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This collection of short poems is quirky, comic and thought provoking. Dan Dobson offers a contemporary view of life in verse that harks back to earlier, traditional approaches to rhyme and scansion. In the words of Harry Chambers, Editor, Peterloo Poets: "These pack a genuine epigrammatic frisson in a Ron Glum meets A. E. Housman/W. H. Auden sort of way." ... Read more

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In the 1920s, Asakusa was to Tokyo what Montmartre had been to 1890s Paris and Times Square was to be to 1940s New York. Available in English for the first time, The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa, by Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata, captures the decadent allure of this entertainment district, where beggars and teenage prostitutes mixed with revue dancers and famous authors. Originally serialized in a Tokyo daily newspaper in 1929 and 1930, this vibrant novel uses unorthodox, kinetic literary techniques to reflect the raw energy of Asakusa, seen through the eyes of a wandering narrator and the cast of mostly female juvenile delinquents who show him their way of life. Markedly different from Kawabata's later work, The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa shows this important writer in a new light. The annotated edition of this little-known literary gem includes the original illustrations by Ota Saburo. The annotations illuminate Tokyo society and Japanese literature, bringing this fascinating piece of Japanese modernism at last to a wide audience. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Scarlet, Black and Blue
The bruised characters of the underbelly of Asakusa Tokyo life are introduced to us in this early book by the brilliant author Yasunari Kawabata. This first English translation of the master's work contains some "extras"- ncluding Donald Richie's memories of a first meeting with the author.

This was my first introduction to Kawabata, and was a wonderful read. It made me want to know more about the time and that world, and to read more Kawabata-an author I have learned to deeply respect and admire and cherish.

Fascinating early effort by Kawabata; not really about gangs.
The Scarlet Gang of Asakusa was one of Kawabata's earlier works, written after he had already achieved some recognition in Japan with The Izu Dancer, but well before his worldwide breakthrough Snow Country. The novel (now translated into English for the first time ever) takes place in a thriving entertainment district in Tokyo, at a time when Japan was rapidly industrializing, building universities, importing Western technology and making its own, in order to establish itself as a world power. Kawabata's choice of setting was especially well-suited for capturing the spirit of these times, because a place like Asakusa was a perfect illustration of the way the Japanese culture itself was changing: jazz music and flapper dresses became popular, music-halls and vaudeville theatres edged out traditional forms of entertainment, and gender roles were suddenly much less rigid, ambiguity was fashionable, images of ennui-ridden "modern boys" and provocative, alluringly dangerous "modern girls" became so iconic that the words designating them ("mobo" and "moga") entered everyday vernacular. This novel can be read as a valuable document of this interesting and short-lived period in Japanese history.

Nominally, the story revolves around The Scarlet Gang, one of many youth gangs running around Asakusa at the time. Their exploits are related by a nameless, first-person narrator, whose association with members of the gang gives him an excuse to wander around Asakusa and observe various aspects of life there, in a detached and casual manner. Often, the things he sees are unrelated to each other, and he flits from place to place without lingering anywhere for too long, which makes his account seem more like a set of anecdotes about Asakusa life than like a coherent narrative. In fact, the role in the plot of The Scarlet Gang itself is secondary to these anecdotes. The narrator hints that the gang is involved with criminal activities, but never really explains what those activities are, or how the gang profits from them, or even what people are actually in the gang. Only a few members of the gang are encountered in the book, and when they do appear, they're not doing anything gang-related.

It seems that the gang's sole purpose is to give a certain outlaw mystique to its members. Although the ostensible goal of the book may be to create a general portrait of Asakusa life, Kawabata is drawn to deeply introspective, intensely personal stories, as he was in every work he ever wrote. So, when a few distinct plot threads begin to emerge from the book's seemingly formless narrative, they all deal with very specific, individual passions and emotions. The longest of these coalesces around Yumiko, Asakusa slum dweller and prominent member of The Scarlet Gang; her sister, we learn, was seduced and abandoned by a certain man, and eventually Yumiko meets this man, entices him, and takes revenge.

