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Japanese Futurity in Neuromancer and the Science Fiction of Masaki Goro

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Japanese Futurity in Neuromancer and the Science Fiction of Masaki Goro Disenchanting Japan: Japanese Futurity in Neuromancer and the Science Fiction of Masaki Goro Item Type text; Electronic Thesis Authors Garza, James Michael Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 27/09/2021 05:16:15 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/193331 DISENCHANTING JAPAN: JAPANESE FUTURITY IN NEUROMANCER AND THE SCIENCE FICTION OF MASAKI GORŌ By James Michael Garza _____________________ Copyright © James Michael Garza 2010 A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF EAST ASIAN STUDIES In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2010 2 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This thesis has been submitted in partial fulfillment of requirements for an advanced degree at the University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this thesis are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: __James Michael Garza__ APPROVAL BY THESIS DIRECTOR This thesis has been approved on the date shown below: _ 3-30-10 _ Dr. Philip Gabriel Date Professor of East Asian Studies 3 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the following people for their encouragement and assistance: Dr. Maggie Camp, Dr. Yuka Matsugu, Hiromi Onishi, Michael Ignatov, Lindsey Curé. The members of my thesis committee deserve special recognition: Professor Philip Gabriel, Professor Noel Pinnington, Professor Brian McVeigh. 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………….6 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Disenchanting Japan……………………………………………………………………7 Calculation and Magic………………………………………………………………….9 Overview………………………………………………………………………………13 Premises of Progress…………………………………………………………………..16 Spaces of Science Fiction……………………………………………………………..29 Cyberpunk Revisited…………………………………………………………………..32 CHAPTER TWO: MARKET AND MODERNITY Introduction……………………………………………………………………………36 The Mantle of East Asian Modernity………………………………………………….37 Temporality and Modernity…………………………………………………………...40 Time and Utility……………………………………………………………………….46 Rationalization, Disenchantment, (Re)enchantment…………………………………..52 Masaki Gorō and Disenchantment…………………………………………………….56 William Gibson and (Re)enchantment………………………………………………...67 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………….78 CHAPTER THREE: HISTORICITY AND GENRE Introduction……………………………………………………………………………81 Historicity……………………………………………………………………………..82 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS – Continued Nation and Nostalgia…………………………………………………………………..88 Interpreting the Hard-Boiled…………………………………………………………..96 The Value of Dystopia……………………………………………………………….106 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...115 CHAPTER FOUR: CONCLUSION……………………………………………………118 REFERENCES…………………………………………………………………………122 6 ABSTRACT I apply enchantment theory to William Gibson‘s Neuromancer and several works by the Japanese SF author Masaki Gorō to reveal shared assumptions about Japan as the locus of an emergent techno-social hybridity. Both Gibson and Masaki register signs of widespread disenchantment stemming from an increasingly technologically advanced society with a ruthlessly efficient take on capitalism. However, they mobilize their portrayals to different ends. I demonstrate that the authors diverge in their assessments of a technologically-mediated reenchantment. I also argue that the authors‘ use of conventions from hard-boiled fiction performs several functions. First, it ironically highlights the impossibility of nostalgia in such a future world, where the concept of home is divested of stability. Second, it evinces an anxiety over the transition from individualistic subjectivity to decentered posthumanity. Third, it reinforces the theme of the supplantation of the traditional nation-state by hyper-capitalist forms. 7 CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION Once, in the age of the Pax Americana, Japanese SF took as its model British and American SF, both hardcore and New Wave alike, and endeavored to construct an SF land[scape] unique to Japan, but when soon we entered the Pax Japonica period of the ‗80s, we discovered that ―Japan,‖ defined in part by Japanese SF, was itself being seen as […] an unduly science fictional SF land: Science Fictional Japan. A group of North American authors began publishing computer stories that envisioned ―SF‖ within the symbol of ―Japan.