Hell Screen Cogwheels a Fools Life

by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

Libro usado en buenas condiciones, por su antiguedad podria contener señales normales de uso

Genres: Japanese Literature, Fiction, Japan, Short Stories, Literature, 20th Century, Classics

146 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1961

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

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

As far as I’m concerned, this is an author who can do no wrong.

Side note: This is a beautiful edition, solidly bound paperback with French flaps. I need to find more books from the Eridanos Library.

[Jason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cogwheels and A Fool's Life are the best short stories ever written in the history of humankind. alright, so maybe i'm over-stating... They're lovely, painful stories to read. Gawd, I really like this whole book...

[Taylor Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Re-read. Akutagawa is masterful. Each of these works, like cold prisms, is lucid, precise, and unnerving. Hell Screen is a historically-derived masterpiece. Cogwheels, an intimate, autobiographical masterpiece.

——

A fascinating, arresting collection of material that culminates in the author’s suicide letter. Thematically anxious, each selection is defined by intellectual decay, fevered obsession, and the creeping heat of anxiety-ridden fear. Stylistically, Akutagawa is a master: always calm, clear, and lucid. A brilliant artist at work depicting the tortured struggles of a soul fleshly and sensuously in rapture, too sensitively experiencing the world.

[H · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Hell’s Screen” is a brief but grim tale to rival any work of Poe. “Cogwheels” I found dull, not because I disliked its meandering nature but because I found nothing interesting in it. “A Fool’s Life” was intriguing in its structure, prose, and insight into spiraling mental illness and suicide. Overall, not a strong introduction to this author, but it does leave me interested in reading one of Akutagawa’s novels.

[Alexa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing how simple yet complicated and deep ones thoughts may be

[Eric Cecil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Skillfully written, genuinely disturbing.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Equally depressing and exhilarating. If you're looking at this edition you're already sold on Akutagawa.

[Michael Yacoub · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this while staying for a month in Japan. The translation is really bad, yet, the bad translation has created something beautiful about the book. I am not sure whether it is the context of my reading experience, the book itself, or maybe both, but I will always appreciate Akutagawa. Maybe one day I will re-read this to give it more thought. It deserves more thought.
I remember talking to the one who lent me the book and I said that there is a certain Darkness lurking behind this book. I compared it then to a door at the end of a long corridor. You see the door, and you know what is behind it, but you just don't open it. This is by far the only way I can describe this book and my reading of this book. I could sense the darkness behind every word I read, but I never disclosed it. I simply read, calmly, and let the darkness have its presence but not its intensity. That's how Akutagawa felt; dark, but calming. A certain enigmatic equilibrium ruling the whole matter.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't remember if I read Cogwheels or A Fool's Life. I was impressed by Hell Screen when I read it, although my memory of it is weak. I just saw the film version, which I tried to obtain at the time, last night, which made me think of it.

[Taylor Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

With high regard i say, i love those who write on suicide and actually commit. In his final note to a certain friend, he admits that finalizing a plan he became happy, and could open himself up to the world unlike before. it’s all about acceptance. But there’s a better word for it I can’t think of.

[Ahmed magdy mahrous · Rating 4 out of 5]

تروس دوارة عن الانتحار وشاشة الجحيم لفنان حرق ابنته من اجل الكمال

[Perry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect.

[HC · Rating 4 out of 5]

Personally liked Hell Screen the best. The images really linger with you for a long time. Cogwheels and a Fool's Life are semi-autobiographical works of Akutagawa. I feel like his works are better read twice. I read Hell Screen twice and it made me appreciate the writing a lot more.

[Strika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting book. I particularly loved the first story, Hell Screen.