A TALE OF NEW JAPAN

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 21051, 30 December 1933, Page 13

A TALE OF NEW JAPAN

A Grain of Wheat. By Toyohiko Ka;awa. I-!odder and Stoughlon. ::K! pp. (3/fi net.) From W. S. Smart.

In order In appreciate the significance of 111j:s book, which has Jong L;i-c-!i a best-seller in Ms own country, some iuiowiodge of its author's history is necessary. IvHßawa, the son of a man of Cabinet rank, gave up everything in response to a Vision of the Cross and plunged into Ihe life of the slums. For 15 years he lived and worked amongst the poor as a preacher of the Gospel. and the knowledge so acquired must have stood him in good stead when he came to write tlie story of the poor Japanese country lad Ivakichi. whose efforts to maintain his family in the miclst of grinding poverty bring him into contact with many conflicting influences, which help to mould his character. Chief among these influences is the Christian religion, which Kakichi learns from a Japanese Christian pastor. The Christianity he embraces is essentially a religion of service, and the rest of his life is spent jn putting it into practice amongst the peasants with whom ho lives. The delineation of these simple peasant folk is i'resh and convincing. Kakichi's tragic love affair is told with great dramatic power, and there are descriptive passages of undisputed poetic beauty. The author holds a mirror up to Japanese village life, and it is too much to expect that all the reflections seen in it should be pleasant. But he succeeds in bringing his readers into sympathy and intimacy with faraway folk and unfamiliar modes of thought. The publishers are to be congratulated on their enterprise in making this fine example of the literary art of Japan available to English readers.