This anthology presents five verbal portraits of Edo: both the central region of the urban space today known as Tokyo and the historical period ranging from 1600 to 1868. These five pictures are examples of the literary genre known as zuihitsu , a type of writing commonly structured as a series of short, even fragmentary sections. The zuihitsu, with roots stretching back to the Chinese suibi (a term written with the same ideographs), flourished in Japan from the seventeenth century and covered a broad spectrum of concerns.1 Some zuihitsu present eye-witness reports of events at home or on the road. Others offer historical documentation, autobiographical prose, descriptions of natural or social phenomena, or evaluations of artistic styles or techniques. Yet others supply comic or satiric effusions, ponder matters concerning poetics, or imitate classic zuihitsu such as the eleventh-century Pillow Book (Makura no sĆshi ) of Sei ShĆnagon or the fourteenth-century Essays in Idleness (Tsurezuregusa ) by KenkĆ.2
Even if zuihitsu writers sometimes turned to thematic and chronological schemes to organize their work, on the whole they eschewed any predetermined order to arrange their presentations. This refusal to press subject matter into prefabricated molds was already implied by the term zuihitsu itself, written with the ideographs âto follow the writing brush.â Such a designation suggested a certain detached, passive attitude in which responsibility for the accuracy of a depiction or truth of an assertion was relegated to the allegedly spontaneous actions of the writing implement, an item that subsisted within the objective world and was thus well placed to avoid the distorting interference of any authorial consciousness or ego. Indeed, the very disorder of the resulting opus arguably better reflected the apparent chaos of reality than the order imposed on the world by more systematic and methodical sorts of writing.
From the thousands of Edo-period zuihitsu available in modern editions, I have culled five that seem to me, when read in the roughly chronological sequence in which they are presented in this collection, to indicate both how the realities of Edo and the mentality of its chroniclers changed over time. In order to preserve some of the force and flavor of the originals, I have retained each work in its unabridged form, even when the text is marked by irritating repetitions or tiresome listings. I have also outfitted each zuihitsu with explanatory notes designed to guide the reader through a terrain unlikely to be overly familiar. Many sections of the texts detail the geographical attributes of the city of Edo and are thus best scanned while referring to the maps I have provided. The writers selected occupied diverse social positions and displayed divergent concerns. Yet they shared a keen eye for observing the city and the times in which they lived. They jotted down with much acumen and precision what they witnessed in their physical and social environments. Some of the texts focus on an era long preceding the time of notation, while others recall happenings occurring only a few hours before the writing brush was set in motion. Several authors offer intensely personal accounts or fictional digressions; others prefer a more objective tone and unified style for depicting what they saw, read, heard, sensed, or remembered.
To my knowledge, no zuihitsu translated in this volume is currently available in its entirety in English, and only the first one has received due deliberation in Japanese. Part of the reason for this neglect is that the literary quality of the Edo zuihitsu has rarely been assessed as particularly excellent. More often than not, such writing has been judged to be little more than a repository of unprocessed data, useful perhaps for fueling historical research, but unworthy of comparison to the literary classics of the past. Some Edo zuihitsu no doubt deserve such a dismissive appraisal. Others, however, arguably measure up to the benchmark set by age-old predecessors. Yet even when Edo-period zuihitsu do not attain such lofty standards of literary excellence, or even when they do not aspire to reach them, their content continues to intrigue and stimulate. Just as the Pillow Book reveals both the world of Heian-period Japan and the sensibilities of a remarkable court lady, and Essays in Idleness illustrates the socio-cultural conditions of medieval Japan while exposing the character of a fourteenth-century cleric, the best Edo-period zuihitsu sketch valuable portraits of what was once the largest city on the globe and offer insights into the dispositions, concerns, and interests of the individuals who recorded what they had experienced, imagined, or recollected.
