THE MASKS WE WEAR
In this strange story, we realize that the daily faces we wear mask the truth about how we really feel.
In Fumiko Enchi’s Masks, there is always the feeling that every action in the present is hanging by a leaden thread unraveling from the past. Enchi has crafted a work as delicately scored and carved as a mask in the Japanese Noh theater tradition. The three chapters in the book are named after a type of mask used in Noh performances, with each describing the state of the woman whose story plays out before us.
Early on in the book, the story also leads us to the studio of Yorihito Yakushiji, a dying Noh master. There we get a sense soon enough that there’s evil lurking behind the oblique visages of the characters we are getting to know. Nothing is what it seems.
“Yorikata picked up the mask and slowly extended his arms up and out, holding it level with his own face. It was the visage of a coldly beautiful woman, her cheeks tightly drawn. The sweep of the eyelids was long, and the red of the upper lip extended out to the corners of the mouth in an uneven and involved line, curving at last into a smile of disdain. A haughty cruelty was frozen hard upon the face, encasing it like crystals of ice on a tree.”
~ From the Chapter titled Ryô no onna, a woman whose beauty has been destroyed by the suffering she has experienced in hell for her passionate attachments.
The writing in Masks alternates between the prosaic and the lyrical and this approach seems to be in keeping with Japanese ethos. A few years ago, my son visited Japan for ten days and told me how he felt that every object in Japan seemed to have been designed to be utilitarian, and yet, the keenest attention had been paid to the marriage of three qualities—utility, craftsmanship and beauty. Masks is crafted in the same mold, melding the basic, the sublime and the spiritual.
Originally published in 1956, the English translation of Masks was written by Juliet Winters Carpenter and published by Knopf in 1983. Carpenter is a veteran translator and double recipient of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission for the Translation of Japanese Literature, in 1980 for Abe Kōbō’s Secret Rendezvous and in 2014 for Minae Mizumura’s A True Novel.
Carpenter’s translation of Masks makes for a splendid, facile read. Even though there were many literary allusions and many references, specifically, to the The Tale of Genji, I didn’t feel encumbered by not knowing that story. Enchi sketches out some scenes from the story of Genji and it becomes obvious how a character in that story informs the behavior of a seminal character in Masks. Between the session at the Noh master’s home, a seance during which a dead man’s spirit haunts the room and a visit to the shrine in Kyoto that was the setting for The Tale of Genji, we begin to understand that we’re being led to a dramatic moment in which all the three disparate aspects will somehow congeal in complete harmony evocative of Noh theater.
Fumiko Enchi’s novel opens with the plight of a poet named Mieko Toganō whose mere presence in a gathering lends “an old-fashioned easiness and grace” even though she has suffered several losses. Despite the recent death of her son in an avalanche, Mieko is deeply invested in the love life of her widowed daughter-in-law, Yasuko. Though she is ravaged by sorrow, she seems to derive unusual pleasure manipulating the relationships between Yasuko and the two men who are in love with her. The two men are friendly enough with Mieko and Yasuko to be aware of what is happening. In the meanwhile, they have their misgivings about the two widows, too. The two seem to have a very close relationship. In the backdrop of this tale is the refrain of the song of the snow by Mieko’s mentally-handicapped daughter whose appearance in the misty backyard is unsettling and mysterious. In time, the story of Harume swims into sharper focus. The ending took my breath away.
The symbolism of masks, the stage itself, the roles of the older and younger widow and, in particular, the references to Noh theater throughout, make for a terrific story. I was also intrigued by how Noh, a form of classical Japanese dance drama that dates back to the 14th century, is the oldest major theatre art that is still regularly performed today. While being a Noh actor takes physical endurance and agility, there is also acute skill—and art—in the construction of the masks themselves. The most interesting aspect yet is that actors are constantly practicing for at least ten different plays at any given time. Like life itself, a Noh production is fleeting and all the energy of the players is invested into single, one-day-only plays.
Masks makes many references to the “spirits” of those who have passed on and those who live and wield their power over the destinies of human beings. It makes us wonder why people become who they are. The story also makes us introspect on the origins of vice. Can the germ of villainy be traced back to a hurt that happened in the past? Or is a heinous thought born—just because? How does nature versus nature matter in the birth and subsequent evolution of our darkest side?
By the time I reached the end of Masks, I felt sorry for Mieko, not because of what happened to her in the past but because of how she never reached that personal point of resolution that makes some sentient beings resolve to go high when others go low. She never could forget the injustices meted out to her. She never could aspire for a higher ideal. The loss of her son was too heavy a cross to bear. As The Tale of Genji tells us through an essay written by a young Mieko, if a woman is wronged, she will extract her vengeance if not in her lifetime, certainly, after her death. Such is her power that her spirit will hover and avenge the envy and the pain she endured in her past life.
When I started this project, one thing never crossed my mind, that reading a book set in a place would make me desperately want to visit or revisit it. I believe the spirit of a place passes down into its people and into its literature over the generations. This is the second Japanese work I decided to read (the first one was Sweet Bean Paste), and in both instances, they’ve left me wanting to experience a few weeks in Japan.
I felt that the poignancy of Noh in this magnum opus reached a crescendo when the dying Yakushiji gifts a mask to Mieko, one that he has selected based on his association with the poet. In that tenuous moment is contained the potency of this brilliantly articulated story, that all the sorrow, the angst, the deprivation, the denial and the hurt of our lives are always poured into the true cast of our faces. It’s the truth of our human condition that, fortunately, they’re often tucked away, for our own self-preservation no less, behind the masks we choose to wear in public.
This was a fantastic review, and I'm going to get this book right away!
“utility, craftsmanship and beauty”—a great trio to aspire to in writing as well. Your son was perceptive to take that home as a souvenir.