Cultures of Fetishism (20 page)

written on with a calligraphy brush by her adoring father—a famous Japanese writer. I then recalled that in Muslim countries, where sensuous images of any kind are forbidden, religious words written in calligraphy are allowed to be inscribed on temples. By transforming words into images, calligraphy can sneak the sensuous into the holiest of places. Calligraphy is a sublimation of the erotic. From these thoughts, I then recalled that when the heroine grew up, she only wanted to have sexual relations with men who had the talent to write on her body the way her father had done. Engraved into my mind (and probably my skin) were a few scenes between the heroine and her translator-lover where body writing and sexual inter- course were interwoven to produce extravagantly erotic visual images. The images in
The Pillow Book
can either be interpreted as outright sexual fetishism or as examples of the fetishism strategy. As we shall see, it is an amalgam of both forms of fetishism and thus provides a way of distinguish- ing between them.

The Pillow Book
begins with a child’s fourth birthday and her beginning appreciations of the written word. On each of her birthdays her father “writes” a face on her face with his calligraphy brush as he speaks, “God created a clay model of a human and painted the eyes, the nose, the mouth and a sex.” The word “sex” was written with a finger smudge on the mouth. As God did with his clay model, the father writes his child’s name, Nagiko, on her forehead, “lest the owner should ever forget it.” And, “If God approved of his creation he brought the model into life by signing his name.” And so her father turns Nagiko around, lifts her hair away from her neck and signs his name on the back of her neck as a sign of his approval of what he has created. These markings are an expression of the fetishism strategy.
When the sexual object is alive, with all manner of threateningly, dangerous unpredictable vitalities, her desires must be brought under control
.

For Nagiko, her father’s act of writing on her face is intimately associated with a pillow book. A pillow book is a diary of personal thoughts, a treasured book that for safekeeping is tucked away into the carved box that forms the base of a Japanese pillow.

For Nagiko’s bedtime stories, her aunt reads to her from an ancient pillow book, written nearly a thousand years ago by a woman whose name was also Nagiko. With her calligraphy brush, the long-ago Nagiko recorded her adventures, her lovers, but also all the marvelous images of the world around her, “a snow mountain,” “a bird in flight,” “duck eggs,” “shaved ice in a silver bowl,” “wisteria blossoms,” “indigo colored snow,” “indigo writing paper,” “plum blossoms,” “a child eating strawberries,” “to pass a place where a child is playing.” As these words are spoken by Nagiko’s aunt, an insert color image of them is presented over the black and white image of Nagiko lying in bed, listening to her aunt.

And all the while, the background for both sets of images is a thin sheaf of white paper written on with delicate, sinuous, black calligraphy marks. Possibly the background is the text of the original pillow book. The original

Japanese pillow book, the first one of its kind, was written in the year 997 by Sei Shonagon, exactly one thousand years before Greenaway’s
The Pillow Book
was produced and presumably one thousand years before Nagiko’s twenty-eighth birthday.
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By the time Nagiko is six, she is determined to learn how to write and to produce a pillow book of her own. The viewer gathers from the colored images inserted above her head, that Nagiko assumes that the book will be composed of the gentle touch of her father’s handwriting on her body and the wondrous words that her aunt has read to her. But in the black and white background, seen through an accidental opening in the shoji screen, is another image, that of her father’s publisher, a leery, evil-looking man, taking money from her father and then suggestively closing his kimono and tying up the strings of his pants. Later on, when she is much older, Nagiko realizes that this is blackmail money and that the publisher has violated her father’s body and brought sorrow and disgrace into her otherwise magically happy childhood home. But, even if the child Nagiko did not realize it consciously, this shameful image of her perfect father was marked on her skin along with the calligraphied face on her face, and the pillow book images from the long-ago Nagiko.

She is married briefly and disastrously to a young man who had been hand-picked for her by her father’s humiliator. He refuses to write on her face. He has contempt for her habit of reading the hundreds of books she purchases with his money. He despises the written word and especially the words in Nagiko’s pillow book, which are written in English, a language he does not understand. Finally, in desperation he burns all her books including her precious pillow book. As she imagines the flames devouring her books, Nagiko announces that this is the first world destruction. They are the flames that will take her away from Japan and the world of her childhood. She pre- dicts that there will be a second fire, “marked by major changes in my life.” The first fire took her out of Japan. The second fire will take her back.

