Something Strange Across the River

by Kafū Nagai

First published in 1937, is a book both modern and nostalgic. It shows a changing city, its slums, backstreets, temples and shrines, a city filled with erudite establishments and brothels. It shows a man trying to justify his life, and a glimpse into the creative process and a gentle eulogy on things passing.

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

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1937

About the author

Kafū Nagai (永井 荷風 Nagai Kafū, December 3, 1879 - April 30, 1959) is the pen name of Japanese author, playwright, essayist, and diarist Nagai Sōkichi (永井 壮吉). His works are noted for their depictions of life in early 20th-century Tokyo, especially among geisha, prostitutes, cabaret dancers, and other denizens of the city's lively entertainment districts.

(from Wikipedia)

Variation of names of the same author:

永井荷风

Kafū Nagai

永井 荷風

永井荷風

Reviews

[Praj · Rating 4 out of 5]

When the night falls, the mosquitoes murmur
“There’s something strange across the river”
Musty bodies entwine melancholia of Sumida
“East of the river”, the Milky Way stammers,
Starry skies,perfumed tears,a bloody mosquito bite
Strum at the window, the cacophony of hearts,
Hungry eyes seeking a graceful chignon,
Autumn dreams disappearing in wooden clogs
Totters in the fog, shadows of a streetwalker,
The floating world blooms in heart of a reader.

Curiously, the night seemed darker, not a speck of breeze to aerate the tartness of the pond water, the disfigurement of the potholed street pronouncing solemnity to the solitary flickering of a street light. The languid smoke clouds cheer an ongoing festive commemoration amid the imminence of spring glancing from a drop of sweat. The dewy fragrance of the moonflowers lining the ditches intensifies rivalling with the ticking of the Matsuya clock. The tranquillity of the street merges into the solitude of the obscure back alleys of a forgotten Tamanoi district. The seductive world of red rouge and pale powder divorced by a humble window lingers through the smoky air as the moonlit watery currents imitating the moon floating on Sumida descend into the sparkling lights on the Kototoi Bridge; a man dressed in tattered Western suit compensating his futile endeavour in rattling of the Asaki brothels marred by torrential rains. The feel of ice dumpling desired on a muggy night, and as the mouldy whiff of second-hand books reeked, Kafū’s Tokyo shone brighter than those garish movie posters plastered at the Asakusa Park.


When composing a novel I find the time when the characters make choices that will affect their lives and lead to the development of events to be the most interesting. Those moments of development and their descriptions are fascinating.

The man at the crossroad speculating the revelation of a new turn, the treasured city grasping the past as it embraces the perils of evolution and the lowly window splicing the world into two, detaching tangential vulgarity from pretentious sincerity. The amicable synchronization between worldly antagonism and the chalky concealment of an energetic spirit produces a harmonious feeling from the other side of the mystifying window helping fleeting bystanders to shed their duplicitous inhibitions into the serene alleys of truthfulness reflecting in the enthralment of the floating world. Silently flapping away the mosquitoes, Ando Yukiko, redoing her chignon visibly acknowledged the underhandedness of the world fleeting across her window and the subdued feelings of men who peeked indoors hoping a reckless night within the bug infested quarters would fill the burdensome void like the falling rain eliminating the darkness of a murky puddle. The thunderous rain that obliged Oyuki to take refuge under Tadasu Oe’s umbrella, the deciding moment when a forlorn Junbei met Sumiko randomly on a train ride and the flash of lighting illuminating Oyuki’s ethereal face etching an everlasting memory, precipitates into refinement of Nagai’s textual charisma. The steady streaming of a twofold narration interweaves the multifaceted characterisation of diversified personalities focusing on attaining their individualism and misplaced beauty analogous to their residential city in the pursuit of amassing remnants of a time left behind.

Kafū Nagai or fairly speaking, Tadasu Oe aimlessly wonders in the pleasure district of Tamanoi, experiencing the newly constructed concrete jungle consuming the subtle archaic beauty of Tokyo. Kafū conceptualizes fine art in his prose by realistic selection of nature empathizing with the integrated civilization. Kafū elevates the artistic quotient by the laudable erudition portrayed in the execution of his scripted characters contrived through the vividness of pragmatism and the magnetism of simulated crucial sequences. The destined encounter of two strangers, the purely coincidental communicative progressions and immediacy of faithfully delineating the fragments of an obscure soul, elevates the quintessence of resourceful design in delineating the sketched persona from within, employing empathetic perceptions.


