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pompompurin1028 · 2 years

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Can you ramble more about Dazai please? I seem to have become addicted to it

Some notes and disclaimers before I begin: this is about Dazai-sensei rather than bsd Dazai. Yes this is about a bsd centric blog but I'd love to talk about his irl counterpart. Secondly, my opinions are by no means professional, and I have limited knowledge regarding Japanese literature in terms of literary studies. Therefore, I will be for a lot of parts quoting and citing research and papers done by people who are actually in these studies to help me and I will also be adding my own observations and comments as well while also referencing Dazai's works. So if you're interested in the subject, I recommend referring to these papers than what I say. Anyways, these are simply my own opinions that I have gained from reading his works, then reading these papers and contemplating further, and coming to my own conclusions. I have also not read all of his works, this author has around 140 works written in his lifetime from what I have read orz.

Warnings: mentions of suicide, mental institutions, mention of substance abuse

But yes I'd love to ramble more about Dazai! This time, I would love to talk about a topic which I had recently gotten quite interested in regarding Dazai's works and that is regarding his narration. Of course, this is still a topic I am diving into and am looking into but I still think it's something interesting to share.

As most people in the fandom probably already knows regarding No Longer Human, and as many online websites have also shown, this novel is generally regarded as semi-autobiographical and an I-novel. Which is not surprising given some of the similarities of Dazai and his character Yozo Oba. Such as his clowning, which seems also to be part of Dazai's demeanor. As this can almost be felt in a few of his works as seen from his work Cherries:

"I’m the joker in the family. Let me put it this way. All I can do is put a jolly face on the huge amount of anxiety and mental anguish I feel. And no, it’s not only at home that I do this. Whenever I come into contact with people, no matter how depressed I am, no matter how much physical pain I am in, I do my frantic best to create a pleasant mood all around. Then, after parting, I reel with fatigue and think only of money, morality and suicide. And no, it’s not only when I have met with people. This happens when I write as well. It’s when I’m sad that I strive to create stories with a light, jolly air. I mean, here I am trying to give people exactly what they want, and they just don’t see it, coming out with contemptuous things like, ‘Dazai’s lost his edge … he’s lightened up too much … he’s trying to attract readers with facile humour’." [1]

In his work 正義與微笑 (Justice and Smile) we were also met with something similar from his main character, in which in the beginning of the novel, the main character remembers this verse from the Bible, which says "And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you fast, anoint your head and wash your face, that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you." And after reading this verse, the main character seems to come to an enlightenment, which is the central aim of the novel and the inspiration behind its title, "to practice justice through a smile" through becoming an actor[2].

One can even say this clowning can be traced to Dazai-sensei's writing style and the way he acts in his normal life. According to O'Brien, “Dazai seems to have enjoyed playing clown even during his youth... even as a youth, Dazai intended his clowning as an act of service. Sugimori, for example, suggests that Dazai naturally came to feel he owed people (and eventually his readers) a kind of service as the son in a family paternalistic toward its tenants and the neighboring poor” [3] (from what I have read, his aristocratic background may not have helped with this feeling). And “even after Dazai left Kanagi (A/N: Dazai’s hometown I believe) he continued his career as clown — in his writing if not in his behavior. And during his extended residence in Tokyo, it appears that he became more and more familiar with an art that helped him maintain and develop his comic gift. This art — almost unknown to the West — is a traditional type of storytelling and pantomime known as rakugo” [4].

Rakugo, from what I have read about it seems to be a sort of comedy (I don’t know too much about this tradition, forgive me orz). But according to O’brien, “Rakugo storytellers practice their act seated on a cushion before an audience in the “Yose” theater. The storyteller will simultaneously mimic and narrate a comic situation — for example, two old women in a public bathhouse, each of whom insists that the other use the single bar of soap first. Gesturing with his fan and arms and adopting the speech and accent appropriate to his characters, the storyteller develops the situation into a skit. [With] the comedy depend[ing] heavily on punning and rapid-fire speech”[5]. Though Dazai does not seem to go to these theatres regularly, O'Brien quotes Dan Kazuo’s (a friend of Dazai’s who was also a part of the Buraiha) The Story of Dazai Osamu, that “Dazai kept only a small supply of books at home. He read only occasional volumes even of those authors he admired — Ueda Akinari, Saikaku, and Basho especially among Japanese writers. But Dazai collected rakugo texts more thoroughly, including the complete works of the nineteenth-century master Encho, and he read through them with regularity and enthusiasm”[6].

It appears that Ango had also described Dazai’s writing with Rakugo, in which he says in an interview: “I hold his works in high esteem, like rakugo. I think it is the greatest, rakugo, and one should not speak ill of this. Rakugo is enjoyable and amusing. If it is a piece that extends joy eternally, then that merits being called on of the greats. Dazai is one of the greatest rakugo authors, therefore he will have a place in history”[7]. But comedy in Dazai’s work is a another discussion (something I'm also still looking into) and I have already mentioned some of this to you before so let's more on...

