Floating Clouds
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Summary
Yukiko drifts through life without knowing how to live in the world. She has seen through Tomioka’s coldness and tried several times to leave him, but in the end cannot break free… In repeated struggles between reason and desire, the more she struggles, the deeper she sinks, falling lucidly into the mire of fate.
Floating Clouds is Fumiko Hayashi’s last representative novel, the culmination of painstaking effort in her literary career. More than forty years of arduous life experience led Fumiko Hayashi’s gaze to touch human baseness while also pursuing human goodness; her cold, penetrating brushwork suffuses a deep compassion for all living beings.
Yasunari Kawabata commented on Fumiko Hayashi: “It is very rare to find someone who can lament the sorrow of women like this.” A legendary novelist and an eternal literary girl, Fumiko Hayashi’s charm swept through the literary and artistic world. Through her autobiographical writing of female experience, she became a model of Japanese “women’s literature,” and her distinctive “wandering” style expanded the territory of the “I-novel.” She was the writer most beloved by the film master Mikio Naruse, and her works were adapted for the screen six times, among which the film Floating Clouds won countless awards and ranked second on the list of the hundred greatest Japanese films of the twentieth century.
Editor's review
The story centers on the emotional entanglement between the returning postwar protagonists Tomioka and Yukiko, but its ambition goes far beyond a love narrative. Through the couple’s wanderings in Tokyo, the Ikaho hot springs, and other places, Fumiko Hayashi precisely captures the spiritual vacuum of postwar Japanese society: the old value system has collapsed, material conditions are extremely scarce, and people drift rootlessly like floating clouds, able to survive only by instinct and desire. The book’s descriptions of erotic desire are bold and direct, but this is not for sensationalism; rather, it serves as a metaphor for a condition of existence—in an era when nothing is reliable, the body becomes the only verifiable reality.
As an editor, I believe the value of reading this book lies in its profound historical sense and insight into human nature. It is not merely a love tragedy but also a philosophical inquiry into “survival” itself. Fumiko Hayashi breaks free from a simple victim narrative; her characters are both pitiable and detestable, and this complexity allows the work to transcend the limitations of its time and still provoke thought about war trauma, individual freedom, and social ethics. The Chinese edition published by Beijing United Publishing Co. reads fluently and conveys well the cold, bleak literary texture of the original.
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Readers interested in postwar Japanese society and cultural transformation
- Literature lovers who appreciate delicate psychological description and complex human portraiture
- Researchers who wish to understand the Japanese “I-novel” tradition and its development
- Deep readers who enjoy exploring existentialist themes in stories
Not a good fit for
- Readers seeking light, pleasant love stories with happy endings
- Readers uncomfortable with explicit erotic description and a bleak view of life in the work
Reading tips
- Read alongside Fumiko Hayashi’s life, especially her prewar experience as a “wandering poet,” to understand the autobiographical color of the work and the source of its sense of nihilism.
- While reading, pay attention to how environmental description blends with characters’ states of mind, and how images such as rain, fog, and hot springs heighten the sense of impermanence evoked by “floating clouds.”
- Compare this book with other Japanese postwar literary works of the same period (such as Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human) and consider how different writers responded to the same historical trauma.
About the publisher
Beijing United Publishing Co., Ltd. is a publisher known for its literature and history titles, with 2,065 books in the collection. Its publishing covers foreign literature, contemporary Chinese prose and essays, history, folk literature, and cultural books. Its list ranges from Sima Qian's complete edition of the Records of the Grand Historian to foreign classics such as The Book of Disquiet, All Quiet on the Western Front, Snow Country, The Stranger, and Jean-Christophe, as well as modern Chinese works including Teahouse and Dawn Blossoms Plucked at Dusk. Its authors and translators include Yasunari Kawabata, Fernando Pessoa, Erich Maria Remarque, Jin Xinyi, Zhou Miao, and Chen Chao. Public information is limited, but its catalogue reflects a balance between Chinese and foreign literary classics and historical and cultural works.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 译者序 林芙美子的终章
- 一
- 二
- 三
- 四
- 五
- 六
- 七
- 八
- 九
- 十
- 十一
- 十二
- 十三
- 十四
- 十五
- 十六
- 十七
- 十八
- 十九
- 二十
- 二十一
- 二十二
- 二十三
- 二十四
- 二十五
- 二十六
- 二十七
- 二十八
- 二十九
- 三十
- 三十一
- 三十二
- 三十三
- 三十四
- 三十五
- 三十六
- 三十七
- 三十八
- 三十九
- 四十
- 四十一
- 四十二
- 四十三
- 四十四
- 四十五
- 四十六
- 四十七
- 四十八
- 四十九
- 五十
- 五十一
- 五十二
- 五十三
- 五十四
- 五十五
- 五十六
- 五十七
- 五十八
- 五十九
- 六十
- 六十一
- 六十二
- 六十三
- 六十四
- 六十五
- 六十六
- 六十七
- 附录 《浮云》一九五一年初版作者后记
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About the author
Hayashi Fumiko is a fairly representative novelist in the history of modern Japanese literature. Publicly available information about her life and creative background is limited; the library currently holds two of her works, with Floating Clouds and Late Chrysanthemums as her representative works. Her writing tends to focus on the emotions and survival circumstances of ordinary women in real life, with a delicate and restrained touch. She often takes everyday life as an entry point to present her characters' inner loneliness, drifting and helplessness. Her works gaze at individual fate while also implying observation of social reality, with a plain and natural style that carries a strong autobiographical flavor and the mark of her era. Hayashi Fumiko's works are often classified under foreign literature among Chinese readers and attract attention as part of modern Japanese literature. Although confirmable information about her education, awards and specific experiences is lacking, her novels, with their female perspective and authentic, moving narration, retain a place in East Asian literary exchange.
Wu Fei's public information is limited, and her profile is best understood through her existing translations and edited works. Ten of her works are held in the collection, spanning foreign literature, historical reading, and parenting. She has translated Miyazawa Kenji's Night on the Galactic Railroad, a collection of works by Ibuse Masuji, Mado Michio's poetry collection The Goat's Letter, and a selection of Nakahara Chūya's poems titled Song of the Goat, as well as Japanese literary works such as The Floating Cloud and The Salamander. These show her sustained engagement with Japanese literary translation. She has also taken part in translating multiple volumes of the Kodansha History of China, bringing overseas scholarship on Chinese history to Chinese-language readers. Her translations emphasize readability while balancing the tone of the original with natural Chinese expression; her subjects range from fairy tales and poetry to historical narrative, reaching a broad readership and contributing to the popularization of Japanese literature and overseas Chinese history.
