Reviews for Civilization and Monsters: Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan

The average rating for Civilization and Monsters: Spirits of Modernity in Meiji Japan based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2016-01-15 00:00:00 Jared Ackerman Civilization and Monsters, Gerald Figal's book on monsters and modernity, has been on my to-read list for quite some time now. I discovered the book in my never-ending search for anything related to Japanese folklore, history and traditional culture. When I first read the description of this particular title, I was immediately interested. The book promised to deal not only with bakemono, the monsters of traditional Japanese folklore, but also the role that they apparently played in the transition between the feudal society of the late Edo period and the modern society of the Meiji Restoration. All in all it seemed like a very interesting and exciting read. And it was...well, for the most part. After finishing this book, my feelings are quite mixed. On one hand, I thought it was very insightful, and explored aspects of monsters and ghosts and the fantastic that, while I had considered before, I had not delved too deeply into. Also it put these monsters into a cultural context; not the context of Japanese history in the traditional periods (Jomon - late Edo) where they originated, but the context of the Meiji Restoration, that time in Japan's history when it was first becoming a modern, industrialized nation and still in the process of defining this new-found modernity. It shows how monsters and fushigi (a term which can be translated as "mysteries", "the fantastic", "the wondrous", "the inexplicable", "the strange and unknown," etc.) were dealt with in this era, by the main academic figures who explored them. These scholars were Inoue Enryō, Minakata Kumagusu, Yanagita Kunio, and Izumi Kyōka. They were each quite different men, approaching fushigi from different philosophies and writing about monsters with different goals and in different modes. This book does quite a good job at outlining these goals, modes and philosophies and detailing the effect their respective writings had on the overall society of Meiji Japan. On the other hand, this is not a book for light reading, nor even, I would say, for the casual enthusiast of monsters and/or things Japanese. It is written in a formal, academic tone that is exceedingly dry at certain points, and I found myself more than once re-reading a paragraph or two just because my mind had disengaged from the text and had wandered to other matters. This is true especially in the second chapter, "Words and Changing Things", in which he discusses the differences between the philosophies of two of the four scholars, Inoue and Minakata. This is probably the most dense and challenging portion of the book, as its subject is significantly removed from the main concerns of the book. It analyzes in great detail the minute differences between Inoue's and Minakata's views on abstract concepts such as culture, natural history, and the sciences. More specifically, this chapter deals with the two scholars' views on the physical and mental, the overlaps between the two, and the nature of each type of phenomena and their categorization. While these things are interesting on a certain level, I would humbly suggest that -- though I don't think there can ever be any such thing as too much information -- Figal here gives us much more than is necessary. That having been said, once this challenging chapter is out of the way, this is where the extremely interesting stuff is. Figal brings intriguing ideas to the table and gives examples of all of the trends he discusses; one of the most interesting to me is his analysis of the Meiji government's treatment of folk belief as monstrous itself, in contrast to the almost magical workings of modern Western medicine in conquering the (then newly discovered) eye disease trachoma. In a series of propaganda stories, Figal states, instead of trying to eradicate folk belief the Meiji scholars and scientists cast it as a modern-day monster, and demonstrated that with its new-found tool of modern medicine, it could defeat the "demon" of trachoma, thus giving the government authority on modern matters -- just as in the Edo period a posted notice banishing the tengu of the Nikko area gave the Tokugawa bakufu (military government) spiritual authority over monsters. The mirroring of these two symbolic showings of influence (one over the tengu and the other over a disease), both used to lend power and credibility to each of the regimes, is quite interesting. Some of the most intriguing content deals with the formation of folk studies in Japan, when the focus shifts from Minakata and Inoue to Kyōka and Yanagita, and the latter's colleague Sasaki Kizen. Kizen was a writer and folklorist himself, and is the source of Yanagita's famed Tōno monogatari, or "Tales of Tōno", the text that supposedly launched the field of minzokugaku, or folklore studies. Figal explores first the meeting between Yanagita Kunio