/lit/ - Literature

>>15786136
>No Longer Human in Japanese
Nice. Read his New Hamlet (新ハムレット)next.

人間失格 reads best if you know more about the author. There's an english-translated collection called self-portraits that gives you a good overview, but if you also read works from his friend group (Buraiha) and other authors at the time (notably Kawabata, who Dazai clashed with) you can get a better understanding of how Dazai as the individual fits into the wartime and post-war literary scene and his identity in relation to everyone else. Oda Sakunosuke has some good short stories that give you an idea of how fucked the post war inflation was and what havoc it wreaked on the average person. If you want a short-list, read Dazai's eulogy to Odasaku. It's a 5 minute read and available translated.

Basically, the more you read Dazai and works closely related to him, the more you'll like him. If that's his only work you read then it's no wonder it wasn't impressive. Dazai has four layers: the real Shuji Tsushima buried underneath everything, 'Dazai Osamu' as simultaneously a character the author created and the author himself, the narrator in the demi-autobiographical stories, and Dazai as a piece of a larger mosaic of the people and literature in that era.

Mishima is much more stand-alone. There's only two considerations for Mishima--himself, and the general motion of Japan towards modernization and away from what he perceived as his aesthetic goals. He's much more accessible on a first read, because all you need is any one novel and a vague notion of his backstory.

>>15033142
iktf. all i want is a bf to commit a lover's suicide with at age 39. but when i tell that to men they go nooooo you can't be depressed you need to take these pills noooooo you can't just kill yourself, what about the next marvel movie?!?!

luckily unlike mishima, dazai got an anime. now i can jump off a cliff hugging a daki.

>>13499745
Dazai is God

Reminder that Dazai had sex with his female fans.

>>12996206
My husband of course