I wanted to read this book for many years. As a depressed teen, I read many dark and depressing manga which referenced Dazai, with short and (to me) enticing blurbs, excerpts, or descriptions like: “a man terrified of people”, or “overcome by despair, he attempted a joint suicide”.
Essentially, descriptions that portrayed him as the melancholic struggling artist or as someone relatable to me as a depressed person. I particularly felt this way as I was generally considered weird for sharing abstract concepts, or for describing the world from a more artistic POV.
The start of the book spoke to me. Dazai spoke of >!people’s duplicity and how horrifying it was. How they could stab people in the backs, talk badly about them, and turn back to the same person with a smile and praise? How his genuine desire for a specific gift was ignored in favour of what others deemed “correct” for him.!<
>!I finally felt so seen and vindicated. It was like going “YES, YES, YES” as I read – “finally someone gets it! finally someone understands me!” I had been struggling in the duplicity of the corporate environment at this point in my life, and when trying to discuss my difficulties with fakeness with older family members in my life, despite their best intentions, I felt gaslighted when they couldn’t understand me.!<
>!And then this guy turned around and became the worst snake of all time. Now, it would be one thing if he was using this behaviour against those who had exhibited it first. But no. Instead he used it to exploit innocent woman and even their children. He inserted himself into their lives and drained them dry. He was openly addicted around the child and argued around the child, creating a deeply unhappy home environment. And then after bleeding the cash dry and fucking up their lives, he just up and left.!<
>!And the whole time he does this he’s still complaining about how hard his life is! He keeps ranting on about fake people and users when there’s none worse than himself. He even has the gall to talk about keeping a mask on around these women and being afraid of *them*, of *their opinion of him*. His wife even gets raped, he watches and does nothing to stop it, and then it’s all just complaining about how “she’s changed” and how “bad” he feels – while as usual doing nothing to better her life.!<
Granted, I haven’t read many adult fiction books yet. But this is the most unlikeable, downright hateable protagonist I have ever met. Maybe I’m unrefined, maybe I’m missing something, but to me this book is just >!the self misery masturbation drivels of a useless misogynist.!< It’s not even worth listening to. >!It’s just another pathetic misogynist deadbeat user who should be forgotten by history. I’m not interested in books that are all about how hard it is for a man as he constantly abuses women.!< Where’s the art in that?
I don’t understand how this is so popular / has such good reviews / staying power as reference in japanese media.
Slightly related, I recently also read Diary of an Oxygen Thief. >!I never even finished it for the same reasoning, which is I don’t care to learn of the poor little protagonist’s troubles and aches and how hard it is for him to keep abusing women.!<
by shinyagamik