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小説集 [Shōsetsushū]
- GenresJapan
414 pages, Paperback
First published February 20, 2009
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About the author
Ichiyō Higuchi
112 books126 followersSee also 樋口 一葉.
Pen name of poet and writer Natsu Higuchi. She studied at the Haginosha school of poetry run by Utako Nakajima and showed talent from early on. After her father’s death in 1889, she began writing novels to make a living, but she also had a sideline business, a general merchandise store, because she could not survive on income from writing alone. In less than a year from the end of 1894, she successively published such masterpieces as Otsugumori (The Last Day of the Year), Take Kurabe (Comparing Heights), Nigorie (Troubled Waters), and Jusanya (13th Night). She died at the young age of 24 from tuberculosis.
Her image currently appears on the Japanese 5000-yen banknote.
Pen name of poet and writer Natsu Higuchi. She studied at the Haginosha school of poetry run by Utako Nakajima and showed talent from early on. After her father’s death in 1889, she began writing novels to make a living, but she also had a sideline business, a general merchandise store, because she could not survive on income from writing alone. In less than a year from the end of 1894, she successively published such masterpieces as Otsugumori (The Last Day of the Year), Take Kurabe (Comparing Heights), Nigorie (Troubled Waters), and Jusanya (13th Night). She died at the young age of 24 from tuberculosis.
Her image currently appears on the Japanese 5000-yen banknote.
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July 25, 2015
It's a collection of the most famous stories by Higuchi Ichiyō. She is, well, she is the young lady on the five-thousand yen bill. Hehe. She died of consumption aged 24 and wrote her best stuff in the last year of her brief life. She was very poor and as a head of the family had to support her mother and younger sister. When the success came, she didn't live long to enjoy it.
So I have been reading this book forever and FINALLY yes! I did it!
Well, it's fabulous. It's also the most difficult and challenging book I have ever read in Japanese. I can't even claim I understood all of it. There were passages I had to reread and still had only dim idea what they were about. Then I would go online and find Japanese blogs and check if I had gotten everything right. To my relief (and pride) I did. The Japanese also have enormous problems reading "raw" Ichiyō. She didn't use contemporary (that is, Meiji-period) Japanese except for dialogues. She was completely obsessed with Heian literature. Some of her stories read as if they were written by a court lady in exile ("Flowers at Dusk", I'm looking at you). Hell, she wrote her own diary in classical Japanese. When she writes about her mother, it's always 母君, hahagimi, "my lady mother". Also, according to the best Heian tradition, the stories are just enormous blocks of text. Sentences run for pages; thanks God for commas.
Okay, what makes her so good? The atmosphere. The sense of locale. The portrayal of little insignificant people whom history would forget. And yes the language. It's difficult, but it's also super lyrical and flowing, and luckily I'd had lots of practice with jōruri and kabuki before I started reading this. So wherever she goes Edo, I'm fine. It's the Heian that makes me bang my head against the wall :)
「大つごもり」("The New Year's Eve") Young girl O Mine is a new servant of a rich family, hardworking and dutiful despite the mistress' humors and stinginess. On the New Year's Eve, when all debts for the year must be paid, she decides to ask the mistress for a loan on behalf of her sick uncle's impoverished family... and things go wrong from there. The end is sort of ambiguous and I like to think O Mine will be okay. Great descriptions, especially of the uncle's home in Koishikawa, and a theme that is very rare in Japanese literature, to be honest. (I know it's dismaying to talk about Ichiyo and proletarian literature on the same breath, but I remember one of my professors tell us that if not for proletarian literature, Japanese literature would be an endless variation on flowers and spring mornings. Well, they had Ichiyo long before Tokunaga Sunao and Kobayashi Takiji.)
「ゆく雲」("Passing Clouds") This is a classical story of an adopted son of a wealthy family in Yamanashi, who is sent to the city to study, and then recalled home to take care of the business and marry a girl his family found for him. Needless to say he's in love with another, but this is no kabuki and it all ends in a different way than O Some and Hisamatsu story. Good descriptions of the relatives in whose home Kenji is living in Tokyo; the hostess is said to be descended from the Uesugi and wears long kimono day and night (meaning she doesn't do anything). Also I liked Kenji's love interest O Nui, poor girl.
「うつせみ」("Cicadas") This one is about a mysterious girl who has moved with her family into a rented house in Koishikawa, and appears to be suffering from a strange malady. It's being told mostly through the eyes of the people in the neighborhood and of course there is a tragedy beneath it all. It's okay but reminded me of another story, 「闇桜」... but I may be mistaken.