After spending a few dismal years in Hong Kong as a kitchen helper and secretary, Nagiko (Vivian Wu) decides to perfect her English by acquiring “an American accent.” She flies to Los Angeles, where she soon becomes a famous runway model whose mark of distinction is that she sometimes poses in backless garments with calligraphy written on the bare skin of her upper back.

Now wealthy and successful, but also a little spoiled and petulant, espe- cially since she is now the proud possessor of the most powerful accent in the world, she returns to Hong Kong, where she tries to recapture her childhood via the habit of picking up men in a bar “cum” brothel, and inducing them to write on her flawlessly textured skin. She does not care if they are good, indifferent, or awful sexual partners. It is the quality of a man’s handwriting that interests her. She says that she would rather have an indifferent lover who is a good calligrapher. She dismisses all those who do not pass the test of writing on her skin with style and finesse.

Enter the beautiful blond Jerome (Ewan Mc Gregor). His writings on her skin are heavy-handed and ugly and English. He writes his name, JEROME, on her arm with big black upper-case letters. Nagiko rejects his writing style. But she permits him to try some other words in other lan- guages, even the Yiddish word for breasts, which she instructs him to write on her chest. She grows more and more irritated with his writing style. “This is not going to work.” “You are not a writer. You are a scribbler.” “Get out.” Jerome is not easily dismissed. He says, “Show me. Write on me. Use my body like the pages of a book. Your book.” This invitation intrigues Nagiko. Through Jerome, Nagiko discovers that the best writing of all is when she is able to write on the skin of men.

Hoki, her photographer friend, discovers her talent for writing on men’s skin. He begs her to write on his skin. “No. Your skin does not make a good paper.” The photographer, who follows Nagiko everywhere and appears to be totally smitten with her, does not give up. “I could help you.” He suggests that he take photographs of the calligraphy characters she writes on other mens’ skin. He will make the photos into a book, which he will then bring to a publisher. Nagiko agrees.

But then Nagiko gets her first rejection letter: “This book is not worth the paper it is written on.” She blames the paper for her rejection. “The skin was not good.” At that point Nagiko’s female servant suggests that Nagiko seduce the publisher. Nagiko visits the publisher’s book store. While she is waiting to speak to him, the publisher opens the door to his office and she sees him kissing Jerome tenderly and lovingly on the cheek as he says “good-bye.” She realizes at once that Jerome is his lover. She also realizes that he is the same publisher who violated her father. She decides to seduce the publisher’s lover instead of the publisher.

She invites Jerome to her home. The moment the two naked bodies touch, we know that Nagiko and Jerome are exquisitely matched. As Nagiko is seducing Jerome, Nagiko is being seduced by Jerome. Nagiko and Jerome spend many hours writing on each other’s skin and then bathing and wash- ing away the writings into the drain of the bathtub. The delights of the flesh and the delights of literature are intertwined. Sexual ecstasy and religious ecstasy are intermingled, as Jerome writes the words of the Lord’s prayer— “We forgive those who trespass . . .”—in several languages on all the surfaces of Nagiko’s skin. After several days and nights of writing on the skin and having sexual intercourse in and out of the bathtub, Nagiko suddenly recalls the point of her mission. “I would like to honor my father by becoming a writer.” Upon hearing this, Jerome writes on Nagiko’s face just the way her father used to. And it is just right. She tells him she wants
his
publisher to publish her writings. “But,” says Jerome, “he rejects you, and he loves me. I could be your messenger. You could write on me.”

So, Nagiko writes FIRST BOOK OF THIRTEEN on Jerome’s skin, from his neckline to his wrists and ankles, back and front. And Jerome delivers the book to the publisher.

When Jerome slowly removes his clothes to reveal Nagiko’s “Book,” the publisher reads the “words” and then licks the ink on Jerome’s chest. The publisher calls in his copiers who, blandly and without comment, copy the words written on all the visible surfaces of Jerome’s body. Nagiko’s book is on its way to being published. Jerome’s plan has succeeded. But in the process he loses Nagiko, who is wildly jealous of the sexual relationship between Jerome and the publisher. No doubt her frantic emotional outburst is also a result of remembering the publisher’s sexual relationship with her father.

