A Strange Tale from East of the River

A Strange Tale from East of the River and Other Stories  - Nagai Kafu(Author), Edward Seidensticker (Translator)  4805302666

Nagai Kafū (永井 荷風, 1879 – 1959) loved the old downtown section of Tokyo for its theaters, variety shows, bars, geisha houses, and music. Like Lafcadio Hearn, he enjoyed the old, the neglected, and the out of the way in arts and entertainment, since he had no interest in business, society, politics, or imperial policies that wanted to turn East and Southeast Asia into a vast slave labor camp. Like any decent person, he just wanted to be left alone, unhassled by the cops in their constant stop-and-frisks used against anybody they didn’t like the looks of, even – or especially - harmless bookish types like Nagai Kafū.

These stories give a sense of the culture of the old downtown, the shitamachi  下町 that Edward Seidensticker wrote so lovingly about in his great book, High City, Low City. The stories are generally the same, with the same kind of characters. A literary guy, bored and revolted by the noisy modern world, hangs out with women in the demimonde. Listening to the quant sounds of the city like the traditional hoots, rings and shouts of pushcart vendors and artisans, enjoying traditional festivals, keeping above the concerns of the buying and selling of modernizing Japan. The stories pine for times past, late Tokugawa and early Meiji, the world of ukiyoe, the strumming of the samisen.

It’s all dreamy and elegiac, for readers who were there only in former lives. And better read one at a time, in quiet moments during the fall. Readers who’ve visited Asakusa 浅草 or the grittier parts of Osaka like Juso 十三 or Dōtonbori  道頓堀 will get an extra kick.