Reading post: Classics Challenge wrap-up

I've finished all 12 of my chosen books for the 2022 Back to the Classics Challenge, so this is my wrap-up post with links to my reviews. Although I read these books in mostly chronological order, I list them here in category order, to make things easier for the person who runs the challenge. I don't think I should win, having won last year!

My theme this year was Japanese and Japanese-American fiction. One of the categories this year was "classic that's been on your TBR list the longest" and that happened to be a work of Japanese literature, The Makioka Sisters by Tanizaki Junichiro. So the theme was handed to me, and eventually I came to appreciate it, though at first I wasn't pleased. 

I spent a week in Japan about, oh, 35 years ago? 36? almost 37? A long time ago. Around that time (before and after the trip) I read several books by Japanese authors, but I hadn't read anything in a long time. I'd sort of forgotten about Japan.

Of the books I read this year, my favorite work of Japanese literature was in fact The Makioka Sisters, which surprised me by being excellent, and my favorite work of Japanese-American literature was No-No Boy by John Okada, which is also excellent. It was good to spend the first part of this year becoming better acquainted with classic Japanese literature, and then the last few months learning about the Japanese-American experience through literature.

 

Here are the books I read, in the official category order.

1. A 19th century classic. Child's Play by Higuchi Ichiyo, 1895. (Also translated as Growing Up and Comparing Heights.)

2. A 20th century classic. No-No Boy by John Okada, 1957.

3. A classic by a woman author. Journey to Topaz by Yoshiko Uchida, 1971.

4. A classic in translation. The Tale of the Heike, author unknown, prior to 1330.

5. A classic by a BIPOC author. Citizen 13660 by Mine Okubo, 1946. 

6. Mystery/detective/crime classic. The Honjin Murders by Seishi Yokomizo, 1946.

7. A classic short-story collection. Yokohama, California by Toshio Mori, 1942-49.

8. A pre-1800 classic. The Tale of Genji by Murasaki Shikibu, 11th century.

9. A nonfiction classic. Nisei Daughter by Monica Sone, 1953.

10. Classic that's been on your TBR list the longest. The Makioka Sisters by Tanizaki Junichiro, 1948.

11. Classic set in a place you'd like to visit. The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Basho, 1702.

12. Wild card classic. I am a Cat by Natsume Soseki, 1906. 

When I started this project, I was curious about whether the works of Japanese literature and the works of Japanese American literature would have anything to say to each other. I expected that there would be some connection, but in the end I didn't really see one. This might be because almost all early Japanese American literature began in response to the internment camps. 

The story of the internment camps is the story of how a group of people, many of them American citizens, were punished by the American government, which is supposed to be above such things, for their origins, even their parents' or grandparents' origins. Although two of my authors (Monica Sone and Yoshiko Uchida) included characters who knew Japanese literature and wrote poetry in traditional Japanese forms, those characters had to get rid of all their Japanese books and writing before they went into the camps. They were forced to get rid of their heritage. Later, in 1982, Uchida published a memoir of the camps in which she included some of her mother's poetry, quite effectively.

All the Japanese-American authors I read (Mori, Okubo, Sone, Okada, and Uchida) were Nisei, that is, they were born in America to Japanese-born parents (Issei). So their knowledge of Japanese literature would have come mainly through their parents, or possibly through the Japanese-language schools that most of them attended, as children, in the afternoons after regular school. Uchida did not attend one of those schools, but she did have the opportunity to study pottery in Japan for two years, in the 1950s.

What would Japanese American literature have looked like without the camps? Would there even have been any? Yes, there would have been at least one book. Toshio Mori wrote the first version of his book of short stories and it was scheduled to be published before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor changed everything. Perhaps if there had been no camps, other Japanese Americans would have been inspired, like Mori -- or by Mori -- to write their own stories. But the terrible experience of the camps forced them to think about their identity and their country in new ways, thus spawning this particular body of literature.

It's possible also that the literature would have come eventually, but a little later. The civil rights movement in the 1960s led many people to think more analytically about their race/ethnicity/heritage. One or two of the authors I read mentioned (in prefaces or afterwords written years after the original publication) that they had been inspired by Martin Luther King Jr., but when they originally wrote they didn't yet completely understand the issues.

I should also mention the classic Japanese literature I read, which completely blew my mind. I thought I knew something about Japanese literature before I started, but I'd never read anything really old. The Tale of Genji, The Tale of the Heike, and The Narrow Road to the Deep North, all written prior to 1800, were amazing works I never would have read without a Challenge like this one. I also loved Child's Play and of course The Makioka Sisters. In addition, I learned a lot about Japanese history from reading these books (and reading about them).

In any case, this was a very interesting year of reading, much more so than I thought it would be when I started. Thanks again to Karen, who organizes the fantastic Classics Challenge!