大城立裕の「レールの向こう」
Ōshiro Tatsuhiro’s “Rēru no mukō” [Beyond the Rail]
JAPANESE TEXT:
Ōshiro, Tatsuhiro. “Rēru no mukō” [Beyond the Rail]. Rēru no mukō. Tokyo: Shinshio Press, 2015. 5-36.
1. Introduction
Rēru no mukō” was first published in Shinshio in May 2014 and was republished in Rēru no mukō, along with several other stories, in August 2015. The story focuses on the protagonist, Watashi, who must deal with his wife, Omae, who has been hospitalized. His wife’s hospitalization causes Watashi to confront death and his past. In the Afterword, Ōshiro admits that the story has autobiographical elements.
2. Character List
Watashi 私
Watashi (the Japanese word for “I”) is the narrator and protagonist of the story. He lives near Shuri Station, which was the last stop on Naha City’s monorail at the time of the story. He worked as a civil servant but retired about thirty years ago. For many years, Watashi has been a writer. He’s worried about his wife, Omae, because she fell, hit her head, and is now in the hospital. Watashi also worries about himself because he injured his left leg due to an illness five years ago. One day, Watashi gets a letter from Yū Kamichi asking him to write an article about Shizuo Maja, an author who passed away eight months ago. Watashi decides not to write the article but spends much time thinking about Maja.
Omae お前
Omae (the Japanese word for “you”) is Watashi’s wife. She is in the hospital because she fell and suffered a cerebral infarction. She is working hard to recover from the illness, but memory lapses make conversing with her husband difficult.
Etsuo and Tameo 悦雄と為雄
Etsuo is Watashi and Omae’s second son, who lives with them. He is the one who discovered that his mother had fallen. He often goes to the hospital to care for his mother and sometimes goes shopping for her. Tameo is their first son, who lives near Naha City Hospital.
Yū Kamichi 神地 祐
Yū Kamichi is a magazine editor who sends Watashi a letter asking him to write an article about Shizuo Maja, who passed away eight months ago.
Shizuo Maja 真謝 志津夫
Shizuo Maja is an Okinawan writer who passed away eight months ago. He wrote many novels about ships and shipping, which Watashi found rather intriguing. Many years ago, Watashi went on a yacht trip with him.
Tomiko 登美子
Tomiko is Omae’s younger sister. Her husband, Takenobu, passed away thirty years ago. She often comes to the hospital to take care of her older sister.
Takenobu 武信
Takenobu is Tomiko’s husband, who passed away thirty years ago because of high blood pressure. He and Tomiko have two children and two grandchildren.
3. Plot Summary
Section 1 (7-12)
Omae is lying in a bed in the neurosurgery ward of Naha City Hospital on the north end of the second floor. Watashi tells her they can see the monorail from the window, but she doesn’t respond. A few days ago, Omae fell in their house. Watashi and Etsuo discovered her and took her to Naha City Hospital. Unfortunately, she had suffered a cerebral infarction. Omae wakes up in the ICU and asks Watashi when he returned from work. Watashi answers that he’s retired. Actually, he worked as a civil servant but retired about thirty years ago. Etsuo often goes to the hospital to take care of his mother. Watashi is worried about his injured left leg but decides to go to the hospital twice a week. Struggling with her memory, Omae is like an elementary school student taking a test. Watashi feels like a dad and wants to hug her.
Section 2 (12-6)
Three weeks later, Omae moves to another hospital for rehabilitation. Watashi wonders if he should encourage her because she can’t even pile up some blocks. Omae is staying with two other older adults and an Alzheimer’s patient. Watashi hopes that she’ll be able to return to her everyday life. One day, he asks her where the clothes are stored, and she says that maybe they’re in Tameo’s room. She’s the only one who knows, so Watashi struggles to find them. However, he puts on an aloha shirt he got in Hawaii about fifty years ago and goes to the hospital. Omae doesn’t recognize the shirt, so Watashi is disappointed.
Section 3 (16-21)
Watashi asks Omae’s sister, Tomiko, to come and help. Tomiko lost her husband, Takenobu, thirty years ago. Watashi remembers when Takenobu passed away: everyone knew that Takenobu had high blood pressure, but the family was surprised when he died after being taken to the hospital in an ambulance. Watashi was impressed by the love between Tomiko and Takenobu. Watashi thinks about all this while looking for Omae’s clothes with Tomiko. He finds a letter he wrote to Omae just after their matchmaking meeting, before getting married long ago. Then Watashi remembers when Omae said that she decided to marry him because, after reading the letter, she thought he was an organized person. Whenever Watashi has gotten sick, she has always taken care of him. However, now, he is taking care of her.
