Tales of Moonlight and Rain [Hardcover]

Ueda Akinari's classic work of eerie fiction has been translated before quite a few times and always with obvious dedication and care, but when it comes right down to it this version by Anthony Chambers outdoes the others and will doubtlessly remain the definitive English "Tales of Moonlight and Rain" for some time. Of course, it's hard to go wrong with such a fine series of stories, each of which is really a masterpiece of storytelling; they may be strange, haunting, macabre, mysterious, or whimsical, but they're never dull, and it's no mystery why this Tokugawa classic still grips readers centuries later in Japan and abroad. Still, Chambers' rendition stands out in faithfully capturing Ueda's densely allusive, rich prose style with meticulous care, and indeed this is a key factor in elevating "Ugetsu Monogatari" above a host of other, similar works of the time. In so doing, Chambers has deliberately avoided overtranslating Ueda to sound English or twentieth-century, allowing the 18th-century Japanese flavor of the original to come to the fore. Paradoxically as it may seem at first blush, this makes the stories much more compelling actually. Just compare this passage as rendered by Leon Zolbrod (whose translation I've read and treasured for many years, so please no offense) with Chambers' more accurate rendition:

[ No sooner did he open the door of the sleeping chamber, than a demon thrust its head out at the priest. The projecting extremity was so huge that it filled the doorway, gleaming even whiter than newly fallen snow, with eyes like mirrors and horns like the bare boughs of a tree. The creature opened its mouth more than three feet wide; its crimson tongue darted, as if to swallow the priest in a single gulp.

'Horror!' cried the holy man, as he dropped the flask that he held in his hand. His legs no longer able to support him, he fell over backwards and crawled away, barely managing to escape.

'It's awful. The creature is a god of evil; my prayers are useless. If I hadn't got away on hands and knees, I'd surely have lost my life,' he said, losing consciousness.] (Zolbrod, page 180)

[He advanced toward the bedroom. The moment he opened the door, a giant snake thrust out its head and confronted him. And what a head this was! Filling the door frame, gleaming whiter than a pile of snow, its eyes like mirrors, its horns like leafless trees, its gaping mouth three feet across with a crimson tongue protruding, it seemed about to swallow him in a single furious gulp. He screamed and threw down the flask. Since his legs would not support him, he rolled about and then crawled and stumbled away, barely making his escape. To the others he said, "Terrible! It is a calamitous deity; how can a monk like me exorcise it? Were it not for these hands and feet, I would have lost my life." Even as he spoke, he lost consciousness.] (Chambers, page 178)

The first gets the point across fine, but the second just sort of grabs you somehow.

The extensive and exhaustive annotations, the interesting and informative introduction, and the fine reproductions of the original woodcut illustrations from the 1776 edition all add to the overall reading experience. I found the intro especially interesting in analyzing the total structure of the work, demonstrating that it's far from a random assortment tossed together; kind of like a symphony or a good concept album, each story reflects on and informs the others for a total effect. And in general, this book manages a wonderful synthesis of the scholarly and the literary that does full justice to Ueda's erudite and engaging moonlit, rainy tales.

"Tales of Moonlight and Rain" ("Ugetsu Monogatari") is such an incredible book. On the one hand, it is a fantastic and macabre collection of ghost and monsters, creepy tales of flesh-eating demons and honorable spirits. On the other hand, it is one of the great classics of Japanese literature, a book that only the literati of its time would be able to fully appreciate due to its dense prose and literary allusions that only an educated person would be able to easily identify.

It is a title that has seen print in English, in whole and in parts, several times, but it has always remained slightly out of grasp due to the difficulty in translating it. Author Akinari Ueda specifically set out to create a book that made use of the unique nature of the Japanese language while building on literary and historical sources from both Japan and China. Some translators emphasize the horror nature of the book, some the literary, but it remains a tough nut to crack.

Translator Anthony H. Chambers has taken a shot at it, in a form designed to capture the feel of Ueda's writing while annotating the edition enough so that modern readers will be able to understand the allusions. In an interesting tact, he has used both footnotes and end notes, with the footnotes being the information immediately necessary to understand the story, and the end notes being the "behind the scenes" information that adds depth and understanding but doesn't advance the tale. Each story is also preceded by historical and political context, so that one can understand the general mood of the times in which the stories are set.

This scholarly approach might put off some readers who are just looking for some enjoyable ghost stories, but I found it to be an elegant and successful solution. The stories of "Tales of Moonlight and Rain" are short enough that I read them through once without the end notes, just to enjoy the feel and flow of the tale, then read them through again paying attention to the small details and annotations.

I have a few versions of "Tales of Moonlight and Rain", and this is by far the best. The all-important tone of the book is captured, without awkwardness or strangeness in the English. Along with that, it is almost a textbook to Ueda's masterpiece, and can be read as such.

I was excited to see these stories were translated and waited six months for it to be finally published. I liked the scholarly and detailed introductions to each. The stories are subtle and engaging in a typical Japanese manner. I'd like to know who made the editorial decision to split the footnotes into two sections, one at the bottom of the page and the others at the end of the chapter. It makes for maddening reading, contantly have to refer to both in order to fully comprehend the story.

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