Reconciliation

by Naoya Shiga

Reconciliation, published here for the first time in the English language, is an understated masterpiece of the Japanese 'I novel' tradition (a confessional literary form). Naoya Shiga's novella is a quietly devastating reflection on all kinds of from his own familial reunion, to the universal need to reconcile ourselves to the inevitability of ageing, loss and death.

Genres: Fiction, Japan, Japanese Literature, Asian Literature, Family

Paperback

First published December 1, 1949

About the author

Naoya Shiga (志賀 直哉) was a Japanese novelist and short story writer active during the Taishō and Showa periods of Japan.

Reviews

[Ivy-Mabel Fling · Rating 5 out of 5]

This novella in the first person (apparently a popular form in Japanese literature) focuses on various types of reconciliation, that with the father probably being the most obvious and the form we as readers would be likely to expect. But the most moving forms of reconciliation are with loss, old age and death. The story would merit full marks even for just the first episode which recounts the author's horrendously distressing experience with the loss of his first daughter.

[Kumasama · Rating 3 out of 5]

*Score: 7.0/10*

This is a novella based on the author's own experience with his tension with his father, and his attempt of reconciliation. This is a common style in Japanese Literature called I-Novel which is fiction but based on many actual events and has a confessional tone to it.

This is a very simple book, focused primarily on the author's relation with his father, as well as rest of his family (grandmother, mother, wife and few others). It deals mainly with the theme of how humans usually don't achieve simple goals of harmony with their loved ones through putting many arguments and silly obstacles in the way, and consequences of being stubborn.

I expected this to be very dark, but surprisingly barring one part, this generally felt more light in nature than I expected. Overall it was nice and enjoyable, though I admit the one dark part of it truely stood out to me and showed me the potential of this author if he deals with a dark topic. This short section was absoluetly masterful, and was so tense and will leave a really long lasting memory for me, much more than the actual main storyline of this book.

Prose and structure all were very straighforward, not too complex as I have hoped but also avoids being shallow or too superfecial, achieving a decent amount of introspective thoughts.

It felt more of a 3 / 3.5 stars read to me, but that one dark section warrants easily one additional star hence bumping this to 4 star, and I am hoping the author's other works are closer in nature to this part as I can clearly see myself being a fan if he delivers a full novel of this style.

[Rincle Tinkle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Understanding the lay of the land of the I-novel will better shape reader reaction. This one delivers in its intent and impact. Understanding the physical lay of the land (Japan) meant bells of familiarity with its place names were regularly ringing. The dithering and detail instilled in the narrative make it feel real, accessible. The ‘first baby’ episode is as affecting a piece of trauma writing as I’ve come across.

[Mikhail · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Con una strana espressione a metà fra una smorfia e un pianto, di nuovo guardai gli occhi di mio padre. [...] L’avevo cercato senza rendermene conto".

Potrei provare ad analizzare come si deve questo breve libro perché è estremamente importante per il romanzo giapponese come lo conosciamo oggi, ma non so quasi nulla riguardo a Shiga ad eccezione di tre fatti: ha avuto seri problemi con suo padre, ha pubblicato nella rivista letteraria Shirakaba insieme a Mushanokōji, Satomi e Arishima, e Akutagawa lo ammirava tantissimo. Non mi sembra dunque il caso.

Il libro mi è piaciuto, e mi sono rivisto nelle parole di Junkichi in... ogni singola pagina. Anche perché Junkichi non mi piace come persona. La prosa di Shiga è senza fronzoli, non cerca di mettere in risalto le sue abilità di scrittura e questo emerge nei suoi paragrafi schietti. Non sono un appassionato del naturalismo giapponese quindi non mi sorprende di aver trovato un po' lento lo stile di un suo precursore, ma è un interessante lavoro di meta-letteratura. Shiga non riesce a scrivere a causa del conflitto con suo padre, e quando i due si riconciliano l'unica cosa a cui riesce a pensare è il loro riavvicinamento, e da qua nasce "Riconciliazione".

Nel suo insieme l'ho trovato un po' anticlimatico, e immagino che sia questo il lato che non mi piace del naturalismo giapponese — ma è okay, la vita in effetti è così. Nella realtà, sono pochi i momenti in cui la tensione si scioglie in maniera catartica e poetica; a volte le cose succedono e basta, e ingigantire i fatti sarebbe una forzatura. Sono certamente curioso di leggere "A dark night's passing".

