The Sick Rose: A Pastoral Elegy - Softcover

Sato, Haruo

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0824815394 ISBN 13: 9780824815394

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press, 1994

Synopsis

The shift in attitudes and concerns that took place in the Taisho period (1912-1926) was signaled by the emergence of a new and authentically contemporary Japanese sense of self. For many, Sato Haruo's novella Gloom in the Country marked that shift. Originally entitled The Sick Rose, this story has long been regarded as an icon of the period and is the masterpiece that made Sato instantly famous when it burst on the literary scene in 1918.

Introduction by Thomas J. Rimer

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Sato, a writer from Japan's artistically transformative Taisho period (1912-1926), is known for his poetry, prose fiction and criticism. This collection offers three stories in translations that effectively convey their world- weariness and the poetic voice creating art for its own sake. The finest piece, "The Sick Rose" (aka "Gloom in the Country"), portrays an author who, having fled the bustle of Tokyo with his wife and two dogs, hopes that he can be productive in a quiet village. His sensibilities are so acute that real peace eludes him even there: his days offer a blend of ennui and wracking intensity. "Gloom in the City," set two months later, finds the writer/narrator in "a house the sun never touched, a season where all sounds were vanishing into winter"; his little family disintegrates (his wife takes the dogs and moves out), and where earlier he longed for the sun, he is now reduced to inhabiting a single room where he is overwhelmed by the inundation of sunlight. In "Okinu and Her Brother," the same narrator looks back upon his country sojourn to relate the downtrodden "simple life" of a villager.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0824815394
• ISBN 13: 9780824815394
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 240