カズオ・イシグロの文学観 –大学入試問題

これもI氏からの情報提供だが、大江健三郎と Kazuo Ishiguro の1989年の対談記事(初出は Asahi Evening News)(https://books.google.co.jp/books?isbn=1934110620)が、2005年東京外国語大学 前期日程の英語で、出題されているという。
村上春樹とイシグロの違いについて大江健三郎が言及している。またイシグロが自分の文学観を詳細に語っているのが興味深い。少し長いがその内容と問題を掲載する。

【2】次の文章は,日本人作家大江健三郎と日本生まれのイギリスの作家 Kazuo Ishiguro との間で 1989年に行われた対談の一部である。この対談を読み,以下の問いに答えなさい。

Oe: In last evening’s edition of the Asahi Shimbun, there was an article about how a translation of a work by the novelist Murakami Haruki1) is being read widely in New York. The article quoted a review in the New York Times to the effect that it was now possible to imagine a literature of the Pacific Rim.

 For the past week I have beep thinking about just what sort of novelist you are. My conclusion is that, rather than being an English author or a European author, you are an author who writes in English. In terms of furnishing the materials for literature, 1【there is a tremendous power in the English language.】 Somehow, it seems that the initiative in world literature has been with English, especially in the field of the novel. As long as he has the English language, an author can leave England and still remain a great writer. D. H. Lawrence2) was that way, and so was E. M. Forster3). I felt that by thinking of you in this way, as a writer of English, I had got hold of something essential. By way of comparison, Murakami Haruki writes in Japanese, but his writing is not really Japanese. If you translate it into American English, it can be read very naturally in New York. I suspect that this sort of style is not really Japanese literature, nor is it really English literature.

Ishiguro: I think I, too, share these same 2【worries】. I attended a lecture by the European intellectual George Steiner4), who is at Cambridge and very well known in Britain. I think you are familiar with many of his ideas. One of his constant worries is about all the cultures of the world disappearing because they are swallowed up by this ever-growing, large blanket called Anglo-American culture. He is very disturbed by the fact that scientific papers in China, and certainly here in Japan, are often written originally in English, because they have to be presented at conferences where only English is understood ― that in the communist countries the young people listen to the latest Western rock music. He is very afraid of a certain kind of death of culture, because this bland, colorless, huge blanket called Anglo-Americanism is spreading around the world. In order to survive, people have to sacrifice many things that make their culture unique and, in fact, make their art and culture mean something, and, instead, contribute to this meaningless blanket, this strange thing that is conquering the world.

 I think that is quite an important thing to be concerned about. Certainly my generation of writers in Britain have perhaps not worried about that kind of thing enough. We have perhaps been concerned about the opposite problem, of not being international enough. I think this is certainly a problem that we have to think about. I think it will be very strange if we all contribute to the same sort of culture, if we’re all addressing the same sort of audience. We could all end up like international television. A lot of television programs are now rather superficial, but they’re international. It would be sad if literature and serious art were to go the same way ― to the lowest level, in order to appear international. There is a sense among younger writers in England that England is not an important enough country anymore. The older generation of writers thought that Britain was a very important country, and so if you wrote about Britain and British problems, it would automatically be of global significance. The younger generation of writers in England are very aware of the fact that this is no longer true, that England is now rather like a little, provincial town in the world. Some younger British writers have a kind of inferiority complex, that is, they have to consciously make an effort to address international themes, because if they simply write about life in Britain, nobody is going to be interested. Perhaps that feeling doesn’t exist in the United States or Japan, in that there is a strong sense that these two societies are now somehow at the center of the world, and the twenty-first century is going to be somehow dominated by these two powers. But certainly, living in England, I feel that same pressure, that I have to be international. Otherwise, I’m going to end up in the same position as Danish or Swedish writers, of being remote, because a lot of the great questions of today are passing Britain by. In a way, I think young Japanese authors don’t need to feel that sort of inferiority, just because of the way history is moving.

 Writers from Britain and, to a certain extent, writers from Germany and France ― and I myself have had this experience ― go to an international writers’ conference and somehow feel inferior, compared to writers who come from places like Africa, or Eastern Europe, or Latin America, in the sense that in many of the great intellectual battles between liberty and authoritarian regimes, or between communism and capitalism, or between the Third World and the Industrialized World, the front line somehow seems to be in these countries, and there seems to be a more clearly defined role for writers like Kundera5) or some of the African writers. Writers from all the Eastern European countries always seem to have some sort of clear political role to play. This may well be a misunderstanding, but it’s 3【a way of thinking】that comes over a lot of us who come from the more safe countries, if you like, the safe, prosperous countries like Britain, or West Germany, or France, although the situation has suddenly changed for the West Germans.

