Rating: 3/5, average
(note: I’m rating my experience of reading this, not the quality, which is phenomenal because it’s a Japanese classic. It is beautifully written and painstakingly translated, but quite dry.)
Tales of Moonlight and Rain in a nutshell:
- Ghosts of thwarted noblemen and mistreated women
- Decrepit thatched-roof houses
- Lovers undeterred by death
- Sages, saints, fools, and demons
- Transformations into fish or serpents
- Evil spirits that must be exorcised with traditional magic
- Desire corrupting souls and turning them away from the Buddhist path
Tales of Moonlight and Rain is a Japanese classic written by Ueda Akinari in 1776 in Japanese prose. It is a collection of nine supernatural tales based on stories written in vernacular Chinese during the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644). Tales of Moonlight and Rain helped establish the yomihon (reading book) tradition, which demonstrated that vernacular Japanese prose could be used to high literary effect (previous to the yomihon movement, Japanese literary works were written in Chinese).
I started trying to read it in Japanese, but it was too difficult for me. Even though Tales of Moonlight and Rain is written in vernacular Japanese, it uses a lot of Chinese words glossed with Japanese phonetic readings to add double-meaning and wordplay.
The Anthony C. Chambers translation has a long introduction at the start and short introductions that give background before each story. I would recommend reading the text of the story quickly, then reading the introduction to the story, then reading the story again more slowly (maybe taking notes). The long introduction is probably best saved for the end, but you could try reading it and see how far you get before you get bored, and then continue on to the stories. It’s hard to absorb the content of the introduction before reading the stories because you don’t have the general concept of the collection to “hang” Chamber’s explanation on yet.
You could also start by watching Kenji Mizoguchi’s film adaptation Ugestu (1953). It’s an old black-and-white movie with a traditional drum-flute-and-koto soundtrack and it showcases the aesthetic and historical setting of Tales of Moonlight and Rain really well.
I’m just going to go ahead and give a quick summary and opinion on each of the stories (my favorites are #4 “The Carp of My Dreams” and #7 “A Serpent’s Lust”):
#1:
The first story is about a monk named Saigyou who meets the vengeful spirit of the Emperor Sutoku.
The poet-monk Saigyo goes up the mountain and prays at Emperor Sutoku’s grave. Emperor Sutoku’s ghost appears. Saigyo is sad to see it because that means that strong emotions have prevented him from passing on into the next world. Saigyo reprimands Sutoku, but Sutoku only laughs and tells Saigyo that he caused the Heiji Insurrection, cursed the Imperial family, and will soon bring about a great war (the Gempei war).
Sutoku asks if it’s selfishness or the Heavenly Deity’s oracle that caused him to lead the Hogen Insurrection. Sutoku says he follows Mencius in that he believes the people have a right to depose a corrupt emperor. Sutoku was faithful to his father while his father lived, but once he died, he attacked Masahito because he believed he had no talent to rule. He’s also resentful that Toba followed Bifukumon’in’s (Toba’s consort) instruction instead of listening to him: “no one should call it unreasonable that men who have the status to govern should try to replace a reign in which hens announce the dawn.”
Sutoku yells at Saigyo for trying to force Confucian morality (status) into the mold of Buddhism (go with the flow). Saigyo says Confucianism means sacrifice for the greater good, and that what Sutoku did was selfish, not Confucian. Saigyo also says that ships carrying Mencius keep sinking because its teachings are not suited to Japan, as they would influence someone to overthrow the emperor.
Sutoku responds that he sees Saigyo’s point and that he committed many crimes, but he still pines for the capital. He sent some sutras and a poem there while he was still alive, but an official named Shinzei persuaded the emperor to send them back unopened, in case they might be cursed. Sutoku then inspired Nobuyori to kill Shinzei, which started the Heiji Insurrection. In response to the returned sutras, Sutoku sent a cursed sutra to the bottom of the ocean, asking to be made King of the Tengu. I’m not too clear on how much Sutoku participated physically in the Heiji Insurrection, but it sounds almost as if he was physically present: “attacked by a fire borne on a southwesterly wind, we fled the Shirakawa Palace, after which I tore my feet on the crags of Mount Nyoi and endured the rain and dew, my body covered with oak-cuttings from the mountain people, until finally I was arrested and banished to this island.”
The extraordinary calm and concern for Sutoku’s spirit that Saigyo exhibits in the face of Sutoku’s fiery rage leaves a strong impression on the reader.
