[DeepL Translation - needs review] Introduction to Volume 1: Momosuke Yamaoka, a young aspiring playwright who travels around the country collecting tales of the bizarre, encounters a mysterious group of people at a cabin in Echigo, where he takes shelter from the rain. A man dressed in a formal kimono, a scruffy woman, an elderly merchant, and a monk with a pale face.... They decide to spend a night in the long rainy season by telling a hundred stories that are popular in Edo (Tokyo). ........
Great but not an easy read
(review date: Feb 2013)
Wow, this was a difficult read. I must have been working through it on and off for a year. It was even harder than 姑獲鳥の夏 because as well as the author's kanji-heavy and complex prose style it has a lot of Edo-period vocabulary and dialect-heavy dialogue.
Unlike 姑獲鳥の夏, this is a set of short stories featuring varying subsets of the same cast of characters. (There are seven stories in this volume and at least four further books in the series after this.) A 百物語 is a tradit