Anthony Thwaite: two decades a generation apart

Abstract

Among the group of writers discussed in this book, Anthony Thwaite is the only poet/critic to have seen Japan both in the 1950s and again after a long gap in truly recent times. He made a year-long visit in 1985–86, and was able to compare that experience with other visits, the first of which was from 1955 to 1957 as a teacher at Tokyo University. In Letter from Tokyo, a book of poetry published in 1987, he collected some of his impressions of the country and its people, which he confesses have deepened his sense of alienation and detachment from Japan. For instance, he realised how acutely foreign Japanese characters looked to him and how impossible it would be now for him to learn Japanese. As observed in the following example, Thwaite’s second impressions of the country are still full of new surprises. He finds an excessive amount of formality, empty superficiality and unpleasant vulgarity in every aspect of Japanese life — from ordinary letter-writing to the attitude of a nun in the Buddhist temple; and a shocking girl-entertainer who swallowed a snake’s head!

‘Kanji’

As I walk I notice the shapes of characters

…

Some I know, and say myself quietly.

Others I recognize, understand, but can’t remember

What sound they make. Many I recognize

But cannot understand. And many more

Always seem new, unknown.

…

But it is too late.

I sit in the bus and watch a ten-year-old turning

Page after page of characters, reading them all,

Not noticing what he is doing, simply becoming

Someone who knows: leaving me learning, alone.