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Goodbye, Godzilla
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16134 |
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BOOK WORLD
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6 / 1989 |
2,916 Words |
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Robert F. Geary
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THE BEST JAPANESE SCIENCE FICTION STORIES
John L. Apostolou and Martin Greenberg, eds.
New York: Dembner Books, 1989
176 pp., $16.95
Americans, it seems fair to say, are intimately familiar with the technological products of Japan but far less aware of Japanese culture. We drive Japanese-made automobiles, watch movies on Japanese VCRs, and listen to our music on Japanese stereo systems; but we read comparatively few books about Japan and fewer still by Japanese authors. The commerce in goods is, understandably, much more rapid than the commerce in ideas and cultural codes. The entire world is familiar with American products (soft drinks and jeans, if not electronic equipment), but our literature, history, and values export less readily.
The situation is, quite naturally, changing. Film buffs are likely to know the work of Japanese directors. American businessmen study Japanese management models, and educators here look (perhaps with envy) at an educational system that works. More slowly, Japanese literature is being translated for the American reading public. Though Japan has had a long tradition of science-fiction writing, a tradition energized after World War II by increased contact with Western science-fiction, The Best Japanese Science Fiction Stories is the first anthology to appear in English. It is overdue and to be welcomed. The collection shows that Japanese writers have mastered the genre's potential for creating fiction at once entertaining and insightful. One hopes that the book will find a paperback publisher; its thirteen entrancing selections by ten different authors deserve the widest possible American audience.
Surprising stories
One delight of the collection is that it so quickly shatters a number of preconceptions. Unfortunately, the title may lead us naively to associate Japanese science fiction with the city-crushing movie monsters of the '50s and '60s--Godzilla, Mothra and a host of others too silly even for the very late show. (These, the editors assure us, were in Japan created solely for the entertainment of young children.) There is not a monster in the collection. But this is the least of the surprises.
The stories here suggest the inadequacy of the usual understanding of science fiction. There is but a trace of intergalactic battles of the Star Wars variety. Indeed, there is comparatively little interest in the more upscale emphasis on alternative futures (perhaps a reflection of our infatuation with "alternative life-styles"). Most of these tales are not, in fact, heavily dependent on science or on technology at all. Many have little to do with the future. Realizing this, the editors suggest that the less catchy term speculative fiction would be more appropriate; one is tempted to subscribe to Harlan Ellison's rage at the pigeonholing of writers who depart from conventional realism, and abandon any label at all. These are stories, sometimes with a futuristic or fantastical touch, that deal with choices in the present, and the choices are often sobering.
Given the ages of the authors and the events they have lived through, the underlying seriousness of the collection should not surprise. All the authors represented here were born in the 1920s or '30s;
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