英訳版「造反無理、革命有罪」

「造反無理、革命有罪」を gemini に翻訳させてみた。なかなかに優秀なように思えたので、ここに掲げることにした。　訂正はごくわずかにおさえた。

 To capture the original text’s rich blend of 1970s Japanese New Left jargon, literary critique, subcultural slang, and surrealist tone, here is the full English translation of the essay.

Title

Rebellion is Futile, Revolution is Guilty

Misstep (1) [Note 1]

The title is a parody of Chairman Mao’s brilliant citation of Marx: "Rebellion is justified, revolution is blameless." Chairman Mao brought vitality to all of Marx’s writings and actions, succinctly summarizing the pride of his spirit—which remained consistent despite superficial differences—into a meaningful slogan. This is Blanqui within Marx, and Mao Zedong within Blanqui. "Rebellion" was originally a word with negative connotations, but by linking it with "justified" (have reason), it was made into the holy word of the Chinese Revolution. Hence, my conclusion: Mao Zedong, in his linguistic sensibility, is a surrealist.

Today, I bring J. G. Ballard’s earliest work, the 1957 story "Build-Up" [Note 2], to the chopping block. My texts will be Hisashi Asakura’s translation published in the April 1967 issue of SF Magazine, and the English text retitled "The Concentration City" for the 1967 UK edition. By whatever twist of fate, whenever that fellow Ballard brings out a UK edition, he invariably raids and edits his own text. In the case of this story, the deletions in the earlier police station scene are particularly noticeable; the pre-original version displays its desires in a much more sheer, see-through fashion. In my yellow brain-box, thoroughly infected to the core by the spirit of Western modern rationalism, I can’t make heads or tails of this work. So right from the start, I’m doing the Samba of Escape, causing the spearhead of pursuit to grow blunt.

That’s the end of the foreplay; time to enter the main act. (Tehee... so indecent!) I ask you to consider all my words as leading not to Beijing, but to Ballard. What will surprise us first is surely the irrationality of the protagonist Franz’s actions and the absurdity of the work’s structure. The vector I pull out of this piece will probably reduce entirely to this. Everything else will just be forced, far-fetched interpretation.

Since I’m the kind of guy who gleefully rejoices at off-color jokes, dirty humor, and scatology, I’ll lick my way into this work starting from the rear. Young Franz fails in his expedition to seek Free Space, gets nabbed by the cops (poli-men), and when he comes to, he finds himself at the police station on the exact same day he set out. A bizarre turn of events. This indicates that his journey was executed outside of time, or perhaps right in the middle of time. His journey becomes a karmic cycle of rebirth, feeling close to "Escapement" [Note 3], though whether Franz is conscious of the repetition of his own journey remains unclear. However, he repeats only the journey itself, not the series of wandering-like actions that constituted the reasons for his departure. Realizing that his journey exists outside the system of everyday time, he is made to accept that he has fallen into the absurd circuit of Sisyphus—forced to repeat his futile loop even while aware of its vanity. Like Columbus, young Franz keeps running endlessly to the West. But whereas Columbus believed he had reached India, our poor Franz smashes into double and triple barriers, bursting into tears of helpless desperation.

The more I think about it, the scarier it gets. What a snake-twisted, crooked city! Franz’s desire to seek Free Space can be rationalized in various ways, but it won’t give you a crisp, refreshing answer, nor will it ever be fully explained. He believes that witnessing a miniature version of Free Space during the cave-in accident where he lost his parents was the decisive factor. Yet behind that, at a deep unconscious level, there must have been a shock directly tied to the creation of this work. The loss of his parents grew within his unconscious over the 20 years of his life—a resentment against the "City" in which he lived, was educated, and was made to think according to its own required logic—and would act upon his words and deeds. That is why he grasped two ideas in his dream, yet could not explain the definitive reason for them. The two ideas were actually one single idea—Free Space—and it became a challenge to the infinite city. According to the logic of the City, the highest value lies in expanding infinitely and monopolizing all space. Because this city excels at castrating foreign elements and absorbing them into itself like a bourgeois society, a "講座派" (Lectures-faction) Marxist like Dr. Gregson can live comfortably as long as he doesn’t raise the banner of rebellion in actual practice. Oh look, young Franz just turned into a New Left revolutionary!

