田舎教師

by Katai Tayama

Tayama Katai’s novel Country Teacher, based on the diary of Kobayashi Shūzō, achieved popularity for its realistic descriptions of the lives rural commoners at the beginning of the 1900s. Seizō, the teacher, lived in his hometown of Gyōda, which was dominated by the ruins of the medieval Oishi Castle some 45 miles north of Tokyo. In his early months of teaching, he lived at home, walking to and from the school in Miroku village nearly 10 miles away. As his experience illustrates, the rapid expansion of Japan’s education system left teacher candidates in short supply in rural areas, meaning that teachers often had only a bit more education than their oldest students. At home in Gyōda on weekends, Seizō spent his free hours with male friends such as Ikuji and Ishikawa, mentioned here, talking about his dream of studying in Tokyo—a dream blocked by poverty. Like the diarist on whose life this work was based, Seizō would die of tuberculosis in 1904 just as he was beginning to think brighter prospects lay ahead—and as Japan was rejoicing over victory in one of its early battles in the Russo-Japanese War.

Genres: Japanese Literature, Fiction

Paperback Bunko

First published January 1, 1909

About the author

Tayama Katai was a Japanese author. His most famous works include Rural Teacher (田舎教師) and Futon (蒲団). He is noted for writing naturalistic I novels which revolve around the author. His writings are considered pseudo-autobiographical. He wrote about his experiences in the Russo-Japanese war.

Reviews

[Meltem Sağlam · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yazarı ilk kez Döşek başlıklı kitabı ile tanımıştım. Bu romanı, genç yaşta kaybettiği arkadaşı Shuzo Kobayashi’nin günlüğünü esas alarak, anısını yaşatmak için kaleme almış.

Romanda; Meici restorasyonu sonrası, savaş ortamında, ülkenin yaşadığı sosyal ve kültürel değişim ve dönüşüm hareketliliği, yoksulluk ve sefalet içinde dahi insanlardaki umut çok güzel anlatılmış.

Bir ‘günlük’ten dönüştürülmüş olmasının etkisiyle, coğrafi tanımlamalar, tabiat betimlemeleri ve etnoğrafik betimlemeler oldukça detaylı ve etkileyici. Ancak bu bölümler, kültüre yabancı olan, çeviri okuyan okurlar için anlaması ve anlamlandırması, takip edilmesi gerçekten zor…

Köy öğretmeni olan kahramanın hayat öyküsü de çok hüzünlü. İnsanın duygusal değişimleri ve kırılmalarını anlatan bölümler çok derin.

Diğer taraftan, baskıda mı, çeviride mi olduğu anlaşılmayan Türkçe hataları var. Zaman zaman eski Türkçe kullanılmış. Metin bazı bölümlerde akmıyor. Çeviriden kaynaklanabileceğini düşünüyorum.

Bir de, kitabın ilk sayfasında çeviren notu olarak; “okuma kolaylığı sağlamak adına eserde geçen japonca Referanslar; giyim kişiler edebiyat ve şarkı, yiyecek ve içecek, bitki, tarih, inanç ve diğer başlıklarıyla kategorize edilerek kitabın sonunda yer alan Öztürkçede değerlenmiştir.“ ifadesi yer alıyor. Bence, bu sistem, okuma kolaylığı yaratmak yerine aksine ilave bir zorluk yaratmakta. Üstelik bu referanslar, hepsi birbirini takip eden, alfabetik sıralama ile değil, bölümlere ayrılmış alfabetik sıralama ile verilmiş. Naçizane önerim; her sayfanın altında verilmesi.

[İpek Dadakçı · Rating 3 out of 5]

Köy Öğretmeni, yirminci yüzyılın ilk yıllarında, Japonya’nın küçük bir şehrinde, liseyi bitirdikten sonra ailesinin maddi imkanları elvermediği için büyük bir şehre üniversite okumaya gidemeyip, bir köy okuluna öğretmen olarak atanmak zorunda kalan bir genci konu alıyor. Edebiyata da ilgisi olan karakterimiz, bir yandan ideallerinin peşinden gitmek istiyor; ancak öte yandan da ailesine, özellikle de annesine bakmakla kendini yükümlü hissediyor. Zaman içinde para biriktirerek ya da burs alarak eğitimine devam edebilmeyi umsa da, günler geçtikçe bunun mümkün olmayacağını fark etmeye başlıyor. Kimi zaman taşrada körelme korkusu sarıyor içini, kimi zamansa daha ‘küçük’ dünyaların gamsızlığına kendini bırakıverme isteği doğuyor içinde.

