Oba Yozo, the protagonist in Dazai's No Longer Human, is my earliest literary crush at the age of early 16. I loved Yozo's struggle against the abyss between himself and the society which ended with a total failure. The Setting Sun is similar, also a confession-style story told by Kazuko (and also her brother Naoji) who is struggling with an engulfing propensity to isolation. But unlike Yozo who thinks family is a nonsensical entity, Kazuko and Naoji regard their family and its aristocratic status as a potential source of salvation, but the fragile familial tie breaks eventually and leaves them in total despair. Esta novela de Dazai desde la primera página me envolvió (el simbolismo de la serpiente es de una belleza desoladora) y entiendo perfectamente el porqué Osamu Dazai está considerado uno de los grandes de la literatura universal. Toda la novela transpira un profundo pesimismo y una melancolía que casi se puede tocar. El personaje de Kazuo es además un personaje lleno de claroscuros porque por una parte te puede parecer superficial y egoísta pero a medida que la novela avanza entiendes sus razones, se tiene que ajustar a una nueva forma de vida que la va haciendo más fuerte y mucho menos pendiente de si misma. Kazuo es un personaje que refleja perfectamente a Japón en si mismo, un personaje/pais en plena transición entre el pasado y el incierto presente. The book talks about eminent struggle of the protagonist- Kazuko- to come in terms with the rapid changing world wherein she’s not sure about her inclination whether it's about the aristocratic heritage or the new uprising world which is derived by convenience and desires. Eventually, she battles herself to survive along a fine thread lingering between the customary world and a developing modern sphere of humanity. The nihilistic traits of grief, sadness, bleakness, suicide, absurdism and despair of life are as evident as water in a vessel of glass and I found that these traits in other major works of Dazai too - No Longer Human and Schoolgirl. In fact, it could said be authority that post-war philosophy and literature is highly inspired form these abovementioned traits- whether it may be existentialism of Sartre, absurdism of Camus or any other modern and post-modern movement of literature. The harrowing experiences of World Wars certainly contribute to sudden rise in popularity and development of these schools of thoughts in post- war times. All these art/ philosophical movements works on similar themes that existence somewhat lingers upon absurd situation of life and one has to accept this state of absurdness, and in fact that very realization is the onset of true of existence wherein one has to take responsibility of one's life. Osamu Dazai's The Setting Sun gave me a foriegn sort of feeling inside, like I felt different, not in a something is about to happen way, exactly. Different when you're yourself playing at being someone else? I wish I could match my heartbeat with its pulse and my impulses as I lapsed into its rhythm. I was creeped out. I was in awe. The best I can do is that it was the kind of foriegness that Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy had. I mean, it isn't a fantasy in the genre sense of the word. But it kinda is in my emotions. The images firing up in my mind's eyes are exactly that: a fantasy. A fantasy of victims, love, suicide, of living as dreaming in nightmares and hopes (childish hopes? I'll be able to tell the difference when I grow up). Throwing yourself on the fires fantasy. What else is there to do? Start a revolution. Emotional fantasy! Can't you just say that, Mariel? I know all about talking myself into shit too, same as Kazuko and her brother Naoji. (Is it any wonder that I kept thinking about Gormenghast? Decay, figurehead costume jewelry stage lights artistocracy, smoke and mirrors depression and love... What's real? Suicide as acting out... Perpetual teenagers... Ellipsis thoughts...) Kazuko, the narrator, is a twenty-nine-year-old woman from a once-aristocratic Japanese family. She and her younger brother, Naoji, agree that class titles are not earned and that aristocrats are no more than “high-class beggars.” Their mother, however, is an exception; although she often departs from formal etiquette, her manners have the ease and elegance that mark her as a true aristocrat.

Dazai’nin esas olarak araya parça attığı bölümlerden ilki burası, sesini son kez intihar mektubunda duyacağız.When Kazuko accepts that her mother will soon die, she reflects on the differences between the two of them: Osamu Dazai es un escritor al que hacía tiempo que quería leer, es de esos autores cuya vida privada casi que es más llamativa que sus obras y quizás por eso siempre lo había ido relegando. Dazai acabo suicidándose (lo había intentado cuatro veces antes) a los 39 años lanzándose por un puente junto a su amante después de toda una vida de alcohol, drogas y pobreza y el hecho de hacerlo en 1948 cuando Japón estaba en plena destrucción tras la guerra, creo que retrata a la perfección su perfil y después de leer una novela como "El Declive", que debía estar compuesta por retazos autobiográficos, entiendes mucho mejor los elementos autodestructivos de un hombre como Osamu Dazai. Kazuko, a divorced, childless woman of twenty-nine, lives with her mother in a small cottage in the mountains of Izu, on the Pacific coast of Japan. Although their family was once aristocratic, they are now poor and are forced to sell their possessions to survive. After the death of Kazuko’s father, she and her mother were forced to move to Izu. Y ya digo que Osamu Dazai escribe como los dioses, parece que hace sencillo lo más difícil. Esa generación casi “perdida” que se tiene que levantar tras una guerra, aquí está perfectamente reflejada en los personajes de Kazuo y de su hermano Naoji. Todos esos conflictos morales que estaba viviendo Japón en aquella época están aquí reflejados en ellos dos. Es una novela para saborear y disfrutar sin prisas. Una joya. Dazai, Osamu, the setting sun, translated by Donald Keene, New Directions Publishing Corporation, revised edition, June 1968;

