Bullfight (Pushkin Collection)

Bullfight (Pushkin Collection)

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By the time he died in he had written 50 novels and nearly short stories and novellas. Of all his books, he said, he felt closest to these two. The Hunting Gun delicately anatomises a love affair, set within the framework of an unrelated event: The poem describes a hunter, glimpsed one winter morning, pipe clamped between his teeth, shotgun on shoulder, a setter lolloping ahead as he trudges on, up a mountain slope.

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Belatedly he realises that his sombre poem was inappropriate for a magazine dedicated to the joys of hunting, and he awaits a flood of indignant protests. Just one letter arrives, from a man who claims to recognise himself as the hunter. He wants the poet to read three letters he is forwarding — from his estranged wife, his faithful lover, and her daughter.

The letters cover 13 years of secrets and lies, interlocking and overlapping to create a picture of passion, betrayal and loneliness, seen from three viewpoints; each one enriching and subtly altering the others. The story has an elegiac quality, a Chekhovian resonance. With his next book, Bullfight , Inoue cut free of understatement.

Where The Hunting Gun was distanced, reflective, Bullfight is edgy jagged; seething with spivs, swindlers, chancers — Osaka Forties noir. It looks at the ruined urban landscape and postwar world of black-marketeering, fraud, cynicism and self-disgust, seen through the eyes of a small-time newspaper editor who becomes obsessed with the idea of staging a huge, three-day bullfight in the local baseball stadium, sponsored and — perhaps unwisely — financed by his newspaper.

The tension is tightened, day by day, page by page; with costs ballooning out of control — 22 bulls to be transported, fed and housed, thousands of tickets to be sold — the spectacle he embarked on almost on a whim takes over his life and wrecks his peace of mind, endangering his relationship with the woman who loves him. Proust has reached us via different conduits, though some of us at least can check the original to see precisely what Marcel said about Dreyfus or the madeleine. Japanese is a different matter. He was sometimes mentioned as a possible Nobel Prize winner, but was never selected.

Much of his oeuvre comprises meticulously recreated historical fiction, but another strand of his work deals with the social and economic realities of postwar Japan. Beautifully translated by Michael Emmerich, the page novella is a disarmingly simple tale of ambition and entrepreneurial daring set against the background of a bombed-out country struggling to its feet. In , when Inoue wrote Bullfight , he was already 42, yet it was only his second work of fiction. It went on to win the prestigious Akutagawa Prize. Like river water flowing over pebbles, the words reveal rather than obscure meaning, which flashes beneath the transparent surface.

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The country is shattered but returning to some kind of normality. Temple bells in Kyoto, long silenced by war, ring in the new year.

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The bulls, which fight each other rather than a matador, are to be brought from the island of Shikoku, where such contests have traditionally been held. Though the spectacle has no history in Osaka, Tsugami figures that people will bet on the outcome of bullfights. Tsugami gambles everything on the success of the three-day tournament, including his relationship with his long-time mistress, Sakiko.

Their mental states, relationships, and careers start to crack under the enormous responsibilities presented to the organisers. Besides, the book takes place shortly after the end of world war 2. Undoublty, the writer, like almost every Japanese writer of that time, wanted to depict life affected by the traumas Japan had suffered from the war, but I'm not experienced enough to say whether or not he did this well. However, my biggest critique is that the story lacked a sense of depth.

Inoue tries to explore a little deeper into the psyche of his characters but he touches this topic only shortly. Neither does he go very deep into the complex relationships and motives of the characters. I feel like Inoue wants to make the story complex, but he just doesn't take the time to do it. Therefore, I feel that the story-concept could have been more refined in a longer novel, instead of in a short story.

Jun 17, Jesse Casman rated it really liked it. The Bullfight is an easy, short read and an interesting look at Japan. Just translated into English for the first time in , it provides welcome access to a less internationally well-known Japanese author, Yasushi Inoue. He deserves a higher level of recognition in the US. Bullfight has a Hemingway feel to it: Simple, clear prose that effortlessly speaks to larger themes. Will big gambles pay off? As a story, it left me less than satisfied since it doesn't spoon feed y The Bullfight is an easy, short read and an interesting look at Japan.

A lost treasure of Japanese fiction – pocket-sized but world class

As a story, it left me less than satisfied since it doesn't spoon feed you all the answers. This book would make great book club fodder. Incidentally, the same author wrote The Samurai Banner of Furin Kazan, a fantastic historical drama set in the warring states period. Completely different historical period but another fantastic access point to Japan.

Jul 16, Jara De boer rated it really liked it. It's not The Hunting Gun but I still really liked it. I would not recommend it as a relaxing read, as reading the book made me feel somewhat anxious and uneasy; watching the plot unfold is like watching two cars crash in slowmotion. However, I would still recommend it as a good read, just not a chill summer holiday kind of read. Tre stelle e mezza. Jun 26, Lisa rated it did not like it Shelves: I read most of this, but it never really interested me and in the end I couldn't be bothered enough to finish it. De innerlijke beschrijvingen zijn van een ontzettend hoog niveau.

Aug 04, JacquiWine rated it it was amazing. A superb little novella, Bullfight is the second work by Japanese journalist, literary editor and author Yasushi Inoue, first published in and now available as a new edition from Pushkin Press. It really is a thing of beauty, small and perfectly formed in many ways. The novella is set in Osaka between the final months of and January , a city in the early stages of economic recovery following the Second World War. All at once, in the most natural manner, Tashiro had caused the scene to rise up before Tsugami like a frame from a movie: After that, Tsugami hardly paid any attention to what Tashiro was saying.

Betting, he was thinking, yes, this could work. Everyone would put money on the bulls […] In these postwar days, perhaps this was just the sort of thing the Japanese needed if they were going to keep struggling through their lives.

Set up some random event for people to bet on, and everything would take care of itself: To read the rest of my review, please click here: Feb 10, Renee Morth rated it it was amazing. I just completed this little gem this morning The story focuses on the lead-up and the preparations of a bullfight rather than the actual event itself. As a theatre director I completely connected with and appreciated how the bullfight is all consuming for Tsugami.

A beautiful tale about sacrifice, pride, greed, risk taking and loss Jan 22, David Keffer rated it it was amazing Shelves: This is a beautiful little book published by the Pushkin Press. It's a pleasure to read and the short novel within moves rapidly. It lacks some of the weight of later Inoue novels, but still possesses a seed of the theme of an inevitability that runs through many of his works.

It is almost impossible to imagine a time when a book like this could have been published, much less awarded a literary prize. It lacks all the requisite features of a contemporary novel. It is an unassuming story without This is a beautiful little book published by the Pushkin Press.

Bullfight (Pushkin Collection) | Souq - UAE

It is an unassuming story without quirky literary devices and it is delivers in a soft, under-spoken voice. Set in a bleak, post-war Japan, it hints at a darkness that permeates the city and the people, without ever being explicitly described. I have said enough. This book should be read. Oct 12, Mazohyst rated it liked it. When I initially tried to read this book, I was a bit skeptical that I could read a book about a bull fight. It turned out be more than that, of course. It was a pure feeling, far removed from desire. Oct 15, Rachella Sinclair rated it really liked it Shelves: This book, like it's writing and the cautionary tale it holds is more about process than plot.

I read the whole book with a sense of unwarranted foreboding. A good read but I enjoyed his 'Hunting Gun' better.

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