괴테는 모든 것을 말했다
유이 스즈키 · 리프 · 2025 · 245 pages
Toronto Public Library에서 빌릴 수 있어요
소장 분관 7곳 · 9부
책 소개
. . . The story centers on a family of Japanese scholars of German literature. The main character, Hiroba Tōichi, is a middle-aged professor of German lit in Tokyo specializing in Goethe; his now retired father-in-law was his doctoral advisor, meaning Tōichi married into a sort of dynasty of Germanists. His wife Akiko is not a scholar, but in other respects is to the manner born, while his daughter Norika is now a college student studying English. By the end of the book we learn how Norika and her boyfriend have embraced the scholarly life in unexpected and creative ways.
The plot revolves around literature – sort of. Tōichi, Akiko, and Norika order tea after dinner one evening. The tea bags they’re served have famous quotations on the tags. Tōichi, by chance, gets one attributed to Goethe: written in English, it says, “Love does not confuse everything, but mixes.” Tōichi, the Goethe expert, does not recognize the quote. He tries back-translating it into German as well as into Japanese, but can’t place it. This sends him on a quest through Goethe’s works, which he has both edited and translated, and when this doesn’t work he begins casting about among fellow scholars and acquaintances. He even has a dream in which he meets Goethe himself. Tōichi’s self-doubts mount as the novel progresses – doesn’t his failure to identify the quotation undermine his entire career? It all comes to a head during the filming of a four-part educational TV show in which he is leading a small group of celebrity students through a light study of Faust (these things actually happen on Japanese TV); during the final episode, in a moment of desperation, he presents the tea-bag quote as an authentic piece of Goethe, despite his inability to confirm it. Immediately this worries him, since a colleague of his has just been exposed for fabricating convenient quotes, even inventing whole sources, in his scholarly writing. . . . cf. /blogs.uoregon.edu/glynnewalleyjlit/akutagawa-prize-write-ups/prizes-171-175 . . .
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Japanese fiction · Scholars
