1 | June 27, 1917, summer
The plum rain had just passed, but the weather was still sultry. The Hongchao Hotel in Nihonbashi, Tokyo, is brightly lit, and a group of literary stars are gathering here. Pushing cups and changing cups, emotions are high. The one who was admired by the stars was a thin young man. He has just published his first collection of work.
This 25-year-old top student at Tokyo Imperial University was at the peak of his career and achieved success at a young age. Having just graduated from the University of Tokyo's English major with honors, he became an English instructor at the Imperial Naval School. He gained an enviable righteous background, and at the same time he also wrote many excellent works, becoming the most beautiful boy in the Japanese literary world. It is said that he will become the son-in-law of his teacher, Natsume Soseki, who can be said to have "seen all the flowers in Chang'an in one day"!
However, things are unpredictable. Ten years later, this blooming summer flower suddenly withered. After taking a large amount of sleeping pills, it was also during the plum rain season that year, accompanied by the sound of rain. Die forever.
He is——Akutagawa Ryunosuke.
2 | March 1, 1892, Tokyo
He was born in the year of Chen, the month of Chen, the day of Chen, and the hour of Chen, so he was named Ryunosuke. His father was a milk merchant named Nihara Toshizo. When his parents had a son in middle age, they naturally cherished him very much. However, the good times did not last long. When Ryunosuke was seven months old, his mother suddenly went insane.
His mother’s mental disorder was a lingering shadow in Ryunosuke’s life.
"The first act of the tragedy of life begins with becoming parents and children. Heredity, circumstances, and chance - after all, it is these three things that control our destiny." (from Ryunosuke's collection of essays and comments) "The Words of the Dwarf" explains his views on art and life)
Because the mother went crazy and the father could not take care of the mother and the child at the same time, his uncle Akutagawa Michio took Ryunosuke to raise him. Ten years later, his mother died of illness, and his uncle adopted Ryunosuke and changed his surname to Akutagawa.
The Akutagawa family was a samurai family, and they were in charge of the tea party affairs of the Tokugawa shogunate. Therefore, the family was well off. Ryunosuke also had the opportunity to be exposed to and interested in various art forms, and gradually formed his own artistic taste.
Ryunosuke also has an aunt who has never married. She loves this little nephew very much. As the sister of Ryunosuke's mother, she has somewhat replaced the role of her mother for Ryunosuke who lacks maternal love. So when the aunt objected to Ryunosuke marrying his first love, Ryunosuke chose to obey like a teenager who relied on his mother and obeyed his mother's orders.
Ryunosuke was frail and sickly since childhood, sensitive and emotional, and showed his interest in literature very early. I have been fond of reading since I was a child. I not only like Chinese classical novels - Journey to the West and Water Margin, but also the works of famous contemporary Japanese writers such as Natsume Soseki. After I entered high school, I also began to like Western literature and art - Maupassant, Ibsen, Bernard Shaw, Tolstoy, etc., especially the works of fin-de-siècle writers (such as Baudelaire, etc.). Gradually evolved into his own world-weary and skeptical style. Moreover, this style is not a temporary phenomenon of the boy, but runs through his life and works.
3 |?November 1915
"Rashomon" was published in "Imperial Literature". This is Ryuunosuke's first short story known to the public. The novel is based on the collection of ancient Japanese legends "The Collection of Stories from the Past and the Past". It tells the story of a desperate domestic servant at the Rashomon Gate in Kyoto in a disaster year. He was faced with the choice between "starving to death or becoming a bandit". Struggling, when he found an old woman pulling out the dead man's hair (to make a wig), after listening to the old woman's story, the last bit of kindness in the servant's heart disappeared. He took away the old woman's clothes and finally walked on down the road of robbers. This novel fully reveals Ryunosuke's doubtful attitude towards life and despair towards human nature. This theme appears repeatedly in Ryunosuke's works, and this novel has become Ryunosuke's masterpiece.
Regarding this work, it is often confused with another "In the Bamboo Grove". The reason is that when "In the Bamboo Grove" was adapted into a movie by Akira Kurosawa, the name was "Rashomon". It tells the story of a group of people. Waiting for different accounts of a rape and murder case - each saying his own story, the truth is unclear, and the facts are confusing.
"Hell Transformation" is also an important work of Ryunosuke. It describes a painter who was ordered by the daimyo to paint a screen depicting hell. In order to vividly display the horrific scenes in hell, the painter did not hesitate to copy the shape of the dead, tie up the disciple, let snakes bite him, and allowed owls to attack. Disciple, record all these scenes one by one in your paintings. But he was always troubled by his inability to depict the scene of a woman burning in hell fire. Until one day, the painter asked the painter to recreate this scene for him. He said that he could only paint this scene if he saw it with his own eyes. The daimyo agreed to his request and tied the painter's daughter to the bullock cart. He wanted to save his daughter, but when the flames rose, he stopped. He witnessed his daughter's tragic death. The scene of the blazing hell fire devouring the woman was painted. This allowed the painting to spread. The day after the painting was completed, the painter hanged himself and went to hell to pursue his daughter.
