Wednesday evening, January 30, I attended a presentation at the Japan
Society in New York City, given by Donald Keene, University Professor
Emeritus and Shincho Professor Emeritus at Columbia University.

Among his accomplishments are the publishing of approximately 25
books in English, including a four-volume history of Japanese
literature; and approximately 30 books in Japanese, some original and
some translated from English. "Professor Keene's 'Meiji Tenno'
(Shinchosha, 2001; translated by Yukio Kakuchi) a biography of the
Meiji Emperor, recently won the 56th Mainichi Shuppan Culture Prize."

"In the autumn of 2002, Professor Keene was awarded one of Japan's
highest honors, the title 'Person of Cultural Merit' (Bunka Koro-
sha), for his distinguished service in the promotion of Japanese
literature and culture. Keene is only the third non-Japanese to be
designated this honor. He is also the recipient of the Kikuchi Kan
Prize of the Soceity for the Advancement of Japanese Culture (1962);
the Order of the Rising Sun, Second Class (1993) and Third Class
(1975); the Japan Foundation Prize (1983); the Yomiuri Shimbun Prize
(1985); the Shincho Grand Literary Prize (1985); the Tokyo
Metropolitan Prize (1998); the Radio and Television Culture Prize
(1993); and the Asahi Prize (1998)."

Professor Keene began his talk by stating that he is 85 years old.
[He maintains a head of dark, thinning hair with gray around the
edges.] He related several anecdotes from his life to illustrate his
contention that the path his life has taken has been more of an
accident, at least near the beginning, than a purposeful plan.

In 1939, as a freshman at Columbia University, he sat next to a
fellow student who was Chinese in a class taught by Mark Van Doren
[Pulitzer Prize-winning poet and critic]. After a while of sitting
next to each other four days a week, they became friends. Eventually
Professor Keened asked his friend if the friend would teach him
Chinese. So they ate a $0.25 lunch every day at an Asian restaurant
on Broadway near the university; a restuarant that finally closed
only about ten years ago. The Chinese friend began teaching him
Chinese characters out of a contemporary Chinese novel, which Prof.
Keene said later gave him a headstart in learning Japanese. However,
the friend didn't teach him Chinese pronunciation. Prof. Keene said
this was because his friend didn't speak Mandarin, but rather
Cantonese, and was embarrassed about that.

Prof. Keene said that 1940, his sophomore year, was the worst year of
his life, mostly because of the war news from Europe. But it also was
the year that began to shape his interest in Japan. He found, in a
bookstore in the Astor Hotel in Times Square, the remaindered two-
volume Tale of Genji translated by Arthur Waley, and bought it for
$0.49.

In 1941 he took a class called "Readings in Japanese Thought," taught
by Professor Tsunota Yusaku (sp?). Prof. Keene was the only student
in the class. He asked Prof. Tsunota if he was going to cancel the
class, but Prof. Tsunota said, "One is enough." But the class
abruptly ended shortly after December 7 of that year. Professor
Tsunota was accused of being a spy because, according to Prof. Keene,
he was known to take long walks without a dog. Therefore he was
thought to be a spy. He was interred in an internment camp for the
duration of the war.

Prof. Keene then volunteered for the Navy Japanese language school,
and after 11 months of immersion in the Japanese language, he was
stationed in Hawaii, where he translated documents and served as a
translator in the interrogation of Japanese prisoners, among other
things.

Following the war, Prof. Keene returned to Columbia University and
completed his undergraduate degree. He then got a fellowship to
Cambridge University in England. The only way he could get it was by
saying he wanted to round out his Asian studies by learning Arabic
and Persian. When he got there, the teachers of Arabic and Persian
asked him how long he was planning on staying. When he said a year,
they said, goodbye. He ended up staying for five years anyway,
teaching Japanese. The text that was being used to teach beginning
Japanese at that time was the preface to the Kokinshu, because it was
written in mostly simple characters and had easy grammar.

Prof. Keene then went on to discuss his lifelong interest in Japanese
literature and culture. He said that as a scholar, he doesn't "plunge
deeply" into one particular area, but "goes from flower to flower."
He feels that this character trait of his has served him well,
although he acknowledges it does open him to the charge of being
superficial.

Prof. Keene said that one change from his first visit to Japan in the
late 1950s to now, is that there seems to be a break with tradition
among the young Japanese people. On his first visit, he said that
Japanese literature was being extensively taught at the university
level; today, there is hardly any teaching of it. He said that
Japanese young people today have more in common with young people
around the world than with their own cultural heritage.

Among other points he made:

In order to feel an active part of Japanese culture, he first thought
to study a Japanese musical instrument, but his lack of musical
aptitude quickly dissuaded him from doing that. So on what sounds
like a whim, he studied Kyoogen acting, which is farcical in nature.
It tried his patience, since his teacher would make him repeat a
single phrase over and over until the teacher was satisfied with how
he said it, and the teacher would tell him, when he was supposed to
pick something up, he was only to use TWO fingers, etc. But Prof.
Keene said he enjoyed the experience.

In answer to a question, Prof. Keene said that the translation of his
that he is most satisfied with is his translation of Kenko's Essays
in Idleness. Unlike other translations, where he feels that he could
have made improvments, he feels he achieved "the right voice" with
Essays in Idleness. He translated it while living in Japan during the
rainy season, and he said that as a result, there wasn't much else to
do.

In answer to another question, he said he feels that literal
translations, have, on the whole, failed. He says that he most enjoys
reading translations in English that sound beautiful in English, and
stand as independent works in English. He went on to say that even
though Arthur Waley, in his translation of The Tale of Genji, left
things out and even added things in that aren't in the original, he
finds it to be a beautifully written work in English, and hopes it
doesn't disappear as a work of English literature.

One questioner who is Japanese (speaking English with an accent) said
that she is disturbed by how poorly students in Japan speak and write
Japanese these days. She mentioned she was involved in translating
tanka and haiku written by Japanese prisoners of war during WWII, and
although many of them were common foot soldiers, with farming
backgrounds, etc., and often had no more than a fourth or sixth grade
education, they nevertheless wrote beautiful tanka and haiku. She
said the Japanese they wrote back then, with limited education, was
better than many, more educated, students write today.

Prof. Keene replied that he understood her point, but he said you
can't stop a language from changing, and that there will probably
end up being a compromise between traditional Japanese language and
the Japanese currently being used by young Japanese people, resulting
in a new version of Japanese. He implied this prospect didn't
trouble him.

At one point, in answering a question about the Japanese author Kobo
Abe, Prof. Keene said that although Abe's reputation is in decline at
the moment, he expects that it will rise again. Prof. Keene said he
developed a genuine friendship with Kobo Abe, and he thinks Abe was
an extraordinary human being.

Prof. Keene's current project is a book about the changes in Japanese
society that took place during WWII and afterward. He is consulting
diaries, some written by people he met and knew after the war.

Thus ended an enjoyable talk.

At the reception afterward, there was a table set up with a couple of
not-yet-proofed copies of a book by Prof. Keene, soon to be
published: Chronicles of My Life: An American in the Heart of Japan;
to be published by Columbia University Press. The flyer announcing
the publication, and containing an order form, includes the following
quote from Prof. Keene:

"I sometimes think that if, as the result of an accident, I were to
lose my knowledge of Japanese, there would not be much left for me.
Japanese, which at first had no connection with my ancestors, my
literary tastes, or my awareness of myself as a person, has become
the central element of my life."


Larry