Jump to content

Machine (novel)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Machine (機械, Kikai) is a 1930 novel by the Japanese author Riichi Yokomitsu.[1] It is one of the seminal works of modernism in Japanese literature.[2] Set in a factory that makes metal nameplates, the story considers the effects of modern life on workers.[3] The book's events unfold around conflicts over trade secrets kept hidden in a room in the center of the factory.[4] Writing in 1930, Japanese literary critic Hideo Kobayashi noted that "the author of this work is not straining in the least for a new way of grasping human psychology" but concluded that the story is about "how a writer arrives at what he believes."[5]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ Gillespie, John K. (2007). "Yokomitsu Riichi's Two Machines". In Nara, Hiroshi (ed.). Inexorable Modernity: Japan's Grappling with Modernity in the Arts. Lexington Books. ISBN 9780739156377.
  2. ^ Keene, Dennis (1980). Yokomitsu Riichi: Modernist. Columbia University Press. ISBN 9780231049382.
  3. ^ Hoffman, Michael (September 17, 2016). "The rise of a toxic machine named fascism". Retrieved September 25, 2018.
  4. ^ Lippit, Seiji M. (2002). Topographies of Japanese Modernism. Columbia University Press. pp. 208–209. ISBN 9780231125314.
  5. ^ Kobayashi, Hideo (1995). "Yokomitsu Riichi". In Anderer, Paul (ed.). Literature of the Lost Home: Kobayashi Hideo-Literary Criticism, 1924-1939. Translated by Anderer, Paul. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804741156.