Impressions of Japan (1955)

[Music] [Applause] [Music] this was the way it began the probing questions and bright lights posings and signings what phases of Japan do you seek to explore Mr fauler Mr Faulkner what do you think of Japanese culture how do you like Ernest Hemingway Mr fauler can the Soul be evil and if so where is truth Fame novelist William fauler said he hopes to deepen his understanding of Japanese culture at a press conference shortly after he arrived for a 3-we visit wearing red suspenders the American novelist drew a laugh when he said he wrote sanctuary in order to buy a horse [Music] but that was in Tokyo and he was going to Nagano 200 miles Northwest of the capital to a seminar on American literature where the pace would be slower to leave time for reflection and [Music] exploration a peaceful Pleasant place he said a nice place to live climates like home [Music] here is a civilization an ancient and ordered homogeny of the human [Music] race the splashed symbols of the characters hold Not Mere communication but something urgent and important Beyond just information promising toward some ultimate wisdom or knowledge containing the secret of man's [Music] salvation an interview with the Aged abis and new knowledge of Buddhism and its place in Japan all the while remembering the old woman vending beans beneath the gate for tourists to feed the pigeons with a face sworn with living and remembering as though One Life had not been long enough here finally is one who never read Faulkner and neither knows nor cares why he came to Japan nor gives a single damn what he thinks of Ernest Hemingway others do the young students prying and prodding with their questions wanting some message which they could call truth and he having no such Authority could only offer in all Simplicity that each must seek not for a mere crutch to lean on but to stand erect on his own feet believing in his own toughness and endurance realizing that man's hope is in man's Freedom not given as a gift but as a right and a responsibility to be earned and the teachers of the young they gather here from Far places to meet the novelist and share ideas with him and it is not long before Mr Faulkner can say the Japanese did not want another intellectual what they wanted was just a human being who spoke not their same intellectual language but who could write books which met their standards of what writing must be yet who in trying to communicate human being to human being spoke in a mutual language much older than any intellectual tongue because it is the simple language of humanity what phases of Japan do you seek to explore Humanity faces the faces van go and mané would have loved [Music] them the pilgrim with staff and pack and Dusty was walking squatting in the gate of the compound his gwn about his thighs before beginning or perhaps already having set it in motion the day and here is one much too busy to have time to bother about whether he is happy or not pess and apparently immune even from [Music] parents the gish's mass of blue black lacquered hair air and closes the painted face like a helmet too heavy for that slender throat to bear [Music] [Music] on her kimono a covering from throat to ankles a modesty proclaiming her femininity where nudity would merely parade her mamalian femaleness a modesty which flaunts its own immodest [Music] [Music] the painted fixed expressionless face immobile and immune yet behind it something quick and alive and Alin or more than Alin puckish or more than puckish even sardonic and quizzical a gift for comedy and more for burlesque and caricature for a Sly and vicious revenge on the race of men [Music] and he adds something more on women she does not speak my language nor I hers yet in two days she knows my countryman's habit of waking soon after the first light she knows I like a fresh room to breakfast in when I return from walking and it is so the room done for the day coffee tray and morning paper she asks without words why I have no clothes to be laundered and without words asks permission to sew the buttons and darn the socks when speaking of me to others she calls me wise man and teacher I who am neither she is proud to have me for her client and I hope pleased that I try to deserve that pride and match with courtesy that loyalty there is a lot of loose loyalty in this land even a little of it is too valuable to be ignored [Music]