‫حي أساكوسا‬

by Yasunari Kawabata, ياسوناري كاواباتا, جولان حاجي (Translator)

In the 1920s, Asakusa was to Tokyo what Montmartre had been to 1890s Paris and Times Square was to be to 1940s New York. Available in English for the first time, The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa, by Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata, captures the decadent allure of this entertainment district, where beggars and teenage prostitutes mixed with revue dancers and famous authors. Originally serialized in a Tokyo daily newspaper in 1929 and 1930, this vibrant novel uses unorthodox, kinetic literary techniques to reflect the raw energy of Asakusa, seen through the eyes of a wandering narrator and the cast of mostly female juvenile delinquents who show him their way of life. Markedly different from Kawabata's later work, The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa shows this important writer in a new light. The annotated edition of this little-known literary gem includes the original illustrations by Ota Saburo. The annotations illuminate Tokyo society and Japanese literature, bringing this fascinating piece of Japanese modernism at last to a wide audience.

Genres: Japan, Japanese Literature, Fiction, Asia, Historical Fiction, Literature, Nobel Prize

169 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 1, 1930

About the author

Yasunari Kawabata (川端 康成) was a Japanese short story writer and novelist whose spare, lyrical, subtly-shaded prose works won him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1968, the first Japanese author to receive the award. His works have enjoyed broad international appeal and are still widely read today.
Nobel Lecture: 1968
http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prize...

Reviews

[Praj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beggars are people too……Crazy people are women too……"Fallen women" were once naïve young girls……Men who indulge in ‘flesh trade’ aren’t called “fallen men”…...As I scribble these words, my pen comes to a grinding halt. The notebook laid there crammed with the vestiges of my thoughts. The flux of my words was at the mercy of an inaccessible sheet of paper. No matter where landing stage of the wordy compositions deviates, words always appear to be imperfect when expressing the inexpressible. The voyeur within me now precedes Kawabata’s voyeuristic world attempting to comprehend human incidents through an impartial lens, the accomplices to my silence aiding to unearth the truth veiled in the allusive reflection of the transient beauty. The unassuming moon silently floating on the water mirrors the unreal within the real; the reflections on the windows ceasing to exist upon a whiff of wind, the window opening into a bargained emptiness. A tiny drop of water is competent to epitomize the reflection of the moon and the window oblivious to its crystalline pictorial pushes forward committing perjury. Life is a mingled yarn of all things echoic and nonechoic , pure and impure, sincerity and deceit ; the vitality of a perishable life holding onto the wispy filaments of pure longing. The world of nothingness steadily awakens with the melodious sound of the bells of the Senso Temple, the rhythmic choreographed long legs tapping to the blues of the jazz, the murmur of the piano from the dimly lit geisha house, the chatter of the rickshaw pullers, the tranquility of the Sumida River colliding with the exhilaration of the Casino Foiles ; the fragrance of the camellia oil soothing the incoherence of the streets of Asakusa.



“Asakusa is Asakusa is for everyone. In Asakusa, everything is flung out in the raw. Desires dance naked. All races, all classes, all jumbled together forming a bottomless, endless current, flowing day and night, no beginning, no end. Asakusa is alive…….”(Azenbō Soeda)

Akin to the many and various algae proliferating on a summer’s day stretching put a lush emerald carpet over the stagnant waters of the Gourd Pond, Asakusa comes alive with the vibrant hustle and bustle on the streets. The lyrical verses of Soeda resonates the wonders of Asakusa. A home for the homeless, a love for the loveless, a source of food for the famished; a world of leftovers of leftovers. Asakusa, a melting pot to amalgamating all races and classes equating to any thriving city on the face of this earth and yet, Asakusa finds distinctiveness in the allure of its design. How or rather who creates the infrastructure of a city? How are places resurrected from their own ruins? People nurture the land and the land in turns fashions the prevailing communities. Among the elderly delinquents of time, Asakusa was a “young punk”. It exudes an energetic charm seeking the genuine vitality of life, positivity through the purity of wild. Asakusa was a lost piece found through its very own people.



Kawabata generates a fascinating dais for Asakusa as a “human market”, attracting all and sundry from hobos , prostitutes, juvenile delinquents, geishas, shop girls, flappers, vagabonds, artists and the entire artistic shenanigans rough plays where the ornate dressings rooms of the “ero-queens” are as amusing as the man feeding wheat crackers to the carp in the pool while munching on few of from the pack. “But essentially Asakusa is like a specimen in the Bug House …… something completely different from today’s world, like a remote island or some African village led by a chief , a whole net of time-honored codes over it”

Originally published as a miscellaneous series in news dailies, the Asakusa chronicles finds it titular derivations in the wanderings of the Scarlet Gang. The self-christened theatrical group – The Scarlet Troupe publicized their hope of performing something spectacular in the kitschy votive stickers plastered all over the vacant walls in the city. Over the years, embarrassed by this modernist work of his, Kawabata once had said, “All I did was walk. I never became acquainted with any of the young delinquents. I never addressed a word to the vagrants either….. but I took notes…”. A young man with a baggage of just a pen and a notebook wayfaring through the heart of Tokyo in the aftermath of the 1923 The Great Kanto Earthquake investigated lonesome demimonde lives existing on the societal periphery. Kawabata being a silent flâneur preserves a certain sense of objectivity and distancing in his reportage, and yet ironically the acute perceptions are cryptic evaluation in their abstractions. The trajectory of the narrative rocks back and forth amid three distinct articulations accompanied by multifaceted active and passive vocalizations. Kawabata takes the reader along with him through the alleys of Asakusa. Kawabata devotedly address …."Dear Reader….just take a walk along the alleys…”….."Dear Reader…..as you knows”……” …..” what would you do if you were in their place……”……. The subtle prod eventually turns the reader into a loyal companion to the narrator. The “I” of the reader dissolving in the “I” of the narrator.



With its evenly matched pictorial illustrations denoting the aspects of materialistically cultural grandeur capturing one of Tokyo’s fascinating socio-cultural era of history and social relationships; this book registers a certain ‘pop-fic’ ambience . Nevertheless, Kawabata the literary master that he is stays true to his art, astutely conveying the philosophical totality of mono no aware allying the quintessence of transience beauty with the subsequent sadness. The melodrama budding within the printed pages leaps through the loops of subtle humour, economic recession, resistance to convention and the idea of love mingled with eroticism and vengeful crudity encumbered with the emptiness of longing. The dregs of Asakusa. But as long as she can still run, she’s still a woman. Because most of the bums are no longer human enough to run………… The weathered folks no longer talk. They live amid the hustle and bustle of the commercial district without saying a word. The malleable “taste of the backstreets” was sexy and absurd. The impish labyrinth of Asakusa is an inconclusive world of nothingness, but it is not nihilistic.

