The Journey

This novel, published in 1952, is set in and near Tokyo and describes a society changed by the American occupation after the Second World War. The central character, Okamoto Taeko, is a young woman. At the start of the novel she has arrived in the seaside resort town of Kamakura to see her uncle Soroku and to visit the grave of his son Akira, who was killed in action in the war. At the cemetery Taeko meets a young man called Tsugawa Ryosuké, one of Akira’s school friends, and they fall in love. Ryosuké becomes increasingly greedy and ambitious and struggles with gambling debts and the dangers of corrupt business deals. This puts an unbearable strain on their relationship. At the end of the novel, Taeko’s journey is uncertain:
“Painful as things might be at the moment, the first consideration was life itself and the process of living. She must not stand still on the road but must keep on walking. This idea had somehow become embedded in her mind and she felt the power of it. She would not let her life become like standing water, which is bound to stagnate; no, she would make it start flowing, like a fresh river. At present her destination might be blank but she would move ahead depending on the very strength that motion gave her.”

The author, Osaragi Jirō (born 4 October 1897 as Nojiri Haruhiko), was born in Yokohama. His first book was published while he was still in school. After studying at the University of Tokyo, he took a teaching position at a girls’ high school in Kamakura, the town where most of this novel is set and where he remained for the rest of his life. Osaragi committed himself to a full-time career as a writer in 1923 and his first historical novel was published in the following year. His 1948 novel Kikyō (Homecoming) was the first to deal with post-war society and won the Japan Art Academy Prize.

What connects the key characters of the novel is the death of Akira, the only son of Okamoto Soroku. He was killed in the war in southern China. His old school friend, Ryosuké, comments to Taeko at his graveside:
“Terrible thing about his dying, isn't it? Well, that's what happens in war. I dare say it couldn't be helped. But, you know, [he] always took the most dangerous things on to his own shoulders. He was like that at school too... A terrible shame his dying like that!”
He often felt “regret that on the particular front where so few people had been killed, his friend had been one of the casualties.”
Later in the novel Akira’s father speaks of his grief:
“He’s dead and there’s no use my complaining about it. Until today I haven't ever mentioned him to anyone. But my loneliness, you know, is something indescribable. Nothing can alleviate it. It gets worse and worse as the days go by. It does no good talking to people about it. Something must be wrong with me.”