Edward Seidensticker Książki

Certain conjunctions of time and place exert a special fascination--Paris in the twenties, turn-of-the-century Vienna, Weimar Berlin. Tokyo in the years between the Meiji Restoration and the Earthquake of 1923 is one of these. Until 1867 the city was called Edo--it was the shogun's capital, the biggest city in a country almost completely closed to the outside world for two and a half centuries. Then, helter-skelter, it became a modern metropolis brimming with Western fads, ideas, and technologies, exuberantly inventing and imitating even as it yearned for the past it was destroying. East and West met here as never before--or since.

Japanese for Everyone Paperback – Import, 1000 by Gakken (Author)

Death, homosexuality and the spiritual emptiness of post-war Japan: these are the often shocking subjects which Mishima explores. The old world meets the new in this collection of fiction and drama by one of Japan's most celebrated writers. A husband prepares to commit hara-kiri in the name of patriotism; an ascetic struggles with temptation; and a businessman meets a past love in the streets of San Francisco. Violence colours the work of Mishima, as it did his life. But there is also delicate observation, pathos, humour and irony in these beautifully crafted tales. Contents: - Death in Midsummer - Three Million Yen - Thermos Flasks - The Priest of Shiga Temple and His Love - The Seven Bridges - Patriotism - Dōjōji - Onnagata - The Pearl - Swaddling Clothes

Widely considered to be a classic, this essay on Japanese aesthetics by a major author ranges from the patina of lacquerware and the custom of moon-viewing to monastery toilets and the lighting in a brothel, while contrasting the Japanese sense of subtlety and nuance with Western imports such as electric lighting

Zwycięzca Nagrody Nobla, Yasunari Kawabata, w swojej świetlistej kronice meczu w japońską grę Go przedstawia zmagania mistrza z młodszym, nowoczesnym rywalem, co staje się emocjonalnym elegijnym hołdem dla całego społeczeństwa. Go to gra strategiczna, w której dwóch graczy stara się otoczyć czarne lub białe kamienie przeciwnika. Prosta w zasadach, nieskończenie złożona w wykonaniu, Go jest istotnym wyrazem japońskiego ducha. W fikcyjnej kronice meczu, który rozgrywa się między czczonym i dotąd niepokonanym Mistrzem a młodszym rywalem, Kawabata uchwycił moment, w którym niezmienne tradycje cesarskiej Japonii zderzają się z atakiem XX wieku. Rywalizacja między Mistrzem Go a jego przeciwnikiem, Otaké, toczy się przez kilka miesięcy, przepełniona ceremonią. Jednak pod pozorami gry kryją się napięcia, które pochłaniają nie tylko samych graczy, ale także ich rodziny i służbę — napięcia, które sprawiają, że ta konkretna rywalizacja staje się pojedynkiem, który może zakończyć się tylko śmiercią.

Thousand Cranes is a story of love given and love withheld. Set against the backdrop of Japan's traditional tea ceremony, it is a taut, highly dramatic novel gleaming with sudden passages of poetic beauty. In one of the book's strongest scenes, the two characters are symbolized by the two fine old China bowls, one female and one male, that sit before them. The novel opens with Kikuji on his way to a tea ceremony given by Chikako, one of his father's former mistresses. He is also on his way to act out the unfinished drama of his father's life. Kikuji's father had been a cultivated man, an art lover and a pleasure seeker. He had cast off one mistress, Chikako, but had loved another, Mrs Ota, until his death. Kikuji, like his father, tries to escape from Chikako, now masculine and meddlesome. Like his father, too, he is drawn to Mrs Ota, who has remained young, alluring and pliant even though her daughter, Fumiko, is only twenty years old. Kikuji's guilty passion for Mrs Ota and Fumiko's efforts to alter the family fate lead to the novel's stunning climax.

Shimamura is tired of the bustling city. He takes the train through the snow to the mountains of the west coast of Japan to meet with a geisha he believes he loves. Beautiful and innocent, Komako is tightly bound by the rules of a rural geisha and lives a life of servitude and seclusion that is alien to Shimamura – their love offers no freedom to either of them. Snow Country is both delicate and subtle, reflecting in Kawabata's exact, lyrical writing the unspoken love and the understated passion of the young Japanese couple.

This memoir is by a translator who has introduced two generations of English-language audiences to the masterpieces of classical and modern Japanese literature. His patient rendering of novels ranging from the 11th-century Tale of Genji to works of such modern masters as Junichiro Tanizaki, Yukio Mishima and Nobel-Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata has earned him the National Book Award as well as the Order of the Rising Sun, Japan's highest honour for foreigners.

A continuation of the author's history of Tokyo explains how the city recovered from both a major earthquake and Allied bombing raids in World War II

100 of the most common sayings are collected here with their English equivalents. Each proverb is given in Japanese script and in romanized form with a delightful illustration.