Misstep (2)
A feudal medical intern, who had to efface himself to gain points for his professor and was completely stripped of freedom and creativity, finds his sole escape hatch in the role of an artificial insemination sperm donor that falls into his lap. Wanting to know the woman receiving the artificial insemination, he sleeps with a nurse who fancies him, successfully tracks down the woman, follows her home, calls her out to the beach, and tells her, "I'm the father of the child in your belly." He turns around—bam, partial color—and from there it’s straight-up rape-town. However, he is later informed that his sperm was not used. The fulfillment of the delayed festival was a double illusion. In contrast to his wandering gaze, the woman gives a satisfied smile—summarized like this, Pre-Marital Play [Note 4] sounds utterly boring, but the actual movie is way more intense! The progression of "Protagonist’s rebellion → Quest → Collapse of foundation leading to bankruptcy" makes you think: Man, this feels a lot like "The Concentration City."

The Todai (University of Tokyo) Struggle originated in the Faculty of Medicine, interrogated the Lectures-faction Marxists, and ultimately pushed forward to the horizon of "Dismantling Imperial University." However, our young Franz was unable to put forward the slogan of "Dismantling the City." This was because, while the search for Free Space was his absolute goal, his dream remained hazy and indistinct [Note 5]. He couldn't elevate his awareness into a firm conviction, and therefore failed to discover a direction for taking down Dr. Gregson. Thus, his terrorist-like actions ended as a pre-attempt insurrection.

Here, we could bring up Takaaki Yoshimoto or even Masaaki Hiraoka—who startles everyone by asserting that "the purpose of the struggle is the expansion of the struggle itself." But before that, since I’ve jumped the gun, let’s peel back the city problem. The greatest enemy of the people living in the "City" is fire. In the Local Union where Franz lives, politics probably means controlling fire. High-heat processing is forbidden even for cooking, and one must pay top dollar for hot meals. This implies the existence of a class of people who can afford to eat such meals. The social structure is revealed: the general populace serves to defend the city, while the ruling class wallows in luxury. The ruling class substitutes their own self-preservation for the self-preservation of all citizens, securing the bourgeoisification and bourgeois self-preservation of the residents through a monopoly on education, communication, and propaganda. In such times, pyromaniacs—and the "Tea House Faction" that naturally evolves into them—represent the single greatest hazard to the "City." The legitimate heirs to Bakunin, the pyromaniacs are the Red Army Faction at the "City stage," against whom relentless preventive arrests are carried out. Our young Franz was forged from the same emotional realm as these left-wing dissidents. In the UK edition, the restaurant owner’s verbal abuse toward the pyromaniacs was cut. This heightens the absurd character of the city, throwing it out raw as an "object" (mono), allowing us to imagine the impact these phenomena have on Franz's inner world.

To Franz, the pyromaniac likely exists on the same plane as the student movement seen by the protagonist in Naked 19-Year-Old [Note 6]. Just like Norio Nagayama, Franz passes them by while casting a sideways glance. While he shares a fundamental connection with them on one level, there is a gulf between them. To anticipate, this is likely rooted in the radical nature of his orientation.

Franz’s wanderings prior to his departure consist of: searching for flight space as a camouflage for the concept of Free Space; the thorough penetration of capitalist logic expressed in fluctuations of the price per foot; the crazy ostracization and shifting nature of pyromaniacs; and choosing the Archaeopteryx over Gregson and others’ "Eternal City Theory." Here too, the logic of his dream—the metaphorical expression of the species’ history—is vaguely but thoroughly realized.

Thus, young Franz sets out on his journey. But here, the strange structure of the "City" reveals itself. Since he doesn't know where the goal lies, his travel follows the principle of "when the dog points west, its tail points east." Yet the super-express train he happens to board is westbound. The sequence—Local Union → Union → Federation → Metropolitan Area → Megalopolis—informs us that he is heading toward the center. Yet Franz seems unaware of this fact. This is another bizarre scene. As becomes clear in the ending, from the very moment Franz ascended from his residential tier to catch the super-express, he was already ensnared by the structure of the "City." That is why he doesn't notice he is moving toward the center, even though he is. Though I feel this isn't much of an explanation, take, for example, his travel journal: the way he dates it as "Day X" speaks to the extraordinary nature of his journey.

When Kellans writes "Day 27" at the end of The Drowned World, it is a form of écriture that could not be anything else, given that he is heading toward the disappearance of seasons and the point of consciousness dissociation. But Franz’s proper travel journal in a rational capitalist world ought to record "Month X, Day Y." Writing "Day X" indicates that he has already broken away from the city's daily routine at that point, signaling the very impossibility of the journey. Here I arrive at the dual structure of this work. There is the zone reachable by our common-sense rational deduction, and the journey portion protruding from it; a Manichaean world ruled by a powerful deity is a characteristic feature of Ballard’s works. By the way, Franz’s journey maintained a vector plunging into past memories, and further into the past memories of the species. Yet upon departure, perhaps because the super-express was only available there, he ascends to a higher level. Floating and ascending are expressions of ecstasy. In the "Blues of Ecstasy," we can no longer keep our eyes open. Even if we could, the landscape we see is weathered away. The cause of his mistake lies in Franz not fully grasping his goal and its potential meaning, but even more so, it makes us feel that the City's own desire for self-preservation is at work.

