Why is Japanese literature so much more robust (for lack of a better word) than say, Korean, or even Chinese? Certainly if only considering ancient texts Chinese and Japanese works are on par with one another. But after entering the modern era Japanese writing (and art in general you could argue) seems to be just far more advanced stylistically in addition to having a wider breadth of topics that it covers.
Contemporary works in China are completely stifled for political reasons of course but even Korean works seem to only focus on a handful of subjects and follow a very western style while Japanese works still pull from more imaginative realms and still follow a more Japanese literary tradition in style.
Why such a large disparity /lit/? I ask you because I'm no expert on Asian literature myself and was curious. The picture is the only one on my phone.
Japanese literature was westernized
I think your Japanese view is heavily influenced by the handful of exceptionally good authors such as Mishima and Soseki. If you take those away there isn't much notable writers and works left.
>>7602490
Is Oe any good?
>>7602473
Because the Japanese specifically destroyed Korean culture & then banned their language.
>>7602490
>I only know two Japanese authors + memeakami
Japan remained a world power from the 20th century onwards, whereas Korea and China didn't.
Korea was intervened by Western and Marxist powers and China has destroyed much of its particular personality and cultural identity through Marxism.
what you mean like hentai or
>>7602490
sounds like you just don't know too much Japanese literature
>>7602626
...................LMAO
>>7602473
i can't speak for the Chinese, but Korean literature isn't very widely translated and the lack of quality translators from Korean language to western language has been a concern in the Korean literary community for a long time.
Quite simply, the Japanese are the greatest people on earth
>>7602765
Moot pls go
>>7602473
most koreans are autistic stem fag, and china destroyed his own culture thanks to Mao.
Korea's culture died with Chinese conquest, Japanese occupation, and American reconstruction
>>7603047
why didnt japanese culture die under american occupation then?
>>7602473
Japanese modernized alongside the western world and sought to escape their East Asian cultural heritage. Korea and China, on the other hand, went through a more difficult modernization process which they are only now reaping the benefits from. Modern Japanese literature has gotten more of a head start, so to speak, and was greatly impacted by the second world war much like the rest of the world. Give it a few decades and you'll see some good Chinese and Korean novels I'd reckon.
>>7602473
Soooo why in the fuck would you use a picture of a Saturn? It's America's failed attempt to make a Japanese car.
AND WHY IS THE ONLY PICTURE ON YOUR PHONE A PICTURE OF A FUCKIN SATURN ION?
Korea was a dystopian yangban hellhole until the 20th century and then a minor backwater terrorized by Japan until it was finally Westernized. Not a lot of room for great literature there, but there are some interesting things if only provincially.
Chinese culture was insanely ossified and reverential of its corpus of classics, which is large but didn't experience the same psychological/subjective impulses that revolutionized Western literature.
Japan unusually seized upon Westernization and Western ideas with gusto, so that by the 20th century and even a generation or so earlier, there were tons of Japanese people familiar with Western intellectual currents, Western philosophy, Western literature, etc.
China was much slower to modernize, and did so in splinters that collapsed on themselves and ultimately were crushed by communism. There were attempts to democratize the Chinese language and institute a kind of Chinese modernism by the early nationalists, in the early 20th, and these were very similar (if tardy) to the Japanese Westernizers. Self-conscious, more-or-less aware of Western culture, etc. They understood the need for an accessible literary language to create a new Chinese culture, a vital and breathing Chinese people, that could replace the old husk of the imperial system. But the dream of the republic died with the warlords and ultimately with communism.
People don't often seem to understand how systematic and barbaric the Cultural Revolution was. It purged China of its mind and spirit, converted the country into pure body. It reverted the whole place into a practically childlike state of mechanistic thinking. Meanwhile Japan was recovering from the shock of the war, and had never really lost its Western spirit - there were Western-style communists, socialists, etc., even traditionalism was formulated in deeply Western terms as you see in Mishima. They fundamentally just had more time to create a Western style culture industry and churn out major authors.
>>7602473
How much 20th century Chinese fiction have you read, OP? Which are your favourite authors and novels? You seem oddly familiar with it for a self-professed non-expert.
