Bullfight by Yasushi InoueMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
Inoue found the subject for Bullfight in the chaotic postwar Japanese society. It depicts the frenzied activities of an enterprising newspaper executive, Tsugami, who is promoting a bullfight in Osaka, the success or failure of which will determine the fate of his firm. For months this great gamble consumes him, making him as wary and combative as if he was in a ring himself. And, as he becomes ever more distant, his lover Sakiko is unsure if she would like to see him succeed or be destroyed.
Established Inoue Yasushi as one of Japan's most acclaimed authors and earned the Akutagawa prize in 1949.
Note that this concerns a traditional, Japanese-style bullfight, i.e. between bull and bull and not with a matador. In Japanese bullfights, usually no blood flows
The
Hunting Gun by Yasushi
InoueMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This novella (Inoue's first) follows the consequences of a tragic love affair. Told from the viewpoints of three different women, this is a story of the psychological impact of such an affair. Three lovers give their view of the hunter and reconstitute his multidimensional nature. First viewed through the eyes of Shoko, who learns of the affair through reading her mother's diary, then through the eyes of Midori, who had long known about the affair of her husband with Saiko, and finally through the eyes of Saiko herself. The Hunting Gun is like Akutagawa's “In a Grove,” a love story with multiple narrators where each narrative reshapes the reader's understanding of the rest.
Life of a Counterfeiter by Yasushi InoueMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
A writer is commissioned to write the biography of a famous painter but becomes fascinated by his shadow, a man who produced forgeries of the artist's work - the master forger lives in obscurity and disappointment, oppressed by the reality of the artist whose work he copies.
Schwarze Flut by Yasushi InoueMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
This short novel ("Schwarze Flut" in the German translation, in English this would be "Black Flood"), which inexplicably has not been translated into English, forms as it were a trilogy with Inoue's novellas The Hunting Gun and The Bullfight. Like Bull Fight, it is set in the world of newspaper reporters Inoue himself worked in for more than a decade. Moreover, by using a real life event as part of the plot, Inoue initiated the genre of "novels about contemporary events," that became quite popular and was followed for example Mishima Yukio (starting with The Blue Age from 1950, and including The Temple of the Golden Pavilion and After the Banquet).
The president of Japan National Railways, who has just effected a massive lay-off of 100,000 and is struggling with the unions, is found dismembered on a railway embankment. Was it murder? Or suicide? Inoue's protagonist is the editor Hayami, who maintains a neutral stance in his paper, while the other newspapers jump on the case and portray it as a murder sensation. Hayami has strong reasons to avoid speculation: a few years ago, his wife died in a double suicide with a popular singer and Hayami was shocked by the groundless speculations in the media at that time. He felt it destroyed the dignity of those who died and made him loose sovereignty over his own life.
While his own job as a newspaperman is only "black and white," Hayami has befriended his former drawing teacher, who now does research into old methods to dye fabric, a world of subtle colors. There is also the possibility of a renewed marriage with Keiko, the daughter of this teacher. A sharp novel about a chaotic time, emphasizing the importance of truthfulness.
Die Eiswand by Yasushi InoueMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
"The Ice Wall" is another novel by Inoue Yasushi about contemporary affairs that has not been translated into English. It is based on a real-life mountaineering accident and the resulting scandal involving an important company’s controversial new product, nylon rope, but it is also an intense double love triangle. Two friends are in love with the same married woman. Both are enthusiastic mountaineers and when on New Year's Day they try to scale the difficult north side of the Hodaka, their nylon rope breaks and one friend falls to his death. Was it murder, suicide, or was the rope faulty?
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