Mandarins: Stories

by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Charles De Wolf (Translator)

Ryunosuke Akutagawa blends a sense of sad inevitability with subtle irony. Reflective and often humorous, these tales reveal an enormous amount about Japanese culture, while the inner struggles of the characters always strike the universal.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Japan, Japanese Literature, Classics, Literature, Literary Fiction

255 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 2007

About the author

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (芥川 龍之介) 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 Kyōbashi district Tokyo as the eldest son of a dairy operator named Shinbara Toshizō and his wife Fuku. He was named "Ryūnosuke" ("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 Yūzō, 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 Shinshichō (New Currents of Thought), publishing translations of William Butler Yeats and Anatole France along with original works of their own. Akutagawa published the story Rashōmon 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 Sōseki, and thereafter considered himself Sōseki's disciple.

The lapsed Shinshichō was revived yet again in 1916, and Sōseki 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), ōchō-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-shō (Gleanings from a Withered Field, 1918); the ōchō-mono are perhaps best represented by Jigoku hen (Hell Screen, 1918); the Kirishitan-mono include Hokōnin no shi (The Death of a Christian, 1918), and kaika-mono include Butōkai(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 Daidōji Shinsuke no hansei(The Early Life of

Reviews

[Eddie Watkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

She was the prettiest girl in my high school. I say “prettiest” and not “most beautiful” intentionally, for being so small and delicate, so willowy, “beautiful” was not appropriate. Beautiful implies a rounded womanliness entirely absent from her miniature perfection. She was the prettiest girl in my high school, just one year older than me, and now she is dead.

Three years ago while talking to an old friend I mentioned Arlene. Twenty years after graduation she still shone in my mind as a perfect specimen; this idealizing bolstered by the fact that not once had I ever spoken to her. Even as I was mentioning her name I was transported back to a classroom in my Freshman year…

Arlene sat directly behind me. I was the studious one, trying hard to pay attention while distracted by the impinging aura behind me, while she always lounged in her seat totally disinterested. I didn’t dare even turn around to look at her, but even without seeing her I was consumed by her presence. Then one day I felt something touch the side of my thigh. I looked down and it was Arlene’s bare foot, freed from its sandal, very lightly rubbing against me. Surely it was accidental! I froze, unable to comprehend what was happening.

Let me add that on the second toe of this very foot was a tiny mole. This mole was a consuming obsession of mine. Instead of being a flaw in her perfection, it somehow represented a point of entry, a humble sign of earthiness that stoked my fantasies that somehow I had a chance with her.

But I couldn’t move as she touched me. I couldn’t understand. She was too much for me. She was untouchable even as she was touching me. That was the last contact I ever had with her.

After I mentioned Arlene my friend said that he had recently run into her. “She looked like a used up hag,” he said. “Used up and thrown to the curb. An alcoholic waste.” This threw me into a romantic turmoil; my mind swarming with horrible scenarios of her demise. I imagined her as a destitute barfly offering whatever faded youthful charms she might possess for another bottle, another descent into oblivion. And I thought of the mole on her second toe, how surely it was still there, unchanged, while the rest of her metamorphosed rapidly through various stages of degradation as she gave herself to degenerates in alleyways, still disinterested as her body was used. I thought of how if I had seized the opportunity in class that day, if I had entered the portal of that mole, that symbol of accessibility, I could’ve helped to steer her life away from becoming an alcoholic waste.

For the next three years these horrible images of her frequently recurred in my mind. I still thought of her, still thought of how I could’ve helped her to be happy, for surely she must be miserable to have let herself become so used up, so ugly.

Last week I was talking to this friend again, and again I mentioned Arlene. “She’s dead, man, literally drank herself to death.” I was shaken. I was devastated. And again I thought of that mole on her second toe, connected to her body as it lay wherever she died, as it lay in the morgue, as it lay in the coffin, as it lay underground. That mole that can still carry me back to innocent days of endless desires when we were all thirteen and full of possibilities, possibilities now rotting and rotten, consumed by corruption and the insatiable earth.

Such were the thoughts that occurred to me while reading Akutagawa’s Mandarins.

[RKanimalkingdom · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.75

THERE ARE SPOILERS FOR THE STORIES!

Mandarins 5/5

A very simple yet short story of class divide, but more importantly, on people's attitudes. The story is entirely from one man's point of view. His tiredness with the repetition of life. His annoyance at the young girl in front of him who is clearly of a lower class. As the train starts to move, so does his irritation with the girl to the point where he opens his newspaper in order to put a distance between his second-class status and her third class. The girl never notices, to preoccupied and his gloominess never subsides. Until, that is, she performs a small action. The smallest of actions that opens up his heart and mind and makes him realize something. You can have the simplest "Low class" life from another person's perspective. But if you are happy, if you are content, then it doesn't matter what others think. The entrance of light to the narrator’s heart is immediately juxtaposed with the appearance of the third-class ticket that the girl holds desperately onto. It shows that the girl never transformed or changed, she is still the same irritation that dared to enter this second-class passenger's life. But she has a heart of higher class then our narrator.

At the Seashore 2/5

I’m not quite sure what the point of this story was. It was just a bunch of recent graduates who were in the situation of looking for jobs and having a bit of fun. I guess the story was trying to show the maturity the boys would have to face now that they've left their uni days behind them. They were constantly faced with situations that they would have reacted to differently had they been younger: going to the beach, meeting women, supernatural stories, etc. I might just be a growing up story but I wouldn’t be surprised if I completely missed the plot.

An Evening Conversation 4/5

This was an interesting tale of a group of friends discussing the relationship of another friend (Wakatsuki) and a woman named Koen. Wakatsuki is a debonair. He has a taste for the arts, music, literature, and discussions. He takes in Koen in order to each her of the arts. Eventually their alliance is broken due to Koen falling in love with someone. The main purpose was to show the difference between mindsets and that if you have a certain attitude, no amount of education can change your base morals. It’s a concept that’s debatable but it’s not pointing the blame at Koen. In fact, there is no finger of blame because it’s just a matter of perception and our narrator ends the story in a very neutral tone by saying that life is a merry-go-round and that happiness will be the thing that whooshes past catching your eye. If you choose to jump is yours to make but for those who made the jump, they should be commended for taking the risk regardless of how they ended, no?

