Ghosts and Mysteries, Entering the Realm of Super Concepts.
Romance, mystery, and the world of "Kyoka".
At the Hida Amou Mountain Pass, a traveling monk from Koya tries to save a medicine seller who has lost his way. At Hitotsuya, a solitary house on the mountain pass where snakes and mountain leeches dwell, the monk is entertained by a beautiful and bewitching woman, but ...... she is a demon that turns men into animals when they approach her with lecherous feelings.
In addition to "Koya Sei," ...
A collection of 泉鏡花's famous short stories. Some are fantastical, while others mundane, but all are written with a beautiful and unique literary style. I imagine that the more familiar one is with older literature, Kabuki and Noh, the more enjoyable these works become.
To be honest, I was not able to completely understand all of the stories in this book. A lot of the storytelling happens through dialogue, so the already difficult to understand archaic style gets even further changed by dialects and the like. When the characters are not speaking, there are often somewhat lengthy (albeit beautiful) depictions of landscapes, which does not help much in terms of understanding the overarching story. The kanji usage was one of my favorite parts of the book. Even if I lost the thread of the story, the interesting kanji choices alone kept it entertaining.