The Snow Ghost And Other Tales: Classic Japanese Ghost Stories
Publisher – Vintage
Published – Out Now
Price – £16.99 Hardback £8:99 Kindle ebook
Enter the haunted world of Ancient Japan in this spine-tingling collection of ghostly tales told and retold across the centuries.
From Goblin infested caves and haunted Tombs, to vengeful spirits and strange, sinister happenings, Ancient Japan was a country and culture that lived with between realms: the world of everyday and the world of supernatural.
It was a time and place where men could be brought down by karmic forces or lured into deadly danger by ghostly apparitions, and where the land held sorrowful secrets or stories that long-awaited an opportunity to reveal them and seek reparation.
The Snow Ghost and Other Tales brings together some of the best and scariest tales that endured across centuries of folk lore in one new beautiful hardback collection. Finally commited to writing during the turn of the twenieth cenutry by a unique set of folklorists, the ghost stories presented in this new anthology will transport readers to a time of magic and mystery, and let them relish in the spine-tingling traditions of Japanese culture largely lost now to modernity.
Interestingly, this week I saw someone on social media say Folk Horror is only English! As if the rest of the world hasn’t got their own folklores and horror writers across the world do not use it! A strange concept I’m sure you would agree. I quite like exploring stories from across the world (Margret Helgadottir has edited a great range doing this in the Monsters series doing this I highly recommend) but I was hoping The Snow Ghost and Other Tales – Classic Japanese Ghost Stories from Vintage would aid my knowledge of the region’s ghost stories. While I think I do have a little more knowledge I did find the delivery of the tales sadly lacking.
This book uses turn of the 19th century translations of folk tales as the source material. Hence, we get tales re-told by Lafcadio Hearn, Yei Theodora Ozaki and Richard Gordon Smith. We get short, very short and slightly more standard tales. The interesting ones are The Goblin of Adachigahara where a monk finds his place of location for the night very dangerous is just an interesting tale but also a reminder of those tales of beware where you try to stay at night. White Bone Mountain is a strange tale of a mad priest who is a monster. The Ghost Story of the Flute’s Tomb is about a scheming wife who brings about her husband’s death. While of a Promise broken is a nasty tale of a samurai who breaks a promise to his first wife on her deathbed. The Dream of Akinosuke is fascinating as it involves a familiar trip to the land of fairie, but its big reveal is surprising and very strange!
Broken promises, consequences of anger, wandering in the world outside are themes that come across a lot of the tales. Its though a problem that the way these stories are taken is very brief and more a quick fireside ghost story. A did B then C happened. Very few of the characters stand out bar the people something happened to. By the end of reading, it I wanted more depth, character and wondered what modern authors could do with these tales and what it says about today. They’re interesting snapshots but I felt I lacked context for the tales and bit more exploration of the themes and any issues these translators have caused would have been a good opportunity. As it is more a simple distracting read but one that I suspect will soon fade in the memory.
