Kazuko plans to travel to Tokyo and visit Mr. Uehara in person, but just before she leaves, her mother falls ill with tuberculosis. One day, her mother tells her that she dreamed about a snake in front of the house and asks Kazuko to see if it is there. Kazuko sees the snake and finally accepts that her mother is going to die, which she does soon afterward. Her last words are an expression of concern for how hard Kazuko must work to survive. 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. Miller, J. Scott (2021). Historical Dictionary of Modern Japanese Literature and Theater. Rowman and Littlefield. p.29. ISBN 9781538124413. However, Kazuko is plagued by feelings of shame, worried that she is not a good enough daughter for her elegant mother. Over time, Kazuko reveals herself to be highly sensitive and prone to bouts of melancholy; she also clings to her aristocratic self-confidence, which allows her to pursue her relationship with a married man, to whom she writes: “Ever since I was small, people have often told me that to be with me is to forget one’s troubles. I have never had the experience of being disliked.” Naoji

intihar birkaç sayfa içinde hem ölme hakkı olarak, hem toplumsal/siyasal bağlamda, hem genel/geleneksel ahlak anlayışına ve hem de soylu sınıfın yok oluşuna (çelişki?) tepki olarak anlatılıyor/açıklanıyor. bu düşünceler bildiğimiz gibi yazarın kişiliğinden/hayatından bağımsız değil. yazar kendi düşüncelerini hikaye içinde intiharından önce üzerinde yeterince durmadığı kahramanlarından biriyle dile getiriyor ama ne bu kahraman ne de bu küçük kitap bu düşünceleri taşıyabiliyor.

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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...) 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.

So I can't even imagine what it must have been like for not just the Japanese but for everyone to go from a pre-nukes world to witnessing the near annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Osamu Dazai is one of the great modern japanese writers of the 20th century. His works reverb with old and new generations even seventy years after his death. Under the marvelous translation by Donald Keene published by New Directions, Dazai’s work gained a new public in the West through the releases of No Longer Human and the topic of this article, The Setting Sun — a sour confession of Dazai’s shame towards his origins in the japanese aristocracy and it’s fall after the end of the World War II and the impact it had in japanese society and individuals in the new modern age.

Dazai’nin esas olarak araya parça attığı bölümlerden ilki burası, sesini son kez intihar mektubunda duyacağız.