In addition to these sadistic novels, Ryunosuke has also written some humorous and interesting novels. "The Nose" is such a novel.
The eminent monk had a long nose and was ridiculed by others. He was deeply distressed, so he thought of various ways to shorten the long nose. However, when the nose was really shortened, he was ridiculed even more, and he felt contradictory in his heart. Get up. Finally one day, the shortened nose grew longer again, and the monk felt at ease again. A very interesting work, with a humorous tone, but there are also tears in the laughter.
This article was also praised by his teacher Natsume Soseki, who encouraged Ryunosuke to write more good works. Therefore, everyone regarded him as a popular candidate for his Natsume son-in-law, but Ryunosuke chose someone with similar interests and had three sons in his marriage for the next ten years.
4 | March 1919, My Ghost Cave
Ryunosuke resigned from the Naval Academy, became a professional writer, and named his study "My Ghost Cave" . "My ghost" is the haiku used by Ryunosuke when he chants a haiku (pai) sentence. During this period, Ryunosuke also continued to produce excellent works: "Mr. Mori", "Dance" and "In the Bamboo Forest" are all representative works of this period.
The work "In the Bamboo Forest" was mentioned above. This work revolves around the case of a warrior's wife being raped and the warrior being killed in the bamboo forest. The mother-in-law, the bandit Tajomaru, the samurai wife, and the samurai ghost all told the same fact in different ways. Each person told it from their own perspective and purpose, showing the darkness in each person's heart and embodying the author's feelings. skeptical outlook on life. Who was the man who drew the sword in the end that led to the death of the samurai? Although the author didn't say it explicitly, everyone can vaguely guess it.
Master Akira Kurosawa also won the Golden Bear Award at the 1951 Venice Film Festival for the film "Rashomon" adapted from this work.
A new era trend emerged in Japan in the 1920s, which was a bit like the May Fourth Movement in China. Literary tastes also changed, but Ryunosuke never changed. He always adhered to his "end of the century" concept. style. As a result, his works gradually lost their appeal to readers. At that time, Ryunosuke, who was about 30 years old, felt weak in his creation, and the literary world regarded him as a man who had exhausted his talents.
The so-called fin-de-siècle style can be seen in Baudelaire's "Flowers of Evil" that Ryunosuke likes. This work is a bible of decadence, digging out beauty from decay, and digging out a real hell through gorgeous whitewash: "My beauty, please tell them, those maggots who kiss and eat you, although the old love is gone Decomposition, but I have preserved the shape of love and the essence of love."
Ryunosuke's works are deeply influenced by this style, and death becomes an inescapable temptation.
Ryunosuke's "The Half Life of Daidoji Shinsuke" is a semi-autobiographical work. Ryunosuke faces himself squarely in his work and confesses his inner feelings to the world with great joy.
In several subsequent important works, Ryunosuke clearly showed a hint of death. Among these works, "Kappa" should be the most important one, and it can also be seen as his answer to the life issues he has been thinking about - heredity, art, life and death, etc. Kappa is a legendary amphibian. Ryunosuke likes this legend very much and drew many pictures of kappa. The story tells from the perspective of a mental patient what he experienced after accidentally entering the country of kappa. In the end, the kappa poet's suicide became a prophecy, foreshadowing the author's final destination. Although the work is full of humor, there is still a vague atmosphere of death hanging over it.
At this time, Ryunosuke's health was getting worse and worse, and his fear of the inheritance of his mother's mental illness was also growing.
5 |
July 23, 1927, summer
Akutagawa Ryunosuke locked himself in the study - my ghost cave for a whole day, he was there Fenbizhi wrote his last work "The Continuation of the Western Man".
In the early morning of July 24, Ryunosuke finished writing the work, came to his aunt's side, leaned down and said the last few words, returned to the study and took a lethal dose of sleeping pills, and finally read He read the Bible for a while and fell asleep amidst the patter of rain. His life ended at the age of thirty-five.
The inspiration of art and the flash of spirit burned Ryunosuke’s life and talent, and life was as gorgeous as summer flowers; now that love has melted away, leaving only the skin in the mortal world, why not choose death to be as quiet and beautiful as autumn leaves? Woolen cloth?
Life is not as good as a line of Baudelaire's poem.
This is a sentence that Ryunosuke often talks about, and it is also a portrayal of his life. For him, his creative career of more than ten years means that his artistic talent can transcend his short life and achieve eternal life. Just like a painter in hell, although he is in a deserted grave, the screen is full of brilliance and will remain in the world forever.