“When I’m with a man, I’m always sizing myself up- weighing the part of me that wants to become a woman against the part of me that is afraid to. Then I fell miserable and even more lonely” The yen for fulfilling the ideals of womanly dwells within the fragile beauty of Yumiko and Oharu. Yumiko’s desire to be viewed as a man pulsates through the memories of her being the fateful “daughter of the earthquake”; the vengeance of the kittenish arsenic kiss sailing on the Sumida River. Umekichi’s confessions of love residing the idea of love on the lips of a middle-aged woman. The radiance of red and purple sashes blending in the fated hues of the “fallen women”. The transparency of Ochiyo’s lunacy contrasting the rouge of the Okin on the bank. The emptiness offalseness of the varied protagonists is forged ahead surviving the customs of their incompleteness.

Asakusa had perhaps been for him (Kawabata) as it was for me – a place that allowed anonymity, freedom, where life flowed on no matter what, where you could pick up pleasure, and where small rooms with paper flowers were rented by the hour. ( Donald Richie , Afterword)

Wading through an interminable picturesque lattice of memories and dewy-eyed faces ; the rawness of dreams drifting though an endless ebb and flow of desires and pleasures strewn with snippets and snapshots floating in a stoic air , this chronicled narrative resembles a fragmented puzzle. And, you find yourself plucking these coquettishly naïve and seductively sinister wanderings, assembling it piece by piece into a significant portrait, an art illuminated in its own abstraction by its own peculiarities. Richie’s accuracy in his noteworthy inferences about Asakusa being a pathway of anonymity to an uninterrupted freedom resonates in the sensory perceptions captured amongst the echoes of “dear reader”. The human flow aggressive in survival and passionate in expression pulsates throughout my cerebral silence bringing Asakusa alive within the spiritless walls of my room; an absurd persuasion enticing me to seize the floating moon amid the nimble watery ripples. The yearning to obtain the unobtainable. The need to discover the sincerity and beauty in the depths of nothingness. Luminescent in the aureate sun, the urge to grab the ephemeral beauty of a piece of glass before it being engulfed by the shadows of the passing day; is how Kawabata’s Asakusa chronicles captivates me. And, I certainly do not need a new notebook for my words as my thoughts are no longer at the mercy of neither the pen nor the paper.

[Sawsan · Rating 2 out of 5]

الرواية الأولى لكاواباتا يكتب فيها عن حي أساكوسا.. حي المتعة في طوكيو
يحكي عن معالم الحي بكل ما فيه من أماكن وشخصيات ومهن
السرد متداخل وتقريري إلى حد ما حتى في الحوار

[Mariel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kawabata's The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa is supposed to be a work of "modernism" and "New Perceptionist" blah blah. Those words mean nothing to me. It's like trying not to translate everything front to back when you're learning a second language, or an actor with natural talent going to a method school. I'd forget how to walk and talk at the same time! I'd forget how to do either on their own. Trying to make those words mean something in comparison to something else, say other literature classics from the period, will really make my head hurt and I'll forget about why I should care about the people in the story in the first place. This might be a noteable book because of those things, but I am not a reliable reviewer in that respect. Kawabata lived in Asakusa when he was a student. He'd skip off to go on walks around the city instead of attending classes (my kinda guy). I don't think he cared about going by a syllabus either? (I'm going with that so I don't feel bad.) There were people to watch. There are still people to watch, in his mind's eye and now my heart's eye.

Donald Richie (I've some of his books at home to read and I'm pretty psyched) wrote an awesome foreward about the history of Asakusa, Kawabata as a young student and budding new school thinker. It made me think of the oh so serious lit students in Soseki's Sanshiro and I had to laugh. I guess my point is that it is 2011 of this reading and Asakusa is looooong gone. It was me and the gang. If you've known people who were abused who hold within themselves an outfit, say a sort of sheild, that becomes its own glamour... That's the Scarlet Gang to me. They are not untouchable as the stars but are as unknowable in the night or day depending on who they think you want them to be. The freedom is shuttered in confusion. Definitions of style, or the nods to the reader and "This is just a book" deflections and inflections, are not important to me. Outside is the new inside! What are outcasts? There's always a society, as long as there are people...

I feel Kawabata did more here than make strokes in written history about that short wick place. It's just knowing people and feeling something. At least I can feel something... He wanted to save it. I know that, even as I ignore it in favor of what's pulling me harder. It's just... The why it mattered in the first place is more important to me than the how?

I'd say this is an introvert drawing closer to the lively people who will draw them out of the unceasing time of being themselves. The sense of all of that acting feels uncontrolled dramatic. I don't know... It's hard for me because I don't find it easy to feel reflected on by the light of others. I'm suspicious of loud because I wonder what they are trying to cover up. (I've also long suspected one of the reasons why shy friends inevitably dump me is because I'm too quiet to draw anyone out. I don't live to make things happen, that's for sure. Shit, I just confessed to being boring on goodreads.) Asakusa IS that moth sucking flame. Shit, you didn't just say the city is a character, Mariel. Did you? Don't! It's not that important. Times past? History? Nope. It's better than a post card. Wish you were here wouldn't be this feeling. You need the shy person on the soles (souls). (That's you, Kawabata.) After the earthquake of 1923 the girl Yumiko (figurehead bad girl of the Scarlet Gang. More like a scarlet thread holding the transparent fabric together) and her sister stay in a shelter with many, many other bodies. Beggars, vagrants, misplaced bodies. She misses them when a lot of them go. Damn if that's not how Scarlet Gang feels to me. The kids building their school again. That they wouldn't have the heart to rebuild it again if it failed... Kawabata is the best. That's Scarlet Gang. DYI and congenital hearts.

I could have a tupperware party and go to everyone of goodreads house with all my thoughts about this book. Better yet, a bento box. Every flavor will hint of shyness instead of modernism (to me) mumbo gumbo (since that means fuck all to me and shyness is a daily reminder of society, like Asakusa).

So Asakusa was a pleasure city of flesh, food and commerce. Not commerce like shopping malls of middle America and China commerce but everyone was trying to have something to sell, or liked to be in the vicinity of that open market (mall rats and street rats are cousins). At least it was honest about what was for sale, if not what it could cost. I don't buy the glamour like pleasure glamour, though. For instance, that there were so many beggars that the pretty were the commodities? If they looked at them after they were consumed... (One character poisons herself with arsenic to make her skin white and glowing. Fucking poison!) They were pretty until they became wizened on benches, unable to move (or unwilling. Benches were few and competition was brutal). They say you are lost when you can no longer run...