and Sasaki Kizen. The segment dealing with Kizen's life, ambitions and background, and then Yanagita's interaction with him and the repackaging of his ideas, is extremely interesting and readable. Next Figal examines Yanagita's own studies, the focus of which could be divided (in broad strokes, of course) between the mysterious, liminal tengu and yamabito (mountain people) and other mountain mysteries, and the plain-dwelling, slow-changing idea of jōmin ("common folk" or "abiding folk"). It is interesting that while Yanagita's ideas and approach could be said to be too subjective and not scientific enough, this is precisely the kind of study that Yanagita wanted to create. He felt that when dealing with the folk and folklore, an amount of empathy and feeling was required in order to capture the truth of the history of the abiding folk. The author here does not condemn as unscientific this approach, nor does he fully endorse it. The examination of Yanagita's career, while dry at times, is insightful and informative and for the most part well-written. Again, the only criticism I can offer is that the tone (and at times, the vocabulary) is overly formal and thus quite dense. Rounding out Figal's study of fushigi and modernity is Meiji writer Izumi Kyōka, whose works are often labeled as falling into the genre of romanticism. This label, Figal argues, completely overlooks the critical content of Kyōka's stories and his condemnation of the way Japan was entering the modern stage. His work was primarily fiction, and he used obake and fushigi in both traditional and modern settings to criticize the Meiji government's and the presiding academic community's views on folklore and traditional ways. Instead of viewing these traditions as vestiges of a backward and embarrassing past, Kyōka argued, they should be seen as a valuable aspect of Japan's culture. But rather than a strict traditional approach, Kyōka often advocated an alternative to both folk ways and modernity, a worldview that involved seeing things from a different, though often traditionally-tinged, perspective. Kyōka's writings ranged from lighthearted though critical (as in "Kechō" [Chimera]) to eerie, ghostly and almost gothic (as in "Kōya hijiri" [The priest of Mount Kōya]). The segments which deal with this fiction writer and his works, as well as his views on how writing should be conducted in order to best capture the true nature of the world, were in my mind the best and most engaging portions of the book. Not having read any of Kyōka before now, Figal has motivated me to order one of his books, and add another writer to my "newly-discovered" list. After exploring the Meiji government's attitude toward folklore and the supernatural, which Minakata played a valiant though ultimately doomed role in opposing, the book closes out with an overview of the effect that folk studies had on the Meiji society; which is notable but not all that visible. It is only after World War II, when the introduction of democracy and other Western ideas makes the studies of Yanagita and Minakata not only relevant again but now popular, that the folklore movement really makes a visible dent in Japanese culture and academia. Figal also explores how Yanagita's ideas in particular are susceptible to co-opting for, and adding to, the pseudo-science of nihonjinron, the discourse on what makes the Japanese so unique from other people, which the author claims (and I myself agree with him) is a backwards idea, based on the weak assumption that one culture is inherently different from every other. What is interesting in the book's examination of fushigi, history, and folklore studies, is that in their time, with the exception of Inoue Enryō who sought to eradicate folk belief by explaining supernatural phenomena as psychological phenomena (neutering it of its mystery and thus its very identity), each of the scholars that played formative roles in folklore and fushigi studies in Japan were for the most part working against the intellectual and ideological current of their day. It is only long after the ideology that presided over the so-called Meiji Enlightenment was washed away that the study of folklore, ghost stories and historical belief could really flourish. Overall, I'd say that this book is engaging and informative, despite some difficult areas. But this really does makes sense when one thinks about it, as this book's denseness effectively serves to deter those who are not intensely interested in its subject. In this way, the book can be seen as a challenge. Let me say this again: Civilization and Monsters is not a light read, and is both difficult and outright boring at times. But it is also informative and insightful, and I am glad to have read it.

Review # 2 was written on 2015-10-04 00:00:00 Robert Van Elsen an academic book, but extremely readable (in my opinion- the one amazon reviewer disagrees). Its central thesis that discourse on monsters, ghosts, the supernatural was central to the formation of modern Japan is surprisingly innovative, and fun to read. (Meiji period)