The Oxford Book Of Japanese Short Stories

The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories (1997)

Edited by Theodore W. Goosen

The Oxford University Press

(Short Story Anthology)

“Sansho the Steward”

By Mori Ogai  (m.)

Translated by J. Thomas Rimer

(1915, translated 1977)

The plot of “Sansho the Steward” is based on the ideas of separation and return and human trafficking. It is a slave narrative with animist and Christian symbolism. Mori Ogai retells a famous and beloved Japanese legend of filial self-sacrifice.  A mother, and her two children, Anju, a girl aged thirteen, and Zushio, a boy aged twelve, are traveling a great distance in search of their father who disappeared seven years ago. They are accompanied by their former nurse, Ubatake. One night they are given shelter by Yamaoka, who not only feeds them and lets them spend the night in an outbuilding, he also offers to take them by boat further along the coast until they can book passage on a larger vessel that will speed them closer to their father’s last known location. Before departing, the mother gives her daughter an amulet of the Bodhisattva Jizo and her son a blessed sword. She tells them that these objects will protect them from all harm. However, the next morning the treacherous Yamaoka sells the family to two different traffickers. One heads up the coast carrying the two children, and the other heads down the coast carrying the desperate mother and nurse. The women plead to be released or at least returned to the children. When denied, the servant throws herself into the sea and drowns. When the mother tries the same, the slaver ties her to the boat. Meanwhile, the two children are sold to Sansho the Steward, the leader of a large and prosperous family that owns fields, farms, fleets, mills, and factories. After much suffering, the sister tricks Sansho into allowing both children to climb high into the mountains to chop wood. When an overseer objects that she is a girl and unfit for the task, she offers to have her hair cut off so that she looks like a boy. Once on the peak of the mountain, she presses the amulet of Jizo into her brother’s hands and tells him to flee to a monastery in the valley below. She tells her brother that she will return to work, promise to do the work of two, and take whatever punishment Sansho deems fit. Zushio does find protection in the monastery. He also searches for his mother, and finds her many years later, a blind woman working at a primitive farm. His sister, Anju, is the hero of this story. Mori Ogai studied medicine in Germany; perhaps this is where he renewed his interest in the power of folk tales and became familiar with Christian symbolism. The syncretism of Buddhism and Christianity and the strength and martyrdom of the three women in the story makes this piece a rich topic for study. If you are interested, there is a feature-length movie inspired by this story: 1954’s Sansho the Bailiff. Directed by Mizoguchi Kenji, the film is considered a masterpiece of the period.

“Then Zushio called to his sister, ‘Take out your statue of Jizo,’ Anju rose at once and took out the amulet case she kept inside her robe. With a trembling hand she untied the string and took out the little image, which she set up beside her bed. They prostrated themselves before it. Suddenly the unbearable pain seemed to melt away, to vanish. Rubbing their foreheads with their hands, they found no traces of the wounds.” (16)

 “The Third Night” (1908, translation 1974)

By Natsume Soseki (m.)

Translated by Aiko Ito and Graeme Wilson

Natsume Soseki is one of the most beloved Japanese authors of the 20^th century and the author of the influential novel Kokoro, (The Heart of Things or Feelings), Botchan, and I am a Cat. This three-page-long short story is an epic in miniature. Soseki was interested in Japanese fairy tales; this piece has its own “once upon a time” and a walk into a pathless wood. The narrator is alone on his journey, except for the being he carries on his back. The tale is chock full of unexpected, vivid, and changing symbols. Soseki creates a hallucinatory, nightmarish world that grows richer and more revelatory with each reading.

“I was still quite clear-headed; but I did begin to have a vague feeling that, yes, it was just such an evening. And I felt, as the child had said, that if I trudged a little further, I would indeed understand more. I felt that I simply must ease my mind by getting rid of this burden on my back before I discovered what this whole thing was about. For to understand would be disastrous.” (29)

 “The Bonfire” (1896, translation 1970)

By Kunikida Doppo

Translated by Jay Rubin

This five-page-long atmospheric and lyrical story is set on a wintry beach at dusk. Boys are gathering the flotsam and jetsam washed ashore to start a bonfire. They gather dry beach grasses and try to set fire to the pile of wet wood. Why? Perhaps to build fires like those they see burning in the hills on the nearby island of Izu, or maybe to demonstrate their bravery by leaping through the flames. But at the height of their joy, mothers call their children home and the fire is abandoned. The story ends with a stranger appearing on the beach, drawn to the fire’s still-hot coals.

“Dead reeds bristle thick on the river bank, rustling in the salt wind. The ice that formed unseen at the base of their stalks with the full night tide, shattered by the morning ebb, remains unmelted through the day. Long cracks reach toward the bank like white threads stretching through the twilight.” (31)

“Separate Ways” (1891, translation 1981)

By Higuchi Ichiyo (f.)

Translated by Robert Daly

Higuchi Ichiyu is one of Japan’s most famous female writers. She lived only from 1872 to 1896, but she is considered a national treasure; her image appears on the five thousand yen note. “Separate Ways” focuses on the relationship between a very short sixteen-year-old boy, Kichizu, who is an apprentice umbrella maker, and his lovely neighbor, Okyo. Like Kichizo, she has no family. In her early twenties, Okyo is a talented and affable tailor. Kichizo toils at his work, where he is the constant butt of jokes. He curses his fate. He was born an orphan. And why was he born to be so small? What chance would someone like him have of finding any happiness in his life? How could he ever find a wife willing to marry him? At the end of his dreary days, he taps at Okyo’s window and they talk. Kichizo speaks piteously of his height and his limited chances of finding a wife, while Okyo cajoles him into laughter. He feels a kinship with her as if they are sister and brother. His only fear is that someday she will leave her shop, lured away to be a powerful man’s mistress. When that day comes, Kichizo’s reaction is unexpectedly cruel. Higuchi’s short story is an interesting study of gendered fate in Meiji period Japan.

“He’s head-over-heels in love with her…trying to win her over. But she’s never given him the time of day. Let alone treat him the way she does me! Kichizo from the umbrella shop–I’m the one who can go there any hour of the night, and when she hears it’s me, she’ll open the door in her nightgown. ‘You haven’t come to see me all day. Did something happen to you? I’ve been worried about you.’ That’s how she greets me. Who else gets treated that way? ‘Hulking men are like big trees: not always good supports.’ Size has nothing to do with it. Look how the tiny peppercorn is prized.” (41)

“The Peony Garden” (1909, translation 1965)

By Nagai Kafu (m.)

Translated by Edward Seidensticker

In this story, we overhear a conversation between a first-person male narrator and the geisha Koren. They have just shared an unplanned-for overnight rendezvous; it is now late afternoon. The narrator is sated but uneasy. The world looks dark to him. For her part, Koren is lively. When she notices that boatmen are advertising trips along the Kanda canal to see the fourth bridge peonies, she urges her companion to take her to see the famous Honju blossoms. As they course through the water, the two speak of their long relationship. He will be “thirty-five in a few years” and Koren is thirty. When she wishes aloud that they could live a life together like the boatmen on the canal, he reminds her that they once tried to live together and that their experiment failed. She missed the life of the city and the fame she enjoyed as a geisha, and he had no interest in becoming someone’s husband. Yet, as they sail on, Koren talks more enthusiastically about the life she imagines as the wife of the narrator, while he reminds her that she is simply not the type of woman to think seriously about the water bill or homemaking. Instead, he suggests that it will be best if she just finds a handsome actor who will entertain her. The dialogue between the two is hopeful, cruel, and exquisitely rendered. The story ends with the couple standing before the storied peonies.

“A sort of quiet always came over me at evening, but this time the quiet was as of a complete loss of strength, and it brought with it a vague, indefinable sadness. I was not especially sorry to say goodbye to the woman. Nor did I regret a day spent in dissipation. Nor was it that the flowing of the waters somehow moved me. I had exhausted the man-made pleasures the city has only for those born in it, and now, in the wake of the dream, it was as though I were looking back over the whole long series of dreams.” (46)

“Night Fires” (1920)

By Shiga Naoya (m.)