Of course, the connections of some events in the novel No Longer Human, and his real life experiences also aid in the view of this novel as a semi-biographical novel. One being his double suicide attempt he had with a woman from a bar, which he not only referenced in his novel, but also referenced in some other works, such as his personal essay(?) Female, or even his work The Flowers of Buffoonery (both of these should be early period works, and interestingly enough Dazai has used the character name Yozo Oba in this work as his main character, I believe this is going to be released in English next year I believe [finally... I’ve been looking for an English version and was so surprised to not see any. I have a version of it translated in my native language but I have not read it yet], fun fact, this work of Dazai’s was actually name dropped in bsd during the Lovecraft fight as one of the code names lol). The Flowers of Buffoonery is basically based on Dazai’s double suicide attempt at Kamakura and the succeeding days spent in recuperation at a nearby hospital[8], the version I had bought in its description wrote that Dazai may have wrote it due to the guilt he felt regarding this event (the woman died while he was saved)[9]. But interestingly enough, something which was not done in No Longer Human, is that Dazai, the author, intrudes into the narrative at certain points.

According to O’Brien, “the manner in which Dazai intrudes to comment within the narrative, however, tends on occasion to emphasize his function as author separate from the work. For example, pretending to an exasperation at his inability to properly develop the plot, Dazai calls The Flowers of Buffoonery “senile” and himself a “third-rate author” (A/N: If I recall, this is probably not the only work he has done that since I remember coming across something similar in his works, but Dazai does take criticism of his works quite seriously). In another passage he conceives of his novel becoming a classic, then labels himself crazy for entertaining such a thought. Dazai begins another of his interruptions purporting to explain the purpose of the intrusions. “I’ll tell everything. In truth, it was just a scheme of mine to thrust this fellow called “I” in between scenes and have him recite things he should have left unsaid. Without letting the reader notice what was afoot, I strove to impart a special nuance to the work with this “I.” I congratulated myself on a grand style hitherto lacking in Japanese letters. But I failed. Why, even this confession of failure I’ve included in my plans. I wanted it in a little later, if possible. And, I think I arranged to say that from the beginning too. Ah … don’t listen to me. Don’t listen to a thing I say.” In a later passage Dazai again declares that involving himself in the work was a mistake. “I’ve said much that should not have been said. Moreover, I’ve a feeling that I’ve overlooked more important matters. This may sound priggish — but, if I pick up this work later, I’ll feel wretched. I’ll tremble in self-disgust even before I finish a page. I’ll close it surely, I don’t even have the heart to read what I’ve done now. Ah, a writer can’t afford to reveal himself. That’s his downfall.” Needless to say, his reader can hardly take Dazai literally. He had already shown that he could destroy manuscripts that did not satisfy him, and if Dazai had in fact despised The Flowers of Buffoonery, the manuscript would have ended up in the backyard fire. Dazai feigns an uncertainty as to how to relate his story until the very end. Recall the final line, which follows immediately Yozo’s contemplation of the sea below: “Then … no … that’s all there is to it.” Dazai, it would appear, is not suggesting that Yozo has transcended his fears. The author, to put it baldly, is unable himself to continue narrating. For he is Yozo, not simply in the sense that he is writing an autobiography of past experience, but, more significantly, in the sense that he as well as Yozo does not know what step to take next”[10] (I just think this is something really interesting, we will also refer to this again later).

Furthermore, the ending of No Longer Human can also be traced back to some of his real life experiences. That would be during the prewar period (still during the early period of Dazai) when Dazai let himself be taken from his pleasant Funabashi home to the Musashino Hospital. Only when he found himself locked alone in a cell did he wake up to the fact that his friends had put him in a mental institution (this was due to Dazai’s addiction and increasing reliance on drugs as his mental health went into increasing decline)... This experience led to Dazai to write a work named “Human Lost” based on this experience, and according to O’Brien, No Longer Human was Dazai feeling moved to write on this event again[11].

In addition to No Longer Human, quite a lot of Dazai’s works (especially in his early period and late period) do not seem to be able to escape from autobiographical experiences. Even his rewrite of Schiller’s The Pledge and the myth Damon and Pythias, Run Melos, also seemed to have suspected to have inspiration from real life experiences of his. It can in fact be seen as anecdote from his experience "from a more turbulent part of Dazai's life is actually similar to the story of the Ancient Greek companions. Just like one of the friends from the legend is taken hostage instead of the other, Dan Kazuo once had to remain at an inn in Atami after Dazai had spent all his money there and promised to return and pay his debts after borrowing from Ibuse. As opposed to the legend, Dazai didn't return for a few days, making Dan pay by himself to be able to leave and search for his friend. He found Dazai at Ibuse's place playing shōgi, too ashamed to ask his mentor for money"[12]. And this had Dazai commenting (translated) "Is it painful to be the person who waits? Or is it more painful to be the person who makes others wait?” and according to my source, Dan believed that the inspiration for the story came from here[13].

Anyways, of course Dazai has distrust for human beings for other reasons, since "Dazai felt he had been disappointed and let down, which affected him greatly. He names many instances of “betrayal” in his life, including his friends putting him into a mental institution and Hatsuyo revealing ‘she was not the pure creature he had thought her’ (A/N: she was Dazai’s first wife, who was a geisha, their relationship is... complicated, they eventually divorced). As he was the betrayed and the betraying one throughout his whole life, Dazai probably could not believe the ideal relationship between two people portrayed in Schiller's ballad could exist"[14] (and I will not further elaborate on the actual story since, again I have rambled on that before to you).

