The Setting Sun (New Directions Book)

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There are some very vivid pieces throughout the book which are so tragic that they render heart-wrenching affliction that you actually feel the agony of characters and in fact feel like crying with them; I’ve not come across such deplorable reading experiences for quite some time. There is one scene where Kazuko has been given job to look after lumber pile, the officer, who allocates her the job, provides her a book which could read if she may feel bored. After end of day, she runs up to him and hands over the book; she wants to extend her gratitude to him but somehow words fail to come out from her mouth. In this distressing silence she looks at his face, and when their eyes met, tears flown down in the eyes of both. It may across as a quite simple episode to a naïve reader but an active reader would only able to understand that so powerful it is that you actually feels a deep connect with the protagonist and feels like crying with her, such is the influence of mesmerizing prose of Dazai that it brings out emotions to life. The books present contrasting choices made by the characters, the choices which represent altogether different philosophical treatments; we have Naoji who could not able to sustain ravages of life in post-war era on one hand and finds comfort in the clutches of death while Kazuko keeps on lingering with courage and bravely fights out traditional society on the desire to live rather than succumbing to the teasing embrace of death; to live at any cost, perhaps that’s the most humane instinct. There are several incidents like episode the burning of eggs of snakes and fire outbreak where you can associate with self- pity and guilt felt by the protagonist; guilt and sense of pity which may strip oneself from all veils one may have developed to comfort oneself against the chilly reality of life and existence of oneself may stand naked without false sense of comfort, and which may be quite nippy realization.

Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2023-05-03 22:31:03 Autocrop_version 0.0.14_books-20220331-0.2 Boxid IA40918602 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifierHoye, Timothy (2011). "Styles of Truth in Dazai Osamu's Setting Sun". Voegelinian Readings of Modern Literature. University of Missouri Press. p.78. ISBN 9780826219152. Osamu Dazai published this book in 1947 Japan and it was translated to English in 1956. By the early postwar years Dazai had gained fame as a writer, the novel propelling him to even greater popularity. From an aristocratic family with ten siblings his father died from tuberculosis in 1923 when he was fourteen. He was excused from wartime service after he contracted TB himself. This is a story of the end of the nobility in Japan after WWII. It uses elements drawn from his own life, and a diary of the writer Shizuko Ota who bore him a child in 1947. Told in spare modernist prose it is a classic of mid-20th century Japanese novels and his best known work. He ended his life in a tragic 1948 suicide at the age of thirty eight.

El Declive transcurre en una Japón de posguerra, un país en ruinas no solo físicamente sino en todos los aspectos más íntimamente ligados con el individuo y sus valores. El sistema tal como se había conocido se tambaleaba y la aristocracia tal como se la conocía ya andaba dando sus últimos coletazos. La protagonista de la novela es Kazuo, la hija de veintinueve años y divorciada de una familia aristocrática que lo ha perdido todo y se enfrenta a la pobreza más absoluta. Kazuo y su madre se ven forzadas a vender la casa familiar y a trasladarse al campo a una casa más humilde en espera de que su hermano vuelva de la guerra. In Dazai's view, modernization stays at the basis of the changes that took place in the traditional Japanese family. Although he sees modernization as corrupting, he is hopeful that these changes could bring progress and prosperity.So I can't even imagine what it must have been like for not just the Japanese but for everyone to go from a pre-nukes world to witnessing the near annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I must go on living. And, though it may be childish of me, I can't go on in simple compliance. From now on I must struggle with the world. I thought that Mother might well be the last of those who can end their lives beautifully and sadly, struggling with no one, neither hating nor betraying anyone. In the world to come there will be no room for such people. The dying are beautiful, but to live, to survive- those things somehow seem hideous and contaminated with blood." Kazuko feels ashamed that such a gentle and beautiful person as her mother cannot continue to exist in a world where she must fight for survival. Soon after her mother’s death, she goes to Tokyo and finds Mr. Uehara. Though he is much changed and seems close to death, she finds that she still loves him. The two of them share a bed, talking nihilistically about the emptiness of life. On the following morning, Naoji commits suicide. Y ya digo que Osamu Dazai escribe como los dioses, parece que hace sencillo lo más difícil. Esa generación casi “perdida” que se tiene que levantar tras una guerra, aquí está perfectamente reflejada en los personajes de Kazuo y de su hermano Naoji. Todos esos conflictos morales que estaba viviendo Japón en aquella época están aquí reflejados en ellos dos. Es una novela para saborear y disfrutar sin prisas. Una joya.

