Walking in the Floating World
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Summary
Over more than twenty trips, Jie Chen has hiked through Japan's mountains and rivers and journeyed to the temples, courts, and former residences of writers and artists, weaving Japanese cultural figures, allusions, and aesthetic sensibilities into her own reflections.
Taking haiku as her thread and the four seasons as her chapters, Jie Chen follows in the footsteps of haiku poets, retracing Japan's countryside and mountain forests, cities and open fields, savoring amid the actual settings the distinctive mood and beauty of Japanese haiku—delicate, subtle, and imbued with Zen charm. Every journey is an escape and a measure of the world and of time; to walk on the road is to wander through a floating world.
Editor's review
From a professional editor's perspective, the book's value lies in its distinctive 'slow reading' temperament. Jie Chen's prose has a restrained lyricism; she excels at capturing poetry in ordinary things and freezing eternity in flowing scenery. Her depiction of the urban texture concerns not only geography but also the layering of time and memory. Readers can follow her brushstrokes and experience the pleasure of deep gazing—a gaze directed both at the external world and at the subtle ripples within.
Compared with the popular fast-food travel literature on the market, Walking Through the Floating World is closer to a philosophical essay of spiritual wandering. It offers no practical guides, yet it offers modern people trapped in the everyday a possible path of spiritual escape. The book's exploration of solitude, distance, memory, and forgetting is especially suited to readers seeking spiritual anchors in a fragmented age. As a veteran writer and art critic, Jie Chen's density of language and depth of thought ensure that the book stands up to repeated savoring.
Who it's for
A good fit for
- Urban dwellers seeking spiritual wandering and inner calm
- Literature lovers who appreciate delicate prose and deep reflection
- Intellectual readers interested in urban culture and the philosophy of space
- Those who long to slow down and observe and think amid fast-paced life
Not a good fit for
- Readers expecting practical travel guides or exotic curiosities
- Readers who prefer strong plot and fast-paced narrative
Reading tips
- It is recommended to read in segments during quiet hours; each essay can be savored independently.
- One may explore further the cities and artworks mentioned in the book.
- While reading, slow down and appreciate the pauses and breaths between the lines.
About the publisher
Hunan Literature and Art Publishing House is a publisher known for its literary titles, with a catalogue spanning foreign literature, world classics, classical Chinese literature, essays and miscellaneous writings, and mystery and detective fiction. Judging from the more than 1,100 books in the database, the press publishes foreign classics such as Crime and Punishment, Snow Country, The Complete Sherlock Holmes and Letter from an Unknown Woman, as well as Chinese classical and modern literary works including Lu Xun's Wandering and A Madman's Diary and Wu Jingzi's The Scholars. In terms of translators and authors, translations by Cao Guowei and Tan Jinghua appear in its foreign literature titles, and the authors involved include Dostoevsky, Kawabata Yasunari, Conan Doyle and Zweig. Its publishing character lies in introducing Chinese and foreign literary classics side by side, balancing popular and serious works and attending to both readability and literary value. Public information is limited; the above is a brief overview based solely on the books in the database.
Contents
- 版权信息
- 自序 出门一步，即成旅人
- 春
- 美浓和纸与一坡的花树
- 人到晚年已成瘾
- 初音方出，樱花已成往事
- 跌倒于樱花
- 隐庄的樱花盛宴
- 我家小，樱花不如桃花好
- 信浓春雨，有一茶
- 足胫清寒
- 牛仔裤飘荡在街道上空
- 海之栈与大南瓜
- 莉香的车站
- 伊豆的山葵
- 显而易见的好是不用说出来的
- 芳草萋萋处，乌鸦也浓紫
- 夏
- 词汇与现实将触未触
- 茜色的黄昏
- 我也不再穿短裤了
- 比花还白的气味
- 经过溲疏
- 忘记的和不容易看到的
- 青春期战区的逝者
- 两张中岛美雪的CD
- 这是谁的城市？
- 旺火很容易让食物烧焦
- 关雪和松园
- 京都汤豆腐
- 食魔
- 忍者的故乡
- 欢呼降落，犹如淤泥
- 为什么没有鸦色？
- 秋
- 清澄之旅——芭蕉行迹（一）
- 枝折之美——芭蕉行迹（二）
- 蝉鸣入岩深——芭蕉行迹（三）
- 闪电掠空——芭蕉行迹（四）
- 歌枕之巅——芭蕉行迹（五）
- 雪国芭蕉——芭蕉行迹（六）
- 不感狭仄，也不觉空旷——芭蕉行迹（七）
- 此地颇冷，晌午较温——探访仙台时期的鲁迅
- 天上大风，最是人间留不住——寻访良宽故里
- 生为蜘蛛须结网——探访虚子纪念文学馆
- 许多果子落了下来——探访种田山头火“一草庵”
- 冬
- 飞雪入口，犹如吞下白色的药片
- 秘色
- 羊羹色、小豆色、咖啡，还有雪爪
- 雪原上的一棵树
- 人生就像一场大梦
- 武士的庭园
- 寒夜睡衣重，莫非吴天雪
- 往南灿灿然，往北灿灿然
FAQ
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About the author
Jie Chen is an author listed in the Chinese book database, with two works currently included, both classified under prose and miscellaneous writings. The representative work, Entering the Red Again and Again: Travel Essays on Japanese Literature, takes Japanese literature as its theme, combining reading with travel and offering essayistic observation and record. Walking in the Floating World likewise continues in an essayistic style, attending to daily life and the ways of the world. The two books share similar subject matter, suggesting that Jie Chen's writing tends to interweave literary reading, foreign cultural experience, and personal feeling in a calm, finely observed prose rather than systematic academic writing. Public information is limited: nationality, dates of birth and death, educational background, and writing career cannot be confirmed, and no author introduction is available in the database. At present, only the titles and classifications indicate a main direction of prose essays on literature and life experience, through which readers may come to know this author's textual style.