On a side note, I thought it was quite interesting that Bungo to Alchemist decided to have this distrust be related to the betrayal he felt regarding the Akutagawa prize, since Run Melos was a middle period work of Dazai's while the Akutagawa prize incident was something from his early period and I was under the impression that Dazai had given up on the prize during that period due to what I have read (but that is my interpretation of it anyway). Run Melos was written after his marriage to his second wife, in which (at least from Chinese sources I have found) that he wrote to his wife during his marriage that:

「結婚，家庭，我認為都需要努力才能維持。需要嚴肅努力對待，我沒有任何輕浮的意思，即使貧窮，我也一生珍惜。」 [15]

(Translation) "Marriage, family, I think it all takes effort to maintain. It needs to be taken seriously. I have no intention to be frivolous, even if in poverty, I will cherish it all my life."

And in something he wrote after his marriage he writes:

「我想錯了，這場賽跑不是100米短跑，是1000米，5000米，是更加長的馬拉松。」 [16]

(Translation) "I was wrong, this race is not a 100m sprint, it's a 1000m, 5000m, a longer marathon."

There are of course works that seem a lot more autobiographical. Which is aided by, of course his use of 'I', the fact, as Donald Keene had stated that Dazai “returned again and again to incidents in his life, especially those that occured during the period when he was nominally in the French Literature Department of Tokyo University, for his materials for his writings. His descriptions of such incidents has induced some critics to treat him as an ‘I’ novelist”[17]. Of course, some of Dazai’s own comments don’t really help with this image, such as his comment in his middle period work Otogizoshi in which he writes, “I’m a story writer with such feeble imaginative powers that unless I myself have experienced something, I can’t write a line—can’t write a word—about it” [18] (but the question of whether we can take Dazai's words literally is again dubious, but it is quite true that Dazai does rely more on external sources for his sources of inspiration rather than through imagination, such as drawing from his own personal experiences, inspired by writings of others and create his own rewrites and even referencing diaries of others, with permission of course).

The fact that some of his work feels like Dazai 'confessing his sins', or even illustrating his own weaknesses set a very confiding mood, especially in his “personal essays”. This can be seen in works such as Canis Familiaris, in which he describes his persona as deeply afraid and hating of dogs and when one dog in particular followed him home, he couldn’t get rid of it (it’s actually quite comical, even Dazai described it as that), here is an extract to demonstrate:

“Weak-kneed diplomacy. The dog instinctively detected the fear in my heart and lost no time in capitalizing upon it. The next thing I knew, he had brazenly taken up residence. Throughout March, April, May, June, July, and August he has remained at my house, and even now, with autumn in the air, he has not seen fit to leave. I can't tell you how many times this dog has brought me to grief. I just don't know what to do about him. For the sake of convenience, since he's here and won't go away, I've dubbed the beast "Pochi," but in spite of the fact that we've lived in close conjunction for half a year, I do not consider him one of the family. He is, as far as I'm concerned, an outsider. We don't get on well together. There is a decided lack of harmony. Sparks fly as we struggle to come to grips with each other's psychology. And to relax the tension with a warm, spontaneous smile is something neither of us is capable of doing.”[19]

In other works such as Thinking of Zenzo, Fallen Flowers, Cherries etc, there are elements of weakness he will confess to the readers. Besides, weak characters and their weaknesses are quite constant in Dazai’s works, so when met with these things I, as a reader at least, was not quite suprised when met with these elements. Of course, there are also specific elements which cause the reader to assume that these are personal experiences such as referring to other characters that the reader may know to be in contact with him, such as his wife, children or naming specific people, or sometimes just writing down initials which one could easily substitute if one is well aware enough of Dazai’s background. Sometimes, he also refers to events he had written in previous works again, such as Thinking of Zenzo and 市井喧爭 both refer to this one experience Dazai had with buying roses, events like these recounting the past again, or just the fact that he or his chacaters talk about writing with elements of above one may pertain to making these stories feel personal. These elements makes it feel as if Dazai were recounting the past and almost speaking to the reader directly, and the way he creates these stories make it inappropriate to doubt them[20] (I too, for quite some time, took Dazai's narration quite directly because they really do feel personal and I can almost imagine what he writes). I would imagine that, as McCarthy puts it, Dazai uses an "easy... colloquial style" of writing only adds to this feeling[21] (Dazai’s short stories are always really easy to read imo). And these elements as O'Brien writes is believed to be the reason Dazai’s works mainly appeal to a younger audience[22].

But Dazai is by no means "a faithful chronicler of his own life" as Keene puts it, to say his work is entirely confessional is likely not the case[23]. Besides Keene, McCarthy in his essay "After the Silence" also writes that the "brand[ing of] Dazai [as] a relentlessly 'confessional' writer, the ultimate I-novelist, an author who was basically unconcerned with structure and plot, or more or less incapable of creating characters other than semifictional alter egos... is simply unsatisfactory in terms of producing a balanced appraisal of the artist and his art"[24]. O'Brien also comments that “despite their autobiographical inspiration, few if any of Dazai’s works can be called shishosetsu (A/N: I-novels)... Dazai is not a shishosetsu writer, primarily because he does not attempt a minute and sustained recollection and reconstruction of the past... It is questionable whether Dazai had the determination and perseverance to pursue his past in this fashion. Certain of his remarks on how he composed accounts of his past suggest a very different method. Rather than pursue it, Dazai would allow his past to come to him. Like any other person, Dazai retained a vivid memory of certain striking and important events in his past. And these memories — rather than his entire past — tend to serve his need for story material. For this reason, certain episodes occur again and again in different parts of Dazai’s work, creating in some readers an exasperating sense of déjà vu... In the succeeding periods of his career, Dazai frequently used first-person narration. But the first-person narrator in Dazai seldom becomes a wholly reliable one... At times Dazai seems to mix up objective and personal modes of narration as a means of tantalizing his readers”[25].

