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The Beautiful and the Grotesque
Ever since his death in 1927, Ryunosuke Akutagawa has been hailed as one of the greatest short story writers in world literature. Most famous for his story Rashomon and the Kurosawa movie it inspired, Akutagawa’s wide range of fiction is beautifully displayed in this newly reissued collection of his stories. With characteristic lyricism and great style, the stories here capture the strange world of Akutagawa, from the slow, gentle death of a haiku master (“Withered Fields”) to a vicious, marauding gang and their bloody fight with samurai (“The Robbers”), and the sly tale told from a dog’s perspective of his escape from home (“The Dog, Shiro”). Throughout these stories, Akutagawa captures the often confused spirit of a Japan undergoing great change and confronting modernity at the turn of the last century. But these stories remain timeless classics, and any reader, whether a fan of Akutagawa or someone discovering him for the first time, will find wonderful delight in these unusual stories. Previously published in a Liveright edition as Exotic Japanese Stories.
442 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1924
About the author
Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
1,728 books2,270 followersAkutagawa 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
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
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
August 3, 2011
This is so unexpected! I didn't, you know, expect to win the Akutagawa prize for Japanese short story writing. There are so many people I want to thank... First, there's myself. I couldn't have done it without me-- *The microphone squeals as it is forcibly ripped from my grasping hands* Akira Kurosawa, you rat bastard! Rashômon would not have been made without me! Give- me- back- my- prize!
"Throughout these stories, Akutagawa captures the often confused spirit of a Japan undergoing great change and confronting modernity at the turn of the twentieth century." So says the back of the book.
Excuse me for a moment while I fall to my knees in anguished cries of "Nooooooo! Not the westernization of Japan again!" The spit is flying from my mouth. My fists are pounding the floor in frustration. Do they have nothing else to say? Whyyyyy? God damn you! Is this some sort of obsession with themselves that all Japanese stories HAVE to be about the inescapable influence of the west? It shouldn't be overwhelming. Like about NOTHING else. It's like time between childhood and adulthood. It's the teen years! Angsty and actually not that different from before or after. Your parents aren't the whole of you and you go your own way without pretending there wasn't anything before it (although some people do try to do that). You think it is more important at the time, is all. You still have to go to school and grow up even if you are just going to die and the whole world is ending tomorrow. There's "the experience" and then there's the part that is your own. I decided to read this anyway. Believe me, it was tough to get over this next part.
"The Akutagawa prize is named in his honor." How depressing to be remembered because of a prize that had been named after you in the first place. "Maybe I'll win the Akutagawa prize this year! *Crosses fingers*" He could have said if he was still around these days. Of course this could mean a lot to Japanese readers just like the Nobel or Hugo or whatever means close to absolutely nothing to me (um, more like completely absolutely nothing). I might be saying this because I haven't won the Akutagawa prize (yet! I'm talking myself up by water coolers. Mariel! Mariel! Mariel!).
And then there was the blonde girl named Chelsea (I don't know her. I overheard a guy calling her Chelsea and I put two and two together) who was disappointed that there was a samurai on the cover and not just the snarling dogs. "Oh. I thought it was a book about dogs." She really wanted me to be reading a book about dogs. Way to lose your target audience, publishing reissue guys (this is a short story collection reprinted under a new name, FYI. Don't make the same mistake twice! Not about dogs! Except for one story).
Maybe they are trying to kick him into his grave before his time. Get in there and be happy we named a prize after you! Yukio Akutagawa didn't get a prize. He got an unmarked grave! (Poor guy. Wait, how do I know that was his name if his grave is unmarked? He has an unvisited grave! There, that's better. I'll never win the Akutagawa prize if I write so shoddily.) He could have enjoyed some more fame on the strength of Rashômon. Instead of a name it could be "The guy who wrote the story that Rashômon was based on award". Yeah, they might have thought that the prize, the westernization of Japan (again!) and the movie were selling points. Not dogs. One of the other reviews for this collection names some stories that were not in my copy. Maybe they reissued more than one collection with this same title? Greedy rat bastards...
