Les Pornographes

by Akiyuki Nosaka, Jacques Lalloz (Translator)

« Voilà un roman qui épouvantera le monde. C'est un roman affreusement, impitoyablement insolent, qui plus est enjoué comme un ciel de midi au-dessus d'un dépotoir... »
--Yukio Mishima

Un homme mûr, malin en diable, vivant d'un commerce de shows érotiques, une fille superbe, toujours disposée à interpréter pour lui des partenaires, et un jeune homme qui joue les séducteurs mais ne s'intéresse qu'aux plaisirs solitaires, tels sont les trois héros de ce roman.

Dans le Tôkyô de l'après-guerre, une folle succession d'épisodes picaresques illustre une véritable défense d'un humanisme à la japonaise auquel prétend, pour l'art et le bien de l'humanité, une bande de compères tranquilles, pornographes avisés et véritables missionnaires du sexe. Un métier qui vous prépare une place au paradis !

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

267 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 1, 1963

About the author

Akiyuki Nosaka (野坂 昭如 Nosaka Akiyuki) is a Japanese novelist, singer, lyricist, and former member of the House of Councillors. As a broadcasting writer he uses the name Yukio Aki (阿木 由紀夫 Aki Yukio) and his alias as a chanson singer is Claude Nosaka (クロード 野坂 Kurōdo Nosaka).

Nosaka was born in Kamakura, Kanagawa, the son of Sukeyuki Nosaka, who was a sub-governor of Niigata. Together with his sisters he grew up as an adopted child of Harimaya in Nada, Kobe, Hyōgo. One of his sisters died as the result of sickness, and his adoptive father died during the 1945 bombing of Kobe in World War II. Another sister died of malnutrition in Fukui. Nosaka would later base his short story Grave of the Fireflies on these experiences. He is well known for children's stories about war. His Grave of the Fireflies and American Hijiki won the Naoki Prize in 1967.

His novel, The Pornographers, was translated into English by Michael Gallagher and published in 1968. It was also filmed as The Pornographers by Shohei Imamura. In December 1978, he was credited for giving former rugby player-turned pro wrestler Susumu Hara his ring name, Ashura Hara.

He was elected to the Japanese Diet in 1983. Nosaka suffered a stroke in 2003 and although still affected by it, he keeps writing a column for the daily Mainichi Shimbun.

(from Wikipedia)

Reviews

[Pat Settegast · Rating 5 out of 5]

Set in Kansai region of Japan shortly after the WW II, The Pornographers details the rise of a number of small time perverts through the black markets and Turkish baths into fairly bigtime pornographic peddlers and pimps. The author, Akiyuki Nozaka, primarily wrote children's books - among them Grave of the Fireflies. All that to say this book is just as seedy and dirty as the title suggests, but characters are so devastated and eaten alive by the ravages of - for instance - the firebombing of Kobe and the post-war years of famine that it is impossible to deny the heart and agony seething beneath the surface of their depravities. Make no mistake this book is depraved, very little subtext is employed. Rather pornography is shown invading every single aspect of existence: religion, business, politics, health, home, and ultimately death. It inspired a film by Japanese New Wave director Shohei Imamura. He added the apt subtitle: 'An introduction to anthropology through the pornographers.'

I loved this book. The plot twists and turns through surreal mixtures of intense tragedy and titillation. Staging is exact and highly dramatic. I think particularly of the devil may care thrill with which Nozaka writes about the pornographers making a rape film set in a Shinto shrine. The main thematic tension rests on an argument between Artistic Aesthetic and Raw "Humanism," but at its core the story leans far more toward ghastly precedurals and lonely boners than philosophy. It is oddly enough a Christmas story... As Nozaka insists "For some reason the pornography industry seemed to thrive amid an atmosphere of sleigh bells and Christmas trees." This theme of postwar deprivation vs. US appropriation is further conflated with changing gender roles and general cultural malaise alongside economic boom. So for those interested the confluence of sexploitation and literature, The Pornographers ranks up there with the best of Jean Genet and Anais Nin. Everybody else might want to hide it behind the cover of a Readers Digest.

[Tim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first got interested in this because it is the basis of one of my favorite films, directed by the great Imamura. This is an outrageous book - cynical, profane, sexual, pathetic, and almost always hilarious. Nozaka is an artist with a jaundiced view of things - he sees his characters as strange, clownish figures, floundering about and trying to accomplish their futile goals in an absurd world. Yet within the depressing, even tragic, situations, he finds humor and reasons to keep going, chasing after that perfect piece of ass and that next bundle of yen. But when all is said and done, the world he depicts is a sad one, where people manipulate and destroy each other, and go to their graves without having come to terms with themselves, their loved ones, or a higher power.