Though O’Brien in his book raised his fairy tale collection Otogizoshi as the example of having both objective and personal modes. Having read Cherries after reading most of this book, certain areas of the passage have intrigued me regarding its choice of words and narration. These are of course my own observations though, so you need not to take it too seriously. But I think the change of “I”, and “the husband” and “daddy” to describe himself throughout the short story caught my attention.

“Mummy tries her best to keep her head above water, and daddy’s no different. It wasn’t as if he was the most prolific novelist in the world from the outset. He’s a timid little coward to the core of his being, and his words stutter onto the page, making this as plain as day to the public. It pains him so much to write things down that the only thing that saves him is drowning his sorrows in drink. When you drown your sorrows in drink, you can’t remember what it is you were trying to say. You drink because things are tedious and annoying. The people who are always able to express clearly what’s on their mind never get dead drunk like that. (This explains why women don’t drink much.)

I’ve never known an instance when I’ve won an argument. I’m always the loser. I’m overpowered by the strength of my opponents’ conviction, by the scale of their self-assurance. I just clam up. It does dawn on me on reflection that my opponents might be arguing totally out of selfishness and that I may not always be the one in the wrong, but the thought of insisting on a reopening of the verbal hostilities once I’ve given in is pretty dismal, and, besides, these arguments leave a grudge as horrible as a fist fight, so I just laugh it off even though I’m shaking with rage, shut my mouth and, with my head full of all sorts of things, drown myself in drink.

Let me put it straight. I could beat around the bush like this till the cows come home, but the fact is that this story is about an argument between a married couple.

'The vale of tears’.

That’s what lit the fuse. This married couple, as I have already noted, are an exceedingly civilized pair of people who do not indulge in violence or swearing at each other. And yet, this very thing is what courts danger and leads to an explosive situation, the danger when neither says a word because they are both gathering evidence of the other’s faults, the danger that each is playing their cards close to their chest, stealing a look at one card then another, preparing to get the jump on the other and to lay all their cards triumphantly on the table. That’s what’s behind the coy reserve with which they treat each other, if you must know. I’m not sure about the wife, but I do know that this husband is so full of bulldust that you couldn’t beat it all out of him even if you wanted to.”[26]

Of course, one can say that I am overanalyzing this, but I found the choice of words extremely interesting. Though one can perfectly imagine Dazai as “the husband” and his wife as the wife in the story. Dazai inserts this ‘I’ figure into his story to add to the narrative, creating an abstract narration. Though in the beginning he seems to associate the father with the ‘I’ as seen from “We cram ourselves into a three-mat room in the summer for our raucous, chaotic dinners, as daddy... that’s me... wipes the sweat streaming down his face and grouches under his breath”[27]. But soon that “we” turns to “they”, and “my children” changes to “their children”. And yet later at some points the “the father” changes to “I”. Of course, when one reads it as it is, one easily notes that “the father” is the “I” that is Dazai was even called that in the short story, but the fact that he deliberately changed perspectives, and so smoothly none the less just makes me think. It kind of reminds me of the narrative method from The Flowers of Buffoonery, except this short story is a late period work, through this connection we can actually examine some of the similarities between Dazai's early and late period works.

One of the main similarities one would be able to note from these two periods is the autobiographical quality of his works. Which is in contrast to his middle period works where he breaks his former style of writing and instead opts for a loosely confessional style. According to McCarthy, in a letter to Ibuse (Dazai’s mentor) Dazai wrote, "for the time being I don't feel like writing realistic I-stories anymore. I plan to write only fiction, choosing only cheerful topics"[28]. Scholars tend to look down at his middle period works, McCarthy describes that they believe that they are "too light, too sunny, too entertaining to be of any real significance"[29] (I think it isn't quite fair, even know I understand analytically wise No Longer Human and The Setting Sun which are known as his best works do seem to have more literary value. But even the voice during this period is quite still distinctively Dazai’s, you can even sometimes sense those previously known qualities of Dazai within these works including some rewrites. Maybe people almost feel that Dazai feels like a moralist in these works? But when you compare it to the actual inspirations of this work you can see Dazai actually adds moral complexity to the characters. I think putting them next to one another and comparing them is fascinating... Even in his rewrites of fairy tales in Otogizoshi, though I have yet to read the originals, one can definitely sense that it is more than a simplistic good or evil characterization. I mean in the end of the first tale, "The Stolen Wen", Dazai literally wrote: "Most of our children’s stories end with the perpetuators of evil deeds getting what’s coming to them, but this old gentleman did nothing wrong. He tried to perform a dance that, owing to a case of nerves, turned out rather disturbingly weird. Nor was anyone in his family particularly evil. And the same can be said for the sake-loving Ojii-san and his family, and for the Oni of Mount Tsurugi as well. None of them did anything wrong. And yet, although not a single instance of wrongdoing occurs in the story, people end up unhappy. It’s difficult, therefore, to extract from this tale of the stolen wen a moral lesson for daily life. But were an indignant reader to demand to know why, in that case, I even bothered to write the damn thing, I would have no choice but to reply as follows: It’s a tragicomedy of character. At issue here is an undercurrent that winds through the very heart of human existence”[30]. Anyways, I’m going off on a tangent here, I'll come back to this later).

