Introduction to The Story Of Mimi-Nashi-Hōïchi (Earless Hōïchi)

This is the first in Lafcadio Hearn’s classic collection of Japanese ghost stories, Kwaidan, published five months before his death in 1904.

Hearn was born on an island off the coast of Greece in 1850 to an Irish father and Greek mother. He grew up in Ireland, worked as a journalist in the US, and in 1890 made a trip to Japan, where he stayed.

My own introduction to these tales was through the 1965 Japanese film Kwaidan. I remember it as one of the most beautiful and eerie films I have ever seen. It is no wonder it won a special prize at Cannes.

I first saw it in La Jolla, California, at a small theater. This was in 1966, when La Jolla was a distinctive, quiet coastal enclave with bungalows along the beachfront. When I visited the city two decades later, it had overgrown with cookie-cutter condos, the theatre replaced by a dive shop. But in those earlier days it was a welcome refuge for me while I attended Navy Hospital Corps School at the old hospital in Balboa Park. I would ride the bus on weekends to see films and hang out in the used bookstore attached to the theatre. I had discovered the place by visiting some craftspeople at the Shakespearian theatre in the park, self-styled witches and warlocks, who invited me to visit this store they owned. It is hard to imagine such a place existing now in La Jolla. In a few short months I would be stationed at the Naval Hospital in Yokosuka, Japan. In a little more than a year I would be in Vietnam in time to celebrate Tet of 1968 on my twenty-first birthday.

This story, which translates as Hōïchi the Earless, is the one I remember best of the four stories from the film. On screen the battle scenes between the Genji and the Heiké are aptly set to Hōïchi’s stark recitation accompanied on the biwa. Read the story, then see the film which is now available on DVD.

JWC

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