/lit/ - Literature

ITT: Classics you have read that should be read but no one else on /lit/ has probably read them.

I'm currently on a massive Japanese literature binge, having just finished Dazai's short stories.

Could someone recommend me some shorter classics to read inbetween the upcoming Japanese works I will be reading? For any interest of readers here's the titles I am reading and will be reading.

Death in Midsummer and Other Stories - Mishima
Japanese Tales of Mystery and Imagination - Ranpo
American Stories - Nagai
Basho's Haiku
Taiko: An Epic Novel of War and Glory in Feudal Japan - Yoshikawa
The Curious Casebook of Inspector Hanshichi: Detective Stories of Old Edo - Kido

Picture not related, but a recommendation from me to you, a Japanese classic in which a man documents his sexual development through encounters in youth. Pretty risqué for when it was written.

What do you think about Vita Sexualis?

Did you like Vita Sexualis, /lit/?

It bored me. Why is it considered so good?

About to read this. What should I expect?

>>2460978

>>2354961
POST SOME YOURSELF

THIS WILL BE LAST ONE BY ME UNTIL I WAKE UP TODAY


Though banned three weeks after its publication in 1909, Vita Sexualis is far more than a prurient erotic novel. The narrator, a professor of philosophy, wrestles with issues of sexual desire, sex education, and the proper place of sensuality. He tells the story of his own journey into sexual awareness, spanning fifteen years, from his first exposure to erotic woodcuts at the age of six, to his first physical response to a woman, and his eventual encounter with a professional courtesan. Beyond being a poignant account of one boy's coming of age, Vita Sexualis is also an important record of Japan's moral struggles during the cultural upheaval of the last years of the Meiji era.
In response to the publication of Vita Sexualis, Ogai Mori was reprimanded by Japan's vice-minister of war.