When I was about thirteen I was introduced to Japanese literature by a teacher who gave me a copy of Lady Murasaki's "The Tale of Genji". As I sit here typing the two volume edition is staring at me and I'm trying to remember what I loved about it, but I can't seem to, yet somehow the book exudes a sort of aura for me. I remember details of my reaction to the book, which is really in many ways just a love story. I say just a love story, but of course it's far more complex than that and that is probably the reason why I can't remember much more than the major events of the book, which all seem to be the deaths of the various characters including what alludes to the death of Genjii himself.
I might have not known it then, but "The Tale of Genji" left its mark on my literary tastes, but it wouldn't be until ten years later when I went to live in Japan that I would really begin to discover Japanese literature and love it in a way that is unique and different from the way I love the literature of other countries.
My reintroduction to Japanese literature was by way of Japan's current reigning author, Haruki Murakami's "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World". Of all of Murakami's works, and even those which are in many ways superiorly written such as "The Wind Up Bird Chronicles" or "The Wild Sheep Chase", Hard-Boiled is still my favourite. It's also oddly one of the few Murakami books I don't actually own anymore since it was lent and never returned. I'd like to think, despite being slightly grumpy at the moment because I'd love to pick it up and rifle through the pages that the person I lent it to had a similar reaction. Maybe it was because it was the first of Murakami's books that I read, but it is to date the only of his works that completely enveloped me in Murakami's particular sort of world. None of his other books have ever managed to do the same, but it's what I consider my least favourite Murakami book, "Kafka On the Shore" that renewed my interest in Japanese literature and prompted me to expand my library.
On the inside cover of Kafka On the Shore was a little blurb about Murakami and some of the prizes he had won. I made a note of the prize he won for Hard-Boiled (The Tanizaki Prize), which I would later find out was rather prestigious and named for another Japanese author, Junichiro Tanizaki.
I have to confess I've only read one of Tanizaki's works. "The Key" shocked me and I am not easily shocked. The reader is allowed to glimpse into the intimate lives of a married couple thanks to the format of "dueling diaries" that is used. To see how the husband describes his wife's body, which is reduced to a description of its parts is in sharp contrast to his wife's frankness about the decline of her husband's sexual prowess due to age and her own reactions to his time worn limbs. But it would be unfair to say that it is all the book is about. There are interesting plot twists woven in with everything else. It is on a very short list of books I intend to read again, as quite frankly I am certain that I missed something in my reading, but that is Tanizaki's genius.
Recently I picked up another of Tanizaki's works, "The Makioka Sisters", which I still haven't read and didn't know existed until I found it in the secondhand Oxfam bookshop that opened in Paris. I also plan on one day reading "Confessions of a Mad Old Man".
Scanning my bookshelves it'd be obvious that I'm a fan of Japanese literature. Some authors I buy without even bothering to read the blurb first. I simply want the book on hand so that I'll have the opportunity to read it later. I'll pick up anything by Soseki, who's "I Am A Cat" is particularly wonderful (and yes it's narrated by a cat). I went to great pains to collect Mishima's "Sea of Fertility" tetralogy. I bought each of the four books by stalking the shelves of Book Off, a Japanese secondhand bookshop in Paris, and was delayed in reading it because I found "Spring Snow", the first book in the series of four books last.
I wouldn't want to tell someone to invest their time in reading The Sea of Fertility tetralogy without mentioning that it is the best and the worst of Mishima's works. Spring Snow is not only my favourite of the four, but also my favourite of Mishima's works. Of his other books if I were forced to pick a favourite I would probably settle on "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea"
Now I have many more books to add to my list when it comes to Japanese literature, but I'm going to leave you with a book not written by someone who was Japanese, but deserves his place amongst the other great names I've mentioned here, and even amongst the greater names and books I've yet to mention. The Japanese called him Koizumi Yakumo, but you might know him better as Lafcadio Hearn.
"Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things" was written by translating old texts and collecting stories that had previously only been known through storytelling. A few stories are uniquely Hearn's own. There is even a study on insects included.
Kwaidan (meaning ghost story and that's all I'm going to give away) is a unique book and no foray into Japanese literature for a non-native would be complete without it. Here Japanese ghost stories and superstition are flavoured for the Western palate in such a way that nothing of the nuance of Japanese culture is lost in translation, which, no matter how good the translator, often sadly happens as Murakami has voiced himself many times over the years.
I've listed the books mentioned in this post to make it more convenient for those who might want it to build a collection of their own, but quite frankly, the best bits of Japanese literature are still to come.
