The Aesthetics of Passing-by (surechigai) : From Ibaragi Tomoo to IbarakiTomooShibusawa Tatsuhiko (1928-1987) is known as his profound knowledge of rarebooks and uncommon literary works. He wrote Boronji in his later years, whichappeared in literary j...
The Aesthetics of Passing-by (surechigai) : From Ibaragi Tomoo to IbarakiTomooShibusawa Tatsuhiko (1928-1987) is known as his profound knowledge of rarebooks and uncommon literary works. He wrote Boronji in his later years, whichappeared in literary journal Bungei (November 1982), and was later included inNemuri-hime(1983). The work is based on the story Ibaragi Tomoo which iscontained in Yasokidan (Ishikawa Kousai, Touyoudou 1889-1894), the mysterynovels collection compiled in the Meiji era. Shibusawa Tatsuhiko explains in theend of Boronji as follows: “I changed Ibaragi to Ibaraki, while keeping its story,but the guiding concept and details of the story became different.”Based upon and having started from the original text, Shibusawa wrote a creativefantasy world. How did he refer to and then transform the original text, with regardto the plot development and the characters in Boronji? By examining the image ofthe protagonist Ibaraki Tomoo, and the role of gods and Buddha in the story, I willinvestigate how Shibusawa created his own narrative world.