A Silver-Grey Death and Drowning (Paperback or Softback)

A Silver-Grey Death (银灰色的死 in Chinese) and Drowning (沉沦), both by Yu Dafu (郁達夫), are short stories written and published in 1920 and 1921 respectively. Both tell the story of a young man, a Chinese national, living and studying in Japan in the early 20th century. Both are based (in part) on experiences in the authorʼs life.

Yu Dafu is perhaps unique, among Chinese writers of the period, as an author of decadence – in the literary sense, and in ways that should interest (if not please) Western readers. In both stories are themes of loneliness, desire (for the opposite sex), frustration, heavy drinking, and (in at least one of the stories, if not both): death. Both are succinct in their descriptions and both are beautifully written, sometimes hauntingly so. The narratives move at a clip.

Drowning is hands-down Yu Dafuʼs best-known work (in the West and in the East). It is the story of a young Chinese national who leaves his motherland, China, to study abroad in Japan. A loner by temperament, he soon finds himself “feeling pitifully lonely...” A self-styled poet, he recurs to nature, taking long walks in the countryside outside Nagoya. But dwelling frequently in nature and reading books all alone only go so far for a young man who regularly practices onanism in his room, immediately regrets it, fantasizes about his landlordʼs daughter, and is sexually attracted to just about every girl he meets. It is only a matter of time before he finds himself in a Japanese “tavern” where a young Geisha girl with bad breath serves him too much sake. You can imagine the rest, or you can read the story.