Do you like Osamu Dazai?

      Do you read Dazai Osamu? To tell the truth, I was not good at this writing for a long time. The style of writing and the way of looking at things just didn't sit well with me, and I couldn't get through to the end. It's not that I deny his value as a writer, it's just that his taste doesn't suit me. Like me, Yukio Mishima (I don't think it's the same, but anyway) had a hard time with Dazai's work. Shortly after the war, Dazai had overwhelming support among young people, but the young Mishima didn't like it and spoke ill of him at every opportunity. His friends were amused and took Mishima to see Dazai one day. According to Mishima's recollection, he said to the popular writer who had taken the world by storm, "I don't like Dazai-san's literature". Dazai then said, to no one in particular, "Even if you said that, you still come here like this, so I guess you do like it after all".

Mishima writes: "I now find myself in the same situation". Young people come to Mishima and declare to his face, 'I don't like your work'. In short, they go around. So I can understand Dazai's feelings at that time. But I don't respond in the same way as Dazai. I would either smile like an adult and let it slip through, or pretend not to hear it. In my case, I wondered if I had ever been told to my face by someone, "I don't like your work", but I can't remember. I feel like I've been told that often, but I also feel like I've never been told that. I don't go out in public very often, so I probably never had the chance to be told such a thing upfront. But if I were put in such a position, I might think, "Well, that can't be helped. This is because I am not satisfied with any of the books I have written so far. Of course, I am attached to every book, and I am proud that I did my best. However, as time goes by, I usually find myself dissatisfied with the parts I'm not satisfied with or the parts I haven't yet mastered. So when someone says to me, "I don't like that one", I tend to agree with them, saying, "Yes, in a way that may be true. I probably shouldn't be so convinced.

In any case, I have recently been downloading Dazai's works read aloud to my iPod and listening to them frequently while traveling in the car. It's hard to say that I'm comfortable with it, and in places, I sigh, "Oh dear", but for some reason, when I listen to it read out loud rather than in print, I can accept the flow of the story as it is, and with an eagle eye. Perhaps it is because the habitual style of writing does not approach me with the same directness and force as when I follow the text with my eyes. Or maybe it's just that I'm not young anymore and I can accept things that are different from me with equanimity. But when you think about it, if I seriously disliked someone, I wouldn't go all the way to their place just to say "I don't like your writing". It is theoretically correct. I vote for Dazai Osamu. However, novelists are a very troublesome race. I really think so.

This Week in Murakami

I had some 'Kaki-no-tane Crunch Chocolate" the other day. Not bad.
But I can't see the inevitability of it anymore.