WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.480 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are opening 00:00:02.480 --> 00:00:06.219 the file on a figure who is, well, he's heavy 00:00:06.219 --> 00:00:09.000 artillery in Japanese literature. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:09.300 --> 00:00:12.240 A giant. If you're a fan of Japanese culture 00:00:12.240 --> 00:00:15.439 or cinema or just really good, really twisted 00:00:15.439 --> 00:00:18.140 storytelling, you have almost certainly come 00:00:18.140 --> 00:00:22.120 across his name or at the very least the prize 00:00:22.120 --> 00:00:24.879 named after him. You must have. It's the single 00:00:24.879 --> 00:00:28.199 most prestigious literary award in Japan. Winning 00:00:28.199 --> 00:00:32.060 the Akutagawa Prize is, I mean, career -wise, 00:00:32.140 --> 00:00:34.020 it's like winning the lottery and an Oscar on 00:00:34.020 --> 00:00:35.799 the same day. Exactly. We were talking about 00:00:35.799 --> 00:00:38.000 Ryunosuke Akutagawa, often called the father 00:00:38.000 --> 00:00:40.299 of the Japanese short story. And for a lot of 00:00:40.299 --> 00:00:42.340 people, I think the association starts and ends 00:00:42.340 --> 00:00:45.439 with Akira Kurosawa's masterpiece film, Rashomon. 00:00:45.619 --> 00:00:47.439 Which is a great entry point. Don't get me wrong. 00:00:47.520 --> 00:00:49.460 It's a phenomenal film. Of course. But relying 00:00:49.460 --> 00:00:52.259 on the movie to understand the man. is a little 00:00:52.259 --> 00:00:54.179 bit of a trap. It helps, but it also, you know, 00:00:54.200 --> 00:00:57.600 it hinders. Akutagawa was so much more than just 00:00:57.600 --> 00:00:59.700 the source material for a classic black and white 00:00:59.700 --> 00:01:02.799 movie. He was a complex, deeply troubled, and 00:01:02.799 --> 00:01:05.079 I would say an incredibly modern figure. That 00:01:05.079 --> 00:01:06.920 is exactly what we're going to unpack today. 00:01:07.120 --> 00:01:09.099 We aren't just looking at his bibliography. We're 00:01:09.099 --> 00:01:11.840 looking at a man who lived a short, very intense 00:01:11.840 --> 00:01:15.870 life, died at just 35. He lived during the Taishu 00:01:15.870 --> 00:01:18.609 period, which is this fascinating, chaotic era 00:01:18.609 --> 00:01:21.250 of modernization in Japan right between the wars. 00:01:21.590 --> 00:01:24.209 And he was absolutely obsessed with structure, 00:01:24.390 --> 00:01:27.909 with art, with perfection. But underneath all 00:01:27.909 --> 00:01:30.909 of that intellectual brilliance, he was haunted. 00:01:31.090 --> 00:01:33.109 Haunted is exactly the right word. He wasn't 00:01:33.109 --> 00:01:36.829 just sad or melancholy. He was terrified. He 00:01:36.829 --> 00:01:39.329 famously described his state of mind in his final 00:01:39.329 --> 00:01:42.189 years as being plagued by a, what was the phrase 00:01:42.189 --> 00:01:44.950 again? A vague insecurity. That's it. A vague 00:01:44.950 --> 00:01:47.730 insecurity. And that phrase, that feeling, is 00:01:47.730 --> 00:01:49.730 going to be our North Star for this deep dive. 00:01:49.909 --> 00:01:52.569 It really is the key to unlocking his psyche. 00:01:52.750 --> 00:01:55.069 Our mission today is to understand how a man 00:01:55.069 --> 00:01:57.950 who was terrified, literally terrified of inheriting 00:01:57.950 --> 00:02:00.950 madness, used literature to try and build this 00:02:00.950 --> 00:02:02.930 kind of fortress of logic and structure around 00:02:02.930 --> 00:02:05.299 himself. Right. To keep the chaos out. He was 00:02:05.299 --> 00:02:07.900 trying to make sense of a chaotic world and a 00:02:07.900 --> 00:02:11.300 chaotic inner world through his pen. And the 00:02:11.300 --> 00:02:13.340 tragedy is, at the end of the day, the pen might 00:02:13.340 --> 00:02:15.520 not have been strong enough. So we've got a mountain 00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:17.460 of sources here. We've got the biographical data, 00:02:17.580 --> 00:02:20.280 critical analyses of his major works, details 00:02:20.280 --> 00:02:22.680 on his relationships, his travel diaries, and 00:02:22.680 --> 00:02:24.639 of course the tragic accounts of the end of his 00:02:24.639 --> 00:02:26.879 life. We are going to sift through all of it 00:02:26.879 --> 00:02:30.039 to see what made Akutagawa tick. And to do that, 00:02:30.039 --> 00:02:32.370 we have to start at the very beginning. Because 00:02:32.370 --> 00:02:35.530 for Akutagawa, his origin story isn't just, you 00:02:35.530 --> 00:02:38.169 know, background noise. No. It is the source 00:02:38.169 --> 00:02:40.930 of the trauma that defined him. OK, let's rewind. 00:02:41.169 --> 00:02:44.990 March 1st, 1892. We're in the Kishibashi district 00:02:44.990 --> 00:02:47.449 of Tokyo. And here's the first thing that surprised 00:02:47.449 --> 00:02:49.310 me. And I honestly had to double check this in 00:02:49.310 --> 00:02:51.990 the notes. His name wasn't originally Akutagawa. 00:02:52.189 --> 00:02:54.810 No, it wasn't. He was born Ryunosuke Nihara. 00:02:54.990 --> 00:02:57.210 He was the eldest son of a businessman named 00:02:57.210 --> 00:03:00.180 Toshizu Nihara. And what did the family do? Because 00:03:00.180 --> 00:03:02.979 when I think of 1892 Japan, I'm thinking, I don't 00:03:02.979 --> 00:03:05.840 know, tea, silk, maybe pottery. I am not thinking 00:03:05.840 --> 00:03:08.180 of this. They owned a milk production business. 00:03:08.379 --> 00:03:11.580 A milk business? Yeah. In 1892. Get out of here. 00:03:11.819 --> 00:03:14.439 It sounds bizarre now, but you have to remember 00:03:14.439 --> 00:03:17.740 the context. This is the Meiji era. Japan is 00:03:17.740 --> 00:03:20.699 modernizing at breakneck speed. Western influence 00:03:20.699 --> 00:03:23.120 is just pouring in. Okay, so milk was a Western 00:03:23.120 --> 00:03:25.740 thing. Exactly. Milk was seen as this exotic 00:03:25.740 --> 00:03:28.180 Western health tonic. It was a brand new industry. 00:03:28.580 --> 00:03:31.979 So being in the milk business meant his father 00:03:31.979 --> 00:03:34.960 was an entrepreneur, a hustler, someone who was 00:03:34.960 --> 00:03:37.659 riding that wave of modernization. See, this 00:03:37.659 --> 00:03:40.340 is what I love. You picture this high -minded 00:03:40.340 --> 00:03:42.939 literary genius, this master of the macabre and 00:03:42.939 --> 00:03:45.439 the historical, and he starts out in a milk family. 00:03:45.639 --> 00:03:48.680 It really grounds him in the reality of Meiji 00:03:48.680 --> 00:03:51.599 era. Tokyo. It's gritty. It's commercial. It 00:03:51.599 --> 00:03:54.039 does. But that reality is shattered very, very 00:03:54.039 --> 00:03:56.259 quickly. And this is the crucial moment in his 00:03:56.259 --> 00:03:59.759 early life. Shortly after Rinosek was born, we're 00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:02.219 talking maybe seven or eight months and in, his 00:04:02.219 --> 00:04:05.719 mother, Fuku, experienced a severe mental illness. 