A Traveller Who Laughs

Chapter 2 discusses Unbeaten Tracks in Japan (1880) by Isabella Bird, focusing on textual manifestations of intimacy between Bird and Japanese people, particularly her interpreter-guide Ito. Drawing on theoretical discussions in feminist anthropology and affect theory, it reveals the complexity of the politics between the traveller and hosts as well as Bird’s fluid identity and exceptional openness towards the alterity of Japanese culture. It also carries out a textual analysis of Itō no koi (Itō’s Romance) (2005), a retelling of Bird’s journey from Ito’s perspective by the twenty-first-century Japanese writer Nakajima Kyōko. It argues that Nakajima’s rewriting accords Bird and her contemporary Japanese women literary afterlife through their intergenerational female friendship. It also presents a thorough critique of the traditional androcentric paradigm of survival and friendship. It thus indicates the exciting possibility of travel writing in the field of world literature.

The Technology and Economy of Care

This paper studies the idea of care in the science fiction of Japanese writer Gen Urobuchi: The Song of Saya (2003), Puella Magi Madoka Magica (2011), and its sequel Rebellion (2013). Utilizing Jacques Derrida’s notion of the gift, Bernard Stiegler’s critique of entropy, and Takeo Doi’s analysis of amae, I examine how these works situate care in relation to thermodynamic and libidinal economy. I demonstrate that care is always an embodied act intertwined with technology and economy, and that by reading care as a pharmakon that both heals and poisons, a "neganthropic" hope can emerge from the entropic system of the Anthropocene.

A comparison of the motifs of artist's obsession in „The Tattooer“ by Tanizaki Jun'ichirō and „Tale of a Mad Painter“ by Kim Dong-in

This paper discusses similarities in the choices of plots and motifs in the short stories The Tattooer (1910) by Japanese writer Tanizaki Jun'ichirō and Tale of a Mad Painter (1935) by Korean writer Kim Dong-in, and hypothesizes a possible connection between them. In order to find out whether these works are really connected, common literary influences on both stories and analyzed stories’ structures and motifs were compared in this thesis. Results revealed that these two works were written under the influence of the same literary works: the theme of the relationship between art and violence and the motif of the artist obsessed with the desire to create an artistic masterpiece in The Tattooer and Tale of a Mad Painter are most likely inspired by Oscar Wilde's novel The Picture of Dorian Gray and Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Oval Portrait, while motifs of sexual perversions are inspired by Psychopathia Sexualis by Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing. Not only two stories were written under the same influences, but the story Tale of a Mad Painter itself intertextually reworked Tanizaki’s The Tattooer adjusting motifs to Korean realities and making the structure more complex.

NEVER LET ME GO: UNDERSTANDING THE LANGUAGE USED

Purpose of the study: The study aims at analysing Never Let Me Go in terms of the language used in his novel by Nobel prize winner, Kazuo Ishiguro, a Japanese writer. The language used in the novel which is a science fiction novel, with the futuristic vision which is quite difficult to understand in one reading, and hence this paper can create interest and inquisitiveness in the reader. Methodology: For the literary analysis of the words in the study, Motifs and Symbolism are used as a technique to analyse the words and language used in Never Let Me Go. Literary analysis of chosen words and language is used as a research method in the novel. Main Findings: It is indicated in this study that the novel is narrated in first person singular form. Kathy’s voice in Never Let Me Go seems consistent. A reader feels a clear sense of Kathy`s character through her discipline of speaking. Applications of this study: It is shown in this study of Never Let Me Go in terms of the language used, can be useful to the students studying in graduates/post graduates of Literature studies. The in-depth analysis of the language, words, etc used in the novel makes it interesting to the students. Novelty/Originality of this study: The language using style in Never Let Me Go is realistic and reflects on the period of the novel set i.e., the 1990s and colloquial language used by the author. Certain words like a euphemism, possible, donor, carer, unzipping, gifted, othering used by the narrator has an inner meaning which is being analysed in this paper. This could help the reader to understand the narration and take pleasure in reading the novel.

Aestheticizing Heresy

Yukio Mishima, perhaps the most influential Japanese writer of his time, was in many ways a heretic in search of authenticity. Mishima’s quest for beauty and heroic death, a reflex of his heresy, could be seen as a clear symptom of his obsession with the gap between reality and existential questions that he accounted of crucial human importance. In mid-way between violent sensuality and critical aestheticism, Mishima’s words and actions hold the promise of a non-conformist beauty, hand in hand with the quest for purity of the self. As Hisaaki Yamanouchi says correctly, “Mishima’s whole career was one o paradox built on an extraordinary tension between spirit and body, words and action, and artistic creation and commitment to the world.

