Roshomon and Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

This is one of my all time favorite Renaissance songs:  

Germanic Lombardy song, L'Amor Dona Ch'lo Te Porto

There seems to be two camps concerning Kindles.  Those that use them and those that wouldn't touch them with a ten foot pole.  I must admit when they first came out I was appalled.  The thought of reading one of my glorious books on an electronic device was unthinkable.

Of course I'm conservative about everything.  I only wear clothes as they're going out of style; they're much cheaper that way, for one thing.  They're no longer popular for another.  I hate belonging to a herd.  Maybe I'm arrogant.

But we were speaking of Kindles.  I had always brought my Kindle on overseas trips because it's so much lighter than carrying a suitcase load of books.  There are also a lot of free downloads, which is nice.

Lately I've discovering a couple of other perks about my Kindle.  One, gratification is immediate.  I click on the buy link and voila!  The book is in my house.  Secondly,  I don't have to worry about what condition it will be in we it arrives.  I have had a few bad experiences with that.  Some seller's idea of "good" or "like new" condition do not match my own.

Finally, they are considerably cheaper.  I could have bought the complete British Pack of Mystery writers for about a hundred dollars.  Instead I got the complete set for $15.00 or .99 cents each.

Which is why I bought the following book for my Kindle.  It was only $1.99.  I got it immediately and wrote a review before it would have ever been delivered to my door.

I have 437 books on my Kindle.  I could travel around the world comfortably.  Just need to remember the outlet adapter.




Rashomon and Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Collection of short stories by the pre-war Japanese author, Ryunosuke Akutagawa. Akutagawa wrote around 150 short stories before he committed suicide in 1927.

The stories are creepy and eerie, but very well done. Perhaps they are even more beautiful in the original Japanese. Nevertheless, there is something dismal and Sartresque about them. Another descriptive word would be thought-provoking as each tale grapples with evil and the hopelessness of man.

Though the author is from the 20th century, the tales show an medieval, traditional Japan. Maybe Akutagawa saw that this way of life was on the verge of disappearing.

These perhaps were meant to be moral tales, hoping to provoke the readers into recognizing their own guilt and lack of compassion for their fellow man, much like the Indian writer and poet, Rabindranath Tagore.

The first one is probably the most interesting to me. In A Grove, is about a murder with no third person narrator, but several first person narrators. The entire story is through dialogue. Each gives their testimony as to what happened. As each new person gives their version of events, new information is added and enlightens the reader to the actual character of the previous witness. Finally, even the victim gives his testimony through a medium.

Spoiler:

Another dark yet provoking tale is Rashomon. A recently fired servant visits a place where unclaimed corpses are dumped. While there he discovers a old woman stealing the hair from the corpses to sell.

He is angry that someone would stoop to desecrating the dead, but the woman insists she must do so to survive. She then claims the dead woman whose hair she is stealing stole fish when she was alive, but she, too, did it only to survive. So is it evil when one is only doing what one is forced to do?

The servant answers her, that if that is the case, he is justified in stealing from her. So he violently takes her clothes from her body and runs off, leaving the old woman naked among the dead.

I think it is a point well taken. When one begins to justify evil, where is the line drawn? It's just a matter of might making right.

The last story, The Dragon, is the most suspenseful. A priest, tired of being mocked and bullied by his community decides to play a practical joke. He sets up a sign next to a lake near his temple that at a certain date, a black dragon that resides at the bottom of the lake will rise to the heavens.

As more and more people read the sign, word gets around and increasing hordes of people from all over Japan start arriving to see the spectacle. The priest begins to feel uneasy. He meant it as a joke so he could laugh at his fellow villagers. Now what will happen when everyone is disappointed?

The ending is not predictable and rather beautiful.

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