inovel’s Reviews > Spring, Summer, Asteroid, Bird: The Art of Eastern Storytelling > Status Update

But this goes to show that storytelling norms across cultures are complex, overlapping, and influence each other in ways that this book was much too shallow and generalizing to account for.

Now to search for actual academic works that study similar topics in a more in-depth way.

Is the story Indian, or the individual work of a German man who borrowed an Indian setting and published an English-language story in the US, or Russian, or Japanese? The same story appealed to people of at least four different cultures, only one of which had the kishoutenketsu concept.

Lien doesn't claim that there's no overlap between structures. He even analyzes a couple Western works through 起承転結。

What's more, there's also a Russian folktale with an identical plot to Akutagawa and Carus stories which also came up in The Brothers Karamazov (1881). In the Russian version, the sinner is in Christian hell instead of Buddhist hell and a leek is lowered down instead of a spider's thread, but the story structure is the same.

As it happens, I just read an Akutagawa short story collection. In the afterword, scholar of literature Yoshida Seiichi explains that Akutagawa based the titular story "The Spider's Thread" (1918) on a story by German-American Author by Paul Carus, "The Spider-Web" (1894) from the book Karma. It's unknown whether Carus based it on an Indian folktale, as would match the story's setting, or invented it himself.

As it happens, I just read an Akutagawa short story collection. In the afterword, scholar of literature Yoshida Seiichi explains that Akutagawa based the titular story "The Spider's Thread" (1918) on a story by German-American Author by Paul Carus, "The Spider-Web" (1894) from the book Karma. It's unknown whether Carus based it on an Indian folktale, as would match the story's setting, or invented it himself.

Although a fast, fun read (aside from the infuriating misogyny in the Mulan chapter), this was a really shallow analysis. I feel like I've read a lot of this info in blog posts before. Much of the rest consisted of summaries of books, movies, and video games. What I really want is an in-depth academic study of different storytelling conventions across cultures.

I'm not convinced many of these works of fiction don't fit both kishoutenketsu and the Western buildup & climax model.

"Strength and prettiness aren't mutually exclusive. Being 'girly' is not incompatible with being strong."

I have great news for this author. East or West, magical girls or superheroes, the female characters are conventionally pretty or sexy and often generally feminine 99% of the time.

The author mischaracterizing the Disney movie Mulan: "the sneering disdain for traditionally 'feminine' qualities"

Why are certain alleged progressives so uncomfortable when women don't conform to gender roles? Why is this male author presenting a female character feeling alienated by gender roles as problematic?

The author on the traditional folk tale: "Finally, the poem emphasizes that Mulan enjoys wearing her gowns and makeup, and the first thing she does when she returns from the war is get done up as beautifully as possible to show the soldiers she fought with that she is a girl."