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Floating Clouds (Japanese Studies Series) Paperback – April 10, 2012

by Fumiko Hayashi (Author), Lane Dunlop (Translator)
4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 5 ratings
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In this groundbreaking novel, Fumiko Hayashi tells the powerful story of tormented love and one woman's struggle to navigate the cruel realities of postwar Japan. The novel's characters, particularly its resilient heroine Koda Yukiko, find themselves trapped in their own drifting, unable to break out of the morass of indecisiveness. Set in the years during and after World War II, their lives and damaged psyches reflect the confusion of the times in which they live.

Floating Clouds follows Yukiko as she moves from the physically lush and beautiful surroundings of Japanese-occupied French Indochina to the desolation and chaos of postwar Japan. Hayashi's spare, affecting novel presents a rare portrait of Japanese colonialism and the harshness of Japan's postwar experience from the perspective of a woman. Its rich cast of characters, drawn from the back alleys of urban Japan and the low rungs of society, offers an unforgettable portrait of Japanese society after the war.

The tortured relationship between Yukiko and Tomioka, a minor official with the Department of Agriculture and Forestry, provides the dramatic center of the novel. Yukiko meets Tomioka while working as a typist for the Japanese ministry in Indochina, where they begin their affair. After the war, Tomioka returns to his wife but remains emotionally inscrutable to Yukiko, refusing to break off their relationship. Meanwhile, Yukiko must find her way in a radically changed postwar Japan. When Yukiko and Tomioka's lives once again cross, the two set down a path shaped by their passion and sense of desperation.

First published in 1951, Floating Clouds is a classic of modern Japanese literature and was later made into a film by legendary Japanese director Mikio Naruse.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    328 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Columbia University Press
  4. Publication date
    April 10, 2012
  5. Dimensions
    8.5 x 0.9 x 5.5 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0231136293
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0231136297
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Lane Dunlop's superb translation of Fumiko Hayashi's most celebrated postwar novel presents a striking portrait of a woman struggling amidst the social dislocations of the era. Floating Clouds captures the sense of rupture that pervaded personal trajectories and reflects the capacity of individuals to reconstruct hope and meaning among the debris of broken dreams. -- Joan Ericson, Colorado College, author of Be a Woman: Hayashi Fumiko and Modern Japanese Women's Literature

Floating Clouds, one of Fumiko Hayashi's late masterpieces, draws from the store of her own remarkable experiences in its depiction of the chaotic, uncertain, wounded worlds of postwar Japan. With a poignantly simple prose style, gracefully translated by Lane Dunlop, she captures the tumult of the time, the arrogance of colonialism, and the impotence of defeat. -- Rebecca Copeland, Washington University in St. Louis, author of Lost Leaves: Women Writers of Meiji Japan

The novel effectively conveys the troubling ramifications of the Japanese occupation of Indochina during World War II. ― Library Journal

It is fitting that [Dunlop] give us this important novel in its first trustworthy and readable English edition. ― The Japan Times

A remarkable book. -- Scott Bryan Wilson ― Rain Taxi

A sprawling portrait of Japan just after the end of World War II... Lane Dunlop's translation is excellent. -- Janine Beichman ― The Japan Journal

[A] powerful and moving work. -- M.A.Orthofer ― The Complete Review

About the Author

Fumiko Hayashi (1904–1951) was a novelist, poet, and short story writer both critically and popularly loved in Japan. Widely heralded as one of the most important Japanese novelists of the twentieth century, she is also the author of the novel Horoki.

Lane Dunlop is also the translator of the anthology A Late Chrysanthemum: Twenty-One Stories from the Japanese, two novellas by Nagai Kafu, and a short story collection by Kawabata Yasunari. He was awarded an Academy Award in Literature by the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Columbia University Press (April 10, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 328 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0231136293
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0231136297
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.7 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 0.9 x 5.5 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.8 4.8 out of 5 stars 5 ratings

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Fumiko Hayashi

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Customer reviews

4.8 out of 5 stars
4.8 out of 5
5 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Jesse
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing book. Hayashi never really broke the American market ...
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2016
Verified Purchase
Amazing book. Hayashi never really broke the American market but is nonetheless a classic writer which all international literature students should study. Whether or not you like her style, she is essential to understanding the feminist history of Japan in the mid 20th century.
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getsuyobi
5.0 out of 5 stars Getsuyobi
Reviewed in the United States on April 1, 2012
Verified Purchase
Very interesting novel. Worth to read because it shows the deep dispair and hardship of the postwar Japan. Translation is very good. I would read other books by the same author.
3 people found this helpful
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Crazy Fox
4.0 out of 5 stars The (Rising) Sun Also Sets
Reviewed in the United States on September 3, 2006
Verified Purchase
You could read hundreds of history books and still not really grasp what world events mean to individual lives, to their hopes and dreams and to their personal comedies and tragedies. Hayashi Fumiko does just that in this fine novel, and all while telling a good story in a sparse and stark prose style befitting her subject, a deteriorating and defeated relationship--and nation--struggling and groping tenaciously for life. The giddy high of Japanese colonialism in Southeast Asia with its undertone of violence and impending disaster comes alive in vivid everyday detail, correlating with the blossoming relationship between Yukiko and Tomioka, but the majority of the tale takes place in Tokyo after the defeat, and the sordid reality of survival in a devastated society and the toll this takes on the emotional lives of the couple likewise is rendered in grim and realistic detail. This correlating contrast entwines a universal tale of relationships ripening and then souring with the historically specific tale of what ordinary people in Japan went through in the 1940's in a compelling and effective manner.

That said, the novel isn't perfect. Sometimes the reader's patience with the main characters is sorely strained. Not that one has to like the characters for a novel to be good, of course, but sometimes Tomioka is such a deadbeat and Yukiko so predictably clingy that you start losing interest in what happens to them. And somehow the ending (I will reveal no spoilers) seems rushed and a bit forced, though very moving, definitely. Still, such a narrative could easily have lapsed into utter melodrama in the hands of a lesser writer, but Hayashi always keeps the tone subdued and real, displaying consummate literary talent and craftsmanship. When all's said and done, this is justifiably a classic novel of the mid-twentieth century.

And just a quick note, for anyone interested in the sudden rise of new religions in Japan and public perceptions of them, this novel offers a very intriguing and sarcastic take on the phenomenon.
13 people found this helpful
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