Tolstoy’s Text in Works of R. Akutagawa

The supertext in the works of one of the most popular and mysterious Japanese writers of the early 20th century — Ryunosuke Akutagawa examined in the article. The relevance of this study is due to the fact that the problem of considering supertexts is one of the promising interdisciplinary areas of modern humanitarian knowledge. It is pointed out that in literary criticism there are quite a few works on topos texts, but very few works devoted to the nominal supertext, which is Tolstoy’s text. It is emphasized that Tolstoy’s text began to be created especially actively at the beginning of the twentieth century, and Tolstoy’s personality itself aroused interest not only in his homeland, but throughout the world. It is noted that the author’s extensive correspondence with public figures in Japan is known. It is argued that the fiction and journalistic texts of the Russian classic influenced the development of the national literature of Japan. Particular attention is paid to the issue of including in the text the personal myth of Leo Tolstoy as the basis of the Tolstoy’s text in the works of Akutagawa. It is shown that the Japanese writer refers to the story of the Yasnaya Polyana wise old man, using the episode of reconciliation between Turgenev and Tolstoy as the plot of the story “Woodcock”. In conclusion, the authors note that in their later works (“Cogwheels”, “The Life of an Idiot”) Akutagawa questions the sincerity of L. Tolstoy’s faith in God, interpreting the mythologeme “Leo Tolstoy and Religion” in an original way.

“Russian” and “Soviet” Plot in the Literary Works of Yoko Tavada

In the article the concepts-signified as “Russian” and “Soviet” expressed in the works of the German-Japanese writer Yoko Tavada (born 1960) are touched upon. The concepts signified as “Soviet” and “Russian” do encompass everything that is connected with Russian culture, literature and the Soviet Union. The empirical material for the given depiction were the essay and novel by Tavada “Suspicious passengers of your night trains” (2002, 2009). Based on the example of this novel the attitude of the younger generation of the socialist countries of late 1980s to the Russian language is revealed. The transition of the socialist bloc (Yugoslavia) is described on the example of clothes (jeans, aluminum fork, and pizza), the younger generation (good manners vs. bad manners), and language skills (English vs. Russian). The heroine’s journey along the Trans-Siberian Railway (Moscow – Irkutsk – Khabarovsk) enabled the author to reveal the micro-historical realities of the last decade of the Soviet era. The plot of the novel showed that in the last decades of the Soviet era there was already a “nostalgia” for household goods, the style of clothing and music, and Western pop culture (Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Presley). During the contact with the main character, the Russian soul (benevolence, openness, hospitality) and low standards of eco-awareness and disrespect for non-smokers in public transport (train) are revealed. The Soviet era is also confessed at the level of smell and food (garlic, cheap cigarettes, onions, black bread, porridge, soup butter drips, vodka, etc.). In the course of the narrative and communication with the surrounding people the Siberian “real” world is indicated, i.e. the poverty of the interior of the Siberian villages of the Soviet era. In the course of describing the Siberian expanse its natural and climatic constants such as cold, snow, bathhouse and birch, the latter as a symbol of all of Russia with its mythological stratum, were presented. The attributive cycle of the Siberian natural-climatic and “material” world is completed by the theme of androgyny opened up in the Siberian bathhouse, which is a space for identifying all types of physical things, that is, of female and male in woman and man.

Maghrebian Shadow

Abdelkébir Khatibi, who was seduced by the land of the Rising Sun, left us a few texts on Japan and its culture such as Japanese Shadow and “Tanizaki Revisited” in which he refers, in particular, to the great Japanese writer Junichiro Tanizaki. These texts indeed present a dual interest: on the one hand, they allow us to discover unknown aspects of Abdelkébir Khatibi – his deep attraction for Japanese culture, not only for literature but also calligraphy and other fine arts – and, on the other hand, his subtle and brilliant reading of Tanizaki's text, which gives us another insight into Japanese culture. In these two texts, we can identify several elements that Khatibi discovers in Japan via Tanizaki: exoticism beyond the simple exotic, eroticism, and ‘exophony’. We therefore examine Khatibi's Japanese culture, as inflected through the lens of Junichiro Tanizaki, following three problematics: exoticism, the body and languages, and Eros/Thanatos. Far from separate, all these elements are intertwined for Tanizaki as well as for Khatibi. In other words, this is a phenomenon, as the Moroccan writer points out, of ‘intersemiotics’.

Illuminate the Hidden Pain in Our Hearts——Analysis of the Image of “Aunt” in Mo Yan’s Novel Frog

Frog is a long-form masterpiece created by Mo Yan with the great concentration that touches the most painful part of the Chinese soul. The novel consists of four long letters and a drama written by the playwright Tadpole to the Japanese writer Sugitani. It is about the life experience of an “aunt”, a Chinese rural obstetrician and gynecologist, with vivid and touching details showing the sixty years of undulating birth history in rural China.