Tokyo Stories: A Literary Stroll

Voices from Asia

by Lawrence Rogers

This anthology of translated short stories by Japanese writers captures the city of Tokyo through most of the twentieth century--a period of war, bombing, urbanization, and modernization, in short, constant change that has altered and continues to alter the very geography of the city. The eighteen stories, varying from literary sketches to popular fiction, picture everyday life in different parts of the city--in its nightclubs, department stores, bars, homes, and working-class neighborhoods. For the tourist, armchair traveler, or long-time resident, this book is a literary excursion into Tokyo illuminated by the evocative, and often ironic, words of its writers.

These expertly translated stories range from reflections on deaths in his family by Akutagawa Ryunosuke, the venerated master of the short story, written just before his own suicide; to a story of an all-too-brief affair in the old part of Tokyo by Hayashi Fumiko; to an unsettling tale of high politics and possible blackmail by the ever-popular Mishima Yukio. The volume also introduces the work of Ikeda Michiko and Inaba Mayumi, who have never been translated into English before.

Lawrence Rogers's introduction leads us on an intimate meditative stroll through the city's various districts--from the marble and mahogany of the business district to the skid row of San'ya--describing each in delightful vignettes. As an introduction to Tokyo and to the literary imaginations it has inspired, this engaging book will reveal something new about the nature of Japan's capital to all who wander through its pages.

Genres: Japan, Fiction, Short Stories, Japanese Literature, Anthologies, Travel

368 pages, Paperback

First published May 28, 2002

Reviews

[George Ilsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a quick read but offers insights into a vanished Tokyo. Most of the selections in this anthology were new to me, and as often is the case with Japanese writers, the women (as few as they tend to be) are the ones with the most interesting work.

There is a glossary at the end, but strangely many words in the text are not included. I often went to the glossary only to be disappointed. Not sure why such a nominal glossary was deemed sufficient or why only some words require explanation.

The stories themselves, though, make up for the sloppy presentation.

[Luke · Rating 4 out of 5]

Included authors (including one mentioned one) in ascending order of popularity on this site:

Ikeda Michiko
Takeda Rintarō
Saegusa Kazuko
Takehiro Irokawa
Keizō Hino

Kuniko Mukoda
Inaba Mayumi
Sata Ineko
Kyūsaku Yumeno
Motojirō Kajii

Ichiyō Higuchi (mentioned)
Fumiko Hayashi
Kafū Nagai
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
Natsume Sōseki
Yasunari Kawabata
Yukio Mishima

3.5/5

I've never been to Tokyo. Even after that unknown future date when travel bans on my country are lifted all around the world, there's still plenty of bureaucratic rigmarole I'd have to go through to do any legal globetrotting (the result of my parents believing that the other would abscond with infant me to a foreign country and all that jazz). I imagine this contributes in no insignificant way towards my appetite for non-US works, non-English works, non-what I take for granted in my daily life, and when (if) I finally make my way around the world, I will likely do it in the manner that I have planned for Japan: carrying around my copy of The Tale of Genji and visit as many mentioned places as possible, alternating between reading in suitable places and sobbing into the pages all along the way. This anthology was procured back before I developed the necessary attitude and rigor required for getting the most out of such a collection, reading then researching then reading some more, committing to one work or another before the collection was finished to as to ensure the moments of intrigue weren't lost in the mist. As such, I'm glad that it took two years of finding and six years of getting around to it, as while I'm sure I still sped through it much too quickly, I actually marked out a few works for future reading and took note of a few names that I hope will still be bouncing around in my head when book sales resume and the time is right.

At this point in my life, I'm resigned to the fact of having a mild thing for Japan. It's not something I take pride in, considering the history that Europeans have had with the country (turning a fetish into an occupation/field of study of all things), and my country of birth has an especially weird relationship that involves a mix of yellow fever, weeaboos, and a shared history(/present) of fascism. My method of coping with this while continuing to read the works I'm drawn to involves a lot of self critical analysis, so I have to say, if you're thinking of skipping all the editor commentary and diving straight into the stories, go for it. I said in a status update that I'd pay money to hear Rogers, Seidensticker, and a number of other text-accredited white people write about Paris the way that they write about Tokyo, because whatever they have to say about it revolves around the usual complaints about modern development except when a city needs skyscraper uniformity coupled with an ongoing preoccupation with the sex work industry that would be fine and dandy if they actually cared about sex workers in the slightest.

