天平の甍 井上靖

 『唐大和上東征伝』と『鑑真大和上傳之研究』と『続日本書紀』を基にこの小説を書いたらしい。四人の留学生を中心に話は展開する。

天平五年（７３３）日本人の留学生が唐に渡り、鑑真和上を奈良に招く話。鑑真は６度目の渡航で、やっと日本に辿り着いたが、１０年かかった。最後は老齢と疲れで失明してまでも渡来を果たした。

その航海の困難さは沈没、難破、座礁などで、島々に停泊して数カ月を要している。命懸けである。蘇州に到着するのは稀で、安南（ベトナム）まで押し流されることもあった。帰路も同じ困難があった。

普照が主人公で、彼の心理描写が巧みに描かれている。共に唐に渡った栄叡や戒融、業行らの中で、最も印象に残ったのは業行である。

彼は唐にいる１０年にわたり仏典を写経し続け、何百冊の写経本を仕上げて、帰路に就く。遣唐使船は四隻あるが、帰路とき第一船に写経と共に乗込む。寡黙で、写経本が日本に着けば、「本は独り歩きをして、日本の仏教を根底から変える」という理想を持っていた。

鑑真や普照が乗ってい第二船や、第三船、第四船が薩摩半島に着いたが、第一船は沈没した。

１０年の歳月を懸けて、一刻も休まず書写し続けた業行の努力が一瞬にして海に沈み、水の泡となる。

船が沈み、写経本が海に投げ出される時、業行は何と思ったか、気が狂ったのではないかと共感した。

吉田松陰 山岡荘八

全二巻を読み終えた。この小説は、通常の歴史小説と大いに違う。通常、主人公（松陰）の頭の中で考えていることは、しばしば文で描写されるが、この小説は、松陰の考えや考えの根本思想が何ページにもわたって描かれている。その哲学を読むだけで、松陰がどういう人物であったかが、よく解る。松陰は、尊王攘夷の大権現と言ってもいい。日本国は天皇を根源として成り立っており、天皇を蔑ろにする存在は悪である。親に孝行する。城主に従うのも大事であるが、一番大事なのは天皇を犯さぬという思想である。１０歳かそこらで、孟子の講義を大人に対してできる天才的頭脳の持ち主である。松陰の周りの者を感化しないではおかない。牢に入れば、囚人や看守の心の拠り所となり、死に際しても、狼狽えずに死を日本国のために役立てる。長州に木戸孝允、高杉晋作、山形有朋、伊藤博文などの偉人が出るが、松陰は彼らの頭を動かさずにはおかなかった。

山岡荘八は、恐らく松陰の書いた一次資料を読みこなし、自分の血と肉として、それを読者に伝えている。到底、私のできぬ技である。

Mr. Know-All by W.Somerset Maughan in 1924

 Somerset Maugham’s Mr. Know-All is an excellent short story. At the beginning, the narrator dislikes Mr. Kelada, or “Mr. Know-All,” because he seems to know everything about everything. Yet by the end, the narrator admits, “I did not entirely dislike Mr. Kelada.” I thought he would change his opinion about Mr. Kelada at the end of the story.

The turning point comes when Mr. Kelada confidently declares that Mrs. Ramsay’s pearl necklace is genuine and worth thirty thousand dollars. Her husband insists it cost only eighteen dollars, and they wager a hundred. When Mr. Kelada examines the pearls closely, he realizes they are real — but he also sees the desperate plea in Mrs. Ramsay’s eyes. Understanding instantly that the necklace must be a secret gift from her wealthy lover, he chooses to protect her. He lies, calls the pearls fake, and pays Ramsay the hundred dollars.

Somerset Maugham’s Mr. Know-All is an excellent short story. At the beginning, the narrator dislikes Mr. Kelada or “Mr. Know-All” because he seems to know everything about everything. Yet by the end, the narrator admits, “I did not entirely dislike Mr. Kelada.” I thought he would change his opinion about Mr. Kelada at the end of the story.

The title Mr. Know-All is fitting not only because Kelada knows facts about everything, but because he understands people — especially when compassion matters more than being right.

 

Charles by Shirley Jackson in 1948

 I read Jackson’s famous short story, “Lottery” some decades ago. The last scene was a horrific surprising ending. I learned that she got a lot of hate mail.

This one, “Charles,” is also a surprise ending story, but not horrific. I enjoyed the story.

[Spoiler] Laurie is naughty and tells his parents a lie every day he comes back home from kindergarten. He talks about how bad Charles is. His parents become so curious ( I became as curious as they are). When Laurie’s mother meets the teacher, she says, “You must have your hands full in that kindergarten, with Charles.” The teacher responds, “Charles? We don’t have any Charles in the kindergarten.”

A nice ending. It was humorous, too.

"Night Surf " written by David W. Burns

“Night Surf,” written by David W. Burns, is an astonishing short story—one of the most memorable I’ve ever read. It stands beside the finest short fiction I know, such as "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce and "The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe.

One of the story’s greatest strengths is the dual nature of the creature—both Cassie and a Nereid sea nymph. As a Nereid, she is cool, distant, and otherworldly; as Cassie, she becomes warm, human, and quietly tender. This contrast gives the story emotional depth.

The narrative succeeds because it follows the timeless principle of crafting a moving story: crushing hopelessness just before the ending, followed by the faintest glimmer of hope in the final moment. And that hope arrives beautifully in the last line:

“Next time, bring more of the pink ones.”

In that single sentence, we understand that the old man—the protagonist—will return, prepared with an abundance of pink jelly beans, carrying with him the fragile promise of connection.

This short story was published in 2019. It won the Grand Prize in the 14th Annual Writer's Digest Popular Fiction Awards. 

大岡越前 吉川英治

 諸悪の根源は将軍にある。依って将軍を召し取る、と江戸城に出掛け吉宗に説教する大岡越前。誰しも考えられない展開。出だしの犬殺しの三人も島流しから恩赦を受け許される。越前守の前の名前、市之助も娘、燕に親身に学を教え、妻のお袖の心が和む。出だしからエンディング迄、間延びする箇所もあるが、上手く展開している。

Hinoki by Chance Freihaut (2025)

Chance Freihaut is the winner of the 2024 Writers’ Union of Canada Short Prose Competition. The protagonist, Peter, tries to recover the memory of his mother, who abandoned him when he was seven. To reconstruct what he has lost, he enlists an improv group of three performers and directs them through scenes he invents—assigning places, situations, and even lines of dialogue.

As the improvisations unfold, fragments of the past begin to surface. Peter recalls, with painful clarity, the moment his mother left him and his father for good. “I love you, Peter,” she tells him. “But you need to know something. Mommy is like the sand and the wind.” And like sand carried off by a gust, she disappears from his life.

Through this process, Peter begins to understand his own identity and releases himself from the long struggle to remember her. A phone‑sex worker known as V eventually joins the troupe and takes on the role of his mother, further blurring the boundaries between performance and memory.

The story moves between two intertwined realms—the real world and the world of improv. At times, they overlap so closely that the distinction becomes deliberately unclear. Each sentence carries layers of implication, and each paragraph hides more than it reveals. The narrative demands an active, imaginative reader, one willing to navigate its shifting realities.

Hinoki is a tree name. It smells good. For Peter, the fragrance of Hinoki is his mother's smell.