The Penguin Book of Japanese Short Stories (A Penguin Classics Hardcover)

You don't need to read this from beginning to end. It is not a conventional collection of stories that should be rushed through. You can read the stories of this book in any order. Take your time. Jay Rubin did an excellent job editing this collection using interesting topic headings such as: NATURE AND MEMORY, MODERN LIFE AND OTHER NONSENSE, and DREAD. Murakami has written a worthy and interesting introduction. Excellent book!

This a wonderful collection of short stories and the editor (Jay Rubin) did a good job of organizing the short stories into various categories. Murakami Haruki did a good job with his introduction (as well as his two short stories included). I read this on my I phone normally waiting while my wife shopped or I had a few moments to kill waiting for someone. I had no problem reading the e version of the stories. As another reviewer stated there is no need to read these stories in order (and in fact I did not do this I picked stories at first based on length and interest from the title). I enjoyed reading these stories and highly recommend this collection.

I really like Japanese literature so I'm always trying to read new authors and books. These stories were very well chosen, I discovered new authors and absolutely LOVED 'Filling Up with Sugar' , 'The Tale of the House of Physics' and 'Factory Town'.

If you want to get your feet wet reading Japanese authors, this is a good place to start. Although the lion's share of stories are those translated by Jay Rubin, there is enough translated by others to give a well-rounded look at what is available out there in the world of Japanese fiction. From here, the sky is the limit!

I enjoyed all of them including 'Tale of the House of Physics' The best short story that I have read in the past year.

Stories with marvelous twists and turns. Some good, some surprising, some bad. The good and surprising make up for the bad. I loved reading about the impact of the Atom bomb on the lives of those who lived during that horrendously dark time in humanity. It gave me a real feeling of what innocent people went through because of the arrogance of those in power, and a sense of sadness that it is hardly mentioned in the west since it happened, almost like a non event. It is a pity that history like this is not taught in schools.

This volume deserves a prize for its design, which is gorgeous, My only problem is lack of general knowledge of modern Japanese literature, which it illustrates, albeit In piecemeal fashion. One can work through it, to one’s profit.

This was a tough read. I generally like Japanese literature. I did not think these stories were well written. I finished the book but found it unsatisfying.

I cannot understand why this book has so many good reviews. Frankly, the stories they've chosen are rubbish. At least the 6 that I read were. I decided not to waste my time reading any more. I lived in Japan for 20 years and have read quite a lot of Japanese literature so it's not as if I am totally new to the genre. There are some great short stories from Japan but they don't seem to appear in this collection. In the end, I just wondered about the selection criteria. Obscure? Arty? Complex? Unconventional?SPOILER ALERT Here's a description of the first 6, in my opinion.1. Simply by eating and boozing a lot for a few months, a man manages to completely change his appearance so that even his close friends don't recognize him. Then he stops boozing and his appearance goes back to normal. Then he does it all again. Really? Is this early magical realism?2. It's not even a story. Pages of a narrator complaining about something.3. Ought to be good seeing as it's by Natsume, but it's not. Man meets a bloke on a train, has a conversation. That's it.4. A samurai explains why he's going to commit suicide and then does it.5. Another 'warrior' suicide described in intimate detail. Yes, that's the story.6. Utter nonsense.

I’m not reviewing this for the content, but for the quality of the physical book overall. I bought it as a valentines gift and the quality was so bad I returned it as it would be embarrassing to send. The paper is really flimsy like the free books you used to get in the front of magazines. The print quality is bad too with really small lettering. The cover is flimsy too and mine came with scuffs all over it. Come on Penguin you can do better!! Such a shame.

