books effectively communicate Mishima’s own increasing obsession with blood, death, and suicide, his interest in self-destructive personalities, and his rejection of the sterility of modern life. Mishima’s novels are typically Japanese in their sensuous and imaginative appreciation of natural detail, but their solid and competent plots, their probing psychological analysis, and a certain understated humour helped make them widely read in other countries. The short story “Yukoku” (“Patriotism”) from the collection Death in Midsummer, and Other Stories (1966) revealed Mishima’s own political views and proved prophetic of his own end. The story describes, with obvious admiration, a young army officer who commits seppuku, or ritual disembowelment, to demonstrate his loyalty to the Japanese emperor. Mishima was deeply attracted to the austere patriotism and martial spirit of Japan’s past, which he contrasted unfavourably with the materialistic, Westernized people and the prosperous society of Japan in the postwar era. Mishima himself was torn between these differing values. Although he maintained an essentially Western life-style in his private life and had a vast knowledge of Western culture, he raged against Japan’s imitation of the West. He diligently developed the age-old Japanese arts of karate and kendo and formed a controversial private army of about 80 students, the Tate no Kai (Shield Society), with the idea of preserving the Japanese martial spirit and helping protect the emperor (the symbol of Japanese culture) in case of an uprising by the left or a Communist attack. On Nov. 25, 1970, after having that day delivered the final installment of The Sea of Fertility to his publisher, Mishima and four Shield Society followers seized control of the commanding general’s office at a military headquarters near downtown Tokyo. He gave a 10-minute speech from a balcony to a thousand assembled servicemen in which he urged them to overthrow Japan’s post-World War II constitution, which forbids war and Japanese rearmament. The soldiers’ response was unsympathetic, and Mishima then committed seppuku in the traditional manner, disemboweling himself with his sword, followed by decapitation at the hands of a follower. This shocking event aroused much speculation as to Mishima’s motives, and regret that his death had robbed the world of such a gifted writer. |
