Books set in Japan

[Martijn Meerts]

I quite like reading books/novels that are set in Japan (and China and Korea for that matter), be they fiction, historical or a combination of both. Now that there's finally some decent books starting to show up in the Dutch iBook store, I've been reading quite a bit on the train using my iPad. So I was wondering, does anyone know any good books I should be reading?

 

So far I've read:

 

- The Tale of Genji - Murasaki Shikibu (Royal Tyler translation, I read this on and off since it's a wee bit heavy ;))

- Out - Natsuo Kirino

- Tokyo - Mo Hayder

- Requiem for Battle Ship Yamato - Yoshida Mitsuru

- Across the Nightingale Floor - Lian Hearn

- Grass for His Pillow - Lian Hearn

- Brilliance of the Moon - Lian Hearn

- Blossoms and Shadows - Lian Hearn

- The Ring books (Ring, Spiral, Loop and Birthday) - Koji Suzuki

- The Girl Who Played Go - Shan Sa

- Ju-On - Kei Ohishi

- The Book of Five Rings - Musashi Miyamoto

- Hagakure - Tsunetomo Yamamoto

- Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden

- Geisha - Liza Dalby

 

I just started reading the first of a series of 4 books by Yukio Mishima called 'Spring Snow'. The other 3 are 'Runaway Horses', 'The Temple of Dawn' and 'The Decay of the Angel'. The first few chapters are promising :)

[bikkuri bahn]

Yasunari Kawabata. His novel Snow Country is one of my favorites.  A spare writing style that I look for in any author, regardless of national origin.

[The_Ghan]

Hi Martijn,

 

I have a feeling you would like James Clavell's "Asian Saga" very much.  His most famous novel, Shogun, stands alone and the movie is also very good.  The rest of the "Asian Saga" is based on the rise and fall of several families.  There is a Wiki link here, but I suggest you not read too much detail about the individual texts.  I went into them blind, starting in 1984 with Shogun, while I was living in Japan, actually.  I saw the movie on TV a couple of years later.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

[Martijn Meerts]

Bikkuri, thanks.. Added Snow Country to my to-read-list (after I've finished the 1500-or-so pages of the Yukio Mishima series ;))

 

 

Ghan, actually just added Shogun to my to-read-list, it sounds interesting.

 

 

The nice thing about reading on the iPad is that I can just add samples of books. Usually it's the first 2 or 3 chapters, which gave you an idea of the writing style of the author. And of course, they add a 'buy' link to all the samples, so it's a good way of creating a very convenient to-read-list ;)

[bikkuri bahn]

Hi Martijn,

 

I have a feeling you would like James Clavell's "Asian Saga" very much.  His most famous novel, Shogun, stands alone and the movie is also very good.  The rest of the "Asian Saga" is based on the rise and fall of several families.  There is a Wiki link here, but I suggest you not read too much detail about the individual texts.  I went into them blind, starting in 1984 with Shogun, while I was living in Japan, actually.  I saw the movie on TV a couple of years later.

 

Cheers

 

The_Ghan

 

Ah yes- "Anjin san, our love must end by the fifth bridge" (or whatever).  Anyway, this may prove interesting to Shogun fans:

http://www.columbia.edu/~hds2/learning/Learning_from_shogun_txt.pdf

[Dani]

Hi,

 

I specially recommend you all books from Yukio Mishima (pen name of Kimitake Hiraoka).

He wrote a tetralogy "The sea of fertility" just before his dead (I think he is the last man in Japan who commited seppuku). I really liked it. But all books I read from Yukio are splendid for me (The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, Thirst for Love, Confessions of a Mask). Yukio Mishima was not only a writer, also a great philosopher and an "action man", who founded his own army and tried to change politics and society in Japan (mistaken or not, that's another question). But unquestionably more than just a writer.

 

Also a "must read" for me from Japanese literature would be "Makura no sooshi", I think it's translated in English like "The pillow book". A very special type of book, it's like a diary or a memories book that also contains dozens of "lists" (boring for many readers) from the writer like "Charming ponds", "Rivers I like", "People disgusting me", .... but if you are interested in history and want to know how was the court live in 10th century that's the book.