#2:
The second story, “The Chrysanthemum Vow” is about a Confucian scholar named Hasebe Samon and a samurai, Akana Soemon, who fall in love. Soemon falls ill while traveling and Samon helps nurse him back to health. When Soemon is well, he explains to Samon that his lord was ousted by the former lord of the castle while he had been sent away as an envoy. Soemon was on his way to fight the usurper when he got sick. Samon and Soemon bond over Chinese thinkers, but before long, Soemon says he must be on his way. He promises to return on the day of the Chrysanthemum Festival at the end of autumn. I won’t tell you how it goes after that, but this is a beautiful story about unshakable friendship and loyalty.
#3:
The third story, “The Reed-Choked House” was one of the ones Kenji Mizoguchi based his 1953 film “Ugetsu Monogatari” on (he combined “The Reed-Choked House” with “A Serpent’s Lust”). Katsushiro, a man born to a rich farming family, has no skill or interest in farming, and his house is ruined. Looking to turn his fortunes around, Katsushiro partners with a silk merchant from the capital. He makes a lot of money in the silk trade, but he has to move to the capital and he leaves his wife behind. A war breaks out in the land, and everybody runs, except for Katsushiro’s wife Miyagi, who promised to wait for him until he returns. Katsushiro plans to return, but he hears of the fighting and assumes Miyagi must already have been killed, so he turns back. After that, he falls ill, and 7 years pass before he returns to his old house, which is now dilapidated and covered with reeds. He meets the ghost of his wife and they lie down together, but she is gone in the morning. Katsushiro meets with an old man who had buried his wife, and they lament her death together.
According to the footnotes, “The Reed-Choked House” contains a ton of references to The Tale of Genji, especially the “Wormwood Patch” (Yomogiu) chapter. This is a ten-page story with upwards of 30 literary references explained in the footnotes. This shows how much Ueda Akinari drew on prior works to give deeper, inter-textual meaning to his stories.
#4:
The fourth story (one of my favorites in the collection) is “The Carp of My Dreams”. This is the story of a Buddhist monk named Kogi who liked to buy fish, release them into Lake Biwa, and paint them. He paints a picture called “The Carp of My Dreams”. He sells all his other paintings, but he won’t sell that one because he won’t give “fish he reared” to a meat-eater. One day Kogi falls deathly ill and dreams he turned into a fish and was about to be eaten by his friend, a Taira officer, but he wakes up at the last minute. When Kogi wakes up, he tells the Taira officer everything he saw as a fish, up until they were about to turn him into sashimi. The officer is stunned that Kogi knows all the details of what was going on at that one random moment and remarks that he saw the fish’s lips moving, as if in protest.
I like how surreal that story is, how beautifully it depicts Lake Biwa, and the themes of respecting life, the oneness of life, and learning to see the world from other perspectives. I’m tempted to try reading this one in Japanese…
#5:
The fifth story is “Bupposo” (“The Owl of the Three Jewels”). It’s about an old man who becomes an itinerant monk and travels to Kukai’s mausoleum on Mt. Koya with his son. He has a spooky encounter with the ghost of the daimyo Hidetsugu. This one is similar to “Shiramine”, but with more Buddhist references rather than Confucian/Chinese references and more concentration on aesthetics and poetry rather than ethical dilemmas.
#6:
The sixth story, “The Kibitsu Cauldron”, is an odd one. It’s about a young man named Shotaro, who inherits a farm but doesn’t like farming. Instead, he spends his time drinking and having sex with different women. His parents arrange a marriage between Shotaro and the priest’s daughter, Isora, thinking she will help set him straight. The priest does a ritual with the Kibitsu Caulron, an oracle that if water is boiled in it, it will make a noise like a cow lowing which means good, and if not, it will be silent, which means bad fortune. When they attempt to divine whether Shotaro and Isora’s match will be good, it makes no noise, signifying bad fortune. Isora’s father is nervous, but her mother assures him there’s nothing to worry about. It’s kind of sexist here: “Her use of every argument to remonstrate with her husband no doubt resulted from her disposition as a woman.” So, everything that happens after this is really the priest’s wife’s fault for disregarding the oracle. 😛
Isora went to live with Shotaro’s family and was wholly devoted to her domestic duties, however, Shotaro soon fell in love with a whore named Sode, bought a house for her in a nearby village, and started spending all his time with her. Isora tried to protest, but Shotaro didn’t listen. Shotaro’s father eventually got mad and confined Shotaro in a room in the house. Isora continued to wait on him, and also sent things to Sode. Shotaro told Isora he would take Sode to the capital and help her find another man to depend on, but he left and never came back. Isora fell ill and died.
