mei-oioiii

[mei-oioiii]

When there’s so much beauty in dreams and in the sky, why do I live in such a squalid world?

Tanizaki Jun'ichirō, “Sorrows of a Heretic” from Longing and Other Stories

[mei-oioiii]

This time he is not smiling. There is no expression whatsoever. The picture has a genuinely chilling, foreboding quality, as if it caught him in the act of dying as he sat before the camera, his hands held over a heater. That is not the only shocking thing about it. The head is shown quite large, and you can examine the features in detail: the forehead is average, the wrinkles on the forehead average, the eyebrows also average, the eyes, the nose, the mouth, the chin … the face is not merely devoid of expression, it fails even to leave a memory. It has no individuality. I have only to shut my eyes after looking at it to forget the face. I can remember the wall of the room, the little heater, but all impression of the face of the principal figure in the room is blotted out; I am unable to recall a single thing about it.

Dazai Osamu, No Longer Human

[mei-oioiii]

Given my lack of experience, if my books were taken away from me, I would be utterly devastated. That’s how much I depend on what’s written in books. I’ll read one book and be completely wild about it - I’ll trust it, I’ll assimilate it, I’ll sympathize with it, I’ll try to make it a part of my life. Then, I’ll read another book and instantly, I’ll switch over to that one.

Dazai Osamu, Schoolgirl

[mei-oioiii]

Don’t fail. I don’t mind if you cheat, but just do not fail. If you fail, it will be a blemish upon your name for your entire life. Even when you’re older, and you’ve taken some respectable and important position, people may forget the time you cheated long ago, but they won’t forget that you failed… . A school is, after all, designed for students not to fail. If a student manages to fail at such a place, it means he is being unreasonable and wishes to fail himself. He’s just trying to get attention. He’s rebelling against the teacher. It is vanity. And it is a ridiculous sense of self-righteousness.

Dazai Osamu, A New Hamlet

[mei-oioiii]

What makes me sick is that both applause and complaints are based on misunderstanding.

Nakajima Atsushi, Light, Wind, and Dreams

[mei-oioiii]

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[mei-oioiii]

Sweetheart, even though you treated me kindly, My stubbornness prevailed. After we parted last night, I went and drowned my sorry self in booze again. Waking This morning, I remember your kindness And sadly reflect on my vile behavior. And now, I - a complete fake - now I’ll openly confess: Stripped of all dignity, lacking any sense of honesty, I was spurned on by my own illusions, into madness.

When had I ever tried to grasp the feelings of others? - Sweetheart, even though you treated me kindly, I was as stubborn and selfish as a child. Waking to intimations of morning breaking outside, Which somehow register through this pounding in my head, I remember your kindness, and also that drunken other. And as I sadly wonder who I really am on this chilly morning, Something tells me that I am nobody at all.

- Nakahara Chūya, “Untitled” from Poems of the Goat

[mei-oioiii]

Don’t fail. I don’t mind if you cheat, but just do not fail. If you fail, it will be a blemish upon your name for your entire life. Even when you’re older, and you’ve taken some respectable and important position, people may forget the time you cheated long ago, but they won’t forget that you failed… . A school is, after all, designed for students not to fail. If a student manages to fail at such a place, it means he is being unreasonable and wishes to fail himself. He’s just trying to get attention. He’s rebelling against the teacher. It is vanity. And it is a ridiculous sense of self-righteousness.

Dazai Osamu, A New Hamlet

[mei-oioiii]

Given my lack of experience, if my books were taken away from me, I would be utterly devastated. That’s how much I depend on what’s written in books. I’ll read one book and be completely wild about it - I’ll trust it, I’ll assimilate it, I’ll sympathize with it, I’ll try to make it a part of my life. Then, I’ll read another book and instantly, I’ll switch over to that one.

Dazai Osamu, Schoolgirl

[mei-oioiii]

It’s funny. No matter where you go, or how many books you read, you still know nothing, you haven’t seen anything. And that’s life. We live our lives trying to find our way. It’s like that Santōka Taneda poem, the one that goes, ‘On and on, in and in, and still the blue-green mountains.’

