A Dark Night's Passing
| Author | Shiga Naoya |
|---|---|
| Translator | Edwin McClellan |
| Country | Japan |
| Language | Japanese |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Fontana Press (Eng. trans. UK paperback), Kodansha International |
|
Publication date
|
1921 - 1937 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 496 pp (Eng trans. paperback edition) |
| ISBN | (Eng trans. paperback edition) |
A Dark Night's Passing (暗夜行路 An'ya Kōro?) is the only full-length novel by Japanese writer Shiga Naoya. It was written in serialized form and published in Kaizō in between 1921 and 1937. The story follows the life of a wealthy, young Japanese writer in the early 1900s, who seeks to escape his unhappiness through marriage.
It was translated into English by Edwin McClellan.
A Dark Night's Passing is divided into four parts. Its protagonist is Tokitō Kensaku, a young aspiring writer who learns of a dark secret in his family's closet. As a young boy he is sent to live with his paternal grandfather and his mistress Oei. His grandfather and his mother die soon after from illness.
In Part One, Kensaku, who resides in Tokyo with Oei, goes about his daily life. Rebounding from a rejected marriage proposal, he sleeps late, wanders around the city, and goes drinking with his friends in the evenings. Thanks to his family's money, he is independently wealthy. Kensaku and his friends visit geishas, and he begins visiting prostitutes on his own. He finds it difficult to maintain a disciplined lifestyle and make progress with his writing. He develops an interest in a few geishas and bar girls, but his interest comes to nothing.
Part Two concerns Kensaku's trip to the seaside town of Onomichi. Kensaku goes there hoping to do some serious writing, but instead becomes lonely and finds himself proposing to Oei, about twenty years his senior, asking his elder brother Nobuyuki to act as their intermediary. In their correspondence, Nobuyuki tells him a dark secret: Kensaku was conceived as the result of a brief, perhaps involuntary, affair between their mother and their paternal grandfather, with whom she was living while their father was studying in Germany. His father chose to forgive his late mother, but this explains the somewhat cold attitude his father had always had towards him. Kensaku wonders if this is why his marriage proposal to Aiko was turned down. Kensaku's father is strongly opposed to the marriage. Oei turns down Kensaku's proposal, and Kensaku returns to Tokyo, where they go on living together as before.
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Wikipedia