Yumiko is a strange character. She knows the score, talks cynically about prostitutes and gang leaders, like nothing can shock her anymore; her gang affiliation and short haircut serve to establish her as a thoroughly modern girl. Kawabata describes her as possessing a "coarse, adult carnality," and her earthy speech implies that she's highly experienced at using it for her own ends. But then, we learn that she's actually a virgin; she simultaneously shuns and yearns for intimacy, and speaks sorrowfully of her inability to feel attraction towards anyone. This sudden image of disturbed purity does not resemble the stereotype of the "modern girl" at all, but it does greatly resemble all of Kawabata's heroines. Here the author abandons the character of his chosen setting, in favour of one of his own major themes, and in fact, the story only gains power from it.

The other main plot threads also contain haunting depictions of individual turmoil. In one, a pimp known as Left-Handed Hiko acquires and exploits an underage prostitute (a common occurrence in Asakusa, Kawabata implies). However, the way this scenario plays out is anything but common. Although the girl is selling her body, she shows herself to be so inexperienced in worldly matters that she genuinely believes Hiko's smooth-talking and empty promises. Her innocence so astonishes him that he is overcome by intense guilt, then by fear, and finally flees.

Some of the shorter asides are also striking, like the one enumerating the love affairs of a low-level thug named Umekichi; the increasingly sleazy nature of these liaisons is first shocking and then profoundly sad, so much so that there's something unsatisfying about the way the description glibly, quickly tosses them off. Each item on the list of "confessions" hints at depths of passion that could have filled a novel in their own right, but the narrator moves on after having only skimmed the surface. Still, the countless anecdotes interspersed between the main plot threads serve to give a jaunty, devil-may-care demeanour to the story, and the narrator's flippant voice maintains the vibrant feel that Kawabata perceived in Asakusa life, in spite of the more brooding sections.

The back cover and the foreword claim that this is a modernist book, but that might lead one to expect it to be more difficult than it actually is. For instance, the foreword emphasizes the narrator's self-referential turns of phrase, like how he frequently addresses the "dear reader" directly. But this practice can be found in Western literature and poetry before the advent of modernism, where it was used for its humour value, much like it is here. The foreword also interprets the episodic nature of the story as evidence of modernism, but, as the foreword itself points out, the book was being serialized in a newspaper even as it was being written; such a style of writing was especially well-suited for such a format. Perhaps the book makes more sense if one views it as a collection of loosely connected short stories, some longer than others, rather than a novel; and in that case, it again has many precedents in the nineteenth century. ... Read more

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Published and by the Charles E Tuttle Company in Japan. ... Read more

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Les achats comprennent une adhésion à l'essai gratuite au club de livres de l'éditeur, dans lequel vous pouvez choisir parmi plus d'un million d'ouvrages, sans frais. Le livre consiste d'articles Wikipedia sur : Kenshin Sumitaku, Yasunari Kawabata, Yukio Mishima, Kenji Miyazawa, Motojirō Kajii, Sōseki Natsume, Lafcadio Hearn, Inazō Nitobe, Takeo Arishima, Edogawa Ranpo, Tōson Shimazaki, Ōgai Mori, Shiki Masaoka, Yasutaka Tsutsui, Nanao Sakaki, Kaoru Kurimoto, Kōbō Abe, Masahiko Fujiwara, Nobuo Kojima, Shichirō Fukazawa, Toshiyuki Horie, Toshiko Tamura, Yang Yi, Masuji Ibuse, Miyuki Miyabe, Seichō Matsumoto, Hideo Yokoyama. Non illustré. Mises à jour gratuites en ligne. Extrait : Kenshin Sumitaku , , ) était un poète japonais de la seconde moitié du XX siècle (fin de l'Ère Shōwa). Né Harumi Sumitaku, il est plus connu sous son seul prénom de plume Kenshin ). Prêtre bouddhiste diagnostiqué avec une leucémie aiguë à 23 ans, il a consacré au poème court les vingt derniers mois de sa vie. Météore du haïku, au destin littéraire plus bref encore que ceux des mélancoliques tuberculeux Takuboku (1886-1912) et Kajii (1901-1932), Kenshin a laissé 281 haïkus qui ont marqué une génération. Les Japonais l'appellent « le poète du haïku de l'âme ». - (trad. Kemmoku et Blanche) Kenshin est né Harumi Sumitaku , ) le 21 mars 1961, à Okayama, une ville de taille moyenne du sud-ouest du Japon (environ 150 km à l'ouest d'Ōsaka). Bien que le prénom Harumi (« beauté de printemps ») soit habituellement donné aux filles, c'est le sien ; il vient probablement du fait que c'était l'équinoxe de printemps. Premier enfant de la famille, il a une sœur l'année suivante, Keiko. C'est une famille de quatre unie, qui le soutiendra sans faille à chaque tournant de sa vie. - (trad. Kemmoku et Blanche) Kenshin lit beaucoup de mangas, en particulier Osamu Tezuka, et pendant longtemps souhaite devenir dessinateur. Il suit des études normales jusqu'à la fin du collèg...http://booksllc.net/?l=fr ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from Proceso, published by Thomson Gale on December 19, 2004. The length of the article is 881 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Kawabata y las manos del corazón.(Primera nieve en el monte Fuji, colección de obras del autor Yasunari Kawabata)
Author: Alberto Paredes
Publication: Proceso (Magazine/Journal)
Date: December 19, 2004
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Issue: 1468Page: 86(1)

