The famous Japanese critic Kobayashi Hideo (1902-83) outlined a number
of issues crucial to an evaluation of Izumi Kyoka's (r873-1939) life and
works.
Contemporary writers have in many ways tried to distance themselves from what
Kyoka represented, and in fact have been successful in doing so. But will they be
able to escape what he stood for:' I ask this question because Kyoka was of all writers
the most thorough with regard to the fundamental and difficult questions that surround the issue of what it means to be a writer. By this I do not mean to declare him
to be the only writer. It is simply that in his case the questions are raised in an extremely pure form. The narrowness of his vision, his stubborn persistence, the patterns of his sensibility, these all came together in a fortunate way. They took shape
with a purity that is rare for novelists, and even for poets.
By now you already anticipate the point that I wish to make. Kyoka's perfect
faith in the power of words was his most distinguishing characteristic. It would not
be an exaggeration to say that letters (bunsho) were his only god. Compared to
Kyoka, today's novelists cannot be called believers. They negotiate a path between
many gods and many idols