This story begins with fragments of conversation in a corner of the city. Ballard surely wanted to reveal the various phases of the city all at once. But perhaps beyond his intentions, this passage points to the "narrative" of the work—that is, the true ruler of this story. Broken conversations of nameless people. Only the "City" and we can hear all of this. It is no longer nameless people who are speaking. Here exists only a single subject: the "City" that has concentrated infinity. The nameless city itself is speaking. Yet the city never reveals its physical form; a few hints serve as the outposts of its colossal existence.

This is made clear by a few words added to the UK edition. In the police scene near the end, the police doctor talks about the super-express's reverse K.O. and says he cannot explain the distortion in the power lines, adding: "It seems to be an inherent property of the city itself." In this, we can see Ballard’s own "reading of the Concentration City." While this directly points to the mirror-image structure of the city, my gut tells me the emphasis is placed on the city, expressing its greedy, phantom-like nature.

Corresponding to the hidden city, the presence of the psychiatrist is also hidden. Presumably, even in this city-world, the psychiatrist's role is to loudly declare illness and preserve the city's daily life within the individual in sugar. But this city safety mechanism does not trigger against Franz. Against the Tea House Faction leftists, they can openly assassinate them under the label of "pyromaniac." That is because a processing circuit for pyromaniacs has already been formed, meaning their actions can now be considered a socially recognized rebellion. In this context, Franz’s actions are truly proletarian. Franz’s method of fare evasion was a breakthrough—a loophole—toward revolution. The "City" can neither punish him legally nor enlist psychiatrists against him. But the cunning "City" imposes a far harsher punishment on Franz: an infinite hell. Rebellion is futile; revolution is guilty. Because his actions result in a fundamental death/negation of the city—far beyond a temporary city death like a fire, or a partial death like a central collapse deduced from ecological principles—the "City’s" backlash must grow correspondingly stronger.

Cities are sustained by illusions. Or rather, the city is organized "based on a 'structure' rooted inside each and every one of the millions and tens of millions of masses" (Atsuyoshi Niijima). Therefore, if Franz and all the city’s inhabitants were to practice "Fight Self, Criticize Revisionism" [Note 7]—that is, if they thoroughly smashed the impulse for self-preservation planted by the ruling class aligned with the city’s logic and penetrating down to the underbrush of consciousness—I previously showed that the "City"-stage Cultural Revolution could be a flowering vulva. If Franz’s journey had succeeded, if it were opened to the general public of the city, and if the existence of Free Space were confirmed, doubts would be cast on the general myth that the "City" extends infinitely. The "City" would be stripped of its mystical side, becoming The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even [Note 8]. This would be the actual death of the "City," which exists only within the imagination of its inhabitants. As for the question of which came first—the city or the internal structure of the inhabitants supporting it—I will pull a Derrida-style escape and say: by the time anyone noticed, both already existed.

Misstep (3)
In Yoshiharu Tsuge’s manga Neji-shiki (Screw-Style), the boy trying to reach the neighboring village to find a doctor is never informed that his path is the railroad track—just like Franz, who is forbidden from knowing the direction of his journey. He probably doesn't even notice the dense cluster of traffic signs either. Yet those signs are completely blank; nothing is conveyed to us beyond the raw desire to communicate. Beyond the signs lies an ordinary landscape, but a fundamental change must have occurred. The boy boards a train driven by a child wearing a fox mask. The train is running in the opposite direction, but that's just a simple misunderstanding (or maybe not). By undergoing the train journey, the boy enters the same village, yet one that is different from before. Setting aside minor differences to grasp the larger point, if we draw a strong analogy, the Local Union Franz returns to differs in phase from the Local Union prior to his trip. Yeah, so far so good. In a sense, this can be summarized as the aspects of the "City" becoming distinctly clearer. Neji-shiki undergoes yet another transformation from this point, but "The Concentration City" plunges into a mirror hell right here. The reason for this probably lies in the difference between Franz—who elevates the super-express to a near self-purpose, hallucinating that he saw Free Space (the death of the city) at the city's center—and the boy in Neji-shiki, for whom a train and a child guide appear. The Neji-shiki boy goes to find a doctor in the neighboring village, not to find the neighboring village itself. Therefore, even when he realizes the train is running back the way it came, he can just close his eyes and deal with it. In contrast, young Franz sets out to find the equivalent of the neighboring village, assuming its concrete manifestation in advance. Because there is an ironclad rule that goal-oriented revolutions go bankrupt, I can't help thinking his journey was doomed as well.

