Narrating the Self: Fictions of Japanese Modernity Paperback - 1997 - 1st Edition

First line

In an article written in 1950, Terada Toru (1915- ), a critic and scholar of French literature, astutely noted that "watakushi /shi-shosetsu is no more than a formal designation in that we can never tell what is contained in it. . . .The term forces the reader to confront a word whose resonance is much greater than what it designates, the meaning of which is only vaguely understood in common usage."

From the rear cover

"This is an extraordinary book. It is the most systematic and critical treatment of what may be termed the 'postwar theoretical hysteria.' In the process, the study introduces for the first time in English a number of very important primary sources and provides sensitive and insightful new readings of some of the texts crucial to the formation of the Japanese literary canon. In presenting this critically informed 'new literary history, ' Suzuki frees the reader to become aware of a far greater diversity and multiplicity of voices in the Japanese novel, voices that have often been silenced by a monolithic totalizing theory of Japan. . . . This study is required reading for those with an interest in Japanese literature and modern Japanese intellectual history, and should occasion reflection on how we teach and have taught Japanese literature in the United States."--Journal of Japanese Studies