Perusing goodreads and amazon reviews I got the impression that Scarlet Gang is considered a comedy. Not exactly... It's you'll laugh about this some day if you're lucky humor. Sharks not stopping because if they do they'll die humor. It's funny like that like this isn't a history story like it is all the kinds of timelessness. Going into crowds to touch people to be a "them" instead of just "you", nothing matters beyond sales transactions because it's pretend, just business. Dreaming in your own made up costumes. Stage lights never go down. (Damn, where was it in this book that Japanese didn't dress up in costumes in Ginza but it was becoming common in Asakusa? Costumes are definitely popular in Japan today. I found that interesting because I've long admired the cosplay and street kids of today's Japan. Okay, twist my arm! It is kinda a history book, sometimes. It just isn't statistics or a photograph...)

What I was saying about the shark swimming humor? The young girls (thirteen or fourteen, none older than twenty) dancing with their legs showing off singing songs from childhood (think patty cake or something). The longing to be back in braids, innocent and little again. The women in the audience feeling confused, a little resentful. Men strangely excited. Fuck. I can't believe all this talk of Kawabata as the "eternal traveler" (Damn you, Mishima!). Nooooooo. It's the shy thing! The shy cannot bring them out of their glamour in a breakage. Break your own heart. That. They broke HIS heart. If we don't know if he did the same to him... Where's the moving on coming from? He wrote this book! He didn't move on.

The artwork from the serialization was included in my edition. I know less about art than I do about modernism. The style seems familiar to me, although I do not know why. I can say that what I noticed above all else was that the women's thighs were prominent. Maybe it is because I don't pay much attention to women's thighs. I had the feeling that their thighs were taking over their bodies. They were becoming their job as dancers and "ladybirds". Soon they'd have no choice but to be one of those fallen women who put on their makeup in the day time. Oh shit. See all that underlying feeling of honesty in being still had a safe border. Not giving up, not doing the costumes anymore. When the thighs were enormous and the only costume was the makeup of ladybird...

I'm fascinated in the ways that nobody owns anyone else. Richie wrote in one of his books (one of the journals) that there was nothing wrong with selling yourself. He wrote in the afterword that he found "freedom in flesh". Is it really freedom? Or was the attraction of Asakusa a movement of acting out outside, instead of only inside? Because I have to say, the flesh was not "dormant" as Richie said. Not any more than a conquered or surrendered country is dormant. Something is on inside... I wouldn't say it was wrong just that I doubt that there's a real price tag for this. If there was no one would be dressing up, right?

I'm interested in freedom. I don't feel this is it. But I love the shy person breaking their heart stuff. Me too, Kawabata. That's one of the reasons why I love you so damned much. Freedom is out with modernism in the washed away bath water. The acting out movement is something you can't help. Washing away the dirt doesn't feel right so cover it up with makeup and a stage show song (and hope there isn't a clean spot on the wall behind the picture frame about little girl sing-songs and braids).

P.s. I freaking loved that Richie described Kawabata as "bird-like" in appearance and manner.

[William2 · Rating 3 out of 5]

The novel is set in a Tokyo entertainment district, Asakusa, in the early twentieth century. It was destroyed by an earthquake in 1923. This is part of the story. Kawabata, who lived there in his twenties, took extensive notes. It clearly fascinated him, Asakusa, full of young grifters as it was. There is no plot and the style has been described as modernist. I find it interesting, especially the casual sex and gender dysphoria.

"—I am a daughter of the earthquake. In the middle of the earthquake, I was reborn. It's like I told you at the Aquarium. I'm going to become a man. I'm never going to be a woman. When hundreds of people sleep, lying together on concrete, legs touching, without anything to cover up their bodies—then a girl starts to hate becoming a woman." (p. 86)

But it doesn't have much narrative unity. The thread running through it seems all over the map. The shifting POVs have a lot to do with this instability. I like the descriptions of old Asakusa, which are vivid. I would send you to one of Kawabata's many other novels, if you're new to his work. These include: The Sound of the Mountain, Snow Country, Beauty and Sadness, Thousand Cranes, The Old Capital.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

For me, the most fascinating area of Tokyo is Asakusa. In the 1920s that neighborhood was a combination of red-light district, music hall theaters, movie theaters, street food vendors, amusement park, and gambling dens - oh and a big shrine as well. Now, it is primarily a tourist attraction, but still it has the feel of old downtown Tokyo life. I go there to meditate on the pleasures that must have been given, as well as the new sensations of walking around such a beautiful urban area. Yasunari Kawabara in his novel "The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa" captures the essence of the place, but with sketch like descriptions of women, places and desires. Originally written as a newspaper column or serial, it reads like a feverish dream, and in essence it reminds me of John Dos Passos' "The U.S. Trilogy" in that it captures moments by signage, impressions, and the sensual aspect of the location that is Asakusa. The edition here is a work of perfection. Beautifully translated by Alisa Freedman with a great introduction and afterword by Donald Richie. Also the book is illustrated by the original images that were in the Japanese edition. 1920s Tokyo was really something, and that "it" quality happened in Asakusa. And this book captures that magic.

[LaCitty · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dirò una banalità se descrivo questo romanzo come "molto giapponese"?
E se dicessi che in fondo non è un romanzo, ma una raccolta di quadri, immagini del quartiere Asakusa negli anni '20, accomunati dal sottile filo di alcuni personaggi ricorrenti?

Di fatto, credo che vada affrontato senza aspettative, lasciando che il flusso del racconto si dispieghi come il fiume che scorre per il quartiere,

accettando le descrizioni e i piccoli fatti che accadono in un quartiere abitato da artisti e poveracci che cercano un modo per sbarcare il lunario in un periodo di grosse difficoltà economiche per il Giappone (e non solo!). Non c'è una vera storia e il finale, tronco, spiazza ulteriormente il lettore. Pure è un libro che si fa leggere, che restituisce un'atmosfera.

