物の哀れ (mono no aware)

[Anonymous No.12328554]

Does anybody know of any ENGLISH literature (I hate reading translations of fiction unless they have inherent literary merit) that best expresses the concept of mono no aware: that is to say the "pathos of things", or the awareness of impermanence, or transience of things, and both a transient gentle sadness (or wistfulness) at their passing as well as a longer, deeper gentle sadness about this state being the reality of life.

I use the term because (a) I know the language, and (b) it's the only term I can think of that best represents my taste. If anybody knows of a similar English word I'd like to hear it.

My favourite books are the oeuvres of Poe and Lovecraft. I liked Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun, as well as McCarthy's The Road. I also liked The Picture of Dorian Gray, Hodgson's The House on the Borderland, Sir Richard Francis Burton's translation of the One Thousand and One Nights, Shakespeare's Macbeth, Ecclesiastes in the KJV Bible, Pope's translation of Homer's oeuvre, Jack London's To Build a Fire, Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Ursula K. LeGuin's The Earthsea Quartet, John Williams' Stoner, Plato's Phaedo, and Epictetus' Enchiridion along with Seneca's oeuvre.

My favourite composers are Chopin, Debussy, Beethoven, Liszt, Ravel, and Faure.

My favourite artists are the Impressionists and Romanticists: particularly Van Gogh, Munch, Cezanne, and Janmot.

I'm also an anime-fan. I liked Shoujo Shuumatsu Ryokou, Kino no Tabi, Spice and Wolf, Berserk, Cowboy Bebop, Haibane Renmei, Tegami Bachi, Knights of Sidonia, and SoRaNoWoTo.

>Inb4 reddit spacing

I write like this because it makes my post less convoluted. I took quite a chunk of my time making this long list of recommendations, so I hope you guys will reciprocate.

>Pic related is Sur la Montagne from Le Poeme de l'ame by the aforementioned Louis Janmot.

[Anonymous No.12328575]

bump

[Anonymous No.12328584]

Good fucking luck finding it outside of Japanese culture. Ishiguro, maybe. And read Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou for fuck's sake.

[Anonymous No.12328596]

>>12328584
I'm not really asking for books with the motif itself. I just think that the idea kind of represents my taste in media. Weltschmerz and ubi sunt represent this, too, just to a lesser extent.

[Anonymous No.12328597]

>>12328575
It's the middle of the night, your baby isn't going to fall of the catalogue. Like the other anon said, finding some mono no aware in Western literature might be tricky because it's very particular to the Japanese.

Off the top of my head all I can think of if JG Ballard's 'Empire of the Sun', sorry. You have nice taste in all things, though.

[Anonymous No.12328605]

>>12328554
You'll never find this elusive something that you're looking for and that you believe will bring you endless happines. After wasting years looking for it you'll end up bitter and devastated. And you won't even be able to say that it was worth it. There were millions of lives like that before, and all of these people ended up with nothing.

To avoid this, stop being pretentious and try to develop humility, self-irony, and a more worldy attitude. Seek goodness, not beauty.

[Anonymous No.12328609]

But if you don't like that then I guess maybe 'East of Eden' by Steinbeck and 'The Seed and the Sower' by Laurens van der Post

[Anonymous No.12328610]

>>12328554
I've been looking for the same feeling/theme in Western media for a long time and have yet to find it. It seems to be so pervasive exclusively in Japanese media.
But I hope you find what you're looking for.

[Anonymous No.12328623]

Hunting of the Snark

[Anonymous No.12328629]

>>12328605
>You'll never find this elusive something that you're looking for
This understanding a defining quality of the whole mono no aware thing, actually. I admire your brutish and simple western mindset that compels you to display your ignorance, though.

[Anonymous No.12328693]

>>12328554
In italian literature there are many examples of new found awareness of time passing and society changing but it's never lived with this blissful acceptance you're looking for.
It's almost traumatic in a way and if anything the characters, that you'll find out aren't separate from the author, feel helplessly nostalgic and disaffectioned with the future.
Italy has always been reactionary in a sense.

[Anonymous No.12328701]

>>12328554
You are thoroughly mediocre person with adequate taste.