Okay, but what about the boring as a boring history class taught by an incompetent teacher historical notes before every bleeping story? But what if I wanted to know what year it was written... But maybe no! The stories became artifacts in this way. Oh, did you know that the Japanese didn't use hankies and it was an affectation appropriated from the French? (I have been there and done that. "Do you think that Marie Antoinette will be a bigger hit in Japan than it was in the usa?" was a conversation that I had had a few years ago. It was me speaking in my best no shit Sherlock voice to my sister who was at the time reading lots of Japanese fashion magazines. The historical notes read like Japanese history in one of those manga magazines for girls that I used to oh so coolly read a few years back. I don't do that anymore!) Or that Buddhists says such and such about enlightenment? (I've seen Star Wars.) Noooo these facts made the stories boring. Okay, so I have been reading tons of short stories and Japanese authors (sometimes both together). There are things about short stories that I crave. Listening to a favorite song story of the commiserating feeling and not knowing everything that happened as necessary darkness. I'll probably write another few hundred reviews about why I love Japanese writers so much. If I was a musician and could grasp notes out of the air and turn them into a giant symphony. Living as you could never live for real and somehow feel normal, like that's the true you. When your days bleed together you kinda start to crave the moment to moment things.
Okay, time and place. I like facts as much as the next guy buying door to doorstop encyclopedias. The talking me out of the story boring history teacher messed up. I want to be there! That's why you shouldn't be so damned self conscious about it all. Maybe it was the intros and maybe it was just Akutagawa. He's a bit too rarefied, I guess, for me. I have been feeling impatient these days with fairy tales. The whys and hows and what fors and what nots. I'd rather believe in them emotionally than swallow it as a bed time story of this is how it is. If you really care about this stuff wouldn't it still be there when you wake up? Or at least in a day dream.
I wish I could write new intros to the stories. Maybe that would help.
The Robbers: Shakin is a Japanese girl name that means if it is rocking don't come a knocking.
The Dog, Shiro: Shiro says fuck that to being punished for not being a hero. He says fuck that to having "masters" (two stupid kids who can't figure out it is their dog just because he changed colors. They didn't deserve him!). He watches Ghostdog: Way of the Samurai because that movie is awesome and develops his own code that's not about punishment. He also watches All Dogs go to Heaven.
The Handkerchief I'd use one to stifle my public yawns.
The Dolls: I liked Buson's haiku better than the story.
Now forgotten, the dolls-
Their faces until now
Long hidden away in boxes.
I'm bored. I started writing this weeks ago and then it was too boring to write about every story. I gave up and and am now many books behind on my reviewing. I love reading short story collections and don't really like reviewing them. I won't win the Akutagawa short story reviewers prize!
There was one story about a woman who sleeps with a rich man when she's fallen on hard times. She's in love with the guy because its the fantasy that rich Japanese men have beautiful women at their service with a smile. He gets married, of course, and her pump is visited less and less. It wasn't beautiful in a nightmare or daymare way to me. Why didn't she run away? That's what I wanted from these stories. I wanted them to wake up and take action. Not play their parts. Maybe Akutagawa wrote better stories than these. He wrote a lot of stories. One of them was made into a good film!
P.s. The Kappa bored me too. Like reading an encyclopedia of fairy tale creatures. Or the for charity magical creatures book that J.K. Rowling put out a few years ago. Oh, how neat I know about that... Yawn. But WHY did these stories mean something to the people of Japan? Were they holding onto the past? Did they live some place that moved slowly? (I've been to Alabama towns that are stuck in the 1970s.) Why did it mean more to sit still and pine for decaying monuments of beauty? Sacrifice? Did they want to kill themselves with the passing of their shining, um, monuments? Or did some people feel fresh? They were those dolls locked away with no faces, in these.
"Throughout these stories, Akutagawa captures the often confused spirit of a Japan undergoing great change and confronting modernity at the turn of the twentieth century." So says the back of the book.
