Ryunosuke Akutagawa
seems to be remembered in two extremes: all the time or not at all! Although Akutagawa is referred to as
the “Japanese Edgar Allen Poe as a creator of powerful short stories that
explore the darker corners of the human psyche” (Charters 28) by some critics, he
is sadly one of the least discussed and least celebrated of the authors within the
genre of short stories. The Editor
of the Online Magazine for International
Literature puts it this way: “Try as I might,
Akutagawa remains something of a mystery-man to me. And though I'm generally not big on worrying about the author
behind the texts I find myself looking for more of a hold here—in part because
even after reading this collection, which comes after I've read quite a few
different Akutagawa translations over the years, I still don't feel I know him
or his writing that well” (The Editors).
His life has been anything but easy and there has been a lot of
heartache and suffering that he had to endure in his short 35-year-long
lifetime. He is originally from
Tokyo, Japan and was born with the last name of Niihara, and Ryunosuke was
almost immediately adopted by his uncle, hence adopting his uncle’s last name
of Akutagawa, when his mother went clinically insane and passed away (Charters,
28). His father, who was occupied
as a dairyman, was financially unable to take of his son, so he relied on his
brother to raise Ryunosuke. As he
grew up, Akutagawa attended the Tokyo Imperial University where he studied
English and this is where he first began writing short fiction when Japan was
finally going through westernization and experiencing a coming of age (Liukkonen).
It has also been said that many of
his stories have been lost because no one took the time to translate them for
English-speaking readers.
Because of the western influence’s ideas on Akutagawa and his
lifestyle, his writings began to reflect this change as well. “At the time the most popular literary
trend was naturalism—personal stories about everyday lives—but Akutagawa
rejected the idea that fiction should be autobiographical, preferring the
modernist qualities of detachment and irony” (Charters 28). Most of his initial writings were very
traditional and focused more on
the historical accuracy of these long-established stories that he was retelling,
but towards the end of his life, “he focused more on his own emotional
state and contemporary settings” (Liukkonen). Because he became overworked from supporting his wife and
three children on an author’s salary, his health started to diminish. He was diagnosed with nervous exhaustion
and chronic insomnia and what he turned to in order to help him cope with these
symptoms was opium, especially after he had to adopt his brother’s family when
his brother committed suicide (Charters 28). As he continued with his addiction in 1927, he started
having auditory hallucinations and his stories then started to have a darker
feeling to them, most of them including a lot more deaths and suicides. “In the Bamboo Grove” was a good
example of his writings because it included different views into the human
psyche, had a death occur, and made the reader think someone was to blame but
the answer was never released, and this is the style that Ryunosuke Akutagawa
adored.
As he became too overwhelmed with the burden of two families to
care for, his career slowly becoming less successful, and his dangerous
addiction, Akutagawa “poisoned himself with a fatal dose of the barbiturate
Veronal” at the young age of 35 (Charters 28). A friend of Akutagawa then established a short story award
in his honor, the Akutagawa Prize, given to successful young authors in Japan.
Works Cited
"Akutagawa- The Writer, the Works." Words
Without Borders: The Online Magazine for International Literature. (2007). Web. 10 Mar.
2012. http://wordswithoutborders.org/dispatches/article/akutagawathe-writer-the-works/
Charters,
Ann. The Short Story and its Writer: An Introduction to Short Fiction.
8th ed. Boston: Bedford/St.Martin's, 2011. 28-29. Print.
Liukkonen, Petri. "Akutagawa, Ryunosuke
(1892-1927)." Books and Writers. 2008. Web. 10 Mar 2012.
<http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/akuta.htm>.
"Ryunosuke
Akutagawa." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6Th Edition (2011):
1. Academic Search Complete. Web. 10 Mar.
2012. http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=4&hid=119&sid=9ec10a07-e6c3-486b-8a78-01c5472ff805%40sessionmgr115&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=39042761
I think it is really interesting to hear about the life of Akutagawa. I know when I was reading his story I found it to be really werid. Now after reading your blog I understand why his story is written the way it is. He lived a gloomy and sad life and that is the tone the story put off.
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