00:04:05.919 --> 00:04:07.719 The sources just say mental illness, which is 00:04:07.719 --> 00:04:09.599 a very broad term. But in the context of the 00:04:09.599 --> 00:04:11.719 time and how it affected him, this was obviously 00:04:11.719 --> 00:04:14.000 significant, right? This wasn't just about a 00:04:14.000 --> 00:04:16.500 postpartum depression. Yeah. No, this was catastrophic 00:04:16.500 --> 00:04:20.050 for the family structure. The records are a bit 00:04:20.050 --> 00:04:22.990 murky on the exact diagnosis, as they often were 00:04:22.990 --> 00:04:25.670 in the 19th century, but she became incapacitated. 00:04:25.709 --> 00:04:28.350 She essentially lost her mind. Wow. And because 00:04:28.350 --> 00:04:30.069 of her condition, she just couldn't care for 00:04:30.069 --> 00:04:33.970 him. So the infant Rinosuke was removed from 00:04:33.970 --> 00:04:36.730 that house, the milk house, and was adopted and 00:04:36.730 --> 00:04:39.110 raised by his maternal uncle, Mikiaki Akutagawa. 00:04:39.250 --> 00:04:41.149 And that's how he gets the surname. That's how 00:04:41.149 --> 00:04:43.310 he gets the name we know him by today. So he's 00:04:43.310 --> 00:04:45.550 removed from his biological father and mother, 00:04:45.610 --> 00:04:47.649 and he's placed into the Akutagawa household. 00:04:48.680 --> 00:04:50.800 What was that environment like? Was it similar 00:04:50.800 --> 00:04:53.480 to the milk business? More entrepreneurs? Not 00:04:53.480 --> 00:04:55.860 at all. It was night and day. And this is a major 00:04:55.860 --> 00:04:58.459 shift in his trajectory. The Kutagawa lineage 00:04:58.459 --> 00:05:00.360 was very, very different. They were part of the 00:05:00.360 --> 00:05:02.740 warrior class, the samurai class. Although by 00:05:02.740 --> 00:05:04.480 this time, the class system had been legally 00:05:04.480 --> 00:05:06.139 abolished. But the culture would still be there. 00:05:06.339 --> 00:05:09.639 The culture, the mindset, absolutely. Historically, 00:05:09.639 --> 00:05:13.470 they had served the Tokugawa clan as Okuju. Okubzu. 00:05:13.610 --> 00:05:15.170 Okay, I need you to unpack that term for me. 00:05:15.269 --> 00:05:18.170 I looked it up and I saw translations like tea 00:05:18.170 --> 00:05:21.310 server, which sounds a little, well, it sounds 00:05:21.310 --> 00:05:23.949 like a waiter. Chuckles. It's a bit more prestigious 00:05:23.949 --> 00:05:26.819 than a waiter at a diner. I would hope so. Think 00:05:26.819 --> 00:05:28.660 of it more like the master of ceremonies for 00:05:28.660 --> 00:05:31.199 the shogun's private quarters. Essentially, they 00:05:31.199 --> 00:05:33.040 were the officials who managed the tea rooms 00:05:33.040 --> 00:05:35.779 and served tea within the shogun's castle. Ah, 00:05:36.060 --> 00:05:38.579 so it's a high culture role. Exactly. It sounds 00:05:38.579 --> 00:05:40.959 like a service role. And it was. But it was a 00:05:40.959 --> 00:05:44.759 role of incredible culture, ritual, and precision. 00:05:45.079 --> 00:05:47.560 You had to be incredibly disciplined, educated 00:05:47.560 --> 00:05:50.420 in aesthetics, and deeply cultured to hold that 00:05:50.420 --> 00:05:53.100 position. So he goes from a merchant background 00:05:53.100 --> 00:05:56.060 hustling milk to a household that is steeped 00:05:56.060 --> 00:05:58.579 in tea ceremonies, art, and the remnants of that 00:05:58.579 --> 00:06:01.779 old samurai discipline? Precisely. The Akutagawa 00:06:01.779 --> 00:06:04.339 family loved art and literature. It was in their 00:06:04.339 --> 00:06:07.160 blood. So young Ryunosuke was immersed in this 00:06:07.160 --> 00:06:09.259 environment. He started reading classical Chinese 00:06:09.259 --> 00:06:11.819 literature from a very young age. He was reading 00:06:11.819 --> 00:06:14.639 the heavy hitters of his own time, Morigai, not 00:06:14.639 --> 00:06:17.220 Sume Sushiki. He was just breathing in high culture. 00:06:17.360 --> 00:06:19.889 He was a prodigy, frankly. But, and there is 00:06:19.889 --> 00:06:21.889 always a but with him, we have to talk about 00:06:21.889 --> 00:06:24.990 the shadow hanging over all this. He knew about 00:06:24.990 --> 00:06:27.110 his biological mother, right? It wasn't some 00:06:27.110 --> 00:06:29.660 kind of family secret. Oh, he knew. And this 00:06:29.660 --> 00:06:31.860 is the psychological burden he carried every 00:06:31.860 --> 00:06:35.100 single day of his life. He spent his entire life 00:06:35.100 --> 00:06:38.300 terrified, I mean just petrified, that he would 00:06:38.300 --> 00:06:41.019 inherit his mother's madness. That is such a 00:06:41.019 --> 00:06:43.420 heavy weight for a kid to carry, just constantly 00:06:43.420 --> 00:06:46.060 thinking, is today the day I lose my mind? Is 00:06:46.060 --> 00:06:48.500 it in my blood? It shaped his entire worldview. 00:06:48.819 --> 00:06:51.839 Critical analysis suggests that for Akutagawa, 00:06:51.980 --> 00:06:54.480 the equation was very simple. If he went mad, 00:06:54.660 --> 00:06:58.139 life would become meaningless. He equated rationality 00:06:58.139 --> 00:07:00.810 and intellect. with existence itself. So his 00:07:00.810 --> 00:07:03.629 mind was everything. Everything. So his drive 00:07:03.629 --> 00:07:06.470 to create these perfect structured stories wasn't 00:07:06.470 --> 00:07:08.529 just artistic ambition. It was a defense mechanism. 00:07:08.850 --> 00:07:11.509 He was trying to prove to himself over and over 00:07:11.509 --> 00:07:14.250 and over again that his mind was sound. It's 00:07:14.250 --> 00:07:16.329 like he was building a wall against the chaos 00:07:16.329 --> 00:07:18.490 using words. If he could structure a sentence 00:07:18.490 --> 00:07:21.209 perfectly, then his mind must be working perfectly. 00:07:21.569 --> 00:07:23.649 Precisely. The structure of the story was the 00:07:23.649 --> 00:07:25.949 structure of his sanity. Let's look at his education, 00:07:26.029 --> 00:07:28.189 then, because he was clearly a brilliant kid. 00:07:28.250 --> 00:07:30.629 You don't read classical Chinese poetry at age 00:07:30.629 --> 00:07:33.350 10 if you're, you know, slacking off. He was 00:07:33.350 --> 00:07:37.290 incredibly smart. Yeah. In 1910, he entered the 00:07:37.290 --> 00:07:39.970 first higher school. Now, for listeners who might 00:07:39.970 --> 00:07:41.990 not know the Japanese education system of the 00:07:41.990 --> 00:07:44.870 time, the first higher school was the elite of 00:07:44.870 --> 00:07:46.970 the elite. It was the main feeder school for 00:07:46.970 --> 00:07:49.389 the Imperial University. The Ivy League of its 00:07:49.389 --> 00:07:52.129 day. Basically, you have to take these grueling 00:07:52.129 --> 00:07:55.029 entrance exams to get in. And Akutagawa. He got 00:07:55.029 --> 00:07:57.449 in without taking them. His middle school academic 00:07:57.449 --> 00:08:00.370 record was just that good. He was exempted. That 00:08:00.370 --> 00:08:02.730 is the ultimate teacher's pet flex, isn't it? 00:08:02.790 --> 00:08:05.389 Oh, the test. I'll just skip it. Thanks. It just 00:08:05.389 --> 00:08:07.649 shows his intellectual capacity. And it was there 00:08:07.649 --> 00:08:10.689 at the first higher school that he met the people 00:08:10.689 --> 00:08:14.189 who would define his generation. He formed friendships 00:08:14.189 --> 00:08:17.370 with Kan Kikuchi, Mazao Kume, Yuzi Yamamoto, 00:08:17.629 --> 00:08:20.759 and Suchibunme. And for those listening who might 00:08:20.759 --> 00:08:23.459 not be deep into Japanese literary history, this 00:08:23.459 --> 00:08:25.439 isn't just a random group of college buddies. 