But even during his early and late periods, when reading his works critically, one cannot take Dazai literally, and that his 'I, Dazai' stories as completely truths or semi-autobiographical stories as truths, McCarthy even wrote that one should merely take it as a fictional technique. Even though he often seems to be encouraging us to draw no dividing line between the author and the teller, but according to McCarthy, in a letter to his lifelong supporter and mentor, Ibuse Masuji, dated September 1936 (early period) -just a month or so before he entered the mental hospital-Dazai had written: "I've always intentionally chosen the most shameful and foolish things for my 'works' and my 'actions.' I've done so in order to force myself into a position where I had no choice but to write stories. There's nothing unconscious about it"[31]. Besides, McCarthy also quotes Dazai's rambling preamble to "Haru no Tōzoku" (A Burglar in Spring, 1940) (from the middle period of Dazai's career), which writes:

"One needs to be extremely prudent when bringing a character called "I" into a story. Since olden times, in any country -- although in this country the tendency seems particularly pronounced readers have had the bad habit of believing works of fiction to be revelations of scandals from the author's life, and to put on a superior air as they censure him or smile pityingly...

When writing I-novels, authors generally paint themselves as "good boys." Has there ever been a main character in an autobiographical novel who wasn't a "good boy"? I seem to remember that Akutagawa Ryūnosuke wrote a similar complaint somewhere or other. It was in fact this sort of suspicion that inspired me to describe my "I" as the most vile-natured, the most demonic of all the characters. This struck me as more gallant and pure than trying to garner sympathy by becoming the queer little "good boy." That was my mistake. There are limits to what you can get away with in this world...

I know full well that to set public opinion straight is no easy task. I have nothing to aid me in this task -- no social standing, no authority, no money, nothing. Armed only with a pen, setting down these thoughts one character at a time in my attempt to correct what's gone awry, I'm in a precarious position indeed. What is burned down in an instant requires a hundred years to rebuild. . . .

But isn't this, once again, the author writing about his private life? ... Aren't you contradicting yourself? No, I'm not. We've already entered the world of fiction.

The reader, too, must proceed with caution. To get back on your feet is, as I've just said, not an easy thing to do. The proof is that, in order to write a tale about a burglar, I've had to first set down this long disclaimer. The scathing criticisms, not so much of my work as of my actual life, my personality, my physical constitution, have left me all but defeated, to the point that merely to write a single piece of fiction I have to exercise all these precautions. Blessed is he who can love fiction as fiction. The world does not consist of such perceptive persons alone, however.

I originally intended to make this a plausible-sounding confession, a tale of how I, finding myself in dire need of cash, acted as a burglar. I'm quite sure it would have been a realistic and fascinating story. I put too much care into my fiction, the upshot of which is that people -- even persons whom one would think should know better -- are forever wondering whether what I've written is not, in fact, the truth. Even I myself have at times begun to wonder.... That's what I get for doing nothing but read useless storybooks for the past twenty years. I must preserve, to some extent, the romanticism that has seeped all the way through to the marrow of my bones in that time. But I also have to learn moderation. I have to become, to some extent, more mediocre.

... Were I to get carried away as usual, filling my scandalous account with fine details, who knows but that people might whisper, "Well, I wouldn't put it past him. He may very well have done a bit of burglary in his time" -- again I'd be smearing my own name with mud. When I've become a bit more respectable, when the world's opinion of my character is not as low as it is now, when my reputation is elevated to the point where I can at least report on my private life just as it is, then I shall show you the bold use of a main character named "I" as a model of all sorts of depravity. But I mustn't do that now. Sad to say, but I mustn't.

The story I'm about to tell you is fiction. A burglar broke into my house last night. And that is a lie. It's all a lie. The absurdity of having to make this disclaimer.

I can't help but laugh to myself."[32]

Dazai most likely had to do this because as McCarthy also wrote in his essay, his works are becoming judged by his private life. Perhaps the best example I could give to this is Dazai's first attempt at winning the Akutagawa prize. Where though Dazai’s short story was nominated for the prize, the reason for his defeat was the opinion of one of the judges on his private life, due to his work The Flowers of Buffoonery. From Dazai’s letter to Kawabata Yusabari he wrote:

“In the September issue of Bungei Shunju you wrote of me disparagingly: “… After all, ‘The Flowers of Buffoonery’ is full of the life and the literary views of its author, but it seems to me that there is an unpleasant cloud surrounding the author’s personal life at present, and, regrettably, this prevents his talent from being expressed as it should be.”

Let us not bandy inept lies. When, standing in the front of a bookshop, I read the words you had written, I was deeply aggrieved. From the way you had written, it was quite as if you alone had decided who should and should not receive the Akutagawa Prize. This was not your writing. Without doubt, someone had made you write this. What is more, you were even exerting yourself to make this obvious. … at the end of August, I stood in a bookshop, read a copy of Bungei Shunju, and discovered what you had written: “… an unpleasant cloud surrounding the author’s personal life at present…” etc. etc. To tell the truth, I burned with rage. For many nights I found it hard to sleep on this account.