Translated by Ted Goossen

Mr. Shiga introduces us to a group of four: the narrator, his wife, the painter S-San and the innkeeper K-San. The four are in the country. They know each other well, and they spend their days in the mountains painting, constructing a small cabin, eating together, or hiking. One day they might go to admire the small cabin as it takes shape another they may while away a late afternoon in tree climbing. One night they bail out an old boat and paddle across a lake to discover the source of the bright fire. As they had guessed, some hikers were spending the night at the ruins of an old kiln and had fired it up to stay warm. On their way back, they decide to create their own bonfire. Though K-san proves himself a real outdoorsman by starting the rain-soaked pyre with birch bark, his friends laugh at him for his squeamishness about the local worms whose squirming tails glow blue at night. As the fire burns, the group huddles and begins to share what frightens them: snakes, packs of wild dogs, demons, and ghosts. One confesses the most serious of all these fears are those dreams that seem to warn the dreamer. K-san tells a tale of his own experience when one wintry afternoon when, after arriving by train at Mizunuma after three o’clock, he decided that instead of staying the night in an inn, he would hike the seven miles over the mountain pass and surprise his family. He knew the path well, but the heavy snow obscured all landmarks. When he reached the foot of the mountain, he ignored his impulse to wake a friend he knew in the neighborhood and sleep on their floor. He pressed on. At one point, he considered abandoning his plan and retreating down the mountain, but he saw that the path down was as dangerous as the way ahead. He focused on reaching Torii Pass. It was then that he began to feel lethargic. He knew this was the way people died in the cold, yet he had no choice but to press on, one step at a time. Shiga’s realism as well as the way his story so naturally unfolds is absolutely enthralling.

“The story takes on a deeper meaning if you know how close K-san and his mother were. K-san’s father was not a bad man, apparently, just a poor husband. Everybody called him “Ibsen” after the playwright he supposedly resembled. Usually he lived with his mistress in Maebashi, but each summer up the mountain he would come, always with the girl, to collect the proceeds from the inn. This infuriated young K-san. Time after time the son would clash with his father. And so the son drew closer to the mother, and the mother to the son.”  (61)

“Aguri” (1922, translation 1963)

By Tanizaki Jun’Ichiro (m.)

Translated by H. Hibbert

Mr. Tanazaki presents a study of male erotic obsession and the fetishization of Western styles and ideals. Only thirty-five, Akoda, the narrator suffers from diabetes. He acknowledges he has an indulgent lifestyle. He drinks, he is a gourmand, and for the past three years he has carried on a consuming affair with Aguri. When he met her she was merely fourteen. At seventeen she seems to be all Akoda can think about. Yet he also obsesses about his own body. He once prided himself on his feminine buttocks and plump legs, but lately his associates have noticed that he has lost a significant amount of weight. Looking in the mirror, Okada can see that his arms are like two sticks of wood, his blood vessels are like earthworms, and his ribs are clearly visible beneath his skin. On this particular day, Okada is shopping with Aguri in the Ginza. His head is swimming. The world is blurry before his eyes, and it pains him to walk, yet he travels from shop to shop, driven by a desire to buy Aguri a new outfit. Knowing the treat that lies ahead, Aguri is excited and stops to look in every window. Okada begins weeping. He collapses. He imagines he sees his dead mother calling to him, along with a woman and her child. Are these two Okada’s dead wife and daughter? But Okada presses on. Just beyond Yokohama’s Shimbashi Station, they arrive at a street full of European clothiers and jewelers. At last! Okada steers Aguri into a shop. What does he want? He wants Aguri to give up her shapeless kimono and swath herself in close-fitting Western clothing that will accentuate her shape. He and the male shop steward select a white dress in cotton voile, as well as the necessary undergarments.  Okada is exquisitely attentive as the steward instructs Aguri how to put them on. The story is a brilliant character study as well as the triumph of exposing masculine fantasies and the male gaze. Most importantly, “Aguri” satirizes the growing obsession in Japan for all things Western. As Tanizaki observes, the craze for the foreign and the rush to toss away tradition has resulted in a terrible wasting illness for Okada and the nation.

“If he handed over a little of his money, any of the things in these shops would cling fast to her white skin, coil around her lithe, graceful arms and legs, become a part of her…European clothes weren’t ‘things to wear’—they were a second layer of skin. They weren’t merely wrapped around the body but dyed into its very surface like a tattooed decoration.” (71)

“Blowfish” (1913, translation 1992)

By Satomi Ton (m.)

Translated by Ted Goossen

Mr. Satomi’s Meiji period character study no doubt familiarized the world with the Japanese delicacy fugu, blowfish. Before serving, a master chef must carefully remove the fish’s poisonous ovaries as well as its intestines and liver. The toxic substance is more deadly than cyanide; even a trace can affect the human nervous system. The protagonist of the story is Endo, a star of kabuki theater. He had traveled to a distant city to stand in for a fellow actor who had broken his arm during a performance. On his return, Endo stopped near Hiroshima and perhaps had a little too much to drink. He awoke the next day with a terrible headache and had considerable trouble focusing. He spent a night at an inn, and the next day he woke up, walked out on a balcony, and experienced a powerful sense of health and rapture. The next evening he joined two geisha for dinner, consuming his favorite dish, fugo. That evening during rehearsal, he feels a strange tingling sensation and has trouble recalling and speaking his lines. Nevertheless, Endo disregards his symptoms, concluding that the chef was reliable and these symptoms are merely variations of the health problems he had been suffering since Hiroshima. Although his friends, family, and acquaintances become more alarmed, Satomi reveals his protagonist’s efforts to rationalize and diminish his condition. At a certain point, his sickroom receives a flood of visitors as doctors try a variety of desperate treatments—one involving burying Endo in the soil of the garden with only his face exposed. Just as his loved ones fear he is dead, Endo recalls that he has been sick like this before, when he was a child, and he becomes certain that he will recover. He even sees clearly, for the first time, a traumatic event he witnessed as a child: a fire in a theater and the face of his father as he pulled props from the flames.

“As they moved about, speaking in low tones, the atmosphere of anxiety spread to encompass the entire neighborhood. Endo’s youngest brother, Koendo, purified himself and rushed off for Sennichimae, fastening his sash as he went. He was going to pray at the shrine to Kompira, the god he worshipped above all others. Kisho, the middle brother, was burning moxa on the soles of Endo’s feet, instructed by the proprietress of the Izotoku Inn, who had hurried to the scene.  A woman from Kasaya-machi, aunt to the three men, was sobbing that the mourning period for her sister had not even ended yet.” (76)

“Portrait of an Old Geisha” (1939)

By Okamoto Kanoko (f.)

Translated by Cody Poulton

Okamoto presents us with the story of Kosono, a storied geisha who, after an astonishing career, has begun to distance herself from her profession. Her success allows her to live in an attractive home with all the modern conveniences and to adopt a relative’s daughter, send her to a finishing school, and provide her with the best that life has to offer. She takes lessons in the arts: painting, ceramics, and waka poetry. She still regales visitors and young geisha with traditional stories from her profession, but she also tells of her adventures with famous men—especially actors. She spends her days, however, haunted by melancholy. Having a great love for modern appliances, she is dependent on Mr. Makita, who has a young, college-educated, and witty assistant, Yuki.

She recognizes that Yuki appears unfocused. She asks him what he would truly prefer to do with his life, and he tells her that he wishes that he might have the time and the resources to use his degree to become a great inventor. Kosono approves of his goal, and, on the spot, offers him a room in her home and a living wage while he works on his dream. Perhaps, thinks Yuki, after years of leeching money from men, she wishes to give back for once. A year passes. Yuki finds that he has created nothing new. He has worked, but what he thought were great advances turned out to already be in production. He also finds himself the object of attention of Michiko, Kosono’s adoptive daughter. She is unsettlingly young and beautiful, and she is clearly attracted to Yuki. He tells himself it would be uncharacteristic of him to desire a woman and inappropriate for him to pursue his patron’s daughter. He half suspects that Kosono may have brought him into her home to be the future husband of her beloved Michiko. Inevitably, Michiko and Yuki are drawn into a fiery relationship, of which Kosono approves. The story is beautifully told and Ms. Okamoto’s rendering of the aging geisha and her motivation for bringing these two youths together are enchanting.

“By day one often saw her out shopping, dressed in a matronly kimono of twilled silk, her hair pulled back in a simple Western-style bun. With her maid in tow, she would wander listlessly (a shuffle to her feet, her arms dangling dispiritedly by her sides) up and down the aisles of department stores, always returning to the same spot. But when something in the distance ignited a glimmer of interest in those sullen eyes, she would bolt toward it to investigate, taut as the string on a kite. Aware of nothing but the afternoon’s melancholy, she would pass her time in this pointless fashion, scarcely knowing why.” (79)

“In a Grove” (1921, translation 1952)

By Akutagawa Ryunosuke (m.)