[Apollos Michio · Rating 4 out of 5]

“There was love for him in my heart, and I could sense it melting away all the bad feelings from our past.” 🫠

Reconciliation is a moving novella by Naoya Shiga about a son who reconciles with his father after years of discord which led the latter to ban his son from visiting their family home. 😡

It is moving because the book not only realistically portrays this type of reconciliation, but also other types: reconciling ourselves to the ineluctable imminence of death and ageing. (In particular, the section recounting the plight of the protagonist’s first baby is very touching in its minutiae.) 👶🏻

Life itself involves a reconciliation between life and death, good and evil, self and others, etc. If to reconcile is to live, then we all might as well practice reconciliation by opening up ours hearts and our hands to bravely accept whatever life throws at us! 🤝

4/5

[Michellelester · Rating 2 out of 5]

I realise that my disappointment comes from my position as a western reader who throughout fully expects to find that the narrator and/or his relationship with his father is not what it seems. That the first person narrative will mask someone more complex, less self-pitying than the surface presents. And that there will be some irony in the ‘reconciliation’. So unless it really is incredibly subtle, my expectations were all wrong. Despite one key event being presented in the most harrowing, stop-you-in-your tracks way, overall the story offers little other than to seek peace with family who’ve previously pissed you off. Nothing in any of the characterisations suggested why this might be so. Like I suggested at the start - I fear I’m a reader out of this novel’s time/culture and I took little from it. Happy to accept that may well be indicative of my limitations, and not the book’s, though!

[Joanne Fate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a beautiful book except for a chapter that includes medical decisions that would not be made today, thankfully. I absolutely loved it. The main character, based on the author, is trying to reconcile with his estranged father who did not approve of his marriage.

I believe it was the only book by this author that I've ever read. The novel is considered an I-novel, very popular in Japan in the early 1900s. It was written and published serially in the late 1910s. This translation is from a republished 1948 book. I hope to read more by Naoya Shiga, but it seems the only way is to find used paper books. 5 stars all the way.

[Andrea Barlien · Rating 4 out of 5]

I appreciated the style of this as part of my love of Japanese writing. It was not a thrilling story nor was it full of writerly tricks but as a piece of ‘I novel’ confessional writing it did exactly what it was meant to. Clearly this book divided readers as people either loved it or hated it. I did neither - I guess I just admired it

[L.S. Popovich · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quiet and simple story in the best I-novel tradition. Shiga pioneered this style and joined the ranks of Soseki and others in giving slice of life and autobiographical fiction a place in Japanese literature. His book A Dark Night's Passing is considered by some the first I-novel. Like his other stories, the author channels powerful emotions using straightforward language.

I don't normally appreciate reading books about writers who struggle to write a book. But When Shiga complained to Soseki about his lack of inspiration, Soseki told him to just write a book about his inability to write. While this would be inadvisable these days, I think back then a lot of authors in early twentieth century Japan were struggling to find a voice amid the Western literature that was making its way into their country for the first time. But Shiga takes this interior conflict and expand it to encompass the struggle of a family man who is bombarded by fate with trying circumstances.

In this classic short and digestible novel, we follow the struggles of a floundering author who has just gotten married and has a kid on the way. The scenes of domestic strife and child-bearing are stirring, but fall short of brilliance. Where the work truly shines is in its depiction of illness unto death. The agony of witnessing the physical collapse of a human being is heartrending here, and is described in relation to both the very young and very old. His relationships with his family, especially his father, display an uncompromising pride. While the character growth is not given a lot of space to breathe, he does end the tale on a cheerful note, which the reader might surmise, he did for his own peace of mind. The author character talks about his personal and intimate approach to writing, which allowed him to process the interior fragments of his discontent and sorrow into a crystalline expression of human triumph and even day-to-day coping.

Shiga's books are often more memorable than his contemporaries, I think, due to their pared down style and their bleak yet uplifting plots.

[Ceil. S · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've just completed the book, and I believe my thoughts may become more comprehensive after a bit of "marinating" I would say.

Overall, the pacing and execution were commendable and managed to hold my interest steadily throughout. While this novel effectively captures the essence of an I-novel, a confessional literature in Japan, and maintains a commendable pace, its length prevents it from standing out as an extraordinary achievement, which, in a way, is the core issue. There's a noticeable absence of any particularly remarkable elements in this book.

Reading it in its original language might offer better insight into why Shiga is hailed as the "master of prose," as it came across as rather stoic to me. This sense of detachment in the writing style appears to be a prevalent characteristic particularly in translated Japanese works. However, it appears that this is considered a distinct style of Shiga, characterized by sentences that are almost excessively simple at times in the novel. I suspect the translator's introduction might have mentioned this, although I haven't read it.