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Les achats comprennent une adhésion à l'essai gratuite au club de livres de l'éditeur, dans lequel vous pouvez choisir parmi plus d'un million d'ouvrages, sans frais. Le livre consiste d'articles Wikipedia sur : Yasunari Kawabata, Sylvia Plath, Roger Salengro, Stig Dagerman, René Crevel, Anne Sexton, Herculine Barbin, Gabrielle Russier, Mathilde de Morny, Dan White, Tadeusz Borowski, John Kennedy Toole, Keith Andes, Chaval, Hugo Distler, Sadao Hasegawa, Mike Whitmarsh. Non illustré. Mises à jour gratuites en ligne. Extrait : Yasunari Kawabata , ), né le 14 juin 1899 et mort le 16 avril 1972, est un écrivain japonais, prix Nobel de littérature en 1968. Considéré comme un écrivain majeur du XXe siècle et obsédé par la quête du beau, la solitude et la mort, il a écrit en particulier des récits très courts, d'un dépouillement stylistique extrême, regroupés plus tard en recueils, mais ses œuvres les plus connues internationalement sont ses romans comme Pays de neige (1935-1947), Le Grondement de la montagne (1954) ou Les Belles Endormies (1960-1961). Le 14 juin 1899, pendant l'ère Meiji, Kawabata Yasunari, deuxième enfant d'une famille prospère et cultivée, vient au monde à Ōsaka. Né prématuré à sept mois, il restera de santé fragile toute son existence. Sa sœur Yoshiko est de quatre ans son aînée. Son père, Eikichi, médecin à Ōsaka fit ses études de médecine à Tōkyō. Fin lettré, amateur de poésie chinoise et de peinture, il meurt de tuberculose en janvier 1901. Sa mère, Gen, née Kuroda, précédemment mariée au frère de son époux, est issue d'une famille fortunée. Après le décès de son mari, elle retourne dans sa maison natale du village de Toyosato en périphérie d'Ōsaka avec ses deux enfants, mais décède de la même maladie en janvier 1902. À trois ans, Yasunari est orphelin. Séparé de sa sœur qui est recueillie par sa tante, il est élevé par ses grands-parents paternels qui vivaient dans le village de Toyokawa, autre district de la...http://booksllc.net/?l=fr ... Read more

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This digital document is an article from International Fiction Review, published by International Fiction Association on January 1, 2002. The length of the article is 4615 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Writing as tea ceremony: Kawabata's geido aesthetics.(Japanese novelist Yasunari Kawabata)(Critical Essay)
Author: Peter M. Carriere
Publication: International Fiction Review (Refereed)
Date: January 1, 2002
Publisher: International Fiction Association
Page: 52(10)

Article Type: Critical Essay

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Word count: 3367. ... Read more

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This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Novels by Yasunari Kawabata, Short Stories by Yasunari Kawabata, Short Story Collections by Yasunari Kawabata, the Sound of the Mountain, Snow Country, the Master of Go, the Old Capital, the Dancing Girl of Izu, Thousand Cranes, the Scarlet Gang of Asakusa, the Lake, Beauty and Sadness, One Arm, Palm-Of-The-Hand Stories, the House of the Sleeping Beauties. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: The Sound of the Mountain (Yama no Oto) is a novel by Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata, serialized between 1949 and 1954. Its translation into English by Edward G. Seidensticker was first published in 1970, earning Seidensticker the National Book Award for Translation the following year. It was made into a Toho movie Sound of the Mountain directed by Mikio Naruse in 1954 starring Setsuko Hara, So Yamamura, Ken Uehara, Yatsuko Tanami. The novel centers upon the Ogata family of Kamakura, and its events are witnessed from the perspective of its aging patriarch, Shingo, a businessman close to retirement who works in Tokyo. Although only sixty-two years old at the beginning of the novel, Shingo has already begun to experience temporary lapses of memory, to recall strange and disturbing dreams upon waking, and occasionally to hear sounds heard by no one else, including the titular noise which awakens him from his sleep one night, "like wind, far away, but with a depth like a rumbling of the earth." Shingo takes the sound to be an omen of his impending death, as he had once coughed up blood (a possible sign of tuberculosis) a year before, but had not sought medical consultation and the symptom subsequently went away. Although he does not outwardly change his daily routine, Shingo begins to observe and question more closely his relations ...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=4051817 ... Read more

