Mori Mari (1903-1987) was a Japanese author who, in 1962 with The Lover's Forest, began a movement of women writing about gay male passion. Mori Mari was greatly influenced by her father, Mori Ogai, and in this book, the older man can be seen as imbued with the same virtues and honor as she saw in her father. New York University (NYU) Professor Keith Vincent has called her a "Japanese Electra," referring to the Electra complex counterpart put forth by Karl Jung to Sigmund Freud's Oedipal complex. 1903 has the latest occurring solstices and equinoxes for 400 years, because the Gregorian calendar hasnt had a leap year for seven years or a century leap year since 1600. ... 1987 is a common year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... The word author has several meanings: The author of a book, story, article or the like, is the person who has written it (or is writing it). ... 1962 was a common year starting on Monday (link will take you to calendar). ... Although the word gay originally meant happy, in modern usage the term is often applied interchangeably with homosexual. However, there are important differences between the terms: while homosexual relates specifically to sexuality, the term gay is a political or social marker. ... Mori Ogais statue at his birthhouse in Tsuwano-cho Mori Ogai (森 鴎外 Mori Ōgai, February 17, 1862 - July 9, 1922) was a Japanese physician, novelist and poet. ... New York University (NYU) is a large research university in New York City. ... The Electra complex is an ambiguous psychiatric concept which attempts to explain the maturation of the human female. ... Carl Gustav Jung Carl Gustav Jung (July 26, 1875 – June 6, 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and founder of the neopsychoanalytic school of psychology. ... Sigmund Freud Sigmund Freud (May 6, 1856 - September 23, 1939) was an Austrian psychiatrist and the founder of the psychoanalytic school of psychology, a movement that popularized the theory that unconscious motives control much behavior. ... The Oedipus complex is a concept developed by Sigmund Freud, who was inspired by Carl Jung (he described the concept and coined the term Complex), to explain the maturation of the infant through identification with the father and desire for the mother. ...

This movement has spawned what is today known as Yaoi, a genre of literature and graphic novels (often, anime) involving gay sex, often written by and for women. An older man and younger boy are trademarks of her work, and often of this genre. The older man is rich, powerful, wise, and spoils the younger boy. In The Lover's Forest, for example, the older man, Guido, is 38 or so, and Paulo is 17 or 18. (However, he is not yet 19, the age that Mori was when her father died.) Paulo is extraordinarily beautiful, prone to lounge lazily, and has a lack of willpower in all but the field of his pleasure. (Guido dies when Paolo is 19, and Paulo subsequently falls in love with a man who's been waiting in the wings, another one just like Guido.) Cover of Fake by Sanami Matoh. ... A genre is any of the traditional divisions of art forms from a single field of activity into various kinds according to criteria particular to that form. ... A scene from Cowboy Bebop (1998) Anime (アニメ) is Japanese animation, sometimes billed in the west under the portmanteau Japanimation. ...

The Yaoi movement has attracted controversy from feminists, who say that in women's writing and reading of the material, they are rejecting their own femininity. Feminism is a social theory and political movement primarily informed and motivated by the experience of women. ...

Mori Mari died of heart failure, on June 6, 1987.

External Links

NYU Lecture Page with a summary of Prof. Vincent's lecture (see 10 Feb)
An interview with a Japanese writer who mentions Mori
Includes a brief summary of a paper about Mori Ogai's daughters