Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
This month’s Classics Circuit features Meiji-era Japanese literature! I chose to read some short stories by Higuchi Ichiyō , the most well-known woman writer in Meiji Japan. In the Shade of Spring Leaves, by Robert Lyons Danly, is part biography of Ms Ichiyō and part a collection of nine of her short stories. I decided
Ginko Ogino was just sixteen when her mother and older sister arranged her marriage, as was custom in nineteenth-century Japan. When she returned home violently ill three years later, overcome with fever and infection due to gonorrhea, her family was shamed. Her story begins here, though, for during her embarrassing treatment in the male-dominated hospital,
Reading a bulk of haiku at once helped me to get a general appreciation for the format. I enjoy the clear but succinct image that three short lines are able to conjure. The volume I enjoyed (Haiku, selected and edited by Peter Washington and published by Everyman’s Library Pock Poets series) included mostly Japanese classic
Silence by Shusaku Endo is an unusual book compared to the other Japanese novels I’ve read. It’s an historical fiction novel, taking place in 1600s Japan, and it is about faith. It is about trusting in God, or not, when things get hard. Yet, to some extent, Silence seems similar to the other Japanese novels
Beginning with powdering a sweaty back and ending, quite literally, with diarrhea, The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki captures the intimate everyday moments of a once-powerful family in a rapidly changing 1930s and ’40s Japan. It was not an enjoyable read for me. Coming from both a Western perspective and a modern one, I found
Junichiro Tanizaki’s Naomi is about obsession. Joji, a mediocre businessman, lets his obsession of the mysterious girl Naomi overtake him. Yet, while the novel is full of sensual obsession, it is ultimately about obsession with Western culture, for Naomi is a Western-looking girl that personifies an idealization of the west.
Nobel laureate (1968) Yasunari Kawabata is obviously talented at describing scenes, and there was, in The Old Capital, something refreshing about a slow-paced story of a young woman coming into a realization of herself. In her free time, Chieko would see the cherry blossoms and visit the cedar forests. It was a celebration of the
Because of my positive experience reading Sei Shonagon’s The Pillow Book, I thought I’d try some more Japanese literature. Amanda wrote a positive review of The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa and I noticed that this was the selected book for the Japanese Literature Book Group run by tanabata at In Spring it
I first encountered Sei Shonagon in a college course about the personal essay. We talked about her tone in the essay “Hateful Things,” and I wrote about the credibility of her critique. “Hateful Things” is an interesting piece when considered as an essay because it doesn’t read like any other essay I read for that
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