The Coming-of-Age Story of a Boy Growing Up in a Place Besieged by War - Book Report/Review Example

A Boy Called H: A Childhood in Wartime Japan Order No. 428765 April ‘10 A Boy Called H: A Childhood in Wartime Japan Introduction A Boy Called H: A Childhood in Wartime Japan, written by Kappa Senoh, a leading Japanese writer, is an autobiographical novel about the boyhood years of Hajime Senoh referred to as H in the book. This book was published in 1997 and its English translation was published in 1999. The book consists of 50 vignettes and recreates some of the ugly realities and effects of the war on Japanese family life, society, school and friendships. A Boy Called H can be ranked as a classic about children in wartime. Senoh gives us meticulous details of wartime Japan. He gives us details of its secret police, its censorship of the press and the suffocating atmosphere created by enforced conformity. The book looks at life through the eyes of a young boy living in a society which is at war. Summary The book tells the story of a boy called H and the Senoh family, a Kobe family of modest means. The book details H’s life as he grew up in the port city of Kobe, Japan during the 1930s and also his life after the end of World War II. It is about how life in Kobe changes as the war with China, and later on with the United States progresses. H is about seven years old when the story begins. Japan then is at war with China, and it is this war that forms the background for the early part of the book. H lives with his parents and younger sister in Kobe. His father Mario is a tailor who stitches suits for foreigners and h is mother, Toshiko, is a committed Christian. Morios work and Toshiko’s religion exposes H to influences which many of his school friends might not have experienced. He gets to interact frequently with foreigners because of the nature of his father’s work and gets exposed to a foreign religion because of his mothers involvement with the church. Hence H even though living in a conformist society grows up with a spirit of resistance. Although he knows that he has to conform to the rules and regulations of the society he lives in, he is not afraid to question them and seek answers. This tendency to question the rules soon makes him reluctant to accept the nationalist propaganda that was taking place during the war. He becomes sceptical of the motives of war and Japans involvement in the war. Senoh recalls some of the harrowing experiences of H during the war. For instance there is an account of the massive air raid by American B-29 bombers that destroys his home. Another occasion described is when he narrowly escapes from getting killed by the gun fire from an American fighter plane. These are the experiences that make H to grow up quickly. Apart from giving us an account of wartime Japan as seen through the eyes of a boy there is also an account of the trials and troubles of childhood such as stomach upsets, bedwetting and innocent adventures with friends and how quickly H forced to move away from these innocent adventures and grow up. Confronted with the possibility of air raids, H is forced to take responsibility of the safety of not only himself but that of his mother too. It is at this point that he loses his childhood. At the end of the war and after it, H’s resistance to conformity weakens, and he is left to face a series of unanswered questions. He is unable to find satisfactory answers to his questions, and suffers depression. At this point H thinks he is like a stick in the middle of a stream, resisting the current which is pulling people towards war. At the end of the war the current changes direction and starts pulling people towards "awesome conformity." (Senoh, 1997) Here Senoh describes the people thus: "They were like the seaweed hed seen when diving in the sea: waving, never going against the current."(Senoh, 1997) The story ends with H training as an artist. Analysis As mentioned earlier this book is about a boy growing up in Japan. The book gives us glimpses of Japan of the 1930s while it was at war, its eventual defeat, and the occupation of Japan by U.S. forces. We get to know of Japan, its secret police, military censorship, the forced "loyalty" oaths and how the Japanese people were living in a military-police state. It details how H faces the challenges of a war torn Japan with the characteristic optimism of a child and how he reacts to the bombing of his house, wartime propaganda, the conversion of his school into a factory, and the changes that take place because of war. We get to know that the atmosphere in that time was authoritarian. No one could question the excessive nationalism present at that time. There was a difference between the official versions of events reported in the newspapers, and what was actually happening. The State controlled many aspects of an individual’s life. One such control was that all should wear the new national dress and not Western clothes. In fact this ruling badly affectedly Morio’s business, since he made suits for foreigners. From the book we also get to know that in schools in Japan during wartime boys were taught that their highest duty was to die for the nation. Many were forced to join the army. No one except H questioned this. H is shocked when his friend who worked in the noodle shop is arrested by the police and made to join the army. Another friend, a projectionist at the movie theatre, hangs himself to avoid being drafted into the army. Along with the day-to-day experiences of H growing up in wartime Japan one gets to know of the imperialism and militarism that existed in Japanese society in the 1930s and which continued till Japan was defeated in 1945. There is no particular message to be had from the book. Senoh only hints and does not directly confront or talk about big issues of the war. It is more of a detailed historical account and the writer tell his story in a detached way. Again it is more about a boy who remained steady and true to himself when his country passed a very difficult phase. The author looks at that portion of history through the eyes of a boy and limits himself to what the boy could have felt about that period. Also there is a bit of inconsistency in Senoh’s views on war. Even though Senoh’s account of the war represents his rebellion against the war, he also performs his duty towards the State, so to say. In one episode in the book, Senoh makes a passionate speech about "smash[ing] the American and British fiends" to a school admissions board. Senoh repeatedly and rather mechanically mouths the party line whenever the situation requires that he should do so. There is also this instance of him assisting an army officer to capture an American pilot. Conclusion In conclusion it can be said that the book is an eminently readable book that portrays two pictures. One picture is that of the growing up of a boy under extraordinary and horrible conditions of war and the other is that of a nation rushing into a war that can end only in tragedy. Senoh gives us an honest account of some of the ugly realities in Japan during the World War. In short, A Boy Called H: A Childhood in Wartime Japan, is a coming-of-age story of a boy growing up in a place besieged by war. References 1. Senoh Kappa (1997), A Boy Called H: A Childhood in Wartime Japan, Kodansha International (JPN); 1 edition (January 2000) Read More