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Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

Japanese Authors

The Natural Way

11:02 / 11.07.02

Read Hurakami (indeed good yes) and interested to know a little bit more about the japanese literary landscape and its inhabitants.

Any recommendations?

Thanks.

16:09 / 11.07.02

Do you mean Murakami?
I would unreservedly recommend his Wind-Up Bird Chronicles, Something very japanese about it, in it's weirdness. He's also written a book about Aum, the pople behind the Sarin attacks on the Toyko subway. Not read it myself - anyone else?
Also don't know if your a fan of William Gibson - but one of his source texts is Karl Taro Greenfield's "Speed Tribes" which is a great read, prob. a bit out of date by know though. It's not fiction but that good it's worth a mention.

16:22 / 11.07.02

Pedants of the world: I have not followed Japanese naming convention in this post, 'cause most bookstores don't, either. (Except when clerks are really snotty, as I was when I worked in a bookstore...)

I really, really recommend Yukio Mishima's Sea of Fertility tetralogy. It's beautiful and superbly crafted (hoooooo!), gives oodles of insight into pre and post WWII Japan, and makes many interesting points about both Buddhism and Shintoism. And he's perhaps the founding father of modern Japanese literature.

All that plus, if you read it while keeping in mind that Mishima was a (relatively) closeted gay male- and an excellent swordsman- and that he committed seppuku the day he completed the last book in the cycle (more on that here
), you get an absolutely fascinating window into his mind, and you kind of wonder how no one saw it coming...

Also, Kenzaburo Oe is great, especially Teach Us to Outgrow our Madness. He won the Nobel in 1994, not that that makes a big difference, but hey.

You've already read Haruki Murakami (one of my absolute all-time favourites), but have you read Ryu Murakami (no relation)? He's great, too. Hiromi Goto's Chorus of Mushrooms is wonderful, but she's Japanese-Canadian. And The Stones Cry Out by Hikaru Okuizumi is great great great.

You can go ancient and read The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon, widely available in a variety of translations and editions, or even more ancient and read The Tale of Genji by Shikibu Murasaki, widely-acknowledged to be the first novel...

Don't even start me on Yugoslav literature...

00:16 / 12.07.02

In the literary SF school, you might want to try Kobo Abe - author of Woman In the Dunes (just saw the movie recently - creepy - excellent music) and Ark Sakura. Kafka-esque (which I sometimes find off putting) but always thought provoking.

08:28 / 12.07.02

What about Banana Yoshimoto? Anyone read her? Any good? An ex of mine used to be a big fan but I never got round to investigating.

The Natural Way

10:59 / 12.07.02

Right, I feel very embarrassed now. Hurakami? I always call him Hurakami.... Something in me demands I amalgamate his names....s'been the source of red-facedness before.

Thanks so much - that should keep me going for ages.

And Bring on the Yugoslavs!

12:53 / 12.07.02

A second vote for Yukio Mishima, although I haven't read the sequence Abigail mentioned. I've just read The Sailor Who Fell From Grace With The Sea, which was quite horrifying in its way. I've got another one, which I can't remember the title of right now, which I shall read soon. They were recently re-published by, I think, Vintage. Or certainly a UK paperback imprint beginning with V.

13:04 / 12.07.02

Prunce: D'you really mean it? Yugoslav literature, both pre- and post-civil war (although, post-civil war, it isn't technically Yugoslav lit any more...)is incredible, and highly underrated.

When I was a bookseller, two hapless young Yugoslavs wandered into my store in search of literature from their homeland. They barely escaped with their lives...

13:37 / 12.07.02

So Ryu Murakami's worth checking out? Is 'almost transparent blue' the one to read then?

That Haruki Murakami aum/sarin gas attack book is called 'Underground'. I've read some of it, but, having to take the subway to and from work everyday, I'm worried it's going to freak me out too much.

Thanks for all the good recommendations.

13:41 / 12.07.02

Who wrote "Kappa"?

It's a great book - might be Abe.

Shit, there was another one, too - Japanese Mark Twain, wrote about a boys' school, I can picture the cover... shit.

Google, help me!

Hmm. useful page of japanese literary giants here.

Akutagawa is aces.

Shusaku Endo seems interesting, but I don't think I've read him.

AHA!
Botchan by Natsume Soseki. It's really quite funny, and available at Amazon.

(I had a Japanese Novel class back when, but my head gets leaky after a decade or so.)

13:44 / 12.07.02

Yeah, Almost Transparent Blue is more worth reading than 69, IMHO.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

17:14 / 12.07.02

I'd say Mishima too. Of the Sea of Fertility, Runaway Horses. Now that rocks. 'kay, so you probably won't (I'd hope) agree with the guy's principles, but his dedication to them... now that's something else. Also a strange foreshadowing of Mishima's own fate.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

17:15 / 12.07.02

And Forbidden Colours. Now THERE's a fucking book.

11:32 / 22.07.02

I'm reading The Temple of the Golden Pavillion at the moment, beautiful descriptions and its cool to the see the character become more and more freaky.

23:34 / 27.07.02

and also off topic i know but thank fuck for the continuation of barbelith. where else could i find info like this(o.k i could just search google but you know what i mean)

Tryphena Absent

00:05 / 28.07.02

I love Banana Yoshimoto, really beautiful stories about death, I prefer Asleep, which is a collection of shorts, above anything else that's been translated but probably her most famous work (and also very good) is Kitchen.

Someone mentioned Murasaki which reminds me of Liza Dalby who wrote a book called The Tale of Murasaki. It's based around the life of the woman who wrote about Shining Prince Genji, it's a nice book if a bit slow at times but the author has close links to Japanese literature and it shows. There's a wonderful understanding of the Japanese written language (the one that isn't phonetic) is also portrayed in the book and you often don't get that from actual Japanese literature because it's just taken for granted.

If I was going to go for one book though it would probably be Murakami's Sputnik Sweetheart.

12:46 / 28.07.02

I don't think anyone's mentioned Yasunari Kawabata who won the Nobel Prize for Literature for Snow Country and A Thousand Cranes (sometime in the 1950s, I think). Also a literary critic, he apparently 'discovered' Mishima and fostered his work.

Maominstoat; re Forbidden Colours - is that the one about the ageing and manipulative novelist who tries to take revenge on women by bribing his homosexual protege to marry?

15:44 / 28.07.02

I don't think anyone's mentioned Yasunari Kawabata who won the Nobel Prize for Literature for Snow Country and A Thousand Cranes

Yes, Kawabata's The Master of Go is wonderful, especially if you play the game at all...

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

16:55 / 28.07.02

yes, cavatina- that is the one. Now I'm not saying Mishima wasn't horribly bitter, I'm not even saying he was a nice bloke. He was just a bloody good writer.

"Forbidden Colours" is a great book, though. Again, as I said about "Runaway Horses"... you don't have to agree with 'em.