Despite the last decade’s increase in the amount of Japanese fiction being translated into English, several genres remain underrepresented. While English-speakers get access to a number of critically acclaimed literary titles, science fiction and romance, for example, are largely neglected despite their popularity in Japan. Historical samurai fiction, which maintains high Japanese readership, in particular, rarely makes it into English. This trend may be shifting, however, with the recent publication of Shuhei Fujisawa’s Semishigure and the upcoming release of a new, three-volume, translation of Eiji Yoshikawa’s Musashi, which was previously available only in abridged form.
Semishigure, translated by Thomas Harper, has surprisingly never appeared in English until now. Shuhei (1927–1997) was a prolific writer of Japanese historical fiction, and his work has sold over 25 million copies in Japan. But none of his novels had been translated for anglophone audiences, though several have been turned into internationally successful films, including Semishigure, which was adapted as The Samurai I Loved in 2005. The novel paints a detailed and believable picture of a significant moment in Japanese history while also telling a personal and well-wrought story of political intrigue, swordplay, and growing up.
Semishigure takes place during Japan’s Tokugawa shogunate (1603–1868), one of the longest periods of peace and unity in Japanese history, and also the last to be considered “traditional Japan”. The country was united as a series of domains under local lords, who were themselves subject to the shogun, and the people were largely divided into the classes of samurai, farmers, and artisans. Though there was little direct fighting, political machinations and social unrest still broiled under the surface, sometimes breaking out into subterfuge and violence.
The story follows the career of the young man Bunshirō from his relatively carefree adolescence as the son of a low-ranking samurai through the more tumultuous years of his young adulthood. He begins in most respects as a typical teenage boy. He spends his days studying, training with his friends at the dojo, and making eyes at the neighbor girl. Yet his family is quickly caught up in political struggles occurring within the domain, and his father is ordered to commit seppuku (ritual suicide), forcing Bunshirō to take the lead of his household and navigate the increasingly perilous world of political struggle, rivalry, and shifting fortunes.
For all the political machinations involved, the plot of Semishigure is relatively simple, and much of the narrative follows Bunshirō through day-to-day existence in an outlying domain of shogunate Japan. This focus on ordinary life is arguably a strength, however, and much of the book’s interest arises from the vision of historical Japanese life that it conjures, especially in the details. The inspection of rice fields, the system of samurai hierarchies, the methods of marriage arrangement all add depth and provide insights into Japanese society at the time.
Unfortunately, the characters, too, are rather simple, even flat. Bunshirō comes across as stoic and ploddingly straightforward to an almost unbelievable extent. Other characters are more colourful, but only slightly, and some are cliché (the scrawny intellectual and the brawny drinker, for instance). While rich characterization is not the focus of the novel, its historical depth would have been aided by livelier protagonists.
Shuhei’s prose, or at least Thomas Harper’s translation, also detracts from the story. It can be stiff, almost academic in tone. Lines such as, “Think well of her though he did, the fragrance of her makeup really was too strong, and the strength of it, he felt, had penetrated straight to the core of his brain” are unfortunately typical.
There are moments of limpidity, however, even beauty, especially in the descriptions of the natural and artificial landscapes through which the characters move, and descriptions provide an elegant backdrop to the book’s events: “But the night air was warm, and something white appeared to waft up from the depths of the darkness as the river mist rose and spilled onto the land.” The writing is also strong in moments of swordplay and heightened action, and the battles—whether real or in practice—prove to be the most exciting and well-crafted moments in Semishigure.
Despite its flaws, Semishigure is nevertheless enjoyable. While Bunshirō may be a simple, sometimes flat character, his coming of age and loss of innocence are handled well, and the use of repeating motifs, such as the sounds of cicadas in the trees above his childhood home, create an evocative nostalgia that compensate in part for Bunshirō’s relatively shallow interiority. The plot is tightly crafted and coherent, and the action that results is exciting. The last act, in particular, leads to a satisfying ending. All of this combines with the story’s greatest strength—a well-rounded depiction of shogunate Japan that is both believable and intriguing—to create a novel that, while not a masterpiece, is sure to be well liked by those with an interest in samurai stories, historical fiction, and Japanese history.