In den letzten Monaten habe ich einiges von japanischen Autoren aus dem frühen 20. Jahrhundert gelesen, sehr tiefsinnige Literatur mit (Nach-)Kriegsbezug und sehr gesellschaftskritisch. Sicher nicht jedermanns Sache. Will auch keine Reviews o. ä. verfassen, sondern lediglich drauf aufmerksam machen, vielleicht den ein oder anderen Satz dazu schreiben, mal gucken..
Osamu Dazai - The Setting Sun
Novel by Dazai Osamu, published in 1947 as Shayo. It is a tragic, vividly painted story of life in postwar Japan. The narrator is Kazuko, a young woman born to gentility but now impoverished. Though she wears Western clothes, her outlook is Japanese; her life is static, and she recognizes that she is spiritually empty. In the course of the novel she survives the deaths of her aristocratic mother and her sensitive, drug-addicted brother Naoji, an intellectual ravaged by his own and by society's spiritual failures. She also spends a sad, sordid night with the dissipated writer Uehara, and she conceives a child in the hope that it will be the first step in a moral revolution. (amazon.com)
Klassisch geschrieben, sehr simpel, kaum ein Spannungsbogen, aber dennoch faszinierend. Dazai gilt als legendärer Autor in Japan, da er eine sehr - nun - nennen wirs lebensmüde Weltsicht hatte. Ähnlich einem der Protagonisten in dem Buch hat auch er in einem nicht sehr hohen Alter rituellen Selbstmord (Seppuku) begangen.
Kobo Abe - The Woman in the Dunes
This beautiful novel by one of Japan's most important writers is also one of the most strangely terrifying and memorable books you'll ever read. The Woman in the Dunes is the story of an amateur entomologist who wanders alone into a remote seaside village in pursuit of a rare beetle he wants to add to his collection. But the townspeople take him prisoner. They lower him into the sand-pit home of a young widow, a pariah in the poor community, who the villagers have condemned to a life of shoveling back the ever-encroaching dunes that threaten to bury the town. An amazing book. (amazon.com)
Sehr bizarres, surreales Buch. Mit einem seltsamen Ende. Aber definitiv anders, als alles, was man sonst so bisher gelesen hat. Abe gilt als der japanische Autor, der international wohl den renommiertesten Ruf haben dürfte. Das Buch ist auch verfilmt worden.
Natsume Soseki - Kokoro
Kokoro is a story of one young man searching to fill a void in his life. It is the story of many individuals who long to appease loneliness, and the story of two men who attempt to assuage loneliness through love but only find peace in death. Soseki befriends an older man he calls "Sensei" with the expectation of learning about life. What Soseki does learn is that Sensei is a troubled and reclusive man who does not trust himself or humanity enough to interact with the world. Though Soseki and Sensei develop a close friendship, Sensei's life remains a mystery. Only when Sensei decides to end his life does he decide it is time to pass on his testament. Kokoro is a tale that gets to the heart of the loneliness, fear, and guilt. (bookrags.com)
Dreigeteilte Geschichte über Freundschaft, Liebe, Einsamkeit und die Werte im Leben. Mit eines der faszinierendsten, schönstern und traurigsten Bücher, die ich je gelesen habe. Aber auch sehr "ruhig" und zäh. Zwar einfach geschrieben, aber eben sehr, sehr langsam. Dennoch: Mehr als lesenswert.
Yukio Mishima - The Temple of the Golden Pavillion
Product DescriptionBecause of the boyhood trauma of seeing his mother make love to another man in the presence of his dying father, Mizoguchi becomes a hopeless stutterer. Taunted by his schoolmates, he feels utterly alone untill he becomes an acolyte at a famous temple in Kyoto, where he develops an all-consuming obsession with the temple's beauty. This powerful story of dedication and sacrifice brings together Mishima's preoccupations with violence, desire, religion and national history to dazzling effect. (amazon.com)
About the AuthorYukio Mishima was born into a samurai family and imbued with the code of complete control over mind and body, and loyalty to the Emperor - the same code that produced the austerity and self-sacrifice of Zen. He wrote countless stories and thirty-three plays, in some of which he performed. Several films have been made from his novels, including The Sound of Waves, Enjo which was based on The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and The Sailor Who Fell From Grace with the Sea. Among his other works are the novels Confessions of a Mask and Thirst for Love and the short story collections Death in Midsummer and Acts of Worship. The Sea of Fertility tetralogy, however, is his masterpiece. After Mishima conceived the idea of The Sea of Fertility in 1964, he frequently said he would die when it was completed. On 25 November 1970, the day he completed The Decay of the Angel, the last novel of the cycle, Mishima committed seppuku (ritual suicide) at the age of forty-five. (amazon.com)
Wirklich absolut faszinierendes Buch und großartiger Autor, mit der berühmteste japanische Autor der Geschichte. Eine Geschichte zwischen Schönheit und Wahnsinn, Traum und Realität. Mit dem Tempel als Mittelpunkt und Obsession. Hatt wirklich was faszinierendes, kann ich uneingeschränkt empfehlen. Mishima gehörte ebenfalls zu den Autoren, die rituellen Selbstmord begingen.
Ich bringe die Tage noch einiges mehr, auch zu moderneren japanischen Autoren, denen ich gerne eigene Threads widmen möchte.
EDIT: Die Bücher sind auch auf deutsch zu bekommen (bei Kokoro weiß ich's jetzt allerdings nicht).