A Writer's Turf and Cultural Clash in Literature
When and where writers plant their flag
Dear friends,
To keep things casual during the summer, I decided to repost three of my older posts. All from Whitman’s Toolbox, by far the more popular of my sub-categories. (No doubt due to its practical approach) It is unedited.
As one reads more and more, few authors hit the heart as they used to. You know more than you did when you picked up that very first book on your own, and the more you know the less will surprise you. It is one reason why many literature academics lose their original passion and should thank the Lord should any passion survive unscathed.
But my spirit of impression and appreciation isn’t flushed out yet. And recently, I have had the pleasure and delight of adding Shusaku Endo to my all-time favorite authors list.
On one hand, this shouldn’t surprise some who know me. Often called the “Japanese Graham Greene” (and Greene was indeed an appreciator of Endo’s work), Endo’s 1966 novel Silence (the book I read, and his best-known novel) is a natural fit for every Catholic reader with an intellectual bent. A description that, if I’m straight, is not off the mark as far as yours truly is concerned.
But there is more to Endo than just the Catholicism. For those who, like me, have had a lifelong fascinating with other cultures, Silence is one of the few novels I’ve encountered that succeeds at exploring the most profound yet difficult discussions relating to what cultures can learn from each other; what works in one culture and doesn’t in another; are we truly as universal as propaganda narratives today make us out to be? And so on. (I am of the opinion that we are not, even with globalization; and that, not the sham concept of “diversity” the media and politicians peddle, is what’s truly beautiful about us. We can refrain from killing each other without giving this distinctiveness up.)
Many novelists explore such themes, but either end up 1) making it more about one culture than the other (an example being basically every specimen of the at-times charming yet all-too-often-boring American immigrant genre, which is rarely ever about the country of origin even when it seems like it is), or 2) somehow avoiding that central chord of culture clash, resulting in the intended focus taking an atmospheric role in the background. The way some of Philip K. Dick’s novels have a dystopian background but don’t share the direct concerns of dystopias like 1984.
The only other author to come to my mind with this focus, the mighty Orhan Pamuk - also one of my all-time favorites - has also succeeded but, unlike Endo, is less concentrated on that focus; out of all his novels, My Name Is Red is the most successful at this exploration.
There is a lot to learn from both authors when it comes to exploring a culture clash. First, their success shows that it is not at all a simple, easy voyage. The more “mainstream” novels with this focus tend to have plot premises where, “[protagonist] is in new country, but as he/she lives his life, falls in love, puts up with the evil prejudice of the locals (especially “evil White people”) and does x, y and z domestically, he/she feels the friction and has to live with it.” (Also basically the premise to virtually every American immigrant novel) Something generic like that.
Such stories are, on occasion, compensated for by the artistry of the prose; it is not impossible to make a masterpiece from a generic plot premise, and a good number of authors have done so in the past. But a masterpiece of cultural clash it is not. The protagonist’s experience and the plot demands too easily negate the exploration of this topic into the marginal domain of interest.
It is through subtler means that culture clash is best explored. A great example of such a work from a more classic era is Leo Tolstoy’s latter-day novella, Hadji Murad. It starts with the protagonist, in first-person, probably Tolstoy himself (one can imagine him strolling through the fields at Yasnaya Polyana) walking through a meadow full of grass and flowers growing in sync and in unison, only to prick himself on a wayward thistle all of a sudden. This thistle, out of the blue, recollects the man’s younger days as a soldier in the Caucasus Wars of the 1830s and initiates the story of Hadji Murad, an Avar commander. Though obscure due to its presence in a minor work, the thistle is one of the most powerful metaphors in literary history.
Like Tolstoy before them, both Endo and Pamuk were able to work out at some point that culture clash exploration must be explored through alternate, unconventional routes akin to thistles. Routes that need a lobe of imagination to discover, and a backup lobe of imagination to explore.
With Pamuk, it was Ottoman miniaturist art. The future of that art is a key part of the plot: it motivates characters to do great and terrible things. It functions almost as its own subplot, partly because Pamuk has many interests and is a revivalist of the multitudinous 19th century novel as well as forgotten Turkish culture; but also because the main plot, about Black and his love for Shekure, stands apart for readers primarily interested in the angst-ridden love story. But not to where the two themes are too distant from each other.
