Scattered All Over the Earth

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The prophet Zenos talks about the Jews in 1 Nephi 19:15–16: “Nevertheless, when that day cometh, saith the prophet, that they no more turn aside their hearts against the Holy One of Israel, then will he remember the covenants which he made to their fathers. . . . And all the people who are of the house of Israel, will I gather in, saith the Lord” (emphasis added). The first condition and promise identified is a change of attitude that leads to a gathering phase for the house of Israel to the lands of their inheritance.

In some ways, Scattered All Over the Earth builds on the themes of this earlier work. Both novels share certain elements: a land rendered uninhabitable by pollution in one case, a lost homeland in the other. In Scattered, a Japanese man called Susanoo has stopped aging. Hiruko and her companions eventually manage to find him and meet him, but he doesn’t say a word. What is the reason for this strange silence? The Jewish contribution, in addition to the spiritual and religious realm, has been remarkable in many areas, including discoveries in natural and social sciences, medicine, and philosophy. Although Jews make up fewer than one out of every five hundred people on the earth, individuals of Jewish descent typically receive one of every every five Nobel Prizes. These descendants of Abraham have also made important contributions in their professions as merchants, businessmen, and bankers; in accountability; and in the improved lifestyle and the moral-ethical values of our society. From the twentieth-century dystopia that was the Soviet Empire, Tawada has moved on to dystopias of our own times. The Emissary, inaugural winner of the National Book Award for Translated Literature in 2018 and to my mind her best novel—luminous and humane while as bracingly weird as ever—is a kind of shadow companion to Scattered All Over the Earth (itself billed as the first book in a trilogy). In The Emissary, Japan has become cut off from the world for reasons that aren’t entirely clear but seem to be a combination of nuclear disaster, climate change, and an earthquake. In its isolation, it outlaws the use of foreign words; the knowledge of other countries fades. Yoshiro, once a novelist, is now more than one hundred years old, but in the toxic new climate of Japan, the elderly live on and on, tending to the nation’s frail and failing children. Yoshiro’s great-grandson Mumei is tottering and birdlike, with wispy hair and wobbly teeth. Yet he is marvelously cheerful: his generation is “equipped with natural defenses against despair.” Completing the quintet is Akash, an Indian transgender woman who tags along after taking a fancy to Knut.In the spiritual and religious realm, Christianity, which had its roots in earlier Judaic practice, has become the religion of 1.9 billion people, or 31.1 percent of the population of the world. The Judeo-Christian tradition, which derives from the spiritual labor of Abraham’s descendants, is a foundation of Western civilization, providing social and political values and the moral and ethical basis of the legal systems. That same tradition has made an emotional and psychological contribution in defining the value and purpose of life, the goodness of God, His love for all, and the Golden Rule as a guide for human conduct. In the social and cultural realm, the themes of the Bible have provided inspiration for great works of architecture, music, art, literature, and entertainment.

In the Book of Mormon, Lehi speaks of all Israel in 1 Nephi 10:14: “And after the house of Israel should be scattered they should be gathered together again.” Then, three later successive passages in the Book of Mormon highlight three stages or conditions that precede the gathering and restoration of the Jews in the last days. These events open the way for all of the house of Israel to be gathered and restored to the lands of their inheritance.We first glimpse Hiruko, the protagonist of Yoko Tawada’s novel Scattered All Over the Earth, on a Danish television program about people whose countries no longer exist. She came to Denmark as a student, intending to stay for a year, but shortly before she was meant to go home her country—an unnamed archipelago located vaguely between China and Polynesia—disappeared. She speaks about this clearly and eloquently. Everyone understands what she says. But the language she’s speaking has never been heard before. “Tell me,” the host asks, “what is this language you’re speaking so fluently?” The following is just a brief sampling of how Abraham’s descendants (including the Arabs, Israelites, and Jews) have blessed the peoples of the earth, especially since the Savior’s earthly ministry. Abraham’s posterity has blessed humankind through three great religions—Christianity, Islam, and Judaism—and these blessings have reached into all dimensions of our lives. One of the attractions of Tawada Yōko’s writing is her characteristically playful approach to language. She skillfully undermines our everyday assumptions and casts doubts on many of the things we tend to take for granted about the world. More importantly, the book is a satisfying and absorbing read as a novel. Perhaps, we are not as different as we have been led to believe. The concept of a “global culture” and the impending doom set on humanity by ecological disasters puts a kind of melancholic tint on “Panska,” as it was born out of necessity and devastation rather than pure linguistic innovation. Knut, a man with the privilege of still having a home country, describes Hiruko’s “homemade language” as being like “Monet’s water lilies. The colors, shattered into pieces, were beautiful but painful.”

Like avatars for their countries of origin or those dolls in native costume that travelers used to collect, the characters each represent a national type. The novel is narrated from their alternating perspectives, and each person is constantly remarking on the defining characteristics of the others. Hiruko (in Akash’s view) is like “an anime character, cute yet slightly creepy” (she also reminds Knut of a young Björk); Knut is a handsome blond northerner with impressive cheekbones; Akash wears only red saris; Nora is tall and commanding. Tenzo’s role in the story is based on mistaken conclusions drawn by the other characters about his origins, which he initially does nothing to clear up (“So that’s where he was from—the land of sushi”). Tawada’s gleeful use of stereotype seems at once designed to send it up (sometimes looks are deceiving) and to redeem it (isn’t stereotype just a kind of shorthand, like language itself?).Allegory of the olive tree. A symbolic portrayal of these events is found in Zenos’s allegory of the olive tree. Zenos provides a profound prophetic overview of essential elements about the scattering and gathering of Israel. Although the scattering and gathering are literal, historical, physical events, they also reflect a more important dimension of a spiritual scattering, and in the latter days their gathering as seen in the mission of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The mission of the Church is to bring us unto Christ through missionary work, perfecting the Saints, and temple work. The inseparable relationship between the concept of gathering and the spiritual mission of spreading the gospel, nurturing members in the Church, and maintaining family ties is beautifully illustrated in the allegory of the vineyard recorded and commented upon in Jacob 5–6 in the Book of Mormon. Jacob records this allegory from the writings of an otherwise unknown prophet Zenos of the Old Testament period. The allegory is summarized in the following paragraphs, with a historical interpretation written in italics.