The Setting Sun- Osamu Dazai

Set in the early postwar years, this powerful novel of a nation in social and moral crisis probes the destructive effects of war, and the transition from a feudal Japan to an industrial society. Though Osamu Dazai died a suicide in 1948, the influence of this. book, often considered his masterpiece, has made the term "people of the setting sun" (i.e., the declining aristocracy) a permanent part of the Japanese language. And Dazai's heroine, Kazuko, the strongwilled young aristocrat who deliberately abandons her class, stands as a symbol of the anomie which pervades so much of the modern world. Dazai's writing is in some ways reminiscent of Rimbaud, while he himself has often been called a forerunner of Yukio Mishima. Donald Keene, the distinguished translator, has said of the author's work: "His world suggests Chekhov or possibly postwar France but there is a Japanese sensibility in the choice and presentation of the material. A Dazai novel is at once immediately intelligible in Western terms and quite unlike any Western book." Of this novel, Keene writes: 'Victims of transitional period in morality' is how Kazuko styles herself and her lover, and we feel that she is right. A modus vivendi with Western things has nearly been achieved, but the full effect of Western ideas has yet to be felt. The Setting Sun derives much of its power from its portrayal of the ways in which the new ideas have destroyed the Japanese aristocracy. The novel created an immediate sensation when it first appeared. generally conceded that Dazai is one of the great chroniclers of contemporary Japanese life, and this major achievement was reached despite the shortness of his life and career. But The Setting Sun is not to be considered [merely] a sociological document of help to those who wish to learn more about an obscure or distant country. It is a powerful and beautiful novel by one of the most brilliant of recent Japanese writers and stands as such in the world of literature."