Tired of Being a Human Being: Dazai Osamu (ten Lectures by Japanese Literary Masters 05)

About This Novel

The standard-bearers of literature in the 20th century were also laggards of their respective eras. "Classic Reader" Yang Zhao's ten-lecture series on Japanese literary masters: Using literature, listen to their struggles and answers. This volume's "classic reader" Yang Zhao × "the unusual libertine in the literary world" Dazai Osamu: How should a turbulent soul that cannot be classified into a framework be placed? The 26-year-old Osamu Dazai was shortlisted for the first "Akutagawa Prize", but was opposed by the judge Kawabata Yasunari: "This does not seem to be a work written by an author who lives a decent life." Dazai Osamu retorted: "Raising birds and watching Butoh, is it called a 'decent life'?" This "undecent" writer committed suicide three times and committed suicide five times, and his various debaucheries can be found in his final work "Disqualification in the World". However, what "Disqualification in the World" really explores is not how a person loses the qualification to be a human being. It forces us to reflect back on the "human world" including ourselves: What exactly do we pursue in life, and where are we going? Osamu Dazai's consistent contribution is to pierce our comfortable protective layer and unearth the experiences and feelings of people we are unfamiliar with, giving us the opportunity to review whether we lack sufficient understanding of the diversity and complexity of people, so that we self-centeredly regard the phenomenon of people who are different from ourselves as bad, terrible, and dark. Darkness is not just darkness, darkness may be more content and richer than light. When we are willing to admit this, we begin to truly know people. --Yang Zhao.

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