Death Register

by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa

Genres: Classics, Short Stories

Unknown Binding

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

[moomin and ducks · Rating 4 out of 5]

A reflection on the author's own life and association with the deaths of those closest to him, this seemed like a systematic account of them, with little light on how it has shaped him directly. However, it helps the reader get some idea of it by the end. All alone in the world, in a graveyard with a place just for him waiting for his death and joining with the others from his family, this story indicates his mental state and longing for death waiting to account for his own in the death register.

[Markakaraci Alakakaci · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’m sure if I hadn’t lost to him, I would have ended up another victim of my father’s temper.

Back at the hospital, I found my father eagerly awaiting my return…. He began to talk about Long-ago matters that I had never known - things from the time when he married my mother.

[crescent · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly , it’s just depressing .

[alice]

"I don't much like visiting the cemetery, and I would prefer to forget about my parents and sister if I could. On that particular day, though, perhaps because I was physically debilitated, I found myself staring at the blackened gravestone in the early spring afternoon sunlight and wondering which of the three had been the most fortunate.

A shimmering of heat —
Outside the grave
Alone I dwell.

Never before had I sensed these feelings of Jōsō's pressing in upon me with the force they truly had for me that day."

[mothy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I’m not sure why, this book gave me goosebumps. I am not even fully aware of the whole plot, as I find the book to be lacking an actual leitmotif (She died, then she died, then he died…?). But what touched me was the atmosphere of the book and the introspection. I felt like the narrator’s soul’s and my soul’s fingers brushed against one another for at least a split second…

[Carla · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5
Loved this also unique idea

[Maddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️3

[matilde · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.75

[Hi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very short story of the narrator briefly recounting those in his life who have passed. There's not much to say about it because it's very simple. I suppose it shows different ways a person grieves and remembers their loved ones. Considering how this is autobiographical, it makes sense.