[A young Englishman in 1960s Japan.] Typescript of an untitled novel by an unnamed individual, regarding the cultural and personal adventures in Japan of character Christopher Peter Butterworth, with numerous emendations, additions and corrections.

The present item - presumably autobiographical and definitely unpublished - is in a disordered state, and certainly not in the best of condition, with some parts apparently missing; but it is certainly worthy of attention, as a well-written production over which the author has taken some pains, with numerous manuscript additions and emendations in green and black felt-tip pen, describing from the point of view of a young Englishman 1960s Anglo-Japanese culture shock. 239pp, all but two of which are 4to, the two being foolscap. Neat double-spaced typing, with each page on one side of a 4to leaf. The present item appears to be a rough draft, with some pages numerated in green and others not, and with the pagination disordered and incomplete, possibly because the author has rearranged the text and made deletions along with the very many emendations and additions visible. Whether the work of the author or the result of disturbance, the present arrangement of the pages is as follows, with unpaginated pages in square brackets: Pp.1-3, 15-27, 27a, 27b, 28-72 [5 unpaginated] 73-78, 4-12 [12 unpaginated] 96 [76 unpaginated] second 74 [6 unpaginated] 105-107 [23 unpaginated] [2 unpaginated in foolscap] [13 unpaginated] 101-4 [15 unpaginated]. One page (55) has a ten-line manuscript addition written on its reverse. Eight pages - 1-3, 22, 23, 106, and the two foolscap pages - are damaged, creased and frayed; otherwise the typescript is in good condition, on lightly aged paper. Around a dozen pages have been cut down, with one page made up of two laid-down slips. The story begins with ‘Butterworth Christopher Peter, British, twenty-seven, male, writer (with what hesitation did he presume to label himself thus!), of no fixed abode’, coming ‘navel-to-face with Japanese Immigration’, ‘Over a table in the lounge of the Russian liner’ at ‘Yokohama’s South Pier ocean terminal’. Having left London two weeks previously, he is in Japan for six months, to work on a book about the country. He finds a small hotel, noting that ‘here in Yokohama [...] the girls were refreshingly different in delightfully feminine blue sailor dresses with white facings, some of them amusingly bearing American Navy badges of rank on their sleeves. Whether Commodore Perry would have approved was extremely doubtful, but one felt sure that Townsend Harris - with his eye for Japanese femininity - would have beamed upon it.’ He describes the cuisine, an interaction with three Americanised young Japanese men in the ‘Fujiya Cocktail Corner’, and his meeting with a Tokyo business man named Hiroshi Murakami, who calls him ‘Mr. Better-worse’. On the second day he encounters a foul-mouthed New York beatnik named Cagney, who has been in Japan for some time and shows Butterworth the ropes. He tells him that ‘Tokyo’s the place. All kinds of fortunes to be made there.’ and that ‘you can’t go far wrong with begging in Japan [...] Listen, man, you did the only important thing by being born with a white skin and round eyes. The Japanese [corrected in manuscript from ‘Japs’] can’t get their hands into their pockets quick enough to throw down to any gaijin who’s on his knees in the dirt.” / “What was the word you used?” asked Christopher. “Guy something......” / “Oh, you mean ‘Gaijin’. Hell, man, you better get used to that word! It means you - and me and every other non-Japanese bastard who’s in this country. / The young bartender was smiling, having evidently cottoned on to what they were discussing. “Gaijin,” he said.’ Through Cagney he befriends a young Englishman named John, before starting work as a teacher at Murakami’s language school. Something of a chauvinist, he starts pursuing one of his students named Keiko, and lures her back to his apartment on the promise of listening to ‘Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary’ (this and a reference to the 1968 film ‘The Heart is a Lonely Hunter’, date the work to the late 1960s). His attempts to seduce her are ‘the nearest to necrophilia that he was ever likely to get. He let her recumbent form and speedily dragging the futon from its cupboard, rolled her like some felled tree trunk over it. “Hazukashii. I’m shy” she murmured. Damn it, her lower half was encased in that modern equivalent of the chastity belt, that cast-iron undergarment which effectively doused the passion of all but the most ardent of seducers, a combination of corset and body armour.’ She claims to be a virgin, but leaves him with a dose of the clap. We are around half way through the work by now, and the author continues on his Picaresque way to Tokyo, where he develops a serious relationship with a girl called Masako, losing interest in her once she moves in with him. Finally Butterworth returns to England by ship after a year in Japan, as she waves a streamer while crying. ‘Murakami and his bloody academy, head teacher and all; de Bettencourt and his problems; poor Alan, who had finally found his way out of Japan; Midori in the spring warmth of Ibusuki; John his very good friend and that bastard Cagney. Had it all really happened within one year? And of course Masako, always Masako.’ The novel ends: ‘He knew he would see that tearstained face in every girl who would smile up at him in the years to come. / The gap between the ship and shore widened, and the coloured paper streamer in his hand broke. / He had to.’