Malice

I told him that the books aimed at children and teens that were selling were the ones that the Ministry of Education had promoted as "library recommendations," and that the decline in reading among children was largely the fault of their parents.

"Parents these days don't read books themselves, but they feel they should make their children read. Since they aren't readers, however, they have no idea what to give their children. That's why they cling to the recommendations from the Ministry of Education. Those books are all insufferably boring and as a result, the kids learn to hate books. It's a vicious cycle, with no end in sight."

Osamu Nonoguchi did indeed quit teaching and become an author; yet it remains unclear what he really thought of being a teacher.

My only insight comes from something he told me once.

"The relationship between teacher and student is based on illusion. The teacher is under the illusion that he is teaching something. and the student is under the illusion that he is being taught. What's im- portant is that this shared illusion makes both teacher and student happy. Nothing good is gained by facing the truth, after all. All we're doing is play ing at education."

One wonders what could have happened to make him think such a thing.