Lecture No.4: What's a popular novel? "Ninjutsu-Buyuden" by Yamaji Kishi (2nd term)
What's a popular novel? "Ninjutsu-Buyuden" by Yamaji Kishi (summary)
Lecturer:Yasumitsu Onishi
Yamaji Kishi was a writer of the NAPF (Nippona Artista Proleta Federacio) group and published "Ninjutsu-Buyuden" (In "Senki" Vol.3, Article.2, Feb.1930). Since Suekichi Aono published his essay " from natural growth to sense of purpose-Shizen seichou kara mokuteki ishiki e"(in 1926), proletarian writers were required to write their novels with less natural expression describing their own experiences but instead with more purposefulness related to Marxist theories.
The writers of the "Bungei-Sensen" group would try to base their descriptions on feelings of laborers. In contrast, most of the writers of the NAPF group were intellectuals and they would tend to express the reality more theoretically. That meant that they faced serious problems to get readers because the Japanese society at that time was quite complicated to describe on logical terms and novels written with ostensible logic had trouble generating their readers' interests.
Furthermore, their target readers were workers and farmers, but their books were too difficult to understand.
Yamaji Kishi was originally a writer of popular novels, so he encouraged other writers to write more "reader-conscious" novels.
Besides the Sengoku-Era, the Meiji Restoration has been a popular subject for novels among the Japanese for long time, for its dramatic and transitional time in Japanese history.
Kishi wrote a novel titled "History repeats itself" and compared the labor dispute in Showa Era to the Meiji Restoration, so social democrats at that time to the Satsuma-clan, the "Choshu-Kagekiha - the radical members of Choshu-clan" to left wing of labor union led by its chairman Kogoro Katsura, Katamori Matsudaira of Kyoto Shugoshoku to the superintendent General and the Shinsen-gumi commanded by Isami Kondo to the elites of the Tokko Keisatsu (Special Higher Police) under the direct control of General Matsudaira, the story was for example, the "Choshu-Kagekiha" constantly held a secret meeting to plan and execute a revolution, to which Isami Kondo sent some spy planning to catch them...
In this presentation, the image of Ninja was clarified, which was found in popular novels and either accepted or requested by ordinary people at that time.
