This Scheming World

This Scheming World (Seken Munasanyo) was published in 1692, one year before the author’s death. It represents the culmination of Saikaku’s perceptive genius, and in structure, is one of the most consolidated of all his works. Most of the stories are told as incidents or episodes relating to New Year’s Eve, when in those days it was the custom to balance all debits and credits for the year. At this particular time of year, the drama of life reached its climax; there were tragedies, comedies, and farces. The players were of the nameless masses. But Saikaku portrays them so life-like a touch that, even though three centuries have passed since his time, it seems as if they were our contemporaries. Decidedly inclined towards the debtors, Saikaku has them slipping off to the homes of their favorite mistresses, leaving town on �sudden” business trips, or becoming actors for the day in order to deceive the ever-persistent year-end collectors. Some of his characters are successful, while some are beset by even more troubles in trying to avoid the collectors. The episodes are always frank, often with humor, and occasionally pathetic. But more than anything else, the seventeenth century day-to-day way of living by the commoners comes vividly to life as the old merchant centers of Edo, Osaka and Kyoto are laid open by the author’s unrelenting eye. In humorously probing into the lives of the masses at the year’s-end, Saikaku weaves a powerful social indictment as well as an absorbing series of tales.