|
（読者の声１）以下は、二宮報徳会機関紙『ほうとく』（平成 ２６年初春号）に掲載された「歴史教科書検定の真相！ 歴史 を捏造して反日・自虐史観の教科書をつくらせた文部科学省の 大罪」という拙論です。 ◎ 「歴史教科書検定の真相！ 歴史を捏造して反日・自虐史観の 教科書をつくらせた文部科学省の大罪」 ＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠＠ ＠＠＠＠＠＠
文部科学省に暗躍する「反日国家公務員」の跳梁跋扈を再び許 してはならない！正しい歴史教育を取り戻し、子供たちに祖国 日本への誇りと自信を取り戻すためにも、今年の教科書検定 は、国民が厳しい目でこれを監視しなければならないだろう。 平成二十五年四月十日の衆院予算委員会で、下村文部科学相は 現在の教科書検定制度について見直しを検討すると表明し、安 倍首相も同様の認識を示した。そして、同年十一月十五日の記 者会見で、下村文部科学相は小中高校の教科書検定基準と教科 書採択を見直し、「愛国心を育む」などとした教育基本法の趣 旨を徹底するための「教科書改革実行プラン」を発表した。今 後、文部科学省はこのプランに沿って、必要な制度改正を行っ ていくことになる。 平成十八年、第一次安倍内閣の下で教育基本法が改正され、国 と郷土を愛することを教育目標とし、これを受けて学習指導要 領も「我が国の歴史に対する愛情を深め、国民としての自覚を 育てる」とされた。しかし、民主党政権下の平成二十三年に行 われた教科書検定において文科省はこれらを全く無視し、『日 本国民としての意識だけでなく、地球に生きる人間（地球市 民）としての意識を持つことが求められて（東京書籍）』いる ことを強調し、反日・自虐史観に貫かれた歴史教科書をそのま ま合格させた。その一方で、教育基本法や学習指導要領を遵守 し、歴史の主体を明確に「国家・国民」とし、全編を通じて歴 史を「国史」として捉えて記述された自由社や育鵬社の歴史教 科書には大幅な書き換えを命じた。 こうした文科省による歴史教科書の反日・自虐化という「事 実」を直視し、再びこのような国家と国民に対する裏切りを許 さないため、本稿では、当時の文科省の検定官から最も目の敵 にされた自由社版の歴史教科書について、申請本における記述 が検定によりどのように修正・削除されたかの一例を紹介す る。 まず、中世から近世についてであるが、文科省の検定官は自由 社が提出した申請本に対し、元軍司令官を震え上がらせた鎌倉 武士の勇猛果敢な戦いぶりや、秀吉にバテレン追放令を余儀な くさせたキリスト教宣教師の煽動による神社や寺の破壊活動、 さらに秀吉による朝鮮出兵の背景となったスペインの中国大陸 征服計画などの史実を削除させた。 自由社の申請本では、元軍の日本占領を阻止した武士たちの戦 いぶりを「１２７４（文永１１）年１０月、元・高麗連合軍が ３万余りの軍勢で、対馬と壱岐に押し寄せたとき、およそ２０ ０人の武士は、敵に後ろをみせず戦い、全員討死にしました。 （改行）元軍の大将、忻都（キント）は、その戦いぶりをみ て、『日本の兵士は、大軍を前に死ぬことが分かっていても、 戦いを挑んでくる。私はいろいろな国と戦ってきたが、こんな すごい敵に出会ったことはない』と驚きました。」と記述して いた。しかし、検定官は「（改行）」以降の敵将による日本の 武士に対する絶賛に近い評価を「全て削除」させた。 また秀吉がバテレン追放令をだした原因について、申請本で は、「日本は聖徳太子以来、仏教も日本の神々もともにおがむ ことが認められる、宗教的に寛容な国柄でした。そこに初め て、他の宗教との共存を許さない、（傍点は筆者、以下同じ） キリスト教という一神教の思想が入ってきたのです。（改行） 秀吉の追放令にあるように、改宗させた信者に神社や寺を破壊 させ、仏像・仏具・経典を焼き、僧侶を侮辱するなどの行き過 ぎた行為がすでにありました。右近（筆者注、秀吉配下のキリ シタン大名・高山右近）らの考えを認めてしまうと、日本はい ずれはキリスト教だけの国になってしまうでしょう。それは実 質上、日本がヨーロッパの国に支配されることにもなります。 」と記述していたが、検定官はこの文章前半の傍点部分を削除 させるとともに、「（改行）」以降を「日本の文化に無理解な キリスト教の宣教師の活動を認めることは、古い信仰と新しい 外来宗教が融合しながら共存させてきた日本の宗教的伝統に大 きな衝撃を与えることになります。