When the women who live in the shadows face the men who creep about in the darkness, there is no fear or malice in them, only kindness and love. There is no need for explanation; the innumerable acts speak for themselves, and nothing I put to paper can elaborate on them. There was the geisha from Kyoto who helped the man sought by the shoganate, the girl at the frigid train stop who emptied her pockets to help a gambler. Tosca fed the fugitive, Michitose gave all her love to the desperate man

Kafū’s infatuation with the world of geishas and prostitutes stemmed from his strong belief that the people existing on the fringe of the society embody the thorny truth of life and society. This carves a gratifying portrait of a world marred by hypocrisy and falsehood. The prostitute anxiously waiting for her nightly customer, the flamboyant pimp trying to make a wage depended meal, the waitresses tackling the drunk patrons in a bustling Ginza cafe, the old man at the bookstore and those numerous others who thrive at the underside of the society, insignificant to the larger civilization barely manage to cling to the obsolete ways of an altering life. Kafū felt inspired by the profundity of the floating world and those labelled ‘downtrodden’ for it was in these discomfited narrow passageways where life flourished without prejudices and superficiality. The underbelly of a burgeoning society where life was raw characterising the life-realities in valid flesh and blood, the prostitute who made an honest living yielding an intercourse with a customer prone to shamefulness as the sun rises; can it then legitimize the frivolous ridicule of one’s destiny? Isn't it an act of idiocy to critic the perimeter of a mistreated social order imposing bigotry? The women of nightfall have nothing but benevolence and genuine love for they are accustomed to the harshness of the superficiality. The intimacy experienced by Junbei and Tadasu towards their female enchantresses expresses the candour in which Kafū was not repelled by the dingy surroundings infested with an army of mosquitoes and overflowing stench of dirty ditches and assiduously sketched the prevailing life rationally and casually devoid of any imposing biases. The term “harlot” or “flippant” disseminates into the virginal obscurity of a woman in live. In the depths of corruption, one may find the blossoms of human sympathy and perfumed tears. Gather them up. The haunting words of Tadasu Oe resonates the philosophical compassion nurtured for those who did not belong to ‘respectable society’ yet were the tempting source of unreserved pleasure for the elitist .


Even this backwater town, suddenly enlivened, was not able to escape the undulating and manic altercations of the times. And neither can any of us.

Oyuki symbolises the nostalgia of the past old way musing the pain and desperation of accommodating an unfamiliar milieu. The chignon standing elegantly on the slender neck, the ascetic mannerism of a woman blushing as if hopelessly in love binds the surfacing beauty of a city destructed by the Great Kanto Earthquake (1923) and concurrent thunderstorms reconstructing the lost individuality along with the much-beloved citizens. Similar to several of his literary colleagues, Nagai felt the nostalgic twinge, reluctant to let go of the past and the trepidations coupled with accepting an altering Tokyo. Kafū Nagai once said, “Empathy is not merely the basic principle of the artistic creation. It is also the only path by which one can reach the truth about life and society.”


The pigeon resting near my balcony is asleep undisturbed by the gleaming allure of Kafū’s Edo. What was it that had kept me awake in the deepest hours of the night? The clandestine life blithe in the gloom of the night. The bodies of the nightfall liberating the mendaciousness of the daylight. The peculiar writer who gave room to his art to breathe on the fringes of the society, empathetically Accompanied by the squealing of edgy bats, my nocturnal musing seizes my contemplating thoughts on the surreptitious functioning of brothels dwelling on the other side of the town .A slight buzzing of a bicycle bell awakens the bitter pond stench. Somewhere an adolescent bloke on his nightly rounds must be selling freshly brewed coffee to lingering peripheral hearts.

[Steve]

First, a bit of background cribbed from my reviews of some of Kafu's other books.

