A LATE CHRYSANTHEMUM : Twenty-one Stories From the Japanese <i> Translated by Lane Dunlop (North Point: $9.95, illustrated)</i>

Mordden describes relationships between people; the writers in this anthology examine the relationship between humanity and nature. The narrator in Shimaki Kensaku’s “The Red Frog” discovers the futility of his own existence watching a frog struggle against the current of a mountain stream. The overripe beauty of the aging geisha in the title story by Hayashi Fumiko mirrors the fading roses she keeps by her side. Yasunari Kawabata uses the shifting beauty of the autumn landscape as a metaphor for changing human feelings in “The Silverberry Thief.” Although the structure of these stories reflects Western influences, the tone remains distinctly Japanese, and the parallels between human experience and natural phenomena are often suggested with consummate subtlety. Lane Dunlop’s lucid translations capture the nuances of some the most respected Japanese authors of the 20th Century.