 

I also liked "Shogun" from James Clavell. It's not really Japanese literature, but a best seller and very funny. Some times one needs something easy to digest than Makura no sooshi or Genji Monogatari... xDDDD

 

Nice reading!!!

 

Dani.

 

-----------------------------------------

Edit: now I realized you already started the Mishimas' tetralogy.... hope you like it!!!

[Martijn Meerts]

Dani, "Makura no sooshi" is by Sei Shonagon? In that case, added the sample to my iPad, so it's on the list.

 

Genji is definitely hard to read, but I think that's mainly because I keep going back and forth between the actual text and the footnotes. Now that it's available as an iBook, I might start over again and skip the footnotes for the most part.

 

Generally I prefer the actual book, but some books are so massive, it's not very practical carrying them along every single day. My iPad I always have with me anyway, and reading on it isn't bad at all. In the past month I've finished about 5 books, and I'm a fairly slow reader :)

[Martijn Meerts]

Almost finished Spring Snow, definitely a good book, especially since I can very much relate to the main character's sadness.

[KenS]

For China, check out the Judge Dee mysteries by Robert van Gulik if you can find them.  He first translated an original, Dee Goong An (Celebrated Cases of Judge Dee) and then wrote a bunch of original stories in the same style. Although the English-lauguage stories were written in the fifties and sixties, they get reprinted periodically, and U.S. Amazon lists some of them as in stock (see links on the Dee Goong An page above).  I have a complete set, and re-read them every ten years or so.

[gmat]

Japanese Inn by Oliver Statler. My Mother who went back and got her MA in Japanese, said that he was one Western writer who got the feel of the Japanese right. This was in the 70s. I met him in the late 80s when I went back to the UH to finish my degree. We had several discussions, but one that sticks to mind was talking about how the then new Tom Clancy got his info mostly right until you got into the details.

His stories are kind of like early Michener.

 

Grant

[Martijn Meerts]

Ken, Grant, thanks :)

 

I'll put them on the list, although doesn't look like there's an iBooks version, I might just get the real books.. Or possibly a Kindle version if that's available.

[gmat]

Oliver Statler also wrote Shimoda Story, a more scholarly work on Townsend Harris and the Bakufu during the negotiations after Perry left. One thing about his work is that he is pretty even handed on presenting both sides of the story. You kind get a chuckle at who thought they were fooling whom. What was relevant in the 1850s was still relevant in the 80s when I read the book and also rings true today. Women of Suye Mura, by Robert J. Smith is about an Anthropologist couple who did research in rural Japan in the 1930s. Ella Wisell's journal provide the basis of this book. What the locals were apparently unaware was that she was fluent in Japanese so the local women were less guarded when speaking around her. Provides a counter to Western stereotypes about Japanese women.

If the Military history is your thing, then Japanese Destroyer Captain by Tameichi Hara, translated by Fred Saito and Roger Pineau, is very readable and his depictions of the early battles in the East Indies and the Solomons provide an insight to the other side. Harp of Burma by Michio Takeyama is a short children's novel, but the story is very moving. It has been made into two movies. The earlier B/W version by Kon Ichikawa is very well regarded. Speaking of movies, the B/W version of 24 eyes is very good. It's about a teacher raised in the city who moves to a rural village in pre-war Japan to teach in a one class school. Bring a hankie.

Letters from a Ruined Empire, Japan, China. Korea, 1945-46, edited by Otis Cary are excerpts from letters exchanged between US Army translators in the Pacific. As many of the writers were also Japanophiles, it's interesting reading their feelings while at war with Japan.

 

 

Best wishes,

Grant

[disturbman]

For me and so far, one of my favourite writer is Junichiro Tanizaki. I discovered him by chance, I picked one of his books out of an English library in Osaka because it had the name of my girlfriend.

 

Most of his work had been written or set before WWII, in the 20 or 30s. His books relate the transformations the Japanese society was going through at the time. The famous transition between modernity and tradition. He also has a unique view on love and sexuality. He might have written the best book on "perversion" I know off, "The Key" blew me off.

 

To start with, I would recommend "Naomi" aka "A Fool's Love".

 

Really a classical author and a great story-teller.

[Martijn Meerts]

There are iBooks version of Quicksand, Some Prefer Nettles and The Makioka Sisters by Junichiro Tanizaki, so I added those to the list ;)

 

Keep 'em coming! =)