The Handkerchief 1/5

I did not get this story at all. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the type to suddenly make sense when I’m 50.

An Enlightened Husband 4/5

Akutagawa’s talent as a storyteller shines here. A really simple tale of a man who decides to get married but to a more “modern” woman. I don’t think there is much to gain from this story. There is one interpretation you can take but, let’s allow equality to smoosh that theory to the ground. I don’t think that was the author’s intention due to the fact that it would clash with what he writes. Yet, it is nonetheless a story that keeps you hooked.

Autumn 5/5

Tchaikovsky playing in the background…

I loved this story. Again, Akutagawa’s abilities as a storyteller shine through. We follow a young woman who is gifted in writing. Events in her life go badly and she submits to her fate instead of taking a stand. It ends up eating her heart as she loses the desire to write (no thanks to her husband) and in the process, the one person who understood her. The open-ended question left at the end along with the cynical emotion that enters this woman’s heart is the perfect synch to this story. I took it as a lesson to be careful of how much you sacrifice for others. Helping others is good but sometimes, when you don’t stand up for what you want, you end up hurting yourself and others. The decision that the woman took ended up ruining her happiness and passion. And it ended up ruining the happiness of whom she scarified everything for.

Winter 3/5

This story was very trippy. VERY trippy. I ended up reading it twice to see if there were clues or hints or just a better understanding that I could gather, but there was not. It was a story that I liked but also disliked. Strange to say but hear me out. The mysteriousness of the plot and the events going on kept me hooked, yet, the inconclusive ending made me wonder what the point of the story was. It’s definitely the type to bring you back to over and over again.

Fortune 2/5

This story was okay, but to be honest, I don’t remember much from it. There were others that outshone it.

Kesa and Morito 3/5

This is a rewriting of an old Japanese tale. It follows the story of a man (Morito) and woman (Kesa) and their plan to kill Kesa’s husband. But is it out of true love? In the story you find out that Kesa does not love Moritio in the slightest. So, then what compels her to kill her husband whom she is fond of? It’s a much darker tale and a good story of psychology. What compels humans to act the way that they do? It’s not so straightforward in this tale. Lovers that hate each other and hurt the one they love. A really good tale for discussion and told all through soliloquy which adds to the chaos and confusion. A jury would have a field day with this case.

The Death of a Disciple 5/5

Another great story. I’ve reread this story over and over again and each time I think deeply of the last quote Akutagawa leaves with us,

“That which is most precious in a human life is indeed found in such an irreplaceable moment of ecstasy. To hurl a single wave into a void of depravity, as dark as a nocturnal sea, and capture in the foam the light of a not-yet-risen moon . . . It is such a life that is worth living.”

The story is about a man named Lorenzo who was found as a child, desolate, at the footsteps of the church in Japan. Nobody knew where he came from and Lorenzo himself said nothing to his past. He grew up pious and kind and spent his time at the church or with his friend, Simeon. But soon a rumour started. A rumor of Lorenzo impregnating the daughter of an umbrella maker. He’s immediately casted out of the community and brought down to the state of a beggar. His life becomes one of extreme hardship and not one person gives a hoot. Then one day, there is a fire and Lorenzo risks his life to save the baby of the woman he supposedly impregnated. He comes out burnt, barely clinging to life and in his last moments of life the girl confesses the truth of the baby’s father. To add to the shock, Lorenzo’s secret gets revealed. That he is a she. Here the story ends on the note that Lorenzo was smiling happily followed by Akutagawa’s quote.

I’ll be honest, this story stumped me. Throughout the novel, Lorenzo’s faith was the only thing he valued. We never learn why, just that it is. So dedicated he is to his faith that not even the turbulent life he lived as a beggar and outcast affected him. Never did he bear any grudge to any one person. Even when accused, he doesn’t defend himself by calling the girl a liar. If the village is to represent the void of depravity, then Lorenzo was the single wave. I hardly think Akutagawa is advocating for us to all become pious in our respected religions, but rather to stick to your beliefs, your morals, no matter what opposition you might face. It’s your morals that will determine your happiness. Even if everyone else shuns you, as long as you are doing what makes you happy, then it can equate as being a martyr.

O’er a Withered Moor 2/5

I didn’t fully understand this story. It details the period where a master poet is dying and his pupils wait by his side till he passes. The story shows what different pupils are doing, thinking and occasionally has flashbacks of the master’s last poem. I didn’t quite get the point or who everyone was but I did love the commentary on human nature. Such snark!

The Garden 5/5

I seem to be drawn to the stories that I don’t get because voila, I failed to fully comprehend this one too.
A story of a family (surname: Nakamura) who owned an inn that had a large garden which supposedly contains a ruinous fate. The story goes on to describe the family and the subsequent generations that past. The children born and the lives they end up living. There was a second son who ran away only to return years later ill. The story focuses on him and on his nephew and their attempts to rebuild the garden. To bring it to it’s fully vitality. But, whether it’s his illness or the curse of the garden is unknown, the second eldest starts to not understand what he’s doing. He starts to redo parts or completely destroy it and garden’s beauty diminishes. Then one day he collapses and passes away with a smile on his face. Years pass and the family disappears from history. People don’t remember of their inn or that there was a family that existed. Yet, there exists a poor painter who still sees his uncle’s smiling face helping him in the same way when he helped his uncle.

This is not a “do kind to others and other will do kind to you” type of story. Nobody gets a so called “good” ending. But is it so bad? The nephew might have lost the one person he cared for, his family, his family’s inn, garden, land, and lives his days in poverty. But he’s content. Or, is he now suffering from the garden’s curse and thus, seeing his uncle where he is not?

