Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories: (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

by Ryunosuke Akutagawa

Haruki Murakami (Introduction), Jay Rubin (Translator), and Yoshihiro Tatsumi (Illustrator)

Ryünosuke Akutagawa (1892-1927) is one of Japan’s foremost stylists - a modernist master whose short stories are marked by highly original imagery, cynicism, beauty and wild humour. ‘Rashömon’ and ‘In a Bamboo Grove’ inspired Kurosawa’s magnificent film and depict a past in which morality is turned upside down, while tales such as ‘The Nose’, ‘O-Gin’ and ‘Loyalty’ paint a rich and imaginative picture of a medieval Japan peopled by Shoguns and priests, vagrants and peasants. And in later works such as ‘Death Register’, ‘The Life of a Stupid Man’ and ‘Spinning Gears’, Akutagawa drew from his own life to devastating effect, revealing his intense melancholy and terror of madness in exquisitely moving impressionistic stories.

• ISBN10: 0143039849
• ISBN13: 9780143039846
• Publish Date: 5 April 2007 (first published 30 March 2006)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
• Imprint: Penguin Classics
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 320
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780143039846

Reviews

[brokentune]

DNF @ 39%

These stories are not bad but I just can't muster any real enthusiasm for them.

It is not helped by the stories being unconneced and by themselves not being great examples of the short story format.

Of course, they were not written as short stories in the Western literary sense. It's just that the way they are written is boring me stiff.

Maybe I'll pick this up again at a later date, but right now, this is not working for me.