/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.12470525]

What's the best japanese writer? So far i read a book by soseki, kawabata, dazai, oe, murakami and Oe, and this last one is my favourite, next one will be Mishima, what's mishima's style?

[Anonymous No.12470547]

Next question

[Anonymous No.12470589]

sun tzu, art of war changed my life

[Anonymous No.12470613]

What you get with Mishima depends a lot on what works you're reading, but he deals a lot with masculinity, beauty and its destruction, homosexuality, death, and the clash between traditional Japanese culture and the westernizing/homogenizing forces of the outside world. He's extremely interesting but was also pretty crazy desu. According to Oe, he became a bodybuilder to compensate for being short.

[Anonymous No.12470631]

>>12470613
>According to Oe, he became a bodybuilder to compensate for being short.

Oe said that? how the fuck can he make fun of other people's "defects" when he has a clinically retarded child

[Anonymous No.12470634]

>>12470589
how

[Anonymous No.12470650]

>>12470525
no akutagawa?

[Anonymous No.12470710]

>>12470650
any good works by him?

[Anonymous No.12470722]

I like Tanizaka

[Anonymous No.12470761]

>>12470722
you mean tanizaki? In Praise of Shadows is my favorite non fiction book/essay.

[Anonymous No.12470896]

>>12470761
>you mean tanizaki? In Praise of Shadows is my favorite non fiction book/essay.
i just read an excerpt and its tanizaki complaining that a refrigerator doesnt suit with japanese decoration. Tell me all book is not like this

[Anonymous No.12470907]

>>12470710
His seventeen short stories collection including Rashoman

[Anonymous No.12470908]

all Japanese literature is derivative of the glorious Chinese civilization and therefore irrelevant

[Anonymous No.12470955]

Ryu Murakami

[Anonymous No.12470976]

The Sea of Fertility is basically a big literary dab on Buddhism

[Anonymous No.12471125]

>>12470955
Yeah seconding ryu Murakami, he’s fantastic
Kobo Abe is another talented writer

[Anonymous No.12471201]

>>12470525
Of all time, maybe Murasaki. I would add Tale of the Heike, Sei Shonagon, Matsuo Basho, and Chikamatsu Monzaemon. Contemporary, you've got most of the best ones, I think. Seconding Kobe Abe.

[Anonymous No.12471232]

>the best
>implying only one
Read mori ogai -- wild geese next. he's not the best but he's definitely worth reading. Also murakami is trash.
then get the fuck out, never made a thread again, and read the fucking sticky.
>>12470589
>op says japanese
>fucktard pretending to be smart can't even tell the difference between china and japan

[Anonymous No.12471237]

>>12470908
based and four great classics pilled

[Anonymous No.12471273]

>>12470525
Read Kobo Abe’s Face of Another or Woman in the Dunes next, OP.

[Anonymous No.12472125]

>>12470976
I might be retarded (high likelihood) but I didn't really understand the ending. Honda visits Satoko at the shrine and she pretends she's never heard of Kiyoaki, making Honda wonder if he had been completely delusional for his entire life. Then I started wondering if the Sea of Fertility novels were even real. I gotta say, I loved reading the story from start to finish, but it fucked with my head. I still don't know what "really" took place in the story. Maybe that's the point.

[Anonymous No.12473211]

Bumpo

[Anonymous No.12474830]

>>12470955
>>12471125
I've read Miso and Coin Locker Babies and loved the former while the latter was just meh. What do you suggest I read next?

[Anonymous No.12474966]

Is Mishima's stuff really that homo-erotic? Or is it overstated?

[Anonymous No.12475075]

>>12474966
Depends on the book but there are always a few glimpses of gayness.
Confessions of a Mask is highly homoerotic. Sea of Fertility has very little gay. The Sound of the Waves is a cliche story about a young heterosexual couple struggling, pretty straight stuff on the surface, but something is off with the descriptions of the muscular young sailor.

[Anonymous No.12475169]

>>12470525
Akutagawa is fantastic, I haven't met anyone else who's read his stuff though. >>12470907 is what I read.

Mishima is a phenomenal author. I read Confessions of a Mask twice, first time I didn't get it but the second time it really struck me. I also read The Temple of the Golden Pavillion. I think Mishima has a lot of parallels with Oscar Wilde, he is obsessed with beauty and decay. His writing is really vivid. Last book I read by him was After the Banquet, pretty tame by Mishima's standards but I still enjoyed it. He has real insight into the workings of the mind.

>>12470589
Pleb tier

[Anonymous No.12475237]

>>12470631
bust still, what's wrong with becoming a bodybuilder to compensate for being short lol

[Anonymous No.12475302]

>>12470631
To be fair, it was Oe's fictionalized version of himself in one of his novels (Rouse Up O Men of the New Age). I think Oe just really wanted to disenchant people of the overly romantic/heroic vision of Mishima, considering many of the far-right activists who worshipped him were a serious threat to Oe and his family at the time.

[Anonymous No.12475372]

>>12471201
Really good reply anon. Murasaki probably the best. Would also count Basho and Chikamatsu as best poet and playwright respectively. More people on this board should read these.

As a side tangent, I'd also recommend the medieval recluse Kenko, and the modern abstract/psychedelic writer Ogawa.

[Anonymous No.12475718]

>>12470525
>what's mishima's style?
Hemingway of the East

[Anonymous No.12475744]

>>12474830
I am in the exact same boat, I picked up Piercing and will try that one next.

[Anonymous No.12475775]

>>12474830
not that poster, but these are the two I've read as well

I agree that Miso Soup was great, but Coin Locker Babies was so bad I dropped it halfway through. Anyone here read any of his other stuff?

[Anonymous No.12475781]

>>12475744
>>12475775
piercing is really good

[Anonymous No.12476268]

>>12475744
>>12475775
>>12475781
Anyone know why Ryu's been talked about much more on here as of late?

[Anonymous No.12476307]

> "For the past two years I have thought incessantly of death. It was also during this period that I read Mainländer, whose work has become deeply ingrained in my consciousness. I am certain that Mainländer quite ingeniously depicts the journey towards death, couched in abstract words. I want to depict the same in a more concrete form. I have no greater desire than this, not even sympathy to my family. This might seem to you nothing less than “inhuman,” but if you deem me inhuman, know that I am only superficially so."

>We are human animals and thus fear death as animals do. The so-called “will to live” is nothing more than a different name for animal instinct. I am but one of these human animals, and when I observe my loss of interest in food and women, I realize I have gradually lost this animal instinct. Now I reside in a world of diseased nerves, as translucent as ice. Last night I spoke with a prostitute about her wages (!) and felt deeply the pathos of we humans who “live for the sake of living.” If we can submit ourselves to that eternal slumber, we can doubtlessly win ourselves peace, if perhaps not happiness, but I had doubts as to when I would be brave enough to take my life. In this state, nature has only become more beautiful than ever to me. You love the beauty of nature, and would no doubt scoff at my contradictions. But nature is beautiful precisely because it falls upon eyes that will not appreciate it for much longer. I have seen, loved, and understood more than others. This alone grants me some measure of solace in the midst of insurmountable sorrows. Please keep this letter from being made public for several years after my death. It is possible that I may take my life in a way that appears to be a natural death."

[Anonymous No.12476602]

Higuchi Ichiyo- I've never seen her mentioned on here.

If you're interested in Japanese folktales/ghost-stories, check out Lafcadio Hearn.