>>7602736
I see, so then are my original points in the first part simply an issue of the literature lacking translation rather than the talent pool itself being shallow?
>>7603057
This, too, is a large part of my question that I suppose I left unknown in the original post.
>>7603108
I needed to show a picture of my car to someone. I don't much like it either and once I'm done school and find employment I intend on buying a different car right away.
>>7603271
What's the budget? What are you looking to get? Honestly, it's not all that awful, just.. an car. That's all it is. It's the Happy Gilmore of cars.
It's on the TV and you've seen it a billion times, it's not even half as decent as you remember it being in the 90's, but you don't change the channel because it's fuckin' Happy goddamn Gilmore.
Reaching a bit with that one, I guess.
>>7602473
>Certainly if only considering ancient texts Chinese and Japanese works are on par with one another
u wot m8? Chinese literature predates Japanese literature by over a thousand years. That's pretty much like saying 'ancient Greek and ancient French literature are on a par with each other'.
>>7603334
Those are all good choices. The Genesis is a seriously underrated car. Very attractive and the 3.8 turbo is surprisingly quick, too.
>>7603334
>No more like Greek and Roman
That seriously underestimates the time difference.
>>7603265
Because Japan was able to transition by themselves into a modern society without foreign intervention, so they already knew how to preserve their culture.
>>7602765
weeb degenerate please
>>7603262
the talent pool cannot be but shallower since the population is smaller than that of Japan's, but a lot of the circumstances of the country, such as the trauma of colonization and the korean war as well as the displacements caused by rapid industrialization make for a fairly fertile ground for literature. try this out for some interesting postwar korean fiction. one of the most well known post war novels in korea but most westerners haven't heard of it. i can't speak to the quality of the translation.
http://www.amazon.com/Dwarf-Modern-Korean-Fiction/dp/0824831012/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1453268496&sr=1-1&keywords=the+dwarf+korean
>CHINESE CULTURE WAS DESTROYED BY COMMUNISM
Yeah, no. There's plenty of good Chinese authors, even translated authors, they just don't get half the press Japan's "so quirky xd" darlings do.
>>7605076
Yeah, the OP appears to be a classic /lit/ question.
>Why is (completed uninformed assumption presented without evidence) the case?
And most of the replies are apparently equally uninformed guesses about why the unchallenged assumption is the case.
>>7605076
Too bad they get shitty translators like the great Howard Goldblatt
>>7605095
They've never really read or understood East Asian literature except a couple of intro Jap writers so they think they pretty much got everything there is to know down.
>>7605438
>I say this as a fluent Chinese speaker
Eh, that's hardly a compelling reason to trust your judgment. There are plenty of fluent English speakers in the world who'll tell you Joyce is shit and Halo novelisations are where it's really at.
>>7605595
Dem Halo novelizations are pretty good though.
>>7605095
well it certainly appears to me that japanese writers are more well-known in the west than chinese authors - which could be an indicator of "robustness" (or perhaps just the fact that Japan-American relations have been much closer over the last 60 years)
>>7604711
This is what I mean by the limited scope of Korean interests in literature. The focus still, sixty years later, rests on the Korean war. Whereas with other post-war countries author's focused on the human condition after war Koreans still seem stuck in the war itself. At least this is how it seems from an outside perspective. I will look into the book you shared though.
>>7605076
The idea that you think the Japanese literature revolves around 'so quirky xd' authors shows you don't much understand either.
>>7605631
Oh yes, there are sensible ways of phrasing the question. But OP comments on things like how
>advanced stylistically
works are, which is a judgment that surely requires a pretty advanced understanding of Chinese, Korean and Japanese literature (in the original languages of course) to make.
Even if we just talk about popularity, though, the claim seems questionable. I can't think of a Japanese book I see as often as Wild Swans (written in English, I think, but by a Chinese author about China) although its literary merits are another matter of course.
>>7605657
Anon seems to be talking about Japanese authors who get press coverage. Afaik that basically means Murakami.
>>7605676
I have literally never seen another person with Wild Swans but I see NO Longer HUman all the time. Where the fuck do you eve nlive?
