The Nose

“On the surface, of course, he pretended it did not bother him—and not only because he felt it wrong for a priest to worry over his nose when he should be thirsting exclusively for the Pure Land to come.”

Zenchi’s nose is a site of contention between who he is and who he thinks he should be. The conflict between his role as a priest whose life is meant to be dedicated entirely to spiritual matters and the genuine distress caused by his nose is not meant to be resolved; rather, the story holds these two opposing views in tension while the priest’s identity emerges from their interplay.

“The people of Ike-no-o used to say that Zenchi Naigu was lucky to be a priest: no woman would ever want to marry a man with a nose like that.”

As much as Zenchi does not want people to comment on his nose, he knows that they do. And, not only have other people noticed his nose, they have also turned it into a joke that undermines the seriousness of his spiritual calling—and, in turn, his fragile sense of self.

“The second way he dealt with his problem was to keep a vigilant eye out for other people’s noses.”

In his quest to appear as if he does not care about his own nose, Zenchi becomes obsessed with the noses of other people. His “vigilant eye” represents the practice of comparing oneself to other people—one of the main symptoms of the attachment to separate selfhood that causes human suffering.

“The Naigu saw not people but noses.”

Zenchi’s fixation on noses symbolically transforms other people into them: a particularly amusing example of the tendency for individuals to remake the world in their own image.

“He heard that Liu Bei, the Shu Han emperor, had long ears. ‘Oh, if only it had been his nose,’ he thought, ‘how much better I would feel!’”

Zenchi’s longing to find a historical figure with a similar physical feature leads him to lament his apparent uniqueness. Once again, the sense of separation from others and an attachment to fixed identities generates suffering.

“The treatment itself was actually quite simple: boil the nose and have someone tread on it.”

The narrator’s detachment and understatement come to the fore; the tone is so neutral that it obscures the fact that there is nothing simple about boiling and stepping on a nose—particularly not as a medical treatment—and, moreover, it conceals the very not-simple reality of the procedure that unfolds on the subsequent pages.

“The Naigu tried to shake his head to signal that it did not hurt, but with the disciple’s feet pressing down on his nose, he was unable to do so.”

This quote reveals the physical and symbolic struggle within Zenchi during the treatment. His attempt to signal that it doesn’t hurt emphasizes the ironic and paradoxical nature of the situation—enduring a bizarre procedure that should alleviate his discomfort while facing the challenge of communication precisely because of the very appendage he’s set out to shrink.

“Stroking his newly shortened nose, the Naigu darted a few timid glances into the mirror the young man held out to him.”

Zenchi’s initial reaction to his transformed nose is tentative acceptance; he seems unsure as to what he will see there. Once his vision confirms the transformation, Zenchi is more fully able to accept it as truth.

“The nose—which once had dangled down below his chin—now had shrunk to such an unbelievable degree that it seemed only to be hanging on above his upper lip by a feeble last breath.”

The narrator’s description of Zenchi’s newly shortened nose gives the appendage a life and even a will of its own. It is hanging on by “a feeble last breath”—suggestive of a dying creature—and will soon, Zenchi believes, disappear entirely. The way he interprets the change to his face signals his willingness to see his nose as something totally other than himself, rather than understanding how it both is and is not central to his identity.

“They never laughed so openly before.”

This quote highlights the harsh and noticeable shift in the behavior of those around Zenchi after his procedure. The emphasis on the increased openness of laughter indicates a shift in how others perceive and respond to him, as if making his nose smaller has drawn more attention to it.

“And he would sink into gloom, thinking about how it had been for him a few days earlier, when he still had his long nose, ‘just as he who can now sink no lower fondly recalls his days of glory.’”

Zenchi’s gloom reinforces the old idea that one never knows what one has until it is gone. The fact that he would miss his old nose—or even miss the feeling of always wanting to get rid of his old nose—seems never to have occurred to him before it happened. The hyperbolic language of “days of glory” drives home the ironic overtones of the passage.

“The Naigu, unfortunately, lacked the wisdom to find a solution to this problem.”

Lacking wisdom, in this case, suggests that Zenchi has yet to realize the essential irony of his position—and of human life more generally. Moreover, the fact that he is still trying to find a “solution” reflects a failure to grasp the notion of impermanence; no solution lasts.

“And perhaps because of the frost on the roof of the pagoda, the nine-ring spire atop it flashed in the still-faint glimmer of the rising sun.”

The luxuriant imagery of the autumn morning allows Zenchi to see the world anew, even as he is about to discover the return of his old nose. He registers familiar sights but also appreciates the specificity of the scene, suggesting a shift toward greater awareness and mindfulness.