Excuse me for a moment while I fall to my knees in anguished cries of "Nooooooo! Not the westernization of Japan again!" The spit is flying from my mouth. My fists are pounding the floor in frustration. Do they have nothing else to say? Whyyyyy? God damn you! Is this some sort of obsession with themselves that all Japanese stories HAVE to be about the inescapable influence of the west? It shouldn't be overwhelming. Like about NOTHING else. It's like time between childhood and adulthood. It's the teen years! Angsty and actually not that different from before or after. Your parents aren't the whole of you and you go your own way without pretending there wasn't anything before it (although some people do try to do that). You think it is more important at the time, is all. You still have to go to school and grow up even if you are just going to die and the whole world is ending tomorrow. There's "the experience" and then there's the part that is your own. I decided to read this anyway. Believe me, it was tough to get over this next part.
"The Akutagawa prize is named in his honor." How depressing to be remembered because of a prize that had been named after you in the first place. "Maybe I'll win the Akutagawa prize this year! *Crosses fingers*" He could have said if he was still around these days. Of course this could mean a lot to Japanese readers just like the Nobel or Hugo or whatever means close to absolutely nothing to me (um, more like completely absolutely nothing). I might be saying this because I haven't won the Akutagawa prize (yet! I'm talking myself up by water coolers. Mariel! Mariel! Mariel!).
And then there was the blonde girl named Chelsea (I don't know her. I overheard a guy calling her Chelsea and I put two and two together) who was disappointed that there was a samurai on the cover and not just the snarling dogs. "Oh. I thought it was a book about dogs." She really wanted me to be reading a book about dogs. Way to lose your target audience, publishing reissue guys (this is a short story collection reprinted under a new name, FYI. Don't make the same mistake twice! Not about dogs! Except for one story).
Maybe they are trying to kick him into his grave before his time. Get in there and be happy we named a prize after you! Yukio Akutagawa didn't get a prize. He got an unmarked grave! (Poor guy. Wait, how do I know that was his name if his grave is unmarked? He has an unvisited grave! There, that's better. I'll never win the Akutagawa prize if I write so shoddily.) He could have enjoyed some more fame on the strength of Rashômon. Instead of a name it could be "The guy who wrote the story that Rashômon was based on award". Yeah, they might have thought that the prize, the westernization of Japan (again!) and the movie were selling points. Not dogs. One of the other reviews for this collection names some stories that were not in my copy. Maybe they reissued more than one collection with this same title? Greedy rat bastards...
Okay, but what about the boring as a boring history class taught by an incompetent teacher historical notes before every bleeping story? But what if I wanted to know what year it was written... But maybe no! The stories became artifacts in this way. Oh, did you know that the Japanese didn't use hankies and it was an affectation appropriated from the French? (I have been there and done that. "Do you think that Marie Antoinette will be a bigger hit in Japan than it was in the usa?" was a conversation that I had had a few years ago. It was me speaking in my best no shit Sherlock voice to my sister who was at the time reading lots of Japanese fashion magazines. The historical notes read like Japanese history in one of those manga magazines for girls that I used to oh so coolly read a few years back. I don't do that anymore!) Or that Buddhists says such and such about enlightenment? (I've seen Star Wars.) Noooo these facts made the stories boring. Okay, so I have been reading tons of short stories and Japanese authors (sometimes both together). There are things about short stories that I crave. Listening to a favorite song story of the commiserating feeling and not knowing everything that happened as necessary darkness. I'll probably write another few hundred reviews about why I love Japanese writers so much. If I was a musician and could grasp notes out of the air and turn them into a giant symphony. Living as you could never live for real and somehow feel normal, like that's the true you. When your days bleed together you kinda start to crave the moment to moment things.
Okay, time and place. I like facts as much as the next guy buying door to doorstop encyclopedias. The talking me out of the story boring history teacher messed up. I want to be there! That's why you shouldn't be so damned self conscious about it all. Maybe it was the intros and maybe it was just Akutagawa. He's a bit too rarefied, I guess, for me. I have been feeling impatient these days with fairy tales. The whys and hows and what fors and what nots. I'd rather believe in them emotionally than swallow it as a bed time story of this is how it is. If you really care about this stuff wouldn't it still be there when you wake up? Or at least in a day dream.
I wish I could write new intros to the stories. Maybe that would help.
The Robbers: Shakin is a Japanese girl name that means if it is rocking don't come a knocking.
