Japanese Literature discussion

Hopefully the paucity of votes this month's history group read isn't an indication of dying interest. Please join us in reading Everyday life in Traditional Japan.

By 'Traditional Japan', Dunn means the Edo period from 1600 to 1868.

Feel free to post comments or questions below. Also, if there's anything you want to know about the Edo period or its lead-up that isn't covered in the book, hopefully one of us other readers can fill in the details for you.

I'm happy to join in. I think I can get a cheap copy. I'm not sure if I voted for this, cos I see it's been wiped clean, but what the heck, if I can get my copy of course I'm in ☺️

And I agree, Bill. I hope the group wants to carry on a non-fiction read. I'm finding them adding so much to my experience of reading the fiction we do each month.

@Alan

This and one other book on the list got three votes (only three people voted). I wasn't going to bother picking a selection of the month with so few votes, and was just going to read it on my own. But I'm not going to say no to Carol!

Bill, yep, said it before, don't mess with the Carol ☺️

Three votes, so I must have voted for it, so that's fine by me. As I said, I will get a copy and join in.

Bill, yep, said it before, don't mess with the Carol ☺️

Three votes, so I must have voted for it, so that's fine by me. As I said, I will get a copy and join in.

stop, people.

Yes, it got 3 votes. The other one I bought because I think we informally agreed to read it was Sacred East which, on arrival, turned out to be 13x9 or so. Reading it will require me to tote around essentially a coffee table book from the 1990s, but much lighter.

I'm thinking a quarterly history read is something we could do and get interest for. We have a dozen or so members who are interested in non-fiction if we do the voting and make it easy to participate. I'm not sure we can pull off 8 - 12 nonfiction reads per year, although I like the aspiration. I"m a fan of whatever you all want to do with this.

Oh, I also intend to read it but I'm not sure when my copy will arrive... :)

Iliana wrote: "Oh, I also intend to read it but I'm not sure when my copy will arrive... :)"

Good deal. I’ll start when you do. That should give me a couple of days, ...

It sounds interesting to me. I am not sure that I can participate right now, however...

Good deal. I’ll start when you do. That should give me a couple of days, ..."

Oh, it might take 1-2 weeks to arrive here, though, so I'm not sure if you want to wait that long...! haha Otherwise, I'll just catch up with you...

Cool. I didn't realize there was this kind of interest.

I've only read the first two chapters (1/4 of the book), and I'll read something else while others catch up.

Bill wrote: "Cool. I didn't realize there was this kind of interest.

I've only read the first two chapters (1/4 of the book), and I'll read something else while others catch up."

Thanks, Bill. that would be great.

Hello everyone! My copy hasn't arrived yet but...! Just yesterday I discovered this archive site that has many books to borrow as a pdf/epub for free for 14 days and it also has this title: https://archive.org/details/everydayl...

So I may start it during the week as it seems while waiting for my copy! The archive also has other interesting non-fiction titles about Japan/Japanese things/Japanese literature etc, and of course some fiction titles as well... I thought I might share the link here too, in case some of you also didn't know about it..!

Iliana wrote: "Hello everyone! My copy hasn't arrived yet but...! Just yesterday I discovered this archive site that has many books to borrow as a pdf/epub for free for 14 days and it also has this title: https:/..."

Thanks, Iliana! Very cool.

I'm not sure if many people can borrow the same book at the same time, though.... But I will start reading it these days.

Iliana wrote: "I'm not sure if many people can borrow the same book at the same time, though.... But I will start reading it these days."

I just received a note from the archive saying that unlimited digital copies of all their books can be borrowed until June. So I think we can all get it. (I’ve been reading group selections, but just lurking so far. ;-)

I just received a note from the archive saying that unlimi..."

Oh, thanks for the info! :D (I was also lurking for some time in the past, haha)

I'm still waiting for someone else to say they're reading it before I continue :)

To all lurkers, we welcome you. The more the merrier. Run to the light! ☺️

I've started reading yesterday! :)

Chapter 3, on peasants, opens with a long description of rice production, with lots of nice pictures. I hope to make more progress on this chapter today.

I've given up on a chapter-by-chapter view of the book. Suffice it to say most of the chapters are about a single social class and describes what they did and how they lived. The last, and longest chapter, contains all the miscellaneous facts that didn't fit into the other chapters, and so leaves this reader with a disorganized last impression of the work.

There are a great many individual facts crammed into this book, far more than normal for a book of its size. You'll find wonderfully described aspects of Japanese life that you'd have to read a number of other books to get all of. It also contains a hundred small illustrations set in its pages, which while they appear traditional are credited to someone with a western name. Hopefully they are hand-drawn copies rather than wholesale inventions.

The author is British, and uses British spelling (which really isn't a problem). But in addition his language is often quaint and old fashioned, more so than a book written in 1969 should be. And his analogies of things in Japan to things he is familiar with often fall flat to modern ears and leave you more in the dark than enlightened.

At times the author almost wants to break out of his static view of the period and recognize that over 250 years the social and economic situation changed for almost everyone in Japan. But most of his portraits describe life as if it were unchanging.

Thank you, Bill. I feel the same about certain things. But it is rather enjoyable nonetheless. I still have some more pages to read until I finish it, though.

I found that I had this in my back shelves. I might try it after I finish the current history read I am on.
I have been working up to the Sino-Japanese War and then the naval battles for the Russo-Japanese war.

Isn't this thread 4 years old? I haven't tried Everyday Life in Traditional Japan, and may do so this week, but one similar book that I enjoyed and maybe some will also find interesting is Home Life In Tokyo by Inouye. Related to this, a little antiquated view of Japan of the 1980s written humorously from the position of a foreigner is also Japan It's Not All Raw Fish by Don Maloney, which I enjoyed not so long ago.

Diana wrote: "Isn't this thread 4 years old? I haven't tried Everyday Life in Traditional Japan, and may do so this week, but one similar book that I enjoyed and maybe some will also find interesting is Home Lif..."

Diana, thanks for the recommendation Home Life In Tokyo by Jukichi Inouye. I am looking forward to reading their short book, A Concise History of the War between Japan and China.

I have been reading through all the older posts. Several of us still are reading History txts along side j-lit so I regrouped the threads to help us look at previous discussions and recommendations. I am currently working through the period from Manjiro up to the Meiji Constitution. My history prof friend is waiting fo me to get to the Sino-Japanese war.

People are always welcome to pull up an old discussion thread and comment on it when they read the book! Please! I, for one, don't mind getting an email about someone else reading a book I read years ago looking at it from a different perspective.