Reading The Kimono In Twentieth Century Japanese Literature And Film

Often considered an exotic garment of "traditional Japan," the kimono is in fact a vibrant part of Japanese modernity, playing an integral role in literature and film throughout the twentieth century. Reading the Kimono in Twentieth-Century Japanese Literature and Film is the first extended study to offer new ways of interpreting textual and visual narratives through "kimono language"--what these garments communicate within their literary, historical, and cultural contexts. Kimonos on the page and screen do much more than create verisimilitude or function as one-dimensional symbols. They go beyond simply indicating the wearer's age, gender, class, and taste; as eloquent, heterogeneous objects, they speak of wartime and postwar histories and shed light on everything from gender politics to censorship. By reclaiming "kimono language"--once a powerful shared vernacular--Michiko Suzuki accesses inner lives of characters, hidden plot points, intertextual meanings, resistant messages, and social commentary. Reading the Kimono examines modern Japanese literary works and their cinematic adaptations, including Tanizaki Jun'ichirō's canonical novel, The Makioka Sisters, and its film versions, one screened under the US Occupation and another directed by Ichikawa Kon in 1983. It also investigates Kōda Aya's Kimono and Flowing, as well as Naruse Mikio's 1956 film adaptation of the latter. Reading the Kimono additionally advances the study of women writers by discussing texts by Tsuboi Sakae and Miyao Tomiko, authors often overlooked in scholarship despite their award-winning, bestselling stature. Through her analysis of stories and their afterlives, Suzuki offers a fresh view of the kimono as complex "material" to be read. She asks broader questions about the act of interpretation, what it means to explore both texts and textiles as inherently dynamic objects, shaped by context and considered differently over time. Reading the Kimono is at once an engaging history of the modern kimono and its representation, and a significant study of twentieth-century Japanese literature and film.

"High-quality color photographs and period pictures illustrate this sumptuous volume, which should interest experts and laymen alike." --Choice The Japanese kimono is celebrated worldwide for its elegant, distinctive silhouette. Though quintessentially Japanese, the kimono form has influenced fashion designers around the globe. The 150 stunning kimonos in this beautifully illustrated book were created in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and they include formal, semi-formal, and casual kimono, haori jackets, and under-kimono (juban) worn by men, women, and children. Some of the garments reflect historical styles of design and techniques, while others illustrate a dramatic break with aspects of kimono tradition, as themes and designs from Western art began to predominate over Japanese references. The book, published to accompany a major traveling exhibition, traces the history of the kimono and illustartes the variety of colors, techniques, and designs used in creating this beautiful and symbolic garment. The kimonos featured here are drawn from the internationally renowned Montgomery Collection of Lugano, Switzerland.

A hilarious story of one man’s obsession and a brilliant reckoning of a nation’s cultural confusion—from a master Japanese novelist. When twenty-eight-year-old Joji first lays eyes upon the teenage waitress Naomi, he is instantly smitten by her exotic, almost Western appearance. Determined to transform her into the perfect wife and to whisk her away from the seamy underbelly of post-World War I Tokyo, Joji adopts and ultimately marries Naomi, paying for English and music lessons that promise to mold her into his ideal companion. But as she grows older, Joji discovers that Naomi is far from the naïve girl of his fantasies. And, in Tanizaki’s masterpiece of lurid obsession, passion quickly descends into comically helpless masochism.

What is the kimono? Everyday garment? Art object? Symbol of Japan? As this book shows, the kimono has served all of these roles, its meaning changing across time and with the perspective of the wearer or viewer. Kimono: A Modern History begins by exposing the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century foundations of the modern kimono fashion industry. It explores the crossover between ‘art’ and ‘fashion’ in this period at the hands of famous Japanese painters who worked with clothing pattern books and painted directly onto garments. With Japan’s exposure to Western fashion in the nineteenth century, and Westerners’ exposure to Japanese modes of dress and design, the kimono took on new associations and came to symbolize an exotic culture and an alluring female form. In the aftermath of the Second World War, the kimono industry was sustained through government support. The line between fashion and art became blurred as kimonos produced by famous designers were collected for their beauty and displayed in museums, rather than being worn as clothing. Today, the kimono has once again taken on new dimensions, as the Internet and social media proliferate images of the kimono as a versatile garment to be integrated into a range of individual styles. Kimono: A Modern History, the inspiration for a major exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York,not only tells the story of a distinctive garment’s ever-changing functions and image, but provides a novel perspective on Japan’s modernization and encounter with the West.