The Life of a Fool 5/5

I have previously reviewed this story.

The Villa of the Black Crane 5/5

Could this be Akutagawa’s attempt at writing a soap opera?
All jokes aside, I really think this is a good story. It could be turned into a movie. It really shows how family can support and rip each other to shreds. How, what looks to be perfect from the outside is in reality, a burden. It also shows class divide and how that impacts the behaviour of both men, women, and children. It’s funny how a dead man will receive more respect, care, luxury then his mistress.

I think it was Akutagawa’s attempt to call out those who regard themselves in high positions but have skeletons in their closet, don’t treat others with respect, nor try to resolve issues and instead ignore and/or allow them to fester.

Cogwheels 5/5

I collection of events that occurred during Akutagawa’s life. This period revolves around the tension between him and his brother-in-law, his brother-in-law’s suicide, the suspicion of arson put on his brother-in-law, his affair, insomnia, his love of literature and its affect on his life, and his depression and longing for eternal slumber. A lot of topics but each one covered to briefly and with much left to ambiguity that it frustrates the reader to no end. But such was Akutagawa’s style. He resented talking about himself, which, truth be told is completely understandable. I too would have no desire to convey my life story to people. The perception you have on life is something entirely your own and no one but you can fully understand it. I’ll never fully understand what plagued Akutagawa, yet I’m glad he managed to write these autobiographical stories no matter how short. They, in a bleak and cynical manner, managed to comfort me. It’s weird I guess, but in its own way it manages to make one feel less alone.

[Smiley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reluctant to buy this fifteen-story paperback to read due to its title and an unfamiliar translator, I later found it was my misunderstanding since the title taken from its first story simply deals with a kind of orange, not a senior person (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/mandar...). As for Charles De Wolf, I found his translated stories impressive and worth spending my time to enjoy and appreciate Ryunosuke Akutagawa more by his fine translation; this book deserves wider readership and recommendation to those keen on reading more works translated into English by one of the early world-famous Japanese writers. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ry%C5%A...)

Last night (2019.12.9) before I fell asleep, probably intuitively, I thought there was something unique and remarkable in terms of his writing, that is, his captivating narratives from which his readers couldn't help being enticed to plunge into the world of reading with enjoyment, admiration and respect; therefore, he has rightly deserved his literary stature as the Father of the Japanese short story as acclaimed in the above Wikipedia webpage. As for his fifteen stories in this book, suffice it to say that all are arguably exceptional but I would say something about "O'er a Withered Moor" (pp. 127-38) in which I liked due to at least two reasons, that is, (1) it depicts a scene of the great Japanese poet Matsuo Basho (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matsuo_...) passing among his disciples, and (2) it tentatively suggests a seemingly similar scene of the great Socrates (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socrates) as depicted by Plato.

The following extract preceding the three ending paragraphs is meant to be a narrative example:

Behind Kyorai sat Joso, the faithful student of Zen, his head bowed in silence; even his boundless sorrow deepened with each sign of weakening in Basho's breathing, his heart was gently filled by a boundless sense of peace. His sorrow required no explanation, but this feeling of serenity was strangely like the feeling of cheer that comes when the cold light of dawn slowly penetrates the shadows of night. Moment by moment it was purging his mind of idle thoughts, so that in the end his sadness was one purified of all tears and heartache. (p. 138)

To continue . . .

[Carlos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Las quince historias de la antología de historias de Ryūnosuke Akutagawa titulada Mandarins (por la fruta), de Archipielao Books han sido seleccionadas, traducidas al inglés y comentadas por Charles de Wolf, un estadounidense que ha vivido casi toda su vida en Japón.

De esta antología he leído de momento tres historias: 1. "Mandarins" (1919); 2. "Kesa and Moritō" (1918); y 3. "The Life of a Fool" (1927). Con ellas completo un primer ciclo de lecturas de este autor que ha incluido otras seis historias de Akutagawa traducidas al español por el fallecido argentino-japonés Kazuya Sakai: 1. "Sennin"; 2. "Rashômon" (1915); 3. "En el bosque" (1921); 4. "El biombo del infierno" (1918); 5. "La nariz" (1916); y 6. "Kesa y Moritô".
•
"Mandarin", el relato que abre y le da nombre a la antología de Archipiélago, es muy breve, apenas una escena en un tren, con solo dos protagonistas. Esta narrada por uno de ellos. De manera muy chejoviana, hacia el final del corto relato el lector es testigo de cómo al quisquilloso y algo hastiado narrador-protagonista se le revela hacia el final de la historia un sentimiento de comprensión hacia el otro, con el que idealmente empatizará el lector.
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Pero de todas las historias leídas hasta ahora, tanto en la antología de De Wood como en la de Kazuya Sakai, las joyas de la corona son "El biombo del infierno" y “Kesa and Moritō”. Hablaré primero de esta última, que se encuentra en ambas antologías y, por tanto, he podido leer tanto en inglés como en español.

“Kesa and Moritō” (1918) es un drama cuasi shakespiriano que se desarrolla en nueve densas páginas. Como otros relatos de Akutagawa, se basa en una historia tradicional del período Heian (siglos VIII al XII), que fue la edad dorada de la cultura japonesa. Pero Akutagawa, al igual que hizo Shakespeare con Macbeth, introduce elementos psicológicos “modernos”. Además dota al relato de una potente estructura basada en sendos monólogos de los amantes accidentales Moritō y Kesa. Si bien el trágico destino de estos puede recordar al de Romeo y Julieta, aquí el amor adquiere tintes oscuros y equívocos y es objeto de indagación introspectiva por parte de los amantes. Una maravilla.
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“El biombo del infierno” (1918) (solo en la antología de Kazuya Sakai en español), por su parte, es la más larga de las historias leídas hasta ahora. También basada en un antiguo relato japonés, es una tragedia que gira en torno a un artista faústico al servicio de un emperador de moral ambigua. Está narrado por una sirvienta del palacio y, por tanto, el lector tiene que saber leer entre líneas que lo que se supone que no ocurre, en realidad ocurrió. En esta historia se pueden apreciar las influencias europeas en Akutagawa a través de veladas referencias plásticas a la Divina Comedia y a los cuadros de El Bosco. Un relato que revivió en este lector las escalofriantes sensaciones de “La colonia penitenciaria” de Kafka.