Translated by Takashi Kojima

Akutagawa is considered the father of the modern Japanese short story. “In a Grove” and “Rashomon” are the short stories that inspired Akira Kurosawa’s classic psychological thriller of 1950, Rashomon. The conceit is that a crime has been committed on a remote hillside—a samurai has been found dead. The cause of death was a stab wound, though no weapon was found. The reader hears the testimony of six witnesses and is left to determine the fate of the accused and bring justice to the victim. Two witnesses, a woodcutter, and a priest provide the first reports. The woodcutter came upon the deceased in the woods. He saw no knife, only a severed rope. The priest saw the deceased earlier on the road. The victim was leading a horse on which a woman—presumably his wife—road. The victim was clearly a samurai; he was armed with a sword and carried a bow and a quiver of at least twenty arrows. The third witness is a police officer. He arrested a notorious robber and rumored rapist whom he found unconscious on the road. He had in his possession a quiver with seventeen arrows, and near his body was a horse of great value. The fourth witness is the mother of the young bride of the murdered man. She is in agony, for, as yet, no one has determined the whereabouts of her nineteen-year-old daughter. The fifth witness is the notorious robber. He boastfully describes his attack on the married couple, detailing how he tied up the samurai, assaulted his wife before him, and then fought a ferocious battle with the samurai and killed him. Several days later, the bride is discovered, found in prayer at a nearby temple. She too is brought before the justice and asked to tell her story. The stories overlap, to some extent, but some things just don’t quite match up. In the end, “resolution” comes from a supernatural source: the testimony of the dead.

“Yesterday a little past noon I met the couple. A little puff of wind blew, and raised her hanging scarf, so that I caught a glimpse of her face. Instantly it was again covered from my view. That may have been one reason; she looked like a Bodhisattva. At that moment I made up my mind to capture her even if I had to kill her man.”  (97)

“The Bears of Nametoko” (1927, translation 1993)

By Miyazawa Kenji (m.)

Translated by John Bester

Mr. Miyazawa was famous for his tales from the countryside and stories for children. This story examines the economic, social, and spiritual relationships connecting the poor to the animals of the forest. Kojoro is a middle-aged man. His wife and daughter are deceased, killed by dysentery. He owns a small patch of good-for-nothing land, so he is forced to make his living and feed his mother and her six grandchildren. Kojoro hunts the bears of Nametoko, selling their skins for clothing and their livers for medicine. He apologizes to the bears for killing them, assuring them that he would not hurt them if he were not so desperate for money. Sometimes he sees bears but will not shoot. For example, one night he observes a mother bear and her cub. As he listens to their conversation about the weather, he notices a halo around the pair and leaves them unharmed. Another time, having a target square in his sights, the bear approaches him and explains that he has a family and many things to accomplish. If Kojoro will spare his life, two years from this date the bear will appear at Kojoro’s door and at that time he may shoot him. And as promised, two years from that date Kojoro discovers that same bear dead on his doorstep. As interesting as the spiritual relationship between Kojoro and the bears is the humiliating ritual Kojoro puts himself through when he sells his prizes at the town store. He humbles himself like a dog before the store owner and too easily accedes to the shameful price offered.

“Why, then, did he sell his skins to someone other than that hardware dealer? To most people, it would be a mystery. But in those days there was an order to things: it was a matter of course that Kojoro should get the better of the bears, that the shopkeeper should get the better of Kojoro, and that the bears—but since the shopkeeper lived in the town, the bears couldn’t get the better of him, for the moment at least.” (108)

 “Spring Riding in a Carriage” (1926, translated 1974)

By Yokomitsu Riichi

Translated by Dennis Keene

This heartbreakingly honest narrative is autobiographical, based on Mr. Yokomitsu’s experience of nursing his young wife, who died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty. Yokomitsu’s focus is entirely on the bond between the husband, the caregiver, and the wife, the afflicted. He portrays the relationship with a focus on psychological realism. The wife, who has only the use of one lung, is confined to her bed. She calls for succor from her husband, but she also castigates him for his failures to come to her on her terms. She accuses him of desiring to leave her, being appalled by the decay of her body, and infuriated by her complaining. He doesn’t show her enough attention. He shows her too much attention, but he performs his duties like a guard in a prison. The husband tells her that she has a “cage mentality,” but even though he can leave the sickroom, they are both trapped together by the illness. The husband is by his nature depressed and self-critical. He can show extraordinary kindness and care. He scours the markets looking for the rarest innards he can find for his wife, brings them home, and lays them before her, describing them as gems. Then he cooks them for her. He weeps when her doctor tells him that his wife’s condition is terminal. Yet he also tells his wife his own ambivalent feelings, confessing that it is true that some of what he does to make her more comfortable might be more rewarding to him than it is to her. She accuses him of loathing her, of being unfaithful, of being an egoist; he tells her she is correct and criticizes her for her complaining attitude and petty jealousy. As the disease progresses, they torture each other in whispers, and yet they continue to show an abiding love for one another, as at the moment he carries the freshest sweet peas to his wife.

“The waves after waves of suffering that came in upon him had never been something to be evaded. The origin of those waves of suffering, each different in each onslaught, existed in his very flesh, had been there from the beginning.  He had decided to taste his suffering as the tongue tastes sugar, to scrutinize it with the total light of his senses. Which would taste best in the end? My body is a scientific flask; the most important thing is absolute clarity.” (114)

 “Carp” (1926, translation 1981)

By Ibuse Masuji

Translated by John Bester

Mr. Ibuse’s novel about the bombing of Hiroshima, Black Rain, is considered a touchstone of post-war fiction. Here, Ibuse tells the story of a relationship between two adult male friends: the narrator and Nampachi Aoki. The narrator reveals virtually nothing about their friendship or any biographical details about the two men, other than that Aoki has a mistress and that he once gifted the narrator a foot-long white carp. According to Aoki, the carp meant a great deal to him, so his gift is an appropriate gift for his friend. The narrator dutifully placed the fish in the pond behind the boarding house where he was living, visiting the fish from time to time. When he needed to move, he spent eight days fishing at the pond in order to retrieve his gift. Having no pond in his new home, he brought the fish in a basin to Aoki and asked permission to place the gift fish in the pond of his mistress. Aoki agrees, and the fish is released into the mistress’s pond. Later, Aoki dies. Missing the fish, the narrator writes the mistress to ask permission to retrieve the gift and bring it to the pool at Waseda University. She agrees, although she notes that his request might be considered insensitive by some, as the mourning period for Aoki has not yet ended. The story is delightfully odd and moving. Is it really, as the narrator claims, a story about how, “for more than a dozen years past, I have been troubled by a carp”?

“The cold season came, and the pool was strewn with fallen leaves. Finally, it froze. For that reason, I had given up any idea of looking for the carp, yet still I did not neglect to come to the pool every morning, just in case. And I amused myself by throwing countless small stones onto the flat surface of the ice. When I tossed them lightly, they skidded swiftly, with a cold sound, over the ice. When I flung them straight down, they stuck into the icy surface.” (127)

 “The Izu Dancer”

Kawabata Yasunari (m.)

Translated by Edward Seidensticker

Mr. Kawabata tells the story of a shy, depressed, and insecure young man who turns his back on his stressful life  at a prestigious university and “gets away from it all” by taking a walking tour of the Izu Peninsula. Although he seems comfortable win his role as a solitary adventurer, when he encounters a family of itinerant showmen, his misanthropic mood shifts. The family is made up of a young man, Eikichi, his wife, several young women and a young girl who carries a large drum, whom he imagines to be about his age. He is quite taken by the girl and modifies his pace and his itinerary in order to meet up with the group as much as possible.  The scholar finds Eikiochi easy to talk to. The become fast friends, and although Eikichi and his troupe are entertainers and of low class and the scholar is far above them in social status, the young man enjoys Eikichi’s easy way of talking and begins to look to him as a role model. At times they travel together, at others they split up so that the troupe can perform at the inns along the way. The scholar finds himself persevering over the beauty of the young girl. He imagines the two as heavenly lovers and a look from her causes his heart to leap. Then, one late afternoon he stumbles upon the family in a public bath and discovers that the woman he admired so much is actually no more than a child. He is shocked, but he also experiences an epiphany. He no longer sees the drum carrier as an object of erotic desire, but an expression of innocence and beauty. His desire was a burden to him and with this discovery he is able to put it aside and focus on his wonderful experiences with this family. As time passes, the family regards the scholar as very friendly and caring and they tell him that they never expected someone like him would deign to spend time in their company. Later, he even overhears the women sharing their belief that he is a good man. This praise is a powerful restorative to the young traveler, and it matures into a new confidence he feels as they head their separate ways.

