The Life of a Stupid Man: Ryunosuke Akutagawa (Penguin Little Black Classics)

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I couldn't put into words or make a proper dissection on this one because its personal and raw and basically him telling his own stories in the most vulnerable state he was in, secrets being unburied, darkest desires and emotions being poured out, philosophy shared and contradicted and generally him saying he is unable to be a man worth enough to live. Its quite painful in a away but subtly conveyed in each short passages he wrote. We started with his descriptions of his mother whom he described as lunatics and whom he barely have any affection for but also afraid he becomes like her as he lives each days with fear. Then, we moved slowly as he grows to become a writer but pressured to concur with the writing industry, married to a woman he loves but ends up in affairs, growing passion for arts and philosophy but also contradicts most of them, become a father but felt he is useless and unsuitable and each time he muses on death and what does it mean to live. He was upstairs in a bookstore. Twenty years old at the time, he had climbed a ladder set against a bookcase and was searching for newly-arrived Western books: Maupassant, Baudelaire, Strinberg, Ibsen, Shaw, Tolstoy...

The Life of a Stupid Man – The Boss Book Club The Life of a Stupid Man – The Boss Book Club

Why did this one have to be born – to come into the world like all the others, this world so full of suffering? Why did this one have to bear the destiny of having a father like me? This was the first son his wife bore him.” The first fictional story retells a murder scenario solely through the eyes of the witnesses and participants, which was a very interesting perspective. It's a short but enjoyable and unconventional read. This dystopian and fantastical book stands in stark contrast to the impressionistic autobiographical material of Akutagawa's last year. Yet Kappa still begins and ends in madness. The tale is narrated in 17 short chapters by Patient No 23 in a lunatic asylum as he recounts his life among the Kappa; his gradual familiarisation with their civilisation and language, their manners and customs. It makes uncomfortable reading. He felt something like a sneer for his own spiritual bankruptcy (he was aware of all of his faults and weak points, every single one of them), but he went on reading one book after another.”The second story tells us about the death of the people related to the author. It was melancholic and sad but I crave for something more. He happened to pass her on the stairway of a certain hotel. Her face seemed to be bathed in moon glow even now, in daylight. As he watched her walk on (they had never met), he felt a loneliness he had not known before." Two Books collecting stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa: "Rashomon and Seventeen Other Stories" and "Mandarins: Stories by Ryunosuke Akutagawa", plus one separate short story titled "The Christ of Nanking" - Files in EPUB and MOBI formats.

The Life of a Stupid Man - Waterstones The Life of a Stupid Man - Waterstones

Book Genre: Asian Literature, Classics, Fiction, Japan, Japanese Literature, Literature, Short Stories Akutagawa's 'last words' in literature expressed a feeling of despair toward man's happiness in social life. Like all pessimists, he had to find a conclusive comment on the eternal Weltschmertz with which man is burdened. This is not at all a new idea. It gives rise to the fatal logic of the petty bourgeoisie which views self-despair as the despair of society as a whole. Thus Akutagawa views the agony born of and defined by his physiology and his social class as the eternal agony of humanity. The manuscript was completed on June 20 1927, and Akutagawa sent it to another novelist friend, Masao Kume. In an attached note, Akutagawa wrote: "I am living now in the unhappiest happiness imaginable. Yet, strangely, I have no regrets. I just feel sorry for anyone unfortunate enough to have had a bad husband, a bad son, or a bad father like me. So goodbye, then ..." The Life of a Stupid Man" is a harrowing summation of Akutagawa's life, told in a montage of 51 fragments. In its form it more closely resembles the film scripts he was also working on during these last months, "Yuwaku" ("Temptation") and "Asakusa Koen" ("Asakusa Park"), and betrays the influence German expressionism had on him. The sections describe books he has read and women he has loved, his fear of society and his hatred of himself, and every line reeks of defeat and death. Section 49, entitled "A Stuffed Swan", concludes:Just as he reached the point of utter exhaustion, he happened to read Raymond Radiguet’s dying words, ‘God’s soldiers are coming to get me,’ and sensed once again the laughter of the gods.”