The Nose, Rashomon, In a Grove, Hell Screen

I came across Lu Xun’s translations! They did not feel distant at all: they were easy to read and hardly different from more recent translations. Both pieces Lu Xun translated even include short afterwords, discussing Akutagawa and why he chose those works to translate. You really do not see such interesting post-reading notes beneath translated works today. They feel like an exchange of views with the reader. Nowadays translators generally write only one preface at the beginning, which I usually skip. Perhaps translators are no longer expected to speak for themselves; perhaps they worry readers will think they are putting on airs; or perhaps the extra writing does not count toward their fee. =-=

The detective elements in In a Grove and Hell Screen were immensely satisfying. Several of the stories as a whole feel a little like reworkings of old tales: their material already existed, perhaps as folk legends or works by earlier writers, and then the stories and characters are taken out and shown from a new perspective—or adapted into new stories. Lu Xun’s Old Tales Retold may also have drawn some inspiration from this. [I inferred this from Lu Xun’s little post-reading notes.]

Akutagawa read so widely. He understood not only Japan, but China as well. A genius, a genius. There really should be more afterwords.

Did Akutagawa have a book recording his trip to China? Or am I remembering incorrectly? I should look it up later.

Incidentally, this time I was reading the Dook Media edition.

Another Side

Opening a book and getting through the first five pages is truly difficult. I resist it in every possible way. In the end, I tell myself that I can play games after reading ten pages. Only then do I read while listening to music. But after those ten pages, it is as if some magic takes hold: both my reading speed and my ability to enter the book suddenly increase, until I stop more than a hundred pages later. Then I go play games, and even that leaves me feeling refreshed.

September 28

Father, The Monkey, The Life of a Stupid Man

Both Father and The Monkey reflect an instinct for pity and sympathy. But Father awakens to it first, while The Monkey awakens to it later. Placing these two stories next to each other shows real editorial skill.

The Life of a Stupid Man, like Hell Screen, has something of the spirit of a god of creation. But Hell Screen has a third party objectively record one person’s almost pathological pursuit of art, mixing mystery with hearsay. In the moment when the carriage is burned, he is majestic as a god. Everything seems cut off from him. Interestingly, the fox spirits are used to describe his creative state: when he creates, a group of fox spirits stands behind him, so he writes through the night without stopping and ignores even the daughter he normally dotes on.

But The Life of a Stupid Man brings the perspective much closer, focusing throughout on Bakin—the creator—and tracing his psychological changes in great detail. Two points are especially interesting. First, Bakin can remain unmoved by praise for his work, yet criticism immediately puts him on guard. But when he truly looks at the person criticizing him, he suddenly finds he cannot take it personally at all, and his mood abruptly clears. This first reveals a shift in his creative spirit: he is becoming unconcerned with the outside world, though he has not yet reached the peak.

That peak comes later that night, when he goes home and rereads the drafts he had previously written and revised. They feel dull on rereading, so he can only rewrite them. Yet his inspiration runs dry, and he feels that he may be nothing more than a conceited mediocrity, no different from the people he despises. Then his little grandson—perhaps genuinely, perhaps taught by his parents—comes to him. [Bakin adores the child, and immediately puts down the gloom that had gathered while writing.] The boy says that the Bodhisattva at the temple asked him to bring two sentences: “Work hard. Do not lose your temper.” It is as if Bakin suddenly understands something.

That night, he begins creating again. At first, his inspiration is like a fine thread of flame that the slightest breath of wind could extinguish. But he carefully shelters it. After three or four lines, then ten or so, his thoughts come in waves like a rising tide. He writes without stopping all night.

The tide in his mind was like the Milky Way racing across the sky, surging out from nowhere. Its force frightened him. What if his body could not bear it? He gripped his pen tightly and reminded himself again and again: “Write with all your strength. If you miss this chance, perhaps you will not be able to write for a long time.”

Yet that current, like a dim and hazy light, did not slow in the least. Instead, it rushed on dazzlingly, drowning everything and surging toward him in great waves. At last he was completely captured. He forgot everything and moved his pen in the direction of that current, with the force of a violent storm.

