The Glass Slipper and Other Stories (Japanese Literature Series) [Hardcover]

Shotaro Yasuoka (Author), Royall Tyler (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 10, 2008 | Series: Japanese Literature Series

In addition to "The Glass Slipper," this collection contains nine other stories held together by a common thread of self-perception: Yasuoka writes from the belief that the self has such depths that at times it can appear to be illusory. Set against the chaotic backdrop of the era running from before World War II to just after its end, these stories are infused with a timeless sense of novelty and humor that does not suffer from age. Highly praised by Haruki Murakami, The Glass Slipper and Other Stories continues to offer its readers a fresh literary experience.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Yasuoka's venal, youthful first-person narrators grasp at beauty and romance amid a changing Japan in these nine stories, all published in Japan in the early 1950s. In the opening tale, The Wandering Minstrel, a dreamy worker in a knitwear company unaccountably finds himself gaining the verse-loving boss's favor by composing the company song, but soon finds himself enlisted as a suitor for the boss's bovine niece. The title story records a night watchman's fervent, sorrowful feelings for a naïve young girl whose strange, playful ways move him—and torment him, too. Similarly, a young romantic and his effete cronies move to downtown Tokyo in search of the lost shogunate era of Edo, only to find vulgarity and disillusionment. In The Sword Dance, an invalid son observes his father's return from the military as a changed man, without self-confidence and ambition, prompting a troubling reversal of their roles. Tyler's translation captures Yasuoka's effortless style, registering dark but delightful impressions of youth. (June)
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From Booklist

Yasuoka grew up a rootless army brat and, after World War II service, became a sometime invalid due to spinal caries, working odd jobs when he could. The sad sacks he exposes in these nine slyly angry and brilliant stories reflect his experience closely, though no two seem the same. The youngest, in “Homework,” is a 10- or 11-year-old whose neglect of class assignments leads to playing hooky every day, tacitly destroying his mother’s hopes for him, and fantasizing becoming a hero by tearing down antiwar handbills. In “The King’s Ear,” a wartime student recalls how, running around with a bunch of avant-garde wastrels, he slights a friend who later tricks him; now that friend is MIA. The young veterans in “The House Guard” and “The Glass Slipper” muck up love affairs through sheer ineffectuality. In “Jingle Bells,” another vet just about does the same by fixating on a Christmas song. The pathetic humor of these nebbishy protagonists’ predicaments rather protests, passive-aggressively, the industriousness and focus that brought Japan power, then wrack and ruin. --Ray Olson

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 140 pages
• Publisher: Dalkey Archive Press (June 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1564785041
• ISBN-13: 978-1564785046
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,383,941 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)