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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
See all Editorial Reviews
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)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
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
See all Editorial Reviews
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Shotaro Yasuoka, The Sword Dance, Aoyama South, The Medal, The House Guard, The Glass Slipper, The King's Ears, Jingle Bells, The Wandering Minstrel, New Year, South Seas, Colonel Craigow, Uncle Takasuke, Sumida River, Kornai Kumakichi, Mount Minobu, Sword Dance Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!
maintenance section Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
Shotaro Yasuoka, The Sword Dance, Aoyama South, The Medal, The House Guard, The Glass Slipper, The King's Ears, Jingle Bells, The Wandering Minstrel, New Year, South Seas, Colonel Craigow, Uncle Takasuke, Sumida River, Kornai Kumakichi, Mount Minobu, Sword Dance Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Surprise Me!
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