| Re: "24 Views of Mt. Fuji, by Hokusai" excerpts and ukiyo-e
A few comments and corrections -
1) The story was written in 1984. It was published in 1985.
2) The book that Zelazny consulted, which I also own, was "Hokusai’s Views of Mt. Fuji" published by Charles Tuttle, 1965. It also contains poetry by Easley Stephen Jones, one poem for each image. The book contains the 24 images (and no more than that) in exactly the order that Zelazny referred to them in the story. The first image with the barrel maker is thus the first image in the book and the story; it is not the last image. Copies of this book are available online through used booksellers (eg abebooks.com). I've enjoyed rereading the story while flipping to the image in the book that corresponds to each section. If you have the images at hand, you'll realize that a lot of commentary from the protagonist (Mari) refers to elements in the images, and not in her surroundings.
3) The original images were quite small, I think about 4 inches wide - they were woodcuts, after all. They'll be reproduced no bigger than that in the book, but they will have to be in grayscale because colour would not be affordable.
Chris Kovacs |