Nagai Kafu (1879-1959) was in the second generation of Meiji writers behind that of Natsume Soseki. Early in his career he was a member of the Japanese Naturalist movement/school, whose adherents actually adopted only certain relatively superficial characteristics of the French naturalists to their use. Though Kafu initially claimed Zola as his master, he very soon replaced him with Maupassant. Unlike most of the Japanese Naturalists, Kafu learned some French and made a few translations into the Japanese. Of particular note, his father sent his recalcitrant son to the USA to learn how to be a businessman. Not much was learned about business during his four years there, but he did write a book of interesting short stories based on his American experience. He finally talked his father into sending him to France for a year, where he improved his command of French and had no small number of liaisons with the fairer sex (as he had done in the USA). This sojourn also resulted in a bookful of short stories, Amerika monogatari ( American Stories ), which I review here:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Reluctantly back in Japan, Kafu railed against the evolution of Meiji Japan, accusing his homeland both of abandoning its history and culture and of adopting only the worst aspects of the West. At this stage in his life (around 1910) he loved the pre-Meiji Edo culture (when the capital was transferred from Kyoto to Edo early in the Meiji era, the latter was renamed Tokyo, Eastern Capital). Due to the rapid development in Tokyo, Edo Japan could only still be found in the poorer districts, in the Low City, where the artisans, artists and small merchants lived, and in some of the pleasure districts. Kafu set his Japanese fiction almost exclusively in these districts, as well as spent most of his time there, taking endless walks through the smallest streets trying to forget (then) modern Japan and enjoying the attentions of women from the lofty geisha down to the most miserable "working girls". Under parental pressure, he entered an arranged marriage but divorced shortly after his father's death. He didn't let his brief marriage interfere with his pursuits.

Kafu's novella/short novel Sumidagawa ( The River Sumida ) appeared in 1909 with quite a few small works preceding and following it. I review it here:

http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...

Bokutō Kitan (called Something Strange Across the River in this translation, but translated by Donald Keene and Edward Seidensticker as A Strange Tale from East of the River ), which appeared in 1937, is again a novella set in Tokyo. However, because of the great Kantō earthquake in 1923, which with the ensuing firestorm destroyed much of Tokyo, there was precious little left of Kafu's beloved Edo Tokyo. Though he had hated Meiji Japan 20 years earlier, his nostalgia for past times now encompassed also Meiji period Tokyo. As Donald Keene put it, "the passage of time and the rapid deterioration of manners had enabled him at last to understand what was unique and genuine in that period." This nostalgia, this longing, and this regret suffuse the text and give it a unique flavor.

The first person narrator doesn't share Nagai's name, but he certainly shares many of his traits and interests. Primary among these are the long walks he takes through the old, run-down neighborhoods far to the east of the Sumida River which weren't destroyed in 1923 and which are experiencing a limited economic revival due to activities of questionable legality. He is looking for inspiration, for a means to finish a novel he is writing and which he sketches and later excerpts for the reader; this is a novel-in-a-novel. Frequently, the narrator pauses to address the reader, to inform why the text before the reader was written and to apologize for being so incapable of properly describing this, that or the other. But there is no overt attempt to distance, to be ironic. On the contrary, every line is so direct, so simple, so disarming.

Both the novel and the novel-in-the-novel are, surprise surprise, about the relationship between a man and a woman, and, in the inimitable Japanese manner, both woman are "working girls," who find themselves rather far down the hierarchy. There is no sign of glamor or allure. These women work out of their homes. The narrator is undisturbed that he must pay for company or that he waits downstairs writing as she "was upstairs with clients". After she became convinced that he was a pornographer (he didn't try to dissuade her), she opened up and "no longer treated me like a simple customer."

When the women who live in the shadows face the men who creep about in the darkness, there is no fear or malice in them, only kindness and love.

The narrator was convinced that Oyuki "could reach into the yawning gaps of time and bring the past back to life." And that was precisely what he needed to quiet his mind. But there was yet another factor:

There was far more joy in discovering a beautifully patterned cloth cast out among the rags than, by analogy, finding stains on a wall that had been declared immaculate.

Another note creeps in: the narrator begins to regret that he cannot take Oyuki into his real life, as she wishes, for a number of reasons, among them being his real life is not the life she thinks it is. This regret, this sense of guilt grows... I'll leave it there.

Nagai's unique, simple and beautiful style is particularly fine in this text. (Special commendation is due to the translator, Glenn Anderson. Another fine translation is in Edward Seidensticker's Kafu the Scribbler

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

) I need more Nagai.

A side note: In 1937, the militarists were firmly in power, and I found quite interesting that in his earlier books Nagai made no mention of police at all (except in America), whereas in this book there are police stands in every neighborhood and intersection, the police are wandering around on foot looking for suspicious behavior, the narrator is questioned because he had a "questionable" purchase on his person, etc.

Rating

http://leopard.booklikes.com/post/835...

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

An elegiac little thing, with an elderly writer wandering around, visiting his working girl and imagining a novel about an old chap and his working girl. The heavy police presence was interesting and speaks of its time.

"'What are ya carrying this for? It's awfully … womanly,' he sneered, pinching the singlet with revulsion between his fingers and holding it up to the light."

