Satou Yuuya
I’m here to talk about real people, not characters.
So this time, I’ll throw my persona away and speak with the utmost sincerity. I’ll do my best not to replicate the kind of acting I’ve been putting up during Satou Yuuya’s Life Counseling Sessions. I shouldn’t even have to mention it, but still.
—
If I want to talk about Oota-san, there is but one place to start.
That was, as far as I can remember, on a night of February 2002; I was walking home from my part-time job when I got a call from Kodansha.
Since Faust is more on the literary side and I’m sure a lot of our readers aren’t aware of the Mephisto Prize, I’ll explain it a bit: It’s a literary award held by the magazine Mephisto, which is kind of the parent of Faust. To give some examples, Kazuhito Uruga and Kitayama Takekuni, who were featured before me, debuted from it as well.
“Hi, I’m Oota from Kodansha.”
For the 20-year-old, Hokkaido-living youngster keeping himself afloat through part-time jobs I was, hearing these words come out of my phone was exceedingly stimulating.
“I have to say, your book was awful!
“I threw it twice at the wall!”
Put like that, it sure doesn’t sound like a call to inform someone they’d won an award, but I wasn’t a total idiot so I mostly grasped what Oota-san was trying to tell me. I feel like we talked about a bunch of things: Who are your favorite authors? Why did you apply to the Mephisto Prize? What do you want to do as an author? Why did you start writing? Etc. Even I felt awkward not hearing a single “Congratulations” during that entire call, but that must have been his way of getting me fired up on the night before my debut.
To me, this call was like a spider’s thread being lowered down into Hell, but for Oota-san, it wasn’t even the first step.
Debuting is the most normal thing for any future author, but the crucial part is what comes after it.
“I’ll head to Hokkaido in Spring so please write another book in the next three months. The main character’s big sister was pretty interesting, I wanna read about her school life. See you soon~.”
He hung up like that.
His casual remark (?) proved to be a hint for writing my second novel, Enamel-Varnished Soul’s Gravity.
I then spent all the time I had free from my part-time job on writing that second novel.
Three months later, as promised, I headed to a hotel in Sapporo with the manuscript for Enamel, about 80% complete then.
“Nice to meet you, I’m Oota.”
The man who showed up in the lobby seemed young (he actually was) and pulled off a cool leather jacket; he greatly departed from how I imagined editors looked like: thin, wearing glasses, and smoking like crazy.
“It’s settled! I’ll have a picture of you in the book!”
Oota-san suddenly took out a camera, pointed it at me when I was peacefully enjoying my lunch, and took a flurry of pictures. One of the pictures he took then was used in my first novel, Flicker Style. Blame Oota-san for that picture being absolutely horrendous. Every time I bring that up, Oota-san says the word for ‘pictures (写真)’ is written that way because they ‘capture (写) the truth (真),’ meaning I shouldn’t blame the cameraman. …However, the pictures Nisio Isin-san took of me were mostly fine, so his excuse doesn’t really work. Oota-san relies too much on kanji.
Sorry for the tangent.
I then resumed the writing process and completed Enamel.
“It’s a masterpiece”
That’s the first thing Oota-san said to me upon finishing it.
I just had to write one more book and I’d be fully prepared for my debut.
However, spider threads can sever.
As I’m sure many of my readers are aware by now, when Flicker Style came out in July of that year, it was heavily criticized.
Faust obviously wasn’t around back then, not even as an idea, and at the time not many authors were using the mystery formula to write things that weren’t mysteries, which has now become a proper trend. That, combined with the fact that most readers were ‘pure mystery fans’ made for a pour of harsh criticisms.
The way I’m writing it, it really sounds like I’m blaming the era for my lack of luck, which might get people angry at me, but, yeah, I pretty much am.
Opinions can easily turn around.
I’ve seen that happen myself, and experienced it first-hand. Luckily, nowadays all of my books are getting reprints, and even my first two works got a pocketbook edition.
However, at the time, obviously unaware of such a future, I was seriously depressed.
The people I used to criticize boring authors with on the internet were now relentlessly attacking me—throwing stones at me.
