Mr. Iwano Hōmei
In this brief, sharply observed sketch, Akutagawa Ryunosuke recalls an evening tram ride with the writer Iwano Hōmei and captures his flamboyant vanity with dry wit and quiet affection. The piece unfolds through casual conversation: Hōmei talks loudly and grandly about flowers, health, and finally the sales of contemporary fiction, only to discover that younger writers may be outselling him. Yet even this blow lasts only a moment before he restores his own pride with the confident claim that his novels are simply too difficult for ordinary readers. Akutagawa’s portrait is gently satirical rather than cruel. Beneath the humor, he presents Hōmei as a magnificent egotist whose buoyant self-belief makes him not merely absurd, but strangely admirable and deeply endearing.
It was late on an autumn night.
I was riding a streetcar bound for Sugamo with Mr. Iwano Hōmei. Resting the elbow of his cape on the handle of his umbrella with an air of lofty self-assurance, Hōmei, as usual, talked to me in a loud voice about various things: how to cultivate Western flowers and plants, the stomach-strengthening regimen he had worked out for himself, and so on.
Before long, by some turn in the conversation, the subject shifted to the sales of a certain novel that was much talked about at the time. At that, Hōmei said with brazen unconcern,
“But look here, whatever people may say about these rising young writers, their books can’t really sell all that much. My books usually sell about — copies, but how many copies do yours sell, anyway?”
Somewhat embarrassed, I had no choice but to tell him the sales figure for The Puppet Master.
“Is that about the usual amount?”
Hōmei pressed the point.
There were plenty of younger writers whose books sold better than mine. So I named two or three novels and gave the sales figures I had heard for them. Unfortunately for him, there was no doubt that these works were selling in greater numbers than his own.
“Is that so? They sell surprisingly well.”
For an instant, a look of suspicion clouded Hōmei’s face. But it really was only for an instant. Before I could even say anything further, the lively gleam of a moment earlier had already returned to his eyes. Then, at the same time, Hōmei calmly declared, almost as if taking pity on the world:
“Well, my novels are difficult, after all.”
Poet, novelist, playwright, critic—let others decide what titles should be attached to him. At least to my eyes, the Iwano Hōmei I knew was, to the point of seeming almost majestic, an utterly lovable optimist.