Book Review: Zone of Emptiness by Hiroshi Noma

 

Zone of Emptiness by Hiroshi Noma 

317 pages, Published January, 1952 by World Publishing Company

English translation 1956

 On the surface, this read is a bit out of nowhere for me. I mostly read modern SF and horror and lots of 20th-century science fiction. So how did this post-war mainstream Japanese novel that was translated into English once in 1956 end up on my reading list? Philip K. Dick reasons of course. 

Professor David Gill mentioned this author Hiroshi Noma in his recent lecture on Man in the High Castle. I looked on my local library app and was surprised to find this book. Pulled from deep storage this first and only edition had been on the shelf at San Diego public library for 70 years. I think I am developing a reputation at the deep storage, I just got Beaumont’s Intruder from there, and I know when I checked Fredric Brown’s What Mad Universe I was told by the librarian that she thought it hadn’t been checked out since the 80s.

 I might as well quote Gill’s blog post from 2010 to explain why this book is of interest.
 
"Though Dick insisted on his having drawn inspiration from Japanese novelists, he never specified who those novelists were. There are indeed important Japanese writers who earned a degree in French literature at the University of Tokyo (Kenzaburo Oe, Osamu Dazai, Hideo Kobayashi), while others studied French literature at the University of Kyoto (Hiroshi Noma and Shohei Ooka), but the works of these authors which were available in English translations before the publication of The Man in the High Castle do not have a multiple plot structure, though one of them, Horoshi Noma's war novel Zone of Emptiness (1952, translated into English in 1956) does have multiple points of view. It is however difficult to see it as a narrative model to Dick's 1962 novel because there is only one plot, pivoted on the tragic story of a Japanese soldier who is imprisoned for two years in a military penitentiary for a crime he has not committed and then sent to fight (and probably die) in a faraway Pacific island; and this novel has only two narrative foci, unlike Castle."

At some point, I just wanted to know if Phil was influenced by this novel. So I spent a couple of days reading it and concluded that he was not.  This review could stop here but I read it.

Noma has fascinating biographical elements that show up in the novel.  He was raised to follow in his father’s footsteps and become a Buddhist priest. In his university years, he studied French literature,  and that ended up influencing him and the students in his program many of whom published in Japan. After graduating in 1938, he was involved in the labor movement and was involved in protest movements.  He was drafted when in the Pacific war much like Kitani in the novel he was imprisoned for “subversive thought.”

Noma didn’t write an anti-war novel but he gave a window into the imperial army through the eyes of a prisoner accused of stealing from an officer. It reminded me a bit of reading The Sorrow of War by Bảo Ninh. That is a fantastic novel the American War in Vietnam written by a former VC. Zone of Emptiness is not nearly as good as that novel but so little has highlighted life as a soldier in the military we considered enemies in these conflicts. It made me hungry for more stories from the Japanese. Maybe that is the influence for PKD. Real Japanese characters.

So it is the story of Kitani who picked up an officer’s wallet, and when he tried to return it he was accused of stealing it.  There are some interesting elements with the structure, but I am not an expert on French literature that I am told it was influenced by. Kitani does the time, and at first, we believe he did the crime. The war is ending and he is released just in time to be sent away sensing that the war must really be going bad. His friend Soda expects to die in the war but it is seeing what happened to Kitani that gets if to start to question.    

“The image of Kitani flashed across his mind.  At once it took complete possession of him, driving out all the daydreams, fantasies, and regrets.  Soda could see the fierce but tender face, the somewhat wide mouth, the brutal jaw, the powerful neck.  He was so overcome with emotion that he had to stop walking. ‘It can’t be love,’ he said to himself. ‘I’m a normal, healthy man’  He uttered a forced laugh, tried to mock himself, and again accused the army, ‘It distorts or makes suspect even the simplest feelings.”

There are times I wish the novel was more clear but I also am not sure what year it was written so it may have been written in Imperial Japan and Homa could only say so much. That said there are moments when the novel gets clear.
 
“You’re not a Communist are you?”
“No,” said Soda, “but I respect people who are capable of sacrificing themselves for an idea.”
“Our cause is the right one. It will win out.”
“I’m not so sure of that,” said Soda pensively.”

 Soda is not the main character so it is interesting that two power scenes to me were his. Much of the novel is about these men preparing to die for an empire dying itself. It is absurd but they are a part of the system.

“There was no denying it. Each time he abandoned himself to the desire, a rainbow appeared and lit up the zone of emptiness, and Soda would float off to a region where no bugle was ever heard.”

It is less of an anti-war novel than it is anti-military, conformity. The message and meaning are fine. There are a few really interesting parts to this novel. Overall I am not sure I would recommend it to many readers. If you have an interest in Japanese wartime life then sure.