A review by peelspls
Rashōmon and Seventeen Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

4.0

I loved how well-paced Akutagawa's story telling is. His stories have an anachronistic element to them, where even though they fit perfectly well for the historical periods they are written, they abstract really well to periods beyond. I also really enjoyed how supernatural elements serve as a reflection of human interests rather than being independent omnipotent agents. Rashomon (a true classic) calls the question of ethics into being, but many of the other stories like The Dragon, The Nose, The Murder, Hell's Screen and Green Onions all speak deeply to an analysis of the human psyche. I'd read Rashomon before but I'm really glad this version is also very well cited and annotated for references and other texts.