An old rough piece from the past. Translate from Chinese to English for practice.
From the point of view now, rough, very rough. Oh well.
From the point of view now, rough, very rough. Oh well.
Part I
Japanese literature has always been exquisite to me. And this feeling is more enhanced by the reading of Hell Screen.
It is rough yet fair to say, Japanese as a language has a nature of rambling. As such, Japanese literature always appears to have a rambling style. Despite the beautiful scenarios included and exquisite depictions applied, the narrative carries through the piece is always in a way of maundering. I have to admit the reason that I didn’t explore too much in Japanese literature, is exactly due to this way of maundering. Yet within the amount of my reading, only Shinichi Hoshi and a slim amount of Edogawa Rampo’s work can be considered apart from this ‘rambling style’, and both of them are known for their plot and storyline.
Rambler rambles. And the fragmented speech created by rambling usually softens the point. No exception in Japanese literature. Interestingly in the meantime, the cruel nature of Japanese nation usually guides the theme of Japanese literature to a fierce way. From Proof of the Man to Norwegian Wood then to Hell Screen, even the Modern Times, plenty of examples can be observed. Regardless the ones have cruel themes at the first place, or the ones those are using cruelty as decorative elements, the expression of this cruelty has always been thorough and hard to dismiss. Edogawa Rampo’s The Demon of the Lonely Isle (孤島の鬼 Kotō no oni) used to make me physiologically disgusted and horrified for complete three days, and that outdoes every single horror or thriller fiction I have ever read. (Truly thanks to it I began my appreciation towards虞初新志, nevertheless the horror of its plot is almost physiologically unbearable.)
General Japanese literature doesn’t seem intended to control this kind of fierceness and cruelty, not that it has to be a part of necessity. Moreover, due to the rambling prose the fierceness is then wrapped into a peculiar sense of harmony. It is almost like someone friendly chatting with you whilst making you swallowing all sorts of sanguinary and ruthless thing. To put into a scenario it is as if a rambling old wise person smiling, having an extremely peaceful chat, whilst the content of speech is actually extremely brutal and violent. This kind of ‘smiley brutality’ is quite different from another kind of peace-and tough style, the style of Yu Hua’s, (which can be summed up as in ‘peaceful narration of extreme suffering’) and more tends to create something exquisite rather than solid hard life.
The uselessness of resistance and desperation it caused in Yu Hua’s work are lacking in Japanese cases, or it shall be put in this way: there is a gap between the writing and the content. The gap is too huge so that both sides cannot emerge, and desperation was born because of this. The powerful desperation haunts the characters and makes them nowhere to escape. Then it creates a ridiculous feeling of alienation and leaves the readers misplaced, so that the readers are left no choice but distancing themselves from the story, in order to be carried through the storyline. Beyond this distance, appreciation and enjoyment can be made, and the brutality of story then twists into a sense of exquisite and evilly beautiful.
TBC.
Japanese literature has always been exquisite to me. And this feeling is more enhanced by the reading of Hell Screen.
It is rough yet fair to say, Japanese as a language has a nature of rambling. As such, Japanese literature always appears to have a rambling style. Despite the beautiful scenarios included and exquisite depictions applied, the narrative carries through the piece is always in a way of maundering. I have to admit the reason that I didn’t explore too much in Japanese literature, is exactly due to this way of maundering. Yet within the amount of my reading, only Shinichi Hoshi and a slim amount of Edogawa Rampo’s work can be considered apart from this ‘rambling style’, and both of them are known for their plot and storyline.
Rambler rambles. And the fragmented speech created by rambling usually softens the point. No exception in Japanese literature. Interestingly in the meantime, the cruel nature of Japanese nation usually guides the theme of Japanese literature to a fierce way. From Proof of the Man to Norwegian Wood then to Hell Screen, even the Modern Times, plenty of examples can be observed. Regardless the ones have cruel themes at the first place, or the ones those are using cruelty as decorative elements, the expression of this cruelty has always been thorough and hard to dismiss. Edogawa Rampo’s The Demon of the Lonely Isle (孤島の鬼 Kotō no oni) used to make me physiologically disgusted and horrified for complete three days, and that outdoes every single horror or thriller fiction I have ever read. (Truly thanks to it I began my appreciation towards虞初新志, nevertheless the horror of its plot is almost physiologically unbearable.)
General Japanese literature doesn’t seem intended to control this kind of fierceness and cruelty, not that it has to be a part of necessity. Moreover, due to the rambling prose the fierceness is then wrapped into a peculiar sense of harmony. It is almost like someone friendly chatting with you whilst making you swallowing all sorts of sanguinary and ruthless thing. To put into a scenario it is as if a rambling old wise person smiling, having an extremely peaceful chat, whilst the content of speech is actually extremely brutal and violent. This kind of ‘smiley brutality’ is quite different from another kind of peace-and tough style, the style of Yu Hua’s, (which can be summed up as in ‘peaceful narration of extreme suffering’) and more tends to create something exquisite rather than solid hard life.
The uselessness of resistance and desperation it caused in Yu Hua’s work are lacking in Japanese cases, or it shall be put in this way: there is a gap between the writing and the content. The gap is too huge so that both sides cannot emerge, and desperation was born because of this. The powerful desperation haunts the characters and makes them nowhere to escape. Then it creates a ridiculous feeling of alienation and leaves the readers misplaced, so that the readers are left no choice but distancing themselves from the story, in order to be carried through the storyline. Beyond this distance, appreciation and enjoyment can be made, and the brutality of story then twists into a sense of exquisite and evilly beautiful.
TBC.