Bamboo clappers strike the hateful number
When I translated those chapters of The Eight Hundred and Eight Brothels of Old Edo, I hounded my sister into reading them too. And her opinion of them was "why are they such crap?". We then had a modest discussion on the general demerits of porn as a literary genre, and the particular demerits of Japanese period porn. My sister quoted the line "the man had promised the boy new clothes" and a line like that in the middle of a sex scene pretty much sums up what the biggest snag in Japanese period porn is. It's not very sexy to be honest.
I'm rereading The Great Mirror of Male Love (Nanshoku Ôkagami) by Ihara Saikaku, wonderfully translated by Paul Schalow. Saikaku was a great comic writer who lived in the 17th century. He addressed subjects like sex and money problems in his writing, and was generally a great guy, I suppose.
My sister is a huge fan of Japanese literature. I've always found it too curt and inexpressive, which will possibly lead to my demise in having to deal with the Japanese people themselves, if I can't even deal with their literature. Anyway, it kind of made me think about how it wasn't that surprising that manga with its superfluous expressiveness is so popular in Japan, based simply on my unwillingness to believe that anyone would seriously like that sort of literature where it's often difficult to discern who is saying what and what the characters are thinking or feeling. This despite that there are Japanese authors whose work I enjoy. And the fact that it's somewhat stupid to think people are turning from the inexpressive novels to the expressive manga and take that as a plausible reason for the popularity of manga (over literature). Even though there might be some sense in hypothesizing that the overexpressiveness would have something to do with the Japanese as a people trying to conform to Western models of expression, since the manga of today oves so much to war propaganda... Or something like that, can't be bothered. And I digress.
Even though at times it's more than slightly cringe-worthy, mostly because there was no such concept as shota (I think) in the 17th century, I absolutely love The Great Mirror of Male Love. Saikaku truly went all out. It's not titillating in the least, which is why I think I was initially somewhat disappointed with it when I first read it years ago. Now I find it absolutely hilarious.
As an example, one of the most daring allusions to sex in the whole book. In this scene a man who has just days ago made passes at a certain boy suddenly died of an illness, and in the temple the boy meets an older boy who's been the mans lover. The boys contemplate suicide, but end up exchanging vows of love. The older boy reminisces his relationship with the man:There was one happy moment I shall never forget. It was a windy, snowy night. I sent him a letter in the afternoon assuring him that I would be coming that night. He came to pick me up not far from my house and gave me a ride on his shoulders. From inside his robe he produced a little Kinpira doll dressed in helmet and armor and gave it to me. On the way, we pretended to duel with it.
That night, when I mounted Kan'emon in bed like a horse, he called me a Great General.
I find it ingenious how the ickiness of having to realize the kid's young enough for dolls and piggyback rides is countered with the utter absurdity and hilarity of their pillow talk. Furthermore, when reading this passage, I'm always pleasantly shocked by the cowboy position.
It's interesting to note that Schalow got into a huge fight with Gary Leupp on the pages of the Journal of Japanese Studies in 1998 after reviewing Leupps book Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan. I haven't gotten around to looking over this book yet, but I will, since Leupp translated a great deal of Chigo no sôshi for it.
Reading their correspondence is eerily reminiscent of watching two hookers fighting over a corner, that's how much name calling and figurative hair pulling it entails. Leupps first swipe in his opening paragraph is so cool that I feel compelled to quote it here. It also highlights just how harsh Schalow was in his review.I take it that Paul Schalow did not like my book Male Colors, which he finds "at many times an insult to the intelligence of the reader, and an embarrasment to its author and the press that brought it to print". I always welcome principled criticism, but such languge is not just an affront to me and the University of California Press, but to the many scholars and readers who have praised the book. Hence I interrupt an idyllic Kyoto sabbatical to respond -only briefly, given space constraints- to his diatribe.
The rest is even worse, and Schalows reply to it even worse so. Scholars are scary. It's also more than slightly creepy that I find their snarling oddly homoerotic... Sadly I don't think there's any scholarly RPS out there.
Other stuff. Lately I've been a little obsessed with kabuki actors. And kabuki in general.
I'm rereading The Great Mirror of Male Love (Nanshoku Ôkagami) by Ihara Saikaku, wonderfully translated by Paul Schalow. Saikaku was a great comic writer who lived in the 17th century. He addressed subjects like sex and money problems in his writing, and was generally a great guy, I suppose.
My sister is a huge fan of Japanese literature. I've always found it too curt and inexpressive, which will possibly lead to my demise in having to deal with the Japanese people themselves, if I can't even deal with their literature. Anyway, it kind of made me think about how it wasn't that surprising that manga with its superfluous expressiveness is so popular in Japan, based simply on my unwillingness to believe that anyone would seriously like that sort of literature where it's often difficult to discern who is saying what and what the characters are thinking or feeling. This despite that there are Japanese authors whose work I enjoy. And the fact that it's somewhat stupid to think people are turning from the inexpressive novels to the expressive manga and take that as a plausible reason for the popularity of manga (over literature). Even though there might be some sense in hypothesizing that the overexpressiveness would have something to do with the Japanese as a people trying to conform to Western models of expression, since the manga of today oves so much to war propaganda... Or something like that, can't be bothered. And I digress.
Even though at times it's more than slightly cringe-worthy, mostly because there was no such concept as shota (I think) in the 17th century, I absolutely love The Great Mirror of Male Love. Saikaku truly went all out. It's not titillating in the least, which is why I think I was initially somewhat disappointed with it when I first read it years ago. Now I find it absolutely hilarious.
As an example, one of the most daring allusions to sex in the whole book. In this scene a man who has just days ago made passes at a certain boy suddenly died of an illness, and in the temple the boy meets an older boy who's been the mans lover. The boys contemplate suicide, but end up exchanging vows of love. The older boy reminisces his relationship with the man:There was one happy moment I shall never forget. It was a windy, snowy night. I sent him a letter in the afternoon assuring him that I would be coming that night. He came to pick me up not far from my house and gave me a ride on his shoulders. From inside his robe he produced a little Kinpira doll dressed in helmet and armor and gave it to me. On the way, we pretended to duel with it.
That night, when I mounted Kan'emon in bed like a horse, he called me a Great General.
I find it ingenious how the ickiness of having to realize the kid's young enough for dolls and piggyback rides is countered with the utter absurdity and hilarity of their pillow talk. Furthermore, when reading this passage, I'm always pleasantly shocked by the cowboy position.
It's interesting to note that Schalow got into a huge fight with Gary Leupp on the pages of the Journal of Japanese Studies in 1998 after reviewing Leupps book Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan. I haven't gotten around to looking over this book yet, but I will, since Leupp translated a great deal of Chigo no sôshi for it.
Reading their correspondence is eerily reminiscent of watching two hookers fighting over a corner, that's how much name calling and figurative hair pulling it entails. Leupps first swipe in his opening paragraph is so cool that I feel compelled to quote it here. It also highlights just how harsh Schalow was in his review.I take it that Paul Schalow did not like my book Male Colors, which he finds "at many times an insult to the intelligence of the reader, and an embarrasment to its author and the press that brought it to print". I always welcome principled criticism, but such languge is not just an affront to me and the University of California Press, but to the many scholars and readers who have praised the book. Hence I interrupt an idyllic Kyoto sabbatical to respond -only briefly, given space constraints- to his diatribe.
The rest is even worse, and Schalows reply to it even worse so. Scholars are scary. It's also more than slightly creepy that I find their snarling oddly homoerotic... Sadly I don't think there's any scholarly RPS out there.
Other stuff. Lately I've been a little obsessed with kabuki actors. And kabuki in general.