Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers
By: Donald Keene
3.68
Format: 114 pages, Paperback
A brief history of Japanese literature and a small number of works that illustrate its mechanisms
Want to Read"În literatura japoneză ceea ce rămîne neexprimat se ia în seamă cu tot atîta grijă ca şi ceea ce se exprimă, la fel cum în pictura japoneză spaţiile goale sînt făcute să aibă o putere de evocare la fel de mare cu a munţilor şi pinilor îngrijit conturaţi. Pare că se manifestă mereu o împotrivire instinctivă la rostirea cuvintelor limpezi, fie ele „sînt atît de fericit" sau „e atîta tristeţe". Rareori este acceptată prezentarea în totalitate a unei privelişti sau a unei experienţe."-Donald Keene, Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers
"Caracteristic Japoniei este modul viguros de tratare a temelor, atîţ în literatură cît şi în arta plastică, unde artistul încearcă să facă acelaşi lucru ca şi predecesorii săi, dar într-o manieră uşor diferită… Nu e deloc surprinzător, fiindcă într-o ţară în care poezia era recunoscută de unii drept o religie este cu totul firesc ca atît cuvintele cit şi imaginile vechilor poeme să-i vină poetului în minte la fel de repede ca şi gîndurile noi, incit el gîndeşte frecvent în formulările altora, adăugînau-le doar culoarea personală."-Donald Keene, Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers
"Într-adevăr, cînd citim romanele japoneze sîntem aproape izbiţi de stăpînirea de sine cu care nişte eroi aflaţi într-o luptă pe viaţă şi pe moarte reuşesc să-şi găsească timp pentru a compune o poezie de adio despre căderea florilor de cireş; sau de versurile unor simpli soldaţi care admiră o noapte de iarnă spre a compune o poezie împreună. Dar în Japonia poezia aparţine tuturor claselor sociale; pînă şi astăzi, aproape fiecare japonez e în stare să scrie fără dificultate un poem, chiar dacă, fireşte, acesta poate fi lipsit de orice merit literar. "-Donald Keene, Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers
"Încercarea de a reprezenta entităţi mai largi prin mici detalii a condus la un realism şi o concreteţe a imaginii care contrastează în mod straniu cu ambiguitatea nebuloasă a efectului general. Zgomotul apei în care sare o broască, ţîrîitul ascuţit al greierilor, parfumul unei flori necunoscute pot fi imaginea centrală în jurul căreia se construieşte un poem japonez. Aici putem detecta influenţa doctrinei budiste Zen, susținea, între altele, că iluminarea poate veni din orice percepție. Săritura broaştei ce tulbură liniştea profundă a unui iaz putea fi şi ea un med de a obţine iluminarea, asemeni unei autentice întruchipări a vieţii."-Donald Keene, Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers
If you liked the japanese literature plot in Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers by Donald Keene , here is a list of 12 books like this:
1. The Elephant Vanishes
By: Haruki Murakami , Jay Rubin , Alfred Birnbaum
3.83
Format: 327 pages, Paperback
Alternate cover edition of ISBN 9780679750536 With the same deadpan mania and genius for disloca… read more
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- literature
- japanese literature
- japan
"Memory is like fiction: or else it' fiction that's like memory."-Haruki Murakami, The Elephant Vanishes
"Memory is like fiction: or else it's fiction that's like memory."-Haruki Murakami, The Elephant Vanishes
"Sometimes when I think about entities—like in “separate entities"-Haruki Murakami, The Elephant Vanishes
"The moment I see her, there’s a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert."-Haruki Murakami, The Elephant Vanishes
2. Sputnik Sweetheart
By: Haruki Murakami , Philip Gabriel
3.83
Format: 229 pages, Paperback
alternate cover can be found here Sumire is in love with a woman seventeen years her senior. But… read more
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- literature
- japanese literature
- japan
"I feel like I've swallowed a cloudy sky"-Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart
"Ice is cold; roses are red. I’m in love."-Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart
"It was far too hot to think about complicated matters."-Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart
"A percepção não passa da soma dos nossos mal-entendidos."-Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart
3. A Passage to India
By: E.M. Forster , Pankaj Mishra , Oliver Stallybrass
3.68
Format: 376 pages, Paperback
When Adela Quested and her elderly companion Mrs Moore arrive in the Indian town of Chandrapore, th… read more
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- literature
"Adventures do occur, but not punctually."-E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
"There are different ways of evil and I prefer mine to yours."-E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
"A friendliness, as of dwarfs shaking hands, was in the air..."-E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
"I think everyone fails, but there are so many kinds of failure."-E.M. Forster, A Passage to India
4. Bleak House
By: Charles Dickens , Hablot Knight Browne , Nicola Bradbury