“She had an open way of speaking, a youthful and honest way of saying exactly what came to her, which made it possible to think of myself as, frankly, ‘nice.’ I looked anew at the mountains, so bright that they made my eyes ache a little. I had come at nineteen to think myself a misfit, an orphan by nature, and it was depression that had sent me forth on this Izu journey. Now I was able to think of myself as a ‘nice’ person in the ordinary sense of the expression. I find no way to describe what this meant to me. The mountains grew brighter.” (144)

“Lemon” (1925)

By Kajii Motojiro (m.)

Translated by Robert Ulmer

Mr. Kajii died at 31. Like the narrator in this brief short story, he suffered from tuberculosis. The narrator tells of a period of depression he endured. The symptoms of his tuberculosis were enervating, he was in debt and penniless. He describes his sense that he is beneath a massive weight and shares his peculiar fascination at this time of haunting the poorest alleys of the town where he would take the greatest pleasure in the scenes of poverty and decay and the occasional contrast with a calla lily or chrysanthemum. He reports that he once preferred to window shop in the large department stores, but now the flashy excess of the stores makes him uncomfortable. He discovers that the place that gives him the greatest joy is a fruit vendor’s shack. Unlike the other street stores, the operator takes special care to display the fruit to its best advantage. Better yet, the operator understands the power of light. The awning of the shop is sharply angled as if someone had pulled the brim of a baseball cap over their eyes, the ceiling is illuminated and the fruit below shines in a way that satisfies the narrator like nothing else. One day he purchases a perfect lemon from this shop and revels in its scent, weight, and color. For some reason, he decides to take the lemon to the department store. At first, his anxiety returns, but the man pushes on. When he arrives at the book section, he begins pulling down and opening one art book after another. He barely has the string to pull them off the shelf and even opening the books seems to be a task. He is painfully unhappy. It is clear now that he is an artist, but he finds no satisfaction in looking at the European masters he studied.  Disconsolate, he pulls the lemon from his pocket and reexamines it. Suddenly inspired, he begins piling up the books in a tower, selecting books by size and color and stopping occasionally to study his creation. In the end, he places the lemon just so on the top of his construction and exits the store mischievously.

“Time and time again, I brought the fruit up to my nose to capture its scent. An image of California, its likely origin, came to me followed by a snippet from the Chinese classic The Fruit Merchant which I had studied once in school—‘assailing the nose’ was the phrase I remembered. Indeed, when I filled my lungs with the fragrance, a warm wash of blood seemed to course through my body, awakening me to my own vitality. Not once, I thought, had I ever breathed so deeply before.” (152)

“The Accordion and the Fish Town” (1931)

Hayashi Fumiko (f.)

Translated by Janice Brown

Ms. Hayashi was the daughter of a peddler. Her narrator, the fourteen-year-old Masako, wears her hair cut like a boy’s. She is constantly hungry. She reads the odd cast-off books her family gives her, but she only has a fifth-grade education. Masako’s father is an itinerant peddler of quack medicines and salves. He and her mother take the girl along with them as they seek out the town that will potentially provide enough customers to keep them in silver.  Arriving at a fishing town, the father dons an old policeman’s coat that makes him look a little bit like a marching band performer, finds a likely spot, sets out his wares, and begins singing and playing his accordion. A crowd gathers and he begins to move his merchandise. We see the family enjoy good times in the fish town. Masako begins attending school as a sixth-grade student and although she is bullied, she enjoys an innocent romance with a younger boy who works at his father’s fish stand. Then, things go south. Her father stops selling the salves and purchases a line of make-up. He practices new songs and new patter, but it appears that either he has been duped or he is watering down the product–at the story’s end, Masako hears her mother’s desperate cries coming from the police station. There is a very interesting interlude in the middle of this story that involves Masako’s study of the impoverished people who live below them in the inn. This may be the sweet nut hidden within the shell of “The Accordion and the Fish Town.”

“I ran to the wooden pier and up the slope. This town was so cramped that even a dog seemed large in it. Higher up the slope, above the roofs, tents fluttered, and girls wearing hairpins of cherrywood were everywhere. I could hear Father’s voice coming from the midst of a crowd of people that had gathered like ants—he sounded as if he was really working up a sweat.” (157)

“The Flower Eating Crone” (1974, translation 1997)

By Enchi Fumiko (f.)

Translated by Lucy North

Mrs. Enchi’s central character is a woman of indeterminate age. As her vision is becoming significantly worse, perhaps she is in her forties or fifties. While admiring a favorite flowering cactus on her veranda, she is startled to see an elderly woman opposite her. “What a beautiful flower!” she exclaims. The heroine explains her long relationship with the plant, how she thought she had killed it, and then a year later, it miraculously flowered again. Since that time, she has cherished the flower, a crab orchid. The old woman plucks the brightest flower and in a flash pops it into her mouth. When the middle-aged woman expresses shock, the elderly woman explains that as she has grown older, she has either become senile or she has simply lost her inhibitions. She confesses that the flower appealed to her and that it was not enough to simply look at it or smell its scent—she had to taste it, swallow it whole, and have it inside her. She compares her desire to that of lovers, such as the scene in the kabuki play Plum Calendar, where the courtesan nibbles on a white flower before kissing her beloved, or the woodblock prints of Kiyonaga, or the characters in Ovid’s metamorphosis. And she warns the protagonist that she must really begin to act on her desires before she loses her sight completely. Otherwise, the old woman suggests that when her eyesight completely fails, her new friend will only have demons and goblins for company. The younger woman acknowledges that she has been more isolated recently, and more often than she wished, she was preoccupied with regrets about not acting on her desires. She recalls a passionate exchange of letters she shared while still a senior in high school. Her beloved was older, a college boy. She decided to pull away, and he left to work abroad. More “almost” loves cloud her mind, as well as passionate affairs that have nothing to do with love. And so she realizes that already, the demons are coming for her.

“A young couple sat side by side on the bench, eating and chatting to each other and tossing scraps of paper at the pigeons. They seemed relaxed and lively at the same time. Both were in slacks and sweaters, and the boy’s hair was as long as the girl’s. It was difficult, especially with my poor eyesight, to tell which was the boy and which was the girl, one red, the other yellow. ‘They look happy,’ the old woman remarked as we sat down nearby, ‘and yet they’re not doing anything special.’ She smiled at me. ‘In our time, of course, it would have been scandalous for a young girl to be seen alone with a man.”  (179)

“Blind Chinese Soldiers” (1946, translation 1991)

By Hirabayashi Taiko (f.)

Translated by Noriko Mizuta Lippit

Ms. Hirabayashi was a political writer and a member of the Proletarian movement which was at its most influential in Korea and Japan in the 1920s and 1930s. The narrator, a self-described “intellectual turned farmer,” describes a day in 1945 when traveling from Takasaki to Ueno. While waiting at the station, the police and railway agents march onto the platform and begin moving people away and marking off a large area in white chalk. Later, the train pulls into the station, but as the narrator drifted off into a listless reverie, he found himself at the very end of the line of passengers intending to board. He tried to get into the car beside him but was pushed away by a soldier. Looking inside a partially screened window, the narrator sees young Prince Takamatsu. The narrator is astonished to discover that the being he has heard about his entire life is actually real, but he does not share his secret knowledge with the other citizens on the platform. He dashes to the last cars, but he must wait until at least one hundred soldiers detrain. The narrator notices they seem different somehow. Looking more closely, he sees that they are Chinese prisoners, and almost all of them have been blinded. The waiting passengers are struck by the offensive odor of the filthy prisoners. Others begin weeping as they stare at the young men, from whose eyes are seeping some type of liquid or tears. A rumor passes down the line: the prisoners were part of a chemical warfare experiment in a camp in the mountains. As the travelers wait for the train to be unloaded, the conversation on the platform returns to chores that need to be done, itineraries, and items to be purchased. Eventually, the train departs, with the narrator remarking that after the war, whenever he asks about what he saw that day, no one has any recollection of the blind Chinese soldiers.

