The Wild Geese
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| Abstract |
In The Wild Geese, prominent Japanese novelist Ogai Mori offers a poignant story of unfulfilled love, set against the background of the dizzying social change accompanying the fall of the Meiji regime. The young heroine, Otama, is forced by poverty to become a moneylender’s mistress. She is surrounded by skillfully-drawn characters-her weak-willed father, her virile and calculating lover (and his suspicious wife), and the handsome student who is both the object of her desire, and the symbol of her rescue-as well as a colorful procession of Meiji era figures-geisha, students, entertainers, unscrupulous matchmakers, shopkeepers, and greedy landladies. Like those around her, and like the wild geese of the title, Otama yearns for the freedom of flight. Her dawning consciousness of her predicament brings the novel to a touching climax. Written in 1913, The Wild Geese enjoyed such success in Japan that it was made into a film, shown abroad as The Mistress. (from Amazon.com)
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0
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| Number of Pages |
128
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| Publisher |
Tuttle Publishing
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| ISSN Number |
0804810702
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Reviews
Please login to review this resourceReview of Wild Geese
ABSTRACT: This book was originally done in seriel form and is an historical fiction. It takes place in Tokyo in 1880 during the Meiji Period, a period of great change and modernization in Japan. It tells the story of a man named Suezo, a moneylender, who becomes weary of his wife and makes a decision to take on a mistress. This story tells the plight of the rich and poor, the privileged and the everyday man as they live their lives and hope to fly as The Wild Geese.
The subject matter is appropriate for grades 9-12, but would be best utilized in the upper high school grades.
RECOMMENDATION: This book would be of classroom value because it would allow the student to see how the Japanese during this period come to grips with with the adoption of Western culture alongside the perpetuation of Japanese culture. Mapping skills could also come to place as you trace the route and places where the story took place.
The Wild Geese by Milana Galagaza-Sopko
REVIEWED BY: Milana Galagaza-Sopko
Oakland Catholic High School
9-12 Grade Librarian
ABSTRACT: This book was originally done in serial form and is an historical fiction. It takes place in Tokyo in 1880 during the Meiji Period, a period of great change and modernization in Japan. It tells the story of a man named Suezo, a moneylender, who becomes weary of his wife and makes a decision to take on a mistress. This story tells the plight of the rich and poor, the privileged and the everyday man as they live their lives and hope to fly as The Wild Geese.
The subject matter is appropriate for grades 9-12, but would be best utilized in the upper high school grades.
RECOMMENDATION: This book would be of classroom value because it would allow the student to see how the Japanese during this period come to grips with with the adoption of Western culture alongside the perpetuation of Japanese culture. Mapping skills could also come to place as you trace the route and places where the story took place.
An interesting, but uneven, novel depicting Meiji Japan
This is a very interesting novel, but probably only for upper grades and college as it centers on a mistress to a moneylender. This is one of two translations, and is the weaker of the two in terms of readability and accuracy, but it is also much less expensive than the other translation, published by a university press.
The novel can be productively compared to the film version, as there are several substantial changes that speak to the difference of time (the novel being written around 1913 and the film a product of the post-war 1950s.)
