After reading The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai as assigned, I am shocked that there is a novel that has even more twisted characters than Kokoro's. In this book, I feel that every main character (except the mother) has a distorted immoral thinking of life. They seem to live for the sake of living, and I can't foresee any happiness happening in their lives at all. I can't tell you how shocked I am about Kazuko's letters to her "lover" because I was OMG-ing all the way from the letters till the end. As a Japanese woman of traditional culture, you could see how Kazuko defied such morals by her outrageous letters and insistence of becoming someone's lover. Between the two siblings, I don't know who is more crazy. One sees a baby as a revolution, an acute change to the then post-war society and repeatedly makes references to Socialism and Marxism (like woah. I thought during that period Japanese women were still meek and submissive. Since when did they know about such ideology?); the other gets addicted to Opium and later switched on to alcohol, drinks his life away and later commits suicide to end his suffering. I am unable to comprehend and fully understand his testament of his suicide except that he had grown up twisted and demented. Naoji's suicide was not really that unexpected, given that most of the books that I've read so far in this Jap class have dealt with suicide and given Naoji's attitude and actions in life have shown that such an ending is inevitable in some way. I guess Dazai wanted to show the social and moral crisis Japan was undergoing during post WWII, but the emotions and thoughts that the characters have throughout the book are just so demented and depressing.

If you want a different type of reading for a change, this book is for you. A milder version of a story with twisted characters would be Kokoro, and I definitely do prefer Kokoro to The Setting Sun. If anyone wants to give them a try, I could loan you the books because I doubt I would ever be reading them again (except for that looming midterm around the corner). Here are the Jap books I currently own:

Kokoro
Snow Country (This book was a Nobel prize winner!)
Makioka Sisters (This one is like a soap opera)
Naomi (Oh yeah, this one is damn twisted too)
The Setting Sun
Masks
Women in the Dunes
Black Rain
Lizard
After the Quake

All these books have varying degrees of perverseness and I enjoy bantering with anyone on how twisted the characters are. So if you have read any of them before, do tell me! :)

I got so fed up with my writer's block (I have to churn out an essay for The Setting Sun by tonight) that I went online shopping for a toner to smooth out my skin. Judging from the reviews, I decided to try out the rose version of Thayer's Witch Hazel toner! Hopefully it works just as well for me :) 

And now... back to the Setting Sun essay. Bleh.