Section 4 (21-7)
Watashi gets a letter from Yū Kamichi, explaining that it’s been eight months since Shizuo Maja died from a heart attack and that they want to publish an article about his memories of him. When Maja passed away, Watashi couldn’t attend the farewell ceremony because of his injured leg. Watashi has fond memories of Maja but thinks he can’t afford to write an article now. He writes to Yū Kamichi that his wife suffered a cerebral infarction, so he has to refuse. Watashi recalls that Maja lived just beyond the monorail, which they could see from the hospital window. Then he remembers that Maja mostly wrote novels about ships and shipping. For example, the stories usually had a ship and a protagonist familiar with ship mechanics. Critics, including Yū Kamichi, loved Maja’s novels. Of course, he was also popular with people involved with shipping.
Section 5 (27-30)
Watashi recalls when Maja unexpectedly invited him to go out on a yacht. Watashi went to the beach located in Ginowan City, as Maja said. They went on a yacht from the beach. Watashi thought that Maja was proud of the great view from the yacht. They enjoyed going out on the yacht and seeing a school of bonito. Suddenly, Maja said they should return, and Watashi wondered what was wrong. Apparently, Maja had noticed something wrong with the engine. At that moment, Watashi realized why Maja always wrote about ships: Maja lived with ships and wanted readers to understand that life. Watashi fears, however, that those memories will pass away with Maja.
Section 6 (30-6)
Omae has continued her rehabilitation for two and a half months, and now it is winter. One day, Watashi and Tameo bump into a newspaper employee in the hospital’s corridor. As they chat, Watashi recalls Jugon no umi, the last novel Maja wrote. Dugongs are rarely spotted, so they are sometimes identified with mermaids. On some islands, dugongs are the festival theme. Maja’s novel is about a pregnant woman who goes to Iriomote Island, where her grandparents live. Watashi expected that the woman’s frustration during pregnancy would be linked to the engine’s malfunction. However, when Watashi read the novel, he was surprised at how powerfully Maja wrote about the festival and the woman’s giving birth.
Yū Kamichi doesn’t know about Omae’s illness. Even though Kamichi’s request was a token of respect, Watashi couldn’t afford the time to write anything. However, he thinks remembering the dugong is a good sign for Omae. Three months pass since she came to the rehabilitation hospital, and she will soon be discharged. On the day of discharge, Tameo picks them up. Omae asks Watashi if this is the hospital that Takenobu was taken to. Watashi answers that he doesn’t think the hospital existed at that time. On the way home, they talk about Yū Kamichi, and Omae asks about Kamichi. Watashi worries that discussing Kamichi will mean that Maja’s name will also be mentioned. He thinks that will trouble her, so he reconsiders talking about Maja. Instead, he says Kamichi is doing well and Tameo met him yesterday. “Really?” she asks. Having a normal conversation with his wife makes Watashi happy.
4. Setting
Naha City Hospital
The setting of the story is Naha City in Okinawa. Naha is the capital of Okinawa Prefecture, Japan’s southernmost prefecture. Omae is hospitalized at Naha City Hospital, next to a monorail station. Sueyoshi Park is located on the opposite side of the monorail. Omae is later hospitalized at the Rehabilitation Hospital near the Naha City Hospital.
5. Point of View
The entire story is written in first person from the point of view of Watashi, who is the protagonist of the story. In other words, readers know what Watashi is thinking but not the thoughts of other characters. The narrator seems reliable, but readers will wonder about his relationships with others. For example, readers don’t get a good sense of his relationship with his wife. Although Watashi recalls Maja, readers don’t learn anything about how Maja viewed Watashi as a writer.
6. Symbolism and Imagery
The Monorail
Naha City Hospital Monorail Station
As the title suggests, one of the symbols in this story is the monorail. Early in the story, Watashi asks Omae if she can see the monorail station, but she does not respond (7). Although the symbolism is not clear at first, Watashi’s frequent mention of the rail in reference to death makes clear that the rail symbolizes the line between life and death. For example, after Maja’s death, Omae sees the monorail from the window and recalls that Maja was living beyond the rail (23-4). The symbolism here is obvious: Maja now lives on the other side of death. Similarly, the fact that Watashi’s wife overlooks the monorail symbolizes that she is close to death—even though she is unaware of this fact.
