« Growthology | Main | The ethanol program is even worse than you think »
My favorite things Japan, literature edition
I do not know Japanese literature well but nonetheless I recommend the following:
1. Out: A Novel, by Natsuo Kirino. Vicious fun. Dark, violent, etc.
2. Kobo Abe, The Woman in the Dunes. He has been called the Japanese Stanislaw Lem. Why do I never hear about this book? The movie by the same name is good too.
3. Yasunari Kawabata, both The Go Master and The Snow Country.
4. Mishima, Spring Snow, others.
5. Haruki Murakami. My favorite is Hard-Boiled Wonderland (one of my favorite books period) and then Underground, a modern classic of social science (really). I like most of them but I feel he is repeating himself as of late.
6. Shusaku Endo, Silence. Very powerful and I remain fascinated by Japan's so-called "Christian century."
7. Kenzaburo Oe: I like Teach us to Outgrow Our Madness.
Question: Is Tale of Genji actually fun to read? I would say about half of it, so yes it is worth the time. The best parts are very beautiful and mysterious and unlike anything else in literature. Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon is fun and is a good introduction to the period.
The bottom line: There is lots and lots more that I have never heard of, not to mention manga.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 26, 2008 at 05:26 AM in Books | Permalink
Comments
I would recommend the novel Kokoru (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kokoro) by Soseki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natsume_Soseki). Actually, I haven't read it since college, when my roommate had left it lying around from an East Asian Studies class he was taking. I found it moving, and was intrigued by its ambivalent modernity.
Posted by: rml at May 26, 2008 7:55:44 AM
Does Kazuo Ishiguro count as Japanese?
Posted by: Jeff H. at May 26, 2008 8:54:52 AM
"Does Kazuo Ishiguro count as Japanese?"
He doesn't seem to think so. He left Japan with his family at age 5, was educated in England, writes in English and says "if I wrote under a pseudonym and got somebody else to pose for my jacket photographs, I'm sure nobody would think of saying, 'This guy reminds me of that Japanese writer.' "
Great writer though.
Posted by: Herb Levy at May 26, 2008 9:12:15 AM
can you elaborate on murakami and social science? I am both sociologist and big murakami lover. But never put those two together.
Posted by: dainius at May 26, 2008 12:17:29 PM
that kobo abe novel is early and it really feels like that. I like the one about box-man, about a man living in a box.
Posted by: dainius at May 26, 2008 12:22:44 PM
On Gengi , yes any educated person will enjoy it. It iss kind of Byrons Don Juan
Posted by: karl at May 26, 2008 1:17:08 PM
Certainly the Tale of Genji is a matter of taste. But there is no questioning
either its uniqueness (aside from later imitators, mostly in Japan) and its greatness.
For one thing, not mentioned here, is its great age and innovativeness, with many
crediting it as the very first novel ever anywhere in world history.
When I first read it I was awestruck. However, it is quite long, although not as long
as Proust.
Posted by: Barkley Rosser at May 26, 2008 1:27:39 PM
Oe: A personal matter
Kawabata: On beauty and sadness.His house of sleeping beauty is the basis for the , until now, last work by Garcia Marquez.
Murakami:Norwegian Wood, and the Clockwork Byrd deserve its fame.
Tanizaki: the Key
The Heike mogatari
Ochiai: the wild geese, yes the basis of the 70s movie.
Manga: Evangelion, a mix of Schopenhauer and Kiekergard
Posted by: karl at May 26, 2008 1:33:22 PM
it is interesting how different are pieces by murakami that people like. As for me, I like him all.
Posted by: dainius at May 26, 2008 3:18:00 PM
I strongly recommend a non-fiction work, "Diary of Darkness", the diary economics commentator Kiyosawa Kiyoshi kept during WWII. As he died of pneumonia in May 1945, it was never edited, and so gives an unexpurgated view of the nation at war. Though the English translation is painfully literal -- sometimes so much as to obscure nuances that could have been faithfully conveyed by a freer rendering -- it remains a compelling document.
Posted by: jm at May 26, 2008 4:30:29 PM
I loved Out, as well as her most recently translated book, Grotesque. If you like those you might also like Miyuki Miyabe. Another personal favorite is Akira Yoshimura, especially Shipwrecks, which is beautiful and terrible.
Yes on Genji. I enjoyed it, though I'm not sure I could read it again -- there is an awful lot of it (I like long books, but some are more rereadable than others).
While we're on Japanese literature, I'll recommend Christopher Ross's "Mishima's Sword", which I just finished. interesting exploration of the writer and certain aspects of Japanese culture.
Posted by: Mike at May 26, 2008 5:58:11 PM
The Endo link goes to the Pillow Book by accident. Try this one.
Posted by: dzot at May 26, 2008 7:05:17 PM
Genji is an interesting read, if you like long, epic sorts of novels. Loved Shogun? By all means, read Genji!
If on the other hand you like things short and sweet, here's my one-minute summary: "Once upon a time there was a handsome prince who could not keep his kimono closed. This often got him into trouble."
Posted by: ShortWoman at May 26, 2008 8:25:44 PM
After reading about 20 pages of Genji, I decided having read The World of the Shining Prince by Ivan Morris was a fine substitute. YMMV, but if you're reading Genji without being either an expert on late 10th century Japan or reading Morris, you're missing out.
Not listed above are the novels of Yoshikawa Eiji. If you don't like him, he's a Japanese Clavell; if you do, he's Dumas.
Posted by: Tom at May 26, 2008 8:33:13 PM
Great call with the Shusako Endo. One of my all-time favorites.
Posted by: Guest at May 26, 2008 9:39:02 PM
You missed Junichiro Tanizaki.
Posted by: anon at May 27, 2008 3:56:07 PM
I second Tom, The World of the Shining Prince is excellent in its own right. And anon is right too: I recommend Junichiro Tanizaki's Some Prefer Nettles, a gripping psychological novel that (like others mentioned here) deals with the transition into modernity.
Posted by: Timothy at May 28, 2008 5:32:15 PM
I am going to take this opportunity to vent about the Indonesian translation for Beauty and Sadness by Kawabata. I read the English and Indonesian versions side by side so as to continue improving my Indonesian and goodness gracious... they don't compare. DO NOT READ THE INDONESIAN VERSION ("Kecantikan dan Kesadihan"). WOW.
Anyways, during that summer in Indonesia, I read about 30 books from Japanese literature, many listed here, and still the one that I like best is Mishima's Spring Snow, which I actually got for $0.10 at a Friends of the Library booksale in Gainesville, FL. It's an incredible achievement. I think the tetralogy goes downhill from there, but I highly recommend it.
Posted by: Admiral at May 29, 2008 2:39:03 AM
As an anthropological document Genji is fantastic. I refer back to Genji a great deal (in my head) in social situations. As a study of ways people can relate, I've found it to be a valuable foil to help me understand the ways people do relate in my life. I find there are a lot of seemingly strange and foreign social dances in Genji that when deconstructed and recapitulated into 2008 are actually common. I put it right up there with The Dobe !Kung (Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology) by Richard B. Lee (sorry not Japanese at all)
Posted by: Brendan at May 29, 2008 9:22:13 PM
Many people now use the Internet to do business, after receiving the business should be the best as far as possible, to allow customer satisfaction. But some Internet companies, not to start on your money to begin with, so on and then close the first half, resulting in Juankuan flee. Not only did not complete 租車the project, customers would also like to once again spend money and time to decoration. Dear Customer: This is no guarantee as the company not to find the.
Posted by: 抓漏 at Dec 3, 2008 10:39:45 PM