00:08:25.620 --> 00:08:27.980 Oh, no. This is like a literary all -star team 00:08:27.980 --> 00:08:31.319 in the making. A powerhouse. It absolutely is. 00:08:31.399 --> 00:08:34.120 These men would go on to shape the entire Taisho 00:08:34.120 --> 00:08:38.000 and Showa literary landscapes. Kankikuchi, in 00:08:38.000 --> 00:08:41.340 particular, plays a massive role in Akutagawa's 00:08:41.340 --> 00:08:43.600 legacy later on. He's the promoter, the organizer, 00:08:43.860 --> 00:08:46.399 the guy who gets things done. But at this stage, 00:08:46.480 --> 00:08:49.940 they are just young. Brilliant, ambitious students. 00:08:50.240 --> 00:08:54.299 And then in 1913, Akutagawa heads to Tokyo Imperial 00:08:54.299 --> 00:08:56.919 University, what we now call the University of 00:08:56.919 --> 00:08:59.440 Tokyo, to study English literature. And this 00:08:59.440 --> 00:09:01.399 is where things start to get real. He's not just 00:09:01.399 --> 00:09:03.879 reading anymore. He's starting to write. He is. 00:09:04.039 --> 00:09:06.159 He's doing it with that same group of friends. 00:09:06.539 --> 00:09:10.480 In 1914, they decided to revive a literary journal 00:09:10.480 --> 00:09:13.460 called Shinshichu. Which translates to what? 00:09:13.700 --> 00:09:15.480 New currents of thought. New currents of thought. 00:09:15.519 --> 00:09:17.700 That sounds very ambitious. What was their vibe? 00:09:17.860 --> 00:09:19.539 What were they trying to say? Well, just look 00:09:19.539 --> 00:09:20.759 at what they were publishing. They weren't just 00:09:20.759 --> 00:09:22.779 writing about their own lives or, you know, local 00:09:22.779 --> 00:09:25.379 gossip. They were publishing translations of 00:09:25.379 --> 00:09:28.559 William Butler Yeats and Anatole France right 00:09:28.559 --> 00:09:30.580 alongside their own original writing. So they 00:09:30.580 --> 00:09:32.320 were looking outward. They were bringing the 00:09:32.320 --> 00:09:35.460 world to Japan in a literary sense. Yes. And 00:09:35.460 --> 00:09:38.559 this is a crucial point about Akutagawa. He believed 00:09:38.559 --> 00:09:40.919 that literature should be universal. He wanted 00:09:40.919 --> 00:09:43.519 to bridge that gap between Western culture and 00:09:43.519 --> 00:09:46.240 Japanese culture. He didn't see them as incompatible. 00:09:46.259 --> 00:09:48.779 He saw them as two halves of a whole. He wanted 00:09:48.779 --> 00:09:51.059 to take the modernism of the West and fuse it 00:09:51.059 --> 00:09:53.500 with the tradition of the East. So he's translating 00:09:53.500 --> 00:09:56.240 Yeats, he's studying English lit, and he's starting 00:09:56.240 --> 00:09:59.039 to pen his own stories. And this leads us to 00:09:59.039 --> 00:10:02.340 1915 and the debut of a story that is now legendary, 00:10:02.700 --> 00:10:06.179 Rashmon. He published Rashmon while he was still 00:10:06.179 --> 00:10:08.539 a student. It appeared in a magazine called Tikoku 00:10:08.539 --> 00:10:11.320 Bungaku, or Imperial Literature. Now, Rashmon 00:10:11.320 --> 00:10:14.659 is a heavy story. It's set in this dilapidated 00:10:14.659 --> 00:10:17.399 gate in Kyoto filled with corpses, with a servant 00:10:17.399 --> 00:10:19.779 debating whether to become a thief just to survive. 00:10:20.059 --> 00:10:22.919 It's grim. It's atmospheric. It is dark, atmospheric, 00:10:23.019 --> 00:10:25.539 and psychologically complex. And it's based on 00:10:25.539 --> 00:10:27.980 a 12th century tale from a collection called 00:10:27.980 --> 00:10:31.340 the Kanjaku Monogatari -shu. So he's taking old 00:10:31.340 --> 00:10:33.860 material and making it new. Right. Okutagawa 00:10:33.860 --> 00:10:37.740 took this old piece of folklore, which was honestly 00:10:37.740 --> 00:10:41.259 kind of dry, and he injected it with this modern 00:10:41.259 --> 00:10:43.879 psychological realism. He made us care about 00:10:43.879 --> 00:10:45.559 why the servant makes his choice, what goes on 00:10:45.559 --> 00:10:49.639 in his head. So surely his friends, this literary 00:10:49.639 --> 00:10:52.860 power team, they read it and said, Ryunosuke, 00:10:53.039 --> 00:10:55.759 you're a genius. This is the future of literature. 00:10:56.120 --> 00:10:59.269 You would think so. But actually. They criticized 00:10:59.269 --> 00:11:02.529 it. What? It was not well received by his inner 00:11:02.529 --> 00:11:03.929 circle. They didn't really get it immediately. 00:11:04.129 --> 00:11:06.289 It wasn't an overnight sensation. That has to 00:11:06.289 --> 00:11:08.909 be tough. You put your soul into this dark, moody 00:11:08.909 --> 00:11:11.610 piece, and your best friends are like, eh, I 00:11:11.610 --> 00:11:13.590 don't know about this one. It's a bit weird. 00:11:13.750 --> 00:11:15.789 It was discouraging, for sure. They thought it 00:11:15.789 --> 00:11:17.389 was too constructed, maybe a bit too artificial 00:11:17.389 --> 00:11:19.889 compared to the popular style of the time. But 00:11:19.889 --> 00:11:23.679 Akutagawa had guts. In December 1915, just a 00:11:23.679 --> 00:11:25.779 month or so later, he gathered up his courage 00:11:25.779 --> 00:11:27.779 and went to a literary circle meeting hosted 00:11:27.779 --> 00:11:30.539 by his idol, the great Natsume Susaki. Okay, 00:11:30.600 --> 00:11:32.679 we need to pause on Susaki. For the listener 00:11:32.679 --> 00:11:35.519 who is Natsume Susi in the context of 1915 Japan. 00:11:35.779 --> 00:11:38.120 Because I feel like famous writer doesn't quite 00:11:38.120 --> 00:11:41.559 cover it. Famous writer is a massive understatement. 