Shotaro and Sode stayed with Sode’s cousin Hikoroku, but Sode began to get fevers where she complained of pressure on her chest acted like she was possessed by an evil spirit. After 7 days, she died. Shotaro fell into despair and visited Sode’s grave every night. One night, Shotaro met a girl who said she was a maid for a local widow who had fallen ill after her husband’s death. Shotaro offers to come and comfort the widow, and the girl leads him to a run-down hut with a thatched roof.
Shotaro comes into the hut. The woman is in her room with a candle and a screen over the door. Shotaro greets her, but she replies (in Isora’s voice!) “Let me show you how I repay your cruelty!” Shotaro faints. When he wakes up, he finds himself in a Samadhi hall with a Buddha inside. He goes back to Hikoroku and tells him what happened, and Hikoroku says it must have been a fox deceiving him and takes him to a ying-yang master to be purified.
The ying-yang master writes characters all over Shotaro’s body and gives him talismans to put on all the openings of his hut to make it so that the evil spirit can’t get in. He says Shotaro must stay inside for forty-two days and pray to the gods and Buddhas. Shotaro hears the evil spirit complaining about the seals and wailing every night for all forty-two nights. On the morning of the forty-second day, Shotaro sees the sun rising and pounds on the adjoining wall to Hikoroku’s house. Hikoroku opens the door, but he hears Shotaro scream. He quickly closes the door and walks outside, only to see the door to the hut open and Shotaro gone. The only signs of him are a bloodstain on the wall and Shotaro’s topknot on the eaves.
At the end, the narrator says they should have listened to the oracle of the Kibitsu Cauldron and the recommendation of the ying-yang master. I’m not sure if this is a story about the importance of believing in the supernatural or a comment on women (since the opening paragraph is about how much damage a jealous woman can cause). I think the ghost is an evil spirit and not really the ghost of Isora, but I’m not sure. I guess the moral is to be faithful to your spouse and don’t doubt the oracles?
#7:
The seventh story, “A Serpent’s Lust” was the other story Kenji Mizoguchi’s Ugetsu was based on (along with “The Reed-Choked House”). This one is about a young man who is more interested in reading and courtly activities than making a living, who is seduced by a white serpent in the guise of a beautiful woman. The young man is named Toyoo, the snake lady is Manago, and her servant is Maroya. Manago is very eloquent and elegant, she manages to re-entrap Toyoo every time he gets away from her. Manago always seems to be near water (she appears in a rainstorm). She can turn into a giant white snake that breathes poison gas when she’s threatened (as happens to the poor monk who tries to exorcise her from Toyoo’s new bride).
An old monk named Hokai eventually helps Toyoo capture her and buries her at the Serpent Mound in front of Dojo-ji. The story takes place in various locations in Wakayama Prefecture, south of Kyoto and by the ocean and mountains. It’s very beautifully written with a well-constructed plot. It might be the best story in the collection… it’s very iconic and the Chinese story it was based on was made into Hakujaden, the first full-length anime film made in color.
#8:
The eighth story, “The Blue Hood”, I think is one of the scariest in the collection. It’s about a cannibalistic mad monk. The main character, Kaian, a Zen priest and a sane monk, travels to a village named Tonda and asks for a room for the night. Seeing his blue hood (part of a Buddhist monk’s uniform), the inhabitants of the village went and hid. Kaian kept talking to them, and when they realized he wasn’t the mad monk from the mountain, one of the masters of the house came out and offered Kaian a room.
The master of the house explained that the abbot of Daichuji had picked up a young boy on his travels and kept him as a “companion”. As the abbot became enamored with the boy’s beauty, he started to neglect his duties. Soon, however, the boy got sick and died. The abbot cried over the body for days, and when it started to disintegrate, he ate it. After that, the abbot became a demon and started terrorizing the people of the village, eating anyone who wandered too high up the hill at night. The next day, Kaian goes up the mountain and helps the mad abbot come back to his senses by giving him a Zen koan to contemplate:
“The moon glows on the river, wind rustles the pines.
Long night, clear evening – what are they for?”
