The Logic of Sustainability in Ikezawa Natsukis Ecofiction.docx

1、The Logic of Sustainability in Ikezawa Natsukis EcofictionThe Logic of Sustainability in Ikezawa Natsukis Ecofiction Abstract: This essay discusses a sustainable way of civilization in relation to globalization and environmentalism by examining Ikezawa Natsukis sequal ecofiction, ?Subarashii Shinsek

2、ai? ?Brave New World?, 2000 and ?Hikari no Yubi de Fureyo? ?Touch with the Finger of Light?, 2008. As a cosmopolitan writer who has lived in Tokyo, Greece, Okinawa, and now France, with a strong scientific background, Ikezawa uses his culture?straddling logic to explore sustainable interfaces betwee

3、n seemingly opposing ideas such as localism and globalism, amateurism and professionalism, and technology and wisdom. I will discuss how Ikezawas literary world critically perceives, rather than avoids, the tension between such opposing forces and introduces a new logic which helps readers see their

4、 everyday lives in an ecologically refreshing way. Key words: Japanese environmental literature Ikezawa Nastuki sustainability ecofiction Author: Masami Raker Yuki is associate professor at Kanazawa University, Japan. She specializes in American and Japanese environmental literature and ecocriticism

5、. Email:mryukiwg8.so?net.ne.jp 标题：池泽夏树生态小说中的可持续性发展逻辑 内容提要：本篇论文通过阅读池泽夏树的系列生态小说，勇敢的新世界（2000年）和用光的手指触摸（2008年），探讨如何在与全球化和环境主义的相互关系中获得一条可持续发展的文明道路。作为一位作家，池泽夏树以四海为家，先后在东京、希腊及冲绳生活过，现居法国。他有着很强的科学背景，能够以他的文化越界逻辑在各种看似矛盾的思想间探寻到可持续的边缘界面，如本土主义和全球主义、业余化和专业化、以及科技与智慧之间。论文指出，池泽夏树在其作品中以批判的眼光看待而非回避这些对立面之间存在的张力，为读者介绍了一条

6、新的可持续性发展逻辑，从而帮助他们以崭新的生态观观察自己的日常生活。 关键词：日本生态文学 池泽夏树 可持续性 生态小说 作者简介：结城正美，日本金泽大学副教授。研究方向为美国和日本的生态文学和生态批评。 IKEZAWA Natsuki is an award?winning Japanese contemporary writer, poet, and translator, who has been exploring a less destructive and more sustainable way of civilization. No one would argue his be

7、ing a leading environmental writer; indeed he is often introduced as a major Japanese environmental writer alongside writers and poets such as Matsuo Basho（松尾芭蕉）, Miyazawa Kenji（宫迟贤治）, and Ishimure Michiko（石牟礼道子） (ASLE?Japan 238?39, Ikuta 279). However, others might rather call him a travel writer.

8、Ikezawa is an avid traveler, not only visiting many parts of the world from Africa to the Pacific islands, but also having lived in many places including Tokyo, Greece, Okinawa, and France, where he currently lives with his family. In addition to physical movement, Ikezawa seems fascinated with conc

9、eptual motion, traversing the ideological distances between different disciplines.Such a cosmopolitan, culture?straddling stance makes Ikezawas work unique in Japans literary environmentalism which is often characterized by a strong sense of placeof rootedness in a particular place. Compared to Amer

10、ican literary environmentalism which has a tendency to highlight the implications of a sense of place, “Japanese writers. do not seem to have any trouble locating this sense in what they write. Or, rather, the sense of place has been so acknowledged by writers as something inherent in the Japanese m

11、entality that some times they are not even aware that it is latent in their own writing” (Ikuta 277). Rather than focusing on and celebrating the poetics of human connectedness to a particular place, Ikezawas compound perspective sees a place and the human interaction with the environment in it in a

12、 more objective and comparative manner. A popular writer and intellectual who has received several prestigious literary awards, Ikezawa has attracted general and scholarly readers, within and beyond Japan. However, as far as I know, there has not yet been any ecocritical research focusing on his wor

13、k. It may have something to do with the academic circumstances of ecocriticism in Japan. Since the introduction of ecocrticism into Japans academic realm in the mid 1990s, it has been practiced mainly by Americanists, not having been very successful in attracting the attention of Japanese literary s

14、cholars. In addition to the unsuccessful marriage between American?born ecocriticism and Japanese literary study, there might be some other reasonsfor the limited ecocritical attention to Ikezawas work.I am not a scholar of Japanese literature by profession myself, yet using what I have learned in t