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This is nonfiction commentary. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: The Sound of the Mountain, Snow Country, the Master of Go, the Old Capital, Thousand Cranes, the Scarlet Gang of Asakusa, the Lake, Beauty and Sadness, One Arm, the House of the Sleeping Beauties. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: The Sound of the Mountain (Yama no Oto) is a novel by Japanese writer Yasunari Kawabata, serialized between 1949 and 1954. Its translation into English by Edward G. Seidensticker was first published in 1970, earning Seidensticker the National Book Award for Translation the following year. It was made into a Toho movie Sound of the Mountain directed by Mikio Naruse in 1954 starring Setsuko Hara, So Yamamura, Ken Uehara, Yatsuko Tanami. The novel centers upon the Ogata family of Kamakura, and its events are witnessed from the perspective of its aging patriarch, Shingo, a businessman close to retirement who works in Tokyo. Although only sixty-two years old at the beginning of the novel, Shingo has already begun to experience temporary lapses of memory, to recall strange and disturbing dreams upon waking, and occasionally to hear sounds heard by no one else, including the titular noise which awakens him from his sleep one night, "like wind, far away, but with a depth like a rumbling of the earth." Shingo takes the sound to be an omen of his impending death, as he had once coughed up blood (a possible sign of tuberculosis) a year before, but had not sought medical consultation and the symptom subsequently went away. Although he does not outwardly change his daily routine, Shingo begins to observe and question more closely his relations with the other members of his family, who include his wife Yasuko, his philandering son Shuichi (who, in traditional Japanese custom, lives with his wife in his p...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=4051817 ... Read more

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Purchase includes free access to book updates online and a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Ryōji Noyori, Eisaku Satō, Masatoshi Koshiba, Kenzaburō Ōe, Yasunari Kawabata, Osamu Shimomura, List of Japanese Nobel Laureates, Kenichi Fukui, Yoichiro Nambu, Makoto Kobayashi, Hideki Yukawa, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Koichi Tanaka, Leo Esaki, Susumu Tonegawa, Toshihide Maskawa, Hideki Shirakawa. Excerpt:In this Japanese name , the family name is Sat . Eisaku Sat Sat negotiated with U.S. president Richard M. Nixon for the repatriation of Okinawa . Eisaku Sat ( , Sat Eisaku ? , March 27, 1901 June 3, 1975) was a Japanese politician and the 61st, 62nd and 63rd Prime Minister of Japan , elected on November 9, 1964, and re-elected on February 17, 1967, and January 14, 1970, serving until July 7, 1972. He was the longest serving prime minister in the history of Japan. Early life Sat was born in Tabuse , Yamaguchi Prefecture , and studied German law at Tokyo Imperial University . In 1923, he passed the senior civil service examinations, and in the following year, upon graduation, became a civil servant in the Ministry of Railways . He served as Director of the Osaka Railways Bureau from 1944 to 1946 and Vice-Minister for Transportation from 1947 to 1948. Sat entered the Diet in 1949 as a member of the Liberal Party . He was appointed Minister of Postal Services and Telecommunications from July 1951 - July 1952. Sato gradually rose through the ranks of Japanese politics, becoming Chief Cabinet Secretary to Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida from January 1953 to July 1954. He later served as Minister of Construction from October 1952-February 1953. After the Liberal Party merged with the Japan Democratic Party to form the Liberal Democratic Party , Sat served as chairman of the party executive council from December 1957 to June 1958. Sat became Minister of Finance in the cabinets of Nobusuke ... ... Read more

