I love getting book recommendations, so when an email from Santiago arrived recommending a couple of books – A Song for Nagasaki among them – I knew that I had to check them out. The library had A Song for Nagasaki so I borrowed it as one of my year-end reads.
A Song for Nagasaki is about the life of Nagai Takashi, a Catholic Physician who was living and working in Nagasaki when the atomic bomb was dropped and who’s actions after the bombing earned him the title of the ‘Saint of Urakami’. I’ve been to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum a few times (and I highly recommend it to anyone visiting the city) and thought that I more or less heard the story, but I was wrong. Somehow, I managed to miss the story of Nagai Takashi and all the work that he did.
Come to think of it, I think he was in the museum. I just didn’t realise how important he was.
Nagai Takashi was born in Shimane. His father was a doctor and when he grew up, he moved to Nagasaki to begin his studies in medicine. Although he was raised with Buddhist and Shinto teachings, he grew curious about Christianity, especially after reading Pascal’s Pensées. Since Urakami is one of the areas where the kakure kirishitans – the Japanese who hid their faith through the long years of persecution – he chose to board with one of their families. He eventually came to faith and married, all the while working in the relatively new field of radiology.
His conversion testimony alone would have been incredible, but Nagai’s response to the bombing of Nagasaki is what makes him extraordinary. Although he lost his wife, and love of his life, Midori in the bombings, he didn’t sink into despondency. Rather, he started treating the injured – all the while suffering a major injury of his own. After his recovery, he dedicated his days to contemplation and writing. His philosophy can be summed up from something he said at the open-air mass held after the bombing:
“It was not the American crew, I believe, who chose our suburb. God’s Providence chose Urakami and carried the bomb right above our homes. Is there not a profound relationship between the annihilation of Nagasaki and the end of the war? Was not Nagasaki the chosen victim, the lamb without blemish, slain as a whole burnt offering on the altar of sacrifice, atoning for the sins of all nations during the World War II?”
By connecting the bombings to the persecution endured by the Christians in Nagasaki, and the idea of sacrifice, Nagai set the tone for Nagasaki’s reaction to the war. As a passage in the epilogue puts it, memorials of the bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki are very different: “Hiroshima is bitter, noisy, highly political, leftist and anti-American. Its symbol would be a fist clenched in anger. Nagasaki is sad, quiet, reflective, nonpolitical and prayerful. It does not blame the United States, but rather laments the sinfulness of war, especially of nuclear war. Its symbol: hands joined in prayer.”
This is not a view that everyone agrees with, but I find that there is much truth in it. Nagai “warned of any peace movement that was “merely political” or ideological and not dedicated to justice, love and patient hard work. Angry shouting in the streets about peace often cloaked very unpeaceful hearts.” Looking at the increasingly divisive world we live in, where calls for peace and words of anger and intolerance can be expressed in the same sentence, I wish that more people heard and followed Nagai’s method of peacemaking.
This was an incredible book. If there was one part I wasn’t too enthused about, it was the way Japanese romaji often preceded the English translation. But that’s a personal thing because I can read Japanese so I felt it was repetitive. I think that if you’re not familiar with the language, having the translation in the text would be a big help.
I’d encourage everyone to read this book. There was a very huge cost to the atomic bombings that I don’t think gets talked enough – at least in Singapore, we learnt that the bombings happened and that people suffered, but I never knew about how terrible the aftermath was until after I visited the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum. It really made me think about whether this was necessary, and if this is a price we can afford to pay again. While it might be a bit hard to go all the way to the museum, I think this book is a great way to learn about the horrors of the atomic bomb without overly politicising or becoming bitter. It made me tear up, very much the same way a visit to the Nagasaki Atomic Bomb Museum does.