Göründüğü üzere, aslında son derece güzel bir konusu var kitabın. Yirminci yüzyıl başlarında Japonya’yı, taşra ve kent hayatı kıyaslamalarıyla okumak, arka planda Rus-Japon Savaşı gibi tarihi olayların toplumdaki yansımalarını görmek de hayli cezbedici. Ancak ne yazık ki kitabın kurgulaştırılmasında aksaklıklar var. Yazar Katai Tayama, yakın bir dostunun günlüğünden esinlenerek kaleme almış eseri ve okurken sanki elindeki bir sürü veriyi nerede, nasıl en iyi şekilde paylaşabilir kaygısı güden ve ne yapacağını bilemeyen bir haldeymiş hissi veriyor. Kimi yerler fazla uzamış, kimi yerler hızlıca geçiştirilmiş. Belki dostunun günlüğüne tamamen sadık kalmak istemiştir, hayal gücünün gerçekliğin önüne geçmesine izin vermek istememiştir, diye de düşündüm. Ancak maalesef yine de akıcılıkta sıkıntıları var kurgunun. Okunmayacak ya da kötü bir kitap asla değil ama çok güzel bir konuya yazık eden bir kurgu söz konusu ne yazık ki. Bu nedenle, Uzak Doğu ilgimi çekiyor, kurgudan beklentimi yüksek tutmam diyenlere öneririm.

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is great. It's Natsume Soseki's "Botchan" mixed with the sad bits of the film "It's a Wonderful Life". There's no happy ending.

Natsume wrote around his own experiences, Tayama was an acquaintance of Kobayashi Shuzo (Hayashi Seizo in the novel) and was passed this young man's diaries after his death. He then used them to write "Country Teacher".

From the introduction:
"Unfortunately the diaries themselves appear to be no longer extant, having been used to repair sliding doors during the Second World War."

"Like a lot of young men in the countryside he was extremely fond of literature, and subscribed to just about every magazine worthy of the name."

"'You know, it's not necessarily a good thing for a young man just to shut himself away reading. Isn't it a fact that this is what leads to nervous debility, and to suicide like the recent one at Kegon Falls?'"

"In the countryside, where money was precious, more than anything else it was these debts that destroyed people's trust in him."

"'Yes, I had a picture postcard from him recently, from Chinchou.'
The priest took from his desk a postcard with Military Mail stamped on it in red, and showed it to Seizo. The picture was by a well-known artist who had similarly gone to war, and it showed purple irises blooming next to a corpse."

[Hartley · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Just as they had that spring, the two friends walked back along the road home in silence. They both had many things they wanted to say, but they avoided saying them. The red evening sun shone on the old marsh by the castle ruins, and some dragonflies were settled on top of the reeds. A young boy waded through the paddy fields carrying a long limed stick in an attempt to catch them.

Touching and beautifully vivid, Tayama's Country Teacher touched a real chord with me. Rarely have I so directly empathized with a protagonist as I did with the luckless Seizo. Beautifully meditative, with wonderfully constructed scenes of pastoral life at the end of Japan's Meiji period, I recommend this book highly to both those interested in Japan but also those who are interested in the story of ideals tempered by fate.

[Spike Gomes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tayama Katai is one of the lesser known authors of the Meiji Era. Like most of the writers in his highly autobiographical Naturalistic school he peaked fairly early in his career, after all, as one critic noted, eventually you run out of interesting things to say about yourself. Oddly enough, “Country Teacher” is not “autobiographical”; it's based off the journals left by an acquaintance of his that shared his interest in literature. The acquaintance died young of tuberculosis, never having left his country origins or gained a higher education. The names are changed and parts of the novel are completely fictional conjecture, but in the end the reader is left with a compelling portrait of a young man who drew short straws most of his life and would almost certainly have been forgotten by all, save but for his journals being left to Katai.

As with most lives, there's not much plot or message to this short novel. It's a series of slices of life over the period of about three to four years. Some chapters are only half a page long and convey just a brief scene or sensation. Seizo Hayashi is a young man from a poor debt-laden country family. His father is an inept wastrel, and so directly after finishing school, he must find a job to support his mother and father instead of going to the city to pursue the literary life and get a higher degree. His friend gets him a job as a school teacher of 11-12 year olds, and so off he goes to find his way through life.

