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Rashomon and Other Stories Paperback – December 1, 1999
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This fascinating collection gave birth to a new paradigm when Akira Kurosawa made famous Akutagawa's disturbing tale of seven people recounting the same incident from shockingly different perspectives.
Writing at the beginning of the twentieth century, Ryunosuke Akutagawa created disturbing stories out of Japan's cultural upheaval. Whether his fictions are set centuries past or close to the present, Akutagawa was a modernist, writing in polished, superbly nuanced prose subtly exposing human needs and flaws. "In a Grove," which was the basis for Kurosawa's classic film Rashomon, tells the chilling story of the killing of a samurai through the testimony of witnesses, including the spirit of the murdered man. The fable-like "Yam Gruel" is an account of desire and humiliation, but one in which the reader's sympathy is thoroughly unsettled. And in "The Martyr," a beloved orphan raised by Jesuit priests is exiled when he refuses to admit that he made a local girl pregnant. He regains their love and respect only at the price of his life. All six tales in the collection show Akutagawa as a master storyteller and an exciting voice of modern Japanese literature.- Print length96 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherLiveright
- Publication dateDecember 1, 1999
- Dimensions5.5 x 0.4 x 8.3 inches
- ISBN-100871401738
- ISBN-13978-0871401731
- Lexile measure1030L
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- Publisher : Liveright; Reissue edition (December 1, 1999)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 96 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0871401738
- ISBN-13 : 978-0871401731
- Lexile measure : 1030L
- Item Weight : 4.1 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.5 x 0.4 x 8.3 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #284,296 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #55 in Asian Literary History & Criticism
- #94 in Historical Fiction Short Stories (Books)
- #6,005 in Short Stories (Books)
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'In A Grove' is a very unsetteling story, and obviously the most well-known, but I felt that 'The Matyr' and 'Kisa and Morito' are both very witty, and also my favourites. I imagine, that a lot of people will now get a chance to read this book due in part to the media coverage that came from the movie 'Ghost Dog', with Forest Whittaker, where the book itself played a supporting role. It's not hard to understand, after reading, why. This book gives you insight into persepctive, humiliation, accepting fate - even if it is not a good one, and following the path you've chosen.
This book conatins some great uses of fantasy, realism, symbolism surrealism, and in a time and place where a Western reader might not expect it.
Akutagawa, writing in Japan at the dawn of the twentieth century, evokes a time and place that seem much farther. I recommend this highly, for the sense it gives of how similar other times and people may be to us now, and also how very different.
//wiredweird
Reviewed in the United States on February 3, 2024
1. This is not an "old" book, like The Book of Five Rings or Hagakure. It was written in the 1900's.
2 It's a book of short stories, not a novel or even a novella (together the stories total only 109 pages.)
3 Yes, Kurosawa's film was based on one of the stories, "In a Grove," which examines the circumstances of a rape from differing points of view. This story is about 13 pages. While the story is not bad, I would imagine that one would have to be a pretty hard-core fan of that film to buy this book just for that.
4. There is, however, a story called "Rashomon" in this collection, but this heavy-handed tale has little connection to the Kurosawa film, though Kurosawa may have lifted the tone and setting of his film's opening from the opening of this story. For you to decide.
5. What is or was the "Rashomon"? This is something I didn't know... To quote from the book (31n): "The 'Rashomon' was the largest gate in Kyoto, the ancient capital of Japan. It was 106 feet wide and 26 feet deep, and was topped with a ridge-pole; its stone-wall rose 75 feet high. This gate was constructed in 789 when the then capital of Japan was transferred to Kyoto. With the decline of West Kyoto, the gate fell into bad repair, cracking and crumbling in many places, and became a hide-out for thieves and robbers and a place for abandoning unclaimed corpses."
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Also why was the Table of Contents at the end?
Were the stories all supposed to be connected?