— Satoshi Yagisawa, Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

[mei-oioiii]

Human beings are never satisfied with themselves just as they are. The desire to become a dashing prince, a knight, or a lovely princess is the most common in the world, so it is fair to say that the heroes and heroines who appear in popular literature are created to satisfy those aspirations. Children’s dreams are more daring.

Edogawa Ranpo, “A Desire for Transformation” essay (1954) from The Edogawa Rampo Reader

[mei-oioiii]

Happy Birthday Nakahara Chūya-sensei!

To celebrate Nakahara Chūya’s birthday here are his top three quotes from my blog:

Quote #3:

Searching for memories that aren’t there, this heart of mine Closes itself up, languishes like an old moldy box of trinkets And then there are these sunken cheeks, these cracked lips- Bitterness bred in cruelty comes rushing out in silence…

I’ve grown accustomed to it all, and have leaned to bear it But sometimes any degree of loneliness can bring you down And while I cannot know for sure, sometimes it seems as if These tears are no longer tears for having loved someone…

- Nakahara Chūya, “Poem of the Sheep” from Poems of the Goat

Quote #2:

Soiled Sorrow: today too snow falls on it; soiled sorrow: today too wind blows on it.

Soiled sorrow is like, say, a fox’s fur; soiled sorrow in its torpor dreams of death.

Soiled sorrow frightens me piteously; soiled sorrow can’t be remedied, and the sun sets…

- Nakahara Chūya, “Soiled Sorrow” from The Poems of Nakahara Chūya

Quote #1:

Now in this world full of sadness, Don’t let your heart harden. For the sake of whatever intimacy we could have, Don’t let your heart harden.

Hardened, the heart is oblivious to the world, And words fall silent on the soul. Nurturing serenity, man returns to that dreaminess Known at the beginning, and can make sense of it all.

- Nakahara Chūya, “Untitled” from Poems of the Goat

[mei-oioiii]

Oda wanted to die. . . . I, above all other men, felt and understood deeply the sadness of Oda. The first time I met him on the Ginza, I thought, "God, what an unhappy man," and I could scarcely bear the pain. He gave the vivid impression that there was across his path nothing but the wall of death. He wanted to die. But there was nothing I could do. A big-brotherly warning - what hateful hypocrisy. There was nothing to do but watch. The "adults" of the world will probably criticize him smugly, saying he didn't have enough self-respect. But how dare they think they have the right! Yesterday I found record in Mr. Tatsuno [Yutaka]'s introductory essay on Senancour the following words: "People say it is a sin to flee by throwing life away. However, these same sophists who forbid me death often expose me to the presence of death, force me to proceed toward death. The various innovations they think up increase the opportunities for death around me, their preaching leads me toward death, and the laws they establish present me with death." You are the ones who killed Oda, aren't you? His recent sudden death was a poem of his final, sorry resistance. Oda! You did well.

Dazai’s published eulogy for Odasaku. I found it in The Saga of Dazai Osamu: A Critical Study and Translation by Phyllis I. Lyons, pages 49-50.

[mei-oioiii]

All my life I’ve never known what scorn or hate or anger or jealousy feel like. I just copy other people and make a show out of hating or despising certain things. In reality, I don’t understand any of it. I have no idea what it feels like to hate someone, to detest someone, to feel jealousy.

Dazai Osamu, A New Hamlet

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I suddenly began to wonder if I was happy. But then I have no idea of what happiness means, because it is beyond self-consciousness.

Nakajima Atsushi, Light, Wind, and Dreams

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What convinces readers is realism, while what fascinates them is romanticism.

Nakajima Atsushi, Light, Wind, and Dreams

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You know we young people are not satisfied with our present happiness and seek after the source of all happiness.

Kunikida Doppo, “Going Home Again” from Selected Stories of Doppo Kunikida