Perversion and Modern Japan is an innovative, daring work that challenges the borders of literature and theory (cultural and psychoanalytical) and pushes the field of Japan Studies to become aware of its own Lacanian lack and (hetero)normative narratives. The book consists of a detailed introduction by the two editors, followed by thirteen essays, each essay preceded by a mini-introduction by the editors of how the essay ties together with the main theme of the book: perversion.
The editors mainly point to the Freudian definition of the term, which is that perversion is part of the normative. Quoting Freud, they state: “the status of the ‘normal’ as the normative rather than the natural can best be understood by taking the perversions seriously…if the perverse is an inherent part of the normal rather constituting some alien and deficient outside to it, its analysis is all the more crucial as a way of understanding how subjects come into existence, identities are formed, and histories written” (p. 3). The objects of perversion in the book include a military G.I. who disturbs the temporality of postwar Japan, pop art that reveals the schizophrenic base of Japan, representations of rape by feminized penises, vagina/phallus fusion, bisexual geographies, fetishized mothers, the self-referential figure of Mishima Yukio, the mother-father emperor, erotic attachments in Natsume Sōseki and his neurasthenia, and finally, underpants. Besides perversion, there is another element that ties together the essays, which is the approach of what the editors define as psychoanalysis itself: “Psychoanalysis allows for the interpretation that narratives are not always what they are, while the forms of articulation in which they appear are essential to a rewriting, or reading of other significations encoded within the manner, form, and literal words of that narrative” (p. 12). This may sound like a broad understanding, but if one puts the adjective national in front of “narrative,” the goal of the editors becomes clear. Psychoanalysis, in particular the mode of perversion, is being used to undermine the idea of a “true” or “pure” Japan. The nation represented here is a site of perverse desires, uncanny temporalities, and queering.
The language of the essays, with some exceptions, tends to be highly theoretical, with their inspirations ranging from Freud and Lacan's psychoanalysis to Derridian deconstruction and Deleuzian critique of representation. Many of the essays also read like theory, rather than simple applications of Western theory to Japanese culture. For example, Gavin Walker's elegant translation of Nagahara Yutaka's article on Maruo Suehiro's violent manga is an extremely bold piece that defies the distinction between literature and theory, while also breaking down the binaries of colonizer/colonized and male/female. Through fascinating readings of the rape scenes in Suehiro's art, Nagahara manages to replace the postwar representation of nation-as-woman with this homosocial metonym of the cross-dresser, declaring in the end that the emperor himself is the epitome of this cross-dressing. Jonathan Abel's essay provides the grand finale to the anthology as well, where what begins as a seemingly historical piece on the representation of underpants in Nikkatsu's roman poruno ends as shitagi itself, an article that functions in “covering and packaging your view of the unknown, exotic, presumably desired pubis of Japanese film, the analysand” (p. 303). Abel thus points out the act of fetishizing within the field of Asian Studies, where Japan becomes represented as a “weird” Other and this highly sought after Other is purposefully hidden from the reader's view.
Although the majority of the essays are addressed to an academic audience, parts of the book may be appropriate for the undergraduate classroom as well, such as the introduction, which neatly lays out the history of psychoanalysis in Japan, as well as the lucid nuanced readings of Kokoro by Vincent and the history of neurasthenia by Christopher Hill. Gender Studies specialists will also appreciate Margherita Long's insightful remapping of the role of the mother that goes beyond the theory of abjection or Lacanian lack, as well as Irena Hayter's observation on the contradiction within the nation, that is how patriarchy relies on the image of the mother as the most “natural” being and hence the maternal (the pre-symbolic) emperor that actually lies at the heart of the symbolic order.
The one thing that this book may have benefited from is a tighter thematic organization instead of lumping all thirteen essays under the large rubric of “perversion.” For example, some of the key themes that stuck out throughout the book were: queering of the nation, crises of representation, motherhood, and anti-Lacanian criticisms. Granted, the mini-introductions do provide some flow between the chapters, but some divisions may have oriented the reader better. Overall though, the book raises the bar for psychoanalytical analysis and will provide many thought-provoking hours for its readers. It is rare to have a book that is organized around a method rather than content in Asian Studies, and Vincent and Cornyetz deserve much praise for accomplishing such a task.