4.02
Format: 1017 pages, Paperback
The complex story of a notorious law-suit in which love and inheritance are set against the classic… read more
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- literature
"You can be nothing better than yourself; be that [...]"-Charles Dickens, Bleak House
"I find the nights long, for I sleep but little, and think much."-Charles Dickens, Bleak House
"I am not at all respectable, and I don't want to be. Odd perhaps, but so it is!"-Charles Dickens, Bleak House
"if the world go wrong, it was, in some off-hand manner, never meant to go right."-Charles Dickens, Bleak House
5. The Remains of the Day
By: Kazuo Ishiguro
4.14
Format: 258 pages, Paperback
Librarian's note: See alternate cover edition of ISBN 0571225381 here. In the summer of 1956, St… read more
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- literature
"The rest of my life stretches out as an emptiness before me."-Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day
"One is not struck by the truth until prompted quite accidentally by some external event."-Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day
"If you are under the impression you have already perfected yourself, you will never rise to the heights you are no doubt capable of."-Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day
"شاید بهتر بود خداوند مارا هم مثل گیاهان خلق میکرد، یعنی پایمان محکم توی زمین باشد. آنوقت هیچکدام از این کثافتکاری مربوط به جنگ و مرز و این چیزها اصلاً پیش نمیآمد."-Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day
6. Invisible Man
By: Ralph Ellison
3.91
Format: 581 pages, Paperback
First published in 1952 and immediately hailed as a masterpiece, Invisible Man is one of those rare… read more
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- literature
"When I discover who I am, I’ll be free."-Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
"You're very insistent, but I'm very busy."-Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
"I could hardly get to sleep for dreaming of revenge."-Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
"They could laugh at him but they couldn't ignore him"-Ralph Ellison, Invisible Man
7. In Praise of Shadows
By: Edward G. Seidensticker , Jun'ichirō Tanizaki , Thomas J. Harper , Charles Moore , None
4.75
Format: 335 pages, Paperback
An essay on aesthetics by the Japanese novelist, this book explores architecture, jade, food, and e… read more
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- japanese literature
- nonfiction
- essays
- japan
8. Breakfast of Champions
By: Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
2.60
Format: None pages, Paperback
In Breakfast of Champions,one of Kurt Vonnegut's most beloved characters, the aging writer Kilgore … read more
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- literature
9. Confessions of a Mask
By: Yukio Mishima
2.57
Format: 210 pages, Paperback
Confessions of a Maskis the story of an adolescent who must learn to live with the painful fact tha… read more
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- literature
- japanese literature
- japan
10. King Lear
By: William Shakespeare , William James Rolfe
3.91
Format: 338 pages, Mass Market Paperback
Shakespeare’s King Lear challenges us with the magnitude, intensity, and sheer duration of the pain… read more
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- literature
"Fortune love you."-William Shakespeare, King Lear
"She is herself a dowry."-William Shakespeare, King Lear
"All dark and comfortless."-William Shakespeare, King Lear
"Nothing can come of nothing."-William Shakespeare, King Lear
11. Oliver Twist
By: Charles Dickens , George Cruikshank , Philip Horne
3.88
Format: 608 pages, Paperback
A gripping portrayal of London's dark criminal underbelly, published in Penguin Classics with an in… read more
Want to Read $ 3.01Similar categories in Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist book and Donald Keene's Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers
- literature
"Meat, ma'am, meat."-Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
"Please, sir, I want some more."-Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
"هناك كتب .. غلافـها أفضل ما فيها"-Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
"There are a good many books, are there not, my boy?"-Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist
12. Ethan Frome
By: Edith Wharton
2.00
Format: 144 pages, Paperback
Ethan Frome works his unproductive farm and struggles to maintain a bearable existence with his dif… read more
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- literature
13. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion
By: Yukio Mishima , Ivan Morris
4.48
Format: 252 pages, Hardcover
In The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, celebrated Japanese novelist Yukio Mishima creates a haunting… read more
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- literature
- japanese literature
- japan
14. The Chrysanthemum and the Sword: Patterns of Japanese Culture
By: Ruth Benedict
4.26
Format: 104 pages, Paperback
