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Given its themes of endings, decline, decadence, and life-weariness, and its post-war setting, Dazai's novel cannot fail to be sad. Terminal illness, omens of death, addiction, emotional cruelty and suicide feature prominently, and Dazai died by suicide the year after its initial 1947 publication. But...
Despite her brother's dismissal of the old order as failed, and the new generation as dying on the vine, there is a scintilla of hope in ⬇️

"Mother uttered a faint cry."

#FirstLineFridays @shybookowl.

"Man was born for love and revolution." ❤️?

"People always make a serious face when they tell a lie. The seriousness of our leaders these days! Pooh!"

"From that day to the present, we have managed to continue our solitary lives in this cottage in the mountains. We prepare meals, knit on the porch, read in the Chinese room, drink tea - in other words, lead an uneventful existence almost completely isolated from the world."

My idea of paradise! ?

Next up, Dazai's novel of the decline of the Japanese aristocracy immediately following WWII. Published in 1947, the year prior to Dazai's death by suicide, it's tragic in tone.
The translator's introduction in this edition was written in the 1950s, and is itself an interesting, if brief, historical insight into a contemporary Westerner's perception of Japanese post-war culture.

This book is wild. An architect has won a competition for designing a tower in Tokyo for prisoners, for whom we need to feel sympathy, cause aren‘t we all human beings? She feels conflicted about this, consults AI and a younger boyfriend and it‘s all pretty meta but so Japanese and I devoured it!

Thank you Helen, for sending me this one!

📸Teshima Art Island, Japan

#HaikuADay #HaikuHive

Skipped yesterday‘s haiku but I‘ll go ahead & post today‘s which is inspired by this picture & it being Wednesday & Hump Day 🐪 & me thinking how even if I‘m excited for the upcoming weekend, the 2 long days to get there will be exhausting. 😵‍💫

Hump Day Dunes

Getting over the
Midweek hump, descending fast
Like climbing sand dunes

I was really looking forward to this, but it's suffocatingly heavy on the astrology. Which is a shame because the premise and the cats were delightful!

*Litsy photo editor and I are not getting along...

#Japaneselit #cats

4.5 Stars • No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai follows Yozo Oba, a young man alienated from society, masking his despair with a clownish persona. Through his notebooks, we see his troubled childhood, failed relationships, addiction, and suicide attempts, reflecting his profound sense of being "inhuman." Set in early 20th-century Japan, the novel explores isolation, identity, and societal pressures, culminating in Yozo‘s tragic self-destruction.