Chrysanthemum and the Fish - Howard Hibbett - Japanese Humor Since Shogun Age

Description: Free eBay listing template designed by dewiso.com Chrysanthemum and the Fish - Howard Hibbett - Japanese Humor Since Shogun Age Filled with anecdotes and episodes from modern Japanese cultural history, this is a lively social history of Japanese humor since the 16th century. It attempts to reveal an aspect of the Japanese character largely unknown to the West, and is illustrated with examples from humorous comic prints.More details from the dust jacket are included below.Hardcover with dust jacket. Moderate wear to jacket as seen in photos. Tight and square binding. Clean pages with no readily visible underlining or writing.I combine shipping. I have been selling books, coins, sports cards and other collectibles for more than 20 years.All items securely packed.Please note: If ordering internationally please request a more accurate weight for your package. Contact me any time... We can be contacted at any time through eBay messages if you have any questions, comments or product requests. We will respond to you within 24 hours and do our best to help you out! We encourage our customers to contact us with any questions or concerns! We'd like to be sure you are completely satisfied with your purchase. Some more details... From the dust jacket: Arthur Koestler claimed that the sense of humor of the Japanese was like "weak, mint-flavoured tea." Was he right? Are funny bones not part of their anatomy? Is laughter something preferably hidden behind one's hand? In this eloquent and often deliciously amusing book, Howard Hibbett sets out to prove that, in its own way, Japanese humor is just as robust and varied as other people's. Jokes themselves are notoriously resistant to translation, but in the hands of a subtle interpreter such as Hibbett, funny stories and even puns clear the language barrier in great style. If anything, as E. B. White said of his own works in translation, they may at times "lose something in the original."Hibbett's study begins in the mists of legend, when the Sun Goddess, sulking in a cave, is supposed to have been lured out by the laughter of lesser gods, assembled to watch a "striptease" performed by another goddess. Echoes of that bawdy laughter, we learn, can still be heard through the ensuing centuries, under the accumulation of more sophisticated wit. This, he shows us, is true not only of the age of frivolity that flowered in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in the pleasure quarters of the great cities, but of later periods when a stricter public moral code was imposed from above and laughter was thought unseemly, with people resorting to the private consolation of dirty or irreverent jokes.For a while, in the first half of the twentieth century, it appeared that the Japanese were in danger of losing their sense of humor altogether, especially in literature. But not even war and Westernized intellectuals could entirely suppress the sense of fun that reemerged! , alive and well, in postwar vaudeville and films and comic books. And there Hibbett's narrative ends, as it began -- with a comic strip. Any number of solemn books have been written about "the Japanese character," which ultimately is the subject of his book as well. But here at last is one that, while it informs, never fails to entertain. Free eBay listing template designed by © dewiso.com.

Price: 75 USD

Location: Alexandria, Virginia

End Time: 2024-08-08T02:26:00.000Z

Shipping Cost: 6.88 USD