Glimpses of Fukagawa

A summer outing begins with muddy clogs, uncertain directions, and two men determined not to talk about the earthquake. Their route through Fukagawa soon brings them to ruined bridges, flower-filled backyards, busy timber boats, and temples where the past seems unusually close.

Writing in 1927, Izumi Kyōka looks at a Tokyo district still marked by the Great Kantō Earthquake and its fires. He remembers the houses and waterways he knew before, but finds fresh beauty in working people, carefully tended flowers, and a girl leaping onto a boat. His companion’s jokes and boasts keep the excursion lively, even when their talk turns toward ghosts and the pleasure quarters.

The account moves freely between present impressions and recollection. A strange old woman beside a wave monument, an unsettling encounter in a noodle shop, and the rush of a cleansing tide suggest meanings that the narrator never fully explains.