(Those interested in art from the Islamic world should, by the way, go right now and check out
’s Substack, . I don’t know if she has written about Turkish miniaturist art in particular. But if our rich, premodern artistic heritage is even around in a hundred years, it’s because of people like her working to keep these arts alive.)If Pamuk is a step behind Endo, it is only because Pamuk - either out of personal preference, sensitivity, inconclusiveness or maintaining a sense of mystery - does not entertain any firm conclusions about the culture clash; it is what it is, and given the legacy of both the Islamic Ottoman Empire and Mustafa Kemal Atatürk’s secularization of Turkey it is most probably the best approach to making sense of Turkey’s cross-continental overlap. A writer must be cautious with that kind of thing.
Endo, however, is not afraid to go that extra mile. The rather singular history behind his chosen topic - his “turf” - allows him to do this. And he does not hesitate.
I plan on discussing what Silence and his other writings have to say about Christianity in the wider world at some point in the near future. Make sure you’re also subscribed to my sub-newsletter, Dyzma’s Larder, so that you don’t miss out on that! But I’m still thinking about it, especially as I’m not yet sure I have anything to add that others haven’t already said.
Here, however, at Whitman’s Toolbox, we can explore another dimension to Endo’s work that every writer should think about: their “turf.” Or “area of expertise.”
It goes without saying that the lion’s share of writers who make a difference and who are original are those who lay claim to their own turf. Many do this by forming their own style; often, they are the most original. But claiming turf can be done topically as well. It is one of those formative questions a writer in their early days must discover for themselves.
A familiar manifestation of turf staking in the abstract sense is William Faulkner’s fictional Yoknapatawpha County. Through Yoknapatawpha County, Faulkner is both universal and provincial, a splendid example of the Heraclitean binding of opposites: readers around the world have found things to relate to in his fiction, but the reader never sets foot outside that county in his actual fiction. This blend of two indisputable extremes is one of literature’s great superpowers.
Other authors known for “claiming” turf are Bret Harte with Gold Rush California, Joseph Conrad with the maritime world, Rider Haggard with adventure stories, James Joyce with Dublin, James Fenimore Cooper with the East-of-the-Mississippi frontier, Günter Grass with Danzig, Orhan Pamuk with Istanbul, Emilio Salgari with pirates, Louis Auchincloss with the American monied aristocracy of olde, Erich Maria Remarque with World War I and Alexander Solzhenitsyn with Soviet gulags. (As the latter two examples show, sometimes it is turf that chooses you rather than vice versa)
Within genres, turf-snatching can take place as well: compare, for instance, Philip K. Dick’s alternate universe exploration and Earthbound stories with Ursula K. Le Guin’s Hainish Cycle, set upon planets far away and far removed from Earth (even if they feature humanoids) paired with her anthropological approach to science fiction.
Harte is noteworthy because he set the precedent of setting one’s stories in local places; this wasn’t a thing in English literature before then. Conrad is especially interesting to observe as well, not only because he chose to write in the language of the most maritime nation in the world at the time (reflecting his chosen turf in language as well as topic) but because he had a perceptive gaze in terms of what turf would best suit him; knowing that he, a Pole writing in a non-Native language, would be unable to “compete” with any British writer setting their story in a British colony, Conrad intentionally set his stories in non-British colonies. Ergo, you get Heart of Darkness set in the Congo, Nostromo in a fictional New World country and Almayer’s Folly in Dutch Borneo, among others.
While Conrad was not the only writer to write maritime stories, his turf had a geographical foundation to it. The same with those whose fiction specialize in cities. Endo’s turf is less geographic and more chronological. His art lays claim to the period of Christian martyrdom in Japan. That is his baby, so to say. (Though Endo’s literary explorations have ventured into other domains)
So let’s bring me into the occasion: I have a few novels under my belt - not not, but in the near future. I’ve read a good amount of Japanese literature, enough to where I have a rudimentary yet workable understanding of the mentality - enough for minor characters - while conscious enough to where I deem it necessary to tell the story about struggling and oppressed Japanese martyrs and future-martyrs from a more comfortable Western perspective.
Sound familiar? That’s more or less the structure of Silence. Back to Square 1. And that’s where I will remain. It doesn’t look like it at first glance, but Endo wrote so decisively on the period - including from the perspective of a Western character, a Portuguese Jesuit - that whatever I attempt, I will be second-best. A poor man’s Endo.
