3.5
Kwaidan
By Lafcadio HearnPublisher Description
A classic book of ghost stories from one of the world’s leading nineteenth-century writers, the author of In Ghostly Japan and Japanese Fairy Tales.
Published just months before Lafcadio Hearn’s death in 1904, Kwaidan features several stories and a brief nonfiction study on insects: butterflies, mosquitoes, and ants. The tales included are reworkings of both written and oral Japanese traditions, including folk tales, legends, and superstitions.
“At age thirty-nine, Hearn travelled on a magazine assignment to Japan, and never came back. At a moment when that country, under Emperor Meiji, was weathering the shock and upheaval of forced economic modernization, Hearn fell deeply in love with the nation’s past. He wrote fourteen books on all manner of Japanese subjects but was especially infatuated with the customs and culture preserved in Japanese folktales—particularly the ghost-story genre known as kaidan. . . . He died in 1904, and, by the time his ‘Japanese tales’ were translated into Japanese, in the nineteen-twenties, the country’s transformation was so complete that Hearn was hailed as a kind of guardian of tradition; his kaidan collections are still part of the curriculum in many Japanese schools.” —The New Yorker
Published just months before Lafcadio Hearn’s death in 1904, Kwaidan features several stories and a brief nonfiction study on insects: butterflies, mosquitoes, and ants. The tales included are reworkings of both written and oral Japanese traditions, including folk tales, legends, and superstitions.
“At age thirty-nine, Hearn travelled on a magazine assignment to Japan, and never came back. At a moment when that country, under Emperor Meiji, was weathering the shock and upheaval of forced economic modernization, Hearn fell deeply in love with the nation’s past. He wrote fourteen books on all manner of Japanese subjects but was especially infatuated with the customs and culture preserved in Japanese folktales—particularly the ghost-story genre known as kaidan. . . . He died in 1904, and, by the time his ‘Japanese tales’ were translated into Japanese, in the nineteen-twenties, the country’s transformation was so complete that Hearn was hailed as a kind of guardian of tradition; his kaidan collections are still part of the curriculum in many Japanese schools.” —The New Yorker
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Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities10 Reviews
3.5
Erik Aguayo
Created 3 months agoShare
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OmelasCafé
Created 9 months agoShare
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JJ
Created over 1 year agoShare
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“For the weekly topic of J-horror, I read two short stories from Lafcadio Hearn's Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things – The Story of Mimi-Hashi-Hoichi and Diplomacy. The Story of Mimi-Hashi-Hoichi follows the tale of Hoichi, a blind struggling musician who is invited to live at the Buddhist temple, Amidaji, by his friend, the Priest. Amidaji was built on the grounds of Akamagaseki, the death place of the Heike who fought against another ruling clan by the name of Genji. The whole clan perished, all the children, women, warriors and even their emperor. The warriors would haunt the shores of Akamagaseki, sinking ships and drowning swimmers. The temple was built as a way to appease the spirits along with the creation of a cemetery that housed tombstones with every warrior's name.
After the priest leaves on business, Hoichi decides to play his biwa on the verandah connected to this room in an effort to wait for the priest's return. Many hours later, the priest has yet to return, Hoichi is approached by a stranger who asks him to come play for him and his people. The man was one of the ghost warriors and after they were done with Hoichi, they planned to kill him. The priest returned and having heard where Hoichi was going at night, warned and had his people perform a ceremony and write words all over his body so the ghost could not see him.
The priest left that night and when he returned the next morning, he found Hoichi bleeding on his verandah. His people forgot to write on Hoichi's ears and the ghost ripped them right off. Apologizing profusely, the priest tended to Hoichi's wounds and upon recovery Hoichi was known as Mimi-Hashi-Hoichi - Hoichi the earless.
Dipolamcy was super anti-climatic. A huge disappointment, really. There was no physical ghost or haunting. It just told the story of how an executer avoids being haunted by the spirits of his victims. I finished reading it and yelled out loud, "That's it?!?!?!" As I said, super anti-climatic.
Overall, I enjoyed the writing behind the stories and how it plays into cultural legends of that time.”
Justin O'Reilly
Created over 1 year agoShare
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Bernard J. Leman
Created almost 2 years agoShare
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