Hearing "50 cents a foot," Franz jumps in surprise, yet there isn't even a station there. Taking two full days just to pass through speaks to a tremendous scale. Some Japanese poet wrote an image of a train passing through the inside of an apple, which reminds me of LeRoi Jones’s "apple core." Apple core = ghetto, spreading from the deepest interior of the city, right behind the bustling downtown. Now, assuming the city exhibits a concentric distribution in connection with "Chronopolis" [Note 9], there is a peaceful area where the Local Union is, a dark zone inside it, and a lively zone inside that once more. There is zero information about what lies beyond the Local Union. That place is likely Free Space, eternal darkness. Fabrication of wild delusions aside, this city appears to be a world ruled by imperialism: the center exploits and thrives, the dark zone is an abandoned colony, and the outer edges are ruled by violence and darkness. The super-express heading inward is proof that in a center-imperialist world where opposing forces are abstracted away, the path to future life exists nowhere else. Or rather, no: the city is a restricted realm sandwiched between two massive mirrors—one beyond the Megalopolis and one on this side of the Local Union—yet because the mirror images have severed ties with the entity that created them, it is merely hallucinated as infinite. The westbound super-express turns eastbound, and if you keep riding, it turns westbound again. Or rather, no...

About three months ago, I wondered why our young Franz doesn't notice the super-express is heading toward the center, and why he mistakes the dark zone for Free Space. But realized it’s not something you can understand just by thinking about it (or maybe you can—Freudianism is an option, too), so I escaped by blaming it all on the city: It’s all the city’s fault! Of course, the "City" doesn't merely possess a repressive function aimed at dominating everything from the conscious mind to the unconscious of every single inhabitant. While pyromaniacs or Franz are expressions of the people's great passion (the December 20 Okinawa Riot [Note 10] was an act of arson), at the same time, it feels like an gushing forth of the "City's" subconscious. Or perhaps, as Uncle Jung talks about something called the "collective unconscious"—a zone that refuses rational interpretation—this entity-less "City," this literary work, might be floating inside that collective unconscious.

In the police scene near the end, while Franz insists on his ceaseless pursuit of Free Space, he is overwhelmed by the police doctor’s argument and feebly suggests that Free Space might exist at a lower level. A correct insight! We can analogize the top-bottom structure of the "City" to the upper and lower layers of the "City's" consciousness. If you dig into the unconscious of the city, just as "under the paving stones, the beach" [Note 11], under the city lies the ocean (Yasutaka Tsutsui’s Population 990 Billion). Furthermore, though Franz makes no mention of it and doesn't seem aware, next time he tries, he should board an eastbound super-express. He should advance not West toward Western Europe and Eros, but East toward The East is Red and violence! The East Wind shall prevail over the West Wind! City-imperialism will go down in flames through the expansion of the dark zone and the somersault of the borderlands.

Notes:

Misstep: Title borrowed solely from Maurice Blanchot’s early essay collection (Faux Pas).

Included as "Build-Up" (Daikensetsu) in the Sogen Bunko volume The City of Time (1969).

Escapement: Translated as "Nigashidome" in Sogen Bunko, included in Passport to Eternity (1970). Published as "Time Channel" translated by Hisashi Asakura in the May 1967 issue of SF Magazine.

Pre-Marital Play (Kon'en Yuugi): Starring Tamaki Katori, directed by Toshio Okuwaki, produced by World Eiga. Produced around 1968.

Lyrics from Mina Aoe’s 1966 song "Blues of Ecstasy" (Koutkotsu no Burusu). The correct lyric is "The rest is hazy, the rest is hazy."

Naked 19-Year-Old (Hadaka no 19-sai): A film directed by Kaneto Shindo, in 1970, modeled after Norio Nagayama, a sniper.

Fight Self, Criticize Revisionism (Tō-shi Hihyō-shū): A slogan issued by Mao Zedong in 1967 out of fear over the chaos of the Cultural Revolution. It means "fight the self, criticize revisionism within oneself."

The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors, Even: The title of a glass painting by Marcel Duchamp.

"Chronopolis", included in The City of Time (Sogen Bunko, 1969).

Koza Riot: 1970 in Okinawa.

One of the poetic graffiti slogans born from the May 1968 Paris uprising (Sous les pavés, la plage!).

[Postscript]

Please note that this essay was written when Ballard himself had not yet realized that his childhood memories of Shanghai influenced his creative works, and while Japan was in the midst of the 1970s campus revolts. It originally appeared in issue 11 of "N" (1971), edited by KAWAMATA Chiaki, author of "Death Sentences".

For a related text, please also refer to the variation "Free-Diving 'The Concentration City'" published in Nightland Quarterly Vol. 27 (2021).