“The conductor came from the end of the train announcing ‘Jimbobara next, Jimbobara next,’ as he passed among the passengers. By that time, the windows on the west side were burning with the rays of the setting sun, and the huge red sun was setting with the sanctity of the apocalypse. I realized that the car that had been occupied by the Chinese had been taken away and that my car had become the last of the train.” (186)  

“In the Forest, Under Cherries in Full Bloom” (1947)

By Sakaguchi Ango (m.)

Translated by Jay Rubin

Mr. Sakaguchi gained fame after the second world war for his dark, sarcastic short stories and his highly influential essay “Darakuran” or “Discourse on Decadence,” which focused on the code of bushido as it manifested itself in World War II. “In the Forest, Under Cherries in Full Bloom appears to be a folk or fairy tale. The story begins as the narrator scoffs at the behavior of the citizens of Edo who, every spring, gather to admire the cherry blossoms and “drink and puke and fight.” According to him, the cherry blossoms are nothing to celebrate. He reminds the reader that long ago these forests were the site of many a robbery and murder, and he advises his audience to consider the famous Noh play that tells the story of a mother whose young son was kidnapped. Did she not lose her mind beneath these same cherry trees? He tells the story of a robber who hunted his prey in this forest. He committed many a crime, stole many a wife, and even murdered a husband or two. When he had about seven wives he begins seeking an eighth. On the highway, under those same cherry trees, he finds a beauty beyond compare. When he lays hold of her, she cries out that he must first kill her husband as she cannot bear the shame of having him know her fate. The affable thief obliges her, at which point she collapses and insists that he carry her to his hiding spot. When he reaches his lair and she discovers the seven other wives, she insists that she cannot tolerate rivals and orders him to kill the six beauties and spare the life of the ugly crippled bride to serve as her maid. After murdering the six women, he collapses in a kind of moral and spiritual nausea. He knows he has experienced this overwhelming revulsion before and realizes that he is experiencing the same emotion he feels when beneath the cherry blossoms at the height of their bloom.  Worse, he discovers he is in the thrall of a woman he cannot please.  She demands more and more of him, driving him to exhaust himself in criminal acts, stoking the fires of his passion by creating captivating knots in the sashes of her kimono. Bored by her isolation, she has the robber bring her the heads of his victims, with which she performs elaborate dramas. Worst of all, she wants him to go to the capital, to Edo, the place of the dreaded cherry blossoms. Masahiro Shinoda directed a terrifying horror movie based on this short story in 1975: Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees.

“Every morning, the crippled woman would comb the woman’s long black hair. The water she used would be hauled by the man from a far-off spring that fed the river in the valley. He himself was moved to see the special effort he was willing to expend for her. What he wanted most of all was to be part of the magic—to be allowed to touch that hair as the comb passed through it. ‘No! Not with those hands!’ the woman snapped, sweeping him away. The man drew his hands back like a child, ashamed, and watched what was left of his shattered dream. The hair reached its full glossiness, the crippled woman tied it back to expose the face beneath, and a thing of beauty came into being.” (193)

“Passage to Fudaraku” (1961, translation 1979)

By Inoue Yasushi (m.)

Translated by James Araki

Mr. Inoue’s “Passage to Fudaraku” focuses on Konko, the Abbot of Fudaraku-Ji Temple. The story is set in the 1500s. Located on the shore of Hama-No-Miya, Buddhist monks have a long tradition of using the Fudaraku-Ji Temple as an embarkation point for a sea voyage to the Pure Lands of the legendary isle of Fudaraku, sacred to Kannon, the female Bodhisattva of Mercy. The histories of the temple contain numerous references to monks who left the temple in small boats to sail for the mythical island. The Abbot Konko himself has seen at least two abbots reach enlightenment and at age sixty-one, commit themselves to the mercy of the waves. He also witnessed the departure of younger men, one of whom was afflicted with a fatal disease, and another who sailed against his parents’ wishes; he may have been delusional or suicidal. Abbot Konko has lived his life under the unspoken understanding that he must make the same journey when he reaches sixty-one. As the date for his departure approaches, he scours the history of the tradition. He considers announcing that his spirit is not yet prepared for the voyage, but by the time he comes to this understanding he discovers that there are simply too many faithful gathered at the temple to witness his holy act. Feeling that he can’t embarrass his faith, he proceeds to the shore and boards the tiny boat. For those who may be familiar with the tradition of Christian monastics in Ireland who also committed themselves to the sea in boats, the rituals differ in two distinct ways. The Buddhists were making a journey to a legendary heaven-like island where no one ever aged. The Irish monastics were trusting God to direct their craft to the place where they were destined to serve. Secondly, while the Irish monks made no effort to steer their boat, a Buddhist monk would lie down in their craft and fellow worshippers would enclose the lone traveler in a windowless and doorless wooden box, which they nailed to the deck of the boat. Inoue presents a compelling multi-sided critique of both legend and faith, literalism and symbolism.

“Whenever Konko ventured out from the monastery he would be showered with coins—offerings to His Reverence. Children, too, ran after him and threw coins. Beggars began to follow him through the streets to pick up the offerings for themselves. The monastery began receiving cenotaphs, customarily kept in homes, together with requests that they be taken by Konko and delivered to the Pure Land of Kannon. There were some who went so far as to entrust him with cenotaphs made for themselves.” (208)

“Merry Christmas” (1946, translation 1991)

By Dazai Osamu (m.)

Translated by Ralph F. McCarthy

Mr. Dazai’s novels The Setting Sun and No Longer Human are modern Japanese classics. The narrator of “Merry Christmas,” Kasai, returns to Tokyo with his wife and children after an absence of fifteen months. He is disappointed that the city has changed little. He is an insufferable egoist and rake. A writer, he is idling in a bookstore dressed in a kimono and Inverness cape. When a younger woman calls his name, his first thought is that she must be one of his old lovers. He wonders, when he turns to face her, whether she will be one of those for whom he feels nothing or deep guilt. For Kasai, these women are like a curse. But Shizueko is a blessing. She is the delightful grown-up daughter of one of his former lovers.  When last he heard she was living outside of Hiroshima. He asks the young girl about her mother; although the young girl is somewhat evasive, she assures him that her mother is fine. Pleased by this news, he begins to calculate the possibility of seducing the daughter of his old flame. He is almost forty. Imagining his sexual coup, he confesses that his ego blooms. She explains that she happened to be visiting this bookstore to find a book called Ariel.

They chat. They talk about movies, and he steers the conversation in ways that he assures the listener are certain to capture the heart of any young girl. He asks her to take him to visit her mother, partly to preen before the two women, but also to drive a wedge between the two and turn the daughter against the mother. However, at the door of her apartment, the daughter breaks out in tears and admits that she was too pained to respond honestly to his question about her mother’s health; she died in the war. Almost unphased, he takes the girl to a local restaurant and orders three dishes of the mother’s favorite dinner and three cups of sake.

“Tonight, seeing me after five years, completely unexpectedly, which would be more pleased–the mother or the daughter? I, for some reason, suspected the girl’s pleasure would prove to be deeper and purer than that of her mother. If so, it was necessary for me to make my own affiliation clear. It would not be possible to affiliate myself equally with both. Tonight I would betray the mother and join forces with the girl. It wouldn’t matter if, for example, the mother were to scowl with disapproval. It couldn’t be helped. It was love.” (228)

 “The Expert” (1958)

By Nakajima Atsushi aka Nakashima Ton (m.)

Translated by Ivan Morris

Nakajima tells a tale from the ancient Chinese state of Chao concerning a man named Chi Ch’ang who aspires to be the greatest archer in the world. He determines that he must study with the renowned Wei Fei in a distant city. Reaching his destination, the master archer refuses to teach Chi Ch’ang, telling him that if he wishes he should return in two years after he learns how not to blink. Chi Ch’ang returns home to spend hours lying on his back just an inch beneath his wife’s loom, disciplining himself not to blink as the shuttle flashes back and forth before his eyes. After two years he can tolerate a spider weaving a web between his eyelashes, so he returns to Wei Fei. The master is mildly impressed, but he will not consider letting the man even touch a bow until he he improves his ability to see enough so that “what is minute becomes conspicuous and what is small seems huge.” For three years the man works diligently to improve his vision by studying tiny insects on a blade of grass he places in a window across the room from him. After years of contemplation of thousands of insects, an aphid appears to him as big as a horse and a bird as large as a mountain. He takes up a poplar bow and quickly demonstrates remarkable skill, at which point he becomes afflicted by jealousy. How can Chi Ch’ang declare himself the master of archery as long as Wei Fei lives? At precisely this instant, Wei Fei realizes that he is in mortal danger and a murderous battle ensues. Fighting to a draw, the two embrace as brothers and declare a truce. Wei Fei, however, is too wise to believe that Chi Ch’ang will be able to resist the temptation to murder, so the master sends his rival on a final quest.

