Japanese Lit General

this man. in my country he is nothing

That doesn't account for it because there is a total fetishization of everything Japanese.

That's the wrong Murakami. Fuck you

what country?

East Timor

Kobo Abe obviously

>dude deviancy lmao

suck my dick bitch

ryu is better tho

The Man yoshu collection of poetry to start.
Tale of Genji and the Pillow Book for the Heian period.
Tale of the Heike for the Kamakura period.
Basho, Chikamatsu, and Saikaku for the Edo period.
Soseki, Yukichi, and Shimazaki for the Meiji period.
Oe, Abe, Inoue, and a shitload of others for the moderns.

he reads like burger

Is it bait?

Why would you assume that? Not everyone's a Veeky Forums regular.

Pseud detected.

fa/ lit/

Look what website this is. Then answer yourself.

The Japanese were able to reconcile their imperialistic and ultra-nationalist past with mindless consumerism and artistic innovation / new creative individuality.

The US, as much as they want to do that, have not been able to truly separate themselves from their past. Instead, America's past blends into the future and shapes everything--how it's perceived and how it perceives itself. The Japanese are a mostly homogeneous, mostly uni-cultural, haven for capitalism. It's the American fascist's wet dream.

more like gay/ lit/
so just Veeky Forums.

Shut the fuck up

Spring Snow made me cry, should I go on or will it just get more and more painful?

gets really painful by the end, but the rest of the tetralogy can be really different in theme and tone from Spring Snow

Currently reading "No longer human" by Osamu Dazai. Murakami is alright as far as I'm concerned, but then again I've only read Sputnik, my love, so, who the fuck knows.

Do you mean cry and painful in the sense of bad writing or just emotionally heavy?

Currently reading pic related, it's not similar to Murakami at all but it's japanese and pretty good. Murasaki (the novel by the same author) is also nice.

Is Eiji Yoshikawa's rendition of Heike good or should I look for a more authentic translation?

I know this is more of an /a/ thing but how does this general feel about the likes of the Monogatari series and Legend of the Galactic Heroes.

Also planning on picking up two more Abe books, only read Kangaroo Notebook, but would you suggest Woman in the Dunes and Face of Another next?

face of another is p d*pe

i haven't read woman in the dunes yet but the movie was interesting

Looking forward to Faces of Another then, how is Acts of Worship for my next Mishima novel? I've only read three books by him so this will be my fourth but pretty excited to start this one.

As a person he was kind of a hypocrite, preaching about the need to return to the greatness of traditional Japan while at the same time writing his entire body work to heavily please the West's expectations. That being said, his literature is great.

I assume you've already read the all-time great, Natsume Soseki.

maybe their literature just contains merit so people like it you fucknut

It is the second largest first world country, and unlike the rest of the first world, has no European ancestry.
It's a very obvious odd man out, and provides the unique cultural filter of being big and rich without claiming Greco-Roman heritage.

The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishis unto is supposed to be excellent.

Murakami's Wind-up bird chronicle is really good for those that don't know. though Veeky Forums might hate the teenage bitch in it.

I should add that Korea could fit the bill as well, but they only achieved a comparable level of wealth in the 90s, and having a third of your country occupied by communists is counterproductive to making it into the rich country club.

This. It's the only country that can match the West in modern cultural soft power, especially literature. Japan is recognisable enough to Western eyes to feel comfortable, but also different enough to have a very special kind of attractiveness.

I wonder when China will obtain its fair share of cultural power in the world. Its potential for art is immensely large and equally stunted at the same time.

is there a contemporary japanese literature chart or something that isnt just murakami?

Japanese literature sucks. I hate how people hype up foreign stuff just because it's exotic

What a moronic comment. China has been arguably the most influential cultural force in world history. Japan, and all other East Asian countries, as well as many non-Eastern Asian countries, owe everything in its culture to Chinese. What you are presumably referring to is modern popular culture, such as the literature recommended in this and similar threads, in other words, mass produced and easily digestible 'art' of low quality, which is frankly all that the Japanese are capable of creating.

