The Aquarium and Other Writings

A nighttime entertainment district becomes a place of fascination, jealousy, and frightening spectacle. In The Aquarium, Hori Tatsuo follows a narrator through Asakusa’s dance hall, cafés, riverside streets, and crowds, where curiosity repeatedly outruns understanding.

These eight early works move between the public world of modern Tokyo and intimate states of fatigue, desire, and uncertainty. A hospital patient sees his nurse as an angel in league with death; a sleepless wanderer confronts the loss of a friend; a visitor encounters a painting that seems to have changed beyond explanation.

Alongside the stories, Hori considers the art of fiction in a letter to Murō Saisei, speaks about the difficulty of writing, and introduces himself as a young artist shaped by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke. His critical concerns echo through the dreamlike scenes and unresolved endings of the fiction.