 Somehow, in terms of the really important things happening in the century, in historical terms, if we are writing from a position like Britain, or Sweden, or France in the latter part of the twentieth century, we are writing from somewhere very far away from where the main events are taking place, and we somehow lack the natural authority of writers who are living in Czechoslovakia, or East Germany, or Africa, or India, or Israel, or the Arab countries. And I think this is the reason for this inferiority complex, rather than simply that Britain is not quite as important an economic power as it used to be. Of course, it is still a very powerful economic force. But just in terms of the great intellectual debates that seem to be central to the latter part of the twentieth century, there is the feeling that perhaps we in England are in the wrong place to view the big battles.

 Perhaps it’s a good thing that British writers feel they have to travel, or that at least in their imaginations they would have to travel. So I think the younger generation of British writers, much more than the older generation, tends to write novels that are not set in Britain, or at least not set in their time. They will look back through history for a time when Britain itself was in crisis, and so the war figures quite large. Or they have to use their imaginations to create completely imaginary landscapes. This kind of thing is happening more and more, and I think it comes out of this idea that somehow England is far away from something important happening politically and socially in the world. Perhaps writers in Japan and the United States do not feel it quite so much, because there is a sense that somehow, quite aside from the economic question, Japan and America are at the forefront of something crucial that is about to happen in the world. I think that has a certain effect on how writers view their work, where they go for material to feed their imaginations.

〔設問〕 
1.下線部1で大江は“there is a tremendous power in the English language”と言っているが,それはどういう意味か。本文に即して50字以内の日本語で説明しなさい。2.下線部2の“worries”の内容を50字以内の日本語で説明しなさい。
3.下線部3でIshiguroが述べている“a way of thinking”とはどういう考えか。50字以内の日本語で説明しなさい。
4.次の選択肢a~hの中から本文の趣旨に合うものを4つ選び,記号を解答欄に記入しなさい。
a.大江はIshiguroと村上をともに高く評価しているが,その理由は2人が国際的な活躍をしているからである。b.大江は,IshiguroがD. H. Lawrenceのようにイギリスを離れるべきだと忠告している。c.大江によれば,村上は日本人作家でありながら日本語・英語どちらの文化にも属していないのでIshiguroとは資質が異なっている。d.Ishiguroと同世代のイギリス人作家は,Steinerの警告を十分に受け止めて“death of culture”に陥らないように警戒している。e.若い日本人作家はイギリス人作家ほど強く国際化を意識する必要はないだろうとIshiguroは考えている。f.Ishiguroによれば,日本とアメリカの作家がイギリスの作家と異なった創作態度に向かうのは両国が経済大国だからではない。g.Ishiguroは,最近のイギリス人作家がイギリス以外の土地や現在とは異なる時代を舞台にして創作するようになってきたと指摘している。h.作家の創作と世界情勢はあまり関係がないとIshiguroは考えている。

<追記、設問4はなかなか難しい。正解は、c. e. F. g.

カズオ・イシグロの音楽性について

これも博学のI氏からの情報提供だが、2012年 東京大(前期)の入試問題に、イシグロに音楽性に関する文章が出題さているという。その内容を読むと、イシグロはピアノやギターを弾き、氏の小説も音楽(多分クラシック)の構成などから示唆を受けていることが推察される。

東京大学 前期入試問題(2012年)

次の英文は、ある作家が小説家 Kazuo Ishiguro(=Ish) にインタビューしたあとで書いた文章の一部である。下線部(1)、(2)、(3)を和訳せよ。ただし、下線部(2)については、it が何を指すか明らかにすること。

It’s perhaps not much known that Ish has a musical side. I was only vaguely aware of it, if at all, when I interviewed him, though I’d known him by then for several years — (1)【a good example of how he doesn’t give much away.】 Ish plays the piano and the guitar, both well. I’m not sure how many different guitars he now actually possesses, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s in double figures. His wife, Lorna, sings and plays; so does his daughter. Evenings of musical entertainment in the Ishiguro household can’t be at all uncommon.

One of the few regrets of my life is that I have no formal grounding in music. Inever had a musical education or came from the sort of ‘musical home’ that would have made this possible or probable, and always rather readily assumed that music was what those other, ‘musical’ people did. (2)【I’ve never felt, on the other hand, though a great many people who didn’t grow up reading books have perhaps felt it, that writing is what those other, ‘writerly’ people do.】

This contrast between writing and music is strange, however, since I increasingly feel that a lot of my instincts about writing are in fact musical, and I don’t think that writing and music are fundamentally so far apart. The basic elements of narrative — timing, pacing, flow, tension and release, repetition of themes — are musical ones too. And (3)【where would writing be without rhythm】, the large rhythms that shape a story, or the small ones that shape a paragraph?