“Stop it! It’s me! Don’t you remember? We used to fight on the same side!”
Needless to say, they couldn’t hear my cries.
My position had changed.
My blissful time with them was now over.
My claims, complaints, and jokes were no longer on message boards in the digital realm, but sealed inside books, which were then published by a real company, sold for money, and read.
On December seventh of that same year, right after Enamel was published, Oota-san came over to Hokkaido a second time. We toured various bookstores in Sapporo, but the book on which we’d exerted much effort creating and poured our souls in wasn’t anywhere to be found. This was quite a shock.
I remember getting really drunk at the sushi restaurant we had a reservation in. We ate in the most despicable way, only picking out toro and sea urchins, and filled our bellies with cold sake.
“It’s sad, it’s so sad.”
I will never forget when Oota-san kept saying that over and over. It had the effect of making the slowpoke that I was finally realize that some people were suffering and going through dark times because of me, that this job wasn’t a glorified game or pastime; it was serious business.
Time continues to move forward.
Submerged Piano came out in March of the next year, but didn’t make much of a splash. Same for Christmas Terror, which came out in August in the context of the Locked Room Book project—it didn’t get any more of a reaction than anticipated. Nowadays these are just amusing anecdotes I can tell, but at the time every day was a nightmare for me.
That period is right about when I met Yano-san.
I had then moved to Tokyo. Yano-san and I met in a hotel’s coffee shop in Iidabashi. That man, who came to me with a copy of the recently-released Christmas Terror full to the brim with countless sticky notes, was rather skinny, wore big glasses, and smoked quite heavily. He matched perfectly with my imaginary rendition of an editor: thin, wearing glasses, and smoking like crazy.
“At any rate, you are amazing, Satou-san.”
This would be really embarrassing if I’m misremembering it, but I think he told me something of the kind.
But, to be honest, it didn’t really click with me back then.
I couldn’t comprehend in the slightest why the oh-so-great literary Shincho magazine would set their eyes on a 21-year-old youngster writing whatever he liked in Kodansha Novels.
Not only did I consider genres to be nothing more or less than an indicator, I also used to genuinely despise the people sanctifying these mere labels. Even so, I found such a publisher taking an interest in me bizarre.
I don’t know if Yano-san noticed my dubitation, but he took me around to eat and drink (to ‘tame’ me, as they say). He just kept talking the whole time. I’m not the most qualified to say this, but Yano-san is really quick-witted. When he got fired up, I had a hard time just keeping up with what he said; I didn’t have the mental resources to butt in.
“Your works are really good, Satou-san, I’m counting on you.
“Don’t change your ways just because it’s a literary magazine, show me the same kind of works you’ve been writing.
“I want to bring a new current to Shincho. For that, I need new people.”
This might sound rude, but with the way my memory works I only remember these kinds of positive and pleasing words from that conversation.
And, being of an impressionable nature, he had managed to move me enough to make me feel like, Sure, I don’t mind writing you something.
However, I still couldn’t comprehend what meaning there was to me writing in Shincho.
A few months later, at the request of Ootsuka Eiji-san, it was decided I would participate in the upcoming Literature Flea Market.
Oota-san knew I had no knowledge of how to make books and couldn’t do it alone, so he offered to help me and also write the afterword. Sasai Icco-san, Nisio Isin-san, and Maijo Otaro-san then gratefully decided to join us. Thanks to all of them, the doujin magazine we concocted, Tandem Rotor’s Methodology, sold out in an instant (by the way, Nisio Isin-san came up with the title. He must’ve sensed I was planning on calling it something random, like The Nisio Flock or Saoyuushiro1).
“Huh, it reads like a demo tape.”
This is what Yano-san said after reading through Tandem Rotor’s Methodology.
A demo tape.
At the time I just tilted my head at his words, but now I understand—this was the prototype to Faust.
A level of seriousness that makes readers flinch, no common factor, all-or-nothing manuscripts, claims that would make even an adolescent avert their eyes, Oota-san alone at the editing, extreme propaganda full of manliness and femininity—all of that would later be inherited by Faust.
