Wtf i love japanese literature now

does anyone else see the swastika

Loss.jpg

fun fact: the Brazilian Portuguese translation of this book was translated by Tanizaki's actual niece, Leiko Gotoda. Part of Tanizaki's family immigrated to Brazil during the Japanese diaspora. Almost all of Tanizaki's novels were translated to Portuguese by her niece and the translations are amazing.

Feels good living in south american nipcentral

His niece*

Kinda thought it sucked. The translation certainly didn't help, but the absence of any reference to fucking WW2 was a massive elephant in the room that I felt distorted a lot of the story.

are...are you retarded?

Kawabata is the GOAT.

Undoubtedly the runner-up for Japan's magnum opus (Tale of Genji being #1)

what is
>sea of fertility
>master of go
>kokoro

>Sea of Fertility
>By the author who only receives a single paragraph mention in Katō's book encompassing the entire history of Japanese literature
>GOAT of anything
>All authors mentioned being from the 20th century from a country which over a thousand years of quality literature
>Using what is as if you know anything about Japanese literature
At least Kawabata and Sōseki had chapters in which they were an important focus but what is Man'yōshū: Kokinshū, Ise Monogatari, Makura no Sōshi, Konjaku Monogatsarishū, Heike Monogatari, or the Kyōunshū. Get on my level pleb.

Why do I have the feeling all those who read Japanese "literature" are American?

What do you even mean by this post?

Maybe try forming your own opinions, bucko

>All these Eurocucks on the left

You'll nev-er know, ho-ho-a-ho!

>reading many works of Japanese literature mean you don't have your own opinion on Japanese literature

caraca, não sabia disso
agora deu mais vontade de ler ainda

no he's right, ww2 started before the japanese joined, japan sort of joined the axis in 1939 (within the book's timeline), there's germans in the bewk, they could've talked about it. my guess is tanizaki just literally didn't know what was going on.

Shit irmão, think I could find a Spanish version translated from the Portuguese rather than filthy English?

The book is set 1936-41. Japan had been active in Manchuria - a part of China - since 1931 and full-scale war erupted in 1937.

I'm not saying Tanizaki had all the info on Unit 731 but the complete absence of the war left me feeling like the novel has a gaping hole in it.

I'm not a huge fan of Murakami, but I feel The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is important for this reason.

>muh WW2
Let's face it, trying to deal with WW2 in literature restulted mostly in topical mediocrity. Based Tanizaki gives no fucks.

>writing about WW2 resulted in topical mediocrity

That's a pretty dumb thing to say.

Er actually the entire post was about Kato whoever that is

Makioka sisters is set before ww2 you mouthbreathing retard. There are even references to events leading up to ww2 and historical references.

Did you even read ?

No, the post mentions Kato in regards to Soseki, Kawabata and Mishima. The rest of the books mentioned have nothing to do with Kato and neither does the criticism of that poster only mentioning works by late Meiji and post Meiji writers from a nation with an incredibly strong literary tradition lasting almost fifteen hundred years. Kato has almost nothing to do with the post except to lend the name of one of the countries most important literary scholars to support my dislike of Mishima.

Hmm maybe? But if you can read Spanish you can probably read Portuguese, it takes a bit to get used to it but it's extremely similar I believe.

This is partly true, at least in my experience with young Japanese university students. Most of them will simply answer “eh I don't really enjoy reading at all" when asked about famous Japanese authors. It's odd. They also told me reading Tanizaki's Japanese is extremely difficult even for highly educated native speakers.

>I don't really enjoy reading at all" when asked about famous Japanese authors. It's odd
No it's not. If you walk up to a random person in a western university and ask them if they like opera, or Greek tragedy or something similar you are going to get that sort of answer. Most people aren't interested in high culture regardless of of if they belong to the country of origin of a cultural item.

>They also told me reading Tanizaki's Japanese is extremely difficult even for highly educated native speakers.
There are a couple of reasons that make this sort of thing fairly common in Japan compared to many places. One is that kanji do not offer hints on pronunciation, there are tens of thousands of kanji meaning that their are many uncommon/obscure ones, they often have several meanings and that an author can use antiquated meanings/Chinese meanings.
Asides from this Japanese literature has numerous styles which can vary significantly from standard modern Japanese. Kafū for example wrote many of his works in a way that mimicked the old fashioned colloquial Edo dialect. This sort of thing is rather common.

You should be able to get a version translated from japanese, it's not that rare of a language.

>shuichi kato
>living under Japan’s fascist government and American bombing of Tokyo would shape a lifelong opposition to war, especially nuclear arms, and imperialism
>he discussed society, culture, and international relations from a literate and resolutely leftist perspective.
>he formed a group with philosopher Shunsuke Tsurumi and novelist Kenzaburō Ōe to defend the war-renouncing Article 9 of the Constitution of Japan.

Doesn't sound like he would be biased against Mishima for political reasons, or liable to consider politics before aesthetics in the estimation of art, at all. Read Donald Keene instead. Mishima was a literary genius comparable to Shakespeare.

>or liable to consider politics before aesthetics in the estimation of art
I'm assuming you haven't read him at all because this couldn't be farther from the truth. If you read his history of Japanese literature it's obvious from the outset that this claim is untrue.
To state this is to ignore his biting criticisms of the leftist political writers from the Meiji onward or his admiration for extremely jingoistic writers from the Edo period onward. He is an aesthete, not a political writer.
Mishima is mentioned so briefly in his monumental three volume work that he doesn't even offer a criticism of him. He merely mentions he existed and very, very briefly talks about a couple of his works. I think people on this board overestimate Mishima's standing in Japan. He is much more highly regarded in the west then he is in his own country. I don't think his brief mention of Mishima is an attack, it merely reflects the place that Mishima has in Japanese literature as the Japanese themselves see it, a small one.

>Mishima was a literary genius comparable to Shakespeare
What I dislike about Mishima is that he sacrifices his art in furthering his puerile, idiotic philosophy. he can sometimes be an extremely talented writer but these are always at the moments when his philosophy is the least forward in his writing. Spring Snow I easily enjoyed more than anything else he wrote because I could almost read it as if his stupid philosophy was not the driving force behind it. That being said to compare him to Shakespeare I find to be unbelievably wrong. Shakespeare is the sort of writer that only a handful have ever matched in the entirety of human existence. Mishima is outclassed by many Japanese writers from this century alone.

>Read Donald Keen
I have, I enjoy his work. I would not replace Katō with him though. Look at Katō's credentials. He is far more qualified to talk about Japanese literature than Keen.