00:11:41.720 --> 00:11:44.419 He is the sun around which the entire literary 00:11:44.419 --> 00:11:47.480 world orbits. He's the author of I Am A Cat. 00:11:47.789 --> 00:11:50.909 Bachin, Kokoro. He's the most respected, most 00:11:50.909 --> 00:11:53.669 influential intellectual in the country. To get 00:11:53.669 --> 00:11:55.389 his approval was everything. It was like getting 00:11:55.389 --> 00:11:58.289 a nod from the emperor of literature. So Okutagawa, 00:11:58.409 --> 00:12:00.730 still just a student, walks into the lion's den. 00:12:00.889 --> 00:12:03.149 He starts attending these weekly meetings known 00:12:03.149 --> 00:12:07.090 as the Thursday Club. And in early 1916, he publishes 00:12:07.090 --> 00:12:09.799 another story called The Nose Hana. The nose. 00:12:10.059 --> 00:12:12.299 I love this story. It's about a high -ranking 00:12:12.299 --> 00:12:15.440 Buddhist priest with a ridiculously long, dangling 00:12:15.440 --> 00:12:18.019 nose who's obsessed with shrinking it because 00:12:18.019 --> 00:12:20.259 he's so vain. It's hilarious, but also kind of 00:12:20.259 --> 00:12:22.740 sad. It's a brilliant satire on vanity and obsession. 00:12:22.960 --> 00:12:25.120 And Shitake read it. And he didn't just read 00:12:25.120 --> 00:12:26.799 it. He wrote a Putagawa, a letter of praise. 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:28.659 That's the golden ticket. That's everything. 00:12:29.159 --> 00:12:31.580 Shitake basically said, this is excellent. If 00:12:31.580 --> 00:12:33.580 you can write 20 or 30 more stories like this, 00:12:33.659 --> 00:12:35.980 you will be a unique presence in the literary 00:12:35.980 --> 00:12:39.190 world. That stamp of approval changed everything. 00:12:39.490 --> 00:12:42.210 It secured Akutagawa's fame. He wasn't just a 00:12:42.210 --> 00:12:45.250 student anymore. He was Siseki's anointed successor, 00:12:45.549 --> 00:12:48.450 in a way. And this brings us to his style. We 00:12:48.450 --> 00:12:50.370 mentioned earlier that he was translating Yitz 00:12:50.370 --> 00:12:54.629 and France, but the Nos and Rashmon are set in 00:12:54.629 --> 00:12:57.450 the distant past. Why was he looking backward 00:12:57.450 --> 00:12:59.929 to move forward? Why not just write about 1916 00:12:59.929 --> 00:13:02.110 Tokyo? This is where we get into the literary 00:13:02.110 --> 00:13:04.259 battleground of the time. The dominant trend 00:13:04.259 --> 00:13:06.720 in Japan then was something called naturalism. 00:13:07.059 --> 00:13:09.320 Naturalism. Define that for us. Because in my 00:13:09.320 --> 00:13:11.480 head, that sounds like writing about trees and 00:13:11.480 --> 00:13:13.940 rivers, but I know that's not it. No, not nature 00:13:13.940 --> 00:13:17.000 like trees. Naturalism was about portraying life 00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:20.559 exactly as it is. Often gritty, often focused 00:13:20.559 --> 00:13:23.419 on the mundane, the ugly, the everyday. But unvarnished 00:13:23.419 --> 00:13:26.000 truth. Right. It was supposed to be real. And 00:13:26.000 --> 00:13:28.460 it was often very autobiographical, the iNovel 00:13:28.460 --> 00:13:31.620 or Shishetsu genre, where the author just writes 00:13:31.620 --> 00:13:33.740 about their own life. You know, I woke up, I 00:13:33.740 --> 00:13:36.500 felt sad, I looked at a wall. And Akutagawa hated 00:13:36.500 --> 00:13:39.799 that. He was not a fan. He was an anti -naturalist. 00:13:40.220 --> 00:13:42.500 He didn't want to just document the boring details 00:13:42.500 --> 00:13:45.639 of his daily life. He thought art required artifice, 00:13:45.820 --> 00:13:48.740 structure. He wanted to use historical settings, 00:13:48.940 --> 00:13:52.659 the Heian period, the Edo period, the early Meiji 00:13:52.659 --> 00:13:55.399 period, as a stage. Why, though? What did that 00:13:55.399 --> 00:13:57.740 give him? By distancing the story from the now. 00:13:58.490 --> 00:14:00.970 He could explore universal psychological truths 00:14:00.970 --> 00:14:03.490 without getting bogged down in the specific social 00:14:03.490 --> 00:14:06.850 issues of 1916 or his own laundry list of problems. 00:14:07.049 --> 00:14:09.629 So he uses the past as a mirror for the modern 00:14:09.629 --> 00:14:11.809 mind. It's safer in a way. You can talk about 00:14:11.809 --> 00:14:14.389 corruption or vanity more freely if you dress 00:14:14.389 --> 00:14:16.929 it up in a kimono from 500 years ago. Exactly. 00:14:17.169 --> 00:14:19.970 He reinterpreted these classical works with modern 00:14:19.970 --> 00:14:22.470 sensibilities. He wasn't just retelling old myths. 00:14:22.529 --> 00:14:24.909 He was rewriting them to expose the modern anxieties 00:14:24.909 --> 00:14:27.809 underneath. Words like Gesaku Zanmai, absorbed 00:14:27.809 --> 00:14:31.610 in letters, and Jigoku Hen, hell screen, are 00:14:31.610 --> 00:14:33.909 perfect examples of this. Hell screen is another 00:14:33.909 --> 00:14:35.549 massive one. That's the one about the painter, 00:14:35.690 --> 00:14:38.230 right? The obsessive painter. Yeah, Yoshihide. 00:14:38.389 --> 00:14:40.629 The greatest painter in the land, but a man with 00:14:40.629 --> 00:14:43.289 a very twisted personality. He is ordered by 00:14:43.289 --> 00:14:46.090 a powerful lord to paint a screen depicting Buddhist 00:14:46.090 --> 00:14:50.750 hell. But Yoshihide has a problem. He can only 00:14:50.750 --> 00:14:53.870 paint what he sees. He's a supreme realist in 00:14:53.870 --> 00:14:56.649 his own way. So he can't just imagine hell. He 00:14:56.649 --> 00:14:58.730 needs a reference model. Right. So he starts 00:14:58.730 --> 00:15:00.909 torturing his apprentices. He unleashes snakes 00:15:00.909 --> 00:15:03.309 on them. He chains them up just to see their 00:15:03.309 --> 00:15:05.909 faces contort in fear so he can paint it. Talk 00:15:05.909 --> 00:15:08.409 about a toxic workplace environment. It gets 00:15:08.409 --> 00:15:10.970 so much worse. The climax involves a carriage. 00:15:11.169 --> 00:15:13.289 He asks the Lord to burn a carriage so he can 00:15:13.289 --> 00:15:16.009 paint the flames of hell. The Lord agrees, but 00:15:16.009 --> 00:15:18.549 in a really cruel twist, he puts Yoshi Hide's 00:15:18.549 --> 00:15:21.029 own daughter inside the burning carriage. No. 00:15:21.690 --> 00:15:24.470 And Yoshi had watches. He watches. At first, 00:15:24.470 --> 00:15:27.309 he is horrified. But then, as the flames rise 00:15:27.309 --> 00:15:29.850 and his daughter dies, his expression changes 00:15:29.850 --> 00:15:32.389 to one of ecstasy. He's captivated by the beauty 00:15:32.389 --> 00:15:35.129 of the flames, the color of the burning. He sacrifices 00:15:35.129 --> 00:15:38.110 his humanity for his art. That's deeply disturbing 00:15:38.110 --> 00:15:40.889 stuff. But it's also about that obsession with 00:15:40.889 --> 00:15:43.070 art, right? The idea that art is more important 00:15:43.070 --> 00:15:46.090 than life itself. Or that art requires the sacrifice 00:15:46.090 --> 00:15:49.779 of humanity. which, given Akutagawa's own obsession 00:15:49.779 --> 00:15:52.500 with his craft, feels like a very personal exploration. 00:15:53.080 --> 00:15:55.539 Was he afraid that he was becoming Yoshihide? 