キリスト教に改宗した信者 が、神社や寺を破壊し、仏像・仏具・経典を焼き、僧侶を侮辱 するなどの行きすぎた行為もすでに起こっていました。」とさ せ、神社仏閣の破壊活動へのキリスト教宣教師の関与を抹消さ せた。しかし、実際には近世の日本を襲った最大の脅威は、 ヨーロッパ人の世界進出であり、その尖兵となったのが、当時 のキリスト教宣教師だったのである。 次に近代史について、紹介しよう。 自由社の歴史教科書に対する検定意見の七割以上は近代史、と りわけ韓国併合、満州事変及び支那事変（日中戦争）に集中し ており、その中で検定官は「近隣諸国条項」に則り、日本を? 侵略国?とする歴史観への書き換えを強要した。 申請本では、「日露戦争後、日本は韓国に韓国統監府を置いて 近代化を進めていった。１９１０（明治４３）年、日本は武力 を背景に韓国内の反対をおさえて、併合を断行した（韓国併 合）。欧米列強は、イギリスのインド、フランスのインドシ ナ、アメリカのフィリピンなど、自国の植民地支配を日本が承 認するのと引きかえに、日本の韓国併合を承認した。」として いたが、検定官はこれを「日露戦争後、日本は韓国統監府を置 いて保護国とし、近代化を進めていった。欧米列強は、ロシア の北満州・蒙古、イギリスのインド、フランスのインドシナ、 アメリカのフィリピンなど、自国の植民地支配を日本が承認す るのと引きかえに、日本による韓国の保護国化を承認した。１ ９１０（明治４３）年、日本は武力を背景に韓国内の反対をお さえて、併合を断行した（韓国併合）。」として「併合」と 「承認」の順序を逆転させ、欧米諸国が「併合」を承認してい ないとも読めるようにさせた。 また申請本では、「併合後におかれた朝鮮総督府は朝鮮で鉄 道・灌漑の施設をつくるなどの開発を行い、土地調査を実施し た。また、学校も開設し、日本語教育とともに、ハングル文字 を導入した教育を行った。」としていたが、検定官はこの文章 の前に「植民地政策の一環として、」という不要な文言を、後 には「これらの近代化によって、それまでの耕作地から追われ た農民もすくなくなく、また、その他にも朝鮮の伝統を無視し たさまざまな同化政策を進めたので、朝鮮の人々は日本への反 感をさらに深めた。」という史実とは全く逆のでたらめな文章 を加えさせた。このように、検定官は日本による朝鮮の「合 邦」を、欧米列強による東南アジアでの「植民統治」と同一視 させて、日韓併合の素晴らしい側面を一切否定させようとした のである。 満州事変では、張作霖の爆殺を関東軍によるものと明記させ、 リットン調査団に「日本の行動を中国側の破壊活動に対する自 衛行為と認める者もいた」という記述を削除させた。 こうした史実の捏造が最も甚だしいのが、支那事変勃発の経緯 である。史実では、支那事変は、「盧溝橋事件」の現地解決か ら一ヵ月後に起きた「上海事変」に始まったのであるが、検定 官はあくまでも支那事変の発端を「盧溝橋事件」であるとし て、申請本から「上海事変」という名称と事変当初の日支両軍 の兵力差を削除させた。 申請本の記述は、「１９３７（昭和１２）年７月７日夜、北京 郊外の盧溝橋で、演習していた日本軍に向けて何者かが発砲す る事件がおき、翌日には、中国軍と戦闘状態になった（盧溝橋 事件）。事件そのものは小規模で、現地解決がはかられた。 （改行）しかし、１か月後には、上海で、二人の日本人将兵が 射殺される事件がおこり、日中戦争（当時は「支那事変」）の 発端となった。当時、上海には、英米など各国の租界がもうけ られ、居留民保護のため、各国とも数千人の兵力が常駐してい た。日本は、海軍陸戦隊が駐留していた。（改行）８月１３ 日、１２万人の中国軍が４０００人の日本海軍陸戦隊をおそ い、日本人居住区を包囲した（上海事変）。日本は３万人の在 留日本人保護のため、陸軍を逐次派遣したが、戦意旺盛で近代 化された蒋介石の軍隊に苦戦し、３か月後に平定するまでに、 ４万の死傷者を出した。」というように、史実に根ざした数値 的な根拠を明示したものであった。 しかし検定官はこれを「いっぽう、日本軍は満州国の維持や資 源確保のために、隣接する華北地方に親日政権をつくるなどし て、中国側との緊張が高まった。また、日本は、義和団事件の あと、他の列強諸国と同様に中国と結んだ条約によって、北京 周辺に５０００人の軍隊を駐屯させていた。（改行）１９３７ （昭和１２）年７月７日夜，北京郊外の盧溝橋で、演習してい た日本軍に向けて何者かが発砲する事件がおき、翌日には、中 国軍と戦闘状態になった（盧溝橋事件）。事件そのものは小規 模で、現地解決がはかられたが、日本は派兵を決定し、中国側 も動員令を発した。その後も戦闘は絶えず、翌月には、外国の 権益が集中し各国の租界がある上海で、二人の日本人将兵が射 殺される事件がおこり、中国軍が日本人居住区を包囲した。日 本は日本人保護のため派兵した。こうして日中戦争（日本は当 時「支那事変」とよんだ）が始まり、拡大した。」