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    3 Strange Tales
    3 Strange Tales
    3 Strange Tales
    Ebook55 pages58 minutes

    3 Strange Tales

    By Ryunosuke Akutagawa

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    3 Strange Tales presents new translations of this classic Japanese author's most well-known stories: Rashomon; A Christian Death; the never-before-published-in-English story, Agni; and a bonus story, In a Grove.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOne Peace Books
    Release dateNov 19, 2020
    ISBN9781935548300
    3 Strange Tales
    Author

    Ryunosuke Akutagawa

    Ryūnosuke Akutagawa was one of Japan's leading literary figures in the Taishō period. Regarded as the father of the Japanese short story, he produced over 150 in his short lifetime. Haunted by the fear that he would inherit his mother's madness, Akutagawa suffered from worsening mental health problems towards the end of his life and committed suicide aged 35 by taking an overdose of barbiturates.

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      Book preview

      3 Strange Tales - Ryunosuke Akutagawa

      Grove

      Preface

      The Japanese Modern Classics series, of which this book is the second in the series, was meant not for the Japanese literary scholar, but for the casual reader, the paperback reader, the graphic novel fan.

      With this readership in mind, we chose three tales for this collection: Rashomon, A Christian Death, and Agni. Nice and succinct. Three crypt-keeper-like tales of horror and oddity that fit nicely together. Hence the title, 3 Strange Tales.

      While the collection could just stop there, in the fashion and spirit of this collection we have added a bonus story. Yes, a bonus story. Akutagawa’s In a Groove, is Pulp Fiction before there was Pulp Fiction, and it is just as powerful as anything written today. The particularly observant reader may note that In a Grove served as the plot for Akira Kurosawa’s film named, Rashomon. It’s fluid take on point of view and narration continues to exert a powerful influence on writing today, as in the previously mentioned Tarantino film, Pulp Fiction. In truth, the story was just to good to leave out, and so we present it to you, our readers, as a bonus.

      All of these tales were written in early twentieth century Japan, a world very different than ours today. And yet, the casual reader can enjoy them for their fun and inventive story telling techniques even now.

      Rashomon

      It was evening. A lowly servant sat under Rashomon waiting for a break in the rain.

      He was alone under the looming gate. Being on the main street, Suzako Oji, one would expect to catch glimpses of straw hats or nobleman’s headgears atop the heads of stragglers waiting out the rain. But he was alone—save for a single grasshopper which clung to the chipped red laquer of a large, round column.

      He was alone because in the past few years Kyoto had been visited by every conceivable disaster from earthquakes and typhoons to fires and famines. The capital was in rapid decline. According to old records, Buddhist images and altars were smashed in the streets, and even the most valuable fragments, coated with lacquer and gold leafing, were stacked by the road and sold as firewood. With civilization on the edge of collapse, who could have been bothered to see to the maintenance of the gate? And so badgers and foxes came to live there. Thieves lived there. Eventually, it became customary to dispose of unclaimed corpses there, a practice that filled the area with a sense of dread so palpable that no one dared to approach it after sunset.

      In their place came the crows. During the day they gathered in huge flocks and traced out wide circles over the roof. At sunset, when the sky turned red, it looked like someone had scattered seeds across the sky. They came to pick the flesh from the corpses at the top of the gate. On that day, perhaps because it was so late, there were none in sight. But they had left their mark: bright splotches of their waste splattered the decaying stone steps where weeds crept from cracks in the rocks. The servant had settled into the seat of his worn blue kimono at the top of the steps. He fiddled with an enormous pimple that had recently appeared on his right cheek while he gazed absent-mindedly at the falling rain.

      I have just said that he was waiting for a break in the rain. But even if the rain were to end, there was nothing for him to do. Under normal circumstances he would have returned to the home of his master, but he had been given leave of the house four or five days ago. As I’ve just noted, Kyoto was in decay, and the dismissal of the servant by the master whom he had served for years was no doubt a small repercussion of this decay. So rather than saying he was waiting for a

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