A Country Humoresque and Other Writings

A village couple quarrels so fiercely that both begin setting fire to their own house. Elsewhere, a threatened murder sends neighbors fleeing and keeps a visitor awake through a night of imagined dangers. Miyamoto Yuriko’s country humoresque finds comedy in the distance between fear, pride, and what actually happens.

This collection places that lively rural narrative beside a disturbing two-scene play set in Denmark, where teasing turns a young man’s doubts into terror. Diary fragments move from literary conversation to a drowned body in Tokyo Bay, while recollections of the editor Takita Tetsutarō and the writer Akutagawa Ryūnosuke reveal affection, reserve, and grief.

Three essays question the habits governing men, women, courtship, and domestic life. A detailed account of an American academic couple’s week joins a broader argument for examining foreign societies with fairness rather than prejudice.