In Ghostly Japan — Inside the Classic

The Bodhisattva's Ascent: Desolation and Revelation

The opening fragment, titled "Fragment," presents a stark pilgrimage: a Bodhisattva and a youth climb a mountain where "there was in that place no sign of life,—neither token of water, nor trace of plant, nor shadow of flying bird." The path is treacherous, composed of "tumbled fragments that rolled or turned beneath the foot," and the youth discovers a skull—"the cheekless gibe of death." Hearn's language emphasizes the tactile and auditory: "forms invisible yielded to their tread with dull soft crashings" and "faint cold fires lighted and died at every breaking." This is not a gentle ghost story but a meditation on mortality and spiritual endurance. The Bodhisattva's repeated exhortation—"Do not fear, my son!"—frames the ordeal as a necessary trial. The summit remains unseen, but the journey itself becomes the vision. Hearn leaves the fragment unresolved, focusing on the process of climbing rather than the destination, which mirrors the collection's broader interest in the path toward enlightenment.

Footprints of the Buddha: Symbol and History

In "Footprints of the Buddha," Hearn shifts from ghostly narrative to scholarly exposition. He describes a stone pedestal at Dentsu-In bearing the Buddha's footprints, and then reflects on their significance. The text includes a commemorative inscription from the Meiji era, noting that the footprints were placed "in order that the seed of holy enlightenment might be sown for future time." Hearn then offers a sweeping historical perspective: "Twenty-four hundred years ago, out of solitary meditation upon the pain and the mystery of being, the mind of an Indian pilgrim brought forth the highest truth ever taught to men." He contrasts the Buddha's teachings with the rise and fall of empires—Alexander, Rome, Islam—and notes that "the children of another civilization, vaster than Romes, begirdled the earth with conquest." The passage is notable for its confidence in Buddhism's philosophical depth, claiming that the Buddha "anticipated the uttermost knowledge of our present evolutional philosophy." Hearn's tone is reverent but analytical, treating the footprints as both historical artifact and enduring symbol.

Ululation: The Watchdog and the Uncanny

The chapter "Ululation" introduces a different kind of ghostliness through the figure of an old white bitch who guards the narrator's gate. Hearn describes her as "lean as a wolf, and very old," and notes that she "played with most of the young men and women of the neighborhood when they were boys and girls." The dog's loyalty is unwavering: "Whether well or ill treated she had served all occupants faultlessly as a watch." Yet the title "Ululation" suggests a howling or wailing, hinting at something more unsettling. Hearn's prose here is spare and observational, avoiding the supernatural overtness of the earlier fragment. Instead, the uncanny emerges from the dog's persistence and her ambiguous relationship with time—she outlasts tenants, remains tied to the place. The chapter exemplifies Hearn's ability to find the ghostly in the ordinary, a pattern that runs through the collection. The dog's howl, if it comes, would bridge the domestic and the spectral, much like the way incense or footprints bridge the material and the sacred.

Readers approaching In Ghostly Japan will find a work that resists easy categorization. Hearn moves fluidly between reportage, legend, and philosophical reflection, often within a single chapter. Pay attention to the recurring motifs of ascent and descent, of surfaces that yield or break, and of sounds that echo or die. The collection rewards those who read slowly, noting how Hearn uses concrete details—a dog's lean frame, a skull's cheekless grin, a stone footprint—to anchor abstract ideas. The book is best experienced as a series of meditations rather than a linear narrative, each piece inviting contemplation of the spaces between the living and the dead, the human and the divine.

The rain drummed a soft, irregular rhythm on the window as I sat with In Ghostly Japan, lingering over Hearn’s quiet, scholarly awe for the footprints of the Buddha. His ghosts were less frightful than melancholic, rooted in place and memory. That stillness stayed with me; later, I found myself reaching for Scottish Ghost Stories — A Reader’s Guide, wondering if a Highland mist could hold the same gentle ache.