追記
カズオ・イシグロの音楽性と夕暮れ感について、水沼文平さんよりコメントをいただいた。掲載させていただく。

<彼の音楽性と言えば「夜想曲集 音楽と夕暮れをめぐる五つの物語」(ハヤカワepi文庫)という短編集があります。
音楽と数学の関連性はよく聞くことですが、数学者の藤原正彦さんは「文学者で数学に対して異常とも言える興味や憧れを持つ者がときどきいる。また、数学者の中に文学愛好者は多い。数学と文学の間には、未だ十分な意志の疎通はないけれど、互に引き合う目に見えない何かが存在しているように思える。しかし両方の分野で生産的活動をする者となると皆無に近いから、やはり引力とは別に、分厚い壁が両者を分け隔てているようにも思える。それではこの引力と壁とは一体どんなものなのだろうか。」と語っています。
カズオ・イシグロの文学を読んでいると、重厚なクラシック、上質な軽音楽を聴いているような感じがします。カズオ・イシグロは藤原の言う「文学者で(数学≒音楽)に対して異常とも言える興味や憧れを持つ者」の一人だと思います。
カズオ・イシグロは夕日に独特の感慨を持っているようです。蕪村に「山は暮れて野は黄昏の薄かな」という俳句があります。私が育った集落は国見峠に夕日が沈みます。子どもの頃、田んぼで遊んでいた友だちが次々といなくなり、暮れなずんでいでほの明るいあぜ道に独り残された自分を思い出したりします。> (水沼文平)

カズオ・イシグロの「日の名残り」からの出題(その2)

カズオ・イシグロの「日の名残り」(1989年)は、1991年 早稲田大学理工学部の英語の入試問題にも出ていたという情報も、上智の卒業生のI氏からもらった。以下に、転載する。

<設問は大したことがないので(前置詞の空所補充5問と、本文の同意表現選択問題6問)、とりあえず省略しますが、出題部分はこれまた名シーンですね。御参考まで。
問題(文)が電子化されていませんので、当該箇所は Google ブック検索結果 から引っ張りました。>(I)

Strange beds have rarely agreed with me, and after only a short spell of somewhat troubled slumber, I awoke an hour or so ago. It was then still dark, and knowing I had a full day’s motoring ahead of me, I made an attempt to return to sleep. This proved futile, and when I decided eventually to rise, it was still so dark that I was obliged to turn on the electric light in order to shave at the sink in the corner. But when having finished I switched it off again, I could see early daylight at the edges of the curtains.

When I parted them just a moment ago, the light outside was still very pale and something of a mist was affecting my view of the baker’s shop and chemist’s opposite. Indeed, following the street further along to where it runs over the little round-backed bridge, I could see the mist rising from the river, obscuring almost entirely one of the bridge-posts. There was not a soul to be seen, and apart from a hammering noise echoing from somewhere distant, and an occasional coughing in a room to the back of the house, there is still no sound to be heard. The landlady is clearly not yet up and about, suggesting there is little chance of her serving breakfast earlier than her declared time of seven thirty.

Now, in these quiet moments as I wait for the world about to awake, I find myself going over in my mind again passages from Miss Kenton’s letter. Incidentally, I should before now have explained myself as regards my referring to Miss Kenton’. ‘Miss Kenton is properly speaking ‘Mrs Benn’ and has been for twenty years. However, because I knew her at close quarters only during her maiden years and have not seen her once since she went to the West Country to become ‘Mrs Benn’, you will perhaps excuse my impropriety in referring to her as I knew her, and in my mind have continued to call her throughout these years.

翻訳は下記。
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カズオ・イシグロの作品について

カズオ・イシグロと村上春樹の違いは何だろうということが妻と話題になった。「クラシックとジャズの違いかもしれない。村上春樹はジャズが好きだし」と妻の弁。ただ、クラシックにもジャズにも疎い私には判断ができない。
私はクラシックは頭(理性)で聴くもの、ロックは体で聴くもの、したがってクラシックを聴く時は緊張して疲れるが、ロックの方が体のリズムに合わせ自然でリラックスできると感じていたが、妻がいうには、クラシックは魂が浄化され、心が安らぐという。