"I have outlined a new idea for a novel I intend to call 'Disappearance'. If I were to actually write it – and do afford me this small indulgence – I have a fair amount of confidence that it would not be intolerably terrible."

"When I was young I'd heard it from an older man, who'd spent his life in the brothels more than anywhere. 'When you find a woman,' he said, 'a woman you love more than anyone, a woman that makes you feel like you need to rush to her side and confess your deepest desires so as to keep her from being taken by another customer, those are the women that either die of illness or are taken off to some distant land by the most vile men you can imagine.' His melancholy musings have proved accurate."

From So Lovely a Country Will Never Perish: Wartime Diaries of Japanese Writers:
"Kafu's chief literary activity during the war years was writing the diary he had begun in 1917 ... (His) reputation for eccentricity benefited hum during the war by establishing him in the eyes of the police as a harmless old codger; they did not interrogate him or attempt to read his diary. Kafu was lucky: the police did not tolerate criticism of the government, and almost every page of his diary contains expressions of disgust with the military, whether sarcasm over their stupidity or annoyance because the war they started had deprived him of his favorite imported goods.”

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have seen several mentions of Tokyo author Kafu Nagai over the years and most recently in Stephen Mansfield's Tokyo: A Cultural History. However, A Strange Tale from East of the River and Other Stories (1972) translated by Edward Seidensticker is currently out of print, but I was able to track down a used copy. There are a variety of stories from as early as 1909 ("The River Sumida") and late as 1948 ("Scavengers"). There are some recurring themes in the stories: nostalgia, geisha, the low city/shitamachi (east Tokyo), Yoshiwara and nightlife, poetry, and nature are the most prominent. My favorites were the later stories: "A Strange Tale from East of the River" (1936)-a story of unrequited love, "The Decoration" (1946)-a short but heartfelt story of the transitory nature of life, and "The Scavengers" (1948)-highlighting postwar misery and struggles in life.

[Erwin Maack · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Oyuki era uma musa que ressuscitara em meu coração tão cansado imagens de um tempo distante e saudoso. O manuscrito há tanto tempo abandonado sobre a escrivaninha, não fosse por ela ter aberto seu coração para mim - ou, ao menos, não fosse por eu ter achado que esse coração se me abrira -, já estaria há muito tempo no lixo. Ela fora o estímulo que levou um velho escritor, esquecido em eu tempo, a completar um manuscrito, talvez sua última obra. Ao ver o seu rosto, senti uma imensa gratidão. Talvez eu a tivesse enganado, inocente que era, e talvez tivesse feito de seu corpo e de seu coração um brinquedo que desfrutei o quanto quis. E, ao mesmo tempo que gostaria de pedir desculpas por um pecado difícil de perdoar, sofro ao constatar que esse perdão é impossível". (Página 108)

[Gertrude & Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

For anyone who wants to feel, see, hear, and sample a taste of old Tokyo, this work, A Strange Tale from East of the River, is an enriching experience, particularly for those who have lived in Tokyo for an any extended period of time.

These fascinating stories are richly colored with the life of that period. The stories evoke a lingering feeling for that bygone era, where everything was simpler, yet, to the modern reader, feels more enchanting. Also, this collection would be an interesting read for anyone who has read a lot of contemporary Japanese fiction and wants a change of scenery, pace, and flavor from the modern Japanese settings we are familiar with.

[Daniel Warriner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kafū Nagai’s short story “Something Strange Across the River” (1937) brings us to the streets of early 1900s Asakusa (then the center of Shitamachi “low city” culture and entertainments) and Yoshiwara and surrounding districts. Plenty of nostalgia for how things had been during the narrator’s/Nagai’s youth (“the old, nostalgic world made manifest as muse to my exhausted heart”), and some of this yearning for days past and the imagery reminded me a little of Yasunari Kawabata’s The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa (1929). I enjoyed most the descriptions of this then-waning world our protagonist walks us through across the Sumida River, like:

I pushed aside the high grass and climbed up the hillside of the embankment. There were no objects to obstruct my view of the street I’d just come up. The rambling old towns, empty lots, and developing areas could all be seen. On the other side of the river, corrugated iron roofs spread out in all directions, broken here and there by the towering chimneys of the baths, all of it cast in the glow of the setting summer sun. At one end of the sky the colors of sunset grew weaker and colder as they drifted away. The moon shone bright, as if night had already come. Between the iron roofs, in the gaps that showed the streets, neon signs crackled to life, and the echoes of radios clicking on here and there rose up from the town.

