Alter Ego [Karlnap]

The Library

A/N: Here is a collection of the books Sapnap read throughout the story, and a little break from the ending!

No Longer Human
Osamu Dazai

"The fallen buffoon."

A novella by Osamu Dazai featuring a guilt-ridden and self-conscious protagonist eventually let to ruin by his affections. A month after its completion, Dazai committed suicide, drowning himself in the Tarnagawa Aqueduct.

PG. 9 - "Mine has been a life of such shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be like to live the life of a human being. It wasn't until I was quite big that I even saw my first train."

PG. 100 - "Society?... Don't you mean yourself?" came to the tip of my tongue. 

But I held the words back, reluctant to anger him.

"Society won't stand for it."

"It's not society, you're the one who won't stand for it- right?"

If you do such a thing, society will make you suffer for it. It's not society. It's you, isn't it?"

PG. 124 - "I said, feigning tranquility, "Crime. What's the antonym of crime? This is a hard one."

"The law, of course," Horiki answered flatly.

I looked at his face again. Caught in the flashing red light of a neon sign on a nearby building, Horiki's face had the somber dignity of the relentless prosecutor."

PG. 147 - "God, I ask you, is non-resistance a sin? I had wept at the incredibly beautiful smile Horiki showed me, and forgetting both prudence and resistance, I had got into the car that took me here. And now I had become a madman. Even if I released, I would forever be branded on the forehead with the word 'madman,' or perhaps, 'reject.' No longer human. I had now ceased utterly to be a human being."

Demian
Herman Hesse

"To break one's shell."

A novel by Herman Hesse in which protagonist Emil Sinclair, motivated by his mysterious friend Max Demian and his mother, engages in self-discover. This novel stems from Hesse's introduction to the philosophy of Carl Jung.

PG. 8 - "I cannot call myself a scholar. I have always been and still am a seeker but I no longer do my seeking among the stars or in books. I am beginning to hear the lessons which whisper in my blood."

PG. 57 - "Inconsolable, I walked across the empty square with my hands in my pockets. Further torments and slavery. I had reached that point in my thoughts when a deep, cheerful voice hailed me. I was startled and began to run. Someone was pursuing me; a hand fell gently on my shoulder from behind. It was Max Demian."

PG. 136 - "The bird is struggling out of the egg," it read. "The egg is the world. Whoever wants to be born must first destroy a world. The bird is flying to God. The name of the God is called Abraxas."

PG. 193 - "At such times I would look into myself and see the image of my destiny in the staring eyes. They could be full of wisdom, full of madness; they could glow with love or dire evil- it was all the same. You could not choose, you ought not to want anything; only yourself, your own fate."

The Moon Over the Mountain
Atsushi Nakajima

"Glutted with cowardly pride."