に書き換え させ、あくまで「盧溝橋事件」の現地解決を望んだ日本を、反 対にこの「小規模な」事件をきっかけに支那への派兵を決定す るような?侵略国?へと仕立て上げたのである。 実際には当時、日支間の戦争拡大を望んでいたのはソ連のス ターリンであり、そしてコミンテルンの指針で動いていたのが 支那であったが、文科省の検定官はこうした史実の一切を隠蔽 して、日本を悪逆非道の国にする教科書づくりに努めたのであ る。 これが、「我が国の歴史に対する愛情を深め、国民としての自 覚を育てる」という学習指導要領を具現するための最初の教科 書検定の偽らざる「真相」である。このような、反日・自虐的 な歴史観に染まりきった文部科学省の是正こそが、正しい教科 書検定制度、さらには教育改革の第一歩ではないだろうか。 （日本兵法研究会会長 家村和幸） |
|
■天魔鬼神も畏れをなす離れ技！
By 不識庵- 2012/12/28 2009年、有楽町の某大手書店の新刊本コー ナー。 平積みされている本の群れの中からから妖しい光 が… 近づいて見るとカバーにデザインされている大き な円が 天井の照明を反射して鏡の如く「ぎらり」と神秘 的な虹彩を放っていました。 超訳…古事記。 いま世の中「超訳ブーム」ですが、この「超訳」 は古代の魂が憑依したかのような現代語訳！ こんなに面白い物語の語り部は、宗教学者にして フリーランス神主、神道ソングライター あの鎌田東二先生です。 もともと口承伝承を書き留め編集された『古事 記』ですが、 稗田阿礼＆太安万侶ならぬ、カマタノトニー＆ミ シマノシャー（ミシマ社）による 時空を「超」えた現代語「訳」＝「超訳」です。 しかも「テキスト」なしの口述記録というから驚 きです。 神道研究の泰斗なれば可能な挑戦であり、天魔鬼 神も畏れをなす離れ技！ 全編、独特の言語感覚で「童話」のような読み易 さがたまりませんね。 戦後教育の是非が問われて久しいですが、本書は 理屈抜きに読んで欲しい一冊です。 声に出して読んでいただくと、本書の魅力は数倍 に増していきます。 ひとりでも多くの親御さんが、お子さんのために 読んで聞かせて欲しいものです。 ちなみに鎌田先生によるこの究極の神語りが、 オーディオブック（ことのは出版）にもなってい ます。 ■デザイン、文字組みも綺麗。読 みやすい。 By scaryhusky - 2010/4/2 古事記を知るとっかかりの本としてお勧めです。 驚いたのは本としての完成度の高さ。デザインも 良し、文字組みも綺麗で非常に読みやすい。 もうひとつ、「クーターバインディング」と呼 ばれる仕掛けを採用してあり、本の背の部分（本 棚に入れたとき見える長細い部分）が折れなく痛 まない、しかもページを開いた時自然と閉じず片 手で持って読める。手が不自由な方にも読みやす く作られている。これは私がお会いしたことのあ る、製本会社のトップの方が考案した特許の技術 である。 本の内容も余白が多く、詩を読む時のような想 像力を掻き立てられる。 今後このような良質の本が多く出回ることを期 待したい。 ■うっとりするほど豊穣な原風景 By 香桑- 2012/4/21 読みやすく、わかりやすく、古事記の全体像を掴 むには最適であろう。 歌のような詩のような詞のような音の美しい文章 がするすると流れ、イメージが広がる。 そぎ落とされたとこに旨みもあるのかもしれない が、大筋から味わえるものも多い。 また、研ぎ澄まされたことで、抽象性が高まり、 一層、象徴として意味深い感もある。 どの神がどこに祀られているかも自然な流れで添 えられているのも、古事記初心者の私には親切 だった。 現代の家族関係や異性関係に見られるトラブルっ て、結構、そのまま古事記の中に見出せるもの だ。 どうやったらカップルはうまくいかないか。 いう兄弟姉妹間のトラブルが起きるものか。古事 記は生々しく教えてくれている気がする。 願わくば、どうやったら問題を乗り越えられる か、特にカップルの破綻の乗り越え方をもう少し 書いておいてくれるとよかったのだけど。 何千年も人間は同じことを繰り返しているのだ なぁと思うと、私のつたない失敗もまぁいいかと 思える。 それぐらい、身に引き寄せて読めるほどの豊かで 活き活きとした物語を感じた。 ■物語に聞き入るような感覚、 By taikoo - 2012/3/13 本を開いたとき、びっくりした。 え、詩なの？ リズミカルに物語がはじまり、一気に展開してい く。 文字を追って読んでいるのに ものがたりを語る声が、音が、耳から身体へ沁み わたっていくような 不思議な感覚。 「古事記」と聞くと、なんだか小難しそうで、読 みにくそうで 敬遠してしまいがちだけど、 きっと昔の人は、この物語を耳で聴いて、どきど きはらはらしながら 楽しんだんだろうな。 と、そんな体験をおなじように味わえる。 目の前にたちのぼる物語は、ただただ、ダイナ ミックで面白い。 古事記を「まず楽しむ」ことができる、 最初の入り口としておすすめの一冊。 |
