The Edogawa Rampo Reader

I first became interrested in Rampo many years ago because of my passion for Edgar Allan Poe and my strong interest in Japonese literature, cinema, and pop culture. But back then their was very little of his work translated to English, but luckily I read French and they had translated much more of his writings. There is no doubt Rampo's amazing imagination was much influenced by, (way) above all, Poe, but by other Western writers too, such as H G Wells. Despite my love of Rampo's fiction, I was most interested in the short essays included in this book which provided much needed insight into what makes Rampo, and his imagination, tick. And despite his deep debts to Poe, Poe was merely a diving board into Rampo's own ero guro nansensu imagination/psyche. Ero guro nansensu translates as the name of a Japanese literary style erotic grotesque nonsense (erotic and grotesque speak for themselves, but 'nonsense' to me could as well be translated as 'absurd' or 'surreal', and Rampo was the style's chief exponent). In my opinion this style had roots in Western Literature too. Of course there was Poe, but also E T A Hoffmann's "Sandman", Isidore Ducasse's "Maldoror", many of Baudelaire's poems and prose poems, and so on. And by the end of the 20th, and continuing into the 21st century, something very like ero guro nansensu is firmly embedded in Occidental literature and film. Poe's greatest theme was the first great lucid (psycho)analysis of the modern mind, a literary analysis still unsurpassed and tragically still as true now as it was then. If Poe was the father of such analysis, Rampo is entirely the child, and Poe gave him the tools to explore, and perhaps revel in, the dark, extravagant, twists and turns of the 'modern' psyche. From then to now, no one has done it better than this vastly underrated author who unfortunately, despite his immense influence in Japan, had little direct influence on Occidental writing. I don't find Rampo's prose, unlike Poe's, to be compelling, it's more a means to the ends of his imagination, but I find his writing to be extremely compelling. Perhaps even his matter of fact, often tell don't show, style is an excellent counterpoint to the dark, rich, strange, almost unequalled, world of his imagination. Several of the fictions in this book are little masterpieces.Technically the book is excellent with hardly any typos, interesting and informative introduction and preface, abundant footnotes filling in much of what a Western reader might not know about Japanese history and culture, and a fine readable translatin. And what a great price! Hopefully Mr Jacobowitz will translate some more Rampo. If so I'd like to suggest the Panorama Island or some of the later 'boy detective' stories.

Excellent

A book for any fan of Edogawa Rampo.

I feel like i have been waiting for this book for all of my life. it has been a slow amount of time to get the Japanese writer Edogawa Rampo translated into English. One of his collections of short stories have been in print for so many years - yet waiting for another title seemed endless. Now we have at least three other books by Rampo, and I bought them all this year."The Edogawa Rampo Reader" is a much needed over-all look of his career. The first half of this book is short stories and the second half are essays -mostly regarding the nature of the 'detective' story. i only found one essay the most interesting and that's "The Horror Of Films" dealing with the nature and history of cinema. It's a great piece on what was then a new medium. He wrote it in 1926, and for a short essay it covers a lot of ground. Basically all to do with being the viewer.The short stories are all in the creepy mode that I love about Rampo's work. It includes the story about a man who spends a lot of time in the attic where he spies on people down below, and also commits a murder. The long introduction by Seth Jacobowitz is pretty perfect in capturing what is so essential about Rampo, his times, and the work itself. A remarkable writer.