[Elena Carmona · Rating 3 out of 5]

La pandilla de Asakusa se lee rápido no porque enganche la historia, es más, la novela rehúye de cualquier narración lineal y coherente; se lee rápido porque es una serie de imágenes frenéticas e inconexas esparcidas por un mismo barrio, el de Asakusa. O al menos, el barrio que un día fue Asakusa. El Kawabata modernista de principios de su carrera literaria, un Kawabata obsesionado con el zoom in y el zoom out, rompe la cuarta pared y se refiere directamente al lector, ante el que se excusa por haberse ido por las ramas, o para disculparse de antemano por interrumpir una narración y saltar a otra completamente distinta. El epílogo donde Donald Richie relata sus encuentros con Kawabata me pareció precioso. No se ha convertido en una de mis favoritas, pero siempre está bien leer a Kawabata.

Este lugar bulle en la superficie, probablemente como ningún otro sitio de Japón.

[Edward Rathke · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel is distinctly different from what Kawabata would go on to write. It's very modern in that it avoids plot and the real character of this novel is Asakusa. More than any of the humans followed in the novel, more even than the narrator, what this novel is about is Asakusa.

It's a much more playful novel than what would bring him international fame and recognition, but I quite liked it. It feels distinctly western while his later novels are much more japanese in style and content.

He built Asakusa and it comes alive on every page. The whores, the dancers, the thugs, the gangs, the poor, the homeless, the children, and the adults all swirling in this part of Tokyo that becomes realer with each new exploit detailed.

A very cool read.

[Bên Phía Nhà Z · Rating 3 out of 5]

một cuốn sách thử nghiệm giai đoạn còn trẻ của Kawabata, học theo chủ nghĩa hiện đại, cụ thể là Joyce và Ulysses. phá vỡ cốt truyện, trình tự tuyến tính về thời gian, nhập nhòe giữa hư cấu và phi hư cấu, chính vì thế rất khó đọc và rất khó theo dõi vì tất cả trở thành phân mảnh. rất may là Kawabata đã khôn mà vứt bỏ kiểu học Tây này để quay về lối viết truyền thống và chỉ tích hợp một vài yếu tố Tây vào mà thôi. dịch ra tiếng Việt đảm bao ma nó mua. nói chung là thú vị vì hiểu thêm về tác giả này.

[ُEmanMarhoon · Rating 3 out of 5]

حي اساكوسا

انتهيت قبل قليل من قراءة ثاني كتب عام 2020 وهو رواية حي أساكوسا للكاتب الياباني ياسوناري كاواباتا الانطباع الأول كنت أقدره سيئا لما قبل الصفحه 80 ثم بدأ رأسي يعتاد قليلا على دوخة أحياء أساكوسا

الرواية عبارة عن خارطة مفصلة عن هذا الحي الغريب المخيف والمتسع بممراته الضيقة وحدائقه وضفاف أنهاره وجسوره طبقات الشعب فيه من أعلى السلم حتى أرذله كقارئة وودت لو كانت هذه الرواية فيلم وثائقي سيكون متابعته حتما أكثر سهوله من الغوص في حديث متراص في كتاب

اليابان دولة عريقة تعد التاريخ أمر مقدس في جوانب عدة فهي لديها عصور وآلهة ومعابد فوق حد التصور ما أثار انتباهي في أساكوسا هو وجود عصابات منظمة كعصابة الزنار الأحمر أما الأكثر أسى هو وجود بيوت الدعارة المرخصة وبيع الفتيات دون علمهن

تجربة جديدة لكاتب لم أقرأ له سابقا رغم وجود الهوامش ووفرتها أزعجني وجودها في الخلف ما جعل تجربة القراءة والفهم أكثر صعوبة

3.5

[NipPop Bologna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Recensione completa: x

La banda di Asakusa è uno dei romanzi giapponesi più interessanti del periodo che precede la seconda guerra mondiale. È sicuramente anche uno dei romanzi più interessanti di Kawabata Yasunari, anche se forse meno conosciuto rispetto ad altri come Il paese delle nevi, Il suono della montagna, Mille gru, o La casa delle belle addormentate.

Kawabata Yasunari è forse uno degli scrittori piu conosciuti, non solo in Giappone ma anche all'estero. È il primo scrittore giapponese a vincere il premio nobel nel 1968. Fu molto conosciuto all'estero anche perché, soprattutto negli anni successivi alla seconda guerra mondiale, è stato una figura importante proprio come ambasciatore della cultura giapponese all'estero e allo stesso tempo fece conoscere i grandi maestri della letteratura e della pittura europea in Giappone.

Ma Kawabata in realtà comincia a scrivere molto prima, e muove i suoi primi passi nel mondo della letteratura all'interno di un movimento che ha avuto una breve durata, ma è stato determinante: il movimento dello Shinkankakuha, la scuola del neo percezionismo, delle nuove sensazioni. Ci sono molte traduzioni possibili: shin indica nuovo, kankaku sono le percezioni, le sensazioni. Si tratta di un movimento che si addensa negli anni a metà degli anni Venti, a partire dal 1924, attorno in particolare a una rivista, Bungei Jidai. Sarà proprio questa pubblicazione ad avere un ruolo fondamentale come organo diffusore delle idee di questi giovani scrittori e artisti che si oppongono al mainstream e alla centralità del romanzo e propongono un modo narrativo nuovo.

Fra le opere nate da questo movimento spunta appunto La banda di Asakusa - in giapponese Asakusa kurenai dan, letteralmente ‘la banda scarlatta di Asakusa’. E il colore rosso, anzi lo scarlatto, ha un ruolo fondamentale all’interno del romanzo o meglio ne rappresenta l’unico filo conduttore realmente percepibile.

Clicca qui per guardare la recensione completa!

[iara · Rating 2 out of 5]

finalmente meu deus que leitura chata! 224 paginas e a única personagem q eu consigo lembrar e que me prendeu por algum momento foi a yumiko. fora essa vibe esquisitíssima do kawabata de sempre escrever sobre meninas e adolescentes em situações degradantes e de exposição sexual

[Drilli · Rating 3 out of 5]

Asakusa è universale. Qui tutto viene alla luce così com'è, senza artifici. I desideri degli uomini palpitano nella loro nudità. E' una grande corrente in cui si mescolano alla rinfusa tutte le classi e le razze. E' una corrente di insondabile profondità che fluisce senza posa, giorno e notte. Asakusa vive: folle di gente la percorrono senza sosta. E' un crogiolo che fonde di continuo le vecchie cose e dà loro nuova forma.
Questa citazione descrive questo romanzo molto meglio di quanto potrei fare io. Il problema è che quel "alla rinfusa"... beh, è fin troppo veritiero.