「にごりえ」This is probably the second most famous Ichiyo story, translated into English as "Troubled Waters", according to Wikipedia. (The Wikipedia article has a few mistakes, by the way.) It's about a beautiful, funny and intelligent O Riki, who lives in an establishment named Kikunoi. Kikunoi is a meishuya, that is, a sort of a bar allegedly serving famous brands of alcohol, but in reality offering the services of girls working there. Meishuya were popular in Meiji period, but later disappeared. Anyway, O Riki is a star of the Kikunoi house. She doesn't like it there, she's far too clever to be working there too, but she knows she can't really do much better. There is an interesting scene of her snapping at the hopelessness of her life and life in general, in an intimate conversation with a rich guy who really likes her. But there is another guy who has been in love with her to such extent that he ruined his business and drove away his family, and all ends badly of course. The story takes place in August during the bon festival, and the atmosphere is stifling and alluring at the same time.
「十三夜」("The Thirteen Night") is the third most famous Ichiyō story and the saddest and bleakest so far. The heroine O Seki visits her parents in the absence of her husband, but it turns out this is no ordinary visit; she has no intention of returning home. The husband, who is a high official answering only to the Prime Minister, is abusive towards her - not physically, but verbally and physically - and she can't stand to live with him any more; she's even prepared to leave her little son to him. He married her on a spur of the moment, and now no day passes without him reminding her how far beneath him she is, a commoner with no manners and no education. O Seki's mother is horrified and indignant, but her father persuades her that it's her duty to bear whatever the fate has in store; she is a woman and this is how women advance in society. Of course, her family is now highly respected in the neighborhood, and her brother has got a good job thanks to her husband's protection, so it's easy to guess the outcome of O Seki's rebellion. It's more or less a failed "Doll's House". With a twist of sorts, however. Illustrations to this story usually show O Seki talking to a rickshaw puller under the bright moon.
「わかれ道」("The Farewell") is a charming little story about an unlikely friendship between a wild orphaned boy, who is living with a family of umbrella makers, and a beautiful sewing girl who seems to be the only one person in the whole wide world caring for him. And of course this only friend won't stay around forever.
「たけくらべ」(was it translated as "Child's Play"?) is THE Ichiyō and it was great but WHOA IT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT THING I HAVE EVER READ. (It's about children living in and around the Yoshiwara licensed quarter.)
「われから」was the absolutely most depressing story of all these, about a woman named O Machi who is a daughter of an usurer. He had become one after his beloved & beautiful wife (O Machi's mom) left him because he was a poor, um, office worker? O Machi is married, but has no children, and it turns out her caring husband has a mistress and a 9-year-old son. Most of this stuff is revealed through the dialogues between the servants - interesting, realistic, and eye-opening.
「闇桜」Yes, I have read this one. And I made a mistake with "Ōtsugomori", because it's "Yamizakura" that was Ichiyō's debut. It's a super annoying story about a young girl dying of love (which is not unrequited! she is just too cool to talk about it!).
「やみ夜」is translated as "Encounters on a Dark Night" and is sort of gothic story with lots of allusions to "Genji Monogatari", but I liked it a lot. Very atmospheric and has a nice violent undercurrent which is rare for this author.
So I have been reading this book forever and FINALLY yes! I did it!
Well, it's fabulous. It's also the most difficult and challenging book I have ever read in Japanese. I can't even claim I understood all of it. There were passages I had to reread and still had only dim idea what they were about. Then I would go online and find Japanese blogs and check if I had gotten everything right. To my relief (and pride) I did. The Japanese also have enormous problems reading "raw" Ichiyō. She didn't use contemporary (that is, Meiji-period) Japanese except for dialogues. She was completely obsessed with Heian literature. Some of her stories read as if they were written by a court lady in exile ("Flowers at Dusk", I'm looking at you). Hell, she wrote her own diary in classical Japanese. When she writes about her mother, it's always 母君, hahagimi, "my lady mother". Also, according to the best Heian tradition, the stories are just enormous blocks of text. Sentences run for pages; thanks God for commas.
Okay, what makes her so good? The atmosphere. The sense of locale. The portrayal of little insignificant people whom history would forget. And yes the language. It's difficult, but it's also super lyrical and flowing, and luckily I'd had lots of practice with jōruri and kabuki before I started reading this. So wherever she goes Edo, I'm fine. It's the Heian that makes me bang my head against the wall :)
「大つごもり」("The New Year's Eve") Young girl O Mine is a new servant of a rich family, hardworking and dutiful despite the mistress' humors and stinginess. On the New Year's Eve, when all debts for the year must be paid, she decides to ask the mistress for a loan on behalf of her sick uncle's impoverished family... and things go wrong from there. The end is sort of ambiguous and I like to think O Mine will be okay. Great descriptions, especially of the uncle's home in Koishikawa, and a theme that is very rare in Japanese literature, to be honest. (I know it's dismaying to talk about Ichiyo and proletarian literature on the same breath, but I remember one of my professors tell us that if not for proletarian literature, Japanese literature would be an endless variation on flowers and spring mornings. Well, they had Ichiyo long before Tokunaga Sunao and Kobayashi Takiji.)