“The two men ran up to each other and embraced with tears of emotion. (Strange indeed were the ways of ancient times! Would not such conduct be unthinkable today? The hearts of the men of old must have differed utterly from our own. How else explain that when Duke Hauan one evening demanded a new delicacy, the Director of the Imperial Kitchen, by name I Ya, baked his own son and begged the Duke to sample it, or that fifteen-year-old youth who was to be the first Emperor of the Shin Dynasty, did not scruple on the very night his father died to make love three times to the old man’s favorite concubine?)  (235)

“The Rifle” (1952, translation 1987)

By Kojima Nobuo (m.)

Translated by Lawrence Rogers

Mr. Kojima’s narrator is a Japanese soldier, a twenty-one-year-old named Shin who is sent to fight in Northern Mongolia. Before heading off to war he had a dalliance with an older married woman, the wife of a soldier. The affair was passionate but never consummated. The young man saw the affair as the signifier of his entrance into manhood. Far from home, Shin transfers his passion for this woman to his most prized possession, another symbol of his masculinity, his Meiji rifle, serial number A62377. He lavishes attention on the rifle, cleans, caresses, and embraces it like a lover. He becomes its master, distinguishing himself for his marksmanship. Shin becomes the favorite of Squad Leader Oya, and it is Oya who one day orders Shin to participate in the execution of a group of Chinese villagers. Shin locks eyes with a young woman in the group who is visibly pregnant; she reminds him of his Japanese lover. The captain notices whatever is going on between Shin and the woman.  He commands Shin to demonstrate his prowess by shooting her from one hundred meters, then charges with his rifle leveled and bayonets her. When Shin fires his rifle and guts the woman, Squad Leader Oya declares proudly “Now you are a man!” Shin faints after the assault, and from that moment on he is haunted by the weapon. Each day, he loses status in the ranks until he becomes the squad’s scapegoat, and eventually becomes more animal than human. Mr. Kojima fought against the Chinese himself; although he is known for his satirical writing, this piece is emotionally devastating.

“She looked only at me, a hint of entreaty in her face. Inadvertently I nodded. Once I had done that I was no longer able to avert my face. She looked only at me; she would not take her eyes off of me. A curtain of bangs overhung her dirt-smudged forehead. For whom had she so prettily trimmed her hair? Her face, yes, it was the face of my woman back home. If the chin had been a little longer, she would have looked just like her.” (243)

“Unzen” (1965, translation, 1984)

By Endo Shusaku (m.)

Translated by Van Gessel

Mr. Endo writes of a Christian novelist, Suguru, who is making a pilgrimage by bus to Obama and then on to Unzen. The two sites are historically significant to the history of Christians in Japan. In 1630 the Nagasaki Magistrate Takenaka Shugetsuga drove Christians up the Mountain of Unzen to the Valley of Hell, a nightmarish landscape dotted by scalding volcanic pools. As he makes his way along the route of martyrs, Suguro is troubled by the weakness of his own faith and by the commercialism that has blossomed along the ancient ways. As he approaches the site of so many horrors, he recounts his own research. He knows the names of many of the martyrs and the way men and women refused to renounce their faith even as their tormentors ladled boiling sulfurous water over their naked bodies. These men and women were super-human believers and their success shames Suguro, who knows in his heart that he could never give what they gave for their beliefs. Yet Suguro persists. He forces himself to go to the Valley of Hell and then down to Shimbara where the officials burned the martyrs alive. Suguru wonders at the strength of the seven priests who died singing hymns in the fire, but he also remembers Kichijiro, who appears in one of the medieval accounts. Kichijiro was raised and brought into the faith by seven spiritual fathers, yet when the time came, he renounces his faith. Guilt-ridden, he follows the group and witnesses their suffering in the Valley of Hell. In the early morning, he brings them food before they are set alight. The holy men ask Kichijiro if he stayed true to his faith. When he answers no, they tell him that they can not take his gifts. Kichijiro leaves in shame. But witnesses say a man emerged from the crowd during the immolation of the martyrs shouting something unintelligible and rushing at the priests. He was apprehended by soldiers and asked if he was Christian. He replied that he was not. He simply had become over-excited and lost his head. He begged to be set free, and he was. These are the stories the writer contemplates as he boards the tour bus for home.

“Weaving their way among these hawkers, Suguro and the rest of the group from the bus walked toward the valley. The earth, overgrown with shrubbery, was virtually white, almost the color of flesh stripped of its layer of skin. The rotten-smelling stream rushed ceaselessly from amid the trees. The narrow path stitched its way back and forth between springs of hot, bubbling water. Some parts of the white-speckled pools lay as calm and flat as a wall of plaster; others eerily spewed up slender sprays of gurgling water. Here and there on the hillocks formed from sulfur flows stood pine trees scorched red by the heat.” (258)

“The Bet” (1960, translation 1991)

By Abe Kobo (m.)

Translated by Juliet Winters Carpenter

Mr. Abe is the author of the 1962 novel The Woman in the Dunes, which was adapted as a film and directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara in 1964. Abe was a communist, playwright, and director. He found inspiration in Kafka and Poe; those influences are evident in his story “The Bet.” An accomplished architect meets with a client to discuss the latest drawings for a plum assignment: the construction of a new building for the powerful advertising group, AB Company. As the meeting unfolds, the architect reminds the client that this is the thirty-sixth time he has revised his blueprints. This is not surprising, as the client alters requirements and demands changes according to polling done among the employees of AB Company, who have extraordinary demands and no grasp of architecture. The architect points out that the building he is designing is impractical and disorienting to the eye, and he has brought with him a legal waiver which he wishes the client to sign, acknowledging that AB Company comprehends that the completed structure will be inefficient, repulsive to the spirit and a colossal folly. The client assures the architect that the building is precisely what they require; perhaps he should visit AB Company in its current home. After a visit, he will surely understand the purposeful nature of the design he is creating. The Escher-esque qualities of the building aside, the activities the architect observes within the cubicle of AB Company are baffling yet somehow capable of producing a product that can sell a car, promote an ideology, or lead a nation as if it had a ring through its nose.

“’Tell me,’ he said to me, ‘do you know who the real politicians are, the ones who are moving our age? No, you don’t. Everyone still thinks that the elected representatives and the ministers of state are the politicians. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. We advertising men are the ones holding the reins. We’re the only ones who know how to get the stallion of public opinion and the stallion of capitalism to run in tandem.’” (279)

“Three Policemen” (Translation 1991)

By Yoshiyuki Junnosuke (m.)

Translated by Hugh Clarke

Mr. Yoshiyuki dropped out of Tokyo University and began writing for a scandal sheet. He wrote several novels including The City of Primary Colors (1951), Sudden Showers (1954), and The Room of a Whore (1958) and at least two collections of short stories. Yoshiyuki writes about the Tokyo demimonde, focusing regularly on the themes of alcoholism and prostitution. “The Three Policemen” introduces us to an older gentleman who is at a bar with a coquettish young woman named Miki. At a signal from the girl, the narrator unbuttons the top of her dress to reveal her large breasts. Miki preens. As murmurs of shock and appreciation pass through the smoky room, the narrator carefully does up the buttons for Miki, who is thrilled by the attention she has won. But the fun stops when the young exhibitionist is discovered to be a female transsexual. The pair  decide to leave, and although Miki wants to party, the narrator guides her to a quiet bar where they are known. She sips cocktails while he strikes up a conversation with three men half his age. They want to talk about the Israeli/British psychic Uri Geller who can bend spoons with just his mind. The narrator, despite his increasing intoxication, seems intent on engaging in a meaningful conversation, something that will stimulate him mentally. And indeed a conversation does develop that just may be the most rewarding conversation of his life when the young men begin to joke with him that he is old enough to have been in the war.

“It transpired that my young friend had recently got himself sandwiched in an entanglement between two girls. Apparently when he was in his cups he would sometimes break down and cry about it. I was surprised to hear that. Worry about women is a concomitant part of all men’s lives. Lots of men are crying inside. But they don’t let things rest there. They go out and try to deal with the problem. It vexed me to have this fellow, who was obviously still just a child, tell me I was senile.”   (290)

“Onnagata” (1957, translation 1967)

By Mishima Yukio (m.)