This book contains 35 short stories by many of the most prominent Japanese writers (at least among authors whose works are translated into English,) including: Jun’ichiro Tanizaki, Natsume Soseki, Yukio Mishima, Banana Yoshimoto, Yoko Ogawa, Akutagawa Ryunosuke, and Haruki Murakami (who contributes the book’s Introduction as well as two stories.)The stories are arranged into seven sections that are apropos for modern Japanese literature: “Japan and the West” (3 stories,) “Loyal Warriors” (2 stories,) “Men and Women” (6 stories,) “Nature and Memory” (5 stories), “Modern Life and Other Nonsense” (5 stories,) “Dread” (3 stories,) and “Disasters, Natural and Man-made” (11 stories.) This organization scheme, which might seem random applied to most literature, offers some insight into the Japanese mind and experience.“Japan and the West” reflects a Japan in the vanguard among non-Western nations entering into developed nation status. For a time, Japan sat in the unique situation of being the only rich nation that wasn’t majority Caucasian, and the uneasy balancing act that many Japanese felt is reflected in these three stories. “Loyal Warriors” reflects the long shadow of the feudal samurai era, and – in particular – the custom of ritual suicide. It’s true that “Men and Women” has a certain universality to it, though the individual stories speak to the Japanese experience and history. The section entitled “Nature and Memory” is really more about the latter than the former, and the stories all reflect a concern about remembering, forgetting, and the imperfection of memory. “Modern Life and Other Nonsense” explores the modern corporate existence. “Dread” are the horror stories, a genre that has a lengthy history in Japan. “Disasters, Natural and Man-Made” reflects Japan’s experience with many devastating earthquakes and two atomic bombs.In the interest of brevity, I’ll not describe or comment upon all the stories. Instead, I’ll pick out a few that I found particularly moving. This doesn’t mean that there aren’t many gems among the others. But my intention is merely to give the reader a taste of what is in this volume.- “The Story of Tomode and Matsunaga” by Tanizaki Jun’ichiro: A writer receives a letter from a woman whose husband has a history of pulling extended disappearing acts. She asks for the writer’s help because she believes he may know her husband. The writer makes a connection to an acquaintance he has frequently socialized with in bars. The writer notices the man’s appearance in town seems to line up with the dates the woman gave for her husband’s disappearances. It might seem like a mystery solved, but the two men look nothing alike.- “Patriotism” by Yukio Mishima: A junior military officer comes home and tells his wife that he has been put in the untenable position of having to arrest his comrades. Deciding that there is no honorable path, he decides to commit seppuku (ritual suicide,) and – given societal norms – this means his wife, too, will be expected to end her own life.- “Smile of the Mountain Witch” by Ohba Minako: A mythical mountain witch is transposed into a modern urban setting.- “Peaches” by Abe Akira: A man revisits a memory from his youth involving his mother and a cart of peaches, realizing that events couldn’t have happened as he remembers, he reconstructs events as he re-imagines his story.- “Mr. English” by Keita Genji: We meet an office worker who seems like a bit of a jerk, but as we get to know his story, he is humanized.- “Hell Screen” by Akutagawa Ryunosuke: A prima donna artist painting a hellish artwork for his Lord insists that he must have seen scenes to accurately depict them, and thus he is drawn into the hellishness of his work.- “Filling Up with Sugar” by Suwanishi Yuten: A woman’s mother has a rare and incurable disease in which the body slowly turns into sugar.- “Hiroshima, City of Doom” by Ota Yoko: As the title suggests, this is a story of the devastation of Hiroshima by atomic bomb at the end of the Second World War.- “Weather-Watching Hill” Saeki Kazumi: This description of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami reads a bit like a journalistic account.- “Same as Always” by Sato Yuya: This is a chilling tale of a mother who uses the release of radiation as a result of the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant melt-down as a pretext for murdering her baby in a way that won’t look like murder. It’s so wrong in so many ways, but extremely evocative.I enjoyed this collection immensely. The stories are great, and I would highly recommend it for readers of short fiction – particularly if one enjoys the cultural insight that comes from reading translated literature.

Love these short stories, great variety of stories and writers. The one on the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima is so powerful and horrific.

I usually download short stories on Kindle - to have something handy to read at all times. I know little of Japanese literature and thought it was a good place to start. Not disappointed - I have only read the first one so far and look forward to the rest which promise to be varied and entertaining.