「ゆく雲」("Passing Clouds") This is a classical story of an adopted son of a wealthy family in Yamanashi, who is sent to the city to study, and then recalled home to take care of the business and marry a girl his family found for him. Needless to say he's in love with another, but this is no kabuki and it all ends in a different way than O Some and Hisamatsu story. Good descriptions of the relatives in whose home Kenji is living in Tokyo; the hostess is said to be descended from the Uesugi and wears long kimono day and night (meaning she doesn't do anything). Also I liked Kenji's love interest O Nui, poor girl.
「うつせみ」("Cicadas") This one is about a mysterious girl who has moved with her family into a rented house in Koishikawa, and appears to be suffering from a strange malady. It's being told mostly through the eyes of the people in the neighborhood and of course there is a tragedy beneath it all. It's okay but reminded me of another story, 「闇桜」... but I may be mistaken.
「にごりえ」This is probably the second most famous Ichiyo story, translated into English as "Troubled Waters", according to Wikipedia. (The Wikipedia article has a few mistakes, by the way.) It's about a beautiful, funny and intelligent O Riki, who lives in an establishment named Kikunoi. Kikunoi is a meishuya, that is, a sort of a bar allegedly serving famous brands of alcohol, but in reality offering the services of girls working there. Meishuya were popular in Meiji period, but later disappeared. Anyway, O Riki is a star of the Kikunoi house. She doesn't like it there, she's far too clever to be working there too, but she knows she can't really do much better. There is an interesting scene of her snapping at the hopelessness of her life and life in general, in an intimate conversation with a rich guy who really likes her. But there is another guy who has been in love with her to such extent that he ruined his business and drove away his family, and all ends badly of course. The story takes place in August during the bon festival, and the atmosphere is stifling and alluring at the same time.
「十三夜」("The Thirteen Night") is the third most famous Ichiyō story and the saddest and bleakest so far. The heroine O Seki visits her parents in the absence of her husband, but it turns out this is no ordinary visit; she has no intention of returning home. The husband, who is a high official answering only to the Prime Minister, is abusive towards her - not physically, but verbally and physically - and she can't stand to live with him any more; she's even prepared to leave her little son to him. He married her on a spur of the moment, and now no day passes without him reminding her how far beneath him she is, a commoner with no manners and no education. O Seki's mother is horrified and indignant, but her father persuades her that it's her duty to bear whatever the fate has in store; she is a woman and this is how women advance in society. Of course, her family is now highly respected in the neighborhood, and her brother has got a good job thanks to her husband's protection, so it's easy to guess the outcome of O Seki's rebellion. It's more or less a failed "Doll's House". With a twist of sorts, however. Illustrations to this story usually show O Seki talking to a rickshaw puller under the bright moon.
「わかれ道」("The Farewell") is a charming little story about an unlikely friendship between a wild orphaned boy, who is living with a family of umbrella makers, and a beautiful sewing girl who seems to be the only one person in the whole wide world caring for him. And of course this only friend won't stay around forever.
「たけくらべ」(was it translated as "Child's Play"?) is THE Ichiyō and it was great but WHOA IT WAS THE MOST DIFFICULT THING I HAVE EVER READ. (It's about children living in and around the Yoshiwara licensed quarter.)
「われから」was the absolutely most depressing story of all these, about a woman named O Machi who is a daughter of an usurer. He had become one after his beloved & beautiful wife (O Machi's mom) left him because he was a poor, um, office worker? O Machi is married, but has no children, and it turns out her caring husband has a mistress and a 9-year-old son. Most of this stuff is revealed through the dialogues between the servants - interesting, realistic, and eye-opening.
「闇桜」Yes, I have read this one. And I made a mistake with "Ōtsugomori", because it's "Yamizakura" that was Ichiyō's debut. It's a super annoying story about a young girl dying of love (which is not unrequited! she is just too cool to talk about it!).
「やみ夜」is translated as "Encounters on a Dark Night" and is sort of gothic story with lots of allusions to "Genji Monogatari", but I liked it a lot. Very atmospheric and has a nice violent undercurrent which is rare for this author.
Displaying 1 of 1 review