There’s a reason why writers like Oe Kenzaburo and Kawakami Hiromi praise the counterculture icon Shibusawa Tatsuhiko (1928-1987). As an essayist and translator of French surrealists like Jean Cocteau and the Marquis de Sade, Shibusawa didn’t shy away from delving deeply into subjects ranging from demonology to eroticism. He was the key figure in Japan’s second postwar obscenity trial over his translation of de Sade’s Juliette (which, unsurprisingly, featured numerous explicit scenes.) But this nine-year ordeal and commitment to writing only further cemented his place in Japan’s postwar literary scene.
All those interests and more culminated in his only full-length novel Takaoka’s Travels, masterfully translated by David Boyd and published by Stone Bridge Press. Winner of the 1987 Yomiuri Prize, Takaoka’s Travels is a surrealist blend of fantasy and historical fiction, perfect for fans of Jorge Luis Borges and Italo Calvino, that adds a supernatural spin to the tale of a real-life prince’s journey to India.
Dreams within dreams
Set in the ninth century, Takaoka’s Travels (Japanese: 高丘親王航海記; takaoka shin-ou tokaiki) is a fantastical autobiography of the real-life Prince Takaoka, a former prince turned Buddhist monk in his sixties, and his companions on a pilgrimage to India.
Through Shibusawa’s vast imagination, the voyage doesn’t go smoothly. Takaoka has many setbacks on land and sea, detours both real and imaginary. He encounters a menagerie of beings, including a tapir-like creature called the baku that dines on dreams, and an albino ape overseeing a harem of bird-women hybrids.
These oddities and perversities would test even the most ascetic monk. But Prince Takaoka takes everything in stride — enviously so — and basks in the beauty he finds in his strange circumstances. Like the historical Prince Takaoka, his pilgrimage ends before he arrives at his final destination. However, Shibusawa ensures his physical death doesn’t spell the end of his spiritual journey.
The Prince himself is an amusing character to follow, one who comes across as both wise and childish, and that offsets the pragmatism of his companions. His journey to India forces him to confront earthly matters he long ago renounced.
His key struggle is his feelings for his father’s mysterious mistress Kusuko, who first planted the seed of visiting India in him. However, Shibusawa relegates this plot to the background or forgets it entirely (rather playfully so) in favor of a dizzying dream logic.
Most chapters begin with a sketch of the historical and geographical landscape of Prince Takaoka’s current position. However, that rooting of the reader in time and place quickly unravels as reality and dream trade places.
The prince often gives into curiosity and diverges from his objective. These dreams within dreams leave both Takaoka and the reader floundering until Shibusawa deftly circles back to reality.
A homage to history and life
Readers seeking a fast-paced fantasy won’t find it here. Like the Prince’s journey toward enlightenment, the story meanders and lapses into historical asides that feed into the slower pacing. But Takaoka’s Travels is also humorous. Who wouldn’t laugh at a talking, farting dugong, or the Prince navigating a flying canoe in search of “honey men?”
In keeping with Shibusawa’s interests, plenty of disturbing and unsettling scenes abound. One scene with a baku and a princess made me do quite a few double-takes, and the relationship between the younger Prince and Kusuko isn’t comfortable to read. Yet the purity of the pilgrimage remains intact if often challenged.
The last days of Prince Takaoka’s journey also mirror Shibusawa’s life, who was in the hospital with laryngeal cancer while writing this book. His fate mirrors the Prince’s pain after he swallows a beautiful pearl to prevent its theft. It lodges in his throat, impacting his speech and health, and ultimately confirms what previous events hinted at: the Prince would not live to realize his dream. Rather than despair or shy away from his impending death, he seeks it out with the same childish determination and wonder that had carried him so far.
Shibusawa had passed by the time Takaoka’s Travels was published, but like Prince Takaoka, perhaps he found what he sought beyond the corporeal plane.
Takaoka’s Travels releases May 14 through Stone Bridge Press.
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