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The stories in this collection constitute just a small portion of a vast body of some four hundred short narratives known as otogizoshi. They represent a cross section of medieval Japan in its richness and complexity, a panoply of life teeming with all the possibilities and contradictions of the age.
As Skord explains in her helpful introduction, the term otogi-zoshi (literally, ``companion booklets'' or ``companion stories'') encompasses a body of about 400 short and thematically varied Japanese narratives from the late 1300s to the early 1800s, and Skord has chosen 13 examples here. Although who authored and who read these works remain unknown, it is Skord's convincing argument that the tales ``represent a cross section of medieval Japan in all its richness and complexity . . . teeming with all the possibilities and contradictions of the age.'' Aided by endnotes, the reader can glimpse a realm in which indiscretion is a worse sin than adultery, in which appreciation of poetry defines a person's character. The tales are, as the title suggests, alternately comical and serious, scatological and openly didactic; all possess clear charm and a certain immediacy. At the same time they are slightly impenetrable for Westerners, often concluding with abrupt homilies or other shifts in tone, but this distancing effect proves alluring rather than alienating. Skord, a professor of Asian studies at Manhattanville College, has adapted this elusive form with energy and imagination. Illustrations. (Oct.)
| Price | Condition | Delivery | Seller | Action |
| $99.99 | Digital |
| WonderClub |
Chris Hernandez
reviewed Tales of Tears and Laughter: Short Fiction of Medieval Japan on July 07, 2014
Tales of Tears and Laughter: Short Fiction of Medieval Japan
Read so far:
Because my father always said he was the only Indian who saw Jimi Hendrix play "The Star-Spangled Banner" at Woodstock / Sherman Alexie --3
River of names / Dorothy Allison --
Happy endings / Margaret Atwood --3
*The Lesson / Toni Cade Bambara --
*The Littoral zone / Andrea Barrett --
Lost in the funhouse / John Barth --1
The school / Donald Barthelme --3
The man who knew Belle Starr / Richard Bausch --3
Gryphon / Charles Baxter --3
Janus / Ann Beattie --3
*Birthday party / Gina Berriault --
*Cathedral / Raymond Carver --
*The Swimmer / John Cheever --
Monkey garden / Sandra Cisneros --
The Hull case / Peter Ho Davies --3
Fiesta, 1980 / Junot Diaz --2
The Fat girl / Andre Dubus --3
Pet Milk / Stuart Dybek --2
In this way we are wise / Nathan Englander --
*The red convertible / Louise Erdrich --
Proper library / Carolyn Ferrell --2
*Communist / Richard Ford --
Elizabeth Complex / K.J. Fowler --
*How to talk to a hunter / Pam Houston --
*In the American society / Gish Jen --
*The Woman from New York / Ha Jin --
*Menagerie, a child's fable / Charles Johnson --
*Emergency / Denis Johnson --
*Girl / Jamaica Kincaid --
*The Third and final continent / Jhumpa Lahiri --
*Gravity / David Leavitt --
Brothers and sisters around the world / A. Lee --
*The ones who walk away from Omelas / Ursula Le Guin --
*The Jewbird / Bernard Malamud --
Shiloh / Bobbie Ann Mason --4
*Of cabbages and kings / James A. McPherson --
What they did / David Means --
Which is more than I can say about some people / Lorrie Moore --
*Management of grief / Bharati Mukherjee --
Turkey season / Alice Munro --
Where are you going, where have you been? / Joyce Carol Oates --3
*Things they carried / Tim O'Brien --
*Everything that rises must converge / Flannery O'Connor --
Wants / Grace Paley --2
Satisfaction / Jayne Anne Phillips --
Strays / M. Richard --
My flamboyant grandson / George Saunders --
Surrounded by sleep / Akhil Sharma --
*Yellow woman / Leslie Marmon Silko --
*The Way we live now / Susan Sontag --
Here come the maples / John Updike --
*The moths / Helena Maria Viramontes --
Harrison Bergeron / Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. --3
Everyday use / Alice Walker --3
Newborn thrown in trash and dies / John Edgar Wideman --
*The Rich brother / Thomas Wolff --
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