イシグロの小説は、いろいろなことがきちんと計算され論理的に組み立てられていることを感じる。それはクラシックに近いかもしれない。また「わたくしを離さないで」などは、哀しい話しながら魂が浄化されるような感じもする。
村上春樹の長編はその主題がかなり混み入っていて、推敲はしているのであろうが矛盾したところもあり、読んでいてわからなくなることがある。村上春樹の短編はしゃれていて、短いジャズやロックを聴くような心地よさがある。

カズオ・イシグロの作品のどこに人は惹かれ、またノーベル賞がなぜ授賞されたのであろうか。
富山大学の入試問題の箇所のように、現代人が忘れているもの、かっての職業人の倫理(その役割をわきまえた節度ある行動)への郷愁や称賛なのであろうか。
読んでいてそのようなものに心うたれる部分もありが、イシグロが言いたかったことはそれではないことは丸谷才一の指摘にあるように明白であり、それを人々は読み取り、ノーベル賞でもそれが評価されたのであろうか。
富山大学の入試の「虎」の例はこれでいいのだが、館の主人が何の落ち度もないユダヤ人の召使を首にするように主人公(執事)に伝えた時、主人公はそれが理に合わないと思いながらそのことをおくびにも出さす、主人の命令を事務的に履行することが執事の仕事と疑ってやまない行動や心性を、イシグロは淡々と描写している(早川文庫204-212頁)。イシグロが暗に問いかけていることを考えさせられる。このような部分は、入試には出ないのであろうか。

カズオ・イシグロの『日の名残り』からの出題 

上智の卒業生のI氏より、2002年 富山大学(後期)の英語の入試問題にカズオ・イシグロの『日の名残り』からの出題があったという情報をもらった。転載させていただく。

武内教授へ
Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day, 1989から出ています。大学入試でなかなかお目にかかれない、気品溢れる問題です。

【3】次の物語を読んで,後の問題に答えなさい。

 There was a certain story my father was fond of repeating over the years. I recall listening to him tell it to visitors when I was a child, and then later, when I was starting out as a footman*1 under his supervision. I remember him relating it again the first time I returned to see him after gaining my first post as butler*2 ― to a Mr and Mrs Muggeridge in their relatively modest house in Allshot, Oxfordshire. Clearly the story meant much to him. My father’s generation was not one accustomed to discussing and analysing in the way ours is and I believe the telling and retelling of this story was as close as my father ever came to reflecting critically on the profession he practiced. As such, it gives a vital clue to his thinking.

 The story was an apparently true one concerning a certain butler who had traveled with his employer to India and served there for many years maintaining amongst*3 the native staff the same high standards he had commanded in England. One afternoon, evidently, this butler had entered the dining room to make sure all was well for dinner, when he noticed a tiger languishing*4 beneath the dining table. The butler had left the dining room quietly, taking care to close the doors behind him, and proceeded calmly*5 to the drawing room where his employer was taking tea with a number of visitors. There he attracted his employer’s attention with a polite cough, then whispered in the latter’s ear: “I’m very sorry, sir, but there appears to be a tiger in the dining room. Perhaps you will permit the twelve-bores*6 to be used?”

 And according to legend, a few minutes later, the employer and his guests heard three gun shots. When the butler reappeared in the drawing room some time afterwards to refresh the teapots, the employer had inquired if all was well.

 “Perfectly fine, thank you, sir,” had come the reply. “Dinner will be served at the usual time and I am pleased to say there will be no discernible*7 traces left of the recent occurrence by that time.”

 This last phrase ― “no discernible traces left of the recent occurrence by that time” ― my father would repeat with a laugh and shake his head admiringly*8. He neither claimed to know the butler’s name, nor anyone who had known him, but he would always insist the event occurred just as he told it. In any case, it is of little importance whether or not this story is true; the significant thing is, of course, what it reveals concerning my father’s ideals. For when I look back over his career, I can see with hindsight*9 that he must have striven throughout his years somehow to become that butler of his story. And in my view, at the peak of his career, my father achieved his ambition. For although I am sure he never had the chance to encounter a tiger beneath the dining table, when I think over all that I know or have heard concerning him, I can think of at least several instances of his displaying in abundance that very quality he so admired in the butler of his story. (Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day, 1989)

*1footman 見習い *2butler 執事(身分の高い人の家や寺社で,家政や事務を執行する人) *3amongst=among *4languishing ぐったりとする *5calmly 穏やかに
*6twelve-bores 12口径の拳銃 *7discemible 識別できる*8admiringly 感心して
*9hindsight 結果を知ってからわかること

1.この物語の内容を200字以内で要約しなさい。
2.この物語では,父親は職業人についてどのような理想を描いているか。本文中の執事が虎に対してとった行動から判断して説明しなさい。

上記の翻訳箇所は下記
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