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A review by cryo_guy
Rashomon: And Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
4.0
So I read this because Kurosawa's Rashomon is one of my favorite movies (and I found it by chance at a used bookstore woo). These short stories were pretty excellently crafted, and the volume itself is a very short read. The main value of this to me is that now I know where Rashomon the movie draws inspiration. And boy it really expands on themes that are very sparely put out in these short stories. I can't fault them for that of course, being as short as they are. The movie draws its plot from "In a Grove" which explores the ideas of differing, yet contradictory accounts of the same event. It takes part of its setting from "Rashomon" which is used in a much different way in the short story of the same name.
Anyway, the other stories were pretty neat too, also characterized by a sparse style but emphatically subtle. Lots of psychological exploration packed in very tight moments. And then others focus more on a folk tale theme. One is based on a story from a famous collection of 13th century folktales, another is based on a fable based on real events in a Japanese Christian community in Nagasaki. The others also more or less exhibit a fabulistic style without explicitly being based on traditional fables. Aside from the ones informing my understanding of the movie, I liked "The Dragon" the best because it had that real folktale feel to it. Made me want to watch the anime Mushi-shi.
The other thing here is that apparently Akutagawa is pretty famous. He's a big figure in Japanese lit and there are Japanese literary movements he's writing against and stuff...I'm not gonna get into all that because I simply don't know that much about it. But I can read a wikipedia page!
I would recommend this to...people who like Japanese lit or are interested in Kurosawa's Rashomon. It did remind me of another Japanese author Yasushi Inoue (mins folktale), although he wrote "The Hunting Gun" about 30 years later.
Anyway, the other stories were pretty neat too, also characterized by a sparse style but emphatically subtle. Lots of psychological exploration packed in very tight moments. And then others focus more on a folk tale theme. One is based on a story from a famous collection of 13th century folktales, another is based on a fable based on real events in a Japanese Christian community in Nagasaki. The others also more or less exhibit a fabulistic style without explicitly being based on traditional fables. Aside from the ones informing my understanding of the movie, I liked "The Dragon" the best because it had that real folktale feel to it. Made me want to watch the anime Mushi-shi.
The other thing here is that apparently Akutagawa is pretty famous. He's a big figure in Japanese lit and there are Japanese literary movements he's writing against and stuff...I'm not gonna get into all that because I simply don't know that much about it. But I can read a wikipedia page!
I would recommend this to...people who like Japanese lit or are interested in Kurosawa's Rashomon. It did remind me of another Japanese author Yasushi Inoue (mins folktale), although he wrote "The Hunting Gun" about 30 years later.