The black cat

Having read short stories translated and published sporadically in newspapers and literary magazines over the past few years, rereading the 28 selected short stories in the collection "The Black Cat" (translated by Nguyen Thong Nhat, Thuan Hoa Publishing House - 2023) still evokes the same sense of delight and a strangely captivating impression when encountering modern and contemporary Japanese literary authors.

I chose to read "Hate Alcohol" first because I couldn't ignore the author's name. Vietnamese readers are probably familiar with the masterpiece "No Longer Human" by Dazai Osamu, a famous writer belonging to the "rogue school" after World War II, with rebellious and self-destructive tendencies, reflected in the tragedy of his own life. "Drinking for two days straight. The night before last and yesterday, drinking continuously for two days. This morning I had to work so I got up early, went to the bathroom to wash my face, and suddenly saw a box with 4 bottles. In two days I've finished 4 boxes." "Hate Alcohol" is essentially a reflection on the struggle of dealing with those bottles of alcohol with friends, but the reader finds his familiar humorous and melancholic writing style, expressing despair in the most truthful way, the feeling of being lost in the human world.

I also read "The Black Cat," a short story by Shimaki Kensaku that serves as the title of the book. A male cat, black, one and a half times the size of an average cat, majestic, "lonely but arrogant and proud, full of fighting spirit...", "if it were a human, it would certainly be a lord." "While its vile, sycophantic kind have warm places to sleep and are fed, it is abandoned." The despised black cat is eventually killed, "Mother has taken care of it," disappearing quickly, "leaving only the lowly ones lurking around." The simple plot about a cat expresses weariness and hatred towards the ways of the world, as well as a silent protest against contemporary society, a society "boring and stupid like a disease that never seems to be cured."

Thus, the reader encounters 28 literary figures who are not necessarily famous or well-known authors, but were chosen randomly by an ordinary "reader who enjoys and studies" in order to provide a broader and richer perspective on modern and contemporary Japanese literature. Many short stories have a detective feel (Night in the Thorn Field, The Spider, Annihilation, The Barbarian, The Sole of the Foot); a mysterious and fantastical style (The Egg); social realism (The Headless Dragonfly, Human Sorrow...). And especially, there are short stories about love intertwined with the beauty of loss, injustice, and melancholy (The Embroidered Picture, Transition, Artificial Reproduction, In the Rainy Season...).

The short stories in the collection "The Black Cat" were written from the latter half of the Meiji Restoration to the first half of the Showa era, a period marking the formation of modern and contemporary literary schools in Japan. They reflect the strong cultural integration and exchange between Japan and the West, not only the realities and socio -political developments in Japan during the transitional period of reform and opening up to the world, but also serve as a mirror reflecting the complex ideological attitudes of Japanese writers.

We have read famous works of modern Japanese literature translated into Vietnamese, such as Kawabata's "Snow Country," Haruki Murakami's "Norwegian Wood," and Watanabe Jyun-ichi's "The Lamp Casts No Shadow," among others. However, most of these works are usually translated from English, French, or Russian, and very few are translated directly from Japanese, which is often quite complex and ambiguous. Therefore, Nguyen Thong Nhat's translation from the original Japanese text, offering readers pages of soaring, radiant, subtle, and melancholic prose, is a highly commendable effort. Even more gratifying is that Hue now has another accomplished literary translator.

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