Japanese Short Stories - Ryunosuke Akutagawa

This selection addresses the themes that Akutagawa often muses about. The path to happiness is about overcoming one's destiny. The stories vary greatly in scope, from the grotesque and bizarre "Hell Screen" that concerns a cruel master painting and his efforts to depict a perfect replication of Hell only to experience Hell itself in life; through to the light and heart-warming tale of "Tangerines" and a metaphysical dissuasion against self preservation portrayed in "A Spider's Thread". In all the stories, Akutagawa demostrates an almost perfect ability to tell a story. It is a complete pleasure to read his light but piercing prose. Devoid of the unnecessery, these stories have pinpoint precision at bringing the reader to the message that Akutagawa wishes to portray.

Kwaidan - Lafcadio Hearn

Kwaidan (Stories and Studies of Strange Things) is a collection of tales by a writer who adopted Japan as his country. Lafcadio Hearn was born in Greece, raised in Ireland and worked in the USA, before moving to Japan in his later years. The stories contained in Kwaidan are generally based on old folktales from Japan but perhaps also China.  Some however, are direct accounts of occurences that Hearn himself witnessed and expanded on in his own style.


Highly imaginative in his story-telling but enfused with an unmistakable Oriental psyche, the stories of Kwaidan are very entertaining. As one might expect with folk lore, every story seems to have some sensitive moral sitting quietly behind it. Sometimes the lesson is very obvious, othertimes it is very obscure. 


The story of Aoyagi is a good example of what would appear strange and almost unimaginable to modern man, particularly modern westerners. It is a story that relates much the historical figure of the good smaurai and a deeper lesson that appears right at the end. A heroic and honorable samurai is on a mission for his lord. He falls in love with a strange girl called Aoyagi whom he meets on his travels. Though various hardships befall the pair, they eventually wed and for five happy years dwell together as husband and wife. Suddenly all of a sudden, she cries out in pain and tells the samurai that she is dying. Though she has the appearance of a human women, her soul and heart are infact the belongings of a tree in a forest. Someone was presently cutting the tree down and she cannot continue to live. The story of Aoyagi represents again the importance of nature to the Japanese people. That people and forests are linked to the point of life and death is clearly illustrated in this short folk tale.