The Life of an Amorous Man
Yonosuke, the disinherited son of a Kyoto merchant, makes love his entire occupation from the age of seven, working through the licensed quarters of Kyoto, Osaka and Edo across fifty-four short chapters, one for every year. As much as it tells a story the book keeps a ledger — names of courtesans, prices, house rules, the etiquette of the assignation and the tea-house. Saikaku laid it out against the fifty-four chapters of the Genji with a townsman in the prince's place, and in doing so invented the ukiyo-zōshi, the fiction of the floating world.
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Lineage
- responds to ↑ The Tale of Genji
- ↓ The Life of an Amorous Woman
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Closest analogues
- 56% · 14 shared
- 49% · 12 shared
- 47% · 13 shared
- 47% · 12 shared
- 47% · 12 shared
- 47% · 11 shared