The Dog, Shiro: Shiro says fuck that to being punished for not being a hero. He says fuck that to having "masters" (two stupid kids who can't figure out it is their dog just because he changed colors. They didn't deserve him!). He watches Ghostdog: Way of the Samurai because that movie is awesome and develops his own code that's not about punishment. He also watches All Dogs go to Heaven.
The Handkerchief I'd use one to stifle my public yawns.
The Dolls: I liked Buson's haiku better than the story.
Now forgotten, the dolls-
Their faces until now
Long hidden away in boxes.
I'm bored. I started writing this weeks ago and then it was too boring to write about every story. I gave up and and am now many books behind on my reviewing. I love reading short story collections and don't really like reviewing them. I won't win the Akutagawa short story reviewers prize!
There was one story about a woman who sleeps with a rich man when she's fallen on hard times. She's in love with the guy because its the fantasy that rich Japanese men have beautiful women at their service with a smile. He gets married, of course, and her pump is visited less and less. It wasn't beautiful in a nightmare or daymare way to me. Why didn't she run away? That's what I wanted from these stories. I wanted them to wake up and take action. Not play their parts. Maybe Akutagawa wrote better stories than these. He wrote a lot of stories. One of them was made into a good film!
P.s. The Kappa bored me too. Like reading an encyclopedia of fairy tale creatures. Or the for charity magical creatures book that J.K. Rowling put out a few years ago. Oh, how neat I know about that... Yawn. But WHY did these stories mean something to the people of Japan? Were they holding onto the past? Did they live some place that moved slowly? (I've been to Alabama towns that are stuck in the 1970s.) Why did it mean more to sit still and pine for decaying monuments of beauty? Sacrifice? Did they want to kill themselves with the passing of their shining, um, monuments? Or did some people feel fresh? They were those dolls locked away with no faces, in these.
April 25, 2012
I enjoyed this. It's a collection of short stories by Japanese author Akutagawa Ryuunosuke (probably best known as the author of the short story that Kurasawa's film Rashômon is based on) on a wide range of topics, from the fantastical (The Kappa [intriguing!]; The Badger; The Dog, Shiro) to the historical (The Robbers [my favorite]; The Dolls; The Lady, Roku-no-miya [also lovely]) to the somewhat meta (Withered Fields and Absorbed in Letters [both of which also qualify as historical, but have an autobiographical undertone given Akutagawa's suicide--the latter especially]).
Akutagawa has a tangled style that can be difficult to read, especially coming from the relative clarity of Kyoka Izumi; but because I read this in translation, I can't rightly say whether that's his actual style or the interpretive layer that the translator overlaid on his work.
The translator is my primary complaint with this work, or rather the translator/editor John McVittie, as it's his very obnoxious intrusion throughout the work that makes me question whether that intrusion extends beyond the heading notes and the introduction (who writes a 51 page introduction?! was the book compiled as part of a dissertation?) and into the text itself, given the occasional striking similarities between the two. Your mileage may vary on the existence/extent of the obnoxiousness, and to a certain amount the Orientalism must be written off as a product of its time (c1964); and yet, that only goes so far when faced with introductory notes like this:
"Contemporary Japanese, unfortunately, often boast proudly that their country is no longer 'feudal,' but is 'free' and 'democratic.' Yet this story [Heresy] should indicate to those who are convinced that 'liberty, equality, and fraternity' are heavenly ordained and natural human rights, that the further we progress towards such an 'ideal' state, the less our civilization can provide of the elegance and gentility of the feudal ages."
I can only speak for myself, but this is not an attitude I admire.
Akutagawa has a tangled style that can be difficult to read, especially coming from the relative clarity of Kyoka Izumi; but because I read this in translation, I can't rightly say whether that's his actual style or the interpretive layer that the translator overlaid on his work.