The story focuses on Subuyan, a fortyish pornographer who shares a home in Osaka with his girlfriend, Ohara, and her teenage daughter. During the course of the story, he provides a number of thrills for his corporate clients: orgies, mashing excursions onto the trains, bogus virgins, kept women, and call girls. His specialty seems to be films (porno must have been illegal then) which he makes and screens to Japanese businessmen. He works with Banteki, a technical guy with artistic pretensions. Later they add Hack, a writer; Paul, a sleazy young college dropout; and Kabo, a witless bozo who dreams of being a TV star. The book follows two main tracks - Subuyan's personal life, and the ups and downs of his business.

(Spoiler alert:) His girlfriend, who is a more important character in the movie, first gives birth to an infant who dies, and then becomes seriously ill herself. These things have little effect on the emotionally remote Subuyan, who simply goes about his business and tells people what he thinks they want to hear. He does have the hots for Keiko, his young stepdaughter, and finally gets a crack at her, but the great pornographer turns out to be unable to get it up. The last image of the book is wildly ironic and perverse, and all I will say here is that it relates to these two characters.

Subuyan is presented as an average guy who thinks that his line of work is a perfectly decent way to make a living, and is even a way to help some guys feel better about their ridiculous lives. Male sexuality is presented as being at its heart an irrational and largely uncontrollable desire. By the way, this is in no way a feminist book and a number of its aspects are potentially offensive to many readers, particularly the cavalier attitude toward rape that pervades the book. Yet one should keep in mind that sexual mores were different in that time and place - a situation someone might consider rape today might have been seen as seduction then. One thing is certain: the male characters care very little for the female characters, they see them as sex objects and little else.

Much of it is very funny, thou with a pathetic edge. An old man comes to guide a contemporary audience through a porno film, but all he does is clear his throat and make references to Tanizaki. A top executive is dying for a virgin and Subuyan finds one for him, "a real veteran virgin" who has played the part well before and does so again. Subuyan takes a jaded exec onto a train for a little mashing, and he ends up grabbing a handful of Subuyan's ass by mistake. Another character masturbates his way to a heart attack in his semen-encrusted room. Altho the pornographers are adept at helping other men get the sex they desire, they themselves are no ladies men. One is impotent, another is a compulsive wanker, a third has little interest in women, and another is unable to get anything going. Eventually their business falls apart and they go their separate ways.

Nozaka's style is direct and not lyrical. Descriptions are minimal and ideas are not delved into. Still, if his other books are as biting and acerbic and revealing of a hidden side of Japanese life as this one, I would gladly read them, but I haven't seen anything else available in translation. Astonishingly he is from an upper class background and served as a member of the Japanese legislature.

[Graham P · Rating 3 out of 5]

A uniquely humorous novel about the pornographer, who moves through all levels of Japanese society bearing his dirty goods. Not as much about pornography than the one who sells it, this comedy of errors describes his mishaps, his successes and details his grand vision to bring happiness to all men. Author Akiyuki Nosaka could have approached this material as Terry Southern did in his own 1960s porn novel, 'Blue Movie', but instead, eschews the grand lewdness and the bitter parody for a humanistic take on what goes on in the business-side of the celluloid skin trade. Despite the humanism and the good nature of many of the characters, this novel still isn't a censored read - there's some questionably distasteful moments that a Westerner may take offense to - but hell, Japan is a different country that has its own perversions, its own idiosyncrasies. I won't go into details here...or should I?

The characters are what propel this story, especially the main pornographer who once his sick wife passes on, becomes lustful towards his 18 year-old step-daughter; and in a whole manner of ways, tries to find excitement in his own carnal life as he's been desensitized by sex for selling it so long. His team of assistants includes a former priest who examines his bowel movements for enlightenment, and has cockroaches as friends; a mod teen who can't get excited around women but who soon finds his amorous love in a human-sized pleasure doll; and a failed writer who finds his titillating prose neglected by a new generation of readers.

Essentially, a lost novel most remembered for the 1968 film adaptation that garnered some international attention, this is a great read for those interested in the evolution (on both a primal and market level) of pornography.

[Ian Josh · Rating 1 out of 5]

Never Pulled it Together. So much dirty, nasty promise...

Full Review

https://ianjoshyateswriting.blogspot....

[Fabio · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m gonna write a review when I’ll be back home, it’s holiday time!