The book, written in the first person, follows a man facing many challenges that many readers might relate to: unresolved tension with his father, the loss of his first child, and his grandmother's illness. It's no wonder that everyone around him appears to be in a similarly tense mood.
Right from the beginning, it's evident that he has a short temper due to the stresses of life's challenges, and his wife suffers as a result. However, eventually after some back and forth, he reconciles with his parents, and things somehow start to improve. The book concludes in this manner. Conclusive, but not the kind that I particularly enjoy.

I can't say I'm a fervent fan, but once again, the book's length has its merits. It's pretty remarkable what can be accomplished within such a short narrative.

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/3.25 - I respect what this novella set out to do, and from a historical perspective of a Japan pre-WW1, this was very interesting, but the story itself, beyond one very harrowing chapter that goes into great detail the couple we follow lose their newborn child, was mostly just straightforward, everyday actions being described, with lots of letters and telegrams being composed and sent, going to train stations, traveling around by tram. Not exactly riveting stuff, and the emotional core between the MC and his father wasn't quite as deep or intense as I'd have liked, but considering when this was written and the cultural differences, I understand it.

Not a book I'd widely recommend, but it has its place in classic Japanese literature.

[M.R. Dowsing · Rating 4 out of 5]

This quick and easy read concerns a young writer's troubled relationship with his father and his own experience of being a father for the first time. The section in which his baby falls ill is especially well done and, although it may be too slight to be regarded as a major literary work, it's certainly very moving. It gives the impression of being strongly autobiographical, but such Japanese 'I novels' are often more fictional than they seem. I would recommend 'The Paper Door and Other Stories' as the best introduction to Shiga in English, though.

[Rafaele · Rating 4 out of 5]

A reconciliação é o maior desejo dele, parece que ele vira o personagem que escreve, a inevitável reconciliação só o desejo que passou pro papel, assim como a recuperação da avó. É quase uma metaficção, a primeira metade parece mais "real", enquanto a metade final, uma vontade, uma esperança, é quase um sonho.

[Wolfe Tone · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent enough I-novel. Nothing to complain about if you know what to expect. However, Shiga's prose and stories never seem to move me in the way that the stories of his contemporaries like Natsume Soseki, Ryonosuke Akutagawa, Higuchi Ichiyo, Kafu Nagai or Yunishiro Tanizaki do.

[Ivan Monckton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Boring insubstantial autobiographical novel about an upper class Japanese writer’s difficulties with his father. The main character is a self centred twerp who treats his wife pretty nastily, and his servants, one a twelve year old girl, with offhand contempt. Not for me, thank you all the same!

[Thành Phong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ấn tượng với 3 truyện ngắn là Trường Hợp Của Sasaki, Ở Kinosaki và Vị Thần Của Cậu Bé Học Việc. Một cảm giác gì đó thật khó tả, Sasaki có lẽ là dễ tả nhứt vì một mối tình đã không trọn vẹn, quá khứ đầy đau thương và sự tình cờ gặp lại nhau khơi dậy nhiều thứ trong con người.

[Simon Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

It wasn’t bad and quite readable. It is apparently a sort of autobiographical fiction popular in Japan called shishosetsu. That didn’t make the book much more enjoyable as the writer seemed a bit of a spoiled brat. 😂

[Nicola ✨ · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found the plot & writing style very dull, & I really disliked the narrator. (Read for class)

[Jaani Ramaki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fav. qoute:

From East and West, South and North
We make our way home at last
Together in the depths of night
We look out upon the same snow-capped peaks.'

[Mahdiyyah · Rating 3 out of 5]

3/3.5

[i. · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars, it was a moving read but nothing in particular struck me deeply. I would not really recommend it to others but it was a decent story.

[Kirsty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Translated by Ted Goossen, Naoya Shiga’s Reconciliation is considered a classic of Japanese literature. First published in 1917, and written over the course of just 5 weeks, this novella is described as ‘an understated masterpiece of the Japanese “I novel” tradition (a confessional literary form).’ Shiga was the ‘most celebrated practitioner’ of autobiographical fiction in the country, and went by the ‘god of prose’.

The Translator’s Note, written by Goossen, adds a great deal of context, and information about the author himself. Goossen comments that the novella is ‘highly factual, at least on the surface.’ It was written ‘immediately after the culmination of the drama it describes’: the author’s firstborn daughter dying when she was just a baby, the birth of his second child, and the illness of his beloved grandmother.

