Ogai Mori

鴎外·森

An important record of Japans moral struggles during the cultural upheaval of the Meiji era.

A Novel

Vita Sexualis

“Bir süre sonra o arka sokakta devrim niteliğinde değişimler yaşandı. Bir gece Suezo oradan geçerken işporta tezgâhını duvarın dibindeki yerinde görmedi. Daima sessiz olan evin civarı da o zaman revaçta olan deyimle söylersek, medeniyet gelmişçesine değişmişti.”

Modern Japon edebiyatının temellerini atan yazarlardan biri olan ve başta Yukio Mişima olmak üzere 20. yüzyıl Japon edebiyatçılarını derinden etkileyen Ogai Mori, en ünlü eseri Yaban Kazı’nda Meici Dönemi’nin yaklaşan sonunun getirdiği sosyal değişimlerin gölgesindeki Tokyo’da dokunaklı bir yaşamöyküsünü anlatıyor.

Genç yaştaki O-Tama, yoksul ve ihtiyar babasını mutlu etmek için mutsuz bir evliliği olan zengin bir tüccarla metres hayatı yaşamayı kabul eder. Japonya’nın en prestijli üniversitelerinden birinde okuyan Okada bu genç ve güzel metresle tanışıp ona âşık olunca her ikisinin de kaderi, tıpkı ülkelerinin yaşadığı gibi, hızlı, tatlı sert ve şaşırtıcı bir değişime uğrayacaktır.

Yaban Kazı

Come se (Ka no yoni) 1911

Mori Ogai

Mori Ogai (1862–1922), one of the giants of modern Japanese literature, wrote The Wild Goose at the turn of the century. Set in the early 1880s, it was, for contemporary readers, a nostalgic return to a time when the nation was embarking on an era of dramatic change. Ogai’s narrator is a middle-aged man reminiscing about an unconsummated affair, dating to his student days, between his classmate and a young woman kept by a moneylender. At a time when writers tended to depict modern, alienated male intellectuals, the characters of The Wild Goose are diverse, including not only students preparing for a privileged intellectual life and members of the plebeian classes who provide services to them, but also a pair of highly developed female characters. The author’s sympathetic and penetrating portrayal of the dilemmas and frustrations faced by women in this early period of Japan’s modernization makes the story of particular interest to readers today. Ogai was not only a prolific and popular writer, but also a protean figure in early modern Japan: critic, translator, physician, military officer, and eventually Japan’s Surgeon General. His rigorous and broad education included the Chinese classics as well as Dutch and German; he gained admittance to the Medical School of Tokyo Imperial University at the age of only fifteen. Once established as a military physician, he was sent to Germany for four years to study aspects of European medicine still unfamiliar to the Japanese. Upon his return, he produced his first works of fiction and translations of English and European literature. Ogai’s writing is extolled for its unparalleled style and psychological insight, nowhere better demonstrated than in The Wild Goose.

The Wild Goose

Yoko Ogihara

Fernando Cordobés

La bailarina

Written in 1913, this modern classic was the source for the highly acclaimed film, The Mistress In The Wild Geese, prominent Japanese novelist Ogai Mori offers a poignant story of unfulfilled love, set against the background of the dizzying social change accompanying the fall of the Meiji regime. The young heroine, Otama, is forced by poverty to become a moneylender's mistress. She is surrounded by skillfully-drawn characters—her weak-willed father, her virile and calculating lover (and his suspicious wife), and the handsome student who is both the object of her desire and the symbol of her rescue—as well as a colorful procession of Meiji era figures—geisha, students, entertainers, unscrupulous matchmakers, shopkeepers, and greedy landladies. Like those around her, and like the wild geese of the titles, Otama yearns for the freedom of flight. Her dawning consciousness of her predicament brings the novel to a touching climax.

Wild Geese

Mori Ōgai (1862–1922), one of the giants of modern Japanese literature, wrote The Wild Goose at the turn of the century. Set in the early 1880s, it was, for contemporary readers, a nostalgic return to a time when the nation was embarking on an era of dramatic change. Ōgai’s narrator is a middle-aged man reminiscing about an unconsummated affair, dating to his student days, between his classmate and a young woman kept by a moneylender. At a time when writers tended to depict modern, alienated male intellectuals, the characters of The Wild Goose are diverse, including not only students preparing for a privileged intellectual life and members of the plebeian classes who provide services to them, but also a pair of highly developed female characters. The author’s sympathetic and penetrating portrayal of the dilemmas and frustrations faced by women in this early period of Japan’s modernization makes the story of particular interest to readers today. Ōgai was not only a prolific and popular writer, but also a protean figure in early modern Japan: critic, translator, physician, military officer, and eventually Japan’s Surgeon General. His rigorous and broad education included the Chinese classics as well as Dutch and German; he gained admittance to the Medical School of Tokyo Imperial University at the age of only fifteen. Once established as a military physician, he was sent to Germany for four years to study aspects of European medicine still unfamiliar to the Japanese. Upon his return, he produced his first works of fiction and translations of English and European literature. Ōgai’s writing is extolled for its unparalleled style and psychological insight, nowhere better demonstrated than in The Wild Goose.

Mori Ogai (1862-1922), one of the giants of modern Japanese literature, wrote The Wild Goose at the turn of the century. Set in the early 1880s, it was, for contemporary readers, a nostalgic return to a time when the nation was embarking on an era of dramatic change. Ogai's narrator is a middle-aged man reminiscing about an unconsummated affair, dating to his student days, between his classmate and a young woman kept by a moneylender. At a time when writers tended to depict modern, alienated male intellectuals, the characters of The Wild Goose are diverse, including not only students preparing for a privileged intellectual life and members of the plebeian classes who provide services to them, but also a pair of highly developed female characters. The author's sympathetic and penetrating portrayal of the dilemmas and frustrations faced by women in this early period of Japan's modernization makes the story of particular interest to readers today. Ogai was not only a prolific and popular writer, but also a protean figure in early modern Japan: critic, translator, physician, military officer, and eventually Japan's Surgeon General. His rigorous and broad education included the Chinese classics as well as Dutch and German; he gained admittance to the Medical School of Tokyo Imperial University at the age of only fifteen. Once established as a military physician, he was sent to Germany for four years to study aspects of European medicine still unfamiliar to the Japanese. Upon his return, he produced his first works of fiction and translations of English and European literature. Ogai's writing is extolled for its unparalleled style and psychological insight, nowhere better demonstrated than in The Wild Goose.

Ogai Mori

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