Song of Sadness

Michigan Monograph Series in Japanese Studies #47

by Shūsaku Endō, Teruyo Shimizu (Translator)

Rare Book

Paperback

First published July 29, 2004

About the author

Shusaku Endo (遠藤周作), born in Tokyo in 1923, was raised by his mother and an aunt in Kobe where he converted to Roman Catholicism at the age of eleven. At Tokyo's Keio University he majored in French literature, graduating BA in 1949, before furthering his studies in French Catholic literature at the University of Lyon in France between 1950 and 1953. A major theme running through his books, which have been translated into many languages, including English, French, Russian and Swedish, is the failure of Japanese soil to nurture the growth of Christianity. Before his death in 1996, Endo was the recipient of a number of outstanding Japanese literary awards: the Akutagawa Prize, Mainichi Cultural Prize, Shincho Prize, and Tanizaki Prize.
(from the backcover of Volcano).

Reviews

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I began this book, immediately after rereading Endo's The Sea and Poison: A Novel, to which this book is a sequel, I was disappointed. The almost meditative tone of that book was gone; in its place was a narrative that seemed breakneck in comparison. I can't say when my disappointment vanished, but vanish it did. I wish I could write here about all there is to contemplate in this wonderful novel--sin, despair, complacency, arrogance, pain and death, but also kindness, love, hope, and the possibility of redemption--but I can't. I need time to think about it all. Another reviewer thought that this is the most secular of Endo's works. I disagree. This is a profoundly Catholic book, reminiscent of the work of Graham Greene, to whom Endo has been compared. The moving death scene of Suguro immediately made me think of the death of Scobie in Greene's The Heart of the Matter. Do what you can to find a copy of this book. Read The Sea and Poison first, and then this. Wonderful.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did not know it when I began reading 'Song of Sadness,' but it is actually somewhat of a sequel to Endo's 'The Sea & Poison,' one of his finest works. Suguro, the young doctor who administered initial anesthesia on the American POWs in WWII before they were vivisected and killed, has now been transplanted, 30 years hence (mid-1970s), to a small clinic of his own in the mean streets of Shinjuku. But he's not precisely the central character here -- we are introduced, in a breakneck fashion that reminded me of PT Anderson's film 'Magnolia,' to the 10-15 other main players, all with unique backgrounds and personalities, most tremendously flawed, and all playing parts in the lives of the other characters through series of coincidences. In this way, it's a very cinematic novel, almost verging on the experimental, when you consider Endo's usually straightforward approach to narrative. And, not unlike the film 'Magnolia,' the central theme seems to be, 'what can we forgive?' Despite some semi-editorialising on the wrongness of abortion, and the character Gaston (who would later appear in Endo's final novel, 'Deep River') clearly representing Jesus, this is one of Endo's most secular works. Here, the author, as if trying to shake off his label as a 'Christian writer,' delves deep into the drinking, whoring, puking, filthy denizens of Shinjuku, with varying success. He absolutely set a convincing stage for his character, but it all felt very self-conscious, far out of the author's comfort zone. He did a better job with this in his later novel, 'Scandal,' but that work was ultimately hampered by a muddled narrative. I am certainly not saying that an artist should never try anything new. It just seems that, with Endo, his attempts at branching out were never fully successful. Nevertheless, this was yet another novel of his I absolutely could not put down, and while it's not perfect, as many of his other works are, it's very much worth the read.

On a side note, this is the most obscure of Endo's works to be translated into English. I had to plop down $25 for a copy on Amazon, so it's out there and not that difficult to find.... but as you can see from the complete lack of reviews here on Goodreads, to the fact that they've listed the translator as the author with no mention of Endo anywhere, people, I guess, don't really give a shit about this one. Too bad.

[Adrian Bryant · Rating 3 out of 5]

"For judgment will be without mercy to anyone who has shown no mercy; mercy triumphs over judgment." - James 2:13

i actually might write a longer, formal review of this at some point. this book is messy -- it has basically eight main characters -- but the its heart and its strength (emotional, thematic, and of craft) lie in Dr. Suguro, the older doctor who has to live in the guilt of his actions in the novel THE SEA AND THE POISON, where he participated in intentionally fatal medical experiments on healthy, living U.S. POWs in WWII.

what Endo does with Suguro at the end of SONG OF SADNESS mirrors what happens with Father Rodriguez at the end of his most famous work, SILENCE; an action that most would consider contemptible is performed as an act of mercy.

what's added in SONG OF SADNESS, though, is this question of mercy vs. justice/judgment. Suguro is unable to runaway from his past; the residents of every town he sets up a clinic in find out about his war crimes and run him out, after which he has to find a new place to restart his life all over again. he's not spared from that same fate here, but he does get to experience a small form of mercy that saves him - and most importantly, helps him save someone else.

in THE SEA AND THE POISON, Suguro participates in the experiments because war has numbed him to death. seeing the senseless deaths of war every day in his small Japanese hospital leads him to justify the experiments by claiming that all death is senseless, and therefore meaningless. in SONG OF SADNESS, Suguro tells a journalist writing a hit-piece on him that he did it "because he was tired."

inevitably, Suguro cannot shake the guilt that comes from taking an innocent life. but mercy is permission to realize the lessons you've learned, to earnestly repent -- judgment, on the other hand, rarely, if ever, leads to repentance. he spends 25 years of his life after the experiment having his life defined by it because no one is willing to forgive him. in that trap, he fails to be able to show off his full skill and kindness, as well as his own capacity for mercy. once he finally sees mercy from another in SONG OF SADNESS, he can repent, and he can show mercy to others -- even if it means he will be condemned for it, just as the man who forgives Suguro is condemned for it.

i grew up in a faith tradition and community that read "blessed are those who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness" as meaning "blessed are those who are persecuted because they are Christians." i think that's a very dangerous reading of that verse. i think SONG OF SADNESS, and SILENCE, give a glimpse at what Jesus's words truly convey: blessed are those who show mercy when no one else will, when forgiveness is seen as weak, baseless, and as a failure, and when everyone else clamors for justice and judgment and punishment.

one last verse from James: "let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, for human anger does not produce God’s righteousness."

[Ryan Ward · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit uneven, but compelling nonetheless. Endo is a master at portraying the messiness of lives and the impossibility of judging another based on strict and ungenerous notions of morality.