/lit/ - Literature

Coin Locker Babies by (Ryu) Murakami.

>>3253244
Thank you, will check out.

Is /lit/ usually slow or did I ask a dumb question?

This, if you haven't already read it.
Also, Confessions of a Mask by Mishima.
Right now I'm reading Snow Country by Kawabata. It's very understated. So much so that I've managed to read 75% of the book without really paying any attention to what's going on.

>>3253275
Wow, thanks so much! I'll add them to my list.

i would highly recommend Norwegian wood by murakami. maybe not as depressing as dazai, but it pulls the heart strings.

i read mishima's temple of the golden pavilion recently, which was good but i don't know what to make of it!

We have a folder of ebooks of translated Japanese literature, if you're interested:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/77764471/books/Japanese%20lit%20v8.zip

There's also a few recommendations charts on the wiki.

Mishima
Oe
Akutagawa

is all that's worth reading. dazai's biography is more interesting than his writing. abe doesn't translate well. soseki is for fags and kawabata and tanizaki are slow as hell. except in praise of shadows. that's worth reading by tanizaki. oh and the murakamis are shit (but ryu is far worse than haruki who is comparable with other okay-tier contemporary authors)

>>3253407
Wow! Who needs to read books and form opinions when we've got you here to tell us that everything is shit. You've saved us a lot of time.

>>3253385
I seen Norwegian Wood somewhere, always wanted to check it out. Thanks!

>>3253402
Wow, this is really helpful! Thank you.

>>3253407
Thanks for the info!

>>3253417
np, yw

>>3253407
Saunders's recent translations of Abe are pretty good. Slowness with Kawabata is a given; he writes in haiku prose. I'll send you on Tanizaki though, I find his writing is incredibly straight-forward and not very interesting.

Haruki Murakami - A Wild Sheep Chase

Not a single mention of manga
I'm proud of you /lit/

Also, one more vote for based Mishima

>>3253597
>mentions manga

Well now...

>>3253275
I don't know, did anyone else think this book was poorly translated or something? It was just so....flat, so unremarkable. I wish I could say more but I barely even remember anything about it besides the plot. It's actually the book the got me away from Japanese lit. for awhile. However, I'm now reading Mishima's "Confessions of a Mask" and loving it. I've also got "Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters" coming through Netflix, and I'll be reading Roland Barthes' "Empire of Signs" next, as a sort of companion piece. It's going to be a very Japanese week...

Oh, and you should look into Ikkyu. He was a bad ass Zen monk and wrote some awesome poetry. Pic related.

>>3255872
Thank you, I'll be sure to check it out!

I don't mean to be elitist here, but reading a lot of prewar Japanese literature in translation is going to ruin it. If you have the time you should learn the language.

>>3255891
Also, on topic, Akutagawa owns your soul, etc. etc. I'm also a fan of Kyuusaku, though he doesn't get mentioned around here much.

>>3255891
Why would anyone want to learn the language of the fish people? All their novels are fantasy genre-fiction attempting to approximate what it might be like if they (the fish people) were capable of emotion.

It's like someone learning English just to read Ender's Game

>>3255907

can someone recommend some good Japanese horror lit?

>>3255944
El Ringuuuuu

Can someone post the /lit/ guide to Haruki Muramaki? I've lost it in all my files.

While we're on the subject, what does /lit/ think of Natsuo Kirino?

>>3256052

I think she's fantastic. Out and Grotesque taught me more about modern Japanese society than Takeshi's Castle and Yojimbo combined.

>mfw there are Brazilians all over Japan.

>>3256056
I actually think of her three translated books, Real World was the best (though the fact that I read it first might have something to do with it).

Japanese kids, man. Japanese kids.

>>3256052
>>3256056
'Kkin-A. My friend gave me a copy of Out and has been pestering me to read it.

>>3255994
Do you even the sticky?

>>3256563

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles wasn't particularly hard to read or dense.

>>3256056
>that pic
Mara the Temptress pls go

>>3255872
I didn't notice anything wrong with the translation. Personally, I loved it.
Kawabata's Snow Country on the other hand... I'm not sure if it was a problem with the translation but when he used a word once, he'd use it five more times on that page. And he must've written the word 'presently' about fifty times throughout the book.

>>3256056
>Yojimbo
>modern Japanese society

u w0t?