In Search of a Distant Voice (遠くの声を探して)
By Taichi Yamada [山田 太一], translated by Michael Emmerich, Faber and Faber Limited, 2006 (originally published in 1989, Tokyo), 183 pages, £8.99, ISBN 0571229719.
Review by Michael Sullivan
Taichi Yamada [山田 太一] was born in 1934 in Tokyo, he has worked as a screenwriter for television and film. In 1987 his novel Strangers [異人たちとの夏] was published and it won the Yamamoto Shugoro Prize, in 1989 he followed this up with the publication of In Search of a Distant Voice [遠くの声を探して]. In 2004 Strangers was translated and published in English and since has been released in many other languages, subsequently in 2006 In Search of a Distant Voice was also translated and published.
As the title suggests, the theme is the search for a distant voice, one that only Kasama Tsuneo can hear. Following a traumatic event in his past he focuses on having a normal life, which to him means dedication to work and a lid on any emotions. He wants to be clean, so he doesn’t allow himself to become intimate with girls, and his only friends seem to be fellow co-workers. As the story develops, and Tsuneo’s emotions are given full release, it becomes apparent that the repression of his personal feelings and of his past, are interlinked.
Eight years after leaving America Kasama Tsuneo works for the immigration office, tracking down illegal immigrants and constantly fighting a battle within himself, a ‘ritual’ that he performs every day to be emotionless. On one raid an illegal immigrant tries to escape, but just as Tsuneo has the immigrant cornered he is paralysed by a huge feeling of arousal, thus allowing the man to run away. Later that night, the same thing happens again except this time he is paralysed by the emotion of sorrow after which he ‘hears’ a female voice asking “who are you?”
Gradually, over the course of days, Tsuneo begins to talk to the female voice. She seems to hear everything he thinks, but he can only hear what she says to him. Unbeknownst to him, in their conversations he is also talking out loud causing concern to his neighbour and his preoccupation with the voice means that his behaviour becomes increasingly bizarre to those around him. An arranged marriage is ended when during the engagement ceremony he is first paralysed by laughter and then by grief, he becomes angry with the ‘voice’ accusing it of being someone from his past. He refuses to explain what is happening to his co-workers or a doctor that he is sent to, ultimately his obsession with the voice leads him to think she must be the answer to everything. He makes her agree to meet him, and in return he will tell her the truth of what happened to him in America.