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Loading... Soldiers Alive (1945)by Tatsuzō Ishikawa
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.  mvblair | Aug 8, 2020 |  no reviews | add a review
When the editors of Chûô kôron, Japan's leading liberal magazine, sent the prizewinning young novelist Ishikawa Tatsuzô to war-ravaged China in early 1938, they knew the independent-minded writer would produce a work wholly different from the lyrical and sanitized war reports then in circulation. They could not predict, however, that Ishikawa would write an unsettling novella so grimly realistic it would promptly be banned and lead to the author's conviction on charges of "disturbing peace and order." Decades later, Soldiers Alive remains a deeply disturbing and eye-opening account of the Japanese march on Nanking and its aftermath. In its unforgettable depiction of an ostensibly altruistic war's devastating effects on the soldiers who fought it and the civilians they presumed to "liberate," Ishikawa's work retains its power to shock, inform, and provoke. No library descriptions found. |
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 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)895.609358Literature Literature of other languages Asian (east and south east) languages Japanese Japanese literature History and criticism of Japanese literatureLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3)
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Wikipedia in English (2)
1
"Soldiers Alive" is a fast read. The novella itself is about 150 pages. Originally intended to be serialized in a Japanese magazine, Ishikawa Tatsuzo was jailed for a few months after its publication because it portends to show some of the random violence that the invading Japanese army wrecked on Chinese civilians and soldiers.
This edition includes a completely unnecessary introduction of almost 60 pages and an extraneous ten page bibliography with entries for "The History of Italian Literature," "The Penguin Book of World War One Prose," and Pablo Neruda's "Song of Protest." In addition, there are footnotes in the novel explaining who Chiang-Kai Shek is among others. All these extra and unhelpful elements make the book seem more like a vanity project for the translator.
As for the novella itself, it is quite heedless. It follows the march of ten or so members of the same company as they travel China toward Nanjing. There are matter-of-fact recitations of violence, including small scale murders of Chinese civilians. Compared to the true atrocities, which Ishikawa Tatsuzo may not have known about when he wrote "Soldiers Alive," the violence is quite tame. One character in the book seems to show some humanity and thoughtfulness toward the end of the novella, but that is short-lived. As such, there is little in the way of traditional character development or plot. It is mostly a recitation of place names and minor events.
Ishikawa Tatsuzo deserves credit for at least trying to tell the Japanese reading public what was happening in China, albeit on the small scale he describes. Unfortunately, this book does not give the treatment or contextualization that the atrocities deserve. (