For Goossen, the novella ‘is charged with an elemental force that renders the distinction between so-called fact and fiction quite irrelevant.’ One of the ‘most striking features’ of this story for its translator is ‘the close relationship between life and art… [It is] a novella about being unable to write, strewn with references to failed or abandoned works.’ He then goes on to speak about the difficulties of translating such deceptively simple prose.

At just 137 pages long, Reconciliation manages to pack in a great deal. It unfolds with the following opening sentence: ‘This July 31st marked the first anniversary of the death of my eldest child – she had lived just fifty-six days.’ At this point in the narrative, his second child is just 9 days old, and he is going to visit his daughter’s grave.

We learn from the outset that the narrator, Junkichi, has a difficult relationship with his father: ‘I personally disliked father. This was more than the inescapable tangle of emotion that binds most parents and children, I felt: at the root of our mutual animosity was a basic disharmony. But although I found it relatively easy to talk about these feelings, I found I couldn’t express them on paper. I didn’t want to use my writing to emotionally purge myself.’

I found the protagonist unlikeable, prone as he is to cruel outbursts, most of which are directed toward his wife. He shouts things like: ‘“If I were the kind of man who meekly gave in to whatever his father said, I’d never have married you!”’

The prose style is easy to read, as is the first person perspective. There are some distressing scenes here; there is a lot of detail, for instance, about his daughter’s illness and passing, and later his grandmother’s illness. Reconciliation is filled with rumination, but there is far less emotion on display than I would have expected. There are moments of care and sorrow, as displayed here, but these are few and far between in the narrative: ‘After the baby died, our house suddenly became very lonely. When we took our chairs out to the garden to enjoy the cool night air, the distant cries of forest birds drifted across the lake to us… Moments like this were unbearable.’ After this, however, the narrator recalls the following: ‘… what my wife had feared most was seeing a baby about the age of our dead child. I myself was quite unmoved by such a prospect. Sometimes when we were out together she would slip away without telling me. I would usually find someone there was holding a baby.’

In this translation, the narrator is very matter-of-fact. This is something I often find with literature translated from the Japanese; it is often stoic, in my experience, and not at all effusive. Whilst I found it interesting to read something from this period, and I did find the family dynamic an interesting element, I lacked a lot of sympathy for our protagonist, and was somewhat glad to see the back of him.

[Xin Ru Toh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This slim book was written in the Japanese ‘I novel’ confessional autobiography genre. It was an introspective look at the author/protagonist's unhappy relationship with his father. Through several close encounters with life and death, the author/protagonist came to re-examine his attitudes and eventually reunited with his family members. While I found the ending too optimistic for the pessimist in me, I appreciated that the author/protagonist bared his soul in this book, and I was glad that the author/protagonist came to find peace and joy in his life. Certainly, life is too short to waste on meaningless misunderstandings and hatred; I hope I can one day have the generosity and open-mindedness to forgive and forget as well as seek reconciliation in my own life.

[Miyu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tr đi sâu vào tâm tư nhân vật khi đứng trc mâu thuẫn cha con, vì bối cảnh đặt ở thời suy vong của những gđ quý tộc nên phần nào vẫn có thể thấy đc cách giao thiệp và quy tắc bất thành văn trong gia tộc xưa của NB.
Nếu k am hiểu vh đặc trưng nb có lẽ sẽ có nhiều ng lên án nv nam 9 khi đối xử trịch thượng kẻ cả và k quan tâm ts vợ, nhưng xét trên thực tế thời đấy thì hành xử của anh ta lại là điều thường thấy.
Mình để 3.75

[Books on Asia · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a big Naoya Shiga fan, I found this fascinating.

[Hillary · Rating 5 out of 5]

An insightful look at family dynamics. It was published in 1918 but I think the themes are timeless.

[Hải Ruan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rất hay. Truyện như không truyện, đơn giản mà đi sâu vào lòng người.

[Duong · Rating 3 out of 5]

Một thể loại tự truyện với văn phong vô cùng súc tích và cô đọng, rất hiện đại so với văn học Nhật cuối thế kỷ 19- đầu thế kỷ 20.

[Con Bé Ki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nhờ vào "nhân duyên trời đất chuyển mùa" nên đọc Hòa giải hehe. Ngẫu nhiên mà sống. Ngẫu nhiên mà chết. Ngẫu nhiên mà đọc.