Modern Japanese literary discourse often utilizes authors' traumatic experiences as meaningful not only in their lives and literary careers, but also in the trajectory of literary history. I explore one such event from the life of Uno K'ji (1891-1961) in order to question the manner wherein literary historical discourse has imagined the author for mutually irreconcilable agendas, yet into an apparently seamless narrative of modern Japanese literature. To this purpose I appropriate the term 'style' for two semantic possibilities: literary style (buntai) and style as com/de-port-ment of the body. My talk follows several moments when these two semantics meet, to illuminate the ways both literary history and the authorial figure appropriate 'style' in their always mutual yet never commensurable relation to one another. Moreover, style as a signifying register is brought into relief against the trauma of modernity much like a contour projected on a cinematic screen.