On Mr. Eguchi Kan

Eguchi is by no means what people call a hearty, straightforward fellow. He possesses a temperament more complex, more rich in shade and shadow. Even in the way his loves and hates move, there is a certain single-mindedness, but beneath that there still lurks an almost morbid persistence. If Eguchi himself did not find the word disagreeable, one might even describe it as modern. In any case, whether he hates or loves, something close to cruelty always seems to inflame his feelings. When iron burns, there is a state called black heat. It looks black, but if you touch it, it will instantly sear your hand. Eguchi’s single-minded character strikes me as just such black-heated iron. I repeat: he is certainly not one of those so-called hearty men who are merely iron, plain and simple.

And then Eguchi’s mind is formed, after all, more like that of a creative writer than that of a critic. Even in argument, he tends to press forward more by intuition than by logic. For that reason, his criticism does sometimes go off the rails. But when it does, it is generally when he tries to provide a logical underpinning for the impression he has received. The impression itself is rarely mistaken. There is a theory that says, “Technique is something even rhetoricians can understand. The true critic is the one who grasps the power and life of a work.” But that is a plausible lie. Things such as the power and life of a work can be understood even by amateurs. That is why translations of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky sell. If only true critics could understand them, no modern theater company would stage Strindberg or Ibsen. A true critic is one who not only grasps the power and life of a work, but also has an eye for the delicate relation between technique and content. I believe Eguchi’s strength as a critic lies in his ability to intuit that delicate relation. This may seem no great matter, but in fact it is a strength surprisingly lacking in critics today.

Finally, as a creative writer, Eguchi seems on the whole to have a tendency, centered on human interest, to depict incidents rather than psychology. I think this tendency appears most clearly in “Batei” and “Akai Yaho.” Yet behind Eguchi’s human interest there is often an abnormality that cannot by any means be called healthy. Kikuchi pointed this out in last month’s Bungei Sekai, so there is no need to repeat it now; I will only say that to me this abnormality feels as though it has sprung inevitably from Eguchi’s own character, like that black-heated iron. It feels tinged with the same morbid cruelty. His descriptive skill is so accomplished that it almost recalls the broad, sweeping manner of Mr. Tanizaki Jun’ichiro. There is something in it that drives everything forward with a blunt, pressing force. Of course, one cannot say there is no regret in the fact that this driving power is not yet fully mastered by Eguchi himself. When the time comes that power ceases to be blind force, that will truly be the moment when Eguchi has fully become himself.

In the past, Eguchi has often wielded his pen in polemical attacks and defenses. Because of that, he seems to have been subject, for better or worse, to all sorts of misunderstandings. To take Eguchi for a hearty, straightforward fellow is one of the more favorable misunderstandings. One of the unfavorable ones is to treat him as a coarse, clumsy man. All such misunderstandings must be swept away for Eguchi’s sake. If he is a hearty man, then he is a melancholy hearty man. If he is a coarse fellow, then he is a coarse fellow far too cultivated to fit the type. I have never written such a long piece for Shincho’s “Impressions of People.” The reason I felt compelled to write it was that Eguchi and his works seemed to me, compared with those of the rest of our circle, to be the most distorted in the way they are viewed. If even a hastily written piece like this can help in some degree to establish Eguchi’s proper worth, I shall think it happiness beyond what I could hope for.