Detective Fiction and the Rise of the Japanese Novel, 1880–1930 (Harvard East Asian Monographs)

In __Detective Fiction and the Rise of the Japanese Novel,__ Satoru Saito sheds light on the deep structural and conceptual similarities between detective fiction and the novel in prewar Japan. Arguing that the interactions between the two genres were not marginal occurrences but instead critical moments of literary engagement, Saito demonstrates how detective fiction provided Japanese authors with the necessary frameworks through which to examine and critique the nature and implications of Japan’s literary formations and its modernizing society. Through a series of close readings of literary texts by canonical writers of Japanese literature and detective fiction, including Tsubouchi Shoyo, Natsume Soseki, Shimazaki Toson, Sato Haruo, Kuroiwa Ruiko, and Edogawa Ranpo, Saito explores how the detective story functioned to mediate the tenuous relationships between literature and society as well as between subject and authority that made literary texts significant as political acts. By foregrounding the often implicit and contradictory strategies of literary texts―choice of narrative forms, symbolic mappings, and intertextual evocations among others―this study examines in detail the intricate interactions between detective fiction and the novel that shaped the development of modern Japanese literature. The novel's other : detective fiction and the literary project of Tsubouchi Shoyo Allegories of detective fiction : Kuroiwa Ruiko and the refashioning of a Meiji subject Of crimes and punishments : the tribulations of Meiji students in the writings of Japanese naturalism Mysteries of the modern subject : the detective and the detective fiction framework in the writings of Natsume Soseki Rhetoric of disavowal : "secrets and liberation" and the specters of the West Detecting the unconscious : Edogawa Ranpo and the emergence of the Japanese detective. "This book sheds light on the deep structural and conceptual similarities between detective fiction and the novel in prewar Japan. Arguing that the interactions between the two genres were not marginal occurrences but instead critical moments of literary engagement, Satoru Saito demonstrates how detective fiction provided Japanese authors with the necessary frameworks through which to examine and critique the nature and implications of Japan's literary formations and its modernizing society."--Book jacket flap Satoru Saito examines the similarities between detective fiction and the novel in prewar Japan. Arguing that interactions between the genres were critical moments of literary engagement, Saito demonstrates how detective fiction provided a framework through which to examine and critique Japan's literary formations and its modernizing society.