00:15:55.779 --> 00:15:58.659 Was he sacrificing his own life, his own sanity, 00:15:58.860 --> 00:16:02.179 to create these perfect stories? I want to pivot 00:16:02.179 --> 00:16:04.220 to the themes in his work, because you mentioned 00:16:04.220 --> 00:16:07.120 Hellscreen and the sacrifice. But there is another 00:16:07.120 --> 00:16:09.279 recurring theme that the sources highlight, and 00:16:09.279 --> 00:16:11.639 it's a bit, well, it's a bit controversial, the 00:16:11.639 --> 00:16:14.379 role of women. This is a critical part of understanding 00:16:14.379 --> 00:16:17.409 Akutagawa. And to understand his female characters, 00:16:17.610 --> 00:16:19.549 we have to look at the women who raised him. 00:16:19.789 --> 00:16:22.490 We have the three mothers, essentially. Yafuku, 00:16:22.730 --> 00:16:25.029 the biological mother. Who represents the fear 00:16:25.029 --> 00:16:28.149 of madness. She is the source of his existential 00:16:28.149 --> 00:16:30.570 dread. Even though he was removed from her care 00:16:30.570 --> 00:16:33.370 at eight months old, she loomed large in his 00:16:33.370 --> 00:16:35.870 imagination. She was the ghost in the machine. 00:16:36.169 --> 00:16:38.690 Then there's the aunt who raised him, Fuki. Yes, 00:16:38.830 --> 00:16:41.970 Fuki. She played the most prominent role in his 00:16:41.970 --> 00:16:43.889 day -to -day life. And the sources describe her 00:16:43.889 --> 00:16:46.610 as controlling. She was unmarried, and she poured 00:16:46.610 --> 00:16:49.389 all her energy and attention into Rinuske. She 00:16:49.389 --> 00:16:51.350 demanded a lot from him, especially as she got 00:16:51.350 --> 00:16:53.909 older. She was a dominating force in his domestic 00:16:53.909 --> 00:16:57.370 life. So you have a distant, terrifying mother 00:16:57.370 --> 00:17:00.129 figure and a present, controlling mother figure. 00:17:00.509 --> 00:17:03.429 How does that translate to the page? Not well, 00:17:03.570 --> 00:17:05.809 to be honest. The women in Akutagawa's stories 00:17:05.809 --> 00:17:08.410 are often portrayed as dominating, aggressive, 00:17:08.809 --> 00:17:11.750 deceitful, or selfish. There's a definite streak 00:17:11.750 --> 00:17:14.500 of, well, misogyny in his work that we can't 00:17:14.500 --> 00:17:16.900 ignore. That is a harsh assessment but the text 00:17:16.900 --> 00:17:19.400 backs it up. It does. But if you look closely 00:17:19.400 --> 00:17:21.579 the men are often the victims of these women. 00:17:21.839 --> 00:17:23.859 It's a reflection of his own feelings of being 00:17:23.859 --> 00:17:26.039 trapped or controlled. It's not necessarily a 00:17:26.039 --> 00:17:28.940 fair reflection of reality but it is a very accurate 00:17:28.940 --> 00:17:31.559 reflection of his internal landscape. He felt 00:17:31.559 --> 00:17:33.940 suffocated by the expectations and the emotional 00:17:33.940 --> 00:17:36.200 demands of the women in his life. It's fascinating 00:17:36.200 --> 00:17:38.740 how his personal life just bleeds into the ink 00:17:38.740 --> 00:17:40.920 like that. Speaking of bleeding let's talk about 00:17:40.920 --> 00:17:44.369 a fight. A literary fight. The dispute with Junichi 00:17:44.369 --> 00:17:46.769 Tanizaki. Oh, this was the heavyweight title 00:17:46.769 --> 00:17:49.690 match of Taichu's literature. Tanizaki versus 00:17:49.690 --> 00:17:52.349 Akutagawa. Tanizaki, for listeners, is another 00:17:52.349 --> 00:17:55.230 giant. He wrote The Makioka Sisters in Praise 00:17:55.230 --> 00:17:58.329 of Shadows. Very different style. Very, very 00:17:58.329 --> 00:18:00.789 different. Yeah. Tanizaki was all about aesthetics, 00:18:01.089 --> 00:18:04.910 shadows, sensuality. Akutagawa was about intellect, 00:18:05.210 --> 00:18:08.250 irony, structure. and their debate was public. 00:18:08.329 --> 00:18:10.269 It was essentially a debate about the soul of 00:18:10.269 --> 00:18:13.650 the novel. The core argument was structure versus 00:18:13.650 --> 00:18:15.910 lyricism. Okay, break that down. Who was on which 00:18:15.910 --> 00:18:18.890 side? Akutagawa was team structure. He argued 00:18:18.890 --> 00:18:21.190 that the structure of the story, how it is built, 00:18:21.230 --> 00:18:23.569 the architecture of the plot, was more important 00:18:23.569 --> 00:18:25.990 than the content or the plot itself. He wanted 00:18:25.990 --> 00:18:28.970 a story to be a finely crafted object. He famously 00:18:28.970 --> 00:18:30.930 said that a story without a proper structure 00:18:30.930 --> 00:18:33.170 is not art. Which makes perfect sense for a guy 00:18:33.170 --> 00:18:35.309 trying to keep chaos at bay. He wants a blueprint. 00:18:35.470 --> 00:18:38.509 He needs it. Exactly. Tanizaki took the opposite 00:18:38.509 --> 00:18:41.309 view. He argued for lyricism. He thought the 00:18:41.309 --> 00:18:43.410 most important thing was the flow, the emotion, 00:18:43.549 --> 00:18:45.509 the beauty of the prose, even if the plot was 00:18:45.509 --> 00:18:48.269 a bit loose. He argued that a story could be 00:18:48.269 --> 00:18:51.390 interesting purely based on its atmosphere. He 00:18:51.390 --> 00:18:53.269 thought structure was mechanical and artificial. 00:18:53.730 --> 00:18:57.029 So Akutagawa wants a blueprint, and Tanizaki 00:18:57.029 --> 00:18:59.930 wants a vibe. That's a good way to put it. And 00:18:59.930 --> 00:19:02.150 again, this aligns perfectly with Akutagawa's 00:19:02.150 --> 00:19:05.279 psychology. A mind... Trying to order a chaotic 00:19:05.279 --> 00:19:08.079 world will always cling to structure. If the 00:19:08.079 --> 00:19:10.960 structure fails, the story fails. And for Okutagawa, 00:19:11.099 --> 00:19:13.740 if the structure fails, the mind fails. He needed 00:19:13.740 --> 00:19:16.599 that control. Tanizaki, who was perhaps a bit 00:19:16.599 --> 00:19:18.599 more psychologically robust, was comfortable 00:19:18.599 --> 00:19:20.480 letting things flow. It's high stakes for him. 00:19:20.910 --> 00:19:23.009 Now, we can't talk about structure without talking 00:19:23.009 --> 00:19:25.109 about the story that messes with structure the 00:19:25.109 --> 00:19:27.450 most. The story that gave us the term the Rashomon 00:19:27.450 --> 00:19:30.769 effect. We're talking about In a Grove or Yabunonaka. 