She decides to get revenge on Jerome by continuing her writings without him. She takes two men home from the bar, writes two more books and sends the men off to the publisher to show him the writings on their skin. Once again the copiers are summoned. She then brings home an indifferent lover who had once written some fairly sensitive words on her back and writes BOOK OF THE IMPOTENT, the fourth book. Later the same week she writes BOOK OF THE EXHIBITIONIST on the skin of an obese American with a minuscule penis. When Jerome sees this ridiculous body covered with Nagiko’s words, lying prostrate in the publisher’s store, he realizes that Nagiko is managing to write even though she no longer has access to his skin. He dashes off to her apartment to apologize for his absence. When he knocks and knocks at her door, however, she refuses to let him in.

Jerome goes to the bar where he first met her. He asks the photographer why Nagiko won’t talk to him. Hoki, probably in a mood of spiteful jealousy, tells Jerome that he should try to scare Nagiko. Handing him some jars of pills, he suggests that Jerome follow the script of
Romeo and Juliet
.

Jerome rushes off to Nagiko’s apartment. The door is open and the apart- ment is empty. He enters and as he gradually removes all his clothing, he swallows down dozens of pills, one after the other. He collapses onto his back on Nagiko’s bed. Nagiko enters a few minutes later, crying out, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Thinking that Jerome is alive but sleeping, she takes out her calligraphy pen and ink and proceeds to write a book on his skin. After most of Jerome’s body is covered with the words of Nagiko’s book, her brush touches on his mouth. A rivulet of blood oozes out of one corner. The blood is so darkly red that it looks like ink. Only then does Nagiko realize that Jerome is dead. After allowing a few minutes, or perhaps a few hours, for sadness and quiet thought, Nagiko continues writing her latest book on the body of her dead lover.

After the funeral, the photographer tells the publisher about the death of Jerome and the book written on his skin. The publisher hires some hoodlums to dig up the grave and bring him the body of Jerome. He then hires some “professionals” to help him slice off the chemically treated skin from Jerome’s body, which is covered with the words of Nagiko’s BOOK OF THE LOVER.

In
Bushido
, a book on the art of Japanese tattoo, the authors describe a method for preserving the artwork that has been tattooed into human’s skin. It is called “flogging,” which I presume is another word for skinning. Some

tattooed skins that were flogged after the death of their bearer have been donated to the Skin Museum in Tokyo. Of course, after the skin is flogged, “many qualities of the living work of art are lost.”
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After Jerome’s skin has been flogged, the remainder of his body parts are dumped into a garbage truck. The publisher folds the skin into his own personal pillow book, taking it out both day and night, unfolding the pages and pressing them against his skin—as though the unfolded pages were Jerome’s still-living, physical skin.

When Nagiko hears of this latest calumny of the publisher, she tries to make a bargain with him by trading in the remainder of the thirteen books for BOOK OF THE LOVER printed on Jerome’s skin. Though he gazes longingly at the male bodies whose skins are covered with Nagiko’s words, the publisher refuses to surrender his pillow book. Nagiko does not give up. The publisher’s vile act inspires Nagiko to become a calligraphy virtuoso. For example, the words of the ninth book, BOOK OF SECRETS, are written on various hidden parts of a young man’s skin, behind his ears, on the crown of his head under his hat, on the inside of his fingers (“a hand cannot write on itself”), and between his thighs and his crotch. The thirteenth and final book is sent to the publisher written all over and everywhere on the body of a huge, muscular Samurai-type wrestler. It is the BOOK OF THE DEAD. Some of the words indicate that the time has come for the publisher to pay for his crimes. “I am Nagiko Yutokino, and I know that you are the man who blackmailed, violated and humiliated my father.” Then, finally, Nagiko has written the worst crime of all on the wrestler’s skin, “You desecrated the body of my lover.” The publisher picks up his pillow book composed of Jerome’s skin, unfolds the pages and holds them against his body for one last time. He bares his neck, giving permission to the wrestler to slit his throat. The wrestler does so and then returns the BOOK OF THE LOVER to Nagiko.