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A review by lillyminasyan
Five Women Who Loved Love: Amorous Tales from 17th-Century Japan by Ihara Saikaku
5.0
I always say this, but the Japanese literature isn't for most people's taste and I don't think I'll ever comfortably recommend them to my friends, since they might read it and think "what is wrong with Lilly's taste?!".
When I started this book, it was very confusing and I was constantly comparing it to the other Japanese authors, but then I reminded myself that this book was written during the 17th century and this author used to be the Haruki Murakami (I've used Haruki Murakami, since he is the most known Japanese author currently in my humble opinion). Back then, other authors heavily plagiarized his works. And when you read this book, it is so full of ordinary but yet not ordinary book. He wrote about a monk being in love with two men in the 17th century. I don't know about the LGBTQI+ rights back then, but you need to be very brave to write about that. Even one of the female characters was pretending to be a guy.
I constantly notice that it is very common to write about suicide, gay/lesbian love in the Japanese books. Considering how traditional they are in real life, I wonder why it is so.
Back to the book. Once I got over the comparison, I really liked the book. It is surely weird and in some places confusing, but I think the translation lost some of the beauty. I bet in Japanese it is way better, and it really sucks I can't read it in Japanese to compare.
If you end up reading it, I wonder what you thought about this book.
When I started this book, it was very confusing and I was constantly comparing it to the other Japanese authors, but then I reminded myself that this book was written during the 17th century and this author used to be the Haruki Murakami (I've used Haruki Murakami, since he is the most known Japanese author currently in my humble opinion). Back then, other authors heavily plagiarized his works. And when you read this book, it is so full of ordinary but yet not ordinary book. He wrote about a monk being in love with two men in the 17th century. I don't know about the LGBTQI+ rights back then, but you need to be very brave to write about that. Even one of the female characters was pretending to be a guy.
I constantly notice that it is very common to write about suicide, gay/lesbian love in the Japanese books. Considering how traditional they are in real life, I wonder why it is so.
Back to the book. Once I got over the comparison, I really liked the book. It is surely weird and in some places confusing, but I think the translation lost some of the beauty. I bet in Japanese it is way better, and it really sucks I can't read it in Japanese to compare.
If you end up reading it, I wonder what you thought about this book.