#japanese literature

[bsd-bibliophile]

Stupid! Stupid, stupid. I am a stupid idiot. For what purpose do I live my life? I get up in the morning, eat, roam about, and then at night I go to sleep. And the whole time all I think about is having a good time. I’ve mastered three foreign languages, but only so that I can read lewd and erotic poems from various countries! My lust for fantasy is five times that of a normal person, and I am ten times as greedy. I’m never satisfied. I need stronger and stronger stimulation. But I’m a coward and a lazybones, so for the most part nothing happens beyond my imagining some excitement. I’m a speculator of the metaphysical. An adventurer only in my mind. A navigator within the reading room. In other words, I’m an insignificant dream-weaver.

Dazai Osamu, A New Hamlet

[briefpeachdinosaur]

@viiper1 @crystalluvsu2 @anotherinstancepoetry

[mournfulroses]

Empress Yamatohime, transl. by Kenneth Rexroth, from Written on The Sky; Poems from the Japanese

[metamorphesque]

—Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

[That’s what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.]

[feral-ballad]

Yosano Akiko, tr. by Sam Hamill & Keiko Matsui Gibson, from River of Stars: Selected Poems of Yosano Akiko

[Text ID: “Picking wild roses, / some to weave into my hair / and some for the hand, / I then waited for hours, / I waited for you all day.”]

[lets-get-lit]

I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it -- to be fed so much love I couldn't take any more. Just once.

- Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

[bibliocharlie]

so glad it’s finally hot coffee szn

[anne-bsd-bibliophile]

"You can't go around judging people on first impressions. That's how mistakes get made." - Yokomizo Seishi, The Honjin Murders

"The police investigate footprints and look for fingerprints. I take the results of these investigations and by piecing together all the available information logically, I am able to reach a conclusion. Those are my methods of deduction." - Yokomizo Seishi, The Honjin Murders

"The Killer had submitted the problem of a locked room murder and dared us to solve it. It was going to be a battle of wits. Perfect. Challenge accepted! If it was brains and logic and wit that were required, I was ready to do battle." - Yokomizo Seishi, The Honjin Murders

"In our world there are some things so dreadful, so terrifying that you would scarcely believe they existed. They are things that common sense and accepted practice would dictate are impossible, but they do exist. Out of reason... that's right. It's a mad state of affairs." - Yokomizo Seishi, Death on Gokumon Island

"Yet, while his unchanging gratitude and devotion to the priest's family were certainly commendable, Sahei failed to realize that everything - even gratitude - has a limit that should not be exceeded, and that his excessive gratitude toward the Nonomiya family would embroil his own kin in a series of bloody murders after his death." - Yokomizo Seishi, The Inugami Curse

"Thirty years can weave strange patterns in the tapestry of life." - Yokomizo Seishi, The Inugami Curse

"With the blind spot that had been hindering his thought process finally removed, everything had fallen into place for him with great speed. All day yesterday, he had been stacking building blocks of deductive reasoning in his mind, with the result that now he had reproduced the entire complex structure of the mystery." - Yokomizo Seishi, The Inugami Curse

"Were it not for the events that I am about to relate, doubtless my life would have continued in that impoverished, humdrum vein. But one day a spot of red was suddenly split on the grey of my life: I embarked on an adventure of dazzling mystery and stepped into a world of blood-chilling terror." - Yokomizo Seishi, The Village of Eight Graves

"Nothing is more frightening in this world than ignorance and stupidity." - Yokomizo Seishi, The Village of Eight Graves

"The events I am about to describe are filled with such darkness and sadness, are so cursed and hate-filled, that not a word I write can possibly offer the faintest glimmer of hope or relief. Even as the author, I cannot predict what the final sentence will be, but I fear that the relentless dread and darkness that precede it may end up overcoming the readers and crush their very spirits in its grasp." - Yokomizo Seishi, The Devil's Flute Murders

"Everyone here is a bit twisted somehow. All they feel for each other is suspicion, resentment and fear. I couldn't tell you why that is. It's as if they're all just waiting for their chance to stick the knife in. As if they think that if they don't, then they'll be on the other end of the blade." - Yokomizo Seishi, The Devil's Flute Murders

Yokomizo Seishi has also been added to the BSD-Bibliophile Online Library!

You can find more information about Yokomizo-sensei on the following pages: List of Books in English Quotes and Facts Collection Fun Facts Author Connections

[infinitiumme]

Yukio Mishima with his cats

[elysiumaze]

Mieko Kawakami in, Heaven.

[cinematic-literature]

Perfect Days (2023) by Wim Wenders

Book title: 木 (Tree in English) by Aya Kōda

[bsd-bibliophile]

I wept bitterly, crying aloud. I could have wept on and on, interminably… Is trustfulness a sin, I wonder?

Dazai Osamu, No Longer Human

[mournfulroses]

Yosano Akiko, transl. by Kenneth Rexroth, from The Burning Heart; Women Poets of Japan

[metamorphesque]

haruki murakami (pinball 1973)

[feral-ballad]

Yosano Akiko, tr. by Sam Hamill & Keiko Matsui Gibson, from River of Stars: Selected Poems of Yosano Akiko

[Text ID: “I want, suddenly, to suck / your feverish lips with mine.”]

[0wikipedia0]

I’m sorry?? What?

Was reading a Wikipedia article on Mori Ōgai and apparently his daughter Mari was the “creator” of the YAOI GENRE?!?! I’m reeling.

Wtf