Rational, Yet Rich in Humanity
In this concise portrait, Ryunosuke Akutagawa reflects on the character of his friend and fellow writer Kan Kikuchi. What Akutagawa admires is not merely Kikuchi’s literary talent, but the consistency with which he turns conviction into action. He contrasts Kikuchi’s broad, forceful fiction with more delicately flavored writing and argues that artistic subtlety is not the only measure of achievement. The essay also recalls Kikuchi’s generosity toward people in hardship, his quiet support of colleagues, his keen analytical intelligence, and his warm place within family and neighborhood life. Through these observations, Akutagawa presents a writer whose art belongs to a larger, remarkably integrated way of living—rational in its principles, yet abundant in human sympathy.
Kikuchi is always thoroughgoing in the way he lives. He never clings to a halfway position. Whatever he himself believes to be right, he steadily puts into practice. His convictions are rational, yet they invariably contain a generous measure of humanity. That is what I respect in him. I am the sort who hides within art, whereas Kikuchi reveals himself through art—though perhaps that is an odd way to put it. In Kikuchi’s case, art sometimes seems to be no more than one part of his life. Artists, broadly speaking, appear to fall into two kinds: those, like Tolstoy, who make us interested in how they view life, and those, like Flaubert, who make us interested in how they view art. Kikuchi naturally belongs among the former. In that sense, he stands close to the doctrine of art for life’s sake.
Kikuchi’s novels, like his attitude toward life, are written boldly and driven straight ahead. They may therefore lack what is called delicacy of flavor. That seems to leave part of the public dissatisfied, but the fault lies with those who complain. Even if Kikuchi’s novels are broad in flavor, they are fully realized as novels. They are vastly better, I think, than works that possess nothing except delicate flavor.
Kikuchi is a man who lives in this courageous fashion, but he is by no means lacking in consideration for others. He seems especially sympathetic toward people in material difficulty. There are any number of examples, but they are not matters that should be made public, so I shall refrain from giving them here. To speak of my own experience, Kikuchi has often comforted and encouraged me in matters concerning my work. Indeed, more often than through anything expressly said, I have silently felt his sensitive consideration and taken heart from it. That is why I have frequently sought his advice, not only about work but about problems in my private life, and I intend to go on doing so. There is just one subject on which I have no intention of consulting him: love affairs.
His intelligence, too, has been renowned among our circle since our high-school days. He is good at languages and the like, but I think that is ultimately only one manifestation of Kikuchi’s analytical mind. When it comes to the vigor of what is commonly called the intellect, there can be scarcely more than a handful of people in the literary world capable of matching him. Once, on a rainy day, I was walking outdoors with Kikuchi. I was admiring the reflections of streetcars in the muddy road and the gleam of umbrellas wet with rain. Kikuchi, meanwhile, kept peering at shop signs and nameplates beneath the eaves, attending only to such things as unusual readings of family names and the names of uncommon occupations. Kikuchi’s intellectual cast of mind seems to reveal itself even in trifles like these.
At home, moreover, Kikuchi appears to be not only a good husband and a good father, but a good neighbor as well. Whenever I visit his house, I often find a great crowd of neighborhood children gathered there, playing with Kikuchi and his wife or with their children. Once, the whole Kikuchi family was away, and two or three children from nearby were in the house by themselves, looking after it. Since he is on such good terms with the children, it is no wonder that he also gets along well with their parents. Among ourselves, we even joke that before long Kikuchi may be elected to the town council.
From all that I have described, I feel that Kikuchi has fashioned a complete sphere of life distinctly his own. And it is a sphere I find considerably enviable. If any writer in this complex and many-sided modern age enjoys a life approaching singleness and unity, I suspect it is Kikuchi rather than those poetical writers who gaze sentimentally upon nature and human existence.