12/8/2023 0 Comments Silence shusaku endo pdf downloadOtsu is a shy Christian, completely out of his depth in Mitsuko s cruel, anti-religious circles. She is captivated by Julien Green s novel, Moïra, and echoes its dramatic themes in her vicious pursuit and seduction of fellow student Otsu. In another case, we meet Mitsuko, who was once a well-healed Japanese student of French literature in a Catholic university where few of the students had received Christian baptism. The Ganges, spiritual home to Hindus, lends its intense, sacred atmosphere to Endo s Japanese cases, and each one attains spiritual insight. New York: New Directions, Book Review - Deep Riverģ In like manner, all the subsequent characters are introduced with critical vignettes which ultimately connect them to the India trip. The way in which he doesn t find her becomes an epiphany. This surprising instruction shakes up Isobe s somnambulent, materialistic worldview and finally drives him to the banks of the Ganges in search of his wife in another form. On her deathbed she implores him to look for her in a future incarnation. Isobe knows nothing of his wife s passion, or his own. Endo tells us that Isobe, like many husbands in Japan, has no spiritual life and takes his wife for granted. Isobe is a middle-class manager whose wife, Keiko, dies of cancer. And, of course, they are also human archetypes, with whom we can all identify. One soon realizes that the use of this sociological term is Endo s open declaration that this novel is about the Japanese culture, the social types which arise there, and their continuing struggle to define a particularly Asian Christian spirituality. ![]() In Deep River, we are introduced to several Japanese characters who are identified as cases. In fact, this Christian God is not owned by the Christians! Christ is quietly present in the sufferings of our contemporary world, and even within non-christian cultures such as India. Endo, perhaps the most famous of Japanese Christian novelists, continues the core theme of Silence in his Deep River 1 : the Christian God is a God of Mystery who will not be boxed in by familiar doctrinal concepts, nor will God be tied down to the 2,000 year old revelations of Christian Scripture. The Jesus Christ who survives Endo s Silence is one who has disappeared into the sufferings of the contemporary, faithful poor. In the silence, a few, like the apostate priest Rodrigues, are startled to hear Christ speak. Others saw in it an invitation to discover a God of Mystery, beyond their taken-for-granted concepts and doctrines. Some interpreted the silence as God s indifference. Yet, many who listened prayerfully for Divine guidance, found only God s silence. Christians who faced this choice wanted to know God s will. Many chose martyrdom rather than apostasy. In Silence, Endo explored the complicated psychological and spiritual struggle of Christians forced to trample on the fumie, the image of Christ. The Christian church has never recovered from the persecution, and so today only a small percentage of Japanese are Christian. Many were burned and hung on wooden crosses. Christians, especially Roman Catholic priests, were mercilessly pursued and then tortured. The outcome of these tensions was the wholesale slaughter of Christians throughout Japan. Then the ruling Tokugawa period families became threatened by this Western religious invasion with commercial overtones. 200,000 Christian converts greeted the 17th century. Francis Xavier led a group of priests who envisioned a converted Japan. In Silence, one becomes intimately, emotionally connected to the struggles of Christianity s first missionaries to Japan. His most famous book, Silence, originally published in 1969, helps to prepare the reader for the loneliness implicit in this identity. ![]() Jonas, DirectorĢ Shusaku Endo is a Japanese, Christian novelist. Jonas, Ed.D., 1995 (First appeared in Studies in Interrreligious Dialogue, 5/1995) Robert A. 1 Deep River by Shusaku Endo A Book Review by Robert A.
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