Kappa
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Akutagawa’s magical final work is a short novel with a magic spell all its own—poignant, fantastical, wry, melancholic, and witty The Kappa is a creature from Japanese folklore known for dragging unwary toddlers to their deaths in rivers: a scaly, child-sized creature, looking something like a frog, but with a sharp, pointed beak and an oval-shaped saucer on top of its head, which hardens with age. Akutagawa’s Kappa is narrated by Patient No. 23, a madman in a lunatic asylum: he recounts how, while out hiking in Kamikochi, he spots a Kappa. He decides to chase it and, like Alice pursuing the White Rabbit, he tumbles down a hole, out of the human world and into the realm of the Kappas. There he is well looked after, in fact almost made a pet of: as a human, he is a novelty. He makes friends and spends his time learning about their world, exploring the seemingly ridiculous ways of the Kappa, but noting many—not always flattering—parallels to Japanese mores regarding morality, legal justice, economics, and sex. Alas, when the patient eventually returns to the human world, he becomes disgusted by humanity and, like Gulliver missing the Houyhnhnms, he begins to pine for his old friends the Kappas, rather as if he has been forced to take leave of Toad of Toad Hall…
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Heavy handed with Japanese satire, I appreciated what this book was doing, but kind of found it boring.
Patient No. 23 is a madman whose story takes up the majority of this short book. He's out hiking, chases a Kappa (a Japanese spirit) White Rabbit style, and winds up in Kappa Land. Rather than be concerned at this turn of events, he moves right in and starts trying to fit in with his new (strange) neighbors.
We get a lot of author commentary about Japan's feelings on several topics, through Kappa who find themselves in similar situations. Everything is very episodic, in that the (short) chapters are fairly self contained. Something happens, Patient No. 23 provides commentary on Kappa behavior about the something, and we move onto the next chapter, which is generally something completely different. I would have appreciated a little more direction, but then again, these are Kappa we're talking about.
It just never rose beyond "huh" for me, interest-wise. A lot of what's discussed here isn't new, Japan is prudish, Japan is conservative, Japan doesn't like outsiders, Japan is hard working to a fault, on and on, fairly unrelentingly. The cover art was what drew me in, I just wish I enjoyed the story more.