ハーメルンの笛吹き男―伝説とその世界

by Kinʼya Abe

Paperback

First published January 1, 1988

Reviews

[Natsukawa]

从花衣魔笛手的故事牵出中世纪欧洲的社会生活。不输于《蒙塔尤》、《马丁·盖尔归来》。

[owlette]

On the surface, this is a historical investigation into the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin by a Japanese scholar of medieval Europe, Abe Kinya. At a deeper level, it's a book about what it takes to read history from the common people's perspective and how scholars are prone to co-opt intellectual assets of the common people, whether it be for their own intellectual amusement or political agenda.

This is an amazing book by a remarkable scholar. I don't think I've read an academic work that touched me so deeply as much as this. Ishimure Michiko describes exactly how it feels to read Abe Kinya's work in her commentary (my translation from the original Japanese):

Truly, scholars are like the stonemasons that build those arched bridges. They pick and carry the stones and stack them up one by one only to disassemble them. Eventually, a bridge is built that overlooks the world that was, up until then, buried under the horizon. The bridge exhibits a beautiful arch when you can hear a voice from across." (「まことに学者というのは、そりを持ったあの眼鏡橋を架ける石工にも似ている。これと見定めた礎石を一つずつ自分の手で運び、積んでみてはこわしたりして、地平に埋没していた世界を望む架橋が成り立つのである。その作品に美しい反りが備わるのは、向こうからの呼び声が橋を渡ってくるときである」）