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Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Chapters: Yukio Mishima, Osamu Dazai, Haruki Murakami, Kenzaburō Ōe, Yasunari Kawabata, Motojirō Kajii, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Natsume Sōseki, Kōbō Abe, Mori Ōgai, Ayako Sono, Yuriko Miyamoto, Saneatsu Mushanokōji, Ryūsui Seiryōin, Shōhei Ōoka, Tatsuhiko Shibusawa, Kunikida Doppo, Jun Ishikawa, Takeshi Kaikō, Yumeno Kyūsaku, Fumiko Enchi, Kyoshi Takahama, Naoya Shiga, Masuji Ibuse, Yuya Sato, Ikuma Arishima, Nakayama Gishu, Hayashi Fubo, Ton Satomi, Shūgorō Yamamoto, Yaeko Nogami, Nagai Tatsuo, Hidemi Kon, Rieko Matsuura, Ōtarō Maijō, Yōjirō Ishizaka, Juran Hisao, Matsutarō Kawaguchi, Shōtarō Yasuoka, Tsuneko Nakazato, Tetsu Yano, Shinichi Hoshi, Ogawa Mimei, Junnosuke Yoshiyuki, Kinyuki Sonoike, Mieko Kanai. Source: Wikipedia. Free updates online. Not illustrated. Excerpt: Haruki Murakami Murakami Haruki, born January 12, 1949) is a Japanese writer and translator. His works of fiction and non-fiction have garnered him critical acclaim, and he is the sixth recipient of the Franz Kafka Prize for his novel Kafka on the Shore. He is considered an important figure in postmodern literature, and The Guardian praised him as one of the "world's greatest living novelists." Murakami was born in Japan during the Post-World War II baby boom. Although born in Kyoto, he spent his youth in Shukugawa(Nishinomiya), Ashiya and Kobe. His father was the son of a Buddhist priest, and his mother the daughter of an Osaka merchant. Both taught Japanese literature. Since childhood, Murakami has been heavily influenced by Western culture, particularly Western music and literature. He grew up reading a range of works by American writers, such as Kurt Vonnegut and Richard Brautigan, and he is often distinguished from other Japanese writers by his Western influences. Murakami studied drama at Waseda University in Tokyo,...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=229198 ... Read more

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Chapters: Fumimaro Konoe, Osamu Dazai, Daisuke Gōri, Yasunari Kawabata, Saya Misaki, Suicide in Japan, Jūzō Itami, Aokigahara, Sokushinbutsu, Yukiko Okada, Shimoyama Incident, the Complete Manual of Suicide, Yutaka Taniyama, Ichikawa Danjūrō Viii, Jun Etō, Hisayasu Nagata, Yun Sim-Deok, Misao Fujimura, Tamiki Hara, Chizuko Mifune, Misuzu Kaneko, Arihiro Hase, Kōkichi Tsuburaya, Soga No Emishi, Hiroyuki Oze, Kumatarō Kido and Yagorō Tani, Kensaku Segoe, Toshitaka Shimizu, Kunihiko Hashida, Kentaro Kawatsu, Bizan Kawakami, Kazumi Kawai, Ryūtarō Ōtomo, Kazuhito Komatsu. Source: Wikipedia. Pages: 139. Not illustrated. Free updates online. Purchase includes a free trial membership in the publisher's book club where you can select from more than a million books without charge. Excerpt: Prince Fumimaro Konoe (Kyjitai: , Shinjitai: , Konoe Fumimaro) (often Konoye, October 12, 1891 December 16, 1945) was a Japanese politician who served as the 34th, 38th and 39th Prime Minister of Japan and founder/leader of the Taisei Yokusankai. Prince Fumimaro Konoe was born into the ancient Fujiwara clan, and was the heir of the princely Konoe family in Tokyo. This was a highly prestigious Japanese family, so lofty that the older and more powerful noble, Saionji Kinmochi, addressed the young student as "your excellency" when he first met him. The Prince received a broad education, acquiring both German and English. He was particularly drawn to Socialist writings, and at age 23 translated and published Oscar Wildes The Soul of Man Under Socialism. Konoes father, Atsumaro, had been politically active, having organized the Anti-Russia Society in 1903. Atsumaro had been considered a potential candidate for Prime Minister, but died in 1904. That left Konoe with the title of Prince, plenty of social standing but not much money, and plenty of room for a mentor/father-figure. That mentor was Saionji. Even so, Konoe never fully embraced his mentors pro-Wes...More: http://booksllc.net/?id=17401 ... Read more