Translated by Donald Keene

Mr. Mishima is a legendary figure in Japanese literature. In “Onnagata,” he turns his lens on love and obsession in the world of kabuki drama. At sixteen, Masuyama, the protagonist first witnessed the work of the actor Mangiku Sanokawa on a school field trip. He was immediately captivated by the intensity of this actor who was then playing only supporting male roles. Throughout his university studies, Masuyama continued to follow the actor’s growth. His fascination rose to new levels when his hero Mangiku began to perform exclusively as an “onnagata:” a male performing as a female lead. Masuyama is not content to follow Mangiku from afar; he finds work backstage at the theater, partly hoping that his experience behind the scenes will rid him of his infatuation or at least allow him to enter into Mangiku’s rare feminine orbit. As the story unfolds, Masuyama acts as a guide to the rites and rituals of the onnagata, explaining the traps that wait for men who would portray femininity on the kabuki stage and the rigor that requires the onnagata to live as a woman even when performing. As Masuyama rises in his knowledge and devotion, Mangiku appears to demonstrate some interest in his devoted fan, until a young director arrives. Now Masuyama witnesses another drama as he watches helplessly while Mangiku falls in love with a man who may or may not share his passion.

“Mangiku’s performances unquestionably possessed moments of diabolic power. He used his lovely eyes so effectively that often with one flash he could create in an entire audience the illusion that the character of a scene had completely altered: when his glance embraced the stage from the hanamichi or the hanamichi from the stage, or when he darted one upward look at the bell in Dojoji. In the palace scene from Imoseyama, Mangiku took the part of Omiwa, whose lover was stolen from her by Princess Tachibana  and who has been cruelly mocked by the court ladies. At the end, Omiwa rushes out onto the hanamichi, all but wild with rage…”  (295)

(The hanamichi is unique to the kabuki theater. It is a narrow platform extending left of center stage deep into the audience; visually, it can be compared to the catwalk or runway of contemporary fashion.)

“Toddler-Hunting” (1965, translation 1996)

By Kono Taeko (f.)

Translated by Lucy North

Ms. Kono’s title is not literal, but the content of this tale of a woman’s psychological and psychosexual obsessions is just as terrifying or perhaps more terrifying than one could imagine. The narrator, Hayashi Akiko, is a retired opera singer. She was on track to become a diva but wound up spending her career in the chorus. She is unmarried and in her late thirties. She supplements her income by picking up work here and there as a translator of Italian, a skill she acquired in the opera. By her own admission, she loathes only one thing in the world: girls between the ages of one and ten. And she has no desire to marry or have children. She exercises her maternal instinct in selecting high-quality shirts for the young boys of her old friends from the opera. She spends hours searching for just the right shirt for just the right boy, aged three to ten. For her, it seems, no one is capable of embodying purity and innocence quite like a young boy. Once she purchases the clothing, she presents it to the mother in a public space and then cajoles the child into putting on the shirt. The entire process is a ritual for her, one that affects both her body and mind as the fantasy of seeing the boy don the shirt becomes an exquisite reality for her. She satisfies her sexual desires with Sasaki, a man who touches a place deep within her when he expresses revulsion for midwives and childbirth. As she suspects, like her, he seeks pleasure in inflicting violence on the body; she only seems to be completely free of her sense of self-loathing when she leaves her body in the height of physical torment. Bizarre and deeply unsettling as the story is, Ms. Kono is acknowledged as a brilliant writer, essayist, critic, and playwright. As in “Toddler Hunting,” many of Kono’s works examine women struggling violently with a gnawing sense of difference, often manifesting their agonizing search to find their identity in the context of the rigidly patriarchal society of Japan through the breaking of social and sexual taboo.

“For all these reasons,  she had become a woman for whom maternal love was a totally alien emotion—a woman even less able to think of bringing up children. Akiko now felt at ease knowing that having a baby was out of the question for her body—when this fact came to mind, she felt an emotion close to joy.” (325)

 “Mr. Carp” (1985, translation 1994)

By Mukoda Kuniko (m.)

Translated by Tumone Matsumoto

Ms. Mukoda introduces us to forty-two-year-old Shiomura, the patriarch of a modern family. In Japan, there is a saying that “forty-two is a man’s most crucial year.” By all measures, Shiomura’s home is a happy one, with Miwako, his loving wife, daughter Mayumi, and the reticent eleven-year-old, Mamoru. They are the typical modern Japanese family, and though Mayumi is a bit of a diva and occasionally lords her musical gifts over her family, their days are filled with laughter. It is Mayumi, with her exceptional hearing and perfect pitch who notices the sounds of an intruder. Though no one else heard anything, Miwako appeases her daughter and goes to the source of the sound: the kitchen. There, she discovers a plastic pail in which there swims a six-inch “gray crucian carp.” Though the children are delighted by the mysterious and fantastic arrival of the fish, Shiomura is terrified. Fortunately, his wife guesses that the fish’s appearance is the consequence of a wager among her husband’s work friends or a prank,  and asks no further questions. Shiomura’s impulse is to remove the carp as quickly as possible, but Mamoru takes an immediate liking to the animal and begs to keep it. The family purchases a tank for it and the boy begins to care for it, calling the fish “Mr. Carp,” which is precisely what Shiomura exclaimed when he first saw the fish. In fact, Shiomura recognizes Mr. Carp—it belonged to his mistress, Tsuyuku. Shiomura met Tsuyuko in a restaurant two years ago. The then thirty-five-year-old waitress was a server in a restaurant Shiomura frequented. They met several times a week for over a year. Tsuyuko purchased Mr. Carp after the affair began; Shiomura often imagined that the fish watched the couple as they made love in Tsuyuko’s cramped bedroom. He had broken off the affair not long ago, using a lengthy illness as an excuse to distance himself from his lover, and now Mr. Carp had arrived to haunt him. What could it mean?

“What helped Shiomura was that his wife, Miwako, was so unruffled. At first, she had seemed preoccupied by the fish, but after a few days, she didn’t talk about it much. She could just as easily have been taking care of a plain goldfish caught at some festival. Mayumi, however, detested Mr. Carp. She grumbled that the house had stunk of fish ever since it arrived. Averting her face, she refused even to look at the fish. Instead, she stared insolently at Shiomura.” (340)

“The Duel” (1968, translation 1987)

By Kaiko Takeshi (m.)

Translated by Cecilia Segawa Seigle

In “The Duel,” Mr. Kaiko presents us with a number of puzzles. It begins on a spit of coral. Two men are having a picnic of sorts, but they are neither physically nor emotionally in the same space. The younger man is occupying himself with observing the tiny fish that swim in the coral hollows beneath his feet. From time to time he drops bits of chicken and smiles as the fish roil the pool and devour the meat; occasionally, he spills a few splashes of sake into the water for the fish’s pleasure. Both men read poems packed in with their lunches, and when finished, they renew a conversation they had been having about the mongoose and the snake. The older gentleman is clearly the master. He explains the biology of the poisonous habe snake, which has poor vision and senses his prey by sensing heat and sound, and details the hunting behavior of the mongoose, which instinctively knows to strike the snake just below the jaw; if he attacks anywhere else, the snake will strike and the mongoose will die. The men arrive at a collection of shacks that could be chicken coops and meet a lab-coated gentleman who produces a live habe, pointing out the animal’s reproductive organs and mouth and provoking it to discharge its venom. They are then brought to one of the cages where they witness the combat between snake and mongoose, which is compared to a “cockfight.” What is the “duel” in the story? Is it merely the forced combat between the two animals?

“The young man had opened his box as soon as they reached the beach and discovered a sheet of letter paper above the wrapped chicken pieces. The poem was written in an antiquated but skillful calligraphy, as if challenging him. It was about the queen of all South Sea fishes welcoming the visitor to the island. The older man’s lunch box seemed to have contained a love poem for her husband. ‘Don’t read it on the way,’ his wife had said smiling. ‘You must wait until you get to the shore. Then you will want to come straight home in the evening.’ She had stood at the gate, waving goodbye to the departing men.” (345)

 “Prize Stock” (1958, translation 1977)

By Oe Kenzaburo (m.)

