#japanese literature

[bsd-bibliophile]

Grown-ups are lonely people. Even if we love each other, we must be careful not to show it publicly. And why all this caution? The answer is simple: because people are too often betrayed and put to public shame. The discovery that you cannot trust people is the first lesson young people learn as they grow up into adults. Adults are adolescents who have been betrayed.

Dazai Osamu, Tsugaru

[dorianatlas-art]

Book cover of “The Moon Over the Mountain” by Atsushi Nakajima! This one is based on the tiger imagery on this cover of the book, one of the real life Nakajima’s outfits, and anime Atsushi and his tiger ability.

[mournfulroses]

Empress Yamatohime, transl. by Kenneth Rexroth, from Written on The Sky; Poems from the Japanese

[metamorphesque]

—Haruki Murakami, 1Q84

[That’s what the world is, after all: an endless battle of contrasting memories.]

[feral-ballad]

Yosano Akiko, tr. by Sam Hamill & Keiko Matsui Gibson, from River of Stars: Selected Poems of Yosano Akiko

[Text ID: “Picking wild roses, / some to weave into my hair / and some for the hand, / I then waited for hours, / I waited for you all day.”]

[lets-get-lit]

I was always hungry for love. Just once, I wanted to know what it was like to get my fill of it -- to be fed so much love I couldn't take any more. Just once.

- Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood

[bibliocharlie]

so glad it’s finally hot coffee szn

[anne-bsd-bibliophile]

The Beggar Student by Dazai Osamu

"I could feel the hands of fate upon me. I'd been caught. In his heart of hearts, the student is a thirty-two-year-old drunken poet."

"Not even the wisest reader knows the anguish of the writer who has sent a truly awful piece of writing to a magazine in order to survive. Here goes nothing, I told myself, pushing that heavy envelope into the mailbox. It hit the bottom with a thunk. And that was that. Another crummy story. On the surface, it pretends to be a mirror to my soul, although I know as well as anyone the slimy worms of compromise are wriggling in the muck at the bottom. It's a work in which the work is far from done. ... It makes me so ashamed I want to scream and run around in circles. I promise you, it's terrible. A lousy piece of trash. I have no right to call myself a writer. Such is my ignorance. No insights to impart. No illuminating views."

"I wish I could just cut my belly open and let all of the words come spilling out. No matter if it's gibberish, as long as it's my flesh and blood doing the talking."

"My work will disgrace bookstore windows all across the land. Critics will sneer; readers will give up. That hack writer has outdone himself again, they'll say, setting a low bar for writers everywhere. Tough to beat."

"I'll have you know, I may look like an ass, but I'm not a total moron, and when I say I lack conviction, I only mean it relative to my own high standards."

"You ought to try this out sometime, dear reader. Sit yourself down on the sofa of a coffee shop or bar, facing the fireplace beside the madam of the house, so that both of you are staring at the flames, and talk as if you're speaking to the fire - I promise, up against even the dullest mind, you'll be able to sustain a lively conversation for hour after hour. But take heed, reader: you must not look into each other's eyes, not even once."

"I couldn't shut up if I tried. The only way I can stand being alive is if I'm playing the buffoon."

"One might call reason the glue that holds society together. In that sense, the order we enjoy is artificial, but we need this artifice if we want to go on living."

"Even if I feel bad for a person, I'm certain of the cold hard fact that I can't do anything for them, which leaves me feeling even worse."

"Growing up, I found the name incredibly embarrassing, so despite being a string bean, I've been publishing as Osamu Dazai, a name that makes me sound like a street fighter who might break your neck."

"...This guy's a good person. Not egotistical like you." "Hold on," I said, bristling at being labeled a good person. "I'm plenty egotistical..."

"When something pushes me over the brink of fear, I have a nasty tendency to begin laughing like an idiot. A disturbing, wild laugh. I lose control, can't hold it in. An expression not of brazenness, but extreme cowardice that takes me to the limits of delirium."

"Truth is that grownups are the same as kids, except a little worse for wear. Kids ask a lot from grownups, but grownups ask at least as much from kids. It's a real mess. But it's the truth. We count on you to hold it all together. ...To put it gently, we're always one step away from being overwhelmed. To put it harshly, we're all babies who cant' take a word of criticism."

"Next time life gets you down, curl up in a blanket in your rented room and open a good book."

[infinitiumme]

Yukio Mishima, photographed by Eikoh Hosoe

[gstoabn]

i made this for a literary magazine, do you like it ?

[elysiumaze]

Mieko