También de la antología en español de Sakai son dos famosos relatos cortos: "Rashōmon" (1915) y "En el bosque" (1921), en los que el cineasta Akira Kurosawa basó su película Rashōmon (1950). "En el bosque" (1921), el más complejo de los dos, tiene coincidencias temáticas con el ya comentado “Kesa and Moritō” (1918), que le antecedió.

Por último, no puedo dejar de mencionar el breve relato “Sennin”, una obra maestra del género fantástico que abre la famosa “Antología de la literatura fantástica” de Jorge Luis Borges y Adolfo Bioy Casares en la segunda edición de 1940.

Como valoración global, en mi opinión las historias cortas de Ryūnosuke Akutagawa colocan a este autor a la par de grandes maestros de este género como Antón Chéjov y Franz Kafka.

Nota: a medida que continue leyendo historias de la antología titulada Mandarins, los iré incorporando a este post.

[Rise · Rating 4 out of 5]

1

"The Death of a Disciple" (1918), in Mandarins, stories by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, translated by Charles De Wolf (Archipelago, 2007)

***SPOILERS***

Two epigraphs prefaced Akutagawa Ryūnosuke's story "The Death of a Disciple", elsewhere translated as "The Martyr" and "A Christian Death". The first comes from Guia do Peccador (Guide for the Sinner) which, according to the footnote of translator Charles De Wolf, was published in Japanese translation in 1599, during the Keichō era (1596-1615).

Even if one where to live for three hundred years and be surfeited with pleasure, it would, in comparison to the joys of the eternity that awaits us, be naught but a passing dream.

The second is from Imitatio Christi by Thomas à Kempis, with translation also from the Keichō era.

Those who follow the path of virtue will know the wondrous taste of holy doctrine.

The quotations point to a rather religious flavor of the narrative, which is a historical account of what transpired in a church community of Ecclesia de Santa Lucia in Nagasaki near the end of the sixteenth century. It tells the story of a young boy called Lorenzo who was found at the entrance of a church one Christmas night, apparently "overcome by hunger and exhaustion." The padre took pity on him and decided to allow him to stay in the church where his devotion to God was made obvious to all by his gentle demeanor. The religious worshipers became quite fond of him.

His features were of a jewel-like purity, and his voice was as gentle as a maiden's. This too no doubt added to the love that he drew.

A Japanese monk named Simeon, a tall and strong guy, grew very fond of Lorenzo. He treated the boy like a younger brother such that their friendship "might have been likened to a dove enfolded in the wings of a fierce eagle or to a blooming vine entwined round a cedar on the slopes of Lebanon."

More than three years passed. Rumors suddenly circulated about Lorenzo's intimacy with the beautiful daughter of a Christian umbrella-maker. The lady was seen to reserve special attention to the sacristan Lorenzo during masses. This bothered the padre and he consulted the young lad. Lorenzo tearfully denied the rumor. Simeon also confronted Lorenzo about the matter, especially when he found a love letter addressed to Lorezo from the girl. Once again, the boy denied that they were an item.

The girl soon became pregnant and confessed to her father that Lorenzo was the man responsible. The enraged father immediately brought the matter to the padre. Lorenzo was tongue-tied at this accusation. A council was called and the religious order decided to expel Lorenzo from the church for the dishonor he brought to the congregation .

Simeon was shocked by these developments. He was sad at Lorenzo's banishment but his anger at the betrayal was so great. As the boy was heading out of the church doors, Simeon punched the beautiful face. Fallen and tearful, Lorenzo rose and looked up at heaven and prayed: "Lord, forgive him, for he knows not what he does". And then he left.

Lorenzo became a pitiful beggar, shunned by the gentiles and taunted by people when he ventured into town. For all the hardships, for all the sickness that befell him, he remained true to faith and piously prayed to God as ever.

The umbrella-maker's daughter finally gave birth to a baby girl. Simeon couldn't help but visit the baby, "calling whenever he found the time, holding the child in his uncouth arms and allowing a flow of tears to cover his embittered face, as he remembered the delicate and graceful figure of the lad he had once regarded as a brother."

Another year passed. A massive fire suddenly consumed half the city of Nagasaki in one night. The family of the umbrella-maker evacuated, but they left the baby child inside the burning house! No one could rescue her. Even Simeon who tried to enter the house was put out by the flames.

Suddenly, Lorenzo was in the scene of the fire. He courageously plunged into the conflagration. Simeon prayed for him. "In his minds eye, he could see once again the beautiful, mournful Lorenzo, standing at the portals of Santa Lucia, bathed in the light of the sun."

People were aghast at what Lorenzo did. But then they started to cluck their tongues, thinking how the father's instinct to save his own blood prevailed and led him to do the unthinkable.

Lorenzo emerged from the hellish fire, clutching the infant. But a burned house post suddenly tipped over in his direction and he was engulfed by it!

Everyone was stupefied. The baby's mother screamed, but suddenly the people saw that she was holding the baby in her arms, a miraculous sight! It turned out that Lorenzo was able to throw the child as far as he can before the burning beam fell on him.

