/lit/ - Literature

>>17867522
Picrel is ok but seemed like a bit of a chick book.

Mishima has a diverse array of works, many outside of the meme spectrum, but (still) untranslated.

Sorry. I was going to respond seriously but I can’t bring myself to because you think Mishima is a meme.

>>17867535
I can’t think of a single book in the meme spectrum.

>>17867548
Perfect, if I wanted pewdiepie recommendations I'd go to youtube. Thanks for being filtered

>>17867581
Kek mishima is probably the best modern Japanese author and will never be surpassed by the cultural wasteland that is current Japan. Of course I'm not talking about translations, that depends on the translator more than the supposed author. Pewshit 'likes' him because he read some short works and he's a weeb. The content, translated or no, is irrevelant.

>>17867581
> pseud

Personally I think Dazai was the best Japanese writer there ever will be, maybe not in terms of technical ability but none of you faggots can ever read that level of japanese anyway and extremely complex writing is untranslatable. In terms of sincerity, I mean. Dazai has the most heart out of all japanese lit I've read.
Mishima is also pretty close.
Soseki is a third. Kokoro is one of the best novels of the 20th century.
Akutagawa has some great stories and even his bad ones are not truly "bad". Read everything he has written.
Tanizaki has also been a victim of bad translation and most of his books are just so creepy, skip.
Kawabata sucks. He is also untranslatable.
Ryu Murakami is great but he has been a victim of awful translation. 69 is still a masterpiece tho. Haruki Murakami is very comfy as long as you do not overdose on him. Most of his novels are meant to be read in the winter season.
Kobo Abe is better than Kafka, you must read The Box Man.
Kenzaburo Oe is dark and complex and overall pretty meh. I'd read the "The day he himself shall wipe my tears away" and "A personal matter" and skip everything else.
Yoko Ogawa is alright but kinda.. not patrician.
Banana Yoshimoto is alright I guess.
Edogawa Rampo is scary, read Japanese tales of mystery and imagination during lonely summer nights, preferably somewhere isolated with no access to the internet.
Then there's a load of crime writers, they are okay if you like that stuff. That's not "literature" strictly but yeah.
Also read "Welcome to the NHK". A masterpiece imo.
Meiko Kawakami is hot and i want to fuck her so bad, her novels suck.
Shusaku Endo is brilliant. Read The Samurai.
Read the tales of Kenji Miyazawa.
Read A Dark night's passing by Shiga Naoya.
Read the stories of Higuchi Ichiyo.
Read Musashi.

>>17867528
THIS

>>17867618
The translations are incredibly well done tho. Except for the Decay of the angel, that one was translated by some faggot

>>17867727
Awesome post anon

>>17867727
>Kawabata sucks. He is also untranslatable.
How can you say this? I love Snow Country, both Japanese and English.

>>17867727
>Also read "Welcome to the NHK". A masterpiece imo.
Do you like any other books that aren’t like traditional high novels or were adapted to things like manga or anime? You always hear shit like Nisio Isin and if you can read Japanese then you can appreciate his writing but the books themselves are not particularly good.

>>17867727
Why dont you like kawabata?

>>17867785
Umm read Yasutaka Tsutsui and Hoshi Shinchi

>>17867727
>Kawabata sucks.
You can't say this and not write a whole paragraph explaining why.

>>17867727
Thanks, breencapped

How is Musashi, Eiji Yoshikawa?

All his stories are badly told and rely too much on the music of his language to come across. I have not read Palm of the hand stories yet, I've heard that's his best but from what I have read (Snow country, beauty and sadness) nothing much ever happens. All his descriptions initially are beautiful but that's all he can do and even that starts to get repetitive by the end of his pretty short novels. The second half of snow country for example is is repetitive, "the eaves were dripping with snow", he repeats that sentence maybe 50 times in 50 pages. His characters are simple minded and juvenile and the whole poignancy thing feels like a cop out. Like for example the end of snow country felt so tryhard.


>>17867780
>>17867793
>>17867829

>>17867785
Tanaka Yoshiki has some good material, Legend of the Galactic Heroes is his most known work.
If you want to get into the genre of literature describing Japanese workplaces you won't go wrong with any works by Ikeido Jun.
Most non-manga source materials for anime are LNs and VNs, but some works by Arikawa Hiro have been adapted as well, Library Wars is the representative series, but the adaption made the protagonists even more unlikable.

As for the Monogatari series, I concur that the stories aren't too great, but the writing, especially the fast-paced dialogues, is first-class.

>>17867727
Thanks!

Has anyone exeprience reading in japanese?
I once knew about 1k Kanji and 4k words (which is not a lot, I know), but haven't practiced for 3 years straight (except reading h-manga; mea culpa). I wonder if taking it up again for reading literature is a good idea or at least possible at all.

>>17867886
I loved the end of Snow Country.

>>17867727
Ryu Murakami is too edgy for me.

>>17867522

>>17867926
Reading at that level will be a slog. I recommend reading a few pages while writing down all the words you don't know, then translate them all, and then reread, but first refresh your kanji and vocab.

>>17867926
Stick with manga for now, looking up Kanji you don't know is a chore.
At one point you might want to try a light novel, if you're comfortable with them the step to real novels isn't as intimidating as it seemed to be before.

t. uses Japanese as go-to commuting literature

>>17867926
I'm studying Japanese right now using Anki and Misa's youtube channel for grammar and it's very difficult. I actually stopped for a few days cause of exams and so now I have 300 reviews pending lol