Friday 29 February 2008

SHUSAKU ENDO

I am not reading enough.

However, I have been reading a collection of short fiction by Japanese writer Shusaku Endo. "Stained Glass Elegies"

The first story, "A Forty-Year-Old-Man", set in a long -term hospital, and written apparently shortly after Endo himself was released from hospital, introduces the image of a myna bird, a sorrowful, tattered, priestly figure who watches the events of the story unfolding with pity, not judgement.

It seems that the underlying philosophy of the story (according to the introduction) is that "the actions of a human being are never self-contained."

as I said. I am not reading enough.

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