Sanshiro’s old stomping grounds.

(Continued from part 1.)

But so far, it is only 1908, and Soseki has just completed Sanshiro. Quite unlike the solitary, introspective atmosphere of The Three-Cornered World, the new novel takes place in the midst of Tokyo university life. Its world is much bigger and wider, full of dialogue and social situations whose participants have diverse points of view and frequently appear to be deeper and more fully realized than the protagonist, rather than serving as vessels for his aesthetic appreciation. Regardless of how much actually happens on its pages, it certainly feels like it takes place in an active, energetic world where things are happening all around. Continue reading →

What is the central idea of Japanese culture — its main theme, in a single word? It may sound strange, but to me the answer is freedom. Japanese society may be bound by innumerable social restrictions, but it is not clear to me that the presence of such rules is any more limiting than their absence. Sometimes the latter only makes it harder to discover who you really are. Continue reading →

After Huizinga’s Autumn of the Middle Ages, maybe it’s worth returning to The Lord of the Rings and spending a bit more time with it. Again, these books are not directly comparable…but perhaps, in the world of ideas, their paths briefly cross, and by way of Huizinga we may be able to look differently at Tolkien. Continue reading →

preface to the first edition of Autumn (18)

(Conclusion. Continued from part 2.)

But now, we leave behind the silly troubles of our age, the clouds gathered over our nonexistent future, the self-parodic incompleteness and defectiveness of our lives. We follow Huizinga into the stern, majestic world of medieval Europe. Continue reading →

(Continued from part 1.)

Huizinga was famous in European academic circles long before Homo Ludens. He became a chair professor, at the University of Groningen, at the age of 32; his inaugural lecture was titled, “The aesthetic component of historical perception,” which in retrospect sounds like a statement of intent for his entire body of work. From the 1910s onward, and especially after The Autumn of the Middle Ages, he went from one success to another, finally becoming rector of Leiden University (where Descartes had once studied) in 1933. Around that same time, his work began to take on a more polemical aspect, as a reaction to the rise of fascism. Continue reading →

Plato, “Laws”

In a way, Homo Ludens is nothing more than a book-length reiteration of Plato’s offhand remark. But then, the latter is the most stirring and profound thought in the entirety of the “Laws.” The scientific and historical foundation for this philosophy only emerged centuries after it was first expressed. Continue reading →

After spending as much time with Plato as we have, it is hard not to lose oneself in the world of ancient Greece. To develop a better understanding of that world, it helps to see a wide view of its entire history. The simplest way to do that is to read a good old-fashioned textbook, but hopefully one with a minimum of ideology — a straightforward factual account that clearly identifies the most important points, rather than a thinly-veiled tract on contemporary political issues retroactively inserted into ancient times.

Finding such a book is not an easy task, because many of the most world-famous treatments are actually just that, thinly-veiled political tracts. For example, Edward Gibbon’s grandly titled The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is basically a long, poorly-written pamphlet attacking Christianity from the viewpoint of 18th-century masonic “rationalism.” The actual Roman Empire has very little to do with the book’s real subject and purpose; he may as well have set it in an allegorical fantasy land with elves instead of Romans. And that’s not even the worst example — Theodor Mommsen’s History of Rome, one of the most acclaimed historical treatises of the 19th century, contains just as much virulent German nationalism as it does genuine Roman scholarship. Continue reading →

Site of Plato’s Academy in the present day.

(Conclusion. Continued from part 3.)

In Book IV of the “Laws,” Plato’s Athenian asks, “Tell us, lawgiver…what kind of state, and in what condition, should we give to you, so that, having received it, you might organize it yourself in all respects?” He then answers his own question: “Give me a state with a tyrannical ruler. Let the tyrant be young, of sound memory, capable of learning, courageous and generous by nature; in addition, let the soul of this tyrant have those qualities that…accompany each part of virtue.” This odd aside is actually autobiographical, and Plato did his best to put it into practice. Continue reading →