Conditions of Edo zuihitsu Writing
The minimum requirements for zuihitsu production were a writing brush, ink, ample paper, a good amount of literacy, and plentiful free time. Taking the tonsure, retiring from business, living off the labor of others, serving as a teacher, writer, bureaucrat, or Confucianist, or finding employment in some other realm where turning oneâs mental faculties inward came with the job went a long way in supplying propitious circumstances for efficient zuihitsu creation. Familiarity with earlier examples of similar writing, either Japanese or Chinese, the existence of a potential readership, and the hope of earning social or financial rewards through literary or intellectual renown only heightened the odds that an Edo-period citizen would reach for a writing brush and commence jotting down observations, reminiscences, and citations. Then, when a perturbation, brought on by a disquieting thought, a natural catastrophe, or an encounter with an object brought to an Edo zuihitsu club, was sensed strongly enough to loosen the bonds tying an author to humdrum everyday life and routinized thinking, this might lead to the creation of a new zuihitsu.
Japanese men and women alive between 1600 and 1868 were of course uniquely positioned to pack their zuihitsu with information, insights, and judgments that would fascinate post-Edo generations. In the first place, the status of such writers as eye-witnesses or contemporaries endowed them with an authority that later students of the era could hardly hope to replicate. More importantly, however, the thoughts and activities of Edo zuihitsu authors constituted part and parcel of the very city and times of which they wrote. This self-referential, quasi-autobiographical dimension of the Edo zuihitsu was as objective as the declaration that one is in pain. Here Edo itself was speaking. When, for instance, SantĆ KyĆzan brags that the era of his teens in the late eighteenth century was brimming with novelty, interest, and excitement (see Chap. 5), we need not agree with him, but barring a forged text, psychosis, or purposeful insincerity on the part of the author, we can be certain that Edo of the 1780s was indeed occasionally remembered in such a manner by those who had experienced it firsthand. KyĆzanâs memory was just as constitutive of Edo, if perhaps not as noticeable, as the shogunâs castle or the laws promulgated by the magistrates. Similarly when Shinmi Masatomo judges that ladies on temple visits in the early eighteenth century presented a slovenly appearance (Chap. 3, no. 11), that jĆruri chanting had become improper (no. 35), or that various grades of servants no longer respected hierarchies of decorum (no. 46), we may judge him wrongheaded, biased, or deluded, but we must admit that ladies were sometimes disparaged as untidy by contemporaries, that Edo jĆruri was not necessarily admired by everyone, and that at least one city resident was appalled by what he saw as the accelerating downhill slide of proper etiquette.
More significantly, Edo zuihitsu authors regularly pondered or took for granted identical phenomena, treated or ignored the same incidents, criticized or lauded similar trends, and reached comparable conclusions. Thus even if one were to grant that, as the historian E. H. Carr once put it, âby and large, the historian will get the kind of facts he wants,â the pieces translated in this volume indicate that the historians known as Edo zuihitsu writers tended to want remarkably similar facts.3 To be sure, zuihitsu writers often knew each other and at times collaborated, but no grand conspiracy stood behind the regularities or similarities the texts often bring to light. This indicates that Edo was always far more than whatever a solitary author happened to want.
Properly grasping the Edo zuihitsu thus requires taking into account the objective forces that generated, conditioned, limited, or fostered the subjectivities of those who let their writing brushes loose over the page. When one reads, say, an authorâs judgments regarding tasteful or proper fabrics, kimonos, and headgear, this may bespeak subjective likings, but it also serves as evidence for the objective conditions that generated certain tastes, judgments, or dispositions in the first place, especially if one discovers that countless others shared identical preferences or aversions. In the case of Edo-period attire, such conditions included the explosion in the amount of cotton cultivated, burgeoning silk-worm production, the development of a marketplace for mass-produced fabrics, meticulous government ordinances dictating that socio-political hierarchies be rendered visible through differentiated garb, and interpersonal and intergroup rivalries in which superiority over peers was demonstrated through beguiling clothing designs and ostentatious, often pricey trappings. An adequate reading of the Edo zuihitsu thus demands an understanding of the nature and effects of large-scale historical transformations whose proper analysis usually lies outside the domain of the zuihitsu being read. To initiate such a reading, I shall briefly examine how the authors and works represented in this volume related to some of the broader features of Edo-period history.