7. Historical Background
Sonai, Iriomote Island
Iriomote Island is the largest of the Yaeyama Islands, and Sonai is one of the largest villages on Iriomote. The Shinmori ke jūtaku [Shinmori Residence] in Sonai is the oldest wooden house in Okinawa. In “Rēru no mukō,” Shizuo Maja is from the Yaeyama Islands, and Watashi talks about fishing in Sonai (28-9). The fishing experience may be fictitious, but Sonai is an actual place on Iriomote Island.
Dugong
Dugong is a marine mammal, and it is estimated that many dugongs live near the Yaeyama Islands. Dugong meat was once believed to lead to perpetual youth and longevity, so dugong bones were sometimes used to make amulets. In 1972, the dugong was designated as a natural monument of Japan. Okinawa has various legends about the dugong. In “Rēru no mukō,” Watashi mentions that the dugongs were sometimes mistaken for mermaids (31). In fact, one theory about mermaids is that they originated from a mistaken view of dugong. Another legend states that the dugong carried the gods of Niraikanai to Okinawa.
History of Yui Rail (Monorail)
Yui-Rail Naha Airport Station
The Okinawa Urban Monorail, also known as Yui Rail, is a monorail line serving the cities of Naha and Urasoe, Okinawa, Japan. Okinawa Urban Monorail, Inc. opened on August 10, 2003, and is the only public rail system in Okinawa prefecture. Yui Rail is the first rail line on Okinawa since World War Ⅱ.
After lengthy deliberation of possible route options, the monorail corporation applied for construction permission for a 4.1-kilometer, 4-station extension from Shuri Station to Tedako-Uranishi Station in August 2011. Permission was granted on January 26, 2012, with construction planned to start in March 2013. Revenue operation along the extension started on October 1, 2019, using a revised schedule with extended rush hour headways for opening day.
As of 2020, the monorail consists of 19 stations, from Naha Airport in the west to Tedako-Uranishi in the east, running through Naha. In “Rēru no mukō,” Omae is hospitalized at Naha City Hospital, next to the Naha City Hospital Station of the monorail.
Sueyoshi Park
Sueyoshi Park is a city park in Naha City, Okinawa. The park has the ruins of the Sueyoshi Shrine and Hikanzakura trees, the earliest blooming cherry blossoms in Japan. Sueyoshi Park has an area of about 19 hectares, most of which is designated as a wildlife sanctuary and forest protection area in Okinawa. The park is also overgrown with subtropical plants, such as banyan, palm, and hibiscus, which are rarely seen in other prefectures. Visitors can walk from Naha City Hospital Station to the park in about five minutes. In “Rēru no mukō,” Watashi often looks at the park from the hospital window. In fact, Sueyoshi Park is visible from Naha City Hospital and the adjourning monorail stop.
8. Criticism
Genyū, Sōkyū. “Rēru no mukō e no kakugo” [Prepare for Beyond the Rail]. Nami. Tokyo: Shinshiosha, September 2015. Print.
According to Sōkyū Genyū, “Rēru no mukō” reveals Ōshiro’s emotional conflict. Genyū considers the main character of this book, Watashi, to be the author himself. The narrator is a writer who can’t stop thinking about “beyond the rail,” which is to say, about death. According to Genyū, Ōshiro hopes that both sides of the rail will eventually comfort each other through their thoughts and that his wife’s illness will recover. Genyū also claims that this is one of Ōshiro’s best works.
Iguchi, Tokio. “Ōshiro Tatsuhiro Rēru no mukō hyō.” The Nihon Keizai Shimbun 18 October 2015. Print.
According to Iguchi, “Rēru no mukō” shows that Watashi tries to keep others away but that his attitude gradually calms down with his wife’s illness. Watashi has been with Watashi for many years, so he strongly desires to be with her during her illness. For this reason, Watashi immediately refuses when asked to commemorate another writer. From this, readers can see that Watashi loves his wife very much. Iguchi argues, however, that love is a kind of monopoly, even for older people. He also thinks that this book shows intelligence and tension, revealing that the consideration of love transcends age and nationality.
