Who Are The Main Characters In Japanese Gothic?

There are two main voices throughout the novel. Lee Turner is a young NYU student who is brought into the novel half-finished. He had, he believes, murdered his roommate James and fled to his father’s newly purchased house in Japan in order to hide in order to remember. The reader experiences Lee’s story through his own narrative which is dimly recollected, frequently medicated, and unmistakably guilty. In response to Lee’s narrative the house seems to be as unsettled as he is, with its own unsettling and bizarre windows and stains that refuse to behave. In marked contrast to this, the story of Sen, a young samurai, is set in October 1877, after the end of the samurai class and their unsuccessful rebellions against the heel of the boot of modernity. Sen was raised within a rigid family code, a code of conduct by which she is expected to live. The door between their eras is a physical one. The greatest part of the novel is comprised of the mirrored but distorted stories of Lee and Sen. Of the secondary characters, those who are most central to each of the two main storylines are Lee’s father and his partner Hina, a kindly and fruity lady, who try to offer the fractured Turner a measure of peace and normalcy in the constantly disturbed house. But the house resists them. And then there are a number of absent but present figures who shape Sen’s story: her father, the soldiers at the borders between warring countries, and the local communities, struggling to survive, upon whom Sen’s actions have implications. One figure from Lee’s past, James, the murdered roommate, is referred to frequently by Lee but never in any great depth. And then there is the house itself which functions almost like a third main character, drawing upon myth and memory in order to anchor the dreamlike, supernatural, Gothic and utterly fantastical story. The three main characters of the novel are thus Lee Turner, Sen, and the house. And then there are a handful of secondary characters who provide support in each of the two main storylines.

Back to reading ‘Japanese Gothic’. Two of the main characters stuck with me: Lee Turner, a troubled American student, who after a blackout in which he suspects he may have murdered someone, runs to his father’s ancient house. And Sen, the samurai’s daughter, trying to survive in Japan in 1877 during the overthrow of the empire by the samurai. Alternating between Lee’s foggy interior life and Sen’s intense and disciplined way of surviving in a tumultuous time, helped create a sense of a mirroring of the two time periods. The other characters – Lee’s father, Hina, Sen’s family, the imperial soldiers – added much to the present and past of the two main characters, but their private traumas became public in the House, which became a sort of third main character. If I had to remember three names from this book, they would be Lee, Sen and the House.

I read ‘Japanese Gothic’ as a novel composed of a dual storyline between two protagonists, whose lives extend over the space of a century, yet remain linked by one peculiar house. The modern part of the novel is centered upon the enigmatic and melancholic figure of Lee Turner. His story is in turn dominated by his attempt to unravel a mystery concerning the sudden death of his roommate James. Yet, memories of moments and events remain shrouded in obscurity, in part deliberately suppressed by the protagonist. However, the old house increasingly exerts pressure upon him, to finally confront the memories he is trying to avoid. Sen, on the other hand, is a figure of incredible vigor and liveliness. She is physically portrayed as a woman of great stature and strength, imbued with the skills of a warrior, yet also carrying deep family secrets, shame, and a deep sense of duty with regard to her family, above all after the Satsuma Rebellion. While Sen is indeed the main anchor of the historical section, the supporting cast is also extremely well realized. The somewhat cantankerous figure of Lee’s father, who decides to buy and move into the old samurai house of long ago, serves as the prime catalyst for the plot, while Hina’s kind presence adds much warmth to Turner’s cold and isolative existence. But there are also the many, often alive and at times invisible relatives and soldiers of Sen’s, whose influence upon her daily life is catalyzed by her present domicile. Through their interplay with Lee, the old house never remains neutral. Rather, it continually reacts in diverse ways to each of the protagonists, thus also creating the well-realized supporting cast that we find in ‘Japanese Gothic’.