About this book
Overview
"The stories and novels of Ihara Saikaku (1642-1693), widely acknowledged as the most accomplished Japanese writer of fiction during the first half of the Tokugawa period (1600-1867), portray the lives of characters from the officially designated status-groups that together comprised the bulk of Japanese society: samurai, chōnin (urban commoners) and peasants. Although Saikaku write many samurai-focused narratives, in the popular imagination in today's Japan he is best known for his depictions of chōnin life, perhaps because he himself was a wealthy chōnin and because complex portrayals of people engaged in commerce were new in Saikaku's day, whereas Japanese bards and writers had been producing literary portrayals of samurai exploits for hundreds of years. 'This Scheming World' (1693) provides perhaps the most striking example of this refreshingly modern focus on the economic activities of businesspeople at all levels of 17th-century Japan's burgeoning bourgeoisie. Like other collections of tales by Saikaku, its otherwise diverse stories are connected by a shared theme, in this case the efforts of debtors to pay off their debts as they come due on New Year's Eve, or, absent the funds to do so, to avoid or fend off bill collectors, as well as the strategies used by these to extract money from them. The stories include much detail regarding material culture, interest rates, the prices of commodities and consumer goods, as well as portrayals of the pursuit of the sort of costly pleasures that land their characters in debt, such as theatrical performances and the services of female and male prostitutes. What emerges is a remarkably full and vibrant portrait of cities and towns whose inhabitants of every social level are linked by business transactions."--
