Like 'the tolling of a distant temple bell', Ibuse Masuji's Black Rain remembers the horrors of Hiroshima and warns of the inhumanity of war
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Thursday, August 3, 2023
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There are photos of its serene landscapes, its local delicacies and sake, and its modern sports and street culture.
Key Points:
- There are photos of its serene landscapes, its local delicacies and sake, and its modern sports and street culture.
- The bombing of Hiroshima at the conclusion of World War II is mentioned just once.
- The Hiroshima Peace Memorial, according to the site, “speaks to the horrors of nuclear weapons”.
- But its stories, its “several pasts”, have been constantly abridged – or “refashioned”, as Michel Foucault would say.
- Ibuse Masuji’s Black Rain, which won the prestigious Noma Literary Prize after its publication in 1965, epitomises atomic bomb literature.
- Black Rain records the scorching memories of the hibakusha – atomic bomb survivors – of the bombing and its aftermath.
Forgetting and stigmatisation
- Shizuma Shigematsu and his family live a seemingly quiet and normal life in the village of Kobatake, about 100 kilometres from Hiroshima city.
- But the fact that they once lived and worked close to Hiroshima is still a weight upon their lives.
- There are rumours circulating in the village that Yasuko was near the epicentre of the explosion and now has radiation sickness.
- But after the war, Shigematsu laments, rumours stigmatising people like Yasuko are by no means under control.
- To prove that Yasuko was not exposed to radiation, Shigematsu decides to copy Yasuko’s wartime diary entries and show them to the village matchmaker.
Tradition versus modernity
- His critique of modernity is highly nuanced, with a tinge of humour.
- To convince him, she shows him a letter which was sent to his great-grandfather from Tokyo in 1870.
- For Ibuse, it is only through traditional food and medicine that the damages brought by science and modernity, exemplified by the atomic bomb, can be eased and soothed.
Appeal to nature, humanity and peace
- Shigematsu recalls the massive gingko tree he liked to play under, which stood outside his friend Kōtarō’s place.
- Like the bomb survivors who lost teeth and hair, they lost their scales and could not swim normally.
- Forgotten the hellfires we went through that day – forgotten them and everything else, with their damned anti-bomb rallies.
- The only important thing was to end it all soon as possible: rather an unjust peace, than a “just” war!
- The only important thing was to end it all soon as possible: rather an unjust peace, than a “just” war!