Page:Japanese Literature (Keene).pdf/109

Rh romances or the fantastic stories which Tsubouchi so deplored to accounts of contemporary life. The first important novel to follow Tsubouchi’s essay was The Drifting Cloud (1887–9) by Futabatei Shimei (1864–1909), a work which is often considered the pioneer novel of the new literary movement. This is the story of a young man, a member of the emancipated intelligentsia, who leaves his job in the Civil Service to live in the country in his uncle’s house. He is ineffectual and irresolute, earning the scorn of his aunt, a woman of peasant disposition, and eventually of his cousin, with whom he is in love. The cousin finally marries another man, but the unhappy hero is still unable to arouse enough energy to do anything. The Drifting Cloud can scarcely be said to boast a plot, but when compared with the other novels which were being written in its day, its importance can quickly be realized. Here was a leading character who, far from possessing the ability to quell demons, like the heroes of most of Bakin’s novels, is thoroughly mediocre in every way. Sometimes he arouses our pity, but seldom our real sympathy. Foreign influence, particularly the writings of Turgenev, was important in Futabatei’s work. This he shows not only in his manner of telling the story, but in the language he uses. Novels written in Japan during previous centuries were couched for the most part in the literary language, an artificial, sometimes highly ornamented style. Futabatei’s readings in Turgenev and other European writers convinced him that the language of books must be the same as that which is used in speech. The Drifting Cloud is the first novel to have been written under this principle, and it was of great importance, both in its subject-matter and style. With few exceptions all subsequent novelists abandoned both the traditional types of subject and the traditionally employed language.

The quantity of literature produced during the Meiji era