The Temple of the Wild Geese and the Bamboo Dolls of Echizen (Dalkey Japanese Literature) (Dalkey Japanese Literature)
Contributors: Dennis Washburn (Translator)
Edition: First English Translation edition
Publisher: Dalkey Archive Pr; Dalkey Archive Press
Published: March 20, 2008
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 208
ISBN-13: 9781564784902
Subjects: Fiction anthologies & collections; Modern fiction; Fiction; Fiction - General; Literary; Literature & Fiction; Anthologies (multiple authors)
Description: Two elaborate tales written in the early 1960s by the Japanese author Mizukami (1919--2004) explore volcanic oedipal urges lurking just below the surface of unlikely love triangles. In The Temple of the Wild Geese, set at a Zen Buddhist monastery in the mountains, Jinen, an unhappy, disfigured and lonely orphaned novice, develops a filial crush on Satoko, a recent widow and the reverend Jikai's new common-law wife, which she encourages. It's a simple jealousy tale centered on a complex relationship, and Mizukami achieves remarkable psychological depth through detail and stylistic finesse. Bamboo Dolls of Echizen, set in 1924, similarly hinges on a maternal relationship gone sour when a young bamboo craftsman takes his father's prostitute as a wife and insists on treating her as a mother rather than as a proper wife, to the detriment of her health.