Tea Talk - 1917, Volume 2

A horse leads its rider into a disastrous romance. A magician fails to catch a goldfish but hooks three powerful men’s vanity. A congressman’s invented churchgoing becomes a predicament when his wife arrives unexpectedly.

Susukida Kyūkin’s newspaper columns turn small encounters into sharp observations about art, politics, learning, money, and desire. Japanese actors and scholars mingle with European writers, American public figures, priests, merchants, and people whose confidence proves greater than their understanding. A new military uniform seems to acquire a life of its own; a misplaced comma costs a fortune; a treasured library leaves its owner scarcely room to live.

This second volume continues the supplied division of the 1917 work, opening in the midst of the August 17 column and ending on December 17. Kyūkin, a Japanese poet and essayist, combines a conversational voice with literary curiosity and mischievous irony. The translation preserves every supplied paragraph, dated heading, numerical claim, and contradiction, with concise notes explaining names, customs, wordplay, and historical references.