History -- Yukata-cotton robes -- Nagajuban-undergarments -- Women's kimono -- Tomesode-kimono for formal occasions -- The obi and accessories -- Women's haori-short silk jackets -- Michiyuki-overcoats -- Men's apparel -- Uchikake and furisode -- Children's kimono -- Furoshiki & fukusa-ceremonial cloths -- Religious & ceremonial wear -- Fragments into finery-Japanese textiles renewed

Becoming Modern Women: Love and Female Identity in Prewar Japanese Literature and Culture is a literary and cultural history of love and female identity in Japan during the 1910s-30s.

Prominence. There are the early years under her father's stern tutelage; the first scandalous, failed romance which cost her her job as a schoolteacher; her apprenticeship at Enrakuken, the coffee shop of the literary elite whose ranks she later joined as a resident of the "Magome Literati Village"; her series of passionate and troubled relationships and marriages. Throughout, Dr. Copeland focuses on the evolution of Uno's art and discusses her major works, paying.

Winner of the 2015 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards, Christina Stead Prize for Fiction and ACT Book of the Year Award. Paris: 1989. Recently retired Inspector of Police Auguste Jovert receives a letter from a woman who claims to be his daughter. Two days later, a stranger comes knocking on his door. Set in Paris and Japan, The Snow Kimono tells the stories of Inspector Jovert, former Professor of Law Tadashi Omura, and his one-time friend the writer Katsuo Ikeda. All three men have lied to themselves, and to each other. And these lies are about to catch up with them. A quarter of a century after the award-winning bestseller Out of the Line of Fire, Mark Henshaw returns with an intricate psychological thriller that is also an unforgettable meditation on love and loss, on memory and its deceptions, and the ties that bind us to others. Mark Henshaw has lived in France, Germany, Yugoslavia and the USA. He currently lives in Canberra. His first novel, Out of the Line of Fire (1988), won the FAW Barbara Ramsden Award and the NBC New Writers Award. It was one of the biggest selling Australian literary novels of the decade and has been re-released as a Text Classic. The Snow Kimono won the 2014 NSW Premier’s Award for Fiction and Mark Henshaw was the 2015 winner of the Copyright Agency’s Author Fellowship. ‘With agile intelligence, with boldness in what he has imagined and tight control over how it is developed, Henshaw has announced triumphantly that he is no longer a ghost on the Australian literary scene, but one of its most substantial talents.’ Australian ‘Gripping...Like a Japanese puzzle, prized for their infinite solutions and depth of revelation, each chapter builds on the one before, unfolding through levels of story to unpack deeper and deeper truths...Henshaw’s ability to combine such cultural and aesthetic diversity in his fiction is not only an example of what a period of dedicated study can do, but a marker of his ability as a writer.’ Guardian ‘Henshaw’s prose [is] luminous and crisp, like the snowy countryside of Japan or the barren lanes of Algiers...When I finished The Snow Kimono, I raised my head, vaguely surprised that I was at home, in familiar surrounds, and it was still daylight outside. I turned straight back to page one and began again.’ Saturday Paper ‘Henshaw’s effects are consistently magical...[He] has perfected a particular technique for the scenes set in Japan, one we might call leisurely lyricism.’ Sydney Morning Herald ‘A confident, complex, ludic and engrossing performance that will make readers glad Henshaw is back...With agile intelligence, with boldness in what he has imagined and tight control over how it is developed, Henshaw has announced triumphantly that he is no longer a ghost on the Australian literary scene, but one of its most substantial talents.’ Weekend Australian ‘The writing is beautiful: pellucid and wonderfully visual, painting memorable landscape cameos. The reader is compliant, willingly engaged with a story that starts in medias res and branches in unexpected and seemingly unconnected yet complementary directions, ending with a twist that is hard to get one’s head around.’ Adelaide Advertiser ‘An exquisitely written puzzle.’ Jennifer Byrne, Australian Women’s Weekly ‘A triumph.’ Salty Popcorn ‘Henshaw doesn’t offer the easy satisfactions of much puzzle-literature, but the many turns and shifts make for a constantly engaging read...An interesting, engaging work...Fascinating.’ Complete Review