Still Life and Other Stories

by Junzo Shono, Wayne P. Lammers (Translator)

"Shono conveys both intimacy and distance, tranquility and tension, as he explores the shifting relations between husband and wife, father and son, brother and sister." - Publishers Weekly
"These stories are so artful... they seem like the artless productions of life itself." -Kenyon College Book Review -- Kenyon College Book Review
"This collection should be sipped and savored like warm sake." - Small Press Winner of the Pen Center West Award, this delicate collection of thirteen linked tales reveals the flow of daily life in the modern Japanese family. Junzo Shono's artful layering of commonplace events, images, and conversations has been compared to haiku poetry crossed with an Ozu film.

Genres: Japan, Short Stories, Fiction, Japanese Literature

264 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Junzō Shōno was a Japanese novelist. A native of Osaka, Shōno began writing novels after World War II. He won the Akutagawa Prize in 1955 for his book Purusaido Shokei (Poolside Scene). Shōno's other award winning books include Seibutsu (Still Life), for which he won the Shinchosha literary prize, Yube no Kumo (Evening Clouds), which was awarded the Yomiuri literary prize, and Eawase (Picture Cards) which took the Noma literary prize.

Shōno lived for one year in the United States in the late 1950s on a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation at Kenyon College in Ohio. Shōno later published a book, Gambia Taizaiki about his experiences at Kenyon.

Shōno was made a member of the Japan Art Academy in 1978. He died of natural causes at his home in Kawasaki on September 21, 2009. Shōno was 88.

Reviews

[E. G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Introduction & Acknowledgments, by Wayne P. Lammers

Part One: marriage
--A Dance
--Evenings at the Pool

Part Two: family album
--Still Life
--Crabs
--Birds
--Woodshed
--Azure Sky
--Two Men and the Autumn Wind
--The Workshop
--Picture Cards

Part Three: still together
--The Rooster
--The Mouse
--On the Roof

[Stephen Rowland · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me four months to complete this collection of stories, which contains less than 300 pages. It has nothing to do with the quality of writing -- Shono is a master. It's not tedious or dull or irritating or anything like that. It is, however, deeply depressing, filled with defeat and resentment, but in a quiet Japanese way that seeps into your pores and slowly, yet without a doubt, makes you want to die. Whatever the opposite of 'life-affirming' is, this is it. So of course I loved the entire damn thing and hold Shono is the highest regard now. Unfortunately there is nothing else by him in English, so the love affair is over.

[PEN Center USA · Rating 5 out of 5]

1993 PEN Center USA Award Winner for Translation

[Ad · Rating 2 out of 5]

Shono Junzo (1921-2009) was born in Osaka and studied English at the Osaka School of Foreign languages and Kyushu University. After the war, while working as a teacher in Osaka, Shono started writing. In his first stories he probed the psychological turmoil of young married couples who are faced with a variety of marital and financial crises. One of these was Akutagawa Prize winning “A Poolside Scene.” Shono now became a full-time writer. Later stories concentrate on the common, everyday happenings in a family of five, a family very much like Shono's own. Shono's work is rooted firmly in the Shishosetsu tradition and the activities and conversations described are closely modeled on real-life occurrences. Rather than on the disintegration of the family, Shono's focus is on the little things that form a bond within a family. The same family of five figures in his major novel from 1964, Yube no kumo ("Evening Clouds"), which won the Yomiuri Literary Prize.

Some of the best stories are:

- "Purusaido shokei" ("A Poolside Scene")
The best of Shono's short stories about crises in newly married lives. Aoki's existence seems all happiness: every evening he has his sons practice swimming in the school pool, after which his wife with the dog comes to fetch them and they return home for the happy family dinner. But in reality the family is in danger: Mr Aoki has embezzled company funds and been summarily discharged. Mrs Aoki knew her husband was somewhat fun and drink loving, but she now manages to pull the true story out of him: he has spent the stolen money on another woman, a beautiful bar hostess. For Mrs Aoki, after fifteen years of marriage, everything around her seems to collapse... Winner of the 32nd Akutagawa Prize.

- “Seibutsu” (“Still Life”)
A quiet tale about the normal, daily happenings in a family of five, one of a series that focuses on the small events and non-events of domestic life. Shono's artful layering of commonplace happenings, images, and conversations can be compared to an Ozu film. Seibutsu is almost more a picture than a story.

[Eric Hinkle · Rating 3 out of 5]

These stories are a sort of "detail" of a larger painting. The family is more or less the same, and each story details a few moments of their lives. They're largely simple, mundane tales, often pretty cheerful - although the first two, earlier ones are quite bleak. I must say, I enjoyed those ones a bit more. I don't know what that says about me!

[Terry94705 · Rating 3 out of 5]

Japanese short stories, most of them about the same family, early 1960s to early 1970s. Quiet stories, domestic slice-of-life, some humor, no high drama. Interesting because most are from the father’s point of view, rare for Japanese fiction. In fact, rare for English language fiction!

[Gertrude & Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Aptly titled Still Life, this collection of short stories is exactly that, "still lifes." They seem to just sit there, but they reflect an inconspicuous but beautiful reality. These are quiet stories of relationships in an ever increasingly more complex time. Shono Junzo's style is reminiscent of the traditional Japanese landscape painters who focused on tranquil simplicity to depict their understanding of the world, and likewise, he too, draws out much more than his writing suggests.

While many writers focus entirely on exciting plots where everything seems to move at blinding speed, Shono takes an entirely different approach to portray life. Rather than presenting it to us from a series of episodes, he performs the task with the least possible. And within each episode nothing is left hidden from his perceptive mind. Without movement, he manages to move the reader. His brand of literature is not for everybody, but, those who do read his stories they will be pleasantly surprised.

[Lump · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent translation, having read the original Japanese as well - very creative in some cases to make it natural without straying from the original language used

[CBSD Library]

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