The Samurai Banner of Furin Kazan is a novel ostensibly about the latter days of the Warring States Period in Japan. It concerns itself with three principle characters, Kansuke, Shingen, and Princess Yuu, whose proper names I do not recall and do not care to. The novel concerns itself with the relationships between these three, with each of them in turn developing desires to control one another, and these desires eventually being superseded by love.
I am reminded of Pelleas et Melisande, Maurice Maeterlinck’s Symbolist play, and Ryuunosuke Akutagawa’s Yabu no Naka, in that all three stories concern themselves with the unknowable distances between people using deceptively simple plots as vehicles.
It is further proof of the validity of historical fiction as a vehicle for factual data. (Robert Graves: the scholar as quarryman for the poet.) The book shows rather than tells us of historical attitudes in many aspects. As a general rule, and we shall come to demonstrate this, it is a masterful example of showing rather than telling. Some examples of implicit social attitudes which differ from modern conceptions:
Yuu is expected to kill herself after her family dies. When Shingen becomes a monk, his top retainers and soldiers convert also. Kansuke is derided initially due to his stature and appearance. It is expected that Shingen has multiple concubines and multiple sons. His legitimate son is expected to fight in war at 15 years old. The shogun’s letter asking Shingen and his enemy to cease their constant warfare is derided and ignored by all involved (the shogun being a ceremonial position at that point, if I recall correctly). And yet the shogun’s point is the only salient point made in a novel full of subjective perspectives which are, for all their grandeur, extremely short-sighted. (And after all, was not Achilles short-sighted? And we shall come to this point too.) Social attitudes are best expressed through events – and events are also the best way to expose human nature; they are fully explored, but never remarked upon – they are simply facts of life (and this is how reality works, and why it is a masterful writer who can seize on such details with an understanding of their meaning).
Kansuke’s personality is treated in a similarly subtle manner. Nothing important about him is told. He is introduced as a secondary character; the novel begins by following some brash, unremarkable samurai whom Kansuke tricks and cuts down. We are given the opportunity to inspect Kansuke externally, to note his appearance, the impressions he creates in others, and his basic background (though this is light in detail) before his peculiar mix of vulnerability, occasionally disastrous lack of awareness, and stoicism are revealed.
Kansuke ages and develops vulnerabilities – and we are shown these, not told of them – because he would never tell of them. But we note that he has become more cautious in his old age, and others point out his scars and age more than once. His single-mindedness during battle – the total lack of awareness of injuries – could be either a sign of what he wants to tell the reader (for the novel never allows any of its characters to lose their sense of propriety, or even their dignity – it has a high-flown yet simple style on which I will later remark) or a genuine feeling of Kansuke’s that allows him to (it is implied) fight quite ferociously. He has no training, he has no desire to fight – he is guided by books and some sort of premonitory power which is never reflected on and which never disappears, but only occasionally falters. It is a relatively subtle and (purposely) overshadowed point that Kansuke comes to love Shingen and Yuu because they downplay or ignore his disfigurement, while (it is implied) he lived his entire 54 previous years subject to derision in a highly judgemental, stratified society.
The book is epic in form if not structure, concerning itself only with major events. Small movements, when they are told, are placed in focus for their meaning, not for the sake of their exact momentary happenings, and no meaningless actions are described; that which is unimportant is totally ignored. The work is Homeric in its parity and in the grandeur of its events. For this reason I refer to it as being epic in form.
Later I have returned to add a note on this point. Hyouka has a line from Sekitani Jun that ‘all subjectivity on the matter will be lost and it will be regarded as a classic.’ I have quoted this and remembered it for years because I found it penetrating. I think it describes the essence of epics. When all subjectivity is lost is when we are unable to tell if Homer is a Greek or Trojan. In a closer narrative, it is when everything is shown and nothing emotional told.
Structurally it is an uncomplicated chronological biography of Kansuke beginning 54 years into his life and ending with his death 20 years later. And it should not be more complex than this. To play the kinds of tricks novels can play, to play with the novel form, would destroy this work. Its parity, its style, and its focus all demand simplicity. And Yasushi Inoue understands such. For this reason it is a classic.
The entire work is almost a series of extended vignettes, an occasionally visible landscape obscured by clouds of rapidly passing time, and Kansuke spends his life almost unconscious of himself, subject to his mysterious premonitory impulse, conducting various wars.
The same epic quality colours the novel’s characters. Kansuke admires Shingen because he is decisive; Yuu is shrewd and a social genius; Kansuke is a defensive, mystical strategist. Characterisation from these starting points is shown, not told. Shingen is lusty and easy to advise; Yuu is jealous and impulsive; Kansuke is afraid, and extremely lacking in self awareness. Each of them has some measure of premonitory power, and makes decisions based on such – although it is implied this capacity manifests differently for each of them.
What is the purpose in the novel of Kansuke’s premonitions? Generally, they are illustrations of his character. Initially, they allow him to surprise even himself – he is not always sure of what he is going to say, or what he is going to do. He sees only a few steps ahead and knows that the chosen destination is the correct one, whatever it may signify. Later, the visions appear more rarely, and are more cautious – culminating in the sense of danger that compels him to remove Shingen’s son from the battlefield to preserve his life. This shift fundamentally follows Kansuke’s character arc. Upon employment by Shingen, having come from the charity of another house, he thinks of serving both and receiving more payment; after he begins to love Shingen and Yuu the idea of divided loyalty becomes laughable to him. His ‘premonitions’ are probably not supernatural at all – it is likely a fanciful, unselfaware manner of referring to instinct or ideas from Kansuke’s subconscious. He is remarkably lacking in self awareness, after all.
Historically the Takeda clan was destroyed by Oda Nobunaga and Tokugawa Ieyasu. As such, we know Shingen’s and Kansuke’s ambitions are doomed to failure. And yet the novel ends with a premonition of their victory, even in Kansuke’s death (which he accepts and anticipates, having completed everything he needed to complete, having satisfied all his inexplicable visionary impulses. To complete everything, to answer every fundamental question, and yet to leave so much room for interpretation by focusing only on those questions, is necessary for the epic, classical form). In a reflection of its overall point (the futility of conquest and the necessity of historical movement) the novel’s last sentence ends with victory imminent in a fight yet to come, and with rain gathering in the distance.
verso folio 