H Japan Citation H Net Reviews Nenzi on Ōgimachi, ''''In the Shelter of the Pine A Memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and Tokugawa Japan'''' H Japan 04 17 2022 https //networks h net org/node/20904/reviews/101[.]
H-Japan Nenzi on Ōgimachi, 'In the Shelter of the Pine: A Memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and Tokugawa Japan' Review published on Sunday, April 17, 2022 Machiko Ōgimachi In the Shelter of the Pine: A Memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and Tokugawa Japan Translated by G G Rowley New York: Columbia University Press, 2021 368 pp $34.99 (ebook), ISBN 978-0-231-55316-2; $35.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-231-19951-3 Reviewed by Laura Nenzi (University of Tennessee) Published on H-Japan (April, 2022) Commissioned by Martha Chaiklin Printable Version: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=57306 Sometime around 1693 the Kyoto aristocrat Ōgimachi Machiko (1679?-1724) moved to Edo to become the second concubine of the daimyo Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu (1658-1714) She bore him two sons and spent much time in his Komagome villa and its splendid landscape garden She also kept a memoir, Matsukage nikki, which is now available in G G Rowley’s elegant translation as In the Shelter of the Pine: A Memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and Tokugawa Japan The volume is organized in thirty short chapters arranged chronologically from before 1690 to 1709 A brief introduction presents Machiko’s background, follows the afterlife of her memoir, and narrates Rowley’s efforts to piece together the fragments of Machiko’s life, triangulating with existing sources while reckoning with the silences of some and the loss of others Rowley is no stranger to this kind of work, having already recovered the life of another Kyoto woman removed from her world (albeit under very different circumstances), the imperial concubine Nakanoin Nakako (ca 1591–1671).[1] As the first part of the subtitle anticipates, Machiko’s main goal was to celebrate the greatness of her husband as a domainal lord and administrator and, by extension, to extol the shogun Tsunayoshi, to whom Yoshiyasu owed his privilege Early modern works of literature (and art) abound with depictions of women as projections of male fantasies; In the Shelter of the Pine offers a rare example of how a woman saw, and idealized, a man Machiko casts Yoshiyasu in the most favorable of lights, presenting him as a man with “nobility of purpose” (p 17), a filial son, an erudite scholar, and “a pillar of the realm” (p 2) Her hagiographic effort requires creativity To provide a complete picture of Yoshiyasu’s achievements, thus, she includes anecdotes she did not personally witness Elsewhere Machiko chooses to omit details, feigning ignorance or professing reluctance to address topics better suited, in her opinion, for men or scholars Yoshiyasu’s accomplishments are a “vast strand,” but her words, as a woman, amount to a mere grain of sand, she laments (p 208) Do not take her self-effacement as an indication that Machiko is a passive observer, however, for as often as she minimizes her presence, Machiko also takes center stage She writes of her joys (spending time practicing poetry with her husband, pp 122-124) and missed opportunities (“suffering the usual defilement” and not being able attend the ceremonies for one of the shogun’s visits, p 78); of her distress (when an illness prevented her from caring for her sons, p 73) and her proud Citation: H-Net Reviews Nenzi on Ōgimachi, 'In the Shelter of the Pine: A Memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and Tokugawa Japan' HJapan 04-17-2022 https://networks.h-net.org/node/20904/reviews/10134761/nenzi-o%CC%84gimachi-shelter-pine-memoir-yanagisawa-yoshiyasu-and Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License H-Japan moments (being asked to offer the binding sash to a pregnant Lady Sumé, p 181) For a memoir “of Tokugawa Japan” the other claim made in the subtitle In the Shelter of the Pine is inevitably narrow in scope In Machiko’s narrative world there is hardly any strife or dissent The retainers obey Yoshiyasu’s every order (p 25), the villagers serve him faithfully (p 7), and everyone basks “in the light of his glory” (p 25) Machiko and her peers spend time organizing banquets, writing poetry, exchanging gifts (more on this below), and attending lectures Of course, as much as Machiko and her husband lived lives of sheltered privilege, they were not immune from earthquakes, conflagrations, disease, and death, all of which intrude regularly into the story She writes, for example, of the devastating 1703 earthquake that triggered the collapse of Ryōgoku Bridge and a tidal wave along the coast (p 116); of smallpox and measles outbreaks (pp 148 and 182); and of the recurring loss of homes and possessions to fires Grief-stricken upon receiving word that her father passed, she reminisces about the small rituals she shared with him as a child in Kyoto (p 96) Natural disasters and disease outbreaks aside, however, Machiko shared very little with the megacity in which she lived and with its commoner residents Ever the