Il mio primo pensiero, già dopo una decina di pagine, è stato: "Com'è diverso dagli altri due romanzi di Kawabata che ho letto! Sembra scritto da tutt'altra persona!"
Kawabata, di cui ho letto due romanzi del priodo "maturo", mi affascina per la poeticità incredibile che riesce a mettere anche nelle cose più banali, mentre qui... tutto sembra disordine e caos, dai personaggi ai fatti alle strade al modo di raccontare... Essendo ormai un po' avvezza alla letteratura giapponese, che non ci fosse una vera trama me l'aspettavo, ma che fosse così labile e confusionaria no, non me l'aspettavo. Se l'avessi saputo avrei probabilmente aspettato un altro momento per leggerlo, ma una volta iniziato un libro mi ostino a volerlo finire e quindi eccomi qua comunque.

Grazie anche alla prefazione, che mi ha un po' inquadrato il libro, ne ho capito l'intento e si può anche dire che sia stato raggiunto: ci vengono mostrati tanti piccoli quadri di Asakusa alla fine degli anni '20, e sono quadri vividissimi, popolati di personaggi tanto bizzarri quanto affascinanti. Tuttavia, non tutti i quadri sono ugualmente riusciti e il filo così sottile che li unisce, unito al saltellare continuo avanti e indietro nel tempo e da un personaggio all'altro... sono un po' troppo, per me. Diciamo che è una delle conferme di come io non riesca a familiarizzare molto bene coi cosiddetti "romanzi d'avanguardia".
Un altro "problema" è che proprio ciò che lo rende così interessante (la descrizione più che precisa e più che realistica dell'Asakusa di quei tempi) è al tempo stesso un elemento che ne pregiudica, in parte, la comprensione e il godimento della lettura di chi non abbia vissuto quel quartiere e quegli anni.
Può sembrare strano che io parli al tempo stesso di confusione e di estremo realismo... eppure qusto "romanzo" è proprio così.

Peccato, perché lo stesso tema, gli stessi luoghi, gli stessi personaggi, raccontati in modo anche solo un po' più lineare e "tradizionale" mi avrebbero intrigato tantissimo.

Resto ferma nelle intenzioni di leggere altro di Kawabata, ma probabilmente mi limiterò al "periodo maturo" :P

[Jen Ashburn · Rating 3 out of 5]

For any westerner living in Tokyo, this novel is incredibly interesting for the way it captures 1929-1930 Asakusa. It shows the (relatively) innocent underbelly of society through a cast of quirky and likable characters. You'll definitely see Asakusa, and Tokyo in general, in a new light. From a literary standpoint, it's interesting because it was Kawabata's attempt at modernism.

It was experimental, and for this reason, it can be a little hard to follow. The time line's a mess, there are a million characters and connections to keep track of, the narrator may or may not have been the author and/or the antagonist, it's not always immediately clear who's speaking, etc. It felt like looking through the eyes of a four-year-old, whose attention focuses on only what's the most intriguing at that moment and then quickly moves on to the next thing that catches his/her eye. But this is why I loved this novel. With the choppy narrative and quick pace, we can almost feel what life for these characters must have been like. I can't imagine a more conventional style capturing this in quite the same way.

[Taylor Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incredibly interesting portrait of a writer grappling with the tentacles the strains of European Modernism some forty years prior to receiving the Nobel. Asakusa-- thick throngs of Japanese street life painted vividly, as if caught precisely at the moment 1929 changes to 1930, in dancingly animated chapters of brevity the product of its serialized nighttime newspaper format. Lively, wonderful, cunning, and magical-- Asakusa in Kawabata's hand becomes Paris in the twenties stuffed into America during the destitute thirties.

Rereading, 20-23 March, 2021
Visceral experience, this strange novel, quite curiously a profound contrast with the later work for which he was awarded the Nobel. Kawabata’s Asakusa sprawls vividly alive. At each moment its colorful exuberance squirms, laughs, and teases. Exciting, inventive, playful, and dynamic— a joy, a pleasure, an enigmatic grin.

[Nick · Rating 1 out of 5]

I write as an admirer of Kawabata's later books, studies of families or (in the case of the Master of Go) masters competing at a game, all with a very Japanese wistfulness and sense of things passing. But Kawabata's take on this crime district is all wistfulness, no substance. Characters come and go, and although the title speaks of a Scarlet Gang, it barely appears. Most of the action is discussion of and with prostitutes. The ones the narrator talks to seem insubstantial, or perhaps just mercurial. But his dissection of their lives and prospects is unflinching. There aren't any hearts of gold here. The ambience is too harsh for it.

[Post Scriptum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Colpa della sinossi. Letta la sinossi ho pensato: ecco, finalmente “l’orientale” che fa per me. Non è andata così. Non sono riuscita a sprofondare nel libro. O meglio l'ho fatto a tratti per rincorrere funamboli, attori, ballerine, prostitute, vagabondi perché mi raccontassero le loro storie. Ho ascoltato, a volte ammaliata, altre annoiata. Ho guardato, talora incantata, in altri casi infastidita. Un turbinio di luoghi, voci, suoni. E colori. Il rosso sopra tutti. Dal rosso fiammante che veste un sogno sensuale al rosso scuro che profuma di donna perduta. Nel mezzo, coriandoli di vita sparsi fra vicoli e quartieri di Asakusa.
 

Caro Kawabata, premio Nobel per la letteratura 1968, non volermene. Non so se m’è piaciuto questo viaggio. Ho provato varie volte il desiderio di interromperlo. Lo dico con onestà, perché è giusto così. Sono io ad avere un problema con gli scrittori orientali in generale. Un mio limite. Ci riproverò.

[Tonymess · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very difficult to follow & for mine a curio of Kawabata’s work. You can see the themes in his later work appearing, but the mixed voices, narrative style & cast of 100’s don’t make for an easy read. Worthwhile to explore Kawabata’s oeuvre but not one I’d get people to start with.

[Onírica · Rating 4 out of 5]

Es un ejemplo clave de la literatura de la Nueva Percepción, nacida en pleno Modernismo, a principios del siglo XX. El estilo narrativo es cubista: se funden, a veces en una misma página, una multiplicidad de planos, voces narrativas, lapsos de tiempo, personajes y escenas, creando una imagen poliédrica de un mismo hecho o escenario. Este extraño estilo, sin duda rompedor en su momento y que siempre fue la marca personal de Kawabata, se vuelve difícil de sostener por instantes desde la posición del lector.

