Cogwheels and Other Stories

by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

In 1914, Akutagawa published his short story Rashomon, which won him considerable praise and he followed that up with another highly acclaimed short story, The Nose. His reputation as one of the first great Japanese modernists in literature was already established during his lifetime. In 1950, a great Japanese film director, inspired by the work of Akutagawa, released his classic film 'Rashomon'. Akutagawa was an avid reader of ghost stories, Chinese and Japanese classics as well as Poe, de Maupassant, Anatole France, Kipling and other masters of the short story. His works probe psychological themes such as decadence, obsession and the grotesque, all combined in a highly dramatic narrative style. This book is a collection of his work.

Genres: Japanese Literature, Short Stories, Japan, Classics

74 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1982

About the author

Akutagawa Ryūnosuke (芥川 龍之介) was one of the first prewar Japanese writers to achieve a wide foreign readership, partly because of his technical virtuosity, partly because his work seemed to represent imaginative fiction as opposed to the mundane accounts of the I-novelists of the time, partly because of his brilliant joining of traditional material to a modern sensibility, and partly because of film director Kurosawa Akira's masterful adaptation of two of his short stories for the screen.

Akutagawa was born in the Kyōbashi district Tokyo as the eldest son of a dairy operator named Shinbara Toshizō and his wife Fuku. He was named "Ryūnosuke" ("Dragon Offshoot") because he was born in the Year of the Dragon, in the Month of the Dragon, on the Day of the Dragon, and at the Hour of the Dragon (8 a.m.). Seven months after Akutagawa's birth, his mother went insane and he was adopted by her older brother, taking the Akutagawa family name. Despite the shadow this experience cast over Akutagawa's life, he benefited from the traditional literary atmosphere of his uncle's home, located in what had been the "downtown" section of Edo.

At school Akutagawa was an outstanding student, excelling in the Chinese classics. He entered the First High School in 1910, striking up relationships with such classmates as Kikuchi Kan, Kume Masao, Yamamoto Yūzō, and Tsuchiya Bunmei. Immersing himself in Western literature, he increasingly came to look for meaning in art rather than in life. In 1913, he entered Tokyo Imperial University, majoring in English literature. The next year, Akutagawa and his former high school friends revived the journal Shinshichō (New Currents of Thought), publishing translations of William Butler Yeats and Anatole France along with original works of their own. Akutagawa published the story Rashōmon in the magazine Teikoku bungaku (Imperial Literature) in 1915. The story, which went largely unnoticed, grew out of the egoism Akutagawa confronted after experiencing disappointment in love. The same year, Akutagawa started going to the meetings held every Thursday at the house of Natsume Sōseki, and thereafter considered himself Sōseki's disciple.

The lapsed Shinshichō was revived yet again in 1916, and Sōseki lavished praise on Akutagawa's story Hana (The Nose) when it appeared in the first issue of that magazine. After graduating from Tokyo University, Akutagawa earned a reputation as a highly skilled stylist whose stories reinterpreted classical works and historical incidents from a distinctly modern standpoint. His overriding themes became the ugliness of human egoism and the value of art, themes that received expression in a number of brilliant, tightly organized short stories conventionally categorized as Edo-mono (stories set in the Edo period), ōchō-mono (stories set in the Heian period), Kirishitan-mono (stories dealing with premodern Christians in Japan), and kaika-mono (stories of the early Meiji period). The Edo-mono include Gesaku zanmai (A Life Devoted to Gesaku, 1917) and Kareno-shō (Gleanings from a Withered Field, 1918); the ōchō-mono are perhaps best represented by Jigoku hen (Hell Screen, 1918); the Kirishitan-mono include Hokōnin no shi (The Death of a Christian, 1918), and kaika-mono include Butōkai(The Ball, 1920).

Akutagawa married Tsukamoto Fumiko in 1918 and the following year left his post as English instructor at the naval academy in Yokosuka, becoming an employee of the Mainichi Shinbun. This period was a productive one, as has already been noted, and the success of stories like Mikan (Mandarin Oranges, 1919) and Aki (Autumn, 1920) prompted him to turn his attention increasingly to modern materials. This, along with the introspection occasioned by growing health and nervous problems, resulted in a series of autobiographically-based stories known as Yasukichi-mono, after the name of the main character. Works such as Daidōji Shinsuke no hansei(The Early Life of

Reviews

[RKanimalkingdom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve previously read all the stories in this collection, but I would never hesitate to pick up another edition. Different translation often broadens one’s understanding of a story and even begs the question of which translation is most authentic to the original text. Are older translations better because they are closer to the time period in which the story was written, or, do modern interpretations allow for better fluidity due to the transformations languages undergoes?