Is breeding exotic birds and going to see the dance, Mr Kawabata, really such an exemplary lifestyle? I’ll stab him! That is what I thought. The man’s an utter swine, I thought. But then, suddenly, I felt the twisted, hot, passionate love that you bore towards me – a love such as that of Nellie in Dostoyevsky’s The Insulted and the Injured – fill me to my very core. It can’t be! It can’t be! I shook my head in denial. But your love, beneath your affected coldness – violent, deranged, Dostoyevskian love – made my body burn as with fever. And, what’s more, you did not know a thing about it.”[33]

Anyways, in addition to McCarthy’s essay, in Self-Portraits even is Michiko (Dazai’s wife) writes in an essay that "Many of the things Dazai wrote seem to me to have been gross exaggerations or pure inventions that give the impression of being true, but the circumstances of the gathering of Tsugaru artists appear to have been more or less as depicted in "Thinking of Zenzo". ... I remember him coming home by rickshaw that night and telling me how he'd blundered. The part about the rose-seller, too, is about fifty percent the truth as I witnessed it", so it's something to think about when reading Dazai's works[34].

So, even in Dazai’s later novels, for example, The Setting Sun and No Longer Human, one must be careful when examining the narration. Because, I think O’Brien described it really well, that Dazai seemed to be “’dividing’ himself among a number of characters, allowing each of them to represent limited aspects of himself”[35]. I too felt this when reading The Setting Sun for the first time, in which both Naoji and the author in the book reminded me of Dazai, and as time went on, so did Kazuko (slowly I think I have grown to accept that I enjoy The Setting Sun even more than I do No Longer Human, and with my biases, I like to think The Setting Sun is more representative of Dazai’s works). O’Brien also comments that a reader of Dazai’s post-war fiction should always remain vigilant of the stories lenses, for example, how in No Longer Human one must both accept Yozo’s narration of himself and the hostess’ description of Yozo in the epilogue as an “angel” (interesting enough, in different essays about No Longer Human and Chinese translations of the book that had been quoted by people I’ve seen online, the term the hostess uses isn’t merely an angel, she in fact describes Yozo as “he was a good boy. He was like a god”, something interesting to note).

This reading of the work according to O’Brien is derived from the reading of Dazai’s middle period works, where he seems to avoid putting the bulk of his ego into them. However, when reading some of them, I could definitely still sense some of 'Dazai’s' world views in the characters. For example, in Otogizoshi, in the tale Urashima-san Dazai writes:

“Why can’t people get along without criticizing one another?” Urashima shakes his head as he ponders this rudimentary question. “Never have the bush clover blooming on the beach, nor the little crabs who skitter o’er the sand, nor the wild geese resting their wings in yonder cove found fault with me. Would that human beings too were thus! Each individual has his own way of living. Can we not learn to respect one another’s chosen way? One makes every effort to live in a dignified and proper manner, without harming anyone else, yet people will carp and cavil and try to tear one down. It’s most vexing.”[36]

or in “The Sparrow who lost her tongue”:

“Me? Me, well... I was born to tell the truth.”

“But you don’t say anything at all.”

“That’s because the people in this world are all liars. I got sick of talking with them. All they do is lie. And the worst part is that they don’t even realize they’re doing it.”[37]

I think it is also really interesting to note that, like Cherries and The Flowers of Buffoonery, in Otogaizoshi, Dazai, in addition to narrating his version of the fairy tales, also inserts himself into the work as the “I”. At certain points, he even interrupts the narrative to speak on something in the story itself, making the narrative actually really interesting, I feel like some may be annoyed by Dazai for doing so, but I find it quite endearing. It’s nice, its almost familiar and intimate, like he’s not just the author but sitting beside you and telling you the stories. It’s nice, I remember when I got to the A Retelling of the Tales from the Provinces which was in the same volume of the Chinese version I read, I was quite sad to not see Dazai’s “I” in it. Anyways, I think the introduction of the book wrote about it really well that “the pleasure of reading Dazai is as much about getting a feeling of being in touch with the author as it is about being drawn into the world of a story, and in these tales Dazai’s distinctive voice is very much in evidence, reaching out and taking us into his confidence in a warm, intimate tone. Far more often than a conventional storyteller might, he persistently provides his own running commentary on the main events of the tales—sometimes trying to extract a meaning, sometimes wandering off on a tangent that relates more to his own preoccupations than it does to any events in the story”[38], for example:

“Excuse me,” says a small voice at his feet. “Urashima-san?”

This, of course, is our famous and problematic tortoise.

I say “problematic” because, although I don’t wish to appear pedantic, I feel compelled to point out that turtles come in a great number of varieties, and that fresh-water turtles and salt-water turtles are naturally built to different specifications. The turtle we see in paintings of the goddess Benten, stretched out by the side of the pond drying its shell in the sun, is the creature I believe most of us refer to as a tortoise. And it is this same tortoise upon which in picture books we sometimes see Urashima Taro perched, one hand shading his eyes as he peers off toward the distant Dragon Palace. But were a tortoise of this sort to dive into the ocean, it would in fact choke on the salt water and promptly expire. It is usually this type of land tortoise—and not a sea turtle or soft-shelled turtle or hawksbill —that we find, along with a crane, on those ornamental stands that represent the Isle of Eternal Youth. The crane lives a thousand years, it is said, and the tortoise ten thousand, which accounts for their presence on wedding decorations and what have you, and perhaps it’s the auspicious nature of tortoises that causes illustrators of picture books to assume that Urashima-san’s guide too must have been one of these (the Isle of Eternal Youth and the Dragon Palace being similar sorts of places), but one can’t help but think it’s a bit much to ask us to imagine a land tortoise slashing away at the water with its clumsy, clawed feet, struggling toward the bottom of the sea. No, we definitely need something along the lines of a hawksbill turtle, whose wide, fin-like appendages would permit it to glide a bit more gracefully through the deep.[39]