The girl and her father, the umbrella-maker, could not contain their joy and praised God. Simeon, on the other hand, entered the flames to pull out Lorenzo. All the people gathered fervently prayed for their safety. At last, "Lorenzo, horribly burned, now emerged again from the fire and smoke in the protective arms of Simeon." The Christian people carried Lorenzo to the safe doorsteps of the church. When the priest arrived at the door, the girl with her rescued infant knelt and confessed to him that the child was not begotten by Lorenzo but by the son of the neighboring gentiles! The people there was stunned. She continued:

"I pined and yearned for Lorenzo, but so fervent was he in his faith that he quite rebuffed me. I sought to tell him of the resentment that filled my heart by falsely claiming that the child in my womb was his. Yet such was his nobility of spirit that rather than despising me for my great sin, he has this night put out his own life in peril by entering the flames of this veritable Inferno to save my daughter. His merciful and benevolent deed would seem to me to be truly like the return of our Lord Jesu Cristo. But knowing the grave and terrible wrongs I have committed, I could have no reason for grudge if my body were now instantly torn to pieces by o Diabo himself."

The people around began to admire Lorenzo's conviction and shouted: "Mártir! Mártir!" Meanwhile, Simeon and the umbrella-maker came to his aid, but the martyr was himself on the brink of death.

The priest blessed him and praised him. But wait! The priest had gone mute and was transfixed as he stared at Lorenzo. His hands atremble and his eyes flooded by tears.

Behold! Simeon! And you, old maker of umbrellas! As the exquisitely beautiful boy lay silently before the portals of Santa Lucia, illuminated by the reflection of the flames, redder still than the blood of our Lord, the holes in his burned upper garment revealed two pure, pearl-like breasts. Even in his fire-seared face, there was an unmistakable and now undisguised tenderness and sweetness. Ah! Lorenzo was a woman, a woman!

Everyone was aghast. Everyone around suddenly knelt down and bowed before Lorenzo.

***

In a typical Borgesian move—although to call it such would be erroneous as Akutagawa predated Borges; Cervantean would be more apt, very apt—the second part of the story tells of an intertextual background to the story. The author mentioned that among his books is a two-volume edition of Legenda Aurea, a record of "the words and deeds of Occidental apostles and saints [and] valiant and dedicated Japanese Christians, apparently intended to further the cause of evangelization." The writer then described the book's physical attributes and its textual apparatus and style: type of paper, text font, letter appearance, texts and images in the front leaf, number of pages, number of "golden legends" in each volume, etc.

The style of the prefaces is hardly polished, and intermittently the reader even encounters expressions that suggest literal translation from a European language. Even a cursory examination raises the suspicion that they were indeed written by an Occidental priest.

This story is an adaptation of Chapter Two in the second volume. In all probability, it is the faithful rendition of events that took place at a church in Nagasaki....

The exigencies of publication have obliged me to embellish the text here and there. I trust that in so doing I have not marred the simple elegance of the original.

2

Mandarins was a substantial story collection by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (1892-1927), the Japanese grandmaster of short fiction. It showed that his sublime style did not end with "Rashōmon" and "In a Grove", the pair of signature stories that formed the basis of Kurosawa Akira's acclaimed film. Even with the absence of these two famous stories, the fifteen stories comprising this collection had elegantly defined what 'rashomonesque' was all about.

The selection and translation by Charles De Wolf were beautifully accomplished. They revealed Akutagawa's preoccupations with themes centering on adultery, Christian legends, the decay of a generation, and suicide.

My favorite stories included "O'er a Withered Moor", about the impending death of the haiku poet Bashō, and the title story "Mandarins", which turned out to be referring not to Chinese personages at all. In "O'er a Withered Moor", the dying poet was surrounded by his disciples, each of whom was contemplating mortality and expressing his own grief in different ways. Each poet had a unique personality and temperament that colored his perception of this momentous event. Their various feelings almost mirrored the conflicting testimonies given by several witnesses to a crime in "In a Grove". The difference with this story was the way in which an omniscient narrator tended to interrupt the narrative to give his own subjective commentary and appraisal of what is happening. This narrator even had something to say about Bashō's farewell haiku containing the story's title: "Ill on a journey, / Wandering in fevered dreams / O'er a withered moor."

   None of this had the remotest bearing on the imminent death of his master, whose fate was now faithfully fulfilling what he had so often predicted in his verses, for truly he was now being left as a bleached corpse in a vast and desolate moor of humanity. His own disciples were not lamenting the death of their master but rather their own loss at his passing. They were not bewailing the piteous demise of their guide in the wilderness but rather their own abandonment here in the twilight.
   Yet as we humans are by nature coldhearted, of what use is it to offer moral reprobation? Lost in such world-weary thoughts, even as he exalted in his capacity to indulge in them, Shiko wetted the lips of his master and returned the plumed stick to the water bowl....

The title story was equally beguiling for its simplicity and compression. In a few pages the writer crafted the personal sensibility of an irritable and snobbish middle class train passenger.

   It was a scene that eerily matched my own mood. Like the looming snow clouds, an unspeakable fatigue and ennui lay heavily upon my mind. I sat with my hands deep in the pockets of my overcoat, too weary even to pull out the evening newspaper.

Akutagawa efficiently supplied images and sensations that supported the attitudes of this narrator, telling his story in brief snapshots:

The train in the tunnel, this country girl, this newspaper laden with trivia – if they were not the symbols of this unfathomable, ignoble, and tedious life of ours, what were they?

And then the writer supplied a final sequence of images that led the passenger to a convincing epiphany that overturned his first impressions, and that allowed him to recognize how biases and prejudices could distort our worlds and that it is only through appreciation of kindness and love that we could live in peace.

   Everything I had seen beyond the window – the railway crossing bathed in evening light, the chirping voices of the children, and the dazzling color of the oranges raining down on them – had passed in the twinkling of an eye. Yet the scene had been vividly and poignantly burned in my mind, and from this, welling up within me, came a strangely bright and buoyant feeling.
   ... A now for the first time I was able to forget, at least for a moment, my unspeakable fatigue, my ennui, and, with that, this unfathomable, ignoble, and tedious life.

The concentration of trenchant images in this collection allowed for the characters to inhabit shifting states of feeling: from anxiety to serenity, from lust to resignation, from paranoia to ferocity. The latter feeling, that of fierceness or ferocity, of vulgarity and passion, may fully describe the elevated state of 'having deeply lived and loved' – in contrast to a life of pure intellect and culture – that must be at the core of Akutagawa's artistic vision.

