Pathway to Japanese Literature
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Shōjō RutenAuthor: Okamoto Kanoko
| Original Title | 生々流転 |
|---|---|
| Author | 岡本 かの子 |
| Genre | Modern Short Fiction |
| Author Type | Female Author |
| Summary | A young woman slips away from Tokyo’s clamor into the shadowed countryside, haunted by the weight of fractured bonds and unanswered questions. Her journey unfolds through fragmented memories: a father, once a beggar turned scholar, whose intellectual fervor clashed with his longing for roots; a mother, a former geisha of calculated charm, whose beauty masks a hollow core. Between them, she navigates a childhood marred by alienation—shuttled between a concubine’s modest home and the cold scrutiny of her father’s legal wife. As she matures, encounters with enigmatic figures—a loyal maid, a conflicted suitor, a gardener harboring unspoken yearnings—deepen her awareness of inherited contradictions: a beggar’s bloodline entwined with scholarly pride, a mother’s cunning paired with fragile allure. Yet beneath societal masks and familial deceptions simmers her own restless search for identity, drawn equally to intellectual rigor and primal belonging. Vivid landscapes—mist-cloaked forests, riverside towns steeped in decay—mirror her inner flux, where every step forward echoes with ghosts of the past. Will she transcend the cycles of longing and disillusionment, or become another thread in the tapestry of inherited sorrow? |
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