So why is this narration used here? Based on the stuff I have read about Dazai, one of the reasons why is probably because his narrative voice is there to draw the conclusion of the short story. Some of his stories, without his commentary, one wouldn't quite be able to derive much from it. Like The Stolen Wen, as I mentioned earlier, ends with Dazai's commentary about the tragicomedy of character. Since the rewrite of the fairytale on it's own is almost not enough, because readers would question, why did the person who did nothing wrong got a tragic ending? It applies to some other fairytales as well that he told, it is his commentary that amplifies or actually gives meaning to the stories. But this could make it feel as if Dazai dominates the narrative of the story, I saw someone on tumblr talking about how it felt like Dazai was pushing his views of the stories onto them. Secondly, something that an essay reminded me of, is that it allows a familiarity with the readers. It creates a sense that he is inviting the readers to engage in the story, in multiple points of the story, he addresses the readers with "dear reader", and sometimes just talk about oh the reader must be thinking, or I wanted the readers to... The readers themselves almost have to play a part as part of the story. And I think something that is also interesting that one essay writes is that the narrator, one should not think of as Dazai, even though it certainly feels like Dazai. I actually didn't really notice this, before he writes all the fairytale rewrites, he has a prologue/preface, talking about the 'background' of these stories and creates the narrator 'the father'. Not 'I' but 'the father' so the actual narrator, the 'I' within the story collection should be 'the father' and not 'Dazai' even though it certainly feels like him since it talks about the war, a daughter (which one would know is something that is happening during the period when Dazai wrote this story). Of course, it is quite common to associate Dazai's I with himself, but when we look at the deliberate word choice and after understanding all thd above about his narrative, I think it is fair to take this word choice 'the father' (in Chinese translations it was also refered to as 父親 which is father) seriously. This adds a almost dichotomy of reality and fiction to it. And the fact that it invites readers to engage in the 'fictional world' it seems to almost add more depth.

For an easier understanding, we can refer to this chart from the essay Dazai Osamu's Otogizoshi A Structural and Narratological Analysis[40]:

I hadn't quite finished reading the essay yet, but just judging but this part alone it is very fascinating in terms of narrative. Because, one, the majority of the story we interact with the 3rd domain, but Dazai's I-narrator (the father's interruptions) allows us to interact with the 2nd domain, while also inviting the readers to interact with the narrator. As the reader begins to interact with said narrator, they almost become part of the fictional realm Dazai creates, because these stories cannot quite be read alone without the narrator's narration and interruptions. They often add to how we as readers understand the story (and at least 3 of 4 of these stories end with the narrator's additions which further emplify the 3rd domain stories). The fact that Otogizoshi ends without an epilogue further complicates things (it reminds me of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew in terms of structure which I had always found fascinating), I personally like to think Dazai's rewrites which adds moral complexity and a more I guess 'realistic' portrayal of the human condition almost complicates it further in terms of fictionality and reality.

But then you may be asking, Kat you have written a lot about Dazai’s narration (I hadn’t even quite gotten discussing that in his rewrites yet and mainly only focused on his first person perspective narrations... but that’s fine, I hadn’t even gotten there that far yet in research orz) but what does it mean? Honestly, at this point, I am almost tempted to agree with some parts of “Dazai Osamu's Otogizoshi A Structural and Narratological Analysis” (though I am still in the middle of reading it) to an extent that maybe in Dazai’s writings there is a sort of metafiction quality to it, where the author constructs or re-constructs of the concept of "self' in his works. Or maybe it’s like (another essay I recommend reading on the topic) "Art Is Me": Dazai Osamu's Narrative Voice as a Permeable Self” that perhaps “Dazai, undoubtedly to his own personal detriment, invited his readers actively to merge with him, to enter into his mind, as fluids pass through a permeable membrane” (I personally think this is a fascinating argument)[41].

Or maybe, there’s a quality an early period Dazai short story element to it (this part of the story has always intrigued me, I didn’t quite know why), from the section Saburo The Liar from “Romanesque”, which is about a diabolical liar, who even wrote a book called In Lies Lies the Truth, which was about “the fascinating and comical life of a cynical young man named Master Misanthropos, who, when visiting the pleasure quarters, would pass himself off as an actor or a millionaire or a nobleman on a secret outing. So rich in versatility were Misanthropos’s deceptions that the geisha and the male entertainers never doubted for a moment that he was who he said he was. His ruses were indistinguishable from reality, and in the end even Misanthropos himself ceased to doubt that it was all true”[42]. And soon, at the funeral of his father he begins to think that “one lies to seek a bit of relief from a ponderous, suffocating reality, but the liar, like the drinker, gradually comes to need larger and larger doses. The lies become blacker and more complex, and they mesh and rub together until in the end they shine with the luster of truth”[43].

