I have read Dazai, Soseki, Murakami (Haruki and Ryu), Murata... and yet Mishima seems to be a few leagues above these other authors, both in the depth of his characters and the prose of his writing (although I am a fan of Dazai's stories).But it seems lame the idea that the best Japanese author was a psycho who died in an embarrassing failed coup. Surely there's another author to take the mantle?Are there any other /lit/ japanese authors or books I am missing?
Kawabata?
Akutagawa
Eiji Yoshikawa
>>25621200Having read a lot of japanese lit I agree with you on Mishima, but>embarrassing failed coupDid you really read Mishima without realizing the coup was performance art rather than a genuine attempt to topple the government?Back on topic seconding Kawabata, also Kobo Abe
>>25621200You feel this way because Mishima is so steeped in Western culture that his works translate well to the West - or at least better than other. Maybe what makes other authors great is untranslatable. I felt that this must be the case when reading Kawabata. Also he was psychologically intense enough to kill himself in a bizarre act of performance art and that intensity is in the literature
>>25621411But in the end he’s probably just a lot better. The other names you listed look weak. Mishima was just special
>>25621323>Did you really read Mishima without realizing the coup was performance art rather than a genuine attempt to topple the governmentThe first work I read of Mishima was Confessions of a Mask, where I definitely got the impression of his obsession with death drive performance art, it was so blatant that it panted the idea of his coup. But it's been a few years since I read that and I've been recently devling into his other works where the characters have many philosophical discussions about revolutionary/political ideas being overlooked in their present time, but then those same ideas transcending time and becoming more relevant in later societal consciousnesses. I suppose I read over these passages (discussions between the protagonists in Spring Snow) and saw it as the context for his coup, but I forgot the psychosexual death drive so strongly described in Confessions of a Mask. Additionally, I started reading the first chapters of "The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima", and the whole coup reads like a cringe comedy, like a Peep Show type episode. It's so funny, the soldiers couldn't even hear him due to the helicopters that came overhead, it is like nothing went to plan. The generals in the barracks tried storming the room Mishima was holding hostage, but they considered it so bizarre they didn't bring any weapons, and Mishima was slashing at them with his saber and yelling madly.
Other than Tanizaki and Oe, Japanese fiction writers seem to be pretty mid. Their poets and philosophers, though, they are often top tier.
Kawabata's short stories are real fucken goodMishima deserves the hype he's getting these days
>>25621323>Kobo AbeI want to read The Woman in the Dunes. The movie is cool
I'd recommend the older classics like Genji, Heike, etc. >>25621259How does one get Taiko unabridged in English? This pisses me off so much.
>>25621248this
>>25621236very funny
>>25621200>who died in an embarrassing failed coupfiltered
>>25621411>Maybe what makes other authors great is untranslatable.then they are forever trapped in gureeetonesu
>>25621701>How does one get Taiko unabridged in English?FWIW, Musashi didn't even get an unabridged English release until this year.
>>25624949oh yeah I've read this, it's good that a complete version exists but the abridgd translation is stronger (such is life!) but I take out the parts not in the abridged and read it from this.
>>25621200Tanizaki.
