Word: narayama
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...COMING OF AGE, Simone de Beauvoir recounts the plot of the ancient Japanese novel Narayama. It tells of the primitive custom, the "Feast of the Dead", the execution of village elders who have become a burden on their children, or have merely reached an untenable age. "Do the sacrificed elders often have a reaction of dread and rebellion?" de Beauvoir asks. She thinks evidence proves they do. Yet spanning the centuries as well as the distance between East and West, she concludes that old age has become life's parody in all societies, an end to life so degrading that...