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A review by snivets
Murder in the Age of Enlightenment: Essential Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
4.0
Some very interesting short stories, a wonderful and naturally translated set of works as I now expect from Pushkin Press.
Hell Screen *really* sticks with me — simply fantastic — but all of them taken together do have themes of a darkly troubled mind, which makes thematic sense with the war years in Japan. The last story, and its veering into autobiography territory, I found extremely disconcerting and devastating, considering the author's own suicide. It's also interesting to see how well Rashomon works as a written work (I know this came first, but Kurosawa executes it so well as a film you'll forgive me for wondering if it possibly works as well in text).
Hell Screen *really* sticks with me — simply fantastic — but all of them taken together do have themes of a darkly troubled mind, which makes thematic sense with the war years in Japan. The last story, and its veering into autobiography territory, I found extremely disconcerting and devastating, considering the author's own suicide. It's also interesting to see how well Rashomon works as a written work (I know this came first, but Kurosawa executes it so well as a film you'll forgive me for wondering if it possibly works as well in text).