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Fallen Words
by Yoshihiro Tatsumi
Published by Drawn and Quarterly
278p, b&w, softcover, 6.5"x8.5"
$19.95
Out of Stock
"In Fallen Words, Yoshihiro Tatsumi takes up the oral tradition of
rakugo and breathes new life into it by shifting the format from spoken
word to manga. Each of the eight stories in the collection is lifted
from the Edo-era Japanese storytelling form. As Tatsumi notes in the
afterword,the world of rakugo, filled with mystery, emotion, revenge,
hope, and of course, love, overlaps perfectly with the world of gekiga
that he has spent the better part of his life developing. These
slice-of-life stories resonate with modern readers thanks to their
comedic elements and familiarity with human idiosyncrasies. In one, a
father finds his son too bookish and arranges for two workers to take
the young man to a brothel on the pretext of visiting a new shrine. In
another particularly beloved rakugo tale, a married man falls in love
with a prostitute. When his wife finds out, she is enraged and sets a
curse on the other woman. The prostitute responds by cursing the wife,
and the two escalate in a spiral of voodoo doll cursing. Soon both are
dead, but even death can't extinguish their jealousy. Tatsumi's love of
wordplay shines through in the telling of these whimsical stories, and
yet he still offers timeless insight into human nature."