‖ That was the moment of a head-on collision between Japanese SF, which carried a tradition of Occidentalism, and cyberpunk, which we may also call hyper-Orientalism. Tatsumi Takayuki,1 Japanoido Sengen (1993) Disenchanting Japan This thesis interprets the meaning of Japanese futurity in William Gibson‘s Neuromancer (1984) and in several works by the Japanese SF2 author Masaki Gorō. The debut novel by Gibson is among the most celebrated in contemporary SF, and it has occasioned a substantial amount of academic criticism. If Gibson is known outside of SF and academic circles these days, it is probably for coining the term ―cyberspace.‖ Masaki, on the other hand, is a much lesser-known figure. And yet, in his own words, he found himself beset with ―the puzzling fame of being a Japanese Gibson‖3 after debuting with 1 When referring to the Japanese publications of this author, I preserve the Japanese name order of surname-given name. 2 According to John Clute and Peter Nicholls (1993), ―sf‖ is the ―preferred abbreviation of ‗science fiction‘ within the community of sf writers and readers, as opposed to the journalistic sci fi.‖ John Clute and Peter Nicholls, eds., The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction (London: Orbit, 1993), 1062. I prefer to capitalize this abbreviation, following the Japanese convention and other precedents. 3 Masaki Gorō, ―Not Just a Gibson Clone: An Interview with Goro Masaki,‖ interview by Sinda Gregory and Larry McCaffery, The Review of Contemporary Fiction 22, no. 2 (2002), 81. 8 the novella ―Jagan‖ [Evil Eyes] in Hayakawa SF Magazine in December 1987.4 In addition to this novella, I discuss his short story ―Sakete-shimai-tai‖ [I Want to Burst] (1988) and his novel Venus City (1992), which won the 14th Nihon SF Taishō Award. By futurity I mean the sense that certain material culture, social behaviors or institutions manifest the future. This could mean that an emergent phenomenon—say, a new invention—satisfies some old prediction for the course of science. Or it might mean that some familiar phenomenon, for instance, urbanization, assumes a new immediacy in the futurological imagination. In any case, I recognize in both authors‘ portrayals of a futuristic Japan qualities which the sociologist Max Weber first ascribed to modernity: namely, rationalization and disenchantment. I discuss these concepts in a moment. The main problem I consider is the role of technology and capitalism in the authors‘ dystopian portrayals of a futuristic Japan. In both of their work rationalized structures such as corporations and bureaucracies deterministically and conspiratorially shape the social landscape—in a word, they disenchant it. In order to counteract these forces, characters turn to advanced technologies whose efficacy is nearly magical. For the protagonist of Neuromancer, the attempt at a technological reenchantment is largely successful. In Masaki‘s works, the results of this kind of attempt are more dire. I explain why. In addition to this, I address several questions about the relationship between Japan, technology and the future in the popular imagination. Is it really true, as Tatsumi Takayuki (1996) has remarked, that the ―future that America once imagined now 4 My citations of this story refer to the collection in which it was later published: Masaki Gorō, ―Jagan‖ [Evil Eyes], in Jagan [Evil Eyes] (Tokyo: Hayakawa, 1988), 11-80. 9 overlaps with the Japan of today‖?5 For some this may be a tempting proposition to accept, inasmuch as it satisfies a particular vision of the Japanese as preternaturally industrious and efficient. It alternately makes it easier both to ―Other‖ Japan and to single it out as ―unique.‖ I should make it clear that I do not believe Tatsumi falls into either category. Nevertheless, I do believe this position is symptomatic of an effort to validate SF on the basis of its predictive ability; in its enthusiasm for finding instances of SF come true, it does not pay enough attention to the social contexts in which such futuristic visions were originally formulated. Another question I wish to pose is this: do we recognize certain aspects of Japanese society as futuristic because of their repeated portrayal in SF contexts? Or does their futurity precede their appropriation by SF? In examining these questions we may uncover Gibson‘s and Masaki‘s assumptions about progress, technology and capitalism. Calculation and Magic Before I develop these themes further, I would like to discuss the concepts of rationalization and disenchantment which are central to my analysis. Max Weber distinguished between several kinds of rationality, but the kind that concerns us most involves the application of rules, often scientific, to activities
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