>>7605657
>>7605693
Aye. Believe me, I like Japanese literature. But the kind that gets the most press is the kind that reinforces the western view of Japan as an interesting, weird, but ultimately harmless country. Conversely, the Chinese literature that gets the most press is literature depicting China as a pure maiden raped by communist bandits (>>7605676 Wild Swans being a classic example) - but that's the exact kind that doesn't get written much here because, censors aside, Chinese people just don't find it a very interesting topic. Literary quality dictates these things less than the political sensibilities of westerners.
>>7605698
Britbongland. Maybe you move in more refined circles than me. Wikipedia tells me Wild Swans sold 10 million copies to No Longer Human's 12, but I'd assume a large majority of the latter were in Japan rather than in the west.
>>7605595
>Joyce is shit and Halo novelisations are where it's really at.
This is true, however.
>>7605438
You are too retarded
>>7602473
>Certainly if only considering ancient texts Chinese and Japanese works are on par with one another.
Lol. Classical Chinese poetry is the greatest corpus of literature humans have ever written.
>>7605676
>I can't think of a Japanese book I see as often as Wild Swans
Dazai, Murakami, Mishima, Kawabata - I see these all the time. Nigger, come on.
>most populated country in the world
>not a single good or interesting author
Well memed China!
>>7606329
there are good ones but very few great ones, and definitely terrible quality to population ratio
>>7606292
Are they more popular? Do you have sales figures?
>>7606340
Who is the Murakami of China? Soseki?
>>7606371
>murakami
idk any generic supermarket schlock cause that's what murakami is
>soseki
lu xun is a close analog i'd say.
DUDE WEAB LMAO
Can't give you an eloquent reason (though I have some thoughts on the subject), but I'd like to point out that it's like this with everything.
Japan has hundreds of Michelin-starred restaurants. Korea has none, China might have a few. Japan has decades of classic films and an entire genre of animation. Korea and China have a couple obscure directors (did you know Oldboy was based on a manga?). Japan has made major contributions to Rock, Jazz, and other 20th century forms of music, while China gets a pat on the back for 1500 year old two-string instrumentals and Korea has fucking K-Pop.
I'm not a weeabo. I don't watch anime or even particularly like any Japanese authors. And there are certainly holes to be poked in my previous paragraph. But the fact is that Japan has simply had a larger impact on global culture in virtually all forms of art compared to Korea and China.
I do, however, think that the tide is shifting now. Japan's seemingly permanent recession compared against China and Korea's increasing economic strength and political freedom, as well as niche Western interest in the latter two countries, should bring them further into discussion in coming years. They probably won't be real contenders until after we're all dead though.
China probably has a metric fuck-tonne of cultural media we're simply not exposed to because of the Great Wall preventing the majority of them from communicating with us.
>>7608581
the fake answer is that japan has a long history as part of the global capitalist core, with the attendant engagement with western cultural output and thought, while the other two countries which you mention are emerging economies that had had periphery status for a long time.
the real answer is that the japanese are inherently more civilized than the other asian nations and would have had taken their rightful place as masters of the orient had the pesky americans not gotten into the way.
What's even the fucking point if you can't read Jia PingWa? Won't even give me a chanc.
>>7608585
eh, it's not that so much as they're chinese
you speak english and either have it as your native language or are drawn to english-speaking environments because there is critical mass there
chinese also has critical mass, but very few non-natives seek it out
that's all
they have an alternate center of gravity
(that being said, the gfw is a serious bitch)
>>7608581
This is very true. Japan as the first westernized Asian nation is simply one that has had more cultural weight to throw around for the last hundred years or so. But the country is stagnating now. It's a theory I've seen thrown around as to the cultural and social cause of the recession etc. - that Japan, having accomplished its goal of "catching up" in the 1980s, now has no rationale for its own existence, and therefore no rationale for trying any harder. Maybe that's voodoo, but I think there's some truth in it.
>>7608585
Even China under Xi Jinping is a lot less repressive and closed off than you might expect . There is a huge language barrier, of course, and the CCP's censorship doesn't exactly help.