They understand Bashō; they understand Tostoy. They understand Ike no Taiga and Mushanokōji Saneatsu. They understand Karl Marx. Yet what is the result? Of fierce love, the joy of fierce creativity, or fierce moral passion they are ignorant. All in all, they know nothing of the sheer intensity of spirit that can render this world sublime. And if they are marked by a mortal wound, they surely also contain a pernicious poison. One of its properties is direct, enabling it to transform ordinary human beings into sophisticates; another works by way of reaction, making them all the more common. ("An Evening Conversation")

More than the notions of moral subjectivity and relativism, that strong feeling perhaps came close to what was 'novel' in Akutagawa, to what was rashomonesque – the enunciation of what is human, what is intense, and what is poetic.

The multiplicity of literary influences of Akutagawa was evident in this collection. It was as if his ink well was a melting pot of Eastern and Western letters. In "The Life of a Fool", several European names were dropped (Maupassant, Baudelaire, Strindberg, Ibsen, Shaw, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky, Flaubert). The fragmentary nature of this story, consisting of 51 numbered short passages, could even remind one of a streamlined The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. Published posthumously (like Pessoa's Disquiet), "The Life of a Fool" documented a writer's dissembling. It had explicit references to suicide and thus was considered autobiographical. It also contained a reference to Tanizaki Jun'ichiro, an acquaintance of the writer, and Akutagawa's mentor Natsume Sensei (Sōseki). In fact, several stories in Mandarins seemed to be haunted by the spiritual presence of Sōseki.

Mandarins contained well-researched and must-read translator's notes, glossary, and afterword. De Wolf's idiomatic translation, word choice, and diction seemed to have captured well Akutagawa's poetry. He seemed to have an intuition for words such that the Japanese writer came across as an English prose stylist.

   Even in those days, the view of the water in the evening may not have been worthy of comparison with the elegance of the more distant past, but something of the beauty that one sees in old woodblock prints remained. When on that evening too we rowed downstream past Manpachi and entered the Great River, we could see the parapet of Ryōgoku Bridge, arching above the waves that flickered in the faint mid-autumn twilight and against the sky, as though an immense black Chinese ink stroke had been brushed across it. The silhouettes of the traffic, horses and carriages soon faded into the vaporous mist, and now all that could be seen were the dots of reddish light from the passengers' lanterns, rapidly passing to and fro in the darkness like small winter cherries. ("An Enlightened Husband")

[Leah · Rating 3 out of 5]

beautiful, vivid stories! aptly described by the front jacket: "Akutagawa writes with a trenchant psychological precision that exposes the shifting traditions and ironies of early twentieth-century Japan and revela his own strained connection to it. These stories are moving glimpses into a cast of characters at odds with the society around them, singular portraits that soar effortlessly toward the universal." AND the book itself is just as beautiful to hold as to read and remember.

[Powells.com · Rating 5 out of 5]

This newly translated collection of Akutagawa short stories is long overdue. Continuing the themes set forth in his collection Rashomon, the stories may be set in Japan, but the characters and their inner struggles are universal. Akutagawa's gift is the exploration of human behavior. He does it with such gorgeous grace, it almost hurts.
Recommended by Shawn, Powells.com

[Kilburn Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mandarins, a meticulously crafted collection by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, stands as a compelling testament to his mastery over narrative form and character depth. Every story within this anthology is a profound dive into the myriad shades of human emotions, societal metamorphoses, and the intricate tapestries of individual identities that collectively shape the human experience.

Akutagawa's stories range from touching portrayals of sheer generosity, the delicate yet complex threads of familial bonds, and the often-fragile nature of human psyche, to deeper, more introspective explorations of faith and its many challenges, the tumultuous world of artistic creation, and the dynamic shifts in societal structures and beliefs. Each tale, distinct and resonant in its own right, is a clear reflection of Akutagawa's deep and nuanced understanding of the human condition.

What's truly exceptional about this collection is its cohesiveness. Despite the thematic diversity of the individual stories, there's a harmonious convergence, creating a vivid and multi-dimensional panorama of life's vast canvas. Akutagawa's brilliance extends beyond his skilful and evocative prose. He possesses a rare ability to embed profound truths and insights in the spaces between his words, making every narrative layer dense with meaning and reflection.

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have heard it said that this is all that is known about her life. But what of it? That which is most precious in a human life is indeed found in such an irreplaceable moment of ecstasy. To hurl a single wave into a void of depravity, as dark as a nocturnal sea, and capture in the foam the light of a not-yet-risen moon . . . It is such a life that is worth living. [125]

[Ad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Akutagawa Ryunosuke (1892-1927) was a masterful short story writer, essayist and haiku poet who died young at age 35, but whose about one hundred stories and novellas have become a hard and fast part of the canon of modern Japanese literature, not in the least thanks to his stylistic perfectionism and keen psychological insight.

This collection translated by Keio University Professor Charles De Wolf mostly selects stories set in modern times, so there is little overlap with the 17 stories translated by Jay Rubin in Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories. The translation is excellent, like the one by Rubin.

Here some of the best stories in this collection:
- "Kesa and Morito" ("Kesa to Morito," 1918). A historical story about the infatuation of a palace guard for a married court lady, told in two monologues, first by the guard, Morito, and then by the lady, Kesa. In the original story in The Rise and Fall of the Genji and Heike (around 1400), Kesa is a paragon of fidelity and she only yields to the violent Morito (in fact her cousin) in order to save her mother, who is threatened by the lovesick man. Next, she asks Morito to kill her husband, as she can not bear the shame of being the wife of two men. This is a ruse, though, for she ties up her hair and lies in the bed of her husband, waiting for the killer. Morito by mistake cuts off the head of his beloved and mad with grief, he finally becomes a Buddhist ascetic. The original story of Kesa was also used by Kinugasa Teinosuke in the 1953 film Gate of Hell (Jigokumon). Akutagawa probes the complex motives of both Morito and Kesa - in his version Kesa commits adultery out of vanity and ambivalent feelings towards Miroto rather than sacrifice for her mother.

