/lit/ - Literature

What does /lit/ think about this book? I just finished it and I don't think I get it.

obligatory

>relate to this
>narrator intends it to be uncomfy
>it's actually comfy
More books with this feel? Besides the rest of what he wrote.

>>15134637

>>14733891
This isn't dealing so much as just a story about someone who can't relate to anyone due to (probably) child abuse and mental problems.

>>14727022
Did anyone say depressing Japanese fiction written by authors that don't make it

Just read this. Was he a schizophrenic? His inability to 'talk back' seemed predicated on delusional consequences. He also showed little ability to empathize with people even though he himself suffered so much...

What did /lit/ think of this book

>>14116725
>tfw literally Yozo

Anyone find it hard reading this?

The protag is so pathetic that it makes me want to punch a wall every chapter I read. He keeps just feeling sorry for himself and it is completely his fault. Sure some incidents are beyond his control, but instead of trying to find a solution, he just exacerbates the problem. I don't know... does it actually have a payoff in the end?

People kept recommending it so I decided to read it, but I am finding it incredibly hard to continue. I am pretty sure if Nietzsche read this book, he would have fucking ripped it in half.

Is this any good? One of my friends swears by this book.

I've read it and I kind of feel depressed now.
Is reading depressive literature dangerous, should I be concerned?

Because I was planning on reading The Setting Sun as well.

What can I say about this book?

I guess many people here have read the same edition as I did. I found the preface very weird, but maybe insightful too. It talked about the Japanese and Japanese writers, I feel like a lot of things have changed since the time the book was published. The average westerner hardly considers Japan a truly exotic place anymore.

I found the intro too direct. The pictures of him at different stages of his life, that felt like spoonfeeding at first and later like something that should be subverted. But really the subversion should be something that the reader shouldm figure out himself.

Him acting like a clown as a child to that extreme extent felt unnatural.

His adolescent years were fun too read overall. But I think the heroin wasn't that interesting. Anyone can get addicted to heroin, and I don't know if he knew what he was taking? I would rather see him fail because of his own nature.

The games he played with his friend were very weird.

I don't understand the scene where his wife had sex with that random guy. He says that she was too trusting, or too pure or naive. But I don't get what really happened. Was it rape? Or did she want it? It's also very weird that it happened in his appartment, while he was on the rooftop. Not a great way to cheat on your husband.

The ending was weird too
"he was an angel" I don't know, feels forced.

What did you think?

Starting this tonight, I'm pretty familiar with Dazai but I've yet to get to this one - what did those of you who have read it think about it?

I've always felt like Donald Keene, who translated it, was a little indulgent in 'playing Japanese' (despite that I think we owe him a lot for his contributions to Japanese literature in the West) but I'm starting to feel a little different about that with his Translators Introduction actually. It's very well done and kind of addresses some of those notions very well.

>>12852469
An example of something I liked

Would this be good?
I am thinking of picking it up

>>12603965
No longer human I guess?

>>12461955
I present to you a pussy-slaying communist revolutionary.

Pic rel. I'm probably going to kill myself at 39 because of Dazai. Hopefully I can find a cute boy to commit lover's suicide with, it's the second best option to dying with Dazai himself.
tfw no qt bf to commit suicide with
>>12448569
>their best friend is felating homeless guys
What the fuck, that's god damned nasty. Watersports is patrician though you faggot.

Why didn't he save his wife from being raped?

>>10756909
The most famous japanese novel is about alienation too for example.

>It wasn't that I regretted losing her. I have never had the faintest craving for possessions. Once in a while, it is true, I have experienced a vague sense of regret at losing something, but never strongly enough to affirm positively or to contest with others my rights of possession. This was so true of me that some years later I even watched in silence when my own wife was violated.
Was he a cuck?