In 1997, German author and filmmaker Werner Herzog was in Japan to direct composer Shigeaki Saegusa’s opera “Chushingura.” One evening, while Herzog was having supper with collaborators on this project, Saegusa broke the exciting news that the emperor had offered Herzog a private audience. “My goodness,” Herzog replied without regard to consequences, “I have no idea what I would talk about with the Emperor; it would be nothing but banalities.”
“‘Onoda? Onoda?’
Never Say Die
Over 20 years earlier, Hiroo Onoda had made headlines around the world.In 1974, Lt. Onoda stepped out of the Philippine jungles, met with his former commanding officer, and became the next to last World War II Japanese soldier to surrender. Instructed in 1944 to wage guerilla warfare on Lubang Island until relieved, and forbidden to end his own life, for almost 30 years the lieutenant had remained obedient to his orders. Even with his few comrades all dead, he had carried on, believing that victorious Japanese forces would one day return in triumph to Lubang.
A young Japanese adventurer, Norio Suzuki, had made a tripartite vow to track down the elusive Onoda, to find a panda in the wild, and to provide proof for the existence of the Himalayan yeti. Suzuki fulfilled the first of these ambitions when he traveled to the Philippines and, after a short hunt, encountered Onoda. Finally convinced that the war was truly over, the nearly 52-year-old soldier stepped from the jungle, met with his former commanding officer, gave up his rifle, and sheathed his sword.
Soon after his return to his homeland, and disillusioned by what he saw as a Japanese abandonment of traditional values, Onoda relocated to Brazil. There, he operated a cattle ranch and became a leader in the Japanese community. He married, eventually attempted to make amends to the Lubang islanders, and was the subject of an Arthur Harari film, “Onoda: 10,000 Nights in the Jungle.” He died in Tokyo in 2014.
On the Run
From their friendship and his ongoing fascination with Onoda came Herzog’s 2022 work of biographical fiction “The Twilight World.” It was the 79-year-old writer’s first novel.“The Twilight World” yields little new hard information about Onoda. His autobiography and the numerous media articles about him had already given the public many of the details of his time on Lubang and afterwards. What Herzog does offer in his novel, however, is a dramatic take on the ordeal of Onoda and his companions, and an imaginative look inside the mind of a man cut off for so long from the reality of the broader world.
The novel begins when Suzuki first encounters Onoda, who has his loaded rifle pointed straight at Suzuki’s chest. Suzuki saves his own life by first identifying himself as Japanese and then saying Onoda’s name. Herzog then shows us how through questions and conversation Suzuki, whom Onoda later described as “this hippie boy Suzuki,” breaks down Onoda’s resistance and almost convinces him that the war is over.
Even then, however, Onoda refuses to walk out of the jungle with Suzuki and surrender unless and until his old commander relieves him of his post. The two men arrange to meet, and Suzuki departs for Japan, where the government helps him locate the elderly Yoshimi Taniguchi, who became a bookseller after the war. Taniguchi returns to Lubang with Suzuki, and the man who had so long ago ordered Onoda to fight behind enemy lines now gives him his final order to stand down.
Readers of “The Twilight World” spend most of their time following Onoda and his dwindling band as they remain on the move in the jungle. In one telling scene, we see how relations changed between Onoda and the three men originally under his command. It’s December 1945, more than a year since the men were left on their own, and Onoda is showing the men how to break camp while leaving no trace of their presence. When he finishes, he pauses, then adds an explanation of how he sees their roles in the future. “I am not your commander,” he says. “You have not been allocated to me by High Command. I am your leader.”
Fever Dreams
In his descriptions of the jungle, the weather, and the men themselves, Herzog writes in an impressionistic style, attempting to recreate the dreamlike passage of days, months, and years as experienced by Onoda and his men. Here is one example of such a word-painting:“Time, time and the jungle. The jungle does not recognize time. They are like two alienated siblings who have nothing to do with each other, who communicate, if at all, only in the form of contempt. Days follow nights, but there are no seasons as such, at the most, months with vast amounts of rain and months with slightly less rain. There is one unvarying constant: everything in the jungle is at pains to strangle everything else in the battle for sunlight.”
Fact and Fiction
At the beginning of “The Twilight World,” Herzog advises readers that “most details are factually correct; some are not.” Consequently, readers may experience occasional difficulty separating the real from the unreal.The best example of Herzog’s novelistic inventions has to do with Suzuki’s death. Once Suzuki has hunted down Onoda, he sets out on his second quest and does indeed discover a panda in the wild, a difficult feat given that creature’s shy ways. Suzuki then travels to the Himalayas to look for his yeti, only to die in an avalanche. All these events actually happened.
In “The Twilight World,” Herzog briefly relates this string of events, then has Onoda immediately fly from Japan to Nepal on learning of Suzuki’s death. With the help of a Sherpa guide, he finds Suzuki’s burial cairn, pays him homage, and departs.
Faithful to the End
Keeping in mind, therefore, that “The Twilight World” is a fictional biography, Onoda’s long war nevertheless staggers our sensibilities. His sense of loyalty and duty rivals that of Homer’s long-suffering Penelope, who for two decades awaited the return of her husband, Ulysses. Whatever judgment we may pass on some of Onoda’s actions, his steadfast fealty to his orders and his emperor cannot be questioned.Onoda’s long war staggers our sensibilities. His sense of loyalty and duty rivals that of Homer’s long-suffering Penelope, who for two decades awaited the return of her husband, Ulysses. Whatever judgment we may pass on some of Onoda’s actions, his steadfast fealty to his orders and his emperor cannot be questioned.
Using techniques that have marked his films and documentaries, Herzog’s fine novel blends harsh reality with hallucination and dream and brings alive the cost of fidelity: what it meant for these men to survive in a jungle where every day brought privation and the demand for constant vigilance.
In the final pages of “The Twilight World,” after his meeting with Maj. Taniguchi, and on their way back to the outside world, Onoda stops to retrieve his sword, which he has stowed away in a tree hollow. “The sun gleams on the sheath,” writes Herzog. “Until the very last moment, Onoda is later to confide, he has hoped that the Major will turn to him and tell him that this has all been a bit of theater; they had merely wanted to test his dependability.”
Onoda need not have worried. He had passed that test long ago.