Also interesting/amusing was the narrator’s disdain for the Ginza area and “inner-city” and its “distasteful sorts”, as in:

There are other sights to be wary of in Ginza. The middle-aged man, for example, in his perfectly cut foreign suit and distasteful countenance, his hair perfectly styled, his occupation nebulous, swinging his cane as he walks down the street and sings to himself, berating the young women and the children who cross his path.

I don’t think the story itself will stick in my memory for very long, but it was certainly worth the read for the picture of this time and place.

[grimlygray · Rating 3 out of 5]

Жизнь моя однажды подойдет к концу и я рухну в черную воронку смерти. Скорее всего, незамедлительно выяснится, что эта самая воронка не более чем чернильная точка. Окажется, что все это время я был второстепенным персонажем не самого занимательного рассказа. А существование мое закончилось вместе с предложением, в котором автор упомянул обо мне в последний раз.

Я бы смотрелся уместно в одном из рассказов японских писателей начала XX века. В качестве статиста меня могли бы взять Симадзаки, Дадзай, Танидзаки или Нагаи. В таких рассказах, как правило, немного занудная манера письма (и жизни тоже), эмоции у всех персонажей будто проходят по касательной, а всех действующих лиц немножечко тошнит от самого факта появления на свет. Все тоскливо пьют, тоскливо отмахиваются от комаров, тоскливо ходят на "живые картины", тоскливо спят с бывшими гейшами. Бодрее писал разве что Акутагава, но потом в его башке завертелись зубчатые колеса и понял он, что прожил жизнь идиота.

[Adam · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned of this novel on a visit to the National Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo, I was very impressed by a series of 34 prints by Kimura Shohachi. They were simple black and white prints but somehow evocative and atmospheric. I read in the descriptions that they were done to illustrate a serialized version of the novel Bokuto Kidan that appeared in a Japanese newspaper in the 1930s.

The novel itself reminds me of Kimura’s illustrations: short, simple, but packs a surprising emotional impact. At least it did for me. Part of the appeal for me is the description of the area of Tokyo east of the Sumida River. Of course it has completely changed since the 30s. But it still retains the feeling of a low lying humble part of the city, very different from the glitz and bustle of areas further west.

I suspect this translation is not ideal but I still found it very interesting. But I wish there was an English-language version that was illustrated with Kimura’s prints, I would definitely buy that!

[Kristen Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful book.

I would suggest anyone coming into this book to first read a bit about traditional Japanese culture/history, particularly the history of Geishas - there are many references in this book that may otherwise seem nonsensical without this background knowledge. Understanding the significance of some points of focus will bring to you a whole 'nother level of appreciation for the eloquent piquancy that pervades throughout this book, and fully understand the sense of loss plaguing the author.

[Manheim Wagner · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant novella within a novella, Something Strange across the River captures the essence of nostalgia, the humane relations of a working woman and elderly literary customer, who wanders to her down-trodden neighborhoods avoiding the noise of modernization. In doing so, Nagai's narrator addresses the reader with an unmatched sense of empathy and candidness in this novella of an elderly writer sketching out his character's relationship with a working girl.

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkably profound.

[Marie-Therese · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

Nostalgic, evocative, melancholy-this is is the gentler, less modern side of Kafū. A lovely little book.

[Creolecat · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Twilight Story (1960)

[Caroline · Rating 2 out of 5]

um ganso selvagem entre galinhas

[Señora Colombo · Rating 4 out of 5]

«Los hombres no son conocidos por donde nacen sino por sus obras»

Esta novela tiene dos historias: la de Kimie, una chica que va por la vida un poco sin saber cómo y sin que tampoco le importe demasiado, y la de un escritor que se fusiona con su alter ego de forma casi irreconocible y nos muestra cómo eran los barrios de Tokio en los años treinta mientras la ciudad se reconstruía tras el terremoto de 1923. Era una época un poco sin definir, algo a camino entre lo que había sido y lo que habría de venir, una época de contornos desdibujados en la que algunos, como Yukiko, siguen optando por peinados y ropas de tiempos pasados.

