Again, I want to write a brief comment on Japanese literature. (By now; thou dear reader; may have noticed that I am plenty of time and I have decided to update my blog, yes! thou are right! again!.) In this very occasion Ryunosuke Akutagawa is the writer and "Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories" the book. Akutagawa (1892-1927) was one of Japan's foremost stylists -a modernist master whose stories are marked by original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. "Rashomon" and "In a bamboo grove" inspired Kurosawa's magnificent film and depict a past in which morality is inverted, while tales such as "the nose" and "loyalty" paint a richly imaginative picture of a medieval Japan people by Shoguns and priests, vagrants and peasants. Later works such as "death register", "the life of a stupid man" and "spinning gears", draw on Akutagawas's own life to devastating effect, revealing his intense melancholy and terror of madness in exquisitely moving, impressionistic stories. Haruki Murakami
Volan
Comments