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 2 out of 5]

I cannot express how much I love Nosaka's "The Whale that Fell in Love with a Submarine," a profound collection filled with tragedy and beauty and horror, regardless of the fact that the stories were written for children. And I also love Shohei Imamura's film based upon this very work. The actual novel, however, is dull, pointless, not clever in the least, certainly not profound and not even particularly well-written. Major disappointment.

[Katrinka · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to like this book; it was well-written, and I could see the humor behind it-- but in the end, and I hate to sound like a prude, it made light of all the wrong things, a pretty one-sided consideration of a hapless bunch.

[Sasluu · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel works in many different layers. On the surface it tells the generally light, hilarious story of a group of men in Japan in the sixties who've landed themselves a livelihood in the pornography business. Some of them got there more serendipitously than others but all of them are committed to it in the long run, not just because it pays the bills but also because at a certain point, and for a short while, which the novel captures, they all experience something that is almost like joy, in practising their profession. The novel covers that brief stint of affluence and contentment, as well as some things that happened before and some things that happen, well, after, because there is an after. This is where the novel bares its fangs so to speak and reveals its complexity. It is a funny story about funny people who have a great sense of humour and sexy things happen around them all the time by virtue of what they do, but it is also a representation of post-WW2 Japan where pornography of any kind was actually illegal, so it transpires that everything in the novel is happening in some kind of underworld that even though it is definitely not sinister, it is still really a dump as far as the mainstream, which is where the consumers in the plot come from, is concerned. Much stock is also laid on what has happened with the idea of masculinity, especially after such a war and such a defeat, a topic the novel handles very subtly —an impressive feat when you consider it is a novel that has the word "pornographers" in the title... It is an excellent novel and I don't think I've done it justice in this review because I haven't addressed, for example, the ways in which it is also painful to read at times (in the good way), and sometimes you realise you've been cringing for several pages (again: you've been cringing in the good way)...

[Sebastián · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun (sometimes hilarious) and disturbing (but always thoughtful) rub together to make for a strong satire with plenty of deeper ideas about humanity going on under the covers. I discovered this book when researching Imamura's amazing film, and was delighted to find that the original text delves into many of the same themes (artificiality and modernity, sexual vitality as a counterpoint to official culture, etc.). Unlike the film, the focus is more on the pornographers themselves rather than the quasi-incestuous family unit, and it was great to learn more about characters like the endearing social misfit Kanpo and the idealistic artist Banteki – in fact, stronger characterisation would have made this a much better book, in my opinion. The book's main draw is the way that personal philosophies and ways of being are all developed through the men's relationships with pornography, making for pleasantly absurdist reading. The abusive and commodified way that women are treated may be disturbing for some, but such moments serve to pull the reader away from the idealised visions of pornography that Subuyan argues for. I was reminded of Lolita, and the pull and push between the joy of Humbert's seductive language and the repulsion towards his unwittingly abusive behaviour. That novel executes its vision far more skilfully, but The Pornographers still has much to offer, and definitely deserves a fresher translation by now.

[Iztok · Rating 4 out of 5]

A tragicomic parody of a pornographer who is trying to make a living from all sorts of sleazy business. The main character Subuyan is meandering between the needs of the market and the police, as this business is still illegal. The novel is not at all obscene, but full of bitter humour and irony about human life.

[Vincent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ayant lu le « Tombeau des lucioles » et « Algues d'Amérique », je savais approximativement quel était l'univers littéraire d'Akiyuki Nosaka. Pauvreté, Japon « des cendres », économie de la débrouille, bref une misère matérielle constante.

Or, ce livre est sur un tout autre niveau.

Pour Nosaka, ses personnages sont embourbés dans une recherche constante de moralité, coupables d'une part d'exercer une profession vue comme indécente, voire inacceptable, ceux-ci en sont réduits à se cacher tant aux autres qu'à eux-mêmes. Pour Subuyan, alors que la lubricité de ses clients demeure sa principale source de profit, son manque de moralité le ramène à sa propre condition d'existence malhonnête, à partir de laquelle il va s'effondrer.

De nombreux thèmes sont aussi explorés : les familles dysfonctionnelles, le rapport à la mère, le capitalisme, la distinction entre fantasme et passage à l'acte... tous seront des angles sous lesquels les personnages de l'histoire tenteront de se positionner et de se justifier.