La primera de las historias, la de Kimie, es interesantísima por cómo el autor refleja un profundo conocimiento de cómo actuaban, y actuamos aun hoy a veces, los hombres y las mujeres juntos, por separados y para conquistarnos: «…mi sincero deseo de que usted reconozca lo mucho que él la ama, hasta el punto de abrigar tal crueldad en su contra». Me hace gracia comprobar que ambas chicas, Yukiko y Kimie, eran prostitutas, como casi todas salvo una de las mujeres que aparecen en esta novela, y que eso hace que cuando entablan relaciones con hombres ellos o las perciban como algo que usar y tirar cuando quieran o al revés, objetos que poseer y con los que obsesionarse, y en ambos casos los afectos, sean los que sean, se deslizan y ocurren de una manera que nos recuerda a cómo tienen hoy lugar las relaciones: de una manera absolutamente líquida e imposible de etiquetar o agarrar. Hombres que les regalan kimonos, que les dan dinero para cenar, que las invitan a café, mujeres que les dejan dormir a ellos en sus casas o les envían cartas…y luego se abandonan, desaparecen sin mayor explicación y sin mirar atrás. Todo esto me hace pensar con tristeza en que no hemos conseguido grandes progresos en lo afectivo, tan solo cambiar apenas los roles para que todo siga igual, un poco como eso del Gatopardo de que todo tiene que cambiar para que siga exactamente igual. Y me hace pensar también en cuantísimas cosas no decimos cuando es el momento porwue solo es el momento para nosotros, porwue al otro no le importa ni ahora ni antes ni nunca lo que vamos a decir. Pese a todo, este libro no es dramático. Los personajes saben que la vida es así (ellas tienen todas entre 20 y 25 años, ellos entre 35 y 60) por muchas razones, unas para ellos y otras para ellas, y siguen adelante. A veces, con suerte, pero encuentran algo que los sorprende de forma diferente. Pero bueno, pese a que sea un libro en el que se ve que en la vida adulta, por desgracia, el egoísmo prima sobre la ternura, no lo lees deprimido. Es mucho más interesante lo bien que desgrana la psicología y las descripciones de Tokio y los estados de ánimo que el pensamiento, nada nuevo para alguien en 2025, de que las relaciones entre hombres y mujeres no suelen durar y dios sabrá por qué.

[Ana Granados · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.5 ⭐ la historia que da título al libro)

El libro contiene dos historias y un prólogo magnífico escrito por Carlos Rubio que permite disfrutar mejor la lectura (eso sí, recomendaría parar cuando comienza a hablar de las historias del libro y volver a él al finalizarlas).

Leyendo la contraportada, me vino a la cabeza Toulouse-Lautrec. Ambas historias suceden en el mundo de las prostitutas, geishas y "camareras" del presente del autor, pero con claros guiños a un pasado añorado. En ambas historias las calles y lugares tienen un protagonismo especial.

El primer relato, "Durante las lluvias", tiene por protagonista a Kimie, "camarera" por elección y que viene a ser la versión femenina del autor. Es una historia con mucha acción, con cambios de sentimientos, de claro-oscuros (igual que la temporada de lluvias...). Kimie es una mujer quizá muy moderna, sin mucha clase, pero pinceladas aquí y allí y, sobre todo, el final del libro, son un guiño a esa prostituta del pasado: la generosidad de entregarse a un hombre casi anciano.

El segundo relato me gustó mucho más. Hay una historia principal, en la que no pasa mucho, entre el alter ego del autor y Yukiko, prostituta del escalafón más bajo que vive en una casa vieja de una calle sucia, llena de mosquitos. Una vida que yo veo durísima y de la que no puede escapar. Sin embargo, Yukiko servirá para "transportarnos" a ese pasado añorado y deseado, con sus peinados, sus gestos, su entorno. Y hay una historia dentro de la principal: el protagonista está escribiendo un relato y en la novela se incluyen no solo extractos de este en varios momentos, sino también poemas, trozos de relatos antiguos ... incluso se "rompe la cuarta pared".

[Juan de Dios Reyes · Rating 4 out of 5]

Para poder apreciar en toda su magnitud este libro, la (larga) introducción de Carlos Rubio me parece fundamental... No es que el libro sea complicado ni mucho menos, pero Carlos Rubio nos entrega antecedentes del autor y el contexto en que escribió, que permite reconocer mucho mejor lo expresado, dada la gran diferencia cultural y geográfica respecto a la mía propia, occidental.
Es un texto permite adentrarme un poco en la cultura japonesa y particularmente de los "marginados" de la sociedad "formal". Incluso la razón que el mismo autor da de su interés por ese aspecto de la sociedad se refleja en las historias que relata. De hecho, en un curioso estilo literario, el autor, que es al mismo tiempo el protagonista de la historia, explica al lector su inclinación por este aspecto de la sociedad: "...No había más felicidad para él que encontrar el resto de un precioso bordado en un harapo; que encontrar manchas de toda clase en una pared que se proclamaba inmaculada. Igual que hay heces de pájaros y ratones en el recinto de un palacio de justicia, a veces, en lo más hondo de la corrupción se puede recolectar bellas flores de la humanidad y aromáticos frutos de las lágrimas."

