Segaki

by David Stacton

'Segaki is the story of two men, a woman, a dog, and a handful of snails. It is a very simple story. But like most simple stories, it is also a parable... It is the third volume of three novels concerned with various aspects of the religious experience... Segaki deals with [the] getting of wisdom, or insight, and deals with it, moreover, entirely in terms of Zen... Zen cannot be explained. It can only be embodied, and in that form, shown to people who will not see it unless they were accustomed to seeing it there anyway.' David Stacton, 1957 'I am enormously impressed by this... I haven't read such an electrifying work in ages. [Stacton] sounds not only like a magnificent poet but an initiate as well. And he seems to know Japan (the everlasting one) better than most Japanese...' Henry Miller (in a letter of October 1959)

Genres: Historical Fiction, Japan

190 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

Aka Bud Clifton

David Derek Stacton (1925–1968) was a U.S. novelist, historian and poet. He was born on 25 April 1925 in Minden, Nevada. Stacton attended Stanford University from 1941–43, and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in 1951. He served in the Civilian Public Service as a conscientious objector then lived in Europe from 1950–1954, 1960–1962, and 1964–1965. Stacton wrote under the pseudonyms Carse Boyd, Bud Clifton, David Dereksen and David West. Most of his books were originally published in England. He died of a stroke 19 January 1968 in Fredensborg, Denmark.

Stacton's novels are often low in dialogue, and his better novels are instead full of his witty scornful comments on his characters and life. At his best Stacton had an epigrammatic style and enjoyed a sophisticated irony, although antipathetic critics took him to task for pretentious vocabulary, a tendency to florid paradoxes, and anachronistic allusions (i.e. describing a 14th century Zen garden using phrases from Marianne Moore and Peter Pan). In 1963, Time magazine praised his work as "masses of epigrams marinated in a stinging mixture of metaphysics and blood" and suggested that "something similar might have been the result if the Duc de la Rochefoucauld had written novels with plots suggested by Jack London". His other literary influences include Walter Pater, for his choice of characters with frustrated artistic and emotional longings, and Lytton Strachey for his witty attention to history. Several of Stacton's novels feature homosexual characters prominently. Fans of David Stacton include John Crowley, Thomas M. Disch, and Peter Beagle.

Reviews

[S.H. Villa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an accidental find. In the late 50’s and 60’s Stacton was well known. Not a bestseller but well regarded as one of the best American writers of his time. Now it’s Faber Finds who publish him together with other forgotten authors of note. I can see why it was never very popular, overlapping several genres, filled with long lyrical descriptions and very little plot line. But this may be true of many great works of literature.

An awesome talent, some lyrically detailed nature writing, fulsome imagination and a love of the polemic. Here’s one on war: For most people cannot contain a peace. It makes them costive. They must have a bowel movement every day and one war every generation, for though they say they loathe violence, we always deny what we like best.

The story is of Muchaku a Zen Buddhist, abbot of a small monastery in Noto, who goes walkabout in the midst of a civil war in 14thC Japan, a spiritual pilgrimage referred to as Angrya. He tells the dozen or so monks he leaves behind that he goes to visit his brother. They believe it to be nothing more than a koan. Oio, however, comprehends and gives him a forlorn wave as he departs. Even before he sets out, he encounters a soldier, a young lord of Noto, and his dog. The soldier is seen off but the dog follows Muchaku, bound on a reluctant Angrya of his own.

The journey is full of ghosts, some revealed to be other than ghosts – foxes, cats, peasants disguised as hayricks, but many remain undiscovered, simply ghosts. The journey takes him through dense forests, always with mists, now up to his nipples, now covering the landscape, now unexpectedly gone. He is barely under weigh when he encounters a group of soldiers who give him a beating. To distract them, he betrays the presence of the lord of Noto behind him in the forest. Hoping for a bigger fish, Muchaku is left to wander on while the soldiers search the forest. There is an enraged bellow from the lord saying he will find him, whether he is killed or not, he will find him as he knows where he is going.

Our Zen abbot is not only capable of betrayal, he is frequently angry and almost always frightened. He is indeed a poor advertisement for training in Zen, particularly as we are in the company of the teacher himself. Yasumaro, the brother, when brought into the story proves to be an aesthete, a Zen artist of consummate merit, although he does not claim to be a Buddhist, Zen or otherwise. There follows adventures in and nearby Yasumaro’s house, including a sexual encounter for Muchaku with a lady of high rank who may or may not have been a ghost. The last of a once powerful family. The most touching and beautifully written scenes, however, are reserved for snails. The soldiers turn up and the brothers head for an old Shinto Temple on a nearby hill from which they see the valley and Mount Fuji. Of course.

The ending has a certain whimsy about it, but I don’t feel the need to comment further on the plot. And that, basically, is the plot.

The book is about the beauty of writing – author as Zen artist, if you will – and Stacton’s love of aphorisms and polemics. One cannot review a book like Segaki without quoting from it. For there the understanding lies.
On Woods, Nature and Mountains: Usually, since it is easier to tolerate us than to fight back, they are on their best behaviour. But someday, when we have goaded her too far, nature may turn on us, out of sheer nervous irritability. For nature is more ruthless and self-seeking than even people are. It is merely that she usually disguises herself with beauty, a thing too few people ever take the pains to do.
And again,
The death of a tree is more affecting than the death of a man, for a tree is nobler and more patient.
And later,
Of course we may perceive truth anywhere, but it is perhaps only on alpine levels that we gain the ability to move freely through it. The sages are always in the mountains. Otherwise they are no more than wise men, and of course a sage does not have to be wise. He has seen through all that. He would rather peel potatoes.
Yasumaro on evil: “We must remember evil is merely human matter. In these cruel times we tend to forget that.” Yasumaro looked apologetic. “It is so easy to be emotional, so easy to experience things. That frees us from the obligation to understand them.”
Yasumaro on politics: “…Politics never change. It is only the politician who comes and goes, the man who confuses principle with self-interest ousts the man who confuses self-interest with principle, over and over again, that is all…”

Sometimes his polemics slip into the whimsical and become trite, but there is much to underline in this book. I conclude with one which I would like to comment on:
Yasumaro says, “Have you ever felt that every free choice is inevitable? Free choice is nothing but the discovery of the inevitable.”
It is said, if we had the infinite ability to know everything past and present, we would comprehend every event, emotion, thought and action. If it elicited a feeling, it would not be judgment but acceptance. And this is, I believe, what Stacton is saying. A ‘free choice’ flows from everything right back to the beginning of time. This is a pathway to the Buddhist idea of ‘emptiness’, the idea that nothing holds intrinsic meaning. Meaning is a subjective outcome of our minds. And what truly is, is empty, without meaning. Suffering is only overcome when we see this and cease to apply meaning to what is. And this Muchaku succeeds in doing, finding great serenity.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

didn't enjoy this quite as much as A Signal Victory, maybe because the scope of events here is so much smaller and he has less opportunities to meditate on history, and maybe also because medieval japan seems much more familiar than the maya city states, but it's still a nice little read. stacton really was just banging these things out in the late 50s

[Jess · Rating 5 out of 5]

Probably dog-eared half the pages, and that’s because I held back. Stunningly well-written and insightful. The Henry Miller quote on the back about how Stacton knows Japan better than the Japanese obviously hasn’t aged well, but it’s not at all hard to understand why dude was so impressed.

For once I was legit savoring slowly, rather than just being too busy to fully devour. Now I get to read again and again, in any order, picking over and flipping through for whatever gleaming shards of beauty the day prefers for me.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

A mini-masterpiece from one of the more interesting and enigmatic novelists of mid-century America.