Reviews

Cogwheel and Other Stories by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Naoko Matsubara, Howard Norman

motherslug's review against another edition

3.0

5 for the bleak folkloric stories themselves, but 2.5 for the translation, which seems inelegant and/or a bit rough, even to a non-Japanese reader.

ultanthropo's review

dark emotional mysterious sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.0

josie_s's review

dark mysterious reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? N/A
• Diverse cast of characters? N/A
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

In my copy of Cogwheels, it also included Hell Screen and The Spiders Thread, the latter of which i have yet to read. going into reading Cogwheels, i had already read many times Akutagawa’s suicide letter “A Note to a Certain Old Friend.” Having done that really helped me better understand the story and it enhanced my experience of how incredibly dark and morbid it is. Cogwheels is truly one of the  darkest pieces of literature i have ever read. it feels as if you are reading the last words of a man before he takes his life, which is practically what you are doing since it is the last thing Akatugawa wrote before his suicide. it surely is not for everyone, but i highly recommend it as it is extremely powerful and heartbreaking.

Hell Screen was what I read after Cogwheels and the first piece of Akatugawa’s fiction that I have read and i absolutely loved it. It was morbid and demented for sure, but done in an incredibly tasteful way. The characters and their actions all felt so real, as if I were reading an actual historical account instead of a work of fiction.  

After reading these two pieces by Akatugawa, I am anxious to read more of his work as I was thoroughly interested in both Cogwheels and Hell Screen.