One benefit of this edition is the beautiful illustrations created by Naoko Matsubara.

It’s often said that an author writes as a sort of therapy in order to deal with the thoughts and inner emotions. It’s a therapeutic way for them to confront their issues in order to rise above it and maybe, in the process, shed light for others to make stronger. Akutagawa was not so much this type of author. His works are vast and varied. They touch on almost every plausible genre; the only thing connecting them being the fact that they are short stories. But that doesn’t mean he wasn’t fraught with his own worries. On the contrary, his with riddled with them, but it was not in his nature to bring them to light. Cogwheels, though, is his attempt at making an exception.

Review Continued Here

[Clearhazedaze · Rating 3 out of 5]

1. Cogwheels (or Spinning Gears) 2.5 ⭐

More of an autobiography than fiction, Akutagawa's struggles with mental health and reflections and events happening in his life. Sounds interesting, I enjoyed the insight , though at times it felt difficult to keep reading (which I'm not sure if it's a translation issue, or some events , dialogues felt superfluous)

2. Hell Screen 4 ⭐

This is a classic for Akutagawa for me, I read it from a different translation so in this copy I didn't check to see if it holds up, but anyway . Incredible fiction, short but doesn't feel abrupt, the story of this artist and his creation is fascinating, the writing has me hooked but that's typical for Ryunosuke's short stories.

3. Spider's Thread 2.75⭐
Extremely short, the only reason I can't rate higher is that I wished for more. Buddha giving a chance to a man in hell to be saved by climbing a Spider's thread because in his life,though he was a thief and a sinner , he didn't step on a spider, but his selfishness doesn't get him far. It almost reads like a children's story only for the shortness and moral lesson it ends with. I don't know if the fact I wanted it to be a bit longer shows how great he is at establishing a setting,a theme and a concept , but it should. Them again, he's at his element, short stories that draw you immediately in.

Rashomon, In a Grove, Yam Gruel, The Martyr , are examples of his work as a short story writer that I loved . (Planning to read The Nose and others at the time of writing this )

[Natascha Eschweiler · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bought this for my Akutagawa collection but I won't keep it.
It definitely needs to be proofread again; there's an embarrassingly high amount of mistakes given the number of pages. The translations are not the best I've read so far, and all three stories can be easily found in other collections, so no harm in letting this one go.

[Jon Nakapalau · Rating 5 out of 5]

As horrifying as anything Edgar Allen Poe ever wrote – Akutagawa is a master of ‘existential horror’ (my term). Cogwheels is the story of a man who sees what is behind the curtain of sanity – a sanity that is being taken away from him. Hell Screen is about an artist trying to paint the torments of damnation; but he is only able to finish with a ‘model’ to inspire him. The Spider's Thread is a tale of redemption after damnation; yet even that can be lost due to selfishness. There are some spelling errors here, but nothing you will not be able to ‘fill’ with the right word. Highest recommendation.

[granda · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ending with the wife...

Man :(

Why?

Another not subtle-at-all autobiographic story from Akutagawa. Bro talks about his trauma, his insomnia, his nerdiness for books, his mom being mentally ill and his feeling of unworthiness when it comes to his family. It was all done great, hits hard but it didn't feel nearly as beautiful as The life of a stupid man until Akutagawa hit me with that ending. Jesusfuck. Why?

P.S.: there were a couple of weird comments about young girls, I'm willing to let that pass because he's literally suicidal and because it might've been a translation thing but if I see that pattern again on another work, I'll hold that against him then.

[Kutek · Rating 4 out of 5]

Este es corto. Tiene 3 cuentos. Cogwheels es intrigante: da mucho que pensar sobre una sensibilidad particular llevada al extremo por una estética extranjera. El Biombo del infierno ya es clásico. La telaraña de Buda es una breve parábola escrita con belleza. Akutagawa es tan cool...

[Ana · Rating 3 out of 5]

5 for the bleak folkloric stories themselves, but 2.5 for the translation, which seems inelegant and/or a bit rough, even to a non-Japanese reader.

[Harajyuku · Rating 4 out of 5]

This contains "Cogwheels," "Hell Screen," and "The Spider's Thread."

[SmokingChagga · Rating 4 out of 5]

The translation and the stories themselves are amazing. Only problem is, this book has a bunch of misspellings. It's not too distracting, but it has to be said.

[Alice · Rating 4 out of 5]

The translation is dated and there are typos seemingly due to being scanned from a handwritten document.
Still, a worthy Dostoyevskian (Notes from Underground) account of misery.