Indeed, they’re for meditating – not for eating people. ^_^
#9:
The ninth story is a little different. It’s called “Poverty and Wealth”. It’s about a samurai named Oka Sanai who appreciates money while most samurai enjoyed things like nature or poetry. At first, Oka Sanai had a bad reputation as a miser, but it’s not that he’s greedy, he’s just wise. When Sanai found out one of his servants carried a piece of gold with him all the time, he rewarded the man with 10 ryo in gold and allowed him to carry a sword (effectively raising him to the rank of samurai). Sanai told the man that next to swords, gold was the most powerful thing. You can’t fight off a thousand attackers with a sword, but you can buy them off with enough gold.
That night, Sanai woke up to a tiny old man sitting by his bedside. The old man introduced himself as the spirit of money. The spirit quotes from Confucius, Mencius, and Sima Qian’s “Biographies of the Money-Makers” to say that money is not vulgar, but a powerful force to be respected. Sanai and the spirit of money have a long conversation about the relationship between money and morality. The spirit of money says he doesn’t have any feelings about the morality, but he does follow some rules. He says in general someone who chases money will be able to get it, but in some circumstances it’s impossible, which is unfair, but that’s how the world is. Sometimes people who deserve money can’t get it, and sometimes people who don’t deserve it get way too much.
Satisfied with the spirit’s explanation, Sanai asks who money will support in the coming conflict as Toyotomi power wanes. The spirit says it’s not the wisdom of Shingen that moved him, the courage of Kenshin, or the ambition of Nobunaga. He predicts that Hideyoshi is over-extending himself and that Ieyasu will rule when Hideyoshi falls. The translator explains that this is a paean to the Tokugawa shogunate, which was in power at the time of Akinari’s writing. In the poem the spirit recites, Akinari implies that the Tokugawa shogunate is like the upright kings of Yao.
A lot of these stories have similar topics and themes, mostly ghosts and the corrupting power of desire. Akinari tends to sympathize with intellectual, economically poor characters (Samon from “The Crysanthemum Vow” and Toyoo from “A Serpent’s Lust”) as they reflect his own background. Akinari was an orphan adopted by a wealthy family, but unlike a lot of aristocratic bunjin (literati) he had to make his own way, becoming first a merchant, then a doctor and a writer. The story “Poverty and Wealth” suggests that while he valued literary pursuits more highly, he didn’t eschew pecuniary ones.
I’m honestly not sure what to make of the role of women in Tales of Moonlight and Rain. All of Akinari’s characters are very articulate, including the women. Manago in “A Serpent’s Lust” and Miyagi in “The Reed-Choked House” both quote poetry fluently. There’s a little bit of the virgin/whore dichotomy with Miyagi as the virgin who saves herself long after her husband has abandoned her and Manago as the serpentine seductress. In “The Kibitsu Cauldron” Isora starts out as the virgin but becomes (or becomes possessed by) a malevolent spirit due to Shotaro’s neglect of her. And then in “The Blue Hood”, Kaian is surprised that the abbot turned into a demon and says that it’s typically women who “fall” in this way.
In the movie Ugetsu, Kenji Mizoguchi invents the character Ohama, who gets separated from her husband Tobei and raped by a group of soldiers. She gets sold into a brothel and eventually Tobei buys her back. Miyagi is basically the same character in the movie as in the book, but Ohama doesn’t have any corresponding character in the original text that I can see. Ohama becomes enraged with Tobei when he comes back for her, screaming “You didn’t know!” (or something like – the version I watched didn’t have subtitles) and trying to throw herself down a well. Tobei basically went off to fulfill his dream of becoming a samurai and left Ohama behind. If I had to guess, I would say Ohama is based on Isora because Isora gets angry with her husband whereas Miyagi is more hurt by her husband’s abandoning her. I feel like the movie focuses more on the female experience where in the book, the women are there more to highlight the weaknesses of their male counterparts, to show the unmanly immorality of Katsushiro, Shotaro, and Toyoo.
It’s also interesting to note that the most devoted relationships (Samon and Soemon, the mad abbot and his boy) are male homosexual and the heterosexual marriages are calamitous.
Anyway, I loved “The Carp of My Dreams” because of it’s vegetarian ethos and “A Serpent’s Lust” because Manago is just an awesome character. I’m really curious to see what I think if I read this again in 20 years with a better understanding of Buddhism, Confucianism, and Japanese history…
I have to admit it was not the most accessible intro point for studying Japanese literature, but it was an interesting experience!
If you’re into Japanese literature, where did you start? What would you recommend?
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