9. Themes
Life, Death, and the After World
As the title suggests, confronting death is one of the story’s main themes. Watashi’s wife is quite old and has recently been hospitalized. Looking out at the monorail, Watashi begins to reflect on life beyond the rail, which is to say, life after death. Later in the story, Watashi remembers Shizuo Maja, who used to live on the other side of the monorail. Now, however, Maja is living in the afterlife. Watashi and Omae are near the rail but are still alive, while Maja is “beyond the rail.” Facing death literally and figuratively, Watashi remembers his times with Maja, especially their time on a yacht. Watashi remembers that they had trouble with the yacht’s engine, which makes him think about the trouble Omae is having with her body, the engine that keeps her alive. Watashi also remembers Jugon no umi, one of Maja’s novels, which describes a woman’s frustration with pregnancy, the power of a festival, and birth. Watashi’s reflections on Maja’s death have led him to consider ways of preserving life. He knows that Maja will live on through his work. Significantly, Watashi thinks that Jugon no umi is a good sign for Omae to improve.
The Death of a Spouse
Another important theme is the struggle of dealing with the death of a spouse. Much of the story examines Watashi’s feelings for his wife, Omae, and his fear of her impending death. Readers can know how much Watashi loves his wife, Omae, even though she is in the hospital and can’t talk. Not surprisingly, Omae’s illness causes Watashi to reflect on his life with her, including how they first met. In one scene, Watashi finds a letter he wrote to Omae before they married (18-9). The letter shows that Omae carefully kept the letter from fifty years ago and that they had the same feelings.
Second, Watashi always takes care of Omae, and there is a scene where Watashi refuses to write an article about Maja (22). Because Omae is in the hospital, Watashi doesn’t want to write more than he can afford to write. Watashi loves Omae and hopes she recovers soon. Watashi is always thinking about Omae in this story. Watashi and Omae are not young, but they still love each other. Most readers will undoubtedly feel that his love for her is incredible. Such feelings of compassion for another person are essential.
10. Discussion Questions
1. How did Watashi feel when Omae said, “When did you get back from work?” What does this show about her condition?
2. Why did Watashi worry about himself when Omae was hospitalized?
3. Why did Watashi want to hug Omae when she made a mistake?
4. What does Omae’s old letter show about her relationship with Watashi? Why didn’t Watashi show the letter to Tomiko?
5. Why did Watashi refuse to write an article about Maja? What is the significance of Watashi’s reflections on Maja’s novels? Is there a connection between those reflections and his thoughts about his wife?
6. Why did the conversation in the car make Watashi so happy? What does this show about their relationship?
7. How does his wife’s illness cause Watashi to reflect on the meaning of death? What does he learn from those reflections?
8. Why do you think Watashi calls his wife Omae? What does that name mean?
9. Where in Okinawa does the story take place? What hints are there about the exact geographical location? In what ways is the location significant?
10. What will happen to Omae and Watashi after the story ends?
11. Why is Watashi the narrator from the beginning to the end? What would happen to the story if Omae was a narrator?
11. Works Cited
Genyū, Sōkyū. “Rēru no mukō e no kakugo” [Prepare for Beyond the Rail]. Nami. Tokyo: Shinshiosha, September 2015. Print.
Hachikai, Mimi. “Jinsei no ashimoto, tashikame hirogaru sekai.” Asahi Shimbun, 11 October 2015. Print.
Iguchi, Tokio. “Ōshiro Tatsuhiro Rēru no mukō hyō.” Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 18 October 2015. Print.
Japan Democracy Literature Society. Minshū Bungaku [Democratic Literature]. Tokyo: Japan Democracy Literature Society. May 2012. 94–105. Print.
Kazuo, Kuroko. Ōshiro Tatzhuhiro Bungaku Arubamu. Tokyo: Bensei Publishing Inc., 2004. Print.
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< http://www.nch.naha.okinawa.jp/>.
Okinawa Kankō Okinawa Jōhō IMA. Web.
<http://www.okinawainfo.net/sumiyoshi.htm>.
Ōshiro, Tatsuhiro. Kakuteru Pāti. Tokyo: Bungeishunju Ltd., 1967. Print
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“Ōshiro Tatsuhiro.” Wikipedia. Web. 27 October. 2020.
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatsuhiro_%C5%8Cshiro>.
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Yanai,Takashi. “Ōshiro Tatsuhiro no bungaku keisei to Ryūdai bungaku no sayou: 1950nendaino Okinawa bungakuwo megutte” [Ōshiro Tatsuhiro’s Literary Formation and the Action of Ryūdai Literature: About Okinawa Literature in the 1950s]. Okinawa bunka kenkyū 46. Hōsei University Okinawa Cultural Research Institute. Mar 2019. 243.
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Original report by Hiyori Hirata. Edited and revised by Kasumi Sminkey.