The Last Concubine (68 page)

In fact my research really began many years ago, the very first time I went to Japan. I became utterly engrossed in Japanese culture and history, and was able to explore different aspects as I researched the various non-fiction books I’ve written. Writing
The Last Concubine
was a wonderful opportunity for me to immerse myself in nineteenthcentury Japan and to make use of some of the store of knowledge I’ve accumulated. So, yes, the research took much longer than the writing of the book!

Q:
How long did you live with these characters before writing the story? Where did they come from?

Many of my characters – the shogun, Princess Kazu, even Sachi’s mother and father – really existed. I read about Sachi’s mother in a book about the women’s palace, written in Japanese in the 1920s, and found her story moving and inspiring. Here was a woman beautiful enough to be chosen as a concubine of the shogun, but – rash though it was – she fell in love with a handsome carpenter and had an illicit affair with him. I began to wonder what would have happened if these
two had had a child. What would that child have been like, and what might have happened to her?

And so Sachi was born. She’s of aristocratic blood and dazzlingly beautiful, and takes from her mother her feisty, wilful personality. Yet she grows up hidden in the countryside among farmers, who in those days were far freer in some ways than samurai and other higher class people because no one cared what they did or how they led their lives. So this gives her a unique upbringing. But then she goes to the women’s palace, where she has to learn airs and graces, and is exposed to the deadly rivalries there.

As for Shinzaemon, he’s the ultimate Japanese samurai, rash and impetuous, driven by his sense of honour and by what is right. But the power struggles going on in his day make him question everything he’s been brought up to believe. He’s the offspring of the samurai heroes of Japanese movies and also of romantic heroes I’ve fallen in love with – Heathcliff crossed with Mr. Rochester, gruff and wild, which is very much the essence of the Japanese samurai. Of course I created a hero I could fall in love with myself!

Q:
Where does your interest in 1800s Japan stem from? What is the most appealing part of that time for you?

Japan in the 1800s is one of the most dramatic and fascinating periods in Japanese history, when Japan leapt in an extraordinarily short time from a feudal society into the modern age. Before that time, pre-modern Japan had developed largely in isolation, without reference to the outside world. It evolved a wonderful jewel-like culture – the culture of the floating world, of courtesans and merchants, which is portrayed in woodblock prints, Japanese novels of the time, and in kabuki plays. Alongside this was the world of the samurai, as portrayed in Japanese movies set in the period. What particularly tantalized me was the discovery that the shogun had a harem – something which no one ever seemed to mention and about which very little seemed to be known.

The Victorians who went to Japan in the mid nineteenth century were aware that this was a society that few Westerners had ever seen and was on the brink of disappearing forever. Many wrote books describing it in detail. I relished the chance of immersing myself in this period and taking my reader there with me.

Q:
Did you find it difficult to immerse yourself in a time when women enjoyed such few freedoms? As a woman, did you find the subordination of women difficult to write about?

Even in modern Japan, women enjoy fooling men into thinking that they are the bosses when actually the women are twisting them around their little fingers, in the same way that the famous “steel magnolias” of the southern states of America exercise power by manipulating men. There’s a Japanese saying that “a clever woman never lets a man know how clever she is.” But in pre-modern Japan, women were the property of their menfolk. Men were obliged by law to execute an unfaithful wife and were punished if they did not. It was fascinating for me to imagine how women might have found ways to survive and express themselves, and even have fun, in a culture such as this.

Q:
In your Acknowledgments, you thank many people who shared their knowledge of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Japan with you. Does this era still fascinate you? What more do you wish to learn?

As I said, this is one of the most dramatic and fascinating periods in all of Japanese history. In my next novel I’m still deep in the period, but I look at it through the lens of a very different part of society. It’s set in the floating world of courtesans, prostitutes, geisha, and their clients, a very different society from that of
The Last Concubine
. I’m currently absorbing myself in this colourful, rakish world.

Q:
Poetry figures prominently in the book. What is the significance of the book’s epigraphical poem by Ki no Tomonori?

In old Japan, educated people were expected to be able to turn out a witty poem at the drop of a hat. Seventeen-syllable haiku and thirty-One-syllable waka evoke a feeling or mood in a few well-chosen words. The poem by Ki no Tomonori (who was writing around 890) is a waka.

There’s something very poignant about the plum tree flower. It’s not a brilliant spring flower like the cherry blossom (which also has its poignant aspect), but quiet and rather melancholy. It’s dark purple, the colour of aubergines, and it flowers in February, when there’s still snow on the ground. In Ki no Tomonori’s time, there were many aesthetes
who boasted of their sensitivity. But the person to whom he wrote the poem was of an altogether higher level of discernment. Only he, says Tomonori, can truly appreciate the colour and the scent of the plum flower.

Perhaps – being a little whimsical – my story is akin to the plum tree’s flower. You, dear reader, have a profound appreciation of colour and scent – in other words, of beauty. I present my story to you in all modesty, in the hope that you will enjoy it.

Q:
At the end of the book, “civilization and enlightenment” is en vogue in the new Tokyo. Do you see the influence of Western ideas and ideals in Japan as positive?

Japan was one of very few countries in the world which escaped being colonized, and as a result, it managed to retain its unique culture. The Japanese borrowed ideas and techniques from the West, which they played with and subtly changed. The coming of westernization gave birth to an extraordinary renaissance in Japan in both arts and sciences. It is only now that the Japanese are once again becoming proud of their Edo heritage.

Q:
Are there any lessons that twenty-first-century readers can take from Sachi’s time?

In Sachi’s time, there was no word for love and no one expected or wanted to experience such a feeling. But she still followed her heart, which shows what a fundamental and real experience love is. That’s one lesson we could learn. We could also learn from the ability of people in her day to appreciate the beauty of small things – flowers, insects, tiny jewel-like poems, and small moments of time.