昨日、週末の日課である山菜・アスパラ類の購入ドライブを果たして帰宅後、ギリギリ間に合ったWEB講演会Zoomに参加し始めたら、中学校時代以来の友人からのケータイ着信。ところがこのWEB講演会が異常な盛り上がり（笑）で、時間がドンドン延長されていく。やむなく終了まで聞き終わった後、友人に返信。
かれはわたしのブログをときどきチェックしてくれているようなのですが、最近の聖徳太子絵伝シリーズに強い興味を持ってくれていたのだそうです。で、昔読書した本で哲学者の梅原猛氏の書かれた聖徳太子と法隆寺をテーマとした著作「隠された十字架」というかれの蔵書を「あげるわ」ということ。
で、その本は発刊がいまから51年前。わたしたちが20才の当時に発刊された本なのです。その頃はわたしもかれも東京で大学に通っていた時代で、その当時この梅原氏の本は、大きな反響を呼んでいた。しかしわたしは特段興味を抱くことなく過ごしていたのです。かれの言ではあの哲学者の梅原猛が、という驚きと共に当時の論壇での話題沸騰ぶりはすさまじかったということ。
で、その法隆寺論をわたしにくれる、ということなのです。そしてわざわざ家にまで持参してくれた。新潮社刊B5版のハードカバー本で総ページ456ページ。さっそく目を通してみて、その字詰め、装丁の「びっしりさ」に驚かされる。
写真が51年前発行本の装丁の様子。つい最近発行の同判型の本の装丁ぶりと比較してみると、あきらかに文字の大きさ、行間の設定などに半世紀での出版社会の変化ぶりがわかる。
そしてわたし自身の目の衰えを痛感させられてしまった（泣）。同じ時期に惑溺していた単行本を数冊、本棚から引っ張り出して見てみたら、文字の大きさとか装丁ぶりには共通性があった。わたしたちが若かったというよりも文字の大きさなどの装丁についてよりも、よりみっちりとした「中身」勝負的な姿勢か。
本の内容に至る前に、この半世紀での社会の変化ぶりの方に、いたく想念が向いてしまった。
現代のブログやFacebookなどの形式は一種の出版発表の場でもあるのかも知れない。半世紀前には本を出版するというのはそれだけのバックグランドを持った人間にしか機会がなかったものが、いまは非常に細分化され、だれにでも発表する機会が担保されている。まさに隔世の感。
ということですが、友人からの蔵書提供とはようするに「聖徳太子もの、もっと頑張って続けてみろ」みたいな叱咤であるのかも知れないと思い至った。たしかに知れば知るほどにこの時代は興味深い。梅原猛さんの探究も読ませていただいて、刺激がまた倍加してきています。
English version⬇
[Strong push to restart the Prince Shotoku series.
This is a book by a philosopher published 51 years ago, which explores the mysteries of Horyuji Temple. The small size of the text is a little disconcerting, but the "cramped" feel of the book resonates as a powerful agitation. The book is a very powerful agitation.
Yesterday, after returning home after completing my weekend routine of driving to buy wild vegetables and asparagus, I started to participate in a Zoom web lecture just in time to receive a call on my cell phone from a friend I had not seen since junior high school. However, the web lecture was unusually lively (laugh), and the time was being extended rapidly. After listening to the lecture until the end, I replied to my friend.
He sometimes checks my blog, and he was very interested in my recent series of "Shotoku Taishi E biography" (picture biography of Prince Shotoku). He told me that he had a book in his collection called "The Hidden Cross," written by philosopher Takeshi Umehara on the theme of Prince Shotoku and Horyuji Temple, which he had read a long time ago.
The book was published 51 years ago. We were 20 years old when the book was published. At that time, both of us were attending university in Tokyo, and Mr. Umehara's book was a big hit at the time. However, I was not particularly interested in it. He said he was surprised that the philosopher Takeshi Umehara had written a book about Horyuji, and that it had become a hot topic of discussion in the academic circles of the time.
He was surprised to hear that the philosopher Umehara Takeshi had written about Horyu-ji Temple, and he was so excited that he brought it all the way to my house. He even went to the trouble of bringing it to my house. It is a B5 hardcover book published by Shinchosha with a total of 456 pages. I was amazed at the tightness of the binding and the way the text was packed.
The photo shows the binding of the book published 51 years ago. Compared to the binding of a book of the same size published just recently, it is obvious that the size of the text and the spacing between lines have changed in the publishing society over the past half century.
I was also made painfully aware of the deterioration of my own eyesight (I cried). When I pulled out a few of the books that I was absorbed in at the same time and looked at them from the bookshelf, I found similarities in the size of the text and the binding. It was not so much that we were young, but rather that we were more focused on the "content" of the book rather than the size of the text or the binding.
Before getting to the contents of the book, my thoughts turned to the changes in society over the past half-century.
Today's blogs, Facebook, and other forms of social networking may be a kind of publishing platform. Half a century ago, publishing a book was something that only people with that background had the opportunity to do, but nowadays it is highly segmented, and everyone has the opportunity to publish. It is truly a world apart.
I came to think that my friend's offer of a book collection may be a rebuke to me, saying, "Prince Shotoku's works, try harder to keep up with them. It is true that the more I learn about this period, the more interesting it is. I have also read Takeshi Umehara's explorations, and the stimulation has been doubled.
