Reply from Author: Hello Joji,
The text of Snow Country that we used in "Exploring Japanese Literature" actually came not from a book, but from the SUNDAY MAINICHI magazine (including, mysteriously, a drawing of fish). I therefore don't know if it's available in a book in Japanese. I suspect not, but shall ask my editor.

There seems to be quite a debate about 「てのひら」versus 「たのごころ」, with both readings being valid. Apparently when critics asked Kawabata to declare which reading he had intended, he just uttered a vague "Aah," so we shall never know!

My impression is that people who believe in "Kawabata the Simple and the Lucid" opt for the straightforward "te no hira," while people who believe more in "Kawabata the Obscure" (apparently a majority) go for "tanogokoro."

Reply from Author: Hello Bernhard,
Thanks for this posting.

Of course, one good way to practise Japanese (though not to get to know Japanese literature) is to read works you are familiar with in your own language translated into Japanese. For this reason, the first book I read cover to cover in Japanese was actually Ian Fleming's "Thunderball," a James Bond book! When I was studying Italian in Florence, the kiosks at the railway stations used to sell cheap thrillers and I found that blundering through these on my way to and fro language school really accelerated my acquisition of the language. I imagine "Verwandlung" (Metamorphosis) would work very well in Japanese; I seem to remember even seeing a manga of it!

I always admire people who can master Japanese and English as well as their native language. My English-speaking brain seems to have a maximum capacity of two, not three, languages. When I first came here I used to read the "Spiegel" for news, but after I'd locked myself away to memorize kanji, I suddenly found myself unable to read German anymore. I was also a bit shocked when I was in Paris recently that I started speaking French in Japanese word order (i.e. backwards!).

Another short story recommended for reading in parallel with "Patriotism" is Oe Kenzaburo's "Seventeen." The details are on the Mishima board.

GILES

Reply from Author: Hello Bernhard,
Thank you for saying such nice things about my books. I'm not sure if I'll be producing any more for a while, so perhaps you'd better have a look at what the competition has to offer!

You can get some good ideas from the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" section at Amazon.com (on the page of "Exploring" or "Breaking"). Obviously, the one area I don't cover is contemporary literature, so you might want to have a look at Michael Emmerich's recently released "Read Real Japanese Literature." It has an audio CD and the notes do more or less translate the whole text for you, if you want it. It also has very helpful grammar notes, something my books don't really have.

I've never looked into the book "Reading Japanese with a Smile: Nine Stories from a Japanese Weekly Magazine for Intermediate Learners," but apparently it includes a translation, vocab lists and grammar notes.

On the subject of a forum, one thing that might be helpful would be for people to post up the names of the short stories they found they could read on their own without the need for all the support provided by books like mine.

A couple of stories we considered for inclusion in Exploring Japanese Literature were: FUSHINCHU (Under Reconstruction) by Mori Ogai and SHIMBUNGAMI by Mishima. These are both easier than any of the other stories in "Exploring" as it was published. Tanizaki's "Chijin no Ai" ("A Fool's Love" or "Naomi" in English) is a full-length novel, but very easy to read. We toyed with the idea of putting in Sakaguchi Ango's "Hakuchi" (The Idiot), a short story set in WW2, but it was too long. (It's a little longer than Mishima's "Patriotism," I think.) Hayama Yoshiki's "The Letter in the Concrete Barrel" (Semento-daru no naka no tegami), a classic of "proletarian literature" also got the cosh. (Being "for the people," it's nice and easy.)

Murakami Haruki must be nice and easy too, if you want to go contemporary. The manga "Master Keaton" about a half-English, half-Japanese ex-SAS Oxford archeology lecturer who works as an insurance investigator (!) is good and meaty and very gripping. Here's some information on it (though I see that the comics have been withdrawn due to an authorship dispute!).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_Keaton

Michael Emmerich seems to have compiled a considerable shortlist of stories from which he made the final cut for RRJF, so we could ask him for some advice if you'd like....

By the way, I notice you're from Vienna. I lived there near the cathedral for a couple of months in 1989 doing a German course over the summer. Unfortunately I've not had the chance to go back since.