He attempts to stay in contact with his literary friends but there's just too much of a gap between his life and theirs and they grow apart. Moreover he realizes that even if he did move to the city, he's not that great or motivated as a writer. He then attempts to take up painting and then music as possible ways to escape his current life and move to the city. These ultimately fail and he stops writing in his journal and begins living a dissipated life, borrowing money to drink and patronize a whore.

Despite the fact the Seizo has no desire to be a teacher, he's well-liked by both his coworkers and his students, and even at his lowest, when he's in hock to everyone and disappearing over the weekend to piss away money in the nearest town, he never lets his job duties down. After a year of a drunken depressed haze, he snaps out of it and decides that he's been letting too many people down, starting with himself. He begins his journal anew, starts paying off his debts and vows that if he is to be a teacher, then he might as well go all in on it, and he begins a course of study to qualify himself as a science teacher of older students.

Unfortunately life seems to have other plans for him. It's clear he's ill with something and over time tuberculosis takes its toll. He returns to live with his parents and eventually ceases to work. If he knew he was dying, it seems he could never admit it to himself in written words directly. When he dies, he is mourned by those who knew him, but he leaves no lasting trace of his existence except for a grave that is no longer tended.

Oh, and a journal.

The world is filled with Seizo Hayashis of a sort. Those with grand aspirations that fall short in every way, leaving them to make peace with what they have. Interestingly, it almost seems that Seizo was destined to become a science teacher before he even knew it. His writing and art were filled with detailed botanical description. That he died wasn't some sort of authorial ironic comment. It's just that the guy writing the journals got sick and died. Had he not, it's likely he would have gone on with the life of a country teacher, marrying some former student and starting a family. Would he have a kept a journal over the years? Who knows? Likely had he lived a life full of years and satisfaction we'd have not heard of him at all.

I enjoyed the book quite a bit, likely because I can identify with Seizo a great deal. It's not a happy read, but it's not really depressing either. It's just life, you know?

The translator of this novel seems to have made Katai his life's work, in the emitable style of academics finding someone somewhat obscure to mine for content after all the major writers have been taken. The translation is probably the one weak point here. Henshall isn't a great prose stylist. You can tell what he's trying to go for here, but for some reason his word choice and phrasing seemed flat and clunky. Too many adverbs, way too much passive voice (yes, I know that was likely how it was in the original Japanese, but how and what passive voice conveys is very different in English than in Japanese). It takes a deft hand to figure out how to get that balance right. The translation doesn't ruin the book, it just gets in the way of it.

So I give this a rating of four out of five stars

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I largely concur with the what translator Henshall noted in his preface to Country Teacher: it has been ‘praised for its pathos and for the poignant universality of its theme, as well as for its lyric evocation of a rural atmosphere’ (circa early 20th century Japan).

In his memoirs part of which is included in this edition Katai disclosed that he wrote this novel based upon some solid research. He had met the protagonist Seizo a few times, had access to his diaries, interviewed Seizo's parents and a number of his friends, and spent a lot of time in the towns and countryside where the story takes place. The challenges Seizo faced in coping with his frustrations and disappointments over ‘getting swallowed up by the countryside’ were depicted with great insight and empathy.

Those readers unfamiliar with early 20th century Japanese social mores and the typical dynamics of familial, peer, and teacher student relationships will find these aspects of the novel quite informative. Likewise for the impact which the Russo Japanese War of 1904-05 had on the populace.

As is often found in early 20th century Japanese fiction the countryside and the weather are thoroughly, if not at times a bit laboriously, described. Seizo became interested in botany over the course of the book. Thus, in the last one third of the novel the reader will get an in-depth depiction (maybe too much?) of the flora and fauna of that part of Japan.

Two things enhanced the readability of Country Teacher. First, Katai provided a map of the area of rural Japan maybe 50 miles from Tokyo in which the story took place. Second, Henshall included a brief glossary of many of the Japanese terms which he did not translate into English at the end of the book.

Not being familiar with poets, novelists, and literary magazines of that era I found the references to those to be mildly distracting. But it is not essential for one to know these things to follow the essence of the story about Seizo. Overall, however, I liked this book well enough that I will look to read more of Katai’s work in the coming weeks.

Natsume Soseki’s Botchan is a more tongue in cheek portrayal of a young man from the big city going to teach in a countryside school around the same time as is portrayed in Country Teacher. It would be a good companion piece for readers wanting to learn more about that era in Japan.