Finished This Scheming World, by Saikaku Ihara, but now I want to read it again. I have always meant to read Saikaku, but have never known where to start out. So I grabbed this book because it looked short. If I read a long book, I would feel compelled to finish it, even if I disliked it. This book not really like a novel as we traditionally understand it, but more of a set of short sketches and episodes featuring various sorts of townspeople during the Edo period in the 1600s, on New Year’s day. I read this in translation (I would be unable to read this in the original, because it’s not modern Japanese), but even there, a strong, strangely light-hearted (even when describing rather depressing things) voice emanates from the work. It feels in a way quite medieval, as it describes a world full of, well, worldliness, the vicissitudes of fortune, and folly. Now, when you think Japanese New Year’s, you envision the stack of mochi topped with an orange, visits to the shrine, snow and chill, ozoni soup, osechi-ryori, kadomatsu, mochi pounding, family visits, and in general, a mood of reflection, somber and cheerful at once.

Well, actually that mood comes through a bit in This Scheming World (there are some interesting details, like the fact that it was traditional for people to put Ise lobsters out with the mochi to welcome the gods. A lobster is mentioned as lasting two weeks, which confuses me; there are also many fascinating details of daily life), but during the Edo Period, the New Year had another meaning: it was the time when debt collectors came pounding on their door, because (I gather) it was their last chance to collect debts, and otherwise they would often just cancel them. So while the rich spent this time squabbling over their social obligations (as New Year’s is also a time to give gifts to people), the poor and financially struggling spent their time scheming to avoid bill collectors and thinking up schemes for making money. So in the end, actually many of the stories revolve around money, appropriate for the world of the townspeople, where money was how one climbed to the top of the ladder. (Rather than artistic refinement or military valour).