Reading the Kimono in Twentieth-Century Japanese Literature and Film

Michiko Suzuki

Published by University of Hawaii Press 2023

Reading the Kimono in Twentieth-Century Japanese Literature and Film

Michiko Suzuki

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824896935

Overview
Contents

About this book

Often considered an exotic garment of “traditional Japan,” the kimono is in fact a vibrant part of Japanese modernity, playing an integral role in literature and film throughout the twentieth century. Reading the Kimono in Twentieth-Century Japanese Literature and Film is the first extended study to offer new ways of interpreting textual and visual narratives through “kimono language”—what these garments communicate within their literary, historical, and cultural contexts. Kimonos on the page and screen do much more than create verisimilitude or function as one-dimensional symbols. They go beyond simply indicating the wearer’s age, gender, class, and taste; as eloquent, heterogeneous objects, they speak of wartime and postwar histories and shed light on everything from gender politics to censorship. By reclaiming “kimono language”—once a powerful shared vernacular—Michiko Suzuki accesses inner lives of characters, hidden plot points, intertextual meanings, resistant messages, and social commentary.

Reading the Kimono examines modern Japanese literary works and their cinematic adaptations, including Tanizaki Jun’ichirō’s canonical novel, The Makioka Sisters, and its film versions, one screened under the US Occupation and another directed by Ichikawa Kon in 1983. It also investigates Kōda Aya’s Kimono and Flowing, as well as Naruse Mikio’s 1956 film adaptation of the latter. Reading the Kimono additionally advances the study of women writers by discussing texts by Tsuboi Sakae and Miyao Tomiko, authors often overlooked in scholarship despite their award-winning, bestselling stature.

Through her analysis of stories and their afterlives, Suzuki offers a fresh view of the kimono as complex “material” to be read. She asks broader questions about the act of interpretation, what it means to explore both texts and textiles as inherently dynamic objects, shaped by context and considered differently over time. Reading the Kimono is at once an engaging history of the modern kimono and its representation, and a significant study of twentieth-century Japanese literature and film.

Author / Editor information

Suzuki Michiko :

Michiko Suzuki is associate professor of Japanese and comparative literature at the University of California, Davis.Michiko Suzuki is associate professor of Japanese and comparative literature at the University of California, Davis.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Preface Publicly Available Download PDF	ix
Note on Names and Terms Publicly Available Download PDF	xiii
1. Introduction: Kimono as Object, Language, and History Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2. Literary Kimonos in The Makioka Sisters: From Prewar to Postwar Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
3. Visual Kimonos in The Makioka Sisters: The Occupation and the Bubble Economy Eras Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
4. Voices of Resistance: Kimonos in Tsuboi Sakae’s 1940s–1950s Works Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	100
5. Deciphering the Geisha World: Literary and Visual Kimonos in Kōda Aya’s Flowing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	137
6. Kimono Lessons: Kōda Aya’s Kimono and Its Afterlife Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	172
7. Lost Kimonos: Writing the Self in Miyao Tomiko’s I-Novels Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	198
Conclusion: Into the Twenty-First Century Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	228
Notes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	235
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	279
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	295
About the Author Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	311

Language: English
Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 336
Illustrations
- Other: 36 illustrations, 16 in color
Keywords: kimono

eBook

Published: August 31, 2023
ISBN: 9780824896935