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Rynosuke
Description:
Writing at the beginning of the twentieth century, Ryunosuke Akutagawa created disturbing stories
out of Japan's cultural upheaval. Whether his fictions are set centuries past or close to the
present, Akutagawa was a modernist, writing in polished, superbly nuanced prose subtly exposing
human needs and flaws. "In a Grove," which was the basis for Kurosawa's classic film Rashomon
, tells the chilling story of the killing of a samurai through the testimony of witnesses, including the
spirit of the murdered man. The fable-like "Yam Gruel" is an account of desire and humiliation, but
one in which the reader's sympathy is thoroughly unsettled. And in "The Martyr," a beloved orphan
raised by Jesuit priests is exiled when he refuses to admit that he made a local girl pregnant. He
regains their love and respect only at the price of his life. All six tales in the collection show
Akutagawa as a master storyteller and an exciting voice of modern Japanese literature.
About Author:
Akutagawa Rynosuke () was one of the first prewar Japanese writers to achieve a wide foreign
readership, partly because of his technical virtuosity, partly because his work seemed to represent
imaginative fiction as opposed to the mundane accounts of the I-novelists of the time, partly
because of his brilliant joining of traditional material to a modern sensibility, and partly because of
film director Kurosawa Akira's masterful adaptation of two of his short stories for the screen.
Akutagawa was born in the Kybashi district Tokyo as the eldest son of a dairy operator named
Shinbara Toshiz and his wife Fuku. He was named "Rynosuke" ("Dragon Offshoot") because he
was born in the Year of the Dragon, in the Month of the Dragon, on the Day of the Dragon, and at
the Hour of the Dragon (8 a.m.). Seven months after Akutagawa's birth, his mother went insane
and he was adopted by her older brother, taking the Akutagawa family name. Despite the shadow
this experience cast over Akutagawa's life, he benefited from the traditional literary atmosphere of
his uncle's home, located in what had been the "downtown" section of Edo.
At school Akutagawa was an outstanding student, excelling in the Chinese classics. He entered
the First High School in 1910, striking up relationships with such classmates as Kikuchi Kan,
Kume Masao, Yamamoto Yz, and Tsuchiya Bunmei. Immersing himself in Western literature, he
increasingly came to look for meaning in art rather than in life. In 1913, he entered Tokyo Imperial
University, majoring in English literature. The next year, Akutagawa and his former high school
friends revived the journal Shinshich (New Currents of Thought), publishing translations of William
Butler Yeats and Anatole France along with original works of their own. Akutagawa published the
story Rashmon in the magazine Teikoku bungaku (Imperial Literature) in 1915. The story, which
went largely unnoticed, grew out of the egoism Akutagawa confronted after experiencing
disappointment in love. The same year, Akutagawa started going to the meetings held every
Thursday at the house of Natsume Sseki, and thereafter considered himself Sseki's disciple.
The lapsed Shinshich was revived yet again in 1916, and Sseki lavished praise on Akutagawa's
story Hana (The Nose) when it appeared in the first issue of that magazine. After graduating from
Tokyo University, Akutagawa earned a reputation as a highly skilled stylist whose stories
reinterpreted classical works and historical incidents from a distinctly modern standpoint. His
overriding themes became the ugliness of human egoism and the value of art, themes that
received expression in a number of brilliant, tightly organized short stories conventionally
categorized as Edo-mono (stories set in the Edo period), ch-mono (stories set in the Heian
period), Kirishitan-mono (stories dealing with premodern Christians in Japan), and kaika-mono
(stories of the early Meiji period). The Edo-mono include Gesaku zanmai (A Life Devoted to
Gesaku, 1917) and Kareno-sh (Gleanings from a Withered Field, 1918); the ch-mono are perhaps
best represented by Jigoku hen (Hell Screen, 1918); the Kirishitan-mono include Hoknin no shi
(The Death of a Christian, 1918), and kaika-mono include Butkai(The Ball, 1920).
Akutagawa married Tsukamoto Fumiko in 1918 and the following year left his post as English
instructor at the naval academy in Yokosuka, becoming an employee of the Mainichi Shinbun.
This period was a productive one, as has already been noted, and the success of stories like
Mikan (Mandarin Oranges, 1919) and Aki (Autumn, 1920) prompted him to turn his attention
increasingly to modern materials. This, along with the introspection occasioned by growing health
and nervous problems, resulted in a series of autobiographically-based stories known as
Yasukichi-mono, after the name of the main character. Works such as Daidji Shinsuke no
hansei(The Early Life of
Other Editions:
- Rashomon and Other Stories (Kindle Edition)
Books By Author:
- In a Grove
- Rashomon
- Hell Screen
Rewiews:
2.
Kelly (and the Book Boar) wrote: "Good thing that I get most of my selections from the nice, clean,
public library . . . and that no one in KC ever po
Kelly (and the Book Boar) wrote: "Good thing that I get most of my selections from the nice, clean,
public library . . . and that no one in KC ever poops."
BBQ is a great constipater :)