Osamu Dazai
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Review of The Beggar Student by Osamu Dazai
Dazai stays in character with this autobiographical short novel about a sad author attempting to reconnect with his lost youth by hanging out with (or harassing) schoolboys. By sharing in their game, he attempts to recapture the sense of adventure and perhaps the inspiration he has lost in his dissolute…
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Review of Self-Portraits by Osamu Dazai
Can you turn a terrible life into high art? Dazai’s life was astoundingly reprehensible. Attempting three love suicides, succeeding at one, and attempting at least 3 other suicides. Combined with addiction, mental illness, alcoholism, infidelity, multiple marriages and illegitimate children, supporting prostitutes, engaging in public violence and insults, following illegal…
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Review of Early Light by Osamu Dazai
Three stories from the best era of Japanese fiction in my opinion. These three longer stories, “Early Light,” “One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji,” and “Villon’s Wife” are a good introduction to Dazai. Two of them are contained in the new volume entitled “Self-Portraits.” His stories are often called autobiographical.…
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Review of No Longer Human by Junji Ito, Osamu Dazai
Oddly, this is not the only manga adaptation of Osamu Dazai’s novel. It is the only adaptation you will need, but it is not necessarily easier to read than the original. It is 600 pages of interrelated scenes, and masterful, atmospheric artwork, which require just as much concentration as any…
L. S. Popovich 