- "O'er a Withered Moor" ("Karenosho," 1918). Relates the death of haiku poet Basho, and the selfish thoughts his disciples harbor at his deathbed, although supposedly "lost to boundless grief." A personal meditation that was also influenced by the early death in 1916 at age 49 of Akutagawa's mentor Natsume Soseki. The tile is based on Basho's final haiku, his death poem: Ill on a journey / Wandering in fevered dreams / O'er a withered moor. (See my post about this haiku).

- "Mandarins" ("Mikan," 1919). A jaded young man is shocked into feelings of human warmth when he sees a servant girl (whom he first despised as crude and stupid) throw oranges from the train to her younger brothers. The mikan is a popular citrus fruit, consumed in great quantities in winter.

- "Spinning Gears" ("Haguruma," 1927; the title has also been rendered as "Cogwheels"). The strongest of the autobiographical tales Akutagawa wrote in the years before his death - the reader almost feels he is pulled down the same dark hole as Akutagawa himself. The narrator is a novelist staying in a hotel in Tokyo to write stories. He takes long walks around the city, suffering from insomnia, and gradually loses his grip on reality. A whole life boils down to a few days of intense suffering, and finally inexhaustible paranoia.

[Ingenue · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's taken me three years to read these stories, and if I have to slog through one more Japanese man moaning about existential futility, I'd really just rather read another Fumiko Enchi novel.

[Gio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa and his amazing stories.

It is my personal view, about the greatness of Akutagawa.

I'm hopeful that my expressions always will be the main road to becoming readers or start reading and open the biggest and the most important gates of literature and the world named: Freedom.

Akutagawa, ( if you aren't main, I want to notice him as Akutagawa, because of his name. It is so hard to write:DD ) is one of the deep thinkers and probably the out thinker guy. His novels and stories are about people and things about different ways of living. Why do we need to read them? Because after it we will able to get special infoinformation about Japanese people and also restart our main about person's views in our world.

Akutagawa shares to us that life is hard and sometimes biggest unjustified but we should continue our way to stay strong and make others shield and the personal wall. To protect others and defend the truth. The author of these amazing stories ( as I already mentioned ) tells us to be stronger and also get others a chance to build their nests in their personalities.

Finally, ( I'll not good if you bore. So, let's summarize shortly ) we can say and agreed that all of these novels are about greatness, love, fear, justice, filled up, being human, be peeing on, etc. These stories are about everything that you want to learn, remember and use antly.

I wish you all the best dear readers and also tell you that never give up and give others their chance. Because, when you are alive, it means that you have responsibilities for your country friends, family,y, and everyone around you.

That'sprecisey, what all of these stories are about.

Thank you for your attention.

By Giorgi Gigaevi.

[Trevor Arrowood · Rating 4 out of 5]

Grabbed this on a whim at a used bookstore because it was published by Archipleago. I’m so glad that I did. Little did I know I’d be getting a true treasure trove of early 1900 Japanese short stories (many say that this author is the “beginning” of the Japanese short story, too!). The collection has a range of styles and ideas and each story opens up the mind of the author in unique ways.
Some highlights:
-An Evening Conversation
-Fortune
-Kesa and Moritō (this was my favorite)
-The Death of a Disciple
-Cogwheels

[Robinson Fang · Rating 5 out of 5]

Esta reseña va a ser más acerca de la experiencia de lectura en sí, que de este libre en sí. Por lo tanto supongo que va a ser bastante subjetiva (¿y cuál no la es?).

Pedí este libro de afuera. Es la primera vez que me animo. Razones tenía una y con esa me alcanzaba. Busqué específicamente volúmenes de Akutagawa. En muchos el precio me alejó de la compra. La mayoría se llaman: "Rashomon y otras historias". ¡Y yo ya leí Rashomon! ¿Qué ocurre si me pido el libro y también leí todas esas historias?

Pero este no, este se llama Mandarins. Al menos UNO iba a ser nuevo. Solo eso, con solo eso, me convenció. Lo pedí de Alemania. El envío era más caro, pero el libro estaba regalado.
Y qué sorpresa cuando llegó a mi casa. De los quince relatos solo había leído dos.
Todavía no lo termino y ojalá no lo termine nunca porque sería resignarme a vivir la misma situación previa a este libro. Aún así, los pocos que leí hasta ahora ya los releí varias veces.
Y si bien soy incapaz de evitar notar las cosas que no me gustan (como las licencias que se toma el traductor, que son muchas y muy groseras), el libro es excelente (irónicamente, también por la traducción).
Para quien nunca haya leído a Akutagawa, sus relatos, a veces extraños para un occidental como yo, son la ejecución de una mirada contemplativa excepcional. Y esto es decir poco, porque su narración concisa dice mucho más de lo que tan solo dice por escrito. Hay que excavar, no de manera asidua, sino en la ansiedad propia. Muchas veces los cuentos no dicen eso más que queremos que diga, sino algo más bello y bajo, acaso triste, que nos negamos a aceptar.

[Joyce · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is so boring, I thought for the past three weeks, but I had to finish it today because it's due back to the library in like an hour. It wasn't until "The Life of a Fool" that I thought things were finally getting interesting. It wasn't until the end of the book that I realized I'm just too dumb to understand Akutagawa, and that's why I thought he was boring.

There are soooo many references. I will never be an intellectual like Akutagawa, which is why I couldn't understand a majority of the references he made to people, historical events, and books. But assuming you are on his level, you'd probably enjoy and actually understand his writing.