[Nelson Moussalle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nagai Kafu desenvolve uma narrativa dinâmica. Com objetividade, registra as dificuldades da personagem principal para escrever um livro, indicando vez ou outra a saída para problemas que afligem escritores de maneira geral - emprestando ao romance área de guia de escrita.
Vai além. Situa a história, o background e o enredo, tanto nas tradições japonesas, como na mudança promovida pela modernidade, apresentando um caráter ora de revolta, ainda que branda, ora de conformidade com as mudanças da cidade e da vida.
Se as cidades, mesmo nas áreas suburbanas, sofrem os efeitos da passagem do tempo, o que dirá do modo de vida e da condição dos indivíduos? Muita lucidez na especulação filosófica.
Uma leitura prazeirosa, um texto que flui e um enredo perfeitamente plausível e, mesmo, atual.

[kg · Rating 5 out of 5]

本編も良かったが、作後贅言（後書き）が面白く興味深かった。（昭和2年頃の東京とくに銀座の様子; 明治生まれ育ち筆者と知人が大正生まれの現代人とその後の日本を憂える; 等）

[Andre Abukawa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gostei das descrições de uma Tokyo que não existe mais.

[Iulia Filote · Rating 3 out of 5]

DNF, too weird and too much city description for me

[3ww3 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Como siempre lo hace impecable, me encanta como escribe.

[Taís R. Almazán · Rating 4 out of 5]

las últimas páginas están a la altura del nombre del libro

[Clayton · Rating 3 out of 5]

A spare and functionally-told novella about an old man, a prostitute, and a book, as presented in Glenn Anderson's typo-ridden translation. Mostly interesting for its anthropological value as a document of certain types of people and neighborhoods in Tokyo in 1937, without any of the ominous historical foreshadowing or references to empire that Western readers are used to getting in accounts of Japan around this time. This is small praise to most authors, but Nagai learned most of what he knew about the West from its realist fiction--especially his beloved Zola. I think he would be pleased to know that his own work might return the favor for Western readers.

Ever since I'd gotten accustomed, both physically and mentally, to making these nightly trips [to the prostitutes' district], I'd made a point to take note of the manner of the customers that ply the streets at night, and in so doing have altered the clothes I wear when I come to this town. It is not much trouble. Take a colored dress shirt with its stripes and leave the top button open. Do not wear a necktie. Carry your jacket instead of wearing it. Do not wear a hat. Tussle your hair as if it had never seen a comb. Change into slacks that are worn through at the knees and the seat. Don't wear shoes, find a pair of wooden geta that are worn down to the heel. Bring a lot of cigarettes...As long as you wear old slacks and see to it that your handkerchief is folded in the most haphazard manner you can muster, you can walk from Sunamachi in the south to Senju or Kanamachi in the north without fearing the odd gaze of passing pedestrians. Such slovenly clothes are perhaps more suited to Tokyo's unbearable heat and astonishing cold than any other. As long as you dress the same as the taxi drivers, you can spit on the street and on the train, you can toss your cigarette butts and matchsticks and paper scraps and banana peels wherever you please. You can enter a park, if you so desired, and plop yourself on a bench or sprawl out on the grass and grunt and snore and act how you please. You can abandon yourself to the pulse of a rebuilt city.

My friend Sato Yosai has already written extensively on the strange summer custom women have developed of going out on the town in a nightgown-like piece of cloth. I have nothing to add to his evaluation.

[Steve · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had not heard of Nagai before, but was reading an interview with Ian Buruma recently (he just published a memoir of being a young man in Japan in the '70's) and he mentioned Nagai as one of his favorite writers. Found this novella at a reasonable price as a kindle download. Unfortunately most of his works in English are OOP and not inexpensive (including a collection which includes this title and some other shorter works that I would love to read), but I did order a couple other of his titles.

Born in the last quarter of the 19th C, he lived into the 1950's, Nagai was quite a man "out of place in his time". Heavily autobiographical, and also includes the "author", in first person, sharing the plot of another book he is in the midst of writing. Like Nagai himself, the narrator here takes long walks, misses the times that were, and hangs out with prostitutes and geisha.