Translated by John Nathan

Mr. Oe focuses his story on race, difference, and sexuality in a remote village in the last months of World War II. One of the longer stories in the collection, “Prize Stock” begins with the grade-school-age narrator and his brother searching the pit the village has been using as a crematorium since a landslide washed out the trail into town; they are looking for identifiable human bones they can wear around their necks as prizes. A solitary American plane flies overhead, and later, having learned that the plane crashed, the adults from the village head deep into the jungle returning with their prize, an African American soldier. He is limping, his foot caught in a steel boar trap. The village headman sends a messenger to the town to report the crash and request to be relieved of the prisoner. Because the Japanese army is collapsing and communication is poor, the villagers are tasked with holding the prisoner. From the start, the boy—and possibly the villagers—sees the prisoner as an animal. From the young boy’s perspective, the village is tasked with “rearing” the man as if he were livestock. The villagers gawk at the man’s blackness. They do not see him as an enemy. Why would a black man fight them? The narrator is on the cusp of becoming a sexual being, as uncomfortably stimulated by the young girls he bathes with naked in the spring as he is by the sight of the soldier’s naked body and the odor of his unwashed body. The boy, his brother, and their friend Harelip grow closer to the being they care for, stunned to find that he is almost like a man, almost like them, and they enjoy the status they achieve in the village as the ones privileged enough to feed him and haul away his waste. As the story careens toward its inevitable end, the boy suffers a traumatic wound and emerges from a two-day-long coma as a reorganized, socially-aligned person. His clouded emotions and confused desires are gone. His heart is hardened; he looks on death with a shrug.

“We sat down on the wooden frame of the sleeping platform to wait for my father to come back with borrowed rice and vegetables and cook us a pot of steaming gruel. We were too exhausted to be truly hungry. And the skin all over our bodies was twitching and jumping like the genitals of a bitch in heat. We were going to rear the black soldier. I hugged myself with both arms. I wanted to throw off my clothes and shout –we were going to rear the black soldier, like an animal!” (361)

“A Very Strange, Enchanted Boy” (1985, translation 1995)

By Tsushima Yuko (f.)

Translated by Geraldine Harcourt

Ms. Tsushima brings us into the ever-anxious world of Michie, a single mother who is raising a boy. The child, who is never named, may be seven or eight. He struggles with basic math and has not yet learned to write most characters. Late to talk, his first word was not “momma” but “light.” He does not socialize well with other children and his teacher’s efforts to chastise him have no effect. At the same time, the boy is a voracious, precocious reader with a desire for philosophical and physical knowledge that regularly brings his mother almost to the point of fury. He is obsessed with infinity and the concept of death. Once a year, Michie meets with the boy’s father. When she met this man, he was married and had a family. She tried, in vain, to turn him away from his wife—even going so far as to force his hand by getting pregnant. Her effort failed: he withdrew from Michie and returned to his wife and child. Now she sees him once a year. They meet at a restaurant they believe the boy will like, place him between them, and discuss his development. Michie expresses her worries, and the man offers that the child looks fine and is not, as one of his teachers claims “wrong in the head.” At the end of the meal, her ex-lover hands her a sizable amount of cash, and they go their separate ways.

“There’d been a phase when he could think of nothing but ghosts and monsters. He was always wheedling her to buy ghost and monster books, and when, every five times or so, she gave in, he wouldn’t part with the new book for a moment, pestering her to read it whenever he set eyes on her until he knew each creature by heart, from its place of origin to its identifying characteristics. Slippery Shanks, One Stump, the Giant Red Tongue, the River Baby; the child’s mind was a night parade of a hundred goblins, and Michie discovered she’d become an expert herself.” (393)

 “The Elephant Vanishes” (1987, translation 1993)

By Murakami Haruki (m.)

Translated by Jay Rubin

Mr. Murakami is a prolific and highly successful writer of short stories and novels (see Men Without Women). The first-person narrator describes what may be a crime unique in the annals of history. When a zoo in another city goes bankrupt, a no-name town decides to take on the care and feeding of an elderly elephant. They convert a portion of the grade school gym to accommodate the living quarters of both the elephant and his elderly keeper.  As a result, the town enjoys a minor uptick in tourism and adopts the elephant as a symbol of the town as well as its mascot. And because of the elephant’s nearness to the grade school, the teachers build lessons in biology and art around their new guest. The narrator visits the elephant regularly, until one day students discover both the elephant and its keeper have disappeared. The police treat the incident as a crime. They discover the lock on the cuff around the elephant’s hind leg remains undamaged and locked, and the only two keys remain in safes in the police and fire offices. The gate remains locked, secured from the inside, and the police search in vain for elephant footprints. Volunteers search the wooded areas in the mostly urban area, but turn up nothing. At this point, the narrator, who works in the public relations division of a company that produces high-end electronic appliances for kitchens meets a woman at a trade show. They get to know one another through work-related questions. Delighted to discover they share mutual acquaintances; they have dinner together. They are at ease with one another and their conversation flows smoothly. The narrator realizes that they are enjoying the ritualized and entirely predictable precursors to falling in love. Yet at precisely this moment, his attractive date imperils the budding relationship by returning to a question she has been anxious to ask him: what does he think happened to the elephant?

“She was unmarried, and so was I. She was twenty-six, and I was thirty-one. She wore contact lenses, and I wore glasses. She praised my necktie, and I praised her jacket. We compared rents and complained about our jobs and salaries. In other words, we were beginning to like each other.” (410)

“Desert Dolphin” (1992, translation 1995)

Shimada Masahiko (m.)

Translated by Kenneth L. Richard

Mr. Shimada’s “Desert Dolphin” is an existential investigation of what it is to be human. The narrator is a man surrounded by loud people in a loud place: a dingy karaoke bar. Smoking, drinking, and staring into and beyond the bar’s mirror, he turns, struck by the voice of a young man who is on the stage, crooning what appears to be his own song. When the song ends, the middle-aged protagonist introduces himself to the puppy-eyed singer. Moving to a private table, the older man expresses the depth of his surprise and delight: he fell to earth from heaven ten years ago, exiled from the world of angels for pursuing logic. He landed in the sea, was caught in a drift net, and became a man and then a fisherman. Since then, he has been on a swift-moving odyssey, pursuing his curiosity about man and his motivations. In all his experience, he has been alone. But when he heard the boy singer he recognized a fellow traveler. Indeed, the boy is an angel. But rather than an exile, he aspired to reach the earth to hear its music. He fell into a clutch of teens; his large, languorous eyes suggest there was a dog present as well. The story is experimental, ranging from pedestrian details about life as a former angel (the effects of gravity, for instance) as well as loopy metaphysical discussion. Complicating an already mind-exhausting scenario, Shimada’s jaded angel salves his nostalgia for his old life by regularly dosing himself with LSD.

“An angel with a will or memory is sick. Even God, in the same position, would go mad. God never makes pronouncements about truth; God never makes pronouncements about truth; God is God precisely because the divine’s position is to admonish those who make pronouncements. By the way, I have never heard the voice nor seen the shape of God. I’ve no interest in such things. It’s fair to say that Heaven has a logic, and that logic deals with the satanic; to wit, Heaven was carved from the bitter experience of exorcising cycles of evil.” (423)

“Dreaming of Kimchee” (1992, translation 1995)

Yoshimoto Banana (f.)

Translated by Ann Sherif

Are all modern short stories built around a bristling shard of existential dread? Ms. Yoshimoto’s “Dreaming of Kimchee” seems always on the edge of teetering into the catastrophe that Asian literary critics call “marriage anxiety.” The heroine occupies her evenings eating delightful snacks, watching television, reading glossy magazines that give romantic advice for the “other woman,” and waiting for the daily ten o’clock call from her boyfriend. He is, of course, a married man. And though the magazines report that only 5% of men who cheat on their wives eventually divorce and marry their lovers, the heroine “wins” the competition and marries her paramour. After clashing with the jilted wife, the heroine almost immediately is haunted by regrets. Should she have married him? Had she ever really wanted a marriage to begin with? And how long will it be before he cheats on her?  The story is remarkably chaste and sweet, and it provides an ending that is both believable and surprisingly uplifting.

“If a single woman goes bar-hopping by herself, people conclude she’s loose. If you have lunch with a single guy from the office, the women you usually eat with get upset. All these things are so trivial, yet the rules are hard and fast. It’s weird. Just like it’s strange how everyone automatically makes assumptions about people who are having affairs before they’ve heard the particulars. And then they feel like it’s their place to judge the morality of those involved.” (444)