The Anguish of Birth

有岛武郎 / Tan JinghuaShanghai Translation Publishing House · ChinaSep 2018

Rating 4.0
Word count
93K words
Chapters
7
ISBN
9787532758227

Tags

Foreign Literature Man and NatureArt and LifeOrdinary PeopleIdeals and RealityArtist FigureSocial IndignationYouthful AnguishShort FictionHokkaido Fishing VillageShirakaba School

Summary

The Agony of Birth is a collection of short stories and novellas by Arishima Takeo, a leading writer of Japan's Shirakaba school.

The title story successfully creates the figure of a young fisherman-artist and reflects the conflict between art and life, ideal and reality. The work vividly depicts the grandeur of Hokkaido fishermen battling nature; through landscape the author expresses his intense indignation at the social environment of the time and his deep sympathy for the hardships and spiritual condition of the lower classes. It is a classic that has been included in Japanese middle-school national-language textbooks.

The collection also includes "Grass Beneath the Stone," which depicts revenge against a wife; "A French Girl," which celebrates the pure soul; and "The Precepts of the Western Paradise," which interprets sacred faith. These works combine the human love of the Bible and Tolstoy's humanitarianism with Kropotkin's anarchism and Whitman's celebration of freedom, and are filled with the Shirakaba writers' emphasis on the self and the development of individuality.

Editor's review

The Agony of Birth is a short-story collection by Arishima Takeo, a representative of Japan's Shirakaba school of literature, gathering seven representative works including "The Agony of Birth," "The Death of O-Matsu," and "The Descendants of Cain." Arishima's writing is pervaded throughout by deep sympathy for the lower classes and a serious inquiry into the meaning of life; his prose is plain yet full of force. The title story, specially included here, is set against the lives of Hokkaido fishermen and depicts a young painter's struggle between artistic ideals and practical survival; its finely drawn psychology and profound reflection on the relationship between nature and human nature make it an important work from the period when Japanese naturalist literature was transitioning toward the I-novel.

From the perspective of literary history, Arishima Takeo inherits the I-novel tradition's truthful depiction of personal experience while also incorporating Western humanist thought, enabling his works to transcend mere personal sentimentality and acquire a broader social concern. His writing does not pursue ornate rhetoric but strikes directly at the essence of life with a calm, restrained touch; this quality of "literature of force" seems especially precious in today's noisy reading environment.

Reading these works, readers can not only sense the atmosphere of Japanese society in the Taishō period but also grasp life's dilemmas that transcend their era—the conflict between ideal and reality, the alienation of the individual from society, and the contradiction between artistic creation and daily life. The Shanghai Translation Publishing House edition is accurately and fluently translated, retaining the original's cold, tense style, and the appended commentary also helps in understanding the works' historical context.

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Reading tips

  1. Begin with "The Descendants of Cain" to feel the rough force of Arishima's early work, then move to "The Agony of Birth" to appreciate the depth of his mature thought
  2. While reading, note how descriptions of the natural environment echo the characters' psychological states—an important feature of Arishima's literature
  3. It is helpful to learn about Taishō-era Japanese society and the tenets of Shirakaba literature to deepen understanding

About the publisher

Shanghai Translation Publishing House China · Founded in 1978

Shanghai Translation Publishing House is a Chinese publisher oriented mainly toward translation and publishing. Its publications cover foreign literature, world classics and classic works, as well as social culture, folk literature and classical poetry. The database contains 2,618 titles, including Never Let Me Go, Les Misérables (2 volumes), Don Quixote (illustrated collector's edition), The Complete Comedies of Molière (4 volumes), The Complete Novels of Kafka (3 volumes), The Collected Works of Dostoevsky (9-volume set), Reason and Persons, and Oedipus Rex (Translation Classics). Its author resources include foreign writers such as Kazuo Ishiguro, Victor Hugo, Cervantes and Molière, as well as translators such as Zheng Kelu, Sun Jiameng, Li Jianwu and Zhang Kun. The publisher has brands such as "Translation Classics Selections" and "Translation Documentary," and emphasizes translated works in foreign literature and the humanities and social sciences, while also publishing bilingual dictionaries and foreign-language educational books. Public information is limited; the above is based on the book information in the database.

Contents

  1. 版权信息
  2. 诞生的苦恼
  3. 石头下的小草
  4. 法兰西少女
  5. 幻想
  6. 普通人的信
  7. 西天箴传

FAQ

To which literary school does Arishima Takeo belong? Arishima Takeo is one of the representative writers of Japan's Shirakaba school during the Taishō period; the school advocated humanism and individual liberation and emphasized self-affirmation and the pursuit of ideals.
What themes does The Agony of Birth mainly explore? The work centers on the contradiction between artistic creation and the realities of survival, the individual's spiritual predicament under natural and social pressure, and the quest for the value of life.
How is the translation quality of this edition? The Shanghai Translation Publishing House edition is translated by an experienced translator of Japanese literature; the translation is accurate and fluent, conveys well the original's somber, austere literary style, and includes necessary notes.

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About the author

有岛武郎 Author

Arishima Takeo is one of the representative writers in the history of modern Japanese literature, and his creative work spans fiction, criticism, and other fields. Because the materials available in this database are limited, information such as his birth and death years and specific life experiences is not available, so only a brief introduction can be given based on the existing entries. In Chinese book classification, his works are usually grouped under foreign literature. The database currently includes one of his works, The Agony of Birth. Judging from the title and the common classification, this work largely revolves around themes such as life, childbirth, and emotional predicaments, reflecting the author's attention to individual fate and the inner world. Arishima Takeo's writing style often carries a strong speculative quality and humanistic concern; he is skilled at uncovering deep spiritual conflicts within everyday subjects, and his language is steady yet full of tension. His works hold a certain place in modern Japanese literature and also offer Chinese readers a useful text for understanding modern and contemporary Japanese literature.

Tan Jinghua Author · China · 1951

Tan Jinghua was born in Shanghai in June 1951. He holds a doctorate in literature and is a professor and doctoral supervisor at Shanghai International Studies University, where he formerly served as executive vice president. He has long been engaged in the study and translation of modern Japanese literature. His publications include a biography of Kawabata Yasunari and A History of Modern Japanese Literature, and he has translated more than 140 major works of Japanese literature. His representative translations include Kawabata Yasunari's Snow Country, The Izu Dancer, The Old Capital, Thousand Cranes, and The Sound of the Mountain, as well as the Selected Works of Kawabata Yasunari and the four-volume Abe Kobo series, and Natsume Soseki's Light and Darkness. He is a former president of the Chinese Association for Japanese Literature and of the Shanghai Translators Association. His works are generally classified under essays and miscellaneous writings and foreign literature, and he has had a broad influence in the translation and introduction of modern and contemporary Japanese literature.