My favorite story in Naoya Shiga’s collection THE PAPER DOOR AND OTHER STORIES is INCIDENT ON NOVEMBER THIRD which makes the comparison between a wild duck the narrator has caught and soldiers on maneuvers nearby so tired and exhausted by the training exercises they have been put through that they cannot go any further (Think pre-WWII Japanese army fanaticism).
I find AT KINOSAKI and THE HOUSE BY THE MOAT to be effective thought provoking musings on mortality and existence….Less stories as a series of thoughts and observations linked by one seemingly trivial event.
Both of these stories, like many of the stories in this book, use the natural world and animals as a comparison or sign of what humans should or shouldn’t do….It’s as if primitive superstition or the anthropologist’s definition of it is lurking behind every incident no matter how small.
A GRAY MOON presents us in four short pages a moving portrait of post-WWII deprivations in Japan as well as the failure of human beings to be much help to each other.
RAIN FROGS has a novel theme….Educating yourself will lead someone who isn’t used to that into infidelity and perhaps worse….The ending wherein the hero burns all of his books because he blames knowledge for his simple wife’s one night stand with another man is really fascinating and I imagine could be debated endlessly.
The three other stories dealing with infidelity are remarkable for two reasons….The description of the wife waiting in the snow in INFATUATION is unforgettable and the main idea of KUNIKO which is that too much peaceful living and security is bad for a writer or an artist of any kind and that turmoil is needed to produce any good work is one I have struggled with myself.
This is the second book I’ve read by Shiga….The other was his novel A DARK NIGHT’S PASSING which I discussed here…. http://rgdinmalaysia.xanga.com/683144922/a-dark-nights-passing-by-naoya-shiga/ He truly is a writer with much insight into the twisted and peculiar variations of the human psyche.
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