15、he study of American literary environmentalism, I have recently attempted to apply ecorticial theory and methodology to the reading of Japanese literary works such as those of Ishimure Michiko, Morisaki Kazue, and Taguchi Randy. In this essay, I wish to illustrate how Ikezawas cultural pluralistic p

16、osition introduces a unique perspective to literary environmentalism in Japan. A Cultural Straddler In his nonfiction essays such as those collected in ?Hahanaru shizen no oppai? ?Mother Earths Breast?, 1996, and novels including ?Subarashii shinsekai?Brave New World?, 2000 and ?Hikari no yubi de fu

17、reyo?Touch with the Finger of Light?, 2008, there is a distinctive tendency to traverse different cultures physically and conceptually. As I have mentioned, Ikezawa himself is a traveler, a cosmopolitan who has lived in many different places, and a decompartmentalized intellectual who freely goes ba

18、ck and forth between poetics and science. But for what does he (and the characters of his work) travel so constantly? One conceivable reason is that locating himself outside Japan makes it possible for him to see how a dominant discourse frames individual and societal attitudes regarding their surro

19、unding world and therein how to put them in perspective. As the proverb says, in a forest, one cannot see the forest; a certain distance is necessary if one wishes to. Travelboth physical and conceptualis the most easily accessible way of keeping a distance from the place and issues in question. In

20、his strong desire for different frames of reference, as I have stated, Ikezawa is unique in Japans literary environmentalism in which a lived sense of place and a resultant place?based literary stance are thought to be the major elements. However, that does not mean that there is no literary precede

21、nt; Matsuo Basho is known as a wondering poet and Miyazawa Kenji easily strolled between humanities and science. In addition, increasing attention has been given to non?placed writers such as Hino Keizo（日野启三） and Morisaki Kazue（森崎和江）, who were both raised in Korea during Japans occupation and have d

22、eveloped critical views from which they deconstruct the cultural matrix of Japan and reconsider the cultural, political, and aesthetic implications of its human relationships with the environment. It is in such a literary lineage of traveling/non?placedness that Ikezawas work should be situated. Sti

23、ll, though, his work is remarkable in the depth of his movement in the physical and conceptual worlds. Visiting an unfamiliar place often brings about an encounter with the othera way of being, thinking, acting, living that is fundamentally different from ones ownwhich may disturb and thereby help e

24、xpand ones worldview. Looking for such a key function of contact with the other may be another reason why Ikezawa travels so avidly. I should make it clear that, unlike the colonialistic desire for the other, which characteristically involves a hierarchical binary difference between self and other a

25、s well as that of center and periphery, Ikezawas attitude towards the other shows no intention to intervene. Even in the earliest stage of his literary career, it is evident that the writer is aware of the disparate nature of the other and understands the worlds indifference to him, as is clearly de

26、monstrated in the following opening passage from his 1987 debut story “Still Life”: You shouldnt assume that this world exists for your benefit. The world is not a container for you. You and the world are like two trees standing together. Neither leans on the other; both grow erect. You are aware th

27、at the splendid tree we call the world is beside you, and this makes you happy. But it may be that the world is barely concerned with you at all. (“Still Life” 113; some modifications added to the original translation) Unlike a romantic writer, Ikezawa does not attempt to dissolve the difference, di

28、stance, split, gap, or whatever you wish to call it, between the individual and the world. He does not dream of transcending, of unifying. Instead, he suggests, “what matters is the forging of links, the passing of messages between the outer world of mountains, people, factories and insects singing

29、and the wide world within. Even while a distance is maintained between them, there should be a sense of worlds moving in unison or harmony” (“Still Life” 113). In order to pursue a sound relationship with the world, he claims, we need a proper distance from it; distance does not necessarily keep one

30、 away from the world but serves as a vantage point from which to find passage for correspondence between different worlds. It is this paradoxical function of distance that characterizes Ikezawas literary stance, from which he contemplates a balanced, sustainable future. So far I have emphasized Ikez

31、awas being a traveler in his critical examination of social situations and his literary exploration of a sustainable future, but he is not just casually passing through different places one after another. Calling himself “a traveler who has missed his chance to leave” (“A Long Interview” 52), Ikezaw

32、a stays long enough to learn a particular place. Born in Hokkaido and raised in Tokyo, he was in Greece for three years in the mid 1970s, and in Tokyo, before moving to Okinawa in 1994 then to Fontainebleau, France in 2004. It seems that Ikezawa fluctuates between local cultures and cosmopolitan cultures, locating himself somewhere between a native and a sojourner, having contact with both but identifying with neither. Ikezawa situates himself in no particular culture, or nowhere, which can be transformed into now/her