Living the "Somehow Life"-Tanaka Yasuo, Banana Yoshimoto and Postmodern Japan

Tanaka Yasuo's Nantonaku, kurisutaru (Somehow, Crystal, 1980) and Yoshimoto Banana's Kitchin (Kitchen, 1987) have been denigrated as em­ble­matic of a so-called "bastardized line" of Japanese literature, characterized by an un­abashed celebration of a "late-capitalist" consumerist ethos. Close rea­dings of these works are undertaken in order to demonstrate that, while these works are reflective of late-capitalist postmodern Japan (the de­ve­lop­ment of which is delineated prior to the readings), they nonetheless posit uniquely post­modern strategies for critically engaging issues of identity for­ma­tion and main­tenance, and the creation of meaning as they appear in the con­temporary Japanese socio-cultural nexus. I argue that if such strategies are not immedi­ately apparent, it is because they hold to what critic Fredric Jameson, in his dis­cussion of the requisites for a "new political art," calls "the truth of postmo­dernism." This work will interest those concerned with postwar and contemporary Japa­nese culture, society and literature, as well as those engaged in the study of "global culture."