The translator is my primary complaint with this work, or rather the translator/editor John McVittie, as it's his very obnoxious intrusion throughout the work that makes me question whether that intrusion extends beyond the heading notes and the introduction (who writes a 51 page introduction?! was the book compiled as part of a dissertation?) and into the text itself, given the occasional striking similarities between the two. Your mileage may vary on the existence/extent of the obnoxiousness, and to a certain amount the Orientalism must be written off as a product of its time (c1964); and yet, that only goes so far when faced with introductory notes like this:
"Contemporary Japanese, unfortunately, often boast proudly that their country is no longer 'feudal,' but is 'free' and 'democratic.' Yet this story [Heresy] should indicate to those who are convinced that 'liberty, equality, and fraternity' are heavenly ordained and natural human rights, that the further we progress towards such an 'ideal' state, the less our civilization can provide of the elegance and gentility of the feudal ages."
I can only speak for myself, but this is not an attitude I admire.
September 30, 2020
"Extravagance and horror are in Akutagawa's work but never in his style, which is always crystal-clear." -- Jorge Luis Borges
Thoughts: The best of the stories are 5 stars of course, though I admit that personally I put Akutagawa in my more admired than loved category of Japanese Lit (maybe the top spot in that personal category). I still have more love for my favorites: Kawabata, Tanizaki, Ogawa Yoko, Enchi Fumiko, Tsushima Yuko. Unfortunately the translation and non-Akutagawa etcetaras are only 3 stars. The 50 page translator's preface / introduction and all of the misguided story intros are overbearing and off-putting - best skipped. Seems like 20% of the pages of this book are commentary that is usually stale orientalism, much ado about ordinary, gilding the obvious, or just too personal. The translations are not bad, per se (and seems more than half of the stories here are only available in translation here) but odd choices abound. The "Mandarins" and the Penguin collections are better. And the never-finished story to nowhere is a lengthy curiosity - really for the fans only.
Favorites: The Robbers, Gratitude, Kappa, Absorbed in Letters, The Garden (though Kappa and Garden are better translated elsewhere).
Thoughts: The best of the stories are 5 stars of course, though I admit that personally I put Akutagawa in my more admired than loved category of Japanese Lit (maybe the top spot in that personal category). I still have more love for my favorites: Kawabata, Tanizaki, Ogawa Yoko, Enchi Fumiko, Tsushima Yuko. Unfortunately the translation and non-Akutagawa etcetaras are only 3 stars. The 50 page translator's preface / introduction and all of the misguided story intros are overbearing and off-putting - best skipped. Seems like 20% of the pages of this book are commentary that is usually stale orientalism, much ado about ordinary, gilding the obvious, or just too personal. The translations are not bad, per se (and seems more than half of the stories here are only available in translation here) but odd choices abound. The "Mandarins" and the Penguin collections are better. And the never-finished story to nowhere is a lengthy curiosity - really for the fans only.
Favorites: The Robbers, Gratitude, Kappa, Absorbed in Letters, The Garden (though Kappa and Garden are better translated elsewhere).
February 26, 2021
I can see I'm in a minority of exactly one here, so maybe I'm out of my league here, but I found this collection either very poorly translated or Akutagawa just doesn't fit with my expectations.
Since Rashomon is my second favorite Kurosawa movie and since I love Natsume Soseki, one of Akutagawa's influences, I figured I'd probably enjoy the eff out of these stories, but I didn't.
The translations seemed garbled and poorly edited, too much obscura crammed into end notes not actually cited within the pages, and dull storylines that seemed to mean well but never really shone through.
Akutagawa famously and publicly feuded with Junichiro Tanizaki over the idea that form meant more than content. I'm siding with Tanizaki, another fave of mine, on this one, I guess!
Since Rashomon is my second favorite Kurosawa movie and since I love Natsume Soseki, one of Akutagawa's influences, I figured I'd probably enjoy the eff out of these stories, but I didn't.
The translations seemed garbled and poorly edited, too much obscura crammed into end notes not actually cited within the pages, and dull storylines that seemed to mean well but never really shone through.
Akutagawa famously and publicly feuded with Junichiro Tanizaki over the idea that form meant more than content. I'm siding with Tanizaki, another fave of mine, on this one, I guess!
May 8, 2025
Algunas historias fueron más interesantes y fáciles de leer que otras, pero en general fue un libro bastante pesado que me tomó casi dos meses terminar. El estilo en el que está escrito es largo y descriptivo. Para entender qué está pasando tienes que leer entre líneas y consume mucha energía. Muy japonés.