The story is told through the eyes of Kazuko, the unmarried daughter of a widowed aristocrat. Her search for self meaning in a society devoid of use for her forms the crux of Dazai’s novel. It is a sad story, and structurally is a novel very much within the confines of the Japanese take on the novel in a way reminiscent of authors such as Nobel Prize winner Yasunari Kawabata – the social interactions are peripheral and understated, nuances must be drawn, and for readers more used to Western novelistic forms this comes across as being rather wishy-washy. La propia estructura formal de la novela denota esa modernidad al dotar de género femenino al personaje principal de la novela, la hija, que es la narradora en primera persona. Pero también presenta muchas características propias de la literatura nipona, ritmo cadencioso, tono lineal, sin estridencias, un lenguaje sencillo y, sobre todo, esa minuciosidad en las descripciones de las cosas sencillas de la vida rutinaria (plantas, comidas, vestimentas, costumbres) que hacen de contrapunto a las ideas y acciones de los personajes. Me parece muy logrado que también en lo formal se pueda observar ese contraste. I must go on living. And, though it may be childish of me, I can't go on in simple compliance. From now on I must struggle with the world. I thought that Mother might well be the last of those who can end their lives beautifully and sadly, struggling with no one, neither hating nor betraying anyone. In the world to come there will be no room for such people. The dying are beautiful, but to live, to survive- those things somehow seem hideous and contaminated with blood." Twenty-nine-year-old Kazuko, her brother Naoji, and their widowed mother are members of an impoverished aristocratic family living in post-war Tokyo. Kazuko had been married, but divorced and returned to the family household after claiming that she had had an extramarital affair with a painter she admired. The child she had been expecting was stillborn. Naoji, who served with the military in the South Pacific, is declared missing. Kazuko recalls a time when she burned snake eggs, thinking that they were viper eggs. It is revealed that at the time of Kazuko's father's death, there were many snakes present in and around the house, which therefore have become ominous in her and her mother's eyes.Japon edebiyatının en kırılgan, ömrünü intihar çabalarına adamış ve en nihayetinde bu mutlu sona 39 yaşında ulaşmış Osuma Dazai’nin Batan Güneş’i kitabın sonundaki intihar mektubu ile kendi sonunu önceden belirlemesi ile son sözleri gibi yorumlansa da (ki doğrudur) Batan Güneş bunların ve bu anlamın çok ötesinde bir kitap. Büyük bir hayranlık ile bitirdim kitabı ve şu an tek istediğim keşke gündelik rutinler zorlamasa da bütün yazdıklarını bir hafta içinde bitirsem hissi. Although "The Setting Sun" is a fiction novel in what concerns the events in which the characters are involved, it is the real story of the socio-economic conditions in postwar Japan. The author captures the essence of Japan in that period as the country began losing its traditions along with the war, when people were trying to remake their lives after a war. Miller, J. Scott (2021). Historical Dictionary of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater. Rowman and Littlefield. p.29. ISBN 9781538124413.

Hoye, Timothy (2011). "Styles of Truth in Dazai Osamu's Setting Sun". Voegelinian Readings of Modern Literature. University of Missouri Press. p.78. ISBN 9780826219152. A man of divided beliefs, Naoji loves literature and other mindful pastimes but feels alienated from a society he regards as hypocritical and shallow. When he was younger, Naoji was addicted to opium; upon returning home, he relapsed into his old ways, living a dissolute lifestyle, drinking and taking drugs, and spending money irresponsibly. Later that day, Kazuko sees a female snake in the garden; her mother comments that the snake must be searching for her eggs. This sense of loss makes Kazuko think of her mother’s anguish when they were forced to move from their luxurious home in Tokyo to their current residence in Izu. Her mother said that if she did not have Kazuko, she would rather die than move out of her home, explaining: “I wish I could die in this house where your father died.”

See a Problem?

El Declive transcurre en una Japón de posguerra, un país en ruinas no solo físicamente sino en todos los aspectos más íntimamente ligados con el individuo y sus valores. El sistema tal como se había conocido se tambaleaba y la aristocracia tal como se la conocía ya andaba dando sus últimos coletazos. La protagonista de la novela es Kazuo, la hija de veintinueve años y divorciada de una familia aristocrática que lo ha perdido todo y se enfrenta a la pobreza más absoluta. Kazuo y su madre se ven forzadas a vender la casa familiar y a trasladarse al campo a una casa más humilde en espera de que su hermano vuelva de la guerra. The Setting Sun ( 斜陽, Shayō) is a Japanese novel by Osamu Dazai first published in 1947. [1] [2] [3] The story centers on an aristocratic family in decline and crisis during the early years after World War II. Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 2023-05-03 22:31:03 Autocrop_version 0.0.14_books-20220331-0.2 Boxid IA40918602 Camera Sony Alpha-A6300 (Control) Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier japonya'da savaş sonrası yaşanan toplumsal değişimin, soylu sınıfa ait bir ailenin parçalanışı üzerinden anlatıldığı mükemmel bir öykü olabilirmiş batan güneş. o mükemmelliğin hissedildiği bölümler var ve bu bölümler için bile okunmaya değer bir kitap.