When I Whistle shows how telling a novelist Shusaku Endo can be when he stops straining to live up to his dubious label as 'the Japanese Graham Greene' and settles more for being Japanese. This latest of his works to be translated into American ('Gee, teacher') rises powerfully above the limitation of its awkwardly dubbed sound to examine modern Japan—worldly, wealthy and riddled with cancer patients—in relation to the Second World War. It does so by having its narrative shuttle nicely back and forth between mediocre businessman Ozu's memories of growing up during the War, and his son Eiichi's ruthless efforts to scrabble into prominence in the medical profession. The plotting is sometimes pretty bare and occasionally close to melodrama; what's more, Endo's manner is always so absorbent that his taking the cancer ward as the typical symbol for present Japan must seem more than a...