A recognized classic of cultural anthropology, this book explores the political, religious, and eco… read more
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- nonfiction
- history
- japanese literature
- japan
15. At the Mountains of Madness
By: H.P. Lovecraft , China Miéville , S.T. Joshi
4.00
Format: None pages, Paperback
Long acknowledged as a master of nightmarish vision, H.P. Lovecraft established the genuineness and… read more
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16. Death by Water
By: Kenzaburō Ōe , Deborah Boliver Boehm
4.23
Format: 166 pages, Hardcover
Kenzaburo Oe was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature for creating "an imagined world, where life … read more
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17. The War of the Worlds
By: H.G. Wells , Arthur C. Clarke
3.83
Format: 192 pages, Paperback
When an army of invading Martians lands in England, panic and terror seize the population. As the a… read more
Want to Read $ 4.75Similar categories in H.G. Wells's The War of the Worlds book and Donald Keene's Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers
- literature
"We will peck them to death tomorrow, my dear."-H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds
"The chances of anything man-like on Mars are a million to one"-H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds
"Suddenly, like a thing falling upon me from without, came fear."-H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds
"That's what we are now—just ants. Only——" "Yes," I said. "We're eatable ants."-H.G. Wells, The War of the Worlds
18. Some Prefer Nettles
By: Edward G. Seidensticker , Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
4.05
Format: 371 pages, Paperback
The marriage of Kaname and Misako is disintegrating: whilst seeking passion and fulfilment in the a… read more
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19. Infinite Jest
By: David Foster Wallace
4.31
Format: 66 pages, Paperback
A gargantuan, mind-altering comedy about the Pursuit of Happiness in America. Set in an addicts' ha… read more
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20. Brief Interviews with Hideous Men
By: David Foster Wallace
4.31
Format: 66 pages, Paperback
In his startling and singular new short story collection, David Foster Wallace nudges at the bounda… read more
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21. Strange Weather in Tokyo
By: Hiromi Kawakami
4.29
Format: None pages, Paperback
Tsukiko is drinking alone in her local sake bar when by chance she meets one of her old high school… read more
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22. Kokoro
By: Natsume Sōseki , Edwin McClellan
3.77
Format: None pages,
Hailed by The New Yorker as "rich in understanding and insight,"Kokoro -- "the heart of things"-- i… read more
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23. The Makioka Sisters
By: Edward G. Seidensticker , Jun'ichirō Tanizaki
4.04
Format: 538 pages, Paperback
In Osaka in the years immediately before World War II, four aristocratic women try to preserve a wa… read more
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24. Snow Country
By: Yasunari Kawabata , Edward G. Seidensticker
3.59
Format: 175 pages, Paperback
Nobel Prize recipient Yasunari Kawabata's Snow Country is widely considered to be the writer's mast… read more
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- literature
- japanese literature
"국경의 긴 터널을 빠져나오자, 雪國이었다."-Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country
"Nothing is so strange when one is in love."-Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country
"In the moonlight the fine geishalike skin took on the luster of a seashell."-Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country
"The notes went out crystalline into the clean winter morning, to sound on the far, snowy peaks."-Yasunari Kawabata, Snow Country
25. All the Lovers in the Night
By: Mieko Kawakami
3.72
Format: 224 pages, Hardcover
Fuyuko Irie is a freelance copy editor in her mid-thirties. Working and living alone in a city wher… read more
Want to Read $ 11.49Similar categories in Mieko Kawakami's All the Lovers in the Night book and Donald Keene's Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers
- japanese literature
- japan
"It only took me a couple of hours to realise that she was a woman of talents beyond anything I could imagine - even though I was a stranger to such talents myself."-Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night
"The light at night is special because the overwhelming light of day has left us, and the remaining half draws on everything it has to keep the world around us bright."-Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night
"When I felt sleepy I slept, and when I opened my eyes I got up, letting hunger dictate when to head to the fridge or kitchen cabinet to eat some of the things that I'd stocked up on. When supplies ra…"-Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night