Though a lot of Dazai’s works outwardly seems autobiographical, perhaps it is better than one should take it as fictional, or as McCarthy puts it “whether [a] story is ‘true’ or not, it is a work of fiction nonetheless. Fiction is not opposite of truth. Fiction is a form of art, and art... is a lie that makes us realize the truth”[44] (and you know, this elusiveness of being able to identify the “true Dazai”, though it is not so important in this case one can say, almost reminds me of bsd Dazai, but that is another discussion).

[1] Dazai, Osamu. Cherries. Tr. Roger Pulvers.

[2] 太宰治, 《正義與微笑》, tr. 高詹燦

[3] O'Brien, James A. Dazai Osamu, Twayne Publishers, 1975. Twayne’s World Authors Series 348. Gale Literature: Twayne’s Author Series

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid.

[6] Ibid.

[7] bsd-bibliophile. “Reporter: what do you think about Dazai?...”. August 13, 2022, https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/bsd-bibliophile/692512807258865664?source=share

[8] O'Brien, James A. Dazai Osamu, Twayne Publishers, 1975. Twayne’s World Authors Series 348. Gale Literature: Twayne’s Author Series

[9] 太宰治, 小丑之花：太宰治《人間失格》創作原點

道化の華, tr 劉子情. https://www.books.com.tw/products/0010721543

[10] O'Brien, James A. Dazai Osamu, Twayne Publishers, 1975. Twayne’s World Authors Series 348. Gale Literature: Twayne’s Author Series

[11] Ibid.

[12] Gantar, Lija. "Ancient Greek Legend in Modern Japanese Literature, 'Run Melos' by Dazai Osamu". University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

[13] 奔跑吧梅洛斯, 百度百科, https://baike.baidu.com/item/%E5%A5%94%E8%B7%91%E5%90%A7%EF%BC%8C%E6%A2%85%E5%8B%92%E6%96%AF/7254876

[14] Gantar, Lija. "Ancient Greek Legend in Modern Japanese Literature, 'Run Melos' by Dazai Osamu". University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

[15] 人間失格之前：帶你走進太宰治內心的罪與罰, 每日頭條, https://kknews.cc/n/zr8x9vg.amp

[16] Ibid.

[17] BSD-Bibliophile, "Dazai returned again and again to...", https://bsd-bibliophile.tumblr.com/post/692040980912848896/dazai-returned-again-and-again-to-incidents-in-his.

[18] Dazai, Osamu, Otogizoshi: The Fairy Tale Book of Dazai Osamu, tr. Ralph McCarthy, accessed via BSD-Bibliophile.

[19] Dazai Osamu, Self Portraits, tr. Ralph McCarthy, accessed via BSD-Bibliophile

[20] O'Brien, James A. Dazai Osamu, Twayne Publishers, 1975. Twayne’s World Authors Series 348. Gale Literature: Twayne’s Author Series

[21] McCarthy, Ralph, "After the Silence", accessed via BSD-Bibliophile.

[22] O'Brien, James A. Dazai Osamu, Twayne Publishers, 1975. Twayne’s World Authors Series 348. Gale Literature: Twayne’s Author Series

[23] BSD-Bibliophile, "Dazai returned again and again to...", https://bsd-bibliophile.tumblr.com/post/692040980912848896/dazai-returned-again-and-again-to-incidents-in-his

[24] McCarthy, Ralph, "After the Silence", accessed via BSD-Bibliophile.

[25] O'Brien, James A. Dazai Osamu, Twayne Publishers, 1975. Twayne’s World Authors Series 348. Gale Literature: Twayne’s Author Series

[26] Dazai, Osamu. “Cherries”, tr. Roger Pulvers, accessed via BSD-Bibliophile.

[27] Ibid.

[28] McCarthy, Ralph, "After the Silence", accessed via BSD-Bibliophile.

[29] Ibid.

[30] Dazai, Osamu, Otogizoshi: The Fairy Tale Book of Dazai Osamu, tr. Ralph McCarthy, accessed via BSD-Bibliophile.

[31] McCarthy, Ralph, "After the Silence", accessed via BSD-Bibliophile.

[32] Ibid.

[33] BSD-Bibliophile . “In the September issue of Bungei Shunju you wrote of me disparagingly...”, https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/bsd-bibliophile/182073929969?source=share

[34] Dazai, Osamu. Self Portraits, tr. Ralph McCarthy, accessed via BSD- Bibliophile.

[35] O'Brien, James A. Dazai Osamu, Twayne Publishers, 1975. Twayne’s World Authors Series 348. Gale Literature: Twayne’s Author Series

[36] Dazai, Osamu, Otogizoshi: The Fairy Tale Book of Dazai Osamu, tr. Ralph McCarthy, accessed via BSD-Bibliophile.

[37] Ibid.

[38] Ibid.

[39] Ibid.

[40] Nagaike, Kazurni. Dazai Osamu's Otogizoshi A Structural and Narratological Analysis, University of Alberta.

[41] Lyons, Phyllis, “Art Is Me": Dazai Osamu's Narrative Voice as a Permeable Self”, Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies , Jun., 1981, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Jun., 1981), pp. 93-110.

[42] Dazai, Osamu, Blue Bamboo, tr. Ralph McCarthy, accessed via BSD-Bibliophile.

[43] Ibid.

[44] McCarthy, Ralph, "After the Silence", accessed via BSD-Bibliophile.

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#this had gotten way longer than I expected it to be orz #sorry for the wait #dazai osamu #japanese literature #kat rambles about dazai sensei #asks💌#Tairin <3

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