Japanese Ghost Stories
Penguin Classics
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Narrated by:
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Eleanor Matsuura
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By:
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Lafcadio Hearn
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
This Penguin Classic is performed by Eleanor Matsuura, known for AMC's The Walking Dead and Spooks. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Paul Murray.
In this collection of classic ghost stories from Japan, beautiful princesses turn out to be frogs, paintings come alive, deadly spectral brides haunt the living and a samurai delivers the baby of a Shinto goddess with mystical help. Here are all the phantoms and ghouls of Japanese folklore: 'rokuro-kubi', whose heads separate from their bodies at night; 'jikininki', or flesh-eating goblins; and terrifying faceless 'mujina' who haunt lonely neighbourhoods. Lafcadio Hearn, a master storyteller, drew on traditional Japanese folklore, infused with memories of his own haunted childhood in Ireland, to create these chilling tales. They are today regarded in Japan as classics in their own right.
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Hermann Hesse’s classic novel Siddhartha, takes place in ancient India around the time of the Buddha (6th century BC). Siddhartha and his companion Govinda set out in search of enlightenment. Siddhartha goes through a series of changes and realizations as he attempts to achieve this goal. Siddhartha joins the ascetics, visits Gotama, embraces his earthly desires, and finally communes with nature, all in an attempt to attain Nirvana.
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Sounds rushed
- By Viviane on 10-17-11
By: Hermann Hesse
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Quo Vadis
- A Narrative of the Time of Nero
- By: Henryk Sienkiewicz
- Narrated by: Frederick Davidson
- Length: 22 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Marcus, a Roman officer in Nero's army, risks his career, his family, and even his life when he falls in love with a Christian woman named Callina. In order to win Callina's love, Marcus must come to understand the true meaning of her religion, even as Rome sinks under the excesses of Nero and Christians are thrown to the lions. Quo Vadis brims with passion and life as it explores one of the turning points in history.
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loved every word
- By TruckerOlli on 12-02-10
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Japanese Fairy Tales
- By: Yei Theodora Ozaki - translator
- Narrated by: Leslie Bellair
- Length: 6 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Here are 22 charming Japanese Fairy Tales, translated by Yei Theodora Ozaki, including "My Lord Bag of Rice", "The Tongue-Cut Sparrow", "The Story of Urashima Taro, the Fisher Lad", "The Farmer and the Badger", "The Shinansha, or the South Pointing Carriage", "The Adventures of Kintaro, the Golden Boy", "The Story of Princess Hase", "The Story of the Man Who Did Not Wish to Die", "The Bamboo-Cutter and the Moonchild", "The Mirror of Matsuyama", and more.
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Nice book, wish the narrator spoke Japanese better
- By Ben on 01-31-17
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Figures of Earth
- A Comedy of Appearances
- By: James Branch Cabell
- Narrated by: Robert Blumenfeld
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Figures of Earth, subtitled "A Comedy of Appearances", follows the vicissitudes of Dom Manuel the Redeemer from his lowly swineherd origins through his unlikely elevation to the Count of Poictesme, and beyond. Published in 1921, it was the second volume of “The Biography of Manuel”, Cabell’s great work about an imaginary land that also managed to skewer the world of his upbringing as a Southern Gentleman of Virginia, and nearly everything else, besides!
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The Tale of Genji, Volume 1
- By: Murasaki Shikibu, Dennis Washburn - translator
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 35 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Murasaki Shikibu, born into the middle ranks of the aristocracy during the Heian period (794-1185 CE), wrote The Tale of Genji, widely considered the world's first novel, during the early years of the 11th century. Expansive, compelling, and sophisticated in its representation of ethical concerns and aesthetic ideals, Murasaki's tale came to occupy a central place in Japan's remarkable history of artistic achievement and is now recognized as a masterpiece of world literature.
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Tales of Genji
- By Amazon Customer on 02-24-20
By: Murasaki Shikibu, and others
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The Bridge of San Luis Rey
- By: Thornton Wilder
- Narrated by: Sam Waterston
- Length: 3 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Wilder's stories consistently explored the connections between the commonplace and cosmic dimensions of human experience, always returning to fundamental questions about the meaning of life. This Pulitzer Prize-winning tale concerns the lives of five people who fall to their deaths from a Peruvian rope bridge in 1714. A humble Franciscan, Brother Juniper, witnesses the accident and determines to learn about the lives of the victims in order to find out whether this accident happened by chance or by plan.
