04/2023 In the Shade of the Spring Leaves, by Ichiyo Higuchi

[Alison]

Welcome to the thread for Ichiyo Higuchi's short stories and In The Shade of Spring Leaves: The Life of Higuchi Ichiyo, With Nine of Her Best Stories by Robert Lyons Danly.

Higuchi Ichiyo, Japan's first woman writer of stature in modern times, was born in 1872 and died at the age of twenty-four. In her brief life she wrote poems, essays, short stories and a great, multivolume diary. This book is made up of a critical biography, interlaced with extracts from the diary, and Robert Danly's translations of nine representative stories.

You’re invited to read the biography—many of us will read and discuss it—but our focus will be on Higuchi’s short stories collected in the anthology:

Flowers at Dusk (Yamizakura)
A Snowy Day (Yuko no hi)
The Sound of the Koto (Koto no ne)
Encounters on a Dark Night (Yamiyo)
On the Last Day of the Year (Ōtsugomori)
Troubled Waters (Nigorie)
The Thirteenth Night (Jūsan’ya)
Child's Play (Takekurabe)
Separate Ways (Wakare-Michi)

You can find her work in several other volumes. Check her author page: Ichiyō Higuchi. (These include some you might have on your shelf like The Oxford Book of Japanese Short StoriesThe Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories or Modern Japanese Literature: From 1868 to the Present Day .)

If you've never joined us before, our "book club" is extremely informal. Just pick up a copy of the book and post your thoughts as you go. You're also welcome to join if you've read the book before.

You do not have to read in English. In fact, her stories should be out of copyright in Japanese.

Personally, I suggest we discard concern for spoilers this month. It will be impossible to discuss three-page short stories if we don't. Objections?

For anyone who is interested, I did an episode about Ichiyo Higuchi and the historical context of her writing, “The Woman Writers of Meiji Japan” for my Read Japanese Literature podcast. It includes a short biography of Higuchi and a discussion of “Child’s Play” (aka “Growing Up” aka “Takekurabe”) with spoilers. You can find it here: https://readjapaneseliterature.com/20...

And here’s a YouTube video tour of Tokyo sites related to Higuchi’s life: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EfI7...

Let me know if you have resources for me to add to this top post.

[Marcia]

The first story was laden with references and allusions to Chinese literature and poetry. It is characteristic of her early stories. Her mentor encouraged her to move away from this style which he knew was in decline.
The second story is in much the same vein.
"The Sound of the Koto" brings to mind the lovely sound of the koto. The memory of this sound, in all its richness, is the catalyst in the rebirth of an evil man into a good one. Good triumphs over evil. Change is ever possible.
"Encounters on a Dark Night" is like a playful fable/ghost story.

[Jim]

“Child’s Play”/Takekurabe (titled “Growing Up” in Seidensticker’s translation) is a marvelous depiction of the shift from childhood to adolescence. Read in the historical context of the Meiji period it suggests that the great promise of Japan’s emerging modernity might not really be in reach for all.

[Bill]

The first 35 pages of Higuchi's (and her family's) life go pretty well. But after she turns 20 and decides to become an author the pacing really slows down. I may start skimming this afternoon until it gets to some mention of her writings.

[Bill]

I recommend the first 35 pages to give some background to her life, and the rest only if you really feel the need for a very detailed account of her poverty. Interspersed are some interesting extracts from her diaries, and some summaries of her stories (which I didn't read, to avoid spoilers).

"Flowers at Dusk" doesn't really say much. The torments of a love one doesn't confess aren't new to Meiji literature, and neither is wasting away for it. The unrealistic wasting away for love as a throwback to older literature kind of ruins the story for me. There are so many more realistic endings Ichiyou could have come up with in keeping with the modern times.

[Bill]

"A Snowy Day" is a beautiful, compact story. It's only four pages long, yet with an economy of words it manages to express a complete plot.

I thought teacher/student romances were a creepy, modern invention. I didn't know they went back to Meiji days when girls' schools were new. I feel the age difference is too extreme, but maybe that's just a modern feeling. I was reading Sense and Sensibility a few days ago, and the age differences there are just as large.

Despite getting very few sentences of dialog, the aunt in A Snowy Day manages to express her hypocrisy and hatred quite clearly, and does exactly the thing that will bring about what she does not want to happen. The blame falls far more on her than on the MC.

[Bill]

I was disappointed by "Encounters on a Dark Night."

The text is full of loaded words directed at the young man, like fool and despised, that clash with the narrative. What the author is saying and what she's showing just don't mesh. I kept waiting for more justification for this negativity, but never got it.

[Marcia]

Bill wrote: "I was disappointed by "Encounters on a Dark Night."

The text is full of loaded words directed at the young man, like fool and despised, that clash with the narrative. What the author is saying and..."

I think the story could be an effort by Ichiyo to put into words an old folk tale. As folk tales were meant to be passed down in the spoken form, details became changed to suit the audience or the teller of the tale. So all aspects of the story could be changed. Perhaps the young man was brilliant in one version, and a country bumpkin in another. The story seems to me to be almost contradictory in how he is depicted. One wonders what the main focus even was in this story. Is it about the young man? Is it about the mysteriously beautiful woman who nobody ever saw? Was it about revenge? It seems like you can make of this story whatever you want.
Maybe Ichiyo was testing the waters regarding what people wanted to read. Maybe she was experimenting with a new style. It is like a middle ground, somewhere between the early "eliteist" style and her totally down to earth, realistic stories later on.