Pathway to Japanese Literature
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Three EpisodesAuthor: Hori Tatsuo
| Original Title | 三つの挿話 |
|---|---|
| Author | 堀 辰雄 |
| Genre | Modern Short Fiction |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | A nostalgic tale unfolds through three vignettes steeped in childhood wonder and quiet melancholy. In 1920s Tokyo, mischievous schoolboys skirt the boundaries of Jōsen-ji Temple’s forbidden grounds, dodging irate caretakers dubbed “Red Demon” and “Blue Demon” as they uncover secret pathways through overgrown graveyards and mysterious gardens where fleeting visions of enigmatic women linger. Years later, adolescent Hiroshi navigates awkward encounters with Teru—a fledgling geisha cousin—amid flower-arranging classes and festival preparations, their tentative interactions shadowed by family tragedies and unspoken desires. After the Great Kanto Earthquake, a grieving teenager retreats to a riverside village where cosmos flowers bloom through ruins, his mourning complicated by encounters with a deranged mother and a hauntingly beautiful doctor’s daughter. Across these fragments of memory, Hori Tatsuo weaves delicate portraits of fleeting youth, where sacred spaces and ordinary alleys alike thrum with half-glimpsed mysteries—a world where gravesites become playgrounds, laughter echoes through paper screens, and loss lingers like incense smoke in temple air. |
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