Jiro Osaragi - a writer who loved cats

Two curiosities about Jiro Osaragi.

I mentioned yesterday that Osaragi was a sort of a French Japanese writer. His museum contains his enormous archive of French historical documents, with a particularly rich store of material about the Dreyfus affair.

It turns out that during the 1930s Osaragi wrote a historical novel set during the French Third Republic, about the Dreyfus affair. He wrote a novel about France as a way to criticize the Japanese military government while evading the censorship. After the war, Osaragi wrote two more novels set around the same time, one about the corruption scandal surrounding France’s attempt to build a Panama canal, the other about the 1870 Siege of Paris and the Paris Commune. I think that's it on the left.

I would love to read one of these novels.

Second curious fact about Jiro Osaragi: the man loved cats. At one point, when he moved to a larger house, he did not sell the old one, but gave it over to his eighteen cats. So he kept two households, one for himself, one for his cats.

The Jiro Osaragi Memorial Museum is full of, aside from his books and papers, his collection of cat-related stuff. Statues of cats, for example, including the waving cat figurines one sees at Chinese restaurants.

Also, paintings of cats. And books about cats. One of these is called Cats for Pleasure and Profit. The architectural details of the building, such as window frames, sometimes incorporate cat designs, although I could not get a good picture of any of them. No living cats, though.

Any cat lover visiting Yokohama would be a fool not to plunk down their 200 yen and see this museum.

The Jiro Osaragi Memorial Museum - who?

Last weekend I visited Yokohama, where I strolled into the Jiro Osaragi Memorial Museum and discovered a few surprises, even though almost every word was Japanese.

Almost – some were French. Osaragi was a 20th century Japanese writer who was immersed in French literature. Romain Rolland was a particular favorite, and Osaragi translated Rolland into Japanese. Maybe this is part of the reason I had never heard of Osaragi. Rolland’s reputation is not so healthy now, either.

On one wall of the museum one can see Osaragi’s complete sets of Hugo, Baudelaire, Merimeé, Zola, Flaubert, and others. Only two books in English, both by the author.

These two novels are The Journey and The Homecoming, as far as I can tell his only novels translated into English. The latter book has the distinction of being the first Japanese novel translated into English after World War II. Both novels are actually about the American occupation, so the interest at that time is understandable. Both are in print (both in Japanese and English) in Japan, at least, and both are available for a pittance, used, at Amazon and Powells.

The topical subjects make me curious about the quality of the novels. Are they imitative of styles that are now unfashionable? Are they period pieces, of interest only to students of that time and place? Or is this another fine writer crowded out of the foreign market by the bigger names? Kawabata, Soseki, Tanizaki, and so on. Quota filled. No room for Jiro Osaragi. He also wrote a series of best-selling samurai novels, so snobbery, maybe? More simply, is he worth reading?

He does seem to have a few more of his books available in French. That leads to one of the two most interesting things I learned in the museum, but I’ll save those for tomorrow.

The museum contains Osaragi’s archives, as well as his books and memorabilia. In America, this would all be boxed away in some big university library. In Japan, it’s in a charming, elegant museum* that has its own tea shop.

* Best I could do for a link. Don't bother with the "Official Site" button - it's for - I don't know what. Yokohama tourism?