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Akutagawa ryunosuk emanga3/25/2023 What really worried him was the damage to his self-esteem.Īkutagawa briefly moves his attention to nosy locals – most of whom seem to find it hilarious, if not confidence boosting, that this guy has a massive nose.īut then it’s a sudden and enduring return to the nature of an esteem crisis.Īs for the people in Ikenō, they maintained that they were happy to have someone with such a nose, such a holy priest at Zenchi Temple. The second reason goes back to my brief aside on modern narcissism. One time, a temple pageboy was substituted for the usual apprentice monk, and when this young man sneezed, he accidentally shook his hand, and the Nose’s nose ended up thrust into the middle of his rice gruel, at least according to the rumor going around Kyoto in those days. It’s not an easy task, either, as anyone who’s tried to eat an ice cream and jammed their nose into it will testify. So the Nose had one of the apprentice monks sit a few feet across from him and hold up his nose. If he tried to eat alone, the tip of his nose would poke into the middle of the food in his bowl. He couldn’t even eat breakfast by himself. The first was that a long nose, practically speaking, was not very useful. If you have a big nose these days, you’ll be inclined to get plastic surgery so you can secure that perfect selfie.įor the priest with his hurtful nickname, there are two reasons why he’s unhappy with this thing on his face. Akutagawa wrote this tale over 100 years ago, but we’re sure everyone back then still remained reasonably image conscious – you have to be to win favour with the gender of your choice.īut vanity and self-loathing are far more pronounced in our age of social media, celebrity press coverage, and smartphones. Immediately I found this interesting as we’re in an age of narcissism and insecurity. Nothing terrified him more than the idea that someone would bring up his nose in conversation. It wasn’t just that as a monk he should’ve been completely focused on the Pure Land awaiting him in the afterlife, it was that he didn’t want other people to know he was so concerned about his nose. Of course, during all this time, he continued to pretend that he didn’t care about it in the least. From the time he was an apprentice in the inner hall, climbing the ranks, even until the present day, he was constantly worrying about his nose. This Buddhist priest was now in his fifties. To get a good picture of it, imagine someone with a long, thin sausage dangling casually down the middle of his face.Ī strange start, but the reason for why this particular nose is an issue becomes apparent in the next paragraph. Its width was the same from top to bottom. Five or six inches long, it hung down from above his upper lip down to the bottom of his chin. If you mention “the Nose” to that high-ranking priest from Zenchi Temple, you won’t find a soul in Ikenō who doesn’t know the name. So, what piqued the interest of those greats? Here’s the opening paragraph: Japanese literary great Natsume Sōseki was so impressed with this short story he sent Akutagawa a letter of praise.įurther to that, in this book there’s Rashōmon and 15 other short stories – it’s worth buying the book for all of them – and an introduction from the living legend Haruki Marukami. Instead, it’s an altogether more bizarre and unsettling look at narcissism. They also share the same satirical edge, lampooning pomp and ceremony in a hierarchical social structure.Īkutagawa’s work also dispenses with the comedic elements of Gogol’s story. Regardless, the stories are quite different – except for their focus on the olfactory body part with nostrils and mucus. And, perhaps, the translation of “nose” from Russian into Japanese (and vice versa) doesn’t quite flow in the same way as for English-speaking countries. But, being a learned sort, I’d bet money he knew of the Russian wit. I couldn’t find any information about whether Akutagawa read Gogol’s classic farcical tale. These were short fables written during the 13th century from an author no one knows. The Japanese writer’s effort is an adaptation of famous native folklore from the Uji Shūi Monogatari. Well, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa’s work first reached publication in 1916 – over five decades after the Russian’s satirical classic. And now there’s another short story review of… The Nose? What’s this? My last book review was The Nose by Nikolai Gogol.
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