October 19, 2018
I read this for PhD research and ended up enjoying it a lot. Not for everyone, but if you’re my brand of nerd you may like Akutagawa.
July 8, 2011
Perhaps most known in the Western world for his classic story "Rashomon", Akutagawa Ryunosuke is a master of the macabre. By the same token however, Akutagawa is simultaneously one of the most prolific writers of early modern Japan. This collection delivers exactly what it promises: a showcase of the writer's finest short tales in which he flawlessly intermingles the most strikingly graphic images with a life affirming heartbeat - rhythmically pulsating beneath the dark and gloomy surface.
April 11, 2020
(Since I don't like to read stories twice, this is for my own reference should I one day read more Akutagawa.)
Collects the following short stories:
The Robbers (偸盗)
The Dog, Shiro (白)
The Handkerchief (手巾)
The Dolls (雛)
Gratitude (報恩記)
The Faith of Wei Sheng (尾生の信)
The Lady, Roku-no-miya (六の宮の姫君)
The Kappa (河童)
Saigou Takamori (西郷隆盛)
The Greeting (お辞儀)
Withered Fields (枯野抄)
Absorbed in Letters (戯作三昧)
The Garden (庭)
The Badger (貉)
Heresy (邪宗門)
A Woman's Body (女体)
Collects the following short stories:
The Robbers (偸盗)
The Dog, Shiro (白)
The Handkerchief (手巾)
The Dolls (雛)
Gratitude (報恩記)
The Faith of Wei Sheng (尾生の信)
The Lady, Roku-no-miya (六の宮の姫君)
The Kappa (河童)
Saigou Takamori (西郷隆盛)
The Greeting (お辞儀)
Withered Fields (枯野抄)
Absorbed in Letters (戯作三昧)
The Garden (庭)
The Badger (貉)
Heresy (邪宗門)
A Woman's Body (女体)
November 28, 2018
i. am. in. love. with. ryuunosuke. akutagawa.
September 22, 2020
Three stars due to the weirdness of this edition - a very random selection, put together with no apparent thinking behind what's been included and left out, and with some very odd translation choices. Gives a taster of Akutagawa, for sure, but doesn’t really give much of an impression of what he was all about - and the randomness means he doesn't leave much of an impression.
Particularly annoying is the fact that there are explanatory end notes, but no indication in the text that such end notes exist.
That said, for me there were a few stand outs:
- Absorbed in Letters / Gesaku Zanmai - a portrait of how writing works, with distractions, jealousies, self-doubt, prevarication, and bursts of obsessive activity
- Heresy / Jashumon - a slightly incoherent and unfinished tale of religion, superstition and myth, which left me sad it's missing its conclusion
- The Robbers / Chuto - basically a Kurosawa samurai film in text form
I'll read more Akutagawa, in other words. But will likely try and avoid this translator.
Particularly annoying is the fact that there are explanatory end notes, but no indication in the text that such end notes exist.
That said, for me there were a few stand outs:
- Absorbed in Letters / Gesaku Zanmai - a portrait of how writing works, with distractions, jealousies, self-doubt, prevarication, and bursts of obsessive activity
- Heresy / Jashumon - a slightly incoherent and unfinished tale of religion, superstition and myth, which left me sad it's missing its conclusion
- The Robbers / Chuto - basically a Kurosawa samurai film in text form
I'll read more Akutagawa, in other words. But will likely try and avoid this translator.
January 27, 2026
I have been sort of trying to collect all short stories that have been translated from Japanese to English from Japanese author Ryunosuke Akutagawa. this volume had a number of them I hadn't read before. He wrote at least 150 short stories in Japanese. This volume was excellent.
I could describe him as Edgar A. Poe of Japan or Dostoyevsky, but he was more a force unto himself, a power of Japanese ancestry. He committed suicide at age 35, tragically. My Mother introduced him to me in another volume of his with about six stories in it. It has 17 stories in it this volume. I suggest you read it or some of them at your leisure. I am sure you will love it. In any order. It doesn't matter as long as it is fun, which Akutagawa is very good or fun to read. Some of his stories are sort of horrifying but interesting.
