Akutagawa and the Age of Inversion

Thoughts on ‘Kappa’ and the rule of the absurd

Chōkōdō Shujin on reading Kappa today and the triumph of the absurd.

“All the ideas necessary for life seem to have been already in our possession three thousand years ago. Perhaps we are only stirring up old embers into new flames.”

— Ryūnosuke Akutagawa, Kappa

Ryūnosuke Akutagawa entered the world in Tokyo in 1892, the year of the dragon, just as Japan w…