00:19:30.990 --> 00:19:33.609 This is arguably his masterpiece of structural 00:19:33.609 --> 00:19:36.710 experimentation. It was published in 1922. And 00:19:36.710 --> 00:19:39.269 just to clarify for everyone, because this is 00:19:39.269 --> 00:19:41.750 the most common misconception, Kurosawa's movie 00:19:41.750 --> 00:19:44.109 Rashomon is actually based on this story, In 00:19:44.109 --> 00:19:47.410 a Grove. Correct. The movie takes the... title 00:19:47.410 --> 00:19:49.430 and the framing device you know the gate the 00:19:49.430 --> 00:19:52.769 rain the conversation from akutagawa story rashomon 00:19:52.769 --> 00:19:56.009 but the actual plot the murder mystery the trial 00:19:56.009 --> 00:19:58.509 the conflicting testimonies that comes entirely 00:19:58.509 --> 00:20:02.490 from in a grove so what happens in in a grove 00:20:02.490 --> 00:20:05.069 why is it so revolutionary well the premise is 00:20:05.069 --> 00:20:07.869 simple a samurai has been murdered his body is 00:20:07.869 --> 00:20:10.400 found in a bamboo grove And we get a series of 00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:12.720 testimonies given to a police commissioner. We 00:20:12.720 --> 00:20:14.539 hear from a woodcutter who found the body, a 00:20:14.539 --> 00:20:16.900 monk who saw him earlier, the police agent who 00:20:16.900 --> 00:20:19.180 caught the bandit. Okay, standard police procedural 00:20:19.180 --> 00:20:21.500 stuff so far. Right. But then we hear from the 00:20:21.500 --> 00:20:24.779 bandit himself, Taj Umaru. And he admits to killing 00:20:24.779 --> 00:20:26.460 the samurai. She says it was a glorious duel. 00:20:26.720 --> 00:20:29.039 He tied up the samurai, seduced the wife in front 00:20:29.039 --> 00:20:31.039 of him, and then fought the samurai fairly and 00:20:31.039 --> 00:20:33.799 won. Case closed. He confessed. Not so fast. 00:20:34.740 --> 00:20:38.079 Next, we hear from the samurai's wife. And she 00:20:38.079 --> 00:20:40.759 says she killed him. She says that after the 00:20:40.759 --> 00:20:43.579 bandit raped her and left, her husband looked 00:20:43.579 --> 00:20:46.539 at her with such coldness and loathing that she 00:20:46.539 --> 00:20:48.779 couldn't bear it. She killed him to save her 00:20:48.779 --> 00:20:50.900 honor and then tried to kill herself but failed. 00:20:51.319 --> 00:20:54.279 Okay, that's a problem. Two killers confessing. 00:20:54.319 --> 00:20:57.559 And then finally, through a medium, we hear from 00:20:57.559 --> 00:21:00.440 the ghost of the dead samurai himself. And he 00:21:00.440 --> 00:21:02.920 says he committed suicide. I'm kidding. Not at 00:21:02.920 --> 00:21:05.440 all. He says his wife agreed to go with the bandit 00:21:05.440 --> 00:21:07.920 and asked the bandit to kill him. The bandit 00:21:07.920 --> 00:21:10.539 was so shocked by her cruelty that he let the 00:21:10.539 --> 00:21:13.859 samurai choose his own fate. The samurai, heartbroken, 00:21:14.019 --> 00:21:16.640 took his own life. And here's the kicker. There 00:21:16.640 --> 00:21:18.619 is no detective. There is no Sherlock Holmes 00:21:18.619 --> 00:21:20.559 who walks in at the end and says, Elementary, 00:21:20.759 --> 00:21:23.220 my dear Watson, the bandit is lying because of 00:21:23.220 --> 00:21:25.519 the mud on his boots. That is the genius of it. 00:21:26.000 --> 00:21:28.579 Akutagawa leaves it completely unresolved. There 00:21:28.579 --> 00:21:31.019 is no solution. Why? What was he trying to do 00:21:31.019 --> 00:21:33.160 with that? He was challenging the very concept 00:21:33.160 --> 00:21:35.730 of objective truth. he was showing that truth 00:21:35.730 --> 00:21:38.529 is relative to the observer everyone is the hero 00:21:38.529 --> 00:21:41.069 or at least the tragic victim of their own narrative 00:21:41.069 --> 00:21:43.690 they are all lying or perhaps they are all telling 00:21:43.690 --> 00:21:45.710 their own version of the truth but the objective 00:21:45.710 --> 00:21:49.059 reality is lost forever In the Grove. It's so 00:21:49.059 --> 00:21:51.700 modern. I mean, scroll through social media today 00:21:51.700 --> 00:21:54.440 and you see In a Grove playing out every single 00:21:54.440 --> 00:21:56.519 minute. Two people describe the same video and 00:21:56.519 --> 00:21:58.440 see completely different things. It is timeless. 00:21:58.640 --> 00:22:00.900 Yeah. And it became a standard trope in storytelling 00:22:00.900 --> 00:22:03.660 because of him. But for Kutagawa, I think it 00:22:03.660 --> 00:22:06.480 also reflects that vague insecurity again. If 00:22:06.480 --> 00:22:08.640 you can't even trust the truth of a simple event, 00:22:08.859 --> 00:22:12.019 what can you trust? If reality itself is subjective, 00:22:12.420 --> 00:22:14.640 then how can you possibly find solid ground? 00:22:14.660 --> 00:22:17.019 That is a chilling thought. It's not just a clever 00:22:17.019 --> 00:22:19.839 puzzle. It's an existential crisis in story form. 00:22:20.099 --> 00:22:23.720 Now, In a Grove was published in 1922. This is 00:22:23.720 --> 00:22:26.180 right after a major event in his life that seems 00:22:26.180 --> 00:22:28.359 to mark the beginning of the end, the trip to 00:22:28.359 --> 00:22:31.000 China. The China trip of 1921, yes. Yeah. He 00:22:31.000 --> 00:22:32.980 was sent as a reporter for the Osaka Manichi 00:22:32.980 --> 00:22:35.980 Shinban. A reporter gig. Traveling to Nanjing, 00:22:36.180 --> 00:22:38.539 Shanghai, Hangzhou. That sounds like a great 00:22:38.539 --> 00:22:41.460 adventure. It was supposed to be. Akutagawa had 00:22:41.460 --> 00:22:43.940 romanticized China his entire life. Yeah. Remember, 00:22:44.039 --> 00:22:46.039 he grew up reading classical Chinese literature. 00:22:46.259 --> 00:22:48.680 He had this vision of China as a land of poets 00:22:48.680 --> 00:22:52.619 and sages, of Li Bai and Du Fu. In fact, before 00:22:52.619 --> 00:22:55.339 he even left, he wrote a story called The Christ 00:22:55.339 --> 00:22:58.519 of Nanjing, based purely on his imagination and 00:22:58.519 --> 00:23:01.500 those old books. So he arrives in 1921 China 00:23:01.500 --> 00:23:04.019 with this fantasy in his head. What does he find? 00:23:04.279 --> 00:23:07.539 Reality. And reality was harsh. China in 1921 00:23:07.539 --> 00:23:10.720 was in turmoil. It was the warlord era. It was 00:23:10.720 --> 00:23:14.240 chaotic, dirty, politically unstable. The glorious 00:23:14.240 --> 00:23:16.680 ancient culture he loved was either crumbling 00:23:16.680 --> 00:23:18.779 or hidden behind a thick layer of poverty and 00:23:18.779 --> 00:23:20.579 corruption. It must have been a massive shock 00:23:20.579 --> 00:23:22.740 to the system, the ultimate expectation versus 00:23:22.740 --> 00:23:25.059 reality. It broke him physically and mentally. 00:23:25.200 --> 00:23:27.359 The trip was incredibly stressful. He suffered 00:23:27.359 --> 00:23:29.039 from various illnesses while he was traveling, 00:23:29.299 --> 00:23:32.539 pleurisy, insomnia, severe digestive issues. 00:23:32.740 --> 00:23:34.339 He was hospitalized in Shanghai. And the sources 00:23:34.339 --> 00:23:36.180 say he never really recovered from that, right? 00:23:36.259 --> 00:23:39.880 No. His health took a permanent nosedive. He 00:23:39.880 --> 00:23:43.039 returned to Japan exhausted, disillusioned, and 00:23:43.039 --> 00:23:45.940 physically weak. This really marks the shift 00:23:45.940 --> 00:23:49.299 toward his final, darker years. The vibrant, 00:23:49.400 --> 00:23:52.279 historical storyteller starts to fade, and a 00:23:52.279 --> 00:23:54.920 darker, more introspective writer begins to emerge. 00:23:55.440 --> 00:23:57.579 Let's walk through that descent into darkness. 