Pour ce qui est du ton et de la structure, ce roman est double. Si d'entrée de jeu, l'on adopte une lecture symbolique de l'oeuvre, on peut facilement percevoir les traits d'ironie qui se cachent derrière cette satire sociale. Cependant, les relations d'exploitation violentes et de sentiment d'impuissance généralisée viennent teinter la lecture plus « littérale » de l'oeuvre, un roman où un loup est un loup pour l'homme.

Personnellement, bien que j'ai adoré ce livre (impossible de s'emmerder), j'y retire une étoile. En effet, la vision masculiniste rend l'écriture des personnages féminins très unidimensionnelle, quelque chose qui m'a particulièrement déçu. Autres temps, autres moeurs, j'imagine.

[David Partikian · Rating 2 out of 5]

By the conclusion of the first two chapters, Akiyuki Nozaka’s The Pornographers reminded me of Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls. Instead of a middling, middle-aged, non-entity, Chichikov, who has given himself the absurd task of buying dead souls for a tax write-off, Nozaka presents us with two middling middle-aged pornographers, Subuyan and Banteki, who struggle to keep up with the whims of their clients all while finding locales to shoot and new “actors” and “actresses” to perform. Both Gogol and Nozaka revel in the humor of the absurd and the humdrum minutia in reaching their goals. Chichikov must haggle with suspicious landed gentry. Subuyan pitches hopeful and desperate ladies while Banteki frets over the light and sound, trying to make art out of copulation. Subuyan and Banteki are tasked with always trying to find a new angle or gimmick to make their blue films seem more realistic and, hence, more lucrative.

The Pornographers seems a bit dated and even innocent compared two much of more modern literature which also chronicles the niggling concerns and dialogue of shady and desperate characters in absurd situations. Nothing is more absurd than the economics of men watching a penis go in and out of a vagina, or the sounds that accompany this action.

The Pornographers may be an accurate depiction of the porn industry in Japan during the 1960’s. It is—however—soporific, and the humor was not enough to compel me to finish a book that kept reminding me of another work. A rare Did Not Finish with the added urge to reread Dead Souls.

[Eric Hinkle · Rating 3 out of 5]

From the author of Grave of the Fireflies and The Whale Who Fell in Love With a Submarine comes this, a comedy about lecherous pornographers in 1960s Osaka.

It's second-rate literature, but entertaining enough. The main benefits are a somewhat deeper understanding of what exactly goes through these perverts' heads, and the lesson learned that one should always second-guess who you're talking to, as they're possibly a pervert. Or probably, if this book is any indication.

As a point of interest, tonight I watched the film version of it, made just a couple years later and directed by the legendary Shohei Imamura and reissued by the wonderful Criterion Collection. It's quite astounding how much was changed for the film, roughly 70% of the book, I'd say. The main character, Sobu, is much more snivelling, lecherous, and spineless, although he's hilarious at the end. Overall, the direction and cinematography of the film are much more artful than the writing of this novel, though both have their strong points.

[Geraud · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grande fresque historique sur la misère sexuelle au Japon au début des années soixante, traitée avec gouaille et humour mais qui laisse un arrière gout certain de pathétique. En effet, même excentriques et drôles, les personnages principaux, les pornographes, ressemblent, plus le livre avance, à des clowns tristes. Nos amies féministes trouveront sûrement ce roman révoltant, mais on dira pour les consoler que le genre masculin n'en sort pas vraiment grandi.

J'hésite entre trois et quatre étoiles, arf ! je la lui en laisse quatre parce que je suis dans un bon jour.

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

In preparation for a trip to Japan (first time) am reading Japanese fiction that we have at home, a very small number but including this book. Takes place shortly after WW II, a group of men trying to make a living off of pornography. The book is both funny/humorous, touching and troubling. Nothing is told from the point of view of the women who are being trafficked, tricked and sometimes abused. But then they are mostly portrayed as willing participants in prostitution rings and orgies. So all the humor is at the expense of these women.

[yengyeng · Rating 3 out of 5]

Madcap romp through the budding porno flick industry in the mid-20th century. This book is dated but fun to read. The humanist pornographer got hit by a bus and the artistic pornographer got beat up by yakuza. Lots of action, orgies and a deathbed erection. Interesting to note that this is the same author that wrote the award-winning short story Grave of the Fireflies. Vastly different stories but both are about survival.

[Drine Psylook · Rating 3 out of 5]

C’est une lecture en dents de scie. Certains passages m’ont plu, notamment ceux un peu sombre et glauque à souhait, mais d’autres m’ont ennuyée, principalement les discussions des pornographes.
Bref, au final c’était assez moyen et ça m’a paru long.

[NATHANIEL · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous just fabulous.

