One of my favorite authors, Kazuo Ishiguro, just won the Nobel Prize in Literature. One of his best-known novels is The Remains Of The Day. It’s about an English butler who reflects on his loyalty to his employer who has died. It was adapted into an Oscar-nominated movie starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson.
I have read this novel several times. I wrote a paper about it in college. Searching for a theme to explore, I rediscovered the ronin, or samurai without a master.
I was familiar with this concept from a comic book (or graphic novel, if you prefer). Usagi Yojimbo tells the story of a ronin who wanders the countryside on a pilgrimage. The characters in the series are anthropomorphized animals. It may sound ridiculous and it is funny at times, but the series is also filled with history, heart, and tales of the human condition. It references the Edo period of Japanese history and Japanese cinema greats such as Akira Kurosawa.
The ronin theme is poignant especially in the context of Ishiguro’s novel; he was born in Nagasaki, Japan but raised in England. Remains focuses on the world before and after WWII, and we all know the role Japan played and what occurred in Nagasaki.
I love the way history and all of these different art forms – literature, film, the marriage of images and words – can come together in a person’s mind and take us to very different places. They give us such a variety of experiences and perspectives.
Thinking about Kazuo Ishiguro’s work reminded me again of why I love being in a place where there is no limit to what we can discover.
Find Kazuo Ishiguro’s novels, film adaptations, Kurosawa’s films, Usagi Yojimbo, and materials on WWII and Japanese history all at your Eisenhower Library.