623 Unpacking a Japanese Masterpiece - The Hakkenden, or Eight Dogs (with Glynne Walley) | Literature and the Olympics

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

Books, Arts, History

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 25 July 2024

⏱️ 57 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Hakkenden, or Eight Dogs is one of the classics of Japanese literature. In this episode, Jacke talks to translator Glynne Walley about this massive - and massively popular and influential - nineteenth-century novel about eight warriors who band together to defend a princess's clan. PLUS Jacke takes a look at the years when the Olympics awarded medals to artists as well as athletes - including the surprising winner of the first Olympic gold medal in literature. Music Credits: "Call to Adventure" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamorate Network and LIT Hub Radio.
0:07.0	Hello, there are epics and then there are epics.
0:14.1	Nanso, Sotomi Hakendin, more commonly known as Hakendin,
0:18.2	or the Hakenden, or in English, the Eight Dog Chronicles,
0:22.0	or just Eight Dogs, is one of the latter.
0:26.0	Epics writ large, epics in scope and scale and length and audacity.
0:33.7	Published in a 28 year span from 1814 to 1842, the story of eight warriors who gradually
0:40.5	discover their shared connections is one of the classics of Japanese literature.
0:46.4	Last week we gave you war in peace, which Henry James famously called a loose baggy monster.
0:54.7	And here today we give you what translator Glen Wally calls
0:59.2	huge and unwieldy, almost comically so.
1:04.8	Luckily we have that translator here with us today
1:07.9	to help us understand the largest novel
1:10.4	in the history of Japanese literature and one of the most influential.
1:16.7	Glyn Wally and Eight Dogs, plus a look at the Olympics and literature, today on the history of literature.
1:25.6	Okay, still drinking my coffee. I don't run the theme song as long as I used to. I used to have time to take a few sips. Okay, here we go. Welcome to the podcast. I'm Jack Wilson. Thank you for being here today. We will be looking at 8 dogs, as we mentioned up front, 98 chapters in 106 booklets when it was originally published,
1:50.0	lots of characters, multiple perspectives, a sprawling tale of a princess who spawns these spirit children,
2:00.3	warriors who must defend her clan together. But first, let's talk about the Olympics.
2:07.0	The Olympics is or are one of the great events in the world a time for international spectacle hopefully
2:16.2	camaraderie a time to set aside wars and political divisions and celebrate well what do we celebrate?
2:24.4	There's the rub, isn't it?
2:25.6	We celebrate the greatest athletes among us.
	...

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