| NOTA |
(★)(Translated by John Bester／ ´NI-0245´ es mismo libro.／ Drawn from real-life diaries and interviews with victims of the atomic holocaust, ´Black Rain´ is centered on the story of one young woman who was caught in the radioactive rain that fell after the bombing of Hiroshima. Though entirely unsentimental, its impact is all the stronger for the subtlety and restraint with which her life, and that of other survivors of a traditional community torn asunder by this event, are observed.／ When I was first asked to translate Masuji Ibuse´s ´Kuroi Ame´ I had considerable doubts. I knew that the work had been acclaimed in Japan, but suspected the critics of prejudice in its favor on account of its subject. Could the author possibly have avoided stridency, sentimentality, melodrama, monotony, and all the other pitfalls? Could such a theme yield, in the widest sense, beauty? Could it, in short, be fashioned into a work of art?／ In my ignorance, I underestimated Ibuse. My work has left me with a sense of deep respect for the author, a new understanding of some aspects of the Japanese novel, and fresh insights into a country in which I have lived for fifteen years. However difficult it may have been to render the subtlety of Ibuse´s language into English, I believe that the work itself is important both for Japan and for the world.／ It is a truism that Japanese are not much given to the explicit statement of personal feelings or to extravagant emotional gestures. Ibuse, one of the most Japanese of authors, is no exception. The scene of Shigematsu´s reunion with his wife after the bombing may seem at first almost brutally casual to the Western reader. Yet to the sensitive Japanese reader, the spare exchange of questions and answers will be immensely moving, and the rice-cooking pot and small pan that stand by Shigeko´s side will symbolize a whole world of traditional values and feeling.／ ´Black Rain´ is a portrait of a group of human beings ; of the death of a great city ; of a nation crumbling into defeat. It is a picture of the Japanese mind that tells more than many sociological studies. Yet more than this, it is a statement of a philosophy. Although that philosophy, in its essence, is neither pessimistic nor optimistic, it seems to me to be life-affirming. Dealing with the grimmest of subjects, the work is not, in the end, depressing, for the author is ultimately concerned with life rather than with death, and with an overall beauty that transcends ugliness of detail. In that sense, I would suggest, ´Black Rain´ is not a ´book about the bomb´ at all. (from ´Tranlator´s Preface´)) |
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