I liked “The Wild Geese” when I read it, but that was a while ago. Just now I’m reading “The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories” and the volume contains one story by Ogai that I didn’t know: “The Last Testament of Okitsu Yagoemon”, which shows his roots in traditional Japanese culture. I found it a subtle but well crafted short story!
I just finished this (the English translation). It was a pleasant concise read with little fluff and 90% of the paragraphs have a necessary function. For its length, it is remarkably good at giving ample insights into each character’s psyche; even the minor characters (Ishihara, Otama’s maid and okusan’s maid) were given enough liveliness. The author is as shrewd as Suezo for (in my opinion cleverly) choosing a narrator’s perspective which allowed for the aforementioned psychological insights and (yet) at the same time he did have to put effort into making a coherent sequential arrangement (narrator → Okada → Suezo → the father → Otama → Otsune etc.) before he could execute the main plot. One may notice the lack of Okada’s psychological insights, but this shortcoming is perfectly implicitly justified and (un)executed. I highly recommend this short story for the reasons above even if the reader isn’t familiar with much Japanese culture and history at all (as I am not).
so adorable to see Ogai from BSD in the thumbnails, enjoyed your murakami rankings! keep it up ^_^
I liked “The Wild Geese” when I read it, but that was a while ago. Just now I’m reading “The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories” and the volume contains one story by Ogai that I didn’t know: “The Last Testament of Okitsu Yagoemon”, which shows his roots in traditional Japanese culture. I found it a subtle but well crafted short story!
I just finished this (the English translation). It was a pleasant concise read with little fluff and 90% of the paragraphs have a necessary function. For its length, it is remarkably good at giving ample insights into each character’s psyche; even the minor characters (Ishihara, Otama’s maid and okusan’s maid) were given enough liveliness. The author is as shrewd as Suezo for (in my opinion cleverly) choosing a narrator’s perspective which allowed for the aforementioned psychological insights and (yet) at the same time he did have to put effort into making a coherent sequential arrangement (narrator → Okada → Suezo → the father → Otama → Otsune etc.) before he could execute the main plot.
One may notice the lack of Okada’s psychological insights, but this shortcoming is perfectly implicitly justified and (un)executed.
I highly recommend this short story for the reasons above even if the reader isn’t familiar with much Japanese culture and history at all (as I am not).
Después de leer "La moneda de oro" me enamoré del trabajo de Ogai ❤
Just bought this book about a week ago, what a perfect time for this video
Let me know how you like it!
Loved the book! Thank you very much for your suggestion!
I finished this book I really like it 🥰. That's my first time reading book from Mori Ogai❤
Have you read «Life for sale» by Yukio Mishima?
Yes I have! I think I talk about it in the Mishima tierlist video
In 1953, wasn't there a film adaptation of this book?
Yes, the Toyoda Shiro film from 1953 is an adaptation of this novel, which is called 'Gan' (雁) in Japanese.
Help the little bsd mori
p͎r͎o͎m͎o͎s͎m͎ 🎉