Reflected in his imperial eyes at that moment were neither profit and loss nor love and hate. Praise and blame could no longer move his feelings. There was only an inexplicable joy—or an intoxicating, tragic passion. How could someone who does not understand this passion experience the state of creative absorption? How could they understand the solemn soul of a writer? Look: has “life” not washed away all its dross, like a newly mined ore, and begun to glitter brilliantly before the author’s eyes?

The ending is interesting too. It goes roughly like this:

“Is Father still not asleep?”

“He must be bent over his writing again.”

“There is really nothing to be done with him. He cannot even earn much money.”

Reading and creating are much the same. At the beginning, I feel discouraged; but once I enter the state, there is an inexplicable joy, the same kind of feeling as above.

When I was learning digital painting before, I would also feel a kind of passion after completing a picture. For an instant, I would have the illusion that my whole life had been worth it.

Another Side

This morning, beginning was difficult in the same way. But the first story, Father, quickly brought me into the right state, like a sudden jolt.

Interestingly, I do most of my reading while eating. After finishing Father, I went out for breakfast and read while slowly eating rice porridge. I became especially absorbed in it. It was also the first time I had felt like I was truly enjoying a weekend morning, or simply felt leisurely on a day without classes.

I also noticed something: changing environments can make a great difference compared with staying beside a source of temptation—the computer.

September 29

Oranges, The Dragon, Scallions

Oranges depicts a person changing from nihilism back to reality, from finding everything dull at first to feeling life again. It is worth rereading and saving away, then bringing out again when I feel something similar.

The Dragon: even if something begins as a prank, when countless people believe in it and hold hope for it, the thing receives a response from the gods. There is no metaphor about public opinion or anything like that; instead, it shows the beauty of wishes.

Scallions is a novel with an extremely strong visual quality. Its ending is very interesting, and it gives the feeling of suddenly waking up, abruptly pulling reality into fantasy. Worth saving and rereading.

Another Side

I was reading during class this morning. In the past, I always felt I could not get into a good state while reading fiction in class. But in fact, much of that came from the wrong frame of mind. I thought the teacher’s microphone was noisy, and that it therefore disturbed me. The logic is actually reversed. If I change my thinking—if I tell myself that I ought to listen to the teacher, but would rather read fiction, and that the teacher is not targeting me—then I instead feel grateful, and the irritation and anger disappear.

Put another way, this is the difference between “should” and “want.”

For example, a husband may believe beforehand that, because he works hard, his wife should have dinner ready. If he comes home late to a dim dining room and an empty table, a nameless anger immediately rises in him. Even if a meal has been prepared, he feels no extra gratitude; instead, he may become sensitive to whether it is too hot or cold, too salty or bland.

But if he gives up the idea that his wife “should” do this, and assumes that it does not matter whether anyone cooks—he can always eat out—then receiving a message from his wife saying, “I got off work early today. I’ll make dinner,” fills him with warmth and an inexplicable joy.

It is only a difference of thought, but my old way of thinking was not quite right.

Kappa, The Life of a Stupid Man, A Fool’s Life, Life

In the final few stories of the collection, Akutagawa’s mental state seems no longer very good. The editor has arranged these pieces from light to heavy; perhaps the earliest sign appeared in Oranges.

It seems that eight or nine out of every ten Japanese writers I know died by suicide. Kawabata, Dazai, Akutagawa, Mishima?

The earlier sections of the collection keep creation and life quite separate. Later, you can already feel life intruding on creation. Since I had read other translations of these works before, I only skimmed these few.

“Life is not worth a single line of Baudelaire.”

At last, I know where that person’s profile quote came from.

Another interesting part:

He was walking through a field overgrown with foxtail grass with a university student.

“You still have a strong desire to live, do you not?”

“Yes… but you too…”

“But I do not. I have only the desire to create.”

“The desire to create is also a desire to live.”

He did not answer. At some point, a volcano had come clearly into view over the red spikes in the field. He felt a little envious of that volcano, though he could not say why…

I hope everyone like this can find the redemption that appears in Oranges.