A wonderful new appreciation for the Japanese literature giants has been gained! While I couldn’t quite fathom its essence in the native language, English bridged the gaps that were lost in ‘subtlety’. It seems strange, yet the enigma is appropriately so Japanese. Although comprised of many authors through different times, their literature style is unique to their being Japanese; their eye level is low and microscopic, like that of a haiku poet, somehow managing to grasp universal truths though the fading autumn light.
There are many visual scenes that will stay with me: a knife dripping “greasy” blood (Patriotism), ants on a mother who turns to sugar (Filling up with Sugar), a grasshopper on a leg that is wounded in war (Insects), a pale rainbow after the dropping of the bomb (Hiroshima City of Doom).
“I had way too many memories – like standing between two mirrors, staring into their distance. Our history together, his and mine, had the near-infinite expanse of a world in miniature, and now I was cut off from it all.”
Bee Honey by Banana Yoshimoto
“I remember this people and from deep within me the thought wells up: How am I different from anyone else? Don’t we all receive this life of ours in a place between heaven and earth, only to return, hand in hand, along the same eternal track, to that infinite heaven? And when this feeling strikes me, I find myself in tears, for in truth there is then no self, no other. I am touched by thought of each and every one.”
Unforgettable People by Doppo Kunikida
JohannaAirth 
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