[Anonymous No.12328704]

>>12328554
>I hate reading translations of fiction

grow the fuck up

[Anonymous No.12328738]

>>12328704
A lot of things get lost in translation and to me it just doesn't seem worth the hassle. Why do you think reading translations of fiction makes you more "grown-up"?
>>12328693
I read the synopsis for Il deserto dei Tartari by Dino Buzzati and it looks interesting. Are there any decent translations?
>>12328701
Could you please elaborate on what you mean and why you said that?

[Anonymous No.12328739]

>>12328629
>This understanding a defining quality of the whole mono no aware thing, actually.
Even so, isn't there supposed to be - in your book, I mean - a kind of aesthetic catharsis, purifying sadness in mono-no-aware or similar experiences (sensucht, saudade - you name it)?
And what I'm saying is that it really never comes - there's no purifying sadness, there's just pain, which gets worse the longer you're wallowing in this empty sensuality.

>I admire your brutish and simple western mindset that compels you to display your ignorance, though.
It may be ignorance from your perspective, but it is ignorance that leads towards happiness and away from pain and despair. And if you're saying that you prefer pain to happiness, it means that you've never felt real pain and real despair.

[Anonymous No.12328756]

Magic Mountain

[Anonymous No.12328764]

>>12328738
I scanned through Stuart C. Hood's translation some time ago.
I had a good impression of it.

I would like to recommend my personal favorite as well.
Il Gattopardo by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa.

[Anonymous No.12328786]

>>12328605
I like this post and I completely relate to what you're saying here to an uncanny degree. I know I'll probably end up bitter and devastated, but I think that's conditional to, and is part of the aesthetic experience in itself. I also don't see a distinction between goodness and beauty--the ideal state of being, eudaemonia, is a synthesis of these two qualities, yes? As for being pretentious, I'm self-aware of that, and I try pretentiously to not appear pretentious but I really wish I wasn't and I really wish I didn't. I feel like you know exactly how I felt. Did you have a similar experience of chasing that elusive something?

[Anonymous No.12328800]

>>12328764
Thank you for this. It's the school holidays for me so I'll have plenty of time to read this before the start of my final year of high-school.

[Anonymous No.12328809]

>>12328554
I remember a smattering of Old English elegies that touch on that sort of vibe; The Wanderer, The Seafarer, The Ruin. - though that would involve reading some kind of translation I suppose.

[Anonymous No.12328813]

Grow up weebshit is for children you pseudointellectual redditor

[Anonymous No.12328816]

>>12328813
You do realise where you are, right?

[Anonymous No.12328845]

>>12328739
>there's no purifying sadness
Maybe there's none for you, but there is for me. And then I won't speak for Japanese, these guys are crazy, but for me it's definitely not an "empty spirituality", nor it contradicts either goodness or worldy attitude.

[Anonymous No.12328847]

>>12328786
>but I think that's conditional to, and is part of the aesthetic experience in itself.
That's why this lie is so dangerous. It gives you the impression that you might end up bitter and devastated after all, but this pain will still be beautiful - something like Milton's Satan.
In reality, you will be a miserable weeping mess of a man. Despair is ugly.

>I also don't see a distinction between goodness and beauty--the ideal state of being, eudaemonia, is a synthesis of these two qualities, yes?
The Greeks thought about it that way, yes. And I'd say that, for the Japanese (at least in their art and literature), beauty takes absolute priority over ethical goodness - so much so that the latter almost doesn't exist as a separate value there. But there are many ways to interpret human condition, and I've found that the one more fitting my own experience and my culture makes a distinction between beauty and goodness.

>Did you have a similar experience of chasing that elusive something?
I did and I've seen many around me who did too. But I don't think other people's experience would be of much use to you - as for me, I've never learnt from others, only from my own mistakes.

[Anonymous No.12328886]

>>12328847
>Despair is ugly
Despair is the final stage of Aesthetic, and it still can be aesthetic itself, not stopping being ugly, of course. I found Kierkegaard's dialectics of aesthetic, ethical and religious to be immeasurably helpful to understand such things, for one - to appreciate beauty and not get consumed by it like Japanese do. Have you read Either/Or?

[Anonymous No.12328962]

>>12328554
pure autism

[Anonymous No.12329077]

>>12328554
rerum lacrimae from The Aeneid means pretty much the same thing