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Excellent Story, But Poor Audiobook Technically
- By RKL on 11-15-13
By: Thornton Wilder
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The Oscar Wilde Collection
- By: Oscar Wilde
- Narrated by: James Marsters, Jacqueline Bisset, Alfred Molina, and others
- Length: 8 hrs and 22 mins
- Original Recording
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Four classic comedies from one of the wittiest playwrights in Western literature: Lady Windermere's Fan, A Woman of No Importance, An Ideal Husband, and The Importance of Being Earnest, all featuring star-studded casts with the likes of Jacqueline Bisset, Miriam Margolyes, James Marsters, Alfred Molina, Roger Rees, Yeardley Smith, Eric Stoltz, and many more. This audio also includes a chilling dramatization of Wilde's sole novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray.
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Good Collection
- By Anniebligh on 03-31-12
By: Oscar Wilde
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The Celtic Twilight
- By: William Butler Yeats
- Narrated by: Jack Chekijian
- Length: 4 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the best-known collections of W. B. Yeats' prose, The Celtic Twilight explores the old connection between the Irish people and the magical world of fairies. Yeats, by traveling the land in the early 20th century and talking to the common people about their experiences with the creatures, yielded a colorful overview of Celtic fairy folklore.
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A compilation of Irish folklore in prose
- By MolllyT on 07-26-16
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Anne's House of Dreams
- By: Lucy Maud Montgomery
- Narrated by: Karen Savage
- Length: 7 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Anne's House of Dreams is a novel by Canadian author Lucy Maud Montgomery. It was first published in 1917 by McClelland, Goodchild and Stewart. The novel is from a series of books written primarily for girls and young women, about a young girl named Anne Shirley. The books follow the course of Anne's life. It is set principally on Canada's Prince Edward Island, Montgomery's birthplace and home for much of her life.
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A pleasant Read
- By Virginia C. Stutesman on 08-31-18
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Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol: A Radio Dramatization
- By: Charles Dickens, Jerry Robbins - dramatization
- Narrated by: J. T. Turner, The Colonial Radio Players
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Original Recording
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The Colonial Radio Theatre pulls out all the stops in this magnificent production of the Charles Dickens classic Christmas story! This full cast dramatization features a powerful music score - from the magnificent, booming opening of "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" to the frightening tones of "The Ghost of Christmas Future". It's a holiday treat both you and your family will enjoy for years to come.
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great performance
- By Paul Pedraza on 11-23-22
By: Charles Dickens, and others
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H. P. Lovecraft's Book of the Supernatural
- 20 Classic Tales of the Macabre, Chosen by the Master of Horror Himself
- By: Henry James, Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, and others
- Narrated by: Davina Porter, Steven Crossley, Bronson Pinchot
- Length: 16 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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H. P. Lovecraft is arguably the most important horror writer of the 20th century. Culled from his 1927 essay "Supernatural Horror in Literature”, Lovecraft acknowledges those authors and stories that he feels are the very finest the horror field has to offer, including Washington Irving, Edgar Allan Poe, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, Bram Stoker, Robert Louis Stevenson, Guy de Maupassant, Ambrose Bierce, and Arthur Conan Doyle. This chilling collection includes 20 works, each prefaced by Lovecraft's own opinions and insights in each author’s work.
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Not all the stories are complete
- By SteffiT on 10-21-13
By: Henry James, and others
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Sumerian Mythology: Fascinating Myths and Legends of Gods, Goddesses, Heroes and Monster from the Ancient Mesopotamian Sumerian Mythology
- By: Simon Lopez
- Narrated by: Neil Hamilton
- Length: 5 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Do you know that the Sumerians believed that: The moon was actually a god child conceived unintentionally by the God Enlil and a maid? Or that humans were first created to do the chores on earth for the Gods and Goddesses? The ancient Sumerians lived a difficult life, and this is reflected in their myths. However, also reflected in their stories is their love for justice and the values which they most supported, among them beauty, honor, and truthfulness.
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Not a True Mythology
- By Glenda Nichols on 05-21-19
By: Simon Lopez
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I really enjoyed this
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Pt 2 was delightful (+no cringey pronunciations!!)
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Good stories but an old recording
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Welcome to The Book of Japanese Folklore: a fascinating journey through Japan’s folklore through profiles of the legendary creatures and beings who continue to live on in pop culture today. From the sly kitsune to the orgrish oni and mischievous shape-shifting tanuki, learn all about the origins of these fantastical and mythical creatures. With information on their cultural significance, and how it’s been spun into today’s popular culture, this tome teaches you about the stories and histories of the beings that inspired characters in your favorite movies, animes, manga, and games.
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Elizabeth Gaskell's chilling Gothic Tales blends the real and the supernatural to eerie, compelling effect. 'Disappearances', inspired by local legends of mysterious vanishings, mixes gossip and fact; Lois the Witch, a novella based on an account of the Salem witch hunts, shows how sexual desire and jealousy lead to hysteria; while in 'The Old Nurse's Story' a mysterious child roams the freezing Northumberland moors.
