Ryunosuke Akutagawa's Kappa

I thought I've seen the comical-looking creature with that dumb eyes in some movie or book. It is called a Kappa, or a "river-child", a mystical creature from Japanese folklore.

This being a short novel, it took me about 5 days of reading-while-travelling to finish. Now, what can I say about the novel? Considering it was first published in Japan in 1927, I can imagine it being avant-garde then, examining by comparison, the way humans behave and think, the workings of our world and its social norms and laws and regulations. Call it a hybrid of a light-hearted satire of the Japan society and an olden days "Harry Potter" - without the magical, boyish charm, that is. The story even has a dreamy Alice-in-wonderland-like beginning, only that the strange, unbelievable adventure is told by a demented man, who claims to have fallen into Kappaland and lived among them.

It was like one day, you suddenly decide to bend over and look at everything through your legs - just for a good laugh. Of course, our world, upside down or otherwise, is far from perfect. The same then, can be said of the novel.

PS: In case you're wondering, I'm over 100 pages into Ha Jin's Waiting and enjoying every minute. Better, much better than Kappa. Okay, make that much, much, much better...heehee.