The Key - The Japanese novel in Sinhala

Reviewed by Kalakeerthi Edwin Ariyadasa

The heart of mine is only one.
It cannot be known by anybody else but myself.
1963 poem by Junichiro Tanizaki (1886-1965)

Gentle journalist and bi-lingual author, R.S. Karunaratne, has addressed an excruciatingly troubling creative challenge. Armed with a full, responsible and realistic awareness of the formidable of the task undertaken, he has rendered into Sinhala, the Japanese novel Kagi (Key) by Junichiro Tanizaki.

From the time this globally-renowned, prolific Japanese man-of-letters, Junichiro Tanizaki presented it to the public domain, for the first time in 1956, this novel Key, has always been at the centre of eddying and swirling controversies.

Critical accord

By popular acclaim and critical record, Junichiro Tanizaki, is undoubtedly among the greatest writers in the long annals of Japanese literary tradition.

The origins of the Japanese novel, extend to the distant past. The saga Genji Monogatari (the tale of Genji) is credited as the world's earliest novel. Written by court Lady Murasaki Shikibu, (978-1031) this novel of epic proportions, is an intimate narration of life at court. This historically significant novel was completed around 1011. From then on, down to our own day, the Japanese novel, has commanded world attention.

Yukio Mishima, real name Hiranka Kimitake (1925-1970) was nominated for the Nobel Prize for Literature on three occasions. Yasunari Kawabata (1899-1972), won the Nobel Prize for literature, in 1968. While awarding the prize, the Nobel committee cited three of his novels - Snow Country, Thousand Cranes and The Old Capital.

Prestigious tradition

Junichiro Tanizaki, whose work Kagi (Key) is converted into Sinhala by R.S.K., is vehemently a product of this sustained and prestigious tradition of novel writing in Japan.

Tanizaki, was recognised widely outside Japan by the translation of his work Sasameyuki (Light snowfall-1948) into English, under the title Makioka Sisters. I still recall this witty social satire, with a titillating memory.

Translator R.S. Karunaratne, has opted to turn into Sinhala, probably the most controversial work of Junichiro Tanizaki.

Some critics tend to consider this work to be a sadomasochistic literary cruise. In essence, this work, explores the dark, unlit mazes of the underworld of the human psyche. The style of narration that the author settles for, befits this uncanny, perverse probing to the hilt.

This strange human chronicle is recorded in the form of diary entries.

Co-protagonists

The work is structured with two equally weighted co-protagonists a man and a woman. They are an ageing married couple. Each partner keeps a diary. By definition, a personal diary is a repository of intimate secrets. The assumption is that what is set down in such a diary is strictly and exclusively for private use.

Junichiro Tanizaki

But, in this instance, there is a bewildering tacit understanding between the two that the entries are for mutual consumption. The man is 55 and is learned an affluent. The woman is 44, beautiful and seductive.

The man suffers inner pangs, with the unsettling awareness of the inklings of his failing sexual potency. He assumes that, the diary entries of his sexual whimsicalities, will erotically arouse his spouse, transforming her into an ecstatic bed-partner.

The lurid extents to which he takes his fetishistic frenzy are detailed out in his entry for January 29 (pages 21-25 in the translation)

The diary entries form the medium of erotic communication between the two protagonists. A reader may occasionally suspect, that the clandestine records may harmfully stimulate an untoward erotic fervour.

But, to my mind, to a reader who gets engrossed in this seemingly lascivious carnal charade may teeter precariously on the verge of the erotic and the pornographic. But, the author's clinical and dispassionate approach prevents such an awkward emotional deterioration.

Through all these intriguing entries, the author deliberately leads the characters towards a shocking finale. The three characters Ikuko, the wife, Toshiko the daughter and Kimura the lover are all caught up inescapably, in an intricate web.

Only the disturbing denouement will fully reveal the puppeteer who manipulated the strings.

Generalisation

The novelist Junichiro Tanizaki tends to make a generalisation. The average man may be attracted by the idea of concentrating on various parts of the woman's body. The novelist makes the point that an emotional transformation to enable holistic love could avert perverse manifestations.

The work Kagi (Key) is an important document to highlight oblique ways of human behaviour.

As for the translation by writer R.S. Karunaratne, I have discovered in it a highly practical use of Sinhala idiom.

In terms of the prefatory note, this is his debut in Sinhala writing, at book-length. The first effort is quite effective since its style can ensure reader absorption and reader-appeal.

Female figure

The cover art may even please Janichiro Tanizaki, because the female figure may be an approach towards the lady wooed by the writer of entries.

I really admire the translator's level of word-use, because, intimate, private and erotically moving situations are communicated with exemplary restraint in this verson of Kagi.

The tradition of Japanese fiction, especially in its classical manifestations can be wholesomely instructive to Sri Lankan writers, when they make an effort to produce novels with a deep human impact.

Writer-translator R.S. Karunaratne could now perhaps turn to Junichiro Tanizaki's Makioka Sisters, which will prove to be of greater relevance to the indigenous way of life.

Translators enrich literature. R.S. Karunaratne's Key (Yatura) will perform that service, quite effectively.