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Ups and Downs
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The Penguin Book of Ghost Stories
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This new selection of ghost stories, by Michael Newton, brings together the best of the genre. From Elizabeth Gaskell's 'The Old Nurse's Story' through to Edith Wharton's 'Afterword', this collection covers all of the most terrifying tales of the genre. With a thoughtful introduction and helpful notes, Newton places the stories contextually within the genre and elucidates the changing nature of the ghost story and how we interpret it.
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I forced myself to chapter 5
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Kwaidan
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A wonderful collection of spine-tingling ghost stories and thought-provoking essays on insects. This new version has an introduction "Hearn and Japan", which details the continuing influence of Hearn on contemporary Japan.
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The Best of Richard Matheson
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Among the greats of 20th-century horror and fantasy, few names stand above Richard Matheson. Though known by many for novels like I Am Legend and his 16 Twilight Zone episodes, Matheson truly shines in his chilling, masterful short stories. Since his first story appeared in 1950, virtually every major writer of science fiction and fantasy has fallen under his influence, including Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, Peter Straub, and Joe Hill, as well as filmmakers like Stephen Spielberg and J. J. Abrams.
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Rich and thrilling storytelling
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The Top 10 Short Stories - Lafcadio Hearn
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Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. They can lift our lives into locations, people and experiences with a sweep of landscape, narration, feelings and emotions that are difficult to achieve elsewhere. In this volume we examine one of the great names from the past whose works invite life, rituals and the spirit world together to fashion dramatic and chilling unforeseen happenings.
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Japanese Fairy Tales
- By: Yei Theodora Ozaki - translator
- Narrated by: Leslie Bellair
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Here are 22 charming Japanese Fairy Tales, translated by Yei Theodora Ozaki, including "My Lord Bag of Rice", "The Tongue-Cut Sparrow", "The Story of Urashima Taro, the Fisher Lad", "The Farmer and the Badger", "The Shinansha, or the South Pointing Carriage", "The Adventures of Kintaro, the Golden Boy", "The Story of Princess Hase", "The Story of the Man Who Did Not Wish to Die", "The Bamboo-Cutter and the Moonchild", "The Mirror of Matsuyama", and more.
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Nice book, wish the narrator spoke Japanese better
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Waverley by Sir Walter Scott is an enthralling tale of love, war and divided loyalties. Taking place during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, the novel tells the story of proud English officer Edward Waverley. After being posted to Dundee, Edward eventually befriends chieftain of the Highland Clan Mac-Ivor and falls in love with his beautiful sister Flora. He then renounces his former loyalties in order actively to support Scotland in open rebellion against the Union with England. The book depicts stunning, romantic panoramas of the Highlands.
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Loved it
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By: Sir Walter Scott
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The Tale of Genji, Volume 1
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- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 35 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Murasaki Shikibu, born into the middle ranks of the aristocracy during the Heian period (794-1185 CE), wrote The Tale of Genji, widely considered the world's first novel, during the early years of the 11th century. Expansive, compelling, and sophisticated in its representation of ethical concerns and aesthetic ideals, Murasaki's tale came to occupy a central place in Japan's remarkable history of artistic achievement and is now recognized as a masterpiece of world literature.
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Tales of Genji
- By Amazon Customer on 02-24-20
By: Murasaki Shikibu, and others
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The Tale of Genji
- By: Murasaki Shikibu, Suematsu Kencho - translator
- Narrated by: Elaine J. Sepani
- Length: 6 hrs and 57 mins
- Abridged
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Japanese noblewoman Murasaki Shikibu wrote The Tale of Genji in the 11th century to entertain the other women in the court. It follows the romantic exploits of the title character, an emperor’s son, as he navigates life within aristocratic society and eventually outside of it. Praised for its psychological insight into the characters’ motivations, the book greatly influenced Japanese culture and is widely considered the world’s first novel. In 1882, Suematsu Kencho translated a condensed version of the text into English, allowing this classic tale to reach a wider audience.
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Couldn't listen to an entire chapter
- By Jago on 01-02-19
By: Murasaki Shikibu, and others
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The Kojiki
- By: Basil Hall Chamberlain
- Narrated by: Blaise Adams
- Length: 1 hr and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Basil Hall Chamberlain (1850-1935) was a professor of Japanese at Tokyo Imperial University. This is his translation of the Kojiki (Records of Ancient Matters), which was compiled in AD 712 by Ō no Yasumaro at the request of Empress Genmei. One of the two primary sources of the Japanese national religion of Shinto, The Kojiki is a collection of myths, early legends, songs, genealogies, oral traditions, and semi-historical accounts.
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Excessively wordy
- By R W on 11-19-23
What listeners say about Japanese Ghost Stories
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Chemar
- 12-02-19
Difficult to Follow
Interesting information. Probably enjoyed the background on the author the most as it could be easily followed. The rest of the book with footnotes interspersed mid text was a bit difficult.
