Pathway to Japanese Literature
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Around Father’s Hundredth-Day MemorialAuthor: Makino Shinichi
| Original Title | 父の百ヶ日前後 |
|---|---|
| Author | 牧野 信一 |
| Genre | Modern Short Fiction |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | A young man returns alone to Seiyūtei, a once-frequented teahouse haunted by memories of his late father’s indulgences and his family’s unraveling. Now the reluctant head of a fractured household, he navigates strained tensions with his domineering mother, who clings to fading prestige while scheming to control him. Fragments of the past resurface: his father’s drunken escapades with geishas, his mother’s volatile jealousy, and humiliating confrontations that exposed their crumbling dignity. As he drinks amid the faded glamour of ochaya rooms, he oscillates between self-pity and defiance, mocking his own inadequacy while clinging to fantasies of rebellion. Shadows of debt, betrayal, and generational failure loom—yet he seeks solace in performative recklessness, flirting with geishas and provoking his estranged wife. Between sake-soaked nostalgia and bitter reality, he grapples with an inheritance of dysfunction, unsure whether to salvage his family’s legacy or let it collapse into the decadence his father once embraced. |
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