Japanese 2 Flashcards
tells of love denied by a Tokyo dilettante,
Shimamura, to Komako, a geisha who feels ‘used’ much as she wants to think and
feel that she is drawn sincerely, purely to a man of the world. She has befriended
Yoko to whom Shimamura is equally and passionately drawn because of her
virginity, her naivete, as he is to Komako who loses it, after her affair with him
earlier. In the end, Yoko dies in the cocoon-warehouse in a fire notwithstanding
Komako’s attempt to rescue her. Komako embraces the virgin Yoko in her arms
while Shimamura senses the Milky Way ‘flowing down inside him with a roar.’
Kawabata makes use of contrasting thematic symbols in the title: death and
purification amidst physical decay and corruption.
Snow country by Kawabata
tells of the escapades of a dirty
old man, Eguchi, to a resort near the sea where young women are given drugs
before they are made to sleep sky-clad. Decorum rules it that these sleeping
beauties should not be touched, lest the customers be driven away by the
management. The book lets the reader bare the deeper recesses of the
septuagenarian’s mind. Ironically, this old man who senses beauty and youth is
incapable of expressing, much less having it. Thus, the themes of old age and
loneliness and coping become inseparable.
The House of Sleeping Beauties by kawabata
is the story of four sisters whose chief concern
is finding a suitable husband for the third sister, Yukiko, a woman of traditional
beliefs who has rejected several suitors. Until Yukiko marries, Taeko, the
youngest, most independent, and most Westernized of the sisters, must remain
unmarried. More important than the plot, the novel tells of middle-class daily life
in prewar Osaka. It also delves into such topics as the intrusion of modernity and
its effect on the psyche of the contemporary Japanese, the place of kinship in the
The Makioka Sisters by Tanizaki
is the four-part epic including Spring Snow,
Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, and The Decay of the Angel. The novels
are set in Japan from about 1912 to the 1960s. Each of them depicts a different
reincarnation of the same being: as a young aristocrat in 1912, as a political fanatic
in the 1930s, as a Thai princess before the end of WWII, and as an evil young
orphan in the 1960s. Taken together the novels are a clear indication of Mishima’s
increasing obsession with blood, death, and suicide, his interest in self-destructive
personalities, and his rejection of the sterility of modern life.
The sea of fertility by Mishima
is a tragic, vividly painted story of life in postwar
Japan. The narrator is Kazuko, a young woman born to gentility but now
impoverished. Though she wears Western clothes, her outlook is Japanese; her life
is static, and she recognizes that she is spiritually empty.
The setting sun by Ozamu
the author’s most famous story made into the film
Rashomon. The story asks these questions: What is the truth? Who tells the truth?
How is the truth falsified? Six narrators tell their own testimonies about the death
of a husband and the violation of his wife in the woods. The narrators include a
woodcutter, a monk, an old woman, the mother-in-law of the slain man, the wife,
and finally, the dead man whose story is spoken through the mouth of a shamaness.
Akutagawa’s ability to blend a feudal setting with deep psychological insights
gives this story an ageless quality.
In the grove by akutagawa
a melodramatic novel set in Tokyo at the threshold of
the 20th century. The novel explores the blighted life of Otama, daughter of a cake
vendor. Because of extreme poverty, she becomes the mistress of a policeman,
and later on of a money-lender, Shazo. In her desire to rise from the pitfall of
shame and deprivation, she tries to befriend Okada, a medical student who she
greets every day by the window as he passes by on his way to the campus. She is
disillusioned however, as Okada, in the end, prepares for further medical studies in
Germany. Ogai’s novel follows the traditio of the watakushi-shosetsu or the
confessional I- novel where the storyteller is the main character.
The Wild Geese by Oagi
alludes to the awakening of Buddha under the bo
tree when he gets enlightened after fasting 40 days and nights. Similarly, the hero
of the novel, Soshu, attains self-illumination after freeing himself from the way of
all flesh. The author was inspired by personal tragedies that befell their family and
this novel makes him transcend his personal agony into artistic achievement.
The Buddha Three by Fumio
is regarded as the greatest haiku poet. He was
born into a samurai family and began writing poetry at an early age. After
becoming a Zen Buddhist, he moved into an isolated hut on the outskirts of Edo
(Tokyo) where he lived the life of a hermit, supporting himself by teaching and
judging poetry. Bashō means ‘banana plant,’ a gift given him to which he
became deeply attached. Over
Matsuo Basho
is regarded as the second-greatest haiku poet. He
lived in Kyoto throughout most of his life and was one of the finest painters of
his time
Yosa Buson
is ranked with Bashō and Buson although his
talent was not widely recognized until after his death. Issa’s poems capture the
Kaboyashi Issa
won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968.
The sense of loneliness and preoccupation with death that permeates much of his
mature writing possibly derives from the loneliness of his childhood having been
orphaned early. Three of his best novels are: Snow Country, Thousand Cranes,
and Sound of the Mountains. He committed suicide shortly after the suicide of
his friend Mishima.
Yasunari Kawabata
a major novelist whose writing is
characterized by eroticism and ironic wit. His earliest stories were like those of
Edgar Allan Poe’s but he later turned toward the exploration of more traditional
Japanese ideals of beauty. Among his works are Some Prefer Nettles, The
Makioka Sisters, Diary of a Mad Old Man
Junichiro Tanizaki
is the pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka, a prolific
writer who is regarded by many writers as the most important Japanese novelist of
the 20th century. His highly acclaimed first novel, Confessions of a Mask is
partly autobiographical work that describes with stylistic brilliance a homosexual
who must mask his sexual orientation. Many of his novels have main characters
who, for physical or psychological reasons, are unable to find happiness. Deeply
attracted to the austere patriotism and marital spirit of Japan’s past, Mishima was
contemptuous of the materialistic Westernized society of Japan in the postwar era.
Mishima committed seppuku (ritual disembowelment).
Yukio Mishima
just like Mishima, and Kawabata committed suicide,
not unusual, but so traditional among Japanese intellectuals. It is believed that
Ozamu had psychological conflicts arising from his inability to draw a red line
between his Japaneseness clashing with his embracing the Catholic faith, if not
the demands of creativity. The Setting Sun is one of his works.
Dazai Ozamu
is a prolific writer of stories, plays, and
poetry, noted for his stylistic virtuosity. He is one of the most widely translated of
all Japanese writers, and a number of his stories have been made into films. Many
of his short stories are Japanese tales retold in the light of modern psychology in a
highly individual style of feverish intensity that is well-suited to their macabre
themes. Among his works are Rashomon, and Kappa. He also committed
suicide.
Ryunosuke Akutagawa
novelist whose rough prose style, at time nearly
violating the natural rhythms of the Japanese language, epitomizes the rebellion of
the post-WWII generation which he writes. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature in 1994. Among his works are: Lavish are the Dead, The Catch, Our
Generation, A Personal Matter, The Silent Cry, and Awake, New Man!.
Oe kenzaburo
