Katherine Paterson (translation)
Kuekichi Akaba (illustrations)
The Crane Wife
William Morrow, 1981
Yohei, the Japanese everyman who was last encountered in this blog as a the son of a fishmonger, is in The Crane Wife a poor peasant in a mountain village. After he helps a wounded crane, a beautiful young woman knocks on his door and asks to become his wife. As the couple struggles to make it through the cold winter, she offers to weave cloth to sell in the market on the condition that Yohei refrain from watching her at the loom. Inevitably, predictably, and tragically he cannot restrain himself. In the end, Yohei is left with a bolt of gorgeous, unearthly cloth and no wife. Enthusiasts of Greek myths may hear in this Japanese folktale echoes of Psyche and Cupid. Kuekichi Akaba's illustrations are like the crane wife herself, delicate and enchanting and elusive. Beside her eloquent English rendering, Katherine Paterson gives us a note about the understandable popularity of the crane wife story in Japanese culture.
No comments:
Post a Comment