I just re-read "The Dog, Shiro". It was a relatively short one, by his standard, Akutagawa's, but it's really good. I loved it. A lot of stories by Akutawaga are very clever, the way many Japanese are.
I could describe him as Edgar A. Poe of Japan or Dostoyevsky, but he was more a force unto himself, a power of Japanese ancestry. He committed suicide at age 35, tragically. My Mother introduced him to me in another volume of his with about six stories in it. It has 17 stories in it this volume. I suggest you read it or some of them at your leisure. I am sure you will love it. In any order. It doesn't matter as long as it is fun, which Akutagawa is very good or fun to read. Some of his stories are sort of horrifying but interesting.
I just re-read "The Dog, Shiro". It was a relatively short one, by his standard, Akutagawa's, but it's really good. I loved it. A lot of stories by Akutawaga are very clever, the way many Japanese are.
February 3, 2024
This was a really good collection of his works. I liked it better than Roshomon +17.
My notable favorites were:
The Robbers-this story was great. It had everything. The ending was amazing. I was sad it was the first story bc it was also the best.
Gratitude-once again he uses the multiple perspective storytelling, a la In A Grove, but it's a much more positive tale, even with the chode son's less than noble intentions in sacrifice.
The Kappa-its introduction likened it to Gulliver's Travels, but it's better because it's being narrated by a mental patient in an asylum.
A Woman's Body- The Metamorphosis, but with bewb.
I was less a fan of the more character study entries than the straight up tales, but that's my personal preference rn. They were still interesting and I hope to seek out some of Bakin's works at some point.
My notable favorites were:
The Robbers-this story was great. It had everything. The ending was amazing. I was sad it was the first story bc it was also the best.
Gratitude-once again he uses the multiple perspective storytelling, a la In A Grove, but it's a much more positive tale, even with the chode son's less than noble intentions in sacrifice.
The Kappa-its introduction likened it to Gulliver's Travels, but it's better because it's being narrated by a mental patient in an asylum.
A Woman's Body- The Metamorphosis, but with bewb.
I was less a fan of the more character study entries than the straight up tales, but that's my personal preference rn. They were still interesting and I hope to seek out some of Bakin's works at some point.
August 31, 2022
the stories were just kinda boring to me so it took me a long time to finish this...
the best one was the kappa one! that one was pretty good, 4/5!! but other than that...
i'm so sorry akutagawa, i still believe in you and shall read your other stories
the best one was the kappa one! that one was pretty good, 4/5!! but other than that...
i'm so sorry akutagawa, i still believe in you and shall read your other stories
December 25, 2019
Again, Akutagawa seems to be unable to disappoint me.
June 17, 2021
Very interesting read, but most of the nuanced symbolism likely went over my head
October 29, 2022
Gotta say, I didn't enjoy this one as much as the Rashomon collection of stories, but still there where quite a few enjoyable ones.
December 11, 2022
you all know why i bought this. it was very enjoyable!
March 21, 2024
Some of these stories are so good they're gonna blow you away. They are tense, dramatic, and unbelievably cinematographic. I can only try to imagine what they read like in the original language.
July 27, 2020
I enjoyed most of the stories, especially “The Robbers,” “Gratitude,” and “Absorbed in Letters.”
I wish “Heresy” had been completed before his death.
Akutagawa is talented and versatile. His stories range from an adventure-epic about down-and-out samurai planning a heist to a heartwarming tale about a runaway dog seeking redemption before returning to his masters to meditations on death and the social scripts we have to perform at the bedside of the dying. I think there’s something for everyone in this collection and I highly recommend it for people that like short stories or want to learn more about Japanese culture.
I wish “Heresy” had been completed before his death.
Akutagawa is talented and versatile. His stories range from an adventure-epic about down-and-out samurai planning a heist to a heartwarming tale about a runaway dog seeking redemption before returning to his masters to meditations on death and the social scripts we have to perform at the bedside of the dying. I think there’s something for everyone in this collection and I highly recommend it for people that like short stories or want to learn more about Japanese culture.
May 2, 2017
one day, i want to read different translations of akutagawa to see how much the voice changes.
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