Wish there was was more novels like this.

[Brandon Qi · Rating 4 out of 5]

What in giant orgies

[Fernando · Rating 5 out of 5]

When some real sexy woman dies -say, like Marilyn Monroe, somebody who all the men in the world go for -when a woman like this dies, how about a masturbation wake?

[Laurel · Rating 4 out of 5]

An hilarious, perverse, and cynical commentary on the challenges in not only surviving but thriving in the post-war years and the social changes that ensued.

[nanner · Rating 2 out of 5]

richtig absurd das war wie battersea parker so ich fand es gar nicht lustig oder sonst irgendwas :-/

[Gertrude & Victoria · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Pornographers by Nosaka Akiyuki is a droll tragicomic snapshot into the shady underworld of pornographers and their trade. The main character and businessman-cum-producer, Subuyan, takes a carefree - but not careless - attitude towards life, business and family, which delivers him safely through all kinds of predicaments. His main business associates, however, see things differently.

Banteki the director of these erotic (mis)adventures considers only artistic merit to be of any relevant importance, not caring much for financial matters. In addition, a full cast of nitwits and oddballs compliments these two in their goals to turn out first rate pink flicks, make mountains of cash and perhaps above all, help cure mankind of its affliction: chronic loneliness.

The tone is always inviting and humorous, even when disaster strikes there is no lingering sense of gloom. Subuyan, despite all his worries, troubles and bad luck: sour deals, incompetent actors, a death, a runaway stepdaughter, time in the slammer, conniving subordinates, a fall-out among the group, another death, a bungled orgy, an embarrassing bout of impotency and all sorts of other calamities, manages to remain in cheerful spirits all along and to his very end. In a most fitting post-climax he gloriously rises to the occasion in his customary nonchalant way.

[Vincent Powell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't sure if the translation I had of this novel was shitty or if the book was intended to be written in a stilted, chunky tone, but either way I feel like this is a novel that excels more in ideas than execution. This is not to say that it is a bad book, or even a mediocre one, in fact I have a hard time finding anything quite like it in terms of its lechery and licentiousness intertwined with sudden exposures of humanity, for all the shit and filth that humanity entails. It is a marvelously funny book, I can't remember the last time I chuckled aloud while reading this much, but despite the humor and the bawdy content the focus of the book remains above pulp entertainment, even while it trades in it. It offers a picture of humanity that is stripped bare of pretense by sex and war, our true selves emerging without ideology as we need to either survive or fuck or both. This being said, my praise is balanced with faulty mechanics, off-putting rhythm, and a general lack of nuance that prevents me from appreciating the book for more than its content. All in all, a fun and quick read.

[Diane O'flynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read it in a sense -- borrowing San Francisco Library's only copy (which disappeared after the 1989 earthquake from its shelves though it still appeared in its card catalogue as being available and on the shelves--but the book never could be found) -- the pages which were about the (amateur, I believe) filming--hence the title, had all been torn out. I liked the book, nevertheless, and found the story moving--as I recall--the characters included, the boyfriend (and pornographer) of a woman with a teenage girl--was realistic and well-written and evoked a realistic depiction of life in Osaka during the time it was set in (post-war Japan). A very modernistic novel (I think that's the right term). However, I would like to own my own unexpurgated copy (by other library-goers one day--probably quite soon! I like Japanese fiction and this is still one of my favorites of that genre.

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was reading this on the train, and a suit was standing behind me reading over my shoulder (it was the scene where the businessman puts the school girl's panties over his head and inhales deeply) and I wanted to turn around and say "it's about the war, I swear. The impotent pornographers pursuit of ever more perversely carnal scenarios for his clients are a way for Akiyuki to revisit the visceral death he was never allowed to experience; just as Mishima revisits the war to endlessly reenact the heroic, angelic death he was never allowed, Akiyuki seeks to reenact the crass, visceral death he was never allowed."

But I just closed the book and waited until Spencer St.

[Natasha Singh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Objectively speaking, this book is funny, doesn’t take itself too seriously, is equal parts drama and tragicomedy, executed very well, and so on and so forth. But obviously, the subject matter makes it fairly graphic, and the irreverence makes it difficult to read about things like rape and incest without feeling a little queasy. Don't get me wrong - Akiyuki Nosaka is incredibly talented - I think I just need to try a different book by him.

[Nicholaus Patnaude · Rating 5 out of 5]

A soulful, humorous work that doesn't hide any warts under cellophane.

[John Pecorelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

disturbed

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

A classic. Am going to bother to read this in Japanese.