Still trying to get good enough to read an uncomplicated 小説 without having to look up a word every two sentences.

t. Xiao Feng

>One night a mysterious and unexplained phenomenon occurs in the nine provinces. Five years later Chu Feng, a regular outer disciple of the Azure Dragon school, awakens one of the mysterious nine lightning beasts. And discovers an egg sealed inside him. From there we follow Chu Feng as he crosses the continent, beating up strongest senior brothers, raiding tombs, destroying sects and of course as he conquers beauties.
The most influential cultural force everybody

▲
▲▲

Yoshikawa's great, but I'd go with the Tyler translation.

Ignore him just a butthurt Chinese guy that shits in every Japanese lit thread.

Genji Monogatari is better than anything in Chinese culture.

>What a moronic comment. China has been arguably the most influential cultural force in world history
And that's why modern Westerners either practice Indian religions, watch Japanese cartoons or listen to Korean music.

You can't be influential if you don't influence anything. Don't be holier than thou either. if you even know what Veeky Forums is you probably spend as much time consuming Japanese products (cartoons, games, porn) than you do reading lit.

Tang dynasty was great and really did influence the world. However it just isn't relevant today. He wants us to worship a culture long dead and forgotten just because of some of it's lingering diluted influence. Worshiping china now for it's past culture would be like worshiping the arabs for inventing algebra.

>All of China can't buy enough Japanese culture and at the same time go 'We made Japan!'

What is this now? Can you describe it in a haiku?

meh. people are in love with Japanese lit/culture largely because there's an exoticism to it that isn't too far removed from a Western lens, which is why people here predominantly prefer modern/postwar Japanese lit (as they should) which are much more entangled in Japanese/Western cultural anxieties. this also explains Haruki Murakami's role as Japan's most respected literary export compared to other writers like Mizamura and Oe
a lot of chinese art/culture is a lot more foreign in that respect

Anyone know of good sources to learn about japanese theatrical arts? Not necessarily the plays by themselves but the whole history, development, conventions, etc. Recently I've found myself wanting to know more about Kabuki, Bunraku, Noh and all that stuff.

i like kawabata

Though at least with movies, Korea tends to get a lot of their own threads.
Same reason Japan has always stood out culturally for the west and (mostly) America.

It already did. Try their epics, modern authors and XX c. films. E uma delicia

>all the foot fetish and sexual stuf in "the lake"
Jesud Christ thank God people don't care what you read on the bus.

ITT: People who watch anime

What makes you think that?
dumb faggot

lol tanizaki is fun as well

I'm reading Essays in Idleness

its nice

murakami admits that he wanted to be the japanese version of the new yorker

the new yorker is garbage

read Oe instead

Why cant I put this down desu

Spring Snow is the only one that could be read as a standalone novel, so you could stop after it. The rest of the tetralogy cannot be read on their own, so you'd have to commit to it should you decide to read beyond spring snow but it is definitely worth it. You should read all 4 books.

>Murakami is for girls, dude

>All his novels focus on jaded/mild mannered 30 something male protagonists with relationship or intimacy problems

>for girls

I've been away from Veeky Forums for about 4 months and I come back and this meme is still being parroted. Where did this "Murakami is for girls" shit start?

As an aside I am currently reading "Killing Commendatore" and all the standard Murakami tropes are there. It's so derivative and safe and yet it's Murakami so even still I can't put the damn thing down.

>people can like a thing without an ulterior motive
user, that's crazy talk.

pretty much a superior murakami in almost every way

Mainly aesthetics;
sabi, lacquer and darkness.
"Elegance is frigid."

dcrit.sva.edu/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/In-Praise-of-Shadows-Junichiro-Tanizaki.pdf

ah fuck

>elegance > cold