Beef Pot and Other Writings

A child reaches for another piece of meat. A bachelor listens as his guests argue about marriage. A writer attends a gathering for a hundred ghost tales and finds himself more interested in its silent host than in the promised apparitions.

These eight writings reveal the range of Mori Ōgai’s attention, from fleeting gestures and awkward conversations to the relation between words and experience. A brief recollection of adolescence recounts a ferry fare and a wounded pride. An empty freight cart becomes the center of an essay about old language, while a defense of translation weighs the difference between conveying an original and replacing it with familiar Japanese objects.

The collection closes with a prince’s annual chronology and a retainer’s testament, followed by his death and a detailed family history. Duty, observation and the costs of loyalty take sharply different forms across these pieces.