00:23:57.920 --> 00:24:00.579 Because his writing changes, doesn't it? He moves 00:24:00.579 --> 00:24:03.059 away from those polished historical tales like 00:24:03.059 --> 00:24:05.799 Rashomon. He does. In his late career, the great 00:24:05.799 --> 00:24:08.220 anti -naturalist starts doing something very 00:24:08.220 --> 00:24:10.119 interesting. He starts writing about himself. 00:24:10.460 --> 00:24:13.039 But it's not the boring daily life naturalism 00:24:13.039 --> 00:24:15.299 he hated. It's a documentation of his own mental 00:24:15.299 --> 00:24:17.880 deterioration. He starts mining his own diaries 00:24:17.880 --> 00:24:21.200 for horror stories. Exactly. Works like Daidujishinsuke 00:24:21.200 --> 00:24:24.259 no Hansei, early life of Daidujishinsuke, and 00:24:24.259 --> 00:24:26.960 Tenkibo. Death register. Death register is particularly 00:24:26.960 --> 00:24:29.099 poignant. It's a stark account of the deaths 00:24:29.099 --> 00:24:31.099 in his family. He's confronting the mortality 00:24:31.099 --> 00:24:33.140 and the madness head on. He's looking at his 00:24:33.140 --> 00:24:35.240 family tree and seeing a graveyard. And the madness 00:24:35.240 --> 00:24:37.240 was becoming more than just a fear at this point. 00:24:37.279 --> 00:24:39.220 It was becoming a symptom. He wasn't just afraid 00:24:39.220 --> 00:24:41.279 of going crazy. He was starting to see things. 00:24:41.619 --> 00:24:45.099 Yes. He started experiencing visual hallucinations. 00:24:45.259 --> 00:24:48.309 He saw doppelgangers. He reported seeing himself 00:24:48.309 --> 00:24:50.730 walking down the street. He saw insects that 00:24:50.730 --> 00:24:53.750 weren't there. The anxiety over inheriting his 00:24:53.750 --> 00:24:57.190 mother's illness hit a fever pitch. He was convinced 00:24:57.190 --> 00:24:59.769 the curse had finally activated. There's a story 00:24:59.769 --> 00:25:02.549 from this period called Spinning Gears or Cog 00:25:02.549 --> 00:25:04.930 Wheels, Hogaruma. Spinning Gears is one of the 00:25:04.930 --> 00:25:06.650 most terrifying things he ever wrote because 00:25:06.650 --> 00:25:09.650 it feels so real. It's fragmented. It's disjointed. 00:25:09.849 --> 00:25:12.950 In the story, the protagonist is plagued by these 00:25:12.950 --> 00:25:15.950 translucent spinning cog wheels that are constantly 00:25:15.950 --> 00:25:18.720 blocking. Which is actually a symptom of migraines, 00:25:18.720 --> 00:25:42.140 isn't it? A visual aura. And he also wrote Kappa 00:25:42.140 --> 00:25:44.900 in 1927. Now, Kappa sounds like it should be 00:25:44.900 --> 00:25:47.119 fun. Kappas are those little green water imps 00:25:47.119 --> 00:25:49.019 from folklore. They eat cucumbers. They're kind 00:25:49.019 --> 00:25:51.920 of cute. You'd think so. But Akutagawa's Kappa 00:25:51.920 --> 00:25:55.759 is a biting, deeply cynical satire. A psychiatric 00:25:55.759 --> 00:25:58.019 patient tells the story of how he fell into the 00:25:58.019 --> 00:26:01.279 land of the Kappas. But the Kappa society is 00:26:01.279 --> 00:26:04.119 just a twisted mirror of Japanese society. They 00:26:04.119 --> 00:26:06.579 have absurd laws. They debate suicide. They talk 00:26:06.579 --> 00:26:08.940 about capitalism and art. There is a part in 00:26:08.940 --> 00:26:11.160 Kappa where a baby Kappa is about to be born. 00:26:11.259 --> 00:26:13.680 And the father asks the baby, do you want to 00:26:13.680 --> 00:26:15.740 be born? And the baby says, no, it looks awful 00:26:15.740 --> 00:26:17.960 out there and decides not to be born. It's incredibly 00:26:17.960 --> 00:26:20.559 dark humor. It's basically Gulliver's Travels, 00:26:20.559 --> 00:26:23.390 but much, much darker. It shows that Akutagawa 00:26:23.390 --> 00:26:26.410 was looking at the world, the legal system, the 00:26:26.410 --> 00:26:28.589 family structure, capitalism, and just seeing 00:26:28.589 --> 00:26:30.809 the absurdity and the pain of it all. He was 00:26:30.809 --> 00:26:33.490 losing the will to participate in the game of 00:26:33.490 --> 00:26:36.849 life. This brings us to 1927, the year everything 00:26:36.849 --> 00:26:39.130 ends. He actually survived a suicide attempt 00:26:39.130 --> 00:26:42.289 earlier in 1927. It involved a friend of his 00:26:42.289 --> 00:26:45.170 wife. It was a messy situation, a double suicide 00:26:45.170 --> 00:26:47.809 pact that didn't go through, but it signaled 00:26:47.809 --> 00:26:49.740 that he was ready to go. He was planning it. 00:26:49.819 --> 00:26:53.700 And then on July 24th, 1927. July 24th. It was 00:26:53.700 --> 00:26:57.839 the rainy season. Hot, humid, oppressive. Akutagawa 00:26:57.839 --> 00:27:00.359 was in his home in Tabata. He took an overdose 00:27:00.359 --> 00:27:02.559 of veronal barbital. Where did he get it? It 00:27:02.559 --> 00:27:05.559 was given to him by a doctor and poet named Mokichi 00:27:05.559 --> 00:27:08.859 Saito. Okutagawa had been using sleeping pills 00:27:08.859 --> 00:27:11.200 for his insomnia for a long time, so he had access. 00:27:11.380 --> 00:27:13.799 But this was a calculated lethal dose. He read 00:27:13.799 --> 00:27:15.460 the Bible, he read some scripture, and he went 00:27:15.460 --> 00:27:18.440 to sleep. He was only 35 years old. 35. This 00:27:18.440 --> 00:27:20.519 is just incredibly young. He left a wife and 00:27:20.519 --> 00:27:23.200 three children. One of his sons, Yasushi Okutagawa, 00:27:23.319 --> 00:27:24.920 actually went on to become a famous composer, 00:27:25.180 --> 00:27:27.380 so the artistic gene survived. But he left something 00:27:27.380 --> 00:27:30.619 else behind, too. A note. And this note has become 00:27:30.619 --> 00:27:33.160 almost as famous as his stories. It's one of 00:27:33.160 --> 00:27:35.460 the most famous suicide notes in history. The 00:27:35.460 --> 00:27:37.440 suicide note was addressed to his old friend 00:27:37.440 --> 00:27:40.940 from high school, Mazao Kume. And in it, he tries 00:27:40.940 --> 00:27:43.779 to explain why. He says he doesn't have a specific 00:27:43.779 --> 00:27:46.539 grievance. It's not about money or a scandal 00:27:46.539 --> 00:27:49.279 or a debt. So what does he say it is? He uses 00:27:49.279 --> 00:27:53.720 the phrase, A vague insecurity. A vague insecurity 00:27:53.720 --> 00:27:56.880 about the future. That phrase chills me every 00:27:56.880 --> 00:28:00.599 single time I hear it. It's not a sharp panic. 00:28:00.740 --> 00:28:02.500 It's not, I'm afraid of the police or I'm in 00:28:02.500 --> 00:28:06.779 debt. It's just this. This fog of dread. It encapsulates 00:28:06.779 --> 00:28:09.079 the modern condition so perfectly. It's not the 00:28:09.079 --> 00:28:11.180 fear of a tiger eating you. It's the fear of 00:28:11.180 --> 00:28:13.660 existence itself. The fear of the unknown. The 00:28:13.660 --> 00:28:16.319 fear that nothing really matters. Akutagawa, 00:28:16.400 --> 00:28:18.500 standing on the edge of the modern era, looking 00:28:18.500 --> 00:28:20.539 at the industrialization, the changing culture, 00:28:20.619 --> 00:28:22.559 the political instability, he just felt this 00:28:22.559 --> 00:28:25.170 overwhelming, undefined anxiety. He felt like 00:28:25.170 --> 00:28:27.410 the ground was dissolving beneath his feet. And 00:28:27.410 --> 00:28:29.089 he couldn't structure his way out of it anymore. 