Lafcadio Hearn was a 19th century interpreter of Japanese language and culture. He arrived in Japan during the Meiji era when the country was modernising rapidly. He became fascinated with folk beliefs, ghost stories, rural customs and the atmosphere of “old Japan”. Here he collects a series of ghost, or more specifically supernatural tales of memory, duty and emotion.

There are 20 stories across a 100 or so pages, so very short 4-5 page stories. The interesting elements are the focus on culture and Lafcadio’s little side notes on his thoughts on each story or a bit of historical or cultural background. Helpfully he focus on specific language and terms for which in English there is not a literal translation. I particularly like his assessment of one story, where clearly the husband of a wronged wife should be punished, “A morally unsatisfying story.”

Lafcadio, he’s a one-eyed wanderer (having lost his sight in one eye as a child), half-exile, half-scholar, quietly collecting his stories in lamplit rooms, romanticising and translating Japanese culture through a ghostly Western lens while the modern world kept knocking on his door.

I think overall I came away remembering the stories, where in many cases, not ghost stories, just treatise on forgotten memories, people’s spiritual thoughts, something that may or may not be remembered as any real manifestation and for a lot of the time, not always scary. Unless you are Japanese perhaps and the shame of not fulfilling duty or other aspects of a man or woman’s makeup that society frowns so strongly upon.

There are a few references to faceless ghosts or entities, these are often referred to as Yōkai; ghosts, monsters, spirts and other weirdness. It IS scary, but perhaps for the Japanese this is horrific; a lack of social identity, no honour - to lose face is to lose standing and have your identity erased.

Out of the twenty stores, The Reconciliation sticks in the mind, lost love, finally reconciled but waking up to a broken, horrific reality. There are lots of atmospheric memory heavy snippets from a past time and having just finished reading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, this aspect is very common across both books.

I scored this 7 out of 10, combining the cultural significance and understanding with simple tales. The tales themselves are perhaps of lesser interest, but context gives them real insight and the more you delve into this, the more shivers run down your spine.

TTRPG Thoughts

I’d love to see some of these ideas and feels translated into a Japanese Liminal story, pushing the original folklore and ideas into a modern Japanese investigation and really delving into the psyche of the people. It may be a hard translation to a Western audience but that is the beauty of Liminal, it can transcend cultural barriers to present common, core fears of liminal spaces, gothic melancholy and a presence lingering after absence. Echoes.