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“Common Aspects of Geniuses”

Today’s story-teller is Japanese nonfiction writer Yu Sawamiya, 46 years old. His story is about one of the books he read.

The book is ‘Tensai no Sekai’ (The world of the genius in English).

The book, written by Nobel lautreate in physics [W:Hideki Yukawa], analyzes how geniuses, such as Takuboku and Gogol, achieved successes.

He read the book during his school days. And he learnt that loneliness, self-display, and tragedy, were common to geniuses by reading it.

He knew he was far from being genius, but he was very interested in being genius. Because he used to write papers and send them to publishers but he kept being turned down. He had an inferiority complex, however, he had a self-display just like the geniuses did.

The idea of having a self-display mentally supported him, and he tried to believe that he could not achieve success even he was talented by identifying himself with Gogol.

Sawamiya introduces a poem by [W:Takuboku Ishikawa]: “On such a day when my friends look so superior to me, I just come home with a bouquet for my wife, and spend time with her.”

One night, when he was upset for not being able to get any writing work, he wept and thought of giving up on hope to become a writer, and had a piece of cake with his wife remembering the poem.

***

In the meantime, he introduces his latest piece of work.

The story is about an amateur baseball player who was praised as a genius. He had to give up his career as a baseball player after a run of bad luck and he got worn out, but he comes back from the bottom.

When he finished writing the book, he felt strongly about the world of genius. He says, “Even this baseball player had the loneliness and self-display. The aspect of the world of geniuses exists in any kind of world, even in the baseball world.”

The NIKKEI 12/16/2009 Yu Sawamiya (nonfiction writer)

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