Todo lo dicho tiene como propósito el servir de mirador sensorial (tanto para el escritor como para el lector) hacia el gran protagonista de la obra, que aquí no es una persona sino un lugar: Asakusa. Dentro de él y de la novela conviven como microorganismos todos los personajes y las escenas cotidianas que Kawabata muestra con realismo fotográfico, gracias a sus paseos e investigaciones en persona, que realizó durante años. Pero este ejercicio de exploración se torna complejo conforme se avanza en la lectura: la prosa se vuelve áspera de disfrutar hacia la mitad del libro, momento en el que comprendes por qué el estilo narrativo de la Nueva Percepción fue un reto en su momento y ahora. Todo se fragmenta en sensaciones e imágenes, nada transcurre de forma lineal. La Pandilla de Asakusa es, por tanto, todo un reto. Uno de los que merecen la pena.

[Iván Ramírez Osorio · Rating 5 out of 5]

Termino una novela que no parece de Kawabata y que, aún así, es tan Kawabata como lo Bello y Lo Triste o el Maestro de Go. Maravillosa novela sobre la ciudad, novela de la ciudad y de las prácticas urbanas. Bellísimo ejercicio etnográfico, un ejemplo a seguir. 5/5

[Nourhan Elkafrawy · Rating 3 out of 5]

عند قراءة هذه الرواية تدرك سبب حصولها على جائزة نوبل عام 1968
الرواية عبارة عن تأريخ كامل لانحطاط دولة اليابان فى الفترة ما بين 1922و1930
من دعارة و مخدرات و نصب و تسول
لكن انا لم أعطها علامات كاملة لانى لم استمتع بها بشكل كامل

[Esteban De La Hoz · Rating 5 out of 5]

La maleabilidad como estrategia modernista en La pandilla de Asakusa

Primero que todo, debo decir que me siento bastante contrariado con esta novela. Tenía ganas de leer algo de Asia, y quise leer algo de Kawabata porque sabía que había ganado un Nobel hace tiempo. Fui a la librería y compré el único que había de él. No sé si La pandilla de Asakusa fue el mejor primer libro de Kawabata, o el primero libro de literatura japonesa, pues resulta que este es un ejercicio bastante modernista que confunde, y entre no tener suficiente contexto de Japón, así como de la propuesta de Kawabata, sumado a la dificultad de las novelas modernas, estuve bastante perdido durante gran porción del tiempo de lectura. Sin importar lo anterior –lo cual no recae en la obra sino en mi horizonte experiencial–, la lectura de esta novela destapó en mí un profundo deseo de leer más a Japón y a Kawabata.
Ahora sí lo relativo a la novela. Fue de mi especial atención lo que yo denominaré "maleabilidad", la estrategia tanto escritural como temática y comportamental, poética que, siento, es transversal en la obra. Dicha maleabilidad en la cual ahondaré se manifiesta en tres aspectos: la ciudad, el personaje y, lo más importante, lo narrativo.
Acerca del aspecto espacial, en la contraportada de mi edición (muy buena, por cierto), dirigida a un público muy occidental, ignorante de Oriente –como yo– dice que el barrio de Asakusa es "lo que Montmartre [para] París en 1890 y lo que Times Square sería para Nueva York en 1940". Yo, que soy embelesado lector de Gatsby, entré con mucha atención a la poética espacial citadina. Es fascinante la manera en la que se genera extrañamiento en una polis creciente que está ad portas de conocer la globalización. Por ejemplo, hay un pasaje bellísimo titulado "El perro de caza alemán", donde Kawabata versa de la disonancia de Occidente en Oriente. Este barrio es la muestra más evidente de que la interacción multicultural lleva a una falsa idea de que todo es posible (punto convergente con el Nueva York de Gatsby). Me encanta la manera en la que la ciudad se vuelve una masa maleable, de la cual puede resultar todo lo imaginable. En esta era moderna, en donde hay cine, cabarets, striptease y mucho mercado, Asakusa se vuelve una representación de "..una ciudad de juguete" (Kawabata 54).
Desde que el contexto impulsa al sujeto, la poética de maleabilidad se ve también en los personajes. La muestra más representativa de ello es Yumiko, quien dice: "...cuando te enamoras de un hombre, si tienes la oportunidad de amarlo de verdad, entonces la vida puede ser maravillosa. Lo entenderías si me mirarás con atención. No soy una mujer" (Kawabata 68). En la medida en la que ella no ama al ex-amante de su hermana mayor, ella tiene la 'maleabilidad' de su cuerpo y su vida para no ser mujer. Es algo increíble, pues esto convive en la novela de innumerables escenas de prostitución y venta de mujeres. La artificialidad consciente de los personajes, su maleabilidad, es tan característica que el mismo barrio, en un afán de control, adquiere válvulas de escape en grupos marginados: los mendigos que desde la primera página vemos. Acerca del tema de los mendigos no sé bien qué pensar aún (quizá porque el juicio ético me parece demasiado complicado); no obstante, me agrada pensar en el ambiente artificioso sumamente modernista que construye Kawabata en esta novela (entiendo que él leyó algo de Joyce y de Woolf. Precioso y preciso).
Por último, al estrategia de la maleabilidad brilla en el ámbito narrativo de La pandilla de Asakusa , pues, como bien apunta Lippit en mi prólogo escrito por Donald Richie, hay tres voces narrativas: "primero, el narrador que se dirige al «Querido lector»; segundo, el mismo narrador pero como un personaje de la novela; y tercero, en tercera persona, otra voz, objetiva, que cuenta cosas que las otras dos voces no podrían saber" (Lippit en Richie 24). Si bien ahí yace por excelencia la propuesta modernista de Kawabata, lo que a mí me interesa especialmente es la consciencia maleable de la novela como un device cuyas reglas se construyen cuando se pone en marcha. Es decir, si la ciudad y los personajes son maleables, es brillante que la forma de la novela se vuelque también sobre dicha inestabilidad y opte por un narrador-no-confiable, quien es contrastado por sí mismo y por un narrador omnisciente.
Así las cosas, las propuestas literarias como la de Kawabata en La pandilla de Asakusa terminan por demostrar la gran carta de opciones que tiene la narrativa modernista de inicios del siglo XX. Además, es sumamente hermoso ver estos 'códigos literarios compartidos' desde Occidente hasta Oriente. Estas múltiples formas de la maleabilidad recuerdan que la historia es de todos, que la historia personal es un artificio mentiroso necesario, y que quienes habitamos activamente una ciudad terminamos por ficcionalizarlo también.

[Eva Guerrero · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5
Un Kawabata vanguardista que experimenta escribiendo sobre lo que ve en Asakusa. No es una novela sobre una pandilla, es una novela desordenada sobre el barrio en la década de 1920. Es casi un documental modernista, un bloc de notas.
El glosario que incluye la edición de Austral es realmente bueno.