After the publication of Faust, I remembered his previous remark and found myself shocked at Yano Yuu’s incredible foresight.
That’s probably the moment I started to truly trust Yano-san.
I got to work and sent him the short story Lust. He quickly responded by email, where he praised it highly. He didn’t just share a vague impression he came up with in seconds upon reading it; he was praising it on top of having thoroughly analyzed every aspect, from the contents to the title. I couldn’t help but be amazed at Yano-san’s work. I was in genuine awe of the power level of a literary magazine’s editor. After that, I also sent him A Small House in a Big Flood and A Corpse And, both of which he approved of.
The level of scrutiny in the galley proofs Yano-san went over was incredibly high. He found every single lukewarm expression, half-assed metaphor, and compromised plotpoint, which he all ordered to be fixed. Moreover, he never once made an off-the-point remark.
And when I reached the last page after struggling through these high-level proofs, I would find things like, ‘Amazing work!’ or ‘It’s a masterpiece!’ written in the blank space at the end. Another Shincho editor confessed to me in secret that Yano-san almost never wrote such things. Despite feeling an enormous amount of pressure being put on my back, I also felt genuinely happy.
Faust’s sales increased with each new issue, and we apparently became the best-selling literary magazine both in copies and percentage of copies sold.
Even my novels had gotten a reprint despite not having put out a new work in two years. Oota-san was overjoyed too, he said that kind of thing never happened normally. The opinions had started to come around. That, again, made me feel genuinely happy.
And now, with both of them by my side, I feel melancholic.
Answering the demands of highly-achieving and eccentric talents every single time is a real ordeal. If they had been requests from half-assed and laissez-faire people, I could take it easy to some extent. As though a freeter with no responsibilities to answer to: You only need to operate the register as I showed you; You only need to move the furniture where I tell you to.
However, neither Oota Katsushi nor Yano Yuu were the kind of people to tolerate something like that.
This is too much for me. Don’t request any more of me than I’m capable of. There are things I simply cannot do. They don’t allow for such complaints to go through.
Just do it.
Just write something.
That’s simply what they would reply on the spot. And so I would grumble my usual complaints, finish a manuscript while haunted by a mix of expectations and fear, and show it to them.
A masterpiece.
Amazing.
All to hear these words.
—
In the end…yeah, it ended up being the usual Faust colleague-praising session.
At first I was planning on making something like Dazai Osamu’s Genesis, where I would only write complaints after complaints while still making it an interesting read. I had the material for it. I’ve had countless clashes. I’ve experienced many things I found unreasonable, I was baffled at, I simply couldn’t accept, or I still haven’t forgiven. To top it all, complaining is my specialty. Writing that would be the easiest thing.
However, I’m not doing it.
Talented people are always subject to unfairness and criticisms, both from allies and enemies.
Both Napoleon and Picaso were criticized in their times. Galileo and Darwin weren’t understood by their peers. They only managed to obtain a fair assessment after gaining more authority, getting older, or dying.
I made it sound all grandiose, but my point is simply that I don’t want to join this annoying-yet-totally-inevitable-and-understandable process of the Old rejecting the New.
The chosen ones must spend the rest of their lives in a ravine between rapture and anxiety. Even if that means dying a miserable and depressive death like Verlaine.
Now, I don’t feel too good about always being on the receiving side, so I’ll try saying something by myself for once.
Oota-san, Yano-san, to ensure these don’t end up just being labeled as vain praises, please continue to do wonderful work and achieve victory. We will…well, at least I will lend you every last bit of strength in my possession. I shall be a nameless soldier pushing himself to death for Napoleon’s sake.
Let’s keep doing this agonizing job to make future Stendhals write, “Oh Napoleon! In your day, how sweet it was to rise to fortune through the dangers of battle!” out of jealousy.
(Faust Vol.4 Winter 2004)
- Name taking one kanji from each member’s name in order: Sa-sai I-cco, Nisi-o I-sin, Sa-tou Yuu-ya, Oo-ta Katsu-shi, and Mai-jo O-ta-ro. ↩︎
Sway Translations 