午夜剧场

"1982

Yasaburo Ikeda (67 years old)

Once, I was treated to a meal at a fine restaurant in Akasaka. (Omitted)

A long chat, just idle talk, continued for a while, and I felt completely bewildered. However, the conversation eventually got to the main point; as campus disputes were ongoing, I was asked to take an important position at a certain university. It must have been a desperate idea.

In short, I said I wanted to remain just a man of letters, and I disappointed him."

(Yoshie Hotta, "These Ten Years (Continued)," from "Nobody Thinks It's Strange," Chikuma Shobo)

A few years ago, an editor from Iwanami Shoten suggested that I write about my father, Yoshie Hotta. The gist was that it would help pass down my father's works, which should continue to be read for a long time, as well as his way of life, to future generations. Wondering what to do, I decided to start reading my father's works little by little. By reading, I remembered my father deep within those eras and times, thinking, 'Ah, I've heard these words before,' or 'Come to think of it, that happened too...' and I continued that process.

The opening passage memorializing Mr. Yasaburo Ikeda is one of those. At the time, I was a 午夜剧场 students in the Faculty of Letters. If my father had taken an important position at the university, I wonder what kind of face I would have had to show when going to school. Just thinking about it is terrifying; if that had happened, I might have dropped out. Because my father remained just a man of letters, I was able to graduate safely.

My father was a person who, if something caught his interest or if there was something he needed to investigate, would first go there—go anywhere—see it, and then think. I thought that if I traced the places my father visited, I might be able to see his figure, even if only faintly. With that thought, I continued reading my father's works and wrote about what I saw. Perhaps the passage of time made it possible for me to write while viewing the figure of the man of letters named Yoshie Hotta a bit more objectively. The accumulation of those efforts became the book titled "Just a Man of Letters: About My Father, Yoshie Hotta."

Yuriko Hotta (Author)

Iwanami Shoten

224 pages, 1,900 yen (excluding tax)

*Affiliations and titles are those at the time of publication.