One autumn day in 1831, the aging writer Bakin endures a bathhouse critic's sneers, a pushy publisher and his own flat prose, then lifts himself out of despair by writing through the night. A portrait of an artist's pride, doubt and absorption in his work.
Books mentioned in Gesaku Zanmai (6)
Nansō Satomi Hakkenden by Takizawa Bakin: “The Nansō Satomi Hakkenden, Master, grows ever more wondrous with each volume, and it is splendidly done. Funamushi disguising herself as a blind woman to try to kill Kobungo, and then, once seized and tortured, the rescue by Sōsuke: that sequence is simply beyond words. [auto-translated]”
Water Margin by Shi Nai'an: “Bakin's writings are all rehashes. Why, the Nansō Satomi Hakkenden is nothing but a copy of the Water Margin, isn't it? [auto-translated]”
Ukiyoburo by Shikitei Sanba: “The scene was no different now from the one Shikitei Sanba had described in a comic book some years before: "gods, Buddhism, love, impermanence, all jumbled together in the Ukiyoburo." [auto-translated]”
Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki by Takizawa Bakin: “On this desk he had written Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki and Nanka no Yume, and now he was writing the Nansō Satomi Hakkenden. All his writing tools had long been familiar with the pain of his creative labor. [auto-translated]”
Sanshichi Zenden Nanka no Yume by Takizawa Bakin: “On this desk he had written Chinsetsu Yumiharizuki and Nanka no Yume, and now he was writing the Nansō Satomi Hakkenden. All his writing tools had long been familiar with the pain of his creative labor. [auto-translated]”
Matsuzome Jōshi Akinonanakusa by Takizawa Bakin: “Because he can't write Osome and Hisamatsu as plain Osome and Hisamatsu, he calls it Matsuzome Jōshi Akinonanakusa. [auto-translated]”