I liked the style "The Life of a Fool" was written in, and from there on, I started seeing the connections between all his stories. They reflected his life, if I'm to believe certain stories were autobiographical. Seeing the links and reappearing characters was exciting! My other favorite story described his growing paranoia; even though it was dark, it read like a thriller. I am sorry to hear how terrified he was of inheriting his mother's mental illness, but amazingly, was fully able to feel that fear he conveyed so well through his writing.

The book also includes a "Notes" section, which was super helpful! It provided background for the stories Akutagawa was basing his short stories on, and did its best to relieve my plight of being too dumb to understand this book. But now that I have a list of books Akutagawa mentions in his stories, I'm going to try to get through those, and then come back to see if I finally understand.

[Tonymess · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Mandarins” contains fifteen stories as well as a detailed notes section, which explains the connection to the traditional Japanese tales as well as giving detail on the text.

The title story is about our protagonist making a train journey and observing a girl “I found her vulgar features quite displeasing and was further repelled by her dirty clothes” , his repulsion slowly growing before she opens a window and tosses “five or six mandarin oranges, radiating the color of the warm sun” to three “red-cheeked boys”. All of a sudden our narrator understands “the meaning of it all”. The notes tell us that the mandarins represent daily life in Tokyo and the tedious travel, the abhorrence at daily existence, but suddenly elation can take over with a simple activity.

For my full review go to http://messybooker.blogspot.com.au/20...

[Zulfa Noor · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was an experience for me because I couldn't finished the book without flipping dictionary back and forth to exactly understand what the author trying to tell. And it wasn't because of the translator, he did a good work. English in literature is different from daily conversation and complex vocabularies are hard to digest by my brain who works in bahasa Indonesia.

It was beautifully sad for me, that kept me thinking how Akutagawa real life was. Favorite story is Mandarins, and I would love to read it again, in bahasa Indonesia perhaps.

[Ciel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Akutagawa's prose motivates me even more to learn its vernacular. Given I am reading a translated (hence limited) version, this writer proves he is a master of storytelling, and I can totally see how he shaped filmmaker Kurosawa Akira in terms of storytelling. The stories give the authenticity of its time (my favorite period, the Meiji Restoration), the transition to 20th century Japan -- which I mind you, a very important and conflicting period at the twilight of the 19th century. You are a monster if you cannot realize Akutagawa's genius (please, please, read Akutagawa).

[Ad_blankestijn · Rating 5 out of 5]

At about the same time that Jay Rubin’s new translation in Penguin appeared, also Mandarins: Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa (Archipelago Books, 2007), translated by Charles de Wolf, was published. This is also an excellent volume and happily among the 15 stories selected, there is only an overlap of a few stories with Rubin. Most of these tales are set in modern times, as the title story "Mandarins."
Highly recommended.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 4 out of 5]

To say Akutagawa writes well is a ridiculous understatement. I was so often taken by his use of language -- and this was through a translator, no less. The themes and styles of these stories vary greatly, but the one that I think will always stick with me is 'Autumn.' It's simply one of the saddest things I've ever read. I must admit, there were 2 or 3 stories I skipped through as they failed to interest me. I suppose now I should get around to reading 'Rashomon' one of these days...

[bitmaid · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ryunosuke Akutagawa's one of the GREATEST writers ever lived. Most people know him for Rashomon but his short stories are actually much more stunning. There is an award named after him but no one who's won it could even touch his mastery. His hellscape is so familiar and mesmerizing and sobering at the same time. Few observe humanity as truly as he did. Reading my favorite pieces is never a pastime but a ritual, an event.

[Aruna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful, ecclectic collection of compelling stories exposing the tensions of existing in a state of flux. Akutagawa's stories are absolutely captivating. Each story is a microcosm of a universal idea. The images are crystal and the melody of his words intriguing. Insightful, Provocative & Brilliant.

[John Stepper · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some fantastic tales, wonderfully translated mixed with works that eluded me. Beyond any one story, though, the book also has value for rounding out my understanding of the author given the inclusion of more autobiographical stories and notes.

A treasure for fans of Japanese fiction.

[Sugar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the immense imagination of the author, and brilliant style, mixture with magical realism and irony. I would recommend these stories.

[Alberto Glez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wow. Bastante raros los cuentos, de no haber sido por que me gustó el último mi calificación hubiera sido menor.

[Megi · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5

[sophia · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Your Average Literary Demon · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF:
I’m sorry guys, I don’t see what ANY of the other reviewers were talking about, and I may need to revisit this.
(Many of these issues may lie on the translator, because while a work can be beautiful, its translation can easily be botched.)
Just in the first few pages of Mandarins alone, Akutagawa’s writing reads VERY juvenile, which was downright devastating for me. I was expecting the polar opposite, and I feel this was the biggest disappointment I’ve ever encountered.
He seems to LOVE stuffing adjectives everywhere in his prose, especially adverbs, to make it more *flowery* and *poetic*, but it’s still plain, and reminds me of the fanfiction I would write when I was 12. There’s also a moment where the narrator EXPLICITLY TELLS THE READER A SCENE’S SUBTEXT. I’m literally not joking.
I may just be sour from wasting 30 minutes of my life trying to download this onto my kindle from internet archives, but his work simply lacks substance compared to his contemporaries, and tries to buff up its writing to compensate…

[Diana Trăncău · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Everything I had seen beyond the window - the railway crossing bathed in evening light, the chirping voices of children, and the dazzling color of the oranges raining down on them - had passed in a twinkling of an eye."

"He was not a particularly beautiful lad; it was rather that he was possessed of a youthful freshness that made one think of a sapling tree."

"I could wish for nothing more than to die for a childish dream in which I truly believed."

"Well, what I can believe in is the devil.
Then why not believe in God? If you believe in shadows, you must necessarily believe in light.
There are shadows without light, are there not?"

[Lotionbottless · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5/5- I wanted to give it a 5/5 solely for the story, Mandarins, because its imagery and diction so simply creates sentiment. I love how Akutagawa was able to capture various human emotions and experiences and implement them in his work- all of his stories are a beautiful blend of melancholy and bittersweet.