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A review by eb00kie
Tales of Moonlight and Rain by Anthony H. Chambers, Ueda Akinari
4.0
At first I tought this book a little simple for it has been recomended as a horror anthology and in our days it has nothing on the Goosebumps series, but that's really being too superficial.
As a rule, every soundly acclaimed old book that has been reccomended to me has bored me at some point or the other - my eyes start jumping between the lines and I may stare at the same page for minutes trying to read... fluently. On this point my expectations were happily erroneous for the writing style and the dynamic of the stories were very similar to those of children's tales, quite alluring, in fact.
All the stories play quite masterfully on the subject human weakness, which I had always considered most unnapealing, and other themes that belong to the asian philosophy, that I have yet to accept, mainly because it's so very different. As a side note if one ever tries to escape a vengeful spirit that has one in its grasp one has only to faint. The method seems quite reliable as the stories go, perhaps because the spirits are temporarily appalled at the lack of backbone of their respective targets.
Some stories contain comments that may not be particularly pleasing to women in general, like "But these stories are all of women; I have never heard one of a man. It is, after all, because of their perverse nature that women turn into shameless demons." (warms one's heart doesn't it) and I believe that those to can be written of as strange asian beliefs. The recurring theme of homosexual relations is unpleasing. Considering the society I grew up in it is difficult to accept and one can hardly be expected to be pleased to find oneself suddenly repulsed by a trivial thing while immersed in reading.
(those bizarre asians).
I liked Shiramine, "The Kibitsu Cauldron" and "The Blue Hood" a lot, mainly because they had original themes. I find it hard to pick a favourite as all the stories in this anthology are very different so to compare them is a trifle hard.
The bibliography and all the references were really useful in understanding the story but I found myself feeling that perhaps there was much more lost in the translation than usual and I would like to reread it in japonese as soon as I finish mastering the writing(kanji, damn them).
As a rule, every soundly acclaimed old book that has been reccomended to me has bored me at some point or the other - my eyes start jumping between the lines and I may stare at the same page for minutes trying to read... fluently. On this point my expectations were happily erroneous for the writing style and the dynamic of the stories were very similar to those of children's tales, quite alluring, in fact.
All the stories play quite masterfully on the subject human weakness, which I had always considered most unnapealing, and other themes that belong to the asian philosophy, that I have yet to accept, mainly because it's so very different. As a side note if one ever tries to escape a vengeful spirit that has one in its grasp one has only to faint. The method seems quite reliable as the stories go, perhaps because the spirits are temporarily appalled at the lack of backbone of their respective targets.
Some stories contain comments that may not be particularly pleasing to women in general, like "But these stories are all of women; I have never heard one of a man. It is, after all, because of their perverse nature that women turn into shameless demons." (warms one's heart doesn't it) and I believe that those to can be written of as strange asian beliefs. The recurring theme of homosexual relations is unpleasing. Considering the society I grew up in it is difficult to accept and one can hardly be expected to be pleased to find oneself suddenly repulsed by a trivial thing while immersed in reading.
(those bizarre asians).
I liked Shiramine, "The Kibitsu Cauldron" and "The Blue Hood" a lot, mainly because they had original themes. I find it hard to pick a favourite as all the stories in this anthology are very different so to compare them is a trifle hard.
The bibliography and all the references were really useful in understanding the story but I found myself feeling that perhaps there was much more lost in the translation than usual and I would like to reread it in japonese as soon as I finish mastering the writing(kanji, damn them).