BD. Edmund Blunden

156. Review of Modern Japanese Novels and the West, by Donald Keene; Modern Japanese Stories, edited by Ivan Morris; Folk Legends of Japan, by Richard Dorson; and The Road to Inamura, by Lewis Bush. Journal of Oriental Studies 5 (1959-60 [i.e., March 1965]): 252-53.

Blunden begins with reference to Aston’s ‘remarkable’ History of Japanese Literature (see D13), then moves to the works under review, praising Keene, Dorson—a ‘follower’ of Hearn (D9) though ‘far more deeply informed’—and the ‘vigorous variety’ of modern Japanese fiction as demonstrated in recent translations by Morris, Edward Seidensticker, and others. It is Bush, however, for whom Blunden reserves highest regard, and whom Blunden believes is ‘better acquainted with ordinary life in Japan . . . than any other Western writer’.