aristocrat, she retained a clear sense of geo-cultural hierarchies For example, the imperial capital is a “realm above the clouds,” while Edo and its surroundings are “the remote Eastlands” (p 121) Machiko’s choice to fashion her memoir after the classics of court literature one Rowley expertly renders in her translation often causes the reader to forget that the characters populating her world are early modern samurai rather than Heian-era courtiers, until a casual mention of Nō props, tearoom furnishings, or shogunal visits breaks the illusion and reestablishes the proper historical context Still, the reader has to make an effort to recall that, outside the gates of Yoshiyasu’s villa, there was a city of one million people who flocked to popular displays of sacred images, purchased manjū from roadside vendors, enjoyed the acts of street performers, or gossiped over the fate of the forty-seven Akō retainers Machiko’s glimpses of early eighteenth-century Edo are few and far between Whenever her path intersects with that of commoners the “lowborn men” of Musashi Moor (p 31), the “lowly merchants” whose squabbles her husband adjudicates (p 46), or the “lowly fellows with hair sprouting from their faces” who sell “a great many charming things” in Ichigaya (p 80) Machiko is mostly annoyed or patronizing Aside from Yoshiyasu, Machiko, and their family and entourage, two other “protagonists” emerge prominently from the pages of In the Shelter of the Pine One is material culture, from the many gifts exchanged on every possible occasion to the implements carefully selected and displayed in preparation for the shogunal visits The memoir doubles as a catalog of the high-end commodities and treasures that signaled status and cemented relations among elite samurai: fabrics (so many fabrics! Endless fabrics!), horses, tea caddies, fragrant woods, perfumes, and more Machiko may not have ventured out much, but the things that surrounded her were very mobile and exchanged hands frequently The other great protagonist is the landscape garden of her husband’s Komagome villa, part of which is now preserved as the Rikugien Machiko always writes with an acute sense of space The reader comfortably follows her from room to room, along corridors, in and out of the women’s quarters But it is to the garden that she dedicates the most attention its every corner, its sounds and silences, its colors, and its seasonal transformations The garden is the ultimate refuge, a place of “otherworldliness” (p 98) No future visit to the Rikugien will be complete without a copy of In the Citation: H-Net Reviews Nenzi on Ōgimachi, 'In the Shelter of the Pine: A Memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and Tokugawa Japan' HJapan 04-17-2022 https://networks.h-net.org/node/20904/reviews/10134761/nenzi-o%CC%84gimachi-shelter-pine-memoir-yanagisawa-yoshiyasu-and Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License H-Japan Shelter of the Pine in hand to appreciate what remains and imagine what once was but is no more Educators wishing to include English-language documents on Tokugawa Japan in their course readings already have countless options to cover the world of townspeople In the Shelter of the Pine offers a complement While it may not be (and indeed has no pretension to be) a memoir “of Tokugawa Japan” writ large, In the Shelter of the Pine is an enjoyable, fascinating record of power relations and gender dynamics in a daimyo household as seen through the eyes of a woman It is also a testament to the role some women played in securing status, prestige, and important alliances for warrior men and in shaping their image and legacy in early modern Japan Note [1] G G Rowley, An Imperial Concubine’s Tale: Scandal, Shipwreck, and Salvation in SeventeenthCentury Japan (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012) Citation: Laura Nenzi Review of Ō g imachi, Machiko, In the Shelter of the Pine: A Memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and Tokugawa Japan H-Japan, H-Net Reviews April, 2022 URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=57306 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License Citation: H-Net Reviews Nenzi on Ōgimachi, 'In the Shelter of the Pine: A Memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and Tokugawa Japan' HJapan 04-17-2022 https://networks.h-net.org/node/20904/reviews/10134761/nenzi-o%CC%84gimachi-shelter-pine-memoir-yanagisawa-yoshiyasu-and Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License ... https://networks .h-net. org/node/20904/reviews/10134761 /nenzi- o%CC%84gimachi -shelter- pine -memoir- yanagisawa- yoshiyasu- and Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License H-Japan Shelter of the Pine in hand... Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License Citation: H-Net Reviews Nenzi on Ōgimachi, ''In the Shelter of the Pine: A Memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and Tokugawa Japan'' HJapan... Reviews Nenzi on Ōgimachi, ''In the Shelter of the Pine: A Memoir of Yanagisawa Yoshiyasu and Tokugawa Japan'' HJapan 0 4-1 7-2 022 https://networks .h-net. org/node/20904/reviews/10134761 /nenzi- o%CC%84gimachi -shelter- pine -memoir- yanagisawa- yoshiyasu- and