Anyway, as to the stories themselves, those by Hayashi and Hino inspired me to add works of theirs, Floating Clouds and Isle of Dreams respectively, to the TBR, Hayashi for the bittersweet hope and Hino for the unsettling (I know Kafka gets indiscriminately hurled around but this really is a good case of it) urbanity. It was also very nice to return to Kawabata, Mishima, and Natsume without having to wholly commit myself to an entire work, as well as finally delve a tad into the Akutagawa that I've heard so much about. However, me being me, I paid especially close attention to the women included in the collection, six of the sixteen authors writing six of the eighteen stories (the editor allowed Mishima and Takeda to double dip). As you can tell from the list above, there are no women among the five most popular authors on this site, and the only one I remember running into in any sort of casual fashion previously was Higuchi Ichiyō, and she is only mentioned in the story by Kawabata. You'd think authors who wrote dissertations on Nietzsche (Saegusa), plumbed the down and out of Japan with the best of them (Ikeda), and are remembered as famed communist feminists (Sata) would have more fleshed out literary profiles, but alas. Inaba pleases with a tale completely oriented around a cat (something I Am a Cat fans should be going for), and the ultra brief tale by Mukōda resonates with her career as a screenwriter and death in a plane crash at the age of 52. When will I get the chance to stumble across fully fledged works of all these authors' own? We'll just have to see.

This is the first work I read with an eye on it currently being Women in Translation Month, and while I won't be counting it for my quota, it was a nice way to transition from earlier focuses involving reputable classics to lagging 21st century works and finally to women in translation. Much as I enjoy involving myself in the #WITMonth Twitter scene, almost every work on that site is either much too well known or much too new for my tastes/budget, so I'm happy to counterbalance such with my own reading records here. This collection was definitely a mixed bag, as it usually is, but I particularly enjoyed Hino's "Jacob's Tokyo Ladder", Hayashi's "The Old Part of Town", Mishima's "Fireworks", Ikeda's "An Unclaimed Body", and Inaba's "Morning Comes Twice a Day", so those are names I'll be looking out for (if I weren't already). This experience also demonstrated to me that anthologies in translation like this one are the best way to combine my WIT Month with my usual reading diet, and ones that I have make up for their lack of sizable membership with page amounts ranging from decently sizable to marvelously beefy. So, all in all, a read that comfortably combined old experiences with new (so long as you took the editor commentary with a grain of salt), complete with a shout out to the Voices of Asia university press collection that, on some instinctive level, I'm always looking to get my grubby grubby hands on. I'm hoping my future anthology reads are of similar quality, if not better.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

All of the stories and most of the writers in this collection were previously unavailable in English, so this is a great choice if you want to become acquainted with some new (to you) writers and stories. Some of my favourites were Takeda Rintaro's "The Image" (about a woman's obsessive love) and "The First Day of the Fair" (about a tough, smart teenaged girl working in a restaurant in Asakusa), Nagai Kafu's "Azuma Bridge" (about a prostitute in postwar Tokyo), Inaba Mayumi's "Morning Comes TWice a Day" (about a solitary woman adjusting to a new apartment, alone with her cat), And Hayashi Fumiko's "The Old Part of Town" (about a woman whose husband is in a camp in Siberia after the war, trying to get by amidst the chaos and struggle of postwar Tokyo). HIghly recommended if you care for Japanese fiction and especially if you know and love Tokyo.

[rhodeswarrior · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was somewhat disappointing. Liking Japanese authors a lot, I expected more. The translations felt at some times odd, quaint, somewhat outdated.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably my main complaint with this anthology was the age of the bulk of the stories; but that's probably colored by my having previously read Tokyo Fragments, a more modern anthology whose stories were written specifically for it, rather than being gathered together.

This was still an enjoyable read, however! The different authors contribute to a diverse sense of the city, and the way the anthology is geographically arranged is well done. Ikeda's "An Unclaimed Body" and Inaba's "Morning Comes Twice a Day" were probably my favorites. (Warning: the latter is a little sad to read if you are a cat-lover.) Mishima's "Fireworks" was also better than I expected, but maybe it was published before he hit his exhaustively misogynistic stride.

[G.G. Silverman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful collection of Japanese shorts translated with excellence. Through this collection, you get a sense of the Japanese aesthetic, and the heartbreaking loneliness and social isolation often felt in a changing city. My fave story is "Jacob's Tokyo Ladder"—it is surreal and hallucinatory and shows you eerie ways a writer's mind works—seeing beyond what is obvious and ordinary. I borrowed this collection from a friend, but I might have to buy my own copy because I adore it so much.

[Tosh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really nice anthology of stories by great authors (and some are new to me) and sectioned off by different parts of Tokyo. There is a couple of really good Yukio Mishima stories, and all of them has a certain 'touch' or feel to the great metropolis.