A Mind-Changing Interpretation of Japanese Aesthetics In Praise of Shadows, by Junichirō Tanizaki (translated by T. J. Harper & E. Seidensticker) Vintage Classics, Nov. 2019. Reviewed by Renae Lucas-Hall A new fully-illustrated release of In Praise of Shadows by Junichirō Tanizaki, translated by Thomas J. Harper and Edward G. Seidensticker, has just been published by More…
Category: Blog
The Phallus, by Kazuko Shiraishi
(“Tree” photo credit: gratisography) Translation by Hiroaki Sato (For Sumiko’s birthday) God is, even if He is not. Also He is humorous enough to resemble some kind of man. This time with a gigantic phallus over the horizon of my dream He came on a picnic. Incidentally I regret that I did nothing for Sumiko More…
Revenge: A Village Tale, by Rebecca Otowa
(Illustration by Rebecca Otowa) An excerpt from The Mad Kyoto Shoe Swapper and other Short Stories from Japan By Rebecca Otowa Tuttle Publishing (March, 2020) I hate my dad. Every day of my life when I was a kid, he used to beat me. Some days it was just a tap across the face More…
Kanji: The Shadowy Middle Ground, by Eve Kushner
(“Cat nose” photo credit: gratisography) In all the years I’ve been studying Japanese, one of my dreams has been to read Haruki Murakami in Japanese. I mean, I’ve done it, using annotated readers to study two of his essays, but it’s hardly the same as picking up his novels and breezing through them unassisted. Anyway, More…
Review—Makoto Ōoka’s Beneath the Sleepless Tossing of the Planets
Twentieth Century Surrealism Tempered by Literary Discipline Beneath the Sleepless Tossing of the Planets: Selected Poems by Makoto Ōoka translated by Janine Beichman (Kurodahan Press, 2019) Review by Christopher Blasdel The title of this magnificently translated volume of poetry by the recently deceased Japanese poet Makoto Ōoka immediately conjures a sense of the surreal. Even More…
Review—The Memory Police: One Book You’ll Never Forget
The Memory Police by Yōko Ogawa (translated by Stephen Snyder) (Pantheon, Random House August 13, 2019) Reviewed by Renae Lucas-Hall This internationally-acclaimed writer transports you to a disturbing dystopian island where everyone and everything gradually disappears, leaving its vulnerable inhabitants at the mercy of a terrifying totalitarian regime. Imagine, if you will, waking up knowing More…
Food along the Nakasendo
By Amy Chavez The Nakasendo was an Edo Period (1603-1868) road used for travel between the capital of Edo (Tokyo) and Kyoto, the former capital. The 69 post towns along the way provided accommodation and services to daimyo and their entourages, who passed through on their sankin kōtai biennial visits to the Tokugawa shogunate. I’m More…
Visiting Holy Places, by Eve Kushner
How many cartoons have I seen in which a man climbs a craggy precipice in search of a wise religious figure? Why must sages dispense advice from the highest places? To put it more broadly, why do people think that one has to ascend to find religious purity? It must be related to the idea More…
Exploring the Mackerel Trail
By Amy Chavez The Wakasa Road is a historical trail that helped advance Japan’s culture and cuisine. The Wakasa region of Fukui Prefecture, on the nation’s west coast, was one of the strategic miketsukuni regions of Japan that produced food for the emperor in ancient times. Wakasa-mono were delectables from the Japan Sea such as More…
Excerpt—Choosing the Right Straw, by Edward Levinson
on the road’s edge 道の端 five snake gourds からすうり五個 protect the mountain 山護る (michi no haji, karasu uri go-ko, yama mamoru) I knew all about the magic of using rice straw. It is one of the main methods of Fukuoka-san’s Natural Farming (see One Straw Revolution, by Masanobu Fukuoka). In the mountains of Kyōto, his More…