Japanese (non-manga) books

Posted: Mon Oct 16, 2006 11:12 pm

This is a post I made in another English-language forum, where I give some Japanese book recommendations. I won't pretend to be that knowledgeable, but I do read some, and figured I'd start a thread about it here, if only to elicit some book recommendations from Neuro.

Here's that post, slightly edited:

Here's a few off the top of my head, with amazon links. I'm not gonna bother with synopses, since you can get them from the amazon pages.

Since you mentioned Kotaro Isaka, I'll start with his book, Shinigami no Seido. The writing is light and rhythmic, so it's pretty easy to read, but you never feel overly stupid reading it.

When someone (who reads Japanese) asks for a book recommendation, I always point them first to Kussun Daikoku by Kou Machida, who also used to play in the punk band INU, and currently plays with AxSxE of Natsumen. I'd complain that it's an atrocity that this book hasn't been done in English, except I have no fucking idea how his chaotic prose could possibly be translated into another language.

Ramo Nakajima's Konya Subete no Bar de is a pretty kick-ass account of a man's bout with alcoholism. He's done a lot of research too (though I suspect that the biggest "research" he did was being an alcoholic himself) - he quotes a lot of literature on the subject. The three-volume Gadara no Buta is also very good. It kind of peters out in the third book as it degenerates into a cheap thriller, but it's still worth it for books one and two - which deal with cult mysticism and then African shamanism. I understand that the book has been adapted into a manga, but I have no desire whatsoever to check that out.

Kinky Baby by Megumi Uemoto I discovered by accident, and I guess it would qualify as somewhat obscure. I imagine that it would've generated more buzz if it had been released from a larger publishing house. I love this book, and you can't go wrong with people who make references to the Smiths.

Otaro Maijo started out writing light mysteries, but he's also written works of a more serious, literary nature (and I think he was shortlisted for the Akutagawa award once), and Kuma no Basho is his best, IMO. One of the stories in here (can't remember the title, but it's the one about sucking cock) has been adapted into manga in IKKI, by Kei Aoyama, which you might or might not have read. It was actually a pretty good adaptation.

I have a thing for protagonists who are utter social misfits, provided that it's done right (and provided also that I only have to read about them and don't have to deal with them in real life), and Mujou no Sekai by Kazushige Abe absolutely delivers.

When I want to get in touch with my feminine side, I read Fumio Yamamoto (and Kiriko Nananan and Kyoko Okazaki and Marie Abiko and Q-ta Minami but we're talking about literature here not manga). Minna Itteshimau is a wonderful collection of short stories that depict modern, ordinary relationships. Not sure how the majority of male readers will take to this, but I enjoyed it a lot and everyone knows I'm the manliest guy here.

Posted: Tue Oct 17, 2006 5:59 am

I only read these in English translation, so I don't have any great suggestions for you. The ones I've liked enough to read more than once are the Sailor Who Fell From Grace With the Sea (Mishima) and a bunch of things by Kobo Abe (Woman in the Dunes, The Box Man, The Face of Another, The Ruined Map, and various plays).

Abe's stories fascinate me. They're kind of similar to those of Vladimir Nabokov, with a good bleak sense of humor, and unstable/untrustworthy narrators - especially in The Box Man (which is framed with so many levels of narration that it's really impossible to be sure who is telling the story or why). Woman in the Dunes is probably the easiest and funnest to read (also Abe's most famous in the west due to the successful 1964 film adaptation by Hiroshi Teshigahara [who did several other Abe adaptations throughout the 60s - that just never got the same kind of attention]).

Some of his lesser novels seem to get lumped in with Murakami, who uses similar weird gimmicks. Also, I think I read somewhere that Yuko Tsuno is a big Abe fan, though I don't remember where anymore.

Street Musician Joined: 16 Feb 2003 Posts: 530

Seconded on Kussun Daikoku.

Can't say I read very many Japanese novels either: selection where I live is pretty limited, especially if you're not willing to drive 30km and across a bridge congested with transport trucks and Chinese drivers 24/7 to a bookstore where you can pay triple the Japanese sticker price. There's a Book Off in downtown Vancouver but I've only been in there on one occasion, and their novel section was relatively puny compared to the manga/how-to books/Japanese dvd's of Hollywood movies every Japanese bookstore/video store in North America inexplicably sells.

Only titles I can think of off the top of my head are Terrorist's Parasol by Iori Fujiwara and Shissou (Sprint) by Kiyoshi Shigematsu. Other than that, my usual favorites like Haruki Murakami and Seishu Hase and that's really about it.

Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 7:37 pm

Another good one: The Pornographers by Akayuki Nosaka. A novel about pornographers and pimps in 1960s Osaka (I think that's where it was set). I actually don't remember too much about this one except that it has a character who masturbates himself to death (after writing some smut) and a scene where the main character is paid money to help train some pervy old businessman how to cop a feel on a train.

There was also a good (1960s) movie based on it, though I think the ending (for the movie version) was a little to similar to the Alec Guiness movie 'The Horse's Mouth' (1958).

Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 6:25 am

Akiyuki Nosaka, you mean? I've never read his book, but I have some of his records...

Posted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 7:00 pm

Woops, yeah typo. Interesting that he had a musical career [?]. Other than that novel I don't know anything about the author, what's his music like, Summer? I tried downloading some but (surprise, surprise) nothing doing.