Navigating Deep River: New Perspectives on Shusaku Endo's Final Novel

Description

An interdisciplinary dialogue with Shūsaku Endō’s last novel offering new perspectives on Japanese culture, Christian doctrine, Hindu spiritualities, and Buddhist worldviews. In Navigating Deep River, Mark W. Dennis and Darren J. N. Middleton have curated a wide-ranging discussion of Shūsaku Endō’s final novel, Deep River, in which four careworn Japanese tourists journey to India’s holy Ganges in search of spiritual as well as existential renewal. Navigating Deep River evaluates and probes Endō’s decades-long search to find the words to explain Transcendent Mystery, the difficult tension between faith and doubt, the purpose of spiritual journeys, and the challenges posed by the reality of religious pluralism in an increasingly diverse world. The contributors, including Van C. Gessel who translated Deep River into English in 1994, offer an engaged and patient exploration of this major text in world fiction, and this anthology promises to deepen academic appreciation for Endō, within and beyond the West. Contents Acknowledgments Foreword The Myths of Ganga Notes Introduction A Novel We Have Loved Bookends and Titles Hinduism Sikhism Partition 1947 Buddhism Pure Land Buddhism Catholic Sensibilities Faith, Hope, Love, and Reading Notes Part One: Historical and Comparative Approaches Chapter One Navigating Deep River through the Lens of Buddhist Thought Introduction Suffering and Impermanence The Six Realms of Rebirth The Self Interdependence Rebirth of Individual Characters Metaphor River Metaphor Metaphors in Buddhist Thought Notes Chapter Two A Gaze Turned Inward: Perspectives from the Orient Introduction The River Pilgrimage to Kashi and Ganga Ōtsu and Vedānta Negotiating Differences Notes Chapter Three Japan’s Orient and Animal Theology in Endō Shūsaku’s Deep River Introduction From the Irony of Japan’s Orient to the Aporia of “Overcoming Modernity” Asian War, Sacrificial Animal, and Animal Salvation Notes Chapter Four Religion and Violence in Deep River Introduction Religion and Violence in Individual Lives: The Drive to Destroy Herself The 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots: More by Enmity than Love Religion and Violence as Universal Phenomena: The Love and Wrath of the Onion Notes Chapter Five Endō Shūsaku: The Long Road to the Deep River Introduction Endō as Literary Critic The Journeys Notes Part Two: Literary and Theological Approaches Chapter Six Catholic Convergences in Deep River Introduction Endō and the French Catholic Intellectual Heritage Vatican II and Catholic Development on Religious Pluralism The Deep River of Catholic Interfaith Work Notes Chapter Seven Shūsaku Endō and Flannery O’Connor on the Grotesque Introduction Suffering and Christ-like Love Mitsuko in Deep River Notes Chapter Eight From “Catholic” to “catholic”: Arriving at Deep River Introduction Endō’s Early Approach to Japanese Religion and Its Influence on Literature Discarding Dichotomies Replacing the Dichotomy No Longer Critical of the Japanese No Longer Worried about European Christianity Religion and Literature Conclusion Notes Chapter Nine Deep River as Endō’s Book of Job: Gathering a Community of Sufferers at the Water’s Edge Introduction Personal Plagues “Hast thou considered my servant Job?” (Job 1:8) “My soul is weary of my life” (Job 10:1) “Oh, don’t you want to go / To that Gospel feast, / That promised land / Where all is peace?” Notes Chapter Ten Mitsuko, That’s Me: Autobiographical Space in Endō Shūsaku’s Final Novel “Portions of Self”: In Search of the Author in Deep River The Autobiographical Space, Shishōsetsu, and the Ambiguity of the “I” From Thérèse to Mitsuko: Textual Hauntings in Deep River Conclusion: Mitsuko, That’s Me: In Search of the Real End Notes Chapter Eleven Imagining India: Traversing Deep River with Enami and Ōtsu Introduction Vārānasī and the Ganga Enami’s Understanding of India Ōtsu’s Discovery of India Conclusion Notes Chapter Twelve Endō Shūsaku and Religious Pluralism Introduction Main Characters India as the Stage Setting Images of Christ John Hick’s Influence on Endō The Framework of Salvation in Deep River Conclusion Notes Chapter Thirteen Endō Shūsaku’s Process Panentheism Introduction Western Process Panentheism Non-Western Process Panentheism A Parable of Process Panentheism Conclusion Notes Chapter Fourteen Japanese Sensibility, and Transcendence in Deep River Introduction Japanese (In)sensibility and Christianity The Existence of God, Repentance, and Prayer Endō and Pre-axial Religion Japan and Axial Religion Endō and Shinran “Eastern Pantheism” All-Pervading Life Cosmocentric Awareness The Nondualism of Good and Evil Cosmic Embeddedness Communal Embeddedness Human Flourishing The Significance of Japanese Sensibilities Notes Afterword Deep and Wide: Tourists and Pilgrims in the Shallows Shallows Bodies Confluence Notes For Further Reading Contributors Index