Pathway to Japanese Literature
Discover Japan's stories—across time, across language.
← Back
Like LoveAuthor: Yamakawa Masao
| Original Title | 愛のごとく |
|---|---|
| Author | 山川 方夫 |
| Genre | Modern Short Fiction |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | In a cramped boarding house far from familial obligations, a man seeks refuge from a life choked by duty. His days orbit a mechanical routine: writing radio dramas to sustain his ailing mother and sisters, then retreating to a three-tatami room where solitude offers fleeting respite. Here, he observes fellow tenants like specimens—a couple’s unsettling intimacy glimpsed through a keyhole, their banality masking hidden perversions—until a former lover reenters his orbit. Their encounters, charged with hollow passion and performative affection, become another ritual in his gray existence. Yet her sudden death fractures his carefully constructed detachment, unleashing buried anguish. As storms batter the boarding house’s fragile walls, he confronts the void where love might have resided—a revelation as disorienting as the crimson sunset staining his sterile world. This is a portrait of isolation unraveling, where even numbness cannot shield against life’s violent intrusions. |
← Return to List← Return to TOP