Much of this short work is taken up with the narrator giving simple surface street details of his meanderings - and what had been there before. More than a bit of an effete intellectual (he spent some time in France, as well as 4 years in NYC), he buys old books and literary reviews, and silk from the past. That Japan is now run by the military, and involved in a war with China, never is even briefly mentioned here.

Even in translation the language here is beautiful. And there is something comforting about reading line after line of simple descriptions of "I turned left where the old railroad station used to be, it was now a busy street filled with traffic and people, which lead me to a shrine, now covered in bushes, and next to it there was the entrance to a narrow alley, which I went down, the pavement covered in water from the rain, and the ladies of the neighborhood hanging out their windows, and I stopped in a shop and bought some canned fish for later...." (my paraphrase - not an actual quotation from his writing - but I hope it gives you some idea of what he does).

Just so looking forward to reading more of his writing!

[Daniel Maria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Um livro que narra o processo de criação de um escritor por meio de seu personagem, criando uma imagem difusa de quais experiências e vivências são do narrador/escritor e de seu personagem. Esta relação pode ainda se construir em um plano acima, quando imaginado o real escritor e seu narrador/escritor, formando um continuum onde é dificil de se diferenciar o que pode ser auto-biográfico (digo isto sem mesmo conhecer profundamente a biografia de Nagai Kafu), o que poderia ser construído na ficção ou mesmo quais seriam as aspirações e desejos projetados nos personagens. Tenho a impressão, ao ler, de entrar em uma caixa de espelhos, cujos relexos múltiplos transparecem relações psicanalíticas em toda a sua complexidade nos mais diferentes planos que se comunicam e se entrelaçam.

A forma de escrever de Nagai Kafu está mais próxima das vanguardas européias do século XX do que de outros escritores japoneses de sua época que eu já tenha lido (o que preciso reconhecer que não foram muitos).

A narrariva é linear mas o tempo não é claro e demarcado, ficando implícito em detalhes como, por exemplo, nas estações do ano. Esta relação do quotidiano com as estações do ano, à propósito, foi uma das poucas características que me remeteu aos outros escritores japoneses.

Há uma observação melancólica de Tóquio, em especial Asakusa e Tamanoi, antigo bairro de prostituiçao ao leste do rio Sumida. Há uma certa busca de uma memória de um Japão que se esvai com a modernidade, outro ponto de ligação com autores japoneses de sua época.

As ilustrações desta edição são belíssimas, aumentando o prazer da leitura.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Stopped reading between "Quiet Rain" and "A Strange Tale East of the River," and unlikely to pick it up again.

Nagai has a very melancholic style, which is not uncommon in Japanese literature; but the themes of reflecting on old age, especially in the autobiographical stories, grew tiring for me. It was "Quiet Rain" that convinced me to set the book aside; to drag politics into it, when I live in an area where low voter turnout at the primary ousted a mature, moderate policy wonk and instated yet another partisan extreme-liner, reading "Passions have vanished, the heart has dried up. Cries of alarm in the thoughtful world, warning us about the state of affairs with us since the European War [WWI], are to me as the flute of the old candyseller in the street. My greatest pleasure, eating and sleeping and eating again these last few years, has been that the summers have not been too hot and the winters have not been too cold," is exasperating to me.

Perhaps it's a mark of the gap between age and youth, and the east and west; but even so, my battles with Gravity's Rainbow and Ready Player One have taught me that there's no point to reading fiction that drives you up the wall. Quot libros quam breve tempus as it is.

[adeline Bronner · Rating 5 out of 5]

L’exquise délicatesse d’un texte qui parle d’une relation particulière entre deux etres de hasard. La profondeur et l’universalisme des mots de Kafû, la modernité et la radicalité d’un esprit libre dans une société corsetée.
Résolument contemporain 👏

[The Uprightman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A conservative pre-Meiji man's nostalgic musings lamenting changes to old Tokyo. Nagai's nameless narrator casts his romantic gaze backward and accordingly mourns losses in social convention, linguistics, and urban order. His eulogistic observations are steeped in naturalist aesthetics. These fleeting memories are exhumed through contemporary juxtapositions with an idealised past. Through his relationship with a geisha-trained courtesan in the Tamanoi district's dusky floating world, Nagai's protagonist finds unaffected harmony and evocative reminiscence in retreating from that which he despises. He basks in the purity of the reputedly sordid; it sits in contrast to the masked hypocrisy and superficiality of socially condoned interactions.