Blog
-
In my previous post, I referred to Jibun’s description of two women outside Maruzen bookstore as having “a round face, in a flowery kimono, heavily powdered,” assuming them “naturally” to be geisha. His casual observation raises an intriguing issue about the perception of physical beauty across cultures, which will afford us a diversion touching on Read more
-
Driving through the streets of Fitzroy at night you become obsessed with streetlight and the sound of an imagined disturbance occurring in flat thirteen on the twenty-fifth floor of the Brunswick St. commission flats. In daylight, there is little to see but a urine stain on a tram shelter seat. An old stiff with a Read more
-
Author Saneatsu Mushanokoji (1885-1976) was one of the first great Japanese modernist writers. He may lay claim to have founded the I-novel (shishosetsu), a specifically Japanese confessional genre in which the author speaks directly and colloquially to the reader (e.g., Lippit 28). Mushanokoji was also a painter of still lifes, a poet and playwright, and Read more
-
The Innocent marks the first complete English translation of Saneatsu Mushanokoji’s Omedetaki Hito (1911), often referred to as The Good-Natured Person. This celebrated novella explores identity and self-cultivation during the late Meiji period (1868 –1912), a time when Japan opened up to Western influences in art, culture, and thought. As a quintessential I-novel, it captures Read more
-
Reading Maeterlinck’s The Blind, we become aware of a continuous, brilliant process of transposition and streamlining into Waiting for Godot. Here’s an instance from Part One of the previous post: THIRD BLIND MAN. Is the sun still shining?[*74] SIXTH BLIND MAN.I think not: it seems very late. SECOND BLIND MAN.What time is it? THE OTHERS.I Read more
Furin Chime Press™ 