Across the Nightingale Floor

[CEWest]

I have posted the excerpt of 'tales of the otori' to the featured articles section: http://www.samurai-archives.com/tot.html
and got the 'advance copy' of the book a few days ago. The writing style is a bit odd, it almost seems like a book that was translated literally from Japanese, if that makes any sense - here's an example: "My mother used to threaten to tear me into eight pieces if I knocked over the water bucket, or pretended not to hear her calling me to come home as the dusk thickened and the cicadas' shrilling increased." I haven't read it yet, just flipped through it, so can't make too much judgement for or against it. Take a look on the above link.

[Sjakihata]

Pretty good actually, I think it is cool if it is translated directly http://www.totalwar.org/ubb/smile.gif

[Ii Naomasa]

The thing is, if I understand correctly, that this is an original tale written originally in English. Am I correct, West-dono?

Still, it's an interesting style to take and even though it's awkward, in general it's already a bit more interesting to me than the Legend of the Five Rings novels (based around the events of the card game). The latter always strike me as too much mixing of various Asian cultures without really definining why certain things are the way they are. I learned from creating and writing things about a fictional Japanese-like society (I currently don't have anything available online aside from some related illustions over at my Elfwood gallery) (http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/s/o/soderlund/soderlund.html) that in order to have many of the cultural aspects of Japanese culture carry over, you need to have the isolation factor, as well as the home-brewed combination of religions and philosophies, even if things like Buddhism don't directly exist in one's imaginary world.

[This message has been edited by Ii Naomasa (edited 07-03-2002).]

[CEWest]

It is written in English, it just has the 'feel' of something translated. but anyway, this is the "authors note" at the begining:

"The Nightingale Floor is set in an imaginary country in a feudal period. Neither the setting nor the period is intened to correspond to any true historical era, though echoes of many Japanese customs and traditions will be found, and the landscape and seasons are those of Japan. I have used Japanese names for places, but these have little connection with real places, apart from Hagi and Matsue, which are more or less in thier true geographical positons. As for characters, they are all invented, apart from the artist Sesshu, who seemed impossible to replicate."

Your artwork site is pretty cool - using photoshop to enhance the pictures is great idea. Never really thought of it. Do you have any of the 'story of Tsumeryujin' written down anywhere?

[This message has been edited by CEWest (edited 07-06-2002).]