Kappa

March 13, 2023
Powell and Hofmann-Kuroda offer a crisp translation of this strange, densely literary 1927 fantasy novella from Akutagawa (1892–1927), presented as the account of Psychiatric Patient No. 23. The patient tells an unknown author and a hospital director of his Alice in Wonderland–esque fall down a rabbit hole to Kappa Land, where Kappas—amphibious, thick-billed, webbed-hand and -footed three-foot-tall creatures from Japanese mythology—live in a city that looks “exactly like Ginza-dori, one of the main boulevards in Tokyo.” The new translation is modern, matter-of-fact, and readable, with a plot reminiscent of Edwin Abbot Abbot’s satire Flatland in its use of fantastical elements to skewer society, its very short chapters centered on different aspects of an invented culture, and its dated misogyny. There are no named female characters, and all the female Kappas are depicted as either jealous cheaters or knitting nonentities. It’s difficult to determine if this depiction of women should be read as sincere or as poking fun at the social views of the Taishō era. Still, for Japanophiles and SFF readers interested in investigating the canon of world literature, this is a thought-provoking way to spend an afternoon.

August 1, 2023

Psychiatric patient No. 23, "quite the youthful looking madman," relates his experiences in the curious realm of the mythological Kappa, in this unfussy new translation of Akutagawa's final novella, from 1927. As with the cultural turmoil of Taishō-era Japan, the Kappa find themselves in an eclectic roil of competing values and traditions, the old ways given over to a religion called Nowism, devoted to "eating, drinking, and copulating." As for politics, "every speech is a complete lie. But everyone knows that, so in the end, it might as well be the truth." Existential questions lurk beneath the antic topsy-turvydom of Kappaland, such as when Kappas are asked in the womb if they wish to be born (many do not). The Kappa poet Tok, who shoots himself while plagiarizing Goethe, then returns as a ghost preoccupied with posthumous fame, hinting at Akutagawa's own impending suicide. VERDICT Although often compared to Gulliver's Travels, the tale's playful illogic aligns Akutagawa's style with the more obscure fabulism of Gogol. A peculiar and plangent farewell from a seminal figure of Japanese modernism.

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