Asai RyĆi and âAn Eastern Stirrupâ
From around 1600, the clash of swords and blast of musket fire that had for so long dominated the Japanese soundscape finally gave way to the thuds of pickaxes, the scrapes of shovels, and the clatter of hammers. Within a startlingly brief span of time, Edo, once little more than a minor fishing town in a remote eastern province, was transformed into the political heart of an entire nation and the seat of a powerful, relatively centralized state. The Tokugawa shoguns, initially heir only to a paltry fortress established by the general and poet Ćta DĆkan (1432â1486), soon found themselves proud possessors of a well-nigh impregnable castle with an imposing five-story tower. As urban development proceeded apace, the clergy was granted control over majestic temples and shrines that stretched their gables heavenward, while the upper warrior stratum acquired spacious mansions, beautiful gardens, and ample housing units for accommodating their countless retainers and aides. Lesser members of the samurai class were granted proportionately downsized property, corresponding at least in theory to each familyâs socio-political rank and assessed income. The commoner class, by contrast, found itself packed into areas of town the warriors and the clergy reckoned as less valuable or attractive. Yet it would be the commoners, especially the merchant-class entrepreneurs among them, who would play the decisive role in stocking the markets, building the theaters, setting up the brothels, and engaging in countless other ventures that would later fire the imagination of so many Edo zuihitsu writers.
These social and economic developments were still advancing full throttle when the Kyoto-based monk and onetime masterless samurai Asai RyĆi (1612?â1691), in all likelihood the author of âAn Eastern Stirrup,â was growing up. In 1657, however, a series of three hellish fires, collectively called the âGreat Meireki Fireâ in honor of the third year of the Meireki era (1655â1658), brought to a screeching halt all progress that had been made in raising a city worthy of the Tokugawa clan. Fires had in fact plagued Edo for decades, even from times before the hallowed first shogun, Tokugawa Ieyasu (1542â1616), had set foot in the region. By the time of the 1657 holocaust, the city had experienced no fewer than 140 blazes, two of which (in 1601 and 1641) must be counted as major. Yet nothing could have prepared the populace, the regime, and zuihitsu writers for the total destruction in the first month of 1657 of nearly everything they had known and loved. The news of the inferno and the devastation it had wrought soon swept to Kyoto, where RyĆi took up his writing brush to create a text that sought to transmit to readers the full measure and impact of the disaster.
In cobbling together his piece, RyĆi seems to have drawn on a variety of sources: factual reports compiled by the authorities, information gleaned from eye-witnesses or off the street, shopworn Buddhist dogma, and facts plucked from Chinese and Japanese histories. This material was then styled into a tale whose rhetorical force relied largely on the combined power of statistics, narrative tropes snatched from popular fiction writing, devices commonly used by storytellers, and visual images of woe and horror.4 The use of humor in such a zuihitsu may puzzle the modern reader, but RyĆi proves himself a good psychologist by implying that laughter can be of use in helping to cope with an unbearably stressful situation. In part because neither the ideal nor the reality of subjective autonomy necessary to endow individual actions with the sort of quasi-universal meaning the modern bourgeois seeks therein was simply not available to mid-seventeenth-century Japanese writers, the significance of the fiery catastrophe of 1657 could hardly be presented as a synecdoche of the actions, decisions, and sentiments of specific victims. To RyĆi, narratives generated by such an approach might well have seemed irrelevant, trivializing, maudlin, or unbearably reductive. By positioning brute facts next to absurd personal episodes with little attempt to mediate collective and individual doings or fates, RyĆi instead dramatizes an essentially indescribable event, one so traumatic that only a ghastly laugh directed at a reality that Buddhism anyhow interpreted as fundamentally ephemeral and empty could hope to portray it tolerably.
In other ways too, RyĆiâs vision of the scorching Edo apocalypse reveals a subjectivity shaped through and through by the dominant conservative Buddhism of his day. Most obviously, many of his metaphors are borrowed from Buddhist notions of hell, demonic pun...