Books mentioned in this post (in order of my personal preference, with the books I've not yet read in italics:
Murakami, Haruki:
Tanizaki, Junichiro:
The Sea of Fertility tetralogy -
I might have not known it then, but "The Tale of Genji" left its mark on my literary tastes, but it wouldn't be until ten years later when I went to live in Japan that I would really begin to discover Japanese literature and love it in a way that is unique and different from the way I love the literature of other countries.
My reintroduction to Japanese literature was by way of Japan's current reigning author, Haruki Murakami's "Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World". Of all of Murakami's works, and even those which are in many ways superiorly written such as "The Wind Up Bird Chronicles" or "The Wild Sheep Chase", Hard-Boiled is still my favourite. It's also oddly one of the few Murakami books I don't actually own anymore since it was lent and never returned. I'd like to think, despite being slightly grumpy at the moment because I'd love to pick it up and rifle through the pages that the person I lent it to had a similar reaction. Maybe it was because it was the first of Murakami's books that I read, but it is to date the only of his works that completely enveloped me in Murakami's particular sort of world. None of his other books have ever managed to do the same, but it's what I consider my least favourite Murakami book, "Kafka On the Shore" that renewed my interest in Japanese literature and prompted me to expand my library.
On the inside cover of Kafka On the Shore was a little blurb about Murakami and some of the prizes he had won. I made a note of the prize he won for Hard-Boiled (The Tanizaki Prize), which I would later find out was rather prestigious and named for another Japanese author, Junichiro Tanizaki.
I have to confess I've only read one of Tanizaki's works. "The Key" shocked me and I am not easily shocked. The reader is allowed to glimpse into the intimate lives of a married couple thanks to the format of "dueling diaries" that is used. To see how the husband describes his wife's body, which is reduced to a description of its parts is in sharp contrast to his wife's frankness about the decline of her husband's sexual prowess due to age and her own reactions to his time worn limbs. But it would be unfair to say that it is all the book is about. There are interesting plot twists woven in with everything else. It is on a very short list of books I intend to read again, as quite frankly I am certain that I missed something in my reading, but that is Tanizaki's genius.
Recently I picked up another of Tanizaki's works, "The Makioka Sisters", which I still haven't read and didn't know existed until I found it in the secondhand Oxfam bookshop that opened in Paris. I also plan on one day reading "Confessions of a Mad Old Man".
Scanning my bookshelves it'd be obvious that I'm a fan of Japanese literature. Some authors I buy without even bothering to read the blurb first. I simply want the book on hand so that I'll have the opportunity to read it later. I'll pick up anything by Soseki, who's "I Am A Cat" is particularly wonderful (and yes it's narrated by a cat). I went to great pains to collect Mishima's "Sea of Fertility" tetralogy. I bought each of the four books by stalking the shelves of Book Off, a Japanese secondhand bookshop in Paris, and was delayed in reading it because I found "Spring Snow", the first book in the series of four books last.
I wouldn't want to tell someone to invest their time in reading The Sea of Fertility tetralogy without mentioning that it is the best and the worst of Mishima's works. Spring Snow is not only my favourite of the four, but also my favourite of Mishima's works. Of his other books if I were forced to pick a favourite I would probably settle on "The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea"
Now I have many more books to add to my list when it comes to Japanese literature, but I'm going to leave you with a book not written by someone who was Japanese, but deserves his place amongst the other great names I've mentioned here, and even amongst the greater names and books I've yet to mention. The Japanese called him Koizumi Yakumo, but you might know him better as Lafcadio Hearn.
"Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things" was written by translating old texts and collecting stories that had previously only been known through storytelling. A few stories are uniquely Hearn's own. There is even a study on insects included.
Kwaidan (meaning ghost story and that's all I'm going to give away) is a unique book and no foray into Japanese literature for a non-native would be complete without it. Here Japanese ghost stories and superstition are flavoured for the Western palate in such a way that nothing of the nuance of Japanese culture is lost in translation, which, no matter how good the translator, often sadly happens as Murakami has voiced himself many times over the years.
I've listed the books mentioned in this post to make it more convenient for those who might want it to build a collection of their own, but quite frankly, the best bits of Japanese literature are still to come.
Books mentioned in this post (in order of my personal preference, with the books I've not yet read in italics:
Murakami, Haruki:
- Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
- The Wind Up Bird Chronicle
- The Wild Sheep Chase
- Kafka On the Shore
- The Tale of Genjii
Tanizaki, Junichiro:
- The Key
- The Makioka Sisters
- Diary of a Mad Old Man
The Sea of Fertility tetralogy -
- Spring Snow
- Runaway Horses
- The Temple of Dawn
- The Decay of the Angel
- The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea
- Confessions of a Mask
- The Sound of Waves
- After the Banquet
- Way of the Samurai
Soseki, Natsume
- I Am a Cat
- The Miner
- The Wayfarer
- Three Cornered World
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