Anyone into Japanese 20th century stories? Rec and discuss

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>>9564091
I only read this one. Damn, it is good.

>>9564091
Kokoro and Spring Snow. Recommended if you like books with a dark outlook on life.
I've also ordered No Longer Human, Schoolgirl and Rashomon and seventeen other stories

>>9564604
stories is a vague term, but i meant short stories and novellas, not novels, which are talked about often enough as not to be emphasized in this thread.

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>>9564091
Really loved Hell Screen, In a Grove, and Loyalty. Spinning gears is a fav too. Kappa is worth a check too. You can't really go wrong with Akutagawa.

>>9564604
>Akutagawa, Kokoro, No Longer Human, the list could on

>>9564701
fuck off elitist scum

>>9564091
I finished confessions of a mask last night.
I'd disagree with the interpretation that kochan is a homosexual, outside of a brief period at the beginning with Omi, his sexual fetishization isn't with the actual men; its a self insert of his own fetisizatation of what he considers an aesthetic death through violence.

>>9564718
Which involves big, burly, muscular men. He was gay. You just need to make the distinction between gay as identity and gay as practice, the latter of which he was VERY interested in.

>>9564822
I mean I suppose that's one way to look at it, but on the other hand Kochan was explicitly a sickly shut in type that had no real formative experience of adolescent. I think the big burly men part was again a part of his self insertion of an aesthetic of how he wanted to die, whereas he was unable to fetashize this with inserting him into the role of a female in the scenario; which I think was alluded to with the bit about Joan of Arc.

>>9564837
I'm pretty sure that means he's gay.

>>9564091
Has anyone read The Makioka Sisters? Is it any good, or is it dated? Picked it up super cheap at a thrift store.

>>9564847
Does it? I mean the book is highly autobiographical, so I'm tying a lot of this to his own life and his aspirations for an aesthetic death coupled with his own bodybuilding that was produced from his earlier weakness in childhood.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but over the course of the novel, I can't actually recall him having sexual thoughts of an actual sexual encounter with another man; rather it was purely all centered around the violence.

>>9564091
What's /lit/s opinion of no longer human?

I know it's a seppuku meme but patriotism by Mishima will always be one of the most beautiful stories ever crafted in my opinion. The short film based of off it is fantastic too, Mishima played the main character in it.


However if you can't read Japanese you are missing out on a ton. Some stories translate better than others but all lose a very distinct part of how the author writes

read hard boiled wonderland

was comfy

>>9564965
you're talking to a guy who has no idea that sexuality is socially constructed and thinks it's some sort of genetic switch

it's like talking to a brick wall

>>9564965
I'm pretty sure that book is considered gay on a mostly official level.

violence and homosexuality are pretty closely related, and in some cases almost interchangeable, violence being something of an ersatz for sexual intimacy, especially when the people in question have been conditioned (through their environment or society) do avoid homosexuality and emotional intimacy.

>>9568171
>violence and homosexuality are pretty closely related, and in some cases almost interchangeable
The shit I read on /lit/

>>9564091

Pepesuke Akutagawa is pretty much the pinnacle of narrative when it comes to short stories. Good job for helping spread the word, anon.

I personally also love Dazai and Mishima.

>>9568242
I'm talking about socialized violence, like sports

>>9564091
How many of you guys read Japanese?
I'm living in Tokyo and learning Japanese so as part of my practice I've started trying to read Japanese literature in the original language.

>>9568171
>violence being something of an ersatz for sexual intimacy
Do you know any work that deals with this phenomenon in more detail?

>>9564701
What's exactly wrong with Dazai?

>>9568722
It's a meme that the anon is using to accuse the other person of only having the most surface knowledge of Japanese lit.

>>9568475

That's probably a tad ambitious if you haven't been studying for at least a couple of years.

Try reading the newspaper first, or NHK Easy articles if that's too difficult

Don't forget to finish core 10k and read A Dictonary of Basic/Intermediate/Advanced Japanese Grammar cover to cover