Uchida Hyakken (1889–1971)

This collection, from Dalkey Archive, translates a collection of stories published in Japan in 1922, along with a later collection, 'Triumphant March into Port Arthur'.

These are short, dreamlike narratives, a few pages long, in which an unnamed first person narrator encounters strange experiences in then-contemporary Japan. I've never read anything quite like them. There is a prevailing mood of anxiety and dislocation, shading into terror at times. Although the spirits of Japanese folklore make the occasional appearance, these are not straightforward supernatural tales by any means, and I felt that these figures had simply strayed in as part of the wildlife of narrator's unconscious, as vampires and werewolves might as well have done.

Writers with more knowledge of Japanese culture than mine have suggested that these tales have influenced the more disconcerting elements in the work of Haruki Murakami, which I can see, and were directly influenced by the 'Ten Night's Dreams' of Natsume Soseki, a volume I will certainly be seeking out. Comparisons with the Surrealists are often facile, and usually to be avoided, but in this case I feel there are real parallels with the automatic writing being produced in Paris by Robert Desnos and others around the same time. The potent hallucinatory qualities of this writing make it best appreciated in small doses: a couple before bedtime will provide fodder for thoroughbred nightmares!… (altro)