Hi everyone! Today I'm in Japan on my journey to read the whole world, books
and stories from every country on earth. The lazy bugger that I am that's the
best way to travel the world. Okay the land of the Rising Sun, sushi, samura,i sword,
manga Japan has a very rich literary history. Many people consider the Tale of
Genji, an 11th century book about a playboy prince to be the first modern
novel, written almost 600 years before Don Quixote, making Shikibu Murasaki not
only the first female novelist but the first novelist ever. Japan is also famous
for poetry haiku being my favorite. I've read so many novels and stories
from Japan that I had a really hard time deciding which one to include in this
video. I have narrowed it down to two novels and two short stories that are
unique but also very well known in the country and that every kid in school
reads them except the last one. I hope you like them.
Okay let's start. My first pick is a novel by Natsume Soseki. He was a
pioneer of modern Japanese literature and his famous for works such as I Am A
Cat, Kokoro and many other books. But my choice is Botchan written in 1904.Not a
very long novel given it was written more than 100 years ago if you compare it
to the Russian novels. Botchan the main character is an awkward, somewhat
arrogant guy who is hired as a teacher in a remote part of Japan, Shikoku the
smallest of four main islands. And from the start he's a misfit in the Japanese
workplace. He fails to conform with his school authority therefore gets himself
in all sorts of troubles with the students, teachers, and administrators.
It's a comic tragic tale that has somewhat happy ending when he resigns
his job. Botchan is unique the way he handles
things; he's direct, often selfish but also likes justice to prevail. Reading
this reminded me of JD Salinger's the Catcher in the Rye. Like Holden he is an
outsider. It's a great example of character driven novel. His unique
personality creates the plot. One of my favorite scene in this is a
meeting where all the staff are gathered to say farewell to a retiring teacher. When
Porcupine, a math teacher, Botcha's only friend--
the funny thing about Botchan is that he gives other staff unique names. so
Porcupine stands up to make a speech out of nowhere
Bachchan starts clapping all alone. He is surprised that nobody else
doing it. For him Porcupine's act is heroic because he's standing in the
middle of this huge crowd and making a speech. I think Soseki wanted him to
represent the old Japan versus the new Japan . What's unique about this book is
that you don't see many Japanese novels written about misfit or rebe, someone
who openly challenges the authority. Botchan is perhaps like a free spirit or
samurai lost in the world that has been taken over by capitalism and
Western culture. Soseki was born when Japan ended its 250 years
of isolation and started to industrialize and accept Western
technology and science, he grew up watching the country transformed from a
feudal society into a modern capitalist state. Botchan is the last of his
generation who didn't fit into this world. In fact, its publication was only a
year before the Japanese defeated the Russians in 1905 to emerge as an
imperial power in the east. I loved the humor in this book and how
Botchan doesn't care about others, what other things of him, how simple his world
is, the way he talks, the way he sees others, the way he names everybody else
after animals and the color of the t-shirt and so forth. We often find
ourselves conforming to things we don't like and believe. It's a great great
novel. Now to my second choice it's a short story by Ryunosuke Akutagawa. He
was 35 when he committed suicide, but he's considered the best short story
writers in Japan. He's writing is dark but widely read in Japanese schools.
For some reason I always think of him like Franz Kafka but in reality, unlike Kafka,
he tormented himself, even in his last words he called himself a stupid man, a
terrible husband, and an awful father while Kafka on the other hand criticized the
system the rigidity of modern system or bureaucracy. There's very little or no
self-hatred in Kafka's writing as far as I know.This idea of blame still is something
that divides the West from the East. In the West the system is blamed while in
Japan, Korea and China. If something doesn't work you have to adjust yourself
to make it work, not change the system. Okay, the story's called In A Bamboo Grove,
written in 1921 in the form of court document. Five different accounts of
a murder with three witnesses tell conflicting account of the incident and
three people including the victim confess to the act of committing the
murder. Akutagawa is trying to challenge our whole notion of objective truth. And
Akira Kurosawa the famous Japanese director made a movie called Rashomon
which is the title of another of Akutagawa's story, so this four page novel
had a massive influence on literary world and cinema. If you spend time
walking among bamboos or crowded place you lose perspective and truth can slip
away. Modern cities make our lives more convenient but in return we lose a bit
of ourselves, our uniqueness, and get lost among other bamboos,
I mean people. My third choice is another short story by Yasunari Kawabata. He was
the first Japanese Nobel Prize winner in 1964 and also he's my favorite Japanese
writer, famous for books like Snow Country, Koto and so on. His novels are
very short, concise and very deep, often lamenting the disappearance of certain
Japanese tradition or aspects of culture. This story is called the Dancing Girl of
Izu, published in 1924, only three years after Akutagawa's In A Bamboo Grove. What
is the story? A student from Tokyo visits Izu Peninsula. While there he meets a
band of traveling entertainers or dancers. He falls in love with the
youngest girl because he finds her to be the most
innocent and naive of the bunch. He tries to find excuses to be with the
band, but also doesn't want them to suspect his feelings. We only find out
about her feeling when he departs for Tokyo. She's devastated. The subtle,
fragile, and innocent. It's such a well-written short story about teenage love.
It's a heart-wrenching story that is also so beautiful. While reading this I was
reminded of an Iranian movie called Baran on which I think was released in
2001 with the female love interest doesn't say a word but you know how heart-
wrenching the pain of separation is. This is a widely-read story in Japanese schools
Even there's an express train to Izu Peninsula named Dancing Girl, to
honour this story, a fleeting, quick feeling of love. A perfect symbol .Nobody
captures the untold emotion better than Kawabata. Okay, to our fourth and final
choice. It's a novel. It's very recently published 2016, which
is like four years ago it's called the Convenience Store Woman by
Sayaka Murata. The author herself worked in a
convenience store for 18 years part time. The success of this book allowed her to
quit her jo. What is the story? The protagonist is Keiko, a 36 year
old woman who has worked only one job at a convenience store, and part time. As you
may know Japanese convenience stores function a lot more than just stores.
People spend hours eating, drinking and even holding meetings there. They are
like kitchen, offic and coffee shops all in one. In this story Keiko spends most of
her life working there , and when she's not working she still thinks about her job.
Her life, body and soul are all regulated byher work. People come and go but she
stays on to work there for 18 years. When she meets a weirdo called Shiraha,
another employee of the store, the story takes a turn. soon he is fired from the
job because he's lazy, and strange. He moves in with Keiko in her
apartment but their relationship isn't sexual at all. Influenced by Shiraaha,
Keiko leaves her job trying to make a life, have a career, or a family. Something
outside the convenience store. In the meantime Keiko supports him financially
as both are unemployed and has no money. One day when she is ready
to go for an interview, on the way to an interview, she sees a convenience store
through the window. She notices that it's very disorganized.
She walks inside to organize the shelves. When Shiraha confronts her, she says she
is made for one purpose only: to work at a convenience store. This is a brilliant
novel, very short and on surface it doesn't seem like a literary masterpiece.
The language is simple, the story is simple but it touches a nerve, deep
inside every one of us. How we spend our lives thinking we are free or special
but in reality, we are nothing but serve a purpose, in search of a place, belonging.
It really doesn't matter where or what job, be it a convenience store worker or a
president of some giant company, we all crave to belong somewhere. Wherever we
feel at home. Wherever we feel appreciated. Wherever we feel needed I
I hope you enjoyed this video. Join me again next time, we will read another
country on our journey to read the entire world thank you very much.