Sayonara
a
film by Joshua Logan released through Warner Brothers Pictures in 1957
By the 1950s he
was developing into a prolific writer of sprawling epics. Sayonara was one of his last modest
works of fiction. The film matches the
story of the novel closely, with some telling digressions. In the novel, though Ace begs Hana-Ogi to
marry him, she refuses, primarily because she will not abandon the many girls
who admire her as one of the top entertainers in Japan. Nor does she want to live in America. (Additionally, in the novel Hana-Ogi can’t
speak English, and they move in together.)
The book ends with Gruber’s promotion and the prospect of marriage to
Eileen.
In 1955 Michener
married his third wife, a second-generation American of Japanese extraction,
Mari Sabusawa. Many of Ace’s ruminations
of what the social fallout would be of marrying someone of a different race
must have been at the fore of Michener’s thinking during this time. The novel, with its analysis of the marriages
of Eileen’s and Ace Gruber’s parents, reflects Michener’s frustrations and
failures with women. He never knew how
they should be treated. A vagabond at a young
age, James was raised by Mabel Michener, who probably was his mother, but was,
at least, his caretaker, as for dozens of other children she sheltered. They were destitute.
James was very
bright, developing interests in opera, art, and travel. He attended Swarthmore, outside Philadelphia,
and became a teacher. Eventually he got
a job as an editor at Macmillan, then served as a naval historian, which led to
his first book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning smash Tales of the South Pacific.
Like Ace and Joe
Kelly, Michener liked to be coddled and served by his women. Abandonment factored into his first two
divorces. He just couldn’t understand
why a woman wouldn’t be happy giving him unconditional support while contenting
herself with the freedom of a semi-independent existence (that’s emotional
isolation with a positive spin). The
subservient temperament and flowery femininity of Japanese women pleased
him. Mari Michener was loyal through
their thirty-nine years of marriage (she died in ’94). Unlike the previous two wives, she traveled
with James on most of his innumerable research expeditions. She was his bulldog defender and number-one
booster.
Considering how
much money he had, Michener lived very simply.
He was happy with a makeshift desk and whatever writings were necessary
for his next project. He never stopped
producing, seemed terrified of vacations, and moved dozens of times, with bases
of operation in Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Texas, Maryland, and Florida. He claimed the world was his home but really
any good library would do. Through his
long life (he died aged 90), Michener never discussed, publicly, his marriages,
his adultery (before and after Mari), nor the son he’d adopted, whom he lost to
his second wife in court, but then sent back to the orphanage after his ex-wife
abandoned the boy.
Ace, though we
leave him on what will hopefully be a fresh start, similarly bears the weight
of poor choices. The book makes clear
that, though Japanese women are wonderful, marriages between American
servicemen and Japanese subjects are doomed to fail, primarily because the men
interested in Japanese girls are a bad sort and can’t make it with American
girls. They’ve quit trying and are
settling for someone who’s own standards are lower. Michener implicitly condones sex with the
Japanese but questions marriage. Instead
of marriage being a merging of families, Michener sees it as a merging of
cultures. The question then becomes, where’s home?
In what may be a
falsehood in an otherwise excellent novel, Hana-Ogi knows their relationship is
doomed from the beginning, but willingly embraces sex and cohabitation. She gives herself up to domestic bliss
because she’s convinced that her fate is to be a dance instructor and she
would, otherwise, never know love.
Of course,
un-married people have sex all the time.
For people in love, to not do so requires great resolve. In the movie, though Hana-Ogi thinks they’re
doomed, it’s not clear that she gives up her body to Ace. They definitely don’t move in together.
A girl’s
motivations for sex are less physical than emotional. Sometimes she just hopes to keep the man from
leaving her. These usual reasons aren’t
there for the book’s Hana-Ogi. And she’s
no prostitute—she’s one of the most respected women in Japan! That she would take such a drastic step, that
fast, is unbelievable.
To Michener it
would be good to have a soul-wrenching experience such as Ace Gruber’s. On the book’s last page, Eileen’s dad,
General Webster, seems to sum up the whole story: “Whatever makes you a better
man makes you a better officer.” To
Michener’s thinking, Ace must put all thoughts of Japan out of his mind. Away from Japan, married to Eileen, there
will be no consequences. That’s what
Michener liked—escaping hard truths. He
wouldn’t face pain and he willed himself to make a fortune so he’d never see
poverty again. It was all about
control. For him, life was a restaurant
and he always picked the buffet; he didn’t want to commit.
That’s the trouble
with the book—it takes more courage to go that last step and get married. There’s no compartmentalizing things
then. It’s a commitment for life. If there’s rebuke, it’s ongoing. If there’s pain, it must be confronted, not
ignored.
It may be brave
(in the sense of continuing to act as one desires in the face of criticism) for
an Air Force officer to live with a Japanese girl in 1952, but it would be
positively heroic to marry her.
Admittedly, Ace Gruber wanted to, but Michener seems to approve of
Hana-Ogi’s caution. The book undermines
its very message of racial tolerance by portraying the military’s
discouragement of such marriages as a prudent policy. Ace is the protagonist and the speaker. His tacit approval of things at the end—he
won’t chase down Hana-Ogi in Tokyo, he’s going to stick with the military life—renders
the whole episode but a tragic idyll.
The lesson from
Joe Kelly’s and Katsumi’s deaths should not be that society can’t be broken,
that we must make change from within rather than without. No—the lesson is, don’t commit suicide. Don’t
give up on God, on yourself, and your children (Katsumi was pregnant!). Do what is right, to hell with the
consequences. That’s why the movie is so
much better. Ace won’t let Hana-Ogi
go. They decide to give up their lives
for the other. That’s sacrifice and
that’s inspiring.
Sure, in the book
Hana-Ogi is foregoing a life with Ace for the sake of Japan’s people. That’s sacrificial.
But who deserves
the greater sacrifice—her people or the man she’s loved? It’s Ace.
Sex is that important.
Moreover, the people of Japan (just like the people of America) need to
set aside their hatred of a former enemy.
This marriage can benefit the couple and their peoples. The movie’s climax makes this explicit.
In the end, unavoidable
tragedy is merely sad; avoidable tragedy is stupid. Ace doesn’t compound poor choices by marrying
Hana-Ogi. At the very least he makes
amends for them.
One of the book’s
characters reflects that it’s better for a boy to take a wife from his
community. This strengthens the bond of
people.
But if he’s not in
love with that girl, and, like the two marriages dissected in the book, a happy
front is projected for the world while the kids grow up in a fractious house,
who’s going to benefit? A community
prospers when its people make wise choices on sex and marriage. Almost all societal problems come back to
that.
The movie is
clear: Afraid for the future, Hana-Ogi
laments, “But we have duties and obligations.”
Ace replies, “That’s right; we do...and the first obligation we have is
to love each other, is to become man and wife and raise some clean, sweet
children. And give ’em the very best
that we know how. And if we don’t meet
that obligation, we ain’t gonna be any good to anybody.”
Hana-Ogi rejoins,
“We live in different worlds, come from different races...what would happen to
our children. What would they be?”
“...They’d be half
Japanese, half American. They’d be half
yellow and half white. They’d be half
you and half me.”
They’d be happy.
Michener is right to denounce prejudice. But he’s wrong to condone selfishness.
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