It is not the end of the road: we are not in the pit of apostasy yet! Genre provides a salvation here. As Silence is an historical novel, it is better, perhaps, to avoid historical novels: except that the topic here is history. But before we do, there are other avenues. Like one that David Mitchell followed, coming at the period from the angle of Dutch traders rather than undercover Portuguese Catholics, as he did with The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet. In this case, the topic of the Dejima trading port in Nagasaki was too ripe for Mitchell to not pluck, given his strong personal affinity and knowledge of Japan and its culture as well as an interest in the Low Countries that also surfaces in Cloud Atlas. His bi-cultural passion lent itself all too well to this scenario.
So if I want to 1) write about that period, 2) write an historical novel, or maybe an historical fantasy, and 3) I am treading on Endo’s finely-allotted turf, the only thing left for me is to keep researching. (Which any writer worth their salt should be doing anyway, either by reading fiction or about the topics that interest them; and by that I mean actual books, not Wikipedia pages)
Perhaps, when the Portuguese Jesuits were in Japan before the banning of Christianity a Polish priest or merchant was with them, and saw all this from a Polish perspective? That would align with my interests more as a writer who is both a Catholic and born of Polonia. It’s unlikely as hell that a Pole was in Japan at that time. But there have been weirder things in both fiction and the real world. Those curious about how that weirdness might relate to Poles and the Portuguese should read the book about how Christopher Columbus might have been Polish. Meaning, the United States as a country had a Polak as the cornerstone of our national identity! Take that world!
(Or read this article: though with all the Columbus haters out there nowadays who take the “genocidal maniac” narrative seriously and uncritically as a symptom of their ideological lobotomization and their mercilessly cynical view of history a la postmodernism, perhaps it’s not wise for Poles to reclaim him, at least not now. Although for Columbus nerds this book is an absolute must! As an aspiring Columbus nerd who only wants to know the truth and who liked the Columbus statue next to Coit Tower in San Francisco, I hope to provide annual posts about various Columbus books every October. So stay tuned for that!)
Another option would be to tell a story of that time from the perspective of the shoguns themselves. The power players. Using the knowledge from my International Studies degree and regular geopolitical observation since then, I can leave the theological side of this to Endo and add a geopolitical dimension to it. There’s something I can work with! Perhaps it’s not as hopeless after all? If one of you becomes interested in this and is also interested in fashion, I’d very much look forward to the story of Christian martyrs as told from the perspective of a kimono merchant. Professions are our saving grace in this instance.
Will it be as good as Endo? I doubt it. Will it be as profound as Endo’s theological premise? Don’t count on it! He struck a real gold nugget with that one! But am I now a lot less likely to be called “the poor man’s Endo,” or “the American Endo?” I think we can sleep better at night knowing that won’t happen. Though I think we should stop calling Endo the “Japanese Graham Greene” first: he’s Shusaku Endo. Period. End of story. And I’m incredibly blessed to have read such an amazing novel as Silence.
To conclude - daddy has to get back to looking after his daughter :-) - taking on an author on their own finely-allotted turf is not something I will say a budding author should never do. Perhaps someone today is just as into maritime topics as Conrad; if that describes you, I want to be the last person to dissuade you. But the risks are multiple.
On top of a future where the author is known as the “poor mans [insert author here],” there is also the fact that postmodern deconstruction will naturally result in a weaker novel due both to the inherent weakness postmodern “philosophy” enables and the banal stupidity of its interests. This is evident to anyone who has read the massively overrated William Golding novel Rites of Passage. It’s not that Golding was incompetent at writing about maritime life, or didn’t do his research. Just that the postmodern premise is utterly elementary next to anything by Conrad, who was everything except elementary. It’s also wholly useless to the greater knowledge project, and will probably go down in history as a symbol of the fall of British culture. (as well as the country’s collapse, which we are seeing in real time and that is only unobservable to those who lack standards) What might have felt edgy and deconstructive back in 1980 is just infantile and impotent today.
In other words: it is best to stake out your own turf, if possible. As the beginning image suggests I might do with a few Croatian topics. Or make your writing style so distinctly “you” that any topic under the sun can overlap with “your turf” by virtue of your style.
Are you a Shusaku Endo fan? If you are a writer, what is your turf? Or what do you want as your turf? (If you feel like sharing) And what do you think about the possibilities of literature exploring cultural clash? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below!