00:28:29.349 --> 00:28:31.990 The fortress he built had failed. The walls he 00:28:31.990 --> 00:28:34.250 built with his stories finally crumbled. The 00:28:34.250 --> 00:28:36.690 logic just couldn't hold back the vague insecurity. 00:28:37.210 --> 00:28:39.650 The immediate aftermath of his death must have 00:28:39.650 --> 00:28:42.250 sent shockwaves through the literary world. It 00:28:42.250 --> 00:28:45.509 was huge. It was seen as the end of an era, the 00:28:45.509 --> 00:28:48.470 Taishu democracy was ending, the militarism of 00:28:48.470 --> 00:28:52.430 the Shushu era was on the rise. Akutagawa's death 00:28:52.430 --> 00:28:55.250 felt like a curtain closing on a certain kind 00:28:55.250 --> 00:28:57.190 of intellectual life. I read that one of his 00:28:57.190 --> 00:29:00.390 disciples was really affected. Yes, Katsuo Hori. 00:29:00.730 --> 00:29:03.430 He wrote a story called The Holy Family in 1930 00:29:03.430 --> 00:29:06.569 that was deeply influenced by Akutagawa's death. 00:29:07.309 --> 00:29:09.509 Referencing him as a deceased mentor character, 00:29:09.730 --> 00:29:11.890 it shows the impact he had on the younger generation. 00:29:12.089 --> 00:29:13.869 And then his old friend, the one he met in school, 00:29:14.150 --> 00:29:16.829 Kan Kikuchi, decided to ensure that Akutagawa's 00:29:16.829 --> 00:29:20.029 name would never, ever be forgotten. Kan Kikuchi 00:29:20.029 --> 00:29:23.089 was a doer. He was the organizer. And in 1935, 00:29:23.269 --> 00:29:25.369 eight years after the suicide, he established 00:29:25.369 --> 00:29:27.490 the Akutagawa Prize in memory of his friend. 00:29:27.609 --> 00:29:29.630 And today that is the prize. It's given to promising 00:29:29.630 --> 00:29:32.089 new writers. If you win the Akutagawa Prize in 00:29:32.089 --> 00:29:34.410 Japan, your career is made. It's a beautiful 00:29:34.410 --> 00:29:37.029 tribute, using his name to launch the next generation 00:29:37.029 --> 00:29:39.329 of storytellers. It ensures that his name is 00:29:39.329 --> 00:29:41.450 spoken with reverence every single year. And 00:29:41.450 --> 00:29:43.309 his stories are still being adapted. We have 00:29:43.309 --> 00:29:46.130 the Kurosawa film, obviously. But the sources 00:29:46.130 --> 00:29:49.440 mention ballet. opera. Yes, the complexity of 00:29:49.440 --> 00:29:51.380 his work lends itself to other forms. There's 00:29:51.380 --> 00:29:54.680 a ballet by Victoria Puleva called Gagaku, based 00:29:54.680 --> 00:29:58.240 on Hellscreen, an opera by Mayako Kubo called 00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:02.460 Rashomon. His work is just so visually and psychologically 00:30:02.460 --> 00:30:05.759 rich. And even recently, in 2020, NHK produced 00:30:05.759 --> 00:30:08.220 a film called A Stranger in Shanghai about his 00:30:08.220 --> 00:30:11.059 time as a reporter in China. Starring Rui Himatsuda. 00:30:11.339 --> 00:30:13.559 It shows that we are still fascinated by that 00:30:13.559 --> 00:30:15.680 pivotal moment where his world started to crack. 00:30:15.880 --> 00:30:18.009 We want to understand why he broke. So let's 00:30:18.009 --> 00:30:19.890 try to synthesize all of this. We have a boy 00:30:19.890 --> 00:30:21.950 from a milk business who becomes a samurai of 00:30:21.950 --> 00:30:24.309 literature. He masters the art of the short story. 00:30:24.490 --> 00:30:26.470 He battles the ghost of his mother's madness 00:30:26.470 --> 00:30:28.490 his whole life. He creates these masterpieces 00:30:28.490 --> 00:30:31.410 like Rashomon and In a Grove. And he dies of 00:30:31.410 --> 00:30:34.349 a vague insecurity. What is the final takeaway 00:30:34.349 --> 00:30:36.369 here? I think the takeaway is about the fragility 00:30:36.369 --> 00:30:39.809 of order. Akutagawa was a genius of structure. 00:30:40.549 --> 00:30:43.470 He could take a messy, chaotic event and turn 00:30:43.470 --> 00:30:45.930 it into a perfect, jewel -like story. He tried 00:30:45.930 --> 00:30:47.990 to impose order on the world through his art. 00:30:48.109 --> 00:30:49.769 He thought if he could just write the perfect 00:30:49.769 --> 00:30:52.130 sentence, he could save himself. But the world 00:30:52.130 --> 00:30:55.789 is messy. And the mind is messy. Exactly. The 00:30:55.789 --> 00:30:57.809 tragedy is that he tried to structure the world, 00:30:57.890 --> 00:31:00.029 but he couldn't structure his own peace of mind. 00:31:00.289 --> 00:31:02.789 He was fighting a battle against his own biology 00:31:02.789 --> 00:31:05.369 and his own sensitivity that, in the end, he 00:31:05.369 --> 00:31:07.980 just couldn't win. But in fighting that battle, 00:31:08.079 --> 00:31:10.579 he left us some of those profound investigations 00:31:10.579 --> 00:31:13.319 into truth and human nature that had ever been 00:31:13.319 --> 00:31:16.000 written. He looked into the abyss and he took 00:31:16.000 --> 00:31:18.740 notes for us. It's a haunting reminder that sometimes 00:31:18.740 --> 00:31:20.519 the most beautiful art comes from the deepest 00:31:20.519 --> 00:31:22.799 pain. Absolutely. And I want to leave the listener 00:31:22.799 --> 00:31:25.119 with this thought. We live in a world now that 00:31:25.119 --> 00:31:28.079 is arguably more chaotic than 1927 ever was. 00:31:28.220 --> 00:31:31.420 We have information overload, deep fakes, conflicting 00:31:31.420 --> 00:31:34.640 narratives on the news every single day. In a 00:31:34.640 --> 00:31:37.240 grove is basically our daily reality. We never 00:31:37.240 --> 00:31:39.700 know who is telling the truth. That's very true. 00:31:39.819 --> 00:31:43.319 The relativity of truth is our new normal. So 00:31:43.319 --> 00:31:47.720 when Akutagawa talked about a vain security about 00:31:47.720 --> 00:31:50.660 the future, I wonder, does that resonate more 00:31:50.660 --> 00:31:53.599 with us now than it did even back then? Are we 00:31:53.599 --> 00:31:57.900 all feeling a little bit of that? That is a question 00:31:57.900 --> 00:32:00.539 worth pondering. Yeah. I think we are all looking 00:32:00.539 --> 00:32:03.279 for a structure to hold on to in one way or another. 00:32:03.519 --> 00:32:06.000 If you haven't read In a Grove or if you haven't 00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:08.900 watched Kurosawa's Rashomon in a while, do it 00:32:08.900 --> 00:32:11.519 this week. But do it with this context in mind. 00:32:11.579 --> 00:32:14.019 Think about the man writing it, trying to find 00:32:14.019 --> 00:32:16.160 the truth in a world that wouldn't give him any. 00:32:16.299 --> 00:32:18.759 It changes the experience completely. Thanks 00:32:18.759 --> 00:32:20.279 for diving deep with us today. We'll see you 00:32:20.279 --> 00:32:20.720 on the next one.