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2 people found this helpful
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Performance
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Story
- Steven A. Townshend
- 12-16-23
Beautiful Storytelling and Performance
The reader’s dramatic training, voice, and pace cast a spell. The performance truly articulates the beauty of the stories so that they have an immersive quality, like a storyteller relating a ghost story by candlelight.
The stories Hearn wrote down are strange and captivating, and it was wonderful to hear about his life in this book as well.
I have listened to the stories on this audiobook again and again and never tire of them. The production and performance are among the best I have experienced from Audible.
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- E.S.
- 11-16-19
Finally on Audible!
I have a wishlist of books I want to see on Audible and this was one of them. I was so pleased to see this collection of stories available. The narrator does a fantastic job with pronunciations and has a very pleasant voice. I much appreciated the footnotes, as they explained Japanese words, terms, and ideals that may otherwise be unknown to the reader. It was like having a personal guide to Japanese culture/fairytales, which was a essentially what Lafcadio Hearn’s books were. I was very satisfied with this book!
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6 people found this helpful
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- Atul Joshi
- 05-26-20
Great writer great narrator
Forget lovecraft - honestly the depth that this man gets to is way way better and nuanced. Narrator delivers a superlative treatment. Ten stars.
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1 person found this helpful
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Story
- Hajime Koyama
- 07-05-24
Narrater needs linguistic coach
Every single Japanese and Sanskrit word in this book was so badly mispronounced. The narrator needs to receive some linguistic coaching.
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Overall
- Teresa Inafuku
- 04-12-20
Disappointing...reading the book might have been more gratifying...but when you're losing your eyesight your options become limi
The narrator was a let down. I thought the recitation of the poems sounded inauthentic...having lived in Japan and have familiarity with the language I found the narrator's voice inauthentic. This might be a minor thing but I was expecting more. Having read Shadowings over 50 years ago I was so looking forward to this book.
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5 people found this helpful
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- CT
- 01-20-21
Japanese pronunciation a problem
Lafcadio Hearn spent the last ten years of his life in Japan, at the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries. He made a life there, marrying a Japanese woman and having four children with her. He obtained Japanese citizenship, and wrote about Japanese culture, especially its traditional stories. He was not a scholar, and his extensive knowledge about Japan came from personal experience and what he learned from ordinary Japanese people. He adapted the tales he wrote, and offers some interesting insights into some lessons to be learned from the stories. These are interesting stories, and provide a view of Japanese culture as seen through the eyes of a sympathetic observer and talented teller of stories. His explanations of Japanese samurai ranks and of history ought not to be taken as strictly true; sometimes they are right, and sometimes they are not. One oddity is that he tries to render his conversations with Japanese people in English that mimics Japanese word order, in which the verb comes last, with adjustments only to make it intelligible to an English reader.
The narrator reads well, but her performance has one main flaw that may not bother an average reader without any knowledge of Japanese: she mispronounces Japanese words and names throughout, and I find myself automatically correcting her. These errors are not confined to Japanese names, but also the two French names mentioned in the introduction. Those are unimportant, as that is the only place they occur.
The Japanese mispronunciations are much more serious. As far as pronunciation goes, it is not a difficult language, because unlike English, it is very regular. Vowels retain their sound even in combination with other vowels. The “g” is always hard. In spite of her Japanese surname, Matsuura certainly has no knowledge of these basic rules, and I wish that, before taking on this job, she had bothered to, or been required to, learn basic Japanese pronunciation. Thus we have the temple name Amadera—short “e”—pronounced with a long “e”, although this pronunciation is not consistent throught. Also the era name Genroku (hard g, remember) rendered Jenroku.
Now, if I were listening to a book with similar problems, but with Greek words, I am quite sure that I wouldn’t notice. Therefore, if you haven’t a clue what Japanese is supposed to sound like, you might well give her performance at least four stars. But if you do know enough to notice, be prepared for frequent, not winces exactly, but maybe dissonances.
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13 people found this helpful
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- Johandre
- 11-21-19
Great collection of stories.
The narrator was very pleasing to listen to and the journey was very immersive, story to story. That immersion was broken a bit by difficulty or unfamiliarity pronouncing a large number of Japanese words. Or perhaps this was an intentional performance choice, seeing as the narrator's last name appears to be Japanese and that she may be perfectly familiar with the native pronunciations. If so, it was a poor stylistic choice in my opinion, as it cripples the audio book's appeal to Japanese language learners and may reinforce mispronounciation. This criticism aside, the overall listen was great!
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2 people found this helpful
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- Peter W. Kalnin
- 04-23-23
LH Was a Master
Hearn's folk tales about ghosts have an authentic quality that only someone who lived in Japan could possibly know. These horrific stories touch us still.
Eleanor Matsuura does a brilliant job of narrating, being fluent in both English and Japanese which makes this a pleasure to listen to.
I recommend this book.
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