"When I felt sleepy I slept, and when I opened my eyes I got up, letting hunger dictate when to head to the fridge or kitchen cabinet to eat some of the things that I'd stocked up on. When supplies ra…"-Mieko Kawakami, All the Lovers in the Night
26. Convenience Store Woman
By: Sayaka Murata
3.69
Format: 163 pages, Hardcover
The English-language debut of one of Japan's most talented contemporary writers, selling over 650,0… read more
Want to Read $ 8.48Similar categories in Sayaka Murata's Convenience Store Woman book and Donald Keene's Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers
- japanese literature
- japan
"A convenience store is a world of sound."-Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman
"People who are considered normal enjoy putting those who aren't on trial, you know."-Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman
"Anyone who devotes their life to fighting society in order to be free must be pretty sincere about suffering."-Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman
"Well, I guess anyone who devotes their life to fighting society in order to be free must be pretty sincere about suffering."-Sayaka Murata, Convenience Store Woman
27. Breasts and Eggs
By: Mieko Kawakami
3.86
Format: 430 pages, Hardcover
Challenging every preconception about storytelling and prose style, mixing wry humor and riveting e… read more
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- japanese literature
- japan
"Then there are the real bastards, like my ex,"-Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs
"Mi sentivo come un essere privato della carne e della pelle e ridotto a sole ossa. Un carapace enorme completamente cavo."-Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs
"We could worry about tomorrow when it came. What mattered most right now is how we would spend the remainder of today, even if it was half over."-Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs
"I could see people all around me, but I almost felt like nobody could see me. I heard a train go by, rumbling down the tracks, drawing a thick line between the world and my experience. I was getting …"-Mieko Kawakami, Breasts and Eggs
28. Less Is Lost (Arthur Less, #2)
By: Andrew Sean Greer
3.72
Format: 272 pages, Hardcover
In the follow-up to the best-selling and Pulitzer Prize-winning Less, the awkward and lovable Arthu… read more
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29. Tokyo Ueno Station
By: Yū Miri
3.47
Format: 168 pages, Paperback
Born in Fukushima in 1933, the same year as the Emperor, Kazu’s life is tied by a series of coincid… read more
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- japanese literature
- japan
"There’s that sound again."-Yū Miri, Tokyo Ueno Station
"To speak is to stumble, to hesitate, to detour and hit dead ends. To listen is straightforward. You can always just listen."-Yū Miri, Tokyo Ueno Station
"I was always tired. There was never a time I was not tired. Not when life had its claws in me, and not when I escaped from it. I did not live with intent, I only lived. But that’s all over now."-Yū Miri, Tokyo Ueno Station
"I used to think life was like a book: you turn the first page, and there’s the next, and as you go on turning page after page, eventually you reach the last one. But life is nothing like a story in a…"-Yū Miri, Tokyo Ueno Station
30. The Heart of American Poetry
By: Edward Hirsch
4.23
Format: 452 pages, Hardcover
An acclaimed poet and our greatest champion for poetry offers an inspiring and insightful new readi… read more
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- nonfiction
31. Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers
By: Donald Keene
3.68
Format: 114 pages, Paperback
A brief history of Japanese literature and a small number of works that illustrate its mechanisms read more
Want to ReadSimilar categories in Donald Keene's Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers book and Donald Keene's Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers
- history
- literature
- nonfiction
- japanese literature
- essays
- japan
- literary criticism
"În literatura japoneză ceea ce rămîne neexprimat se ia în seamă cu tot atîta grijă ca şi ceea ce se exprimă, la fel cum în pictura japoneză spaţiile goale sînt făcute să aibă o putere de evocare la f…"-Donald Keene, Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers
"Caracteristic Japoniei este modul viguros de tratare a temelor, atîţ în literatură cît şi în arta plastică, unde artistul încearcă să facă acelaşi lucru ca şi predecesorii săi, dar într-o manieră uşo…"-Donald Keene, Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers
"Într-adevăr, cînd citim romanele japoneze sîntem aproape izbiţi de stăpînirea de sine cu care nişte eroi aflaţi într-o luptă pe viaţă şi pe moarte reuşesc să-şi găsească timp pentru a compune o poezi…"-Donald Keene, Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers
"Încercarea de a reprezenta entităţi mai largi prin mici detalii a condus la un realism şi o concreteţe a imaginii care contrastează în mod straniu cu ambiguitatea nebuloasă a efectului general. Zgomo…"-Donald Keene, Japanese Literature: An Introduction for Western Readers
