Wonderful Fool by Shūsaku EndōMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
"To be a saint or a man of too good a nature in today's pragmatic world, with everyone out to get the other fellow, was equivalent to being a fool, wasn't it?"
I finished this novel on Easter Sunday, after hearing mass.
I was very distracted all throughout the service. So many things bothered me: work deadlines, the heat, the mosquitoes, the out-of-tune singing by the singer who was obviously given the microphone due to seniority in rank and not musicality... that I found it difficult to concentrate on the readings and the sermon of our parish priest. It shames me to admit it, but I was in a rather hateful mood.
But I was brought to attention when I heard "Netflix" and "The Two Popes."
It's amazing how quickly the mere mention of something we love can bring about a change -- in my case, a quick change of attention, of attitude. I leaned forward to listen more intently.
Michelangelo, the priest told us, had gone around Rome and noticed that the most common image of Christ was as he died, miserably, a victim of human torture and hatred. And so he was determined to portray Christ differently in the Sistine Chapel.
I've never been to this famous chapel, but I've been inundated with glorious images of it all my life. It's so full of life, of light, an obvious labor of passionate love.
What does this have to do with the book?
Endo's novel, too, speaks about our image of Christ. A mysterious Frenchman arrives in Tokyo, around 15 years after World War II, and seeks out his boyhood penpal. He won't reveal why he's in Japan, and when the mystery is solved in the last few pages the reveal hits with the metaphysical forcefulness of Salvation.
This Frenchman becomes an object of scorn, and is considered a fool because of his utter and even idiotic simplicity. Ugly and ungraceful, he goes around with the dregs of Tokyo society... yakuza, women who work at night, and is often physically beaten as a result of many misunderstandings. In fact, with the open ending, we're not even sure if he makes it out of the book alive.
But does it matter if this obviously Christ-like figure is dead? The point is, he LIVED.
And in the novel, he lives on still in the hearts and minds of the people he encountered.
"He is a wonderful fool who will never allow the little light which he sheds along man's way to go out."
Endo's novel invites us to meditate on who Christ is to us. And whether we celebrate Resurrection Sunday or Easter Sunday, or if we are in the midst of our Passover and Ramadan (I find it so beautiful that the People of the Book are celebrating holy days at around the same period of time) ... the historical Christ (whether viewed as prophet, man, or God) has much to teach us all.
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