One day six years ago a faint pale rainbow formed in my breast. It was not love or passion, but the colors of the rainbow have deepened and intensified as time has gone by. Never once have I lost it from sight. The rainbow that spans the sky when it clears after a shower soon fades away, but the rainbow in a person's heart does not seem to disappear that way. Please ask him. I wonder what he really thinks of me. I wonder if he has thought of me as of a rainbow in the sky after a shower. And has it already faded away? If it has, I must erase my own rainbow. But unless I first erase my life, the rainbow in my breast will not fade away." The book talks about eminent struggle of the protagonist- Kazuko- to come in terms with the rapid changing world wherein she’s not sure about her inclination whether it's about the aristocratic heritage or the new uprising world which is derived by convenience and desires. Eventually, she battles herself to survive along a fine thread lingering between the customary world and a developing modern sphere of humanity. The nihilistic traits of grief, sadness, bleakness, suicide, absurdism and despair of life are as evident as water in a vessel of glass and I found that these traits in other major works of Dazai too - No Longer Human and Schoolgirl. In fact, it could said be authority that post-war philosophy and literature is highly inspired form these abovementioned traits- whether it may be existentialism of Sartre, absurdism of Camus or any other modern and post-modern movement of literature. The harrowing experiences of World Wars certainly contribute to sudden rise in popularity and development of these schools of thoughts in post- war times. All these art/ philosophical movements works on similar themes that existence somewhat lingers upon absurd situation of life and one has to accept this state of absurdness, and in fact that very realization is the onset of true of existence wherein one has to take responsibility of one's life.Bu kitabımızda batan son güneştir, bu kitabı okumayacaksanız bile bu mektubu bulup okumanızı öneririm. Dazai’nin eli kulağında sonunun bu mektuba bir kat daha değer kattığı aşikar ancak o son olmasa dahi etkisinin güçlü olduğu da bir gerçek. Yaşamını baba kanının reddi, soylu ruhuna küfür ile geçirmiş, kendini “ halk dostu” olmaya adamış bu kalemin varoluşsal krizinin belgesini “ ben bir soyluyum” olarak noktalamasındaki trajediyi çemberin ne içi ne de dışında kalabilen muallaktaki Türkiye’li okur derinden hissedecektir diye düşünüyorum ve huzurlarınızdan mektuptan bir parça ile ayrılıyorum.

Words, words of every kind went flitting through my head. “Know thy particular fearsomeness, thy knavery, cunning and witchcraft!” What I said, however, as I wiped the perspiration from my face with a handkerchief was merely, “You’ve put me in a cold sweat!” I smiled. Institutions and symbols, Volume X, No. 43, October 23, 1957, available at http://www.manasjournal.org/pdf_library/VolumeX_1957/X-43.pdf;

Wolfe, Alan Stephen (1990). Suicidal Narrative in Modern Japan: The Case of Dazai Osamu. Princeton University Press. p.368. ISBN 0-691-06774-0. When the room became faintly light, I stared at the face of the man sleeping beside me. It was the face of a man soon to die. It was an exhausted face. The face of a victim. A precious victim." a b Sakakibara, Richie (1999). Between the Defeat and the Constitution: Democracy in Dazai Osamu's Postwar Fiction. University of Michigan. p.34. The story is told through the eyes of Kazuko, the unmarried daughter of a widowed aristocrat. Her search for self meaning in a society devoid of use for her forms the crux of Dazai’s novel. It is a sad story, and structurally is a novel very much within the confines of the Japanese take on the novel in a way reminiscent of authors such as Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata – the social interactions are peripheral and understated, nuances must be drawn, and for readers more used to Western novelistic forms this comes across as being rather wishy-washy. However, Kazuko is plagued by feelings of shame, worried that she is not a good enough daughter for her elegant mother. Over time, Kazuko reveals herself to be highly sensitive and prone to bouts of melancholy; she also clings to her aristocratic self-confidence, which allows her to pursue her relationship with a married man, to whom she writes: “Ever since I was small, people have often told me that to be with me is to forget one’s troubles. I have never had the experience of being disliked.” Naoji