[J.M. Hushour · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'd be the first to admit that my hyperbole tends, as hyperbole should, to curse and profane works of fiction and, alternatively, to gush about them with an almost masturbatory fervor. There's not much room for anything between these two extremes. And I'm not ashamed of that. How else could I convey either my distaste for the absolute shit-hatted, almost perverse fawning over of sheer crap (winks to you, Rowling: you had a good middle, but that's about it) or my astonishment at weak- or non-reviewed works of pure, fantastical amazingness? (This book, actually)
"Scarlet Gang" is one of those books where I try and try to elucidate why it's so goddamn good and I just sit here shaking my head, wondering what to say and not say. First off, there's nothing "postmodern" here. I hate even typing the word. This is a stroller's work that would've done Walter Benjamin proud. Narrator walks through the shady, seedy, (and most fun) part of Tokyo during its heyday in the late 20s and tells us stories about the people he knows and sees. He describes the craven charm of the place. There's even a main character, the boy-haired Yumiko who seeks love, revenge, and maybe even a kind of oblivion that city's seek in themselves: maps-turned-inward, maybe? I don't want to read too much into her, she does enough of that on her own.
She's just the central pivot for the goings-on of "Scarlet Gang". There's hobos, prostitutes, showgirls, young street thugs, homeless people, poor people, earthquakes, buildings falling, boats hired for murder--pretty much everything you could want. And it's all handed to you in a back alley where girls play pianos and red laundry bleeds down onto the gravel, with all its full luster and weird urban eroticism.
A book many might hate for its lack of real, cohesive storylines, but it's there, you just have to think and feel a little deeper than you normally would. My favorite book of the year?

[Jain · Rating 4 out of 5]

A self-consciously modern novel about Tokyo's Asakusa district in interwar Japan. The plot alternates between frenetic activity and long descriptive passages of Asakusa and its inhabitants--juvenile gang members, prostitutes, beggars, actresses and revue dancers, famous writers--all conveyed in Kawabata's strong, clear prose.

I especially enjoyed Kawabata's explorations of gender, which feel surprisingly fresh even after eighty years.

[Tim Pendry · Rating 4 out of 5]

My heart tends to sink when I am faced by any early twentieth century modernist novel and the more so if I know that it is modernism taken up by a non-European author trying to emulate literary idols from half way around his world.

This early novel by the young but rapidly becoming established Yasunari Kawabata is going to be hard-going for anyone who is not an educated Japanese or a Western student of Japanese culture but that does not mean it is not without interest.

The modernism is, I think, not particularly exciting or interesting except for reasons of antiquarian literariness. This edition tries to help a great deal with two introductions, an afterword by one of them with a personal reminiscence of Kawabata and an extensive glossary.

Fortunately, through all the obfuscatory experimentation, the essential humanity of the author shines through. We can glean (if we really make the effort) some sense of what it must have been like to haunt Tokyo's equivalent to London's Soho, only more down and out, in the late 1920s.

The area is Asakusa and one of the virtues of the 'novel' is that the impressionistic style at its best gives us an idea of a very unstable Japan represented by a district of Tokyo smashed by the 1923 Kanto earthquake (estimated 142,800 dead across the region) and then by the Great Depression.

There is, in this context, a marked if subtle change of tone between the first 38 chapters which appeared in 'Asahi' as 1929 became 1930 and the final chapters (the work remained unfinished) in literary journals in the autumn of 1930.

The first set of chapters are those of a flaneur and psychogeographer recording the slow transformation of an already battered old district of hucksters, entertainers, showgirls, vagrants and sex workers as Tokyo completes its rebuilding with new bridges and new buildings.

His detached experimental style sits above story and substance as Kawabata contrasts ancient Japanese tradition with the modern world of Western sweets, Charlie Chaplin, Russian emigre dance troops and Western fashion. The constant implied comparison is with the world of Edo.

As flaneur, Kawabata wandered the streets of Akakusa taking his voluminous notes. We might cruelly say he was doing what many bourgeois literary types like to do - slumming it, knowing that this was not the life he had to lead but only the one he chose to lead.

Only a proportion of these notes would be used in the novel but neverthless it is clear that he is using them and using them a lot - whether as detached psychogeographic lists or reams of local colour detached from story. It is fake reportage designed to create unbaked fiction.

It might have worked for readers of 'Asahi' in 1930 who could associate a phrase with an experienced thing but time and space have made any non-Japanese reader (and I suspect most contemporary Japanese readers) as detached as the writer but alienated from the experience.

So much for modernism! But the second half is easier to relate to and not because the story is any clearer (it is not) or because he ceases to be experimental (he does but only a little). The new factor is the dramatic effect on Japan of the global Depression arising out of the Wall Street Crash.

The book does not at this point become a Japanese 'Down and Out in Paris and London' but it tends in that direction as Kawabata becomes more explicit, after a long gap in publication, about the unemployed ('beggars') and the effects on women in particular of sudden loss of employment.

The story (such as it is, with its obscure implied melodrama) is centred on the rootless delinquents of the district who seem to epitomise freedom, especially sexual freedom. Here too the book turns darker with economic collapse.

What Kawabata observes in his detached way as 'ero-goro' in the first half with all the desire of the slumming young man becomes something else in the second - an account of human trafficking and forced prostitution hardening already tough women and men in a time of depression.

More disturbing (and we remind ourselves throughout that the Japanese had and have a very different attitude to sexual expression compared to Westerners, especially Anglo-Saxons) it becomes clearer that this involves sex with under-age teenage girls.

There is an ambiguity in Kawabata's attitude here and elsewhere which is hard to pin down - the detachment is modified by sentimentality towards place, an eroticism drawn to young girls and social justice compassion despite his aesthetic orientation.

The delinquent gangs of Asakusa seem to have supplied (as the work progressed) the opportunity to express all these aspects of his personality while maintaining a mask of detachment created out of a cool appropriation of Western modernism.

The Afterword is interesting only insofar as one of the introductory authors recalls taking Kawabata to the top of the tower that plays such a large role in the story (a phallic representation of detachment perhaps) and looks down on the same area devastated by recent firebombing.

The two men cannot speak to each other because of linguistic differences but things have come full circle. The old Asakusa was destroyed by earthquake and fire in 1923 and the new one in 1944 (100,000 dead). A new modernisation would soon be under way. No wonder K. looked sad.

Kawabata was an 'art for art's sake' man, an aesthete who was then looking back at European models. The book dabbles despite this in 'proletarian' concerns that rivalled the school that underpinned his impressionism and he contests traditionalism in order to embrace it later.

Over time, Kawabata was to reconcile all these pressures by abandoning overt political concerns, becoming more reclusive over the decades, and then the great Japanese man of letters, by merging traditional cultural concerns and less experimental Western forms.

This book will always remain interesting although personally I consider it to be a failure both at modernism and at telling a story. It is the work of a young man on his way to greatness and it is (for specialists) a text that reveals a great deal of the interwar Japanese mind.

[Pascale · Rating 2 out of 5]

As is often the case with translated fiction, and especially from Japanese, this book left me frustrated because neither the publisher nor the translator bothered to put it in context or provide enough notes to illuminate the myriad allusions embedded in the text. Based on the innocuous title, I imagined it would be a more or less sentimental evocation of what is today one of Tokyo's most touristy neighborhoods. It is that, but it is also a very self-conscious piece of Modernist writing, which makes it more interesting but also a lot more heavy-going. Initially published as a serial in the daily Asahi, these vignettes depict the lower-depths of the capital in the 1920s, a time when Asakusa was full of riff-raff, prostitutes, street urchins, beggars and petty criminals. Roughly speaking, the first half revolves around a young girl called Yumiko and her suicide onboard a barge on the river Sumida. Seemingly, Yumiko chooses to resort to poison rather than have the same fate as her elder sister Chiyo, who was seduced and abandoned by a man who met her in the chaotic aftermath of the 1923 earthquake that left thousands of people homeless. At least, I think that's what happened. After the climax of Yumiko's theatrical suicide, the author reverts to a lighter style and concentrates on a variety of more or less colorful characters in the underworld of Asakusa. The book ends with the narrator encountering Yumiko again. Did she survive her suicide attempt? Was her suicide attempt faked? Or is this girl just Yumiko's double or look-alike? Although this book is too uneven to count as a masterpiece, it has all the hallmark of literary ambition and given the place of Kawabata in the canon, would deserve to be more carefully presented for foreign readers to appreciate.

[Georgiana 1792 · Rating 2 out of 5]

In effetti non si tratta di un romanzo vero e proprio, ma di piccoli affreschi, scene della vita nel quartiere di Asakusa negli anni Venti.
Non è stato un libro di facile lettura per me perché è molto visivo, e naturalmente non riuscivo a figurarmi molte delle scene descritte perché lontanissime dalle mie conoscenze. Immagino, però, che per chi conosceva la Tokyo degli anni Venti - e il quartiere di Asakusa in particolare - debba essere stata una serie di istantanee davvero calzanti per l'atmosfera e per i peculiari personaggi che vengono incrociati e raccontati. Soprattutto perché Kawabata pubblicò questo romanzo a puntate tra il dicembre 1929 e l'ottobre 1930 e le puntate sono proprio contemporanee agli avvenimenti di quei mesi.
Mi è sembrato che Kawabata illustrasse queste scene come se si trattasse del testo di un documentario (addirittura, quasi propagandistico), un documentario che, non avendo davanti le immagini, può comprendere solo chi conosceva Asakusa negli anni Venti. Forse è per questo che il libro è stato tradotto in italiano solo di recente.
Si tratta di una sorta di risposta di Tokyo ai Roaring Twenties americani ed europei, e Asakusa brulica di vita, diurna e notturna, con il personaggio di Yumiko che rappresenta lo spirito variegato e inafferrabile di Asakusa stessa.
Si trattava del mio primo Kawabata, ma l'ho letto essendo consapevole che questo romanzo (ho comunque delle riserve a definirlo così) fosse ben diverso dalla produzione più nota del premio Nobel.

[LauraT · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mi dispiace, sarà un capolavoro, ma proprio non l'ho capito: l'ho letto tutto - e alla fine ero esattamente come alla prima pagina.

Per le donne è cosí. Veniamo prese in giro dagli uomini…
– In che senso venite prese in giro?
– Cosí come ho detto. In un modo o nell’altro… è difficile spiegare. Alla fine, ecco, ogni tanto ci penso. Devo essere proprio una donna miserabile. Anzi, lo sono proprio. È come dire che è meglio essere uomo.
Tacendo, ho teso la mano. Lei:
– Scusami –. Mi passa il cucchiaino che sta ancora succhiando, poi, come se niente fosse, come se non si fosse accorta del gesto. – Prima ho detto che mi stavo rilassando. Finisco sempre per fare cosí. Quando mi trovo davanti a un uomo, subito mi rilasso! Non ho alcuna necessità di pensare a qualcosa, di fare qualcosa… non ho bisogno di riflettere attentamente. Io, comunque sia, posso anche procurarmi il cibo da sola, ma ho bisogno anche di rilassarmi. Nella vita sono un sonnifero, gli uomini… separarsi da loro è come svegliarsi al mattino. Davvero, ah, davvero, scusami per la pesantezza delle mie parole. Ma quando ci si innamora, di notte si versano lacrime. Anche al mattino, quando ci si separa. Per una donna è un segno di maturità quando riesce a non piangere la mattina…

[Felipe Arango Betancourt · Rating 2 out of 5]

Esto fue lo que quiero creer que leí:

Segunda década del siglo XX. Los años veinte en un Japón occidentalizado, un Japón que empezaba a modernizarse rápidamente, que daba paso a un nuevo Tokio, así que ese Asakusa (el barrio que permitía la libertad a los placeres) descrito y recorrido por el autor, es un barrio que cambiaba y se transformaba rápidamente, donde la gran Edo era ya solo un gran recuerdo, una imagen nostálgica y romántica diluida en la mente y en el tiempo.

Así, lo que puedo evocar e imaginar como simple lector son, callecitas diminutas y callejones estrechos, iluminados a media luz por pequeños faroles, teatros de variedades y bares de jazz venidos a menos, salas de cine, peluquerías.
Lugares estos que iban perdiendo a gran velocidad su esencia; puntos de referencia y lugares emblemáticos agonizando, cediendo ante la presión de ese nuevo Tokio de hierro y no de madera.

Pero el alma de esta clase de barrio son sus personajes, gentes de todas los pelambres: hermosas bailarinas, actores de teatro, dependientes de bares, comerciantes y vendedores; jornaleros y prostitutas, estudiantes, niños y niñas corriendo por todas partes y montando en bicicleta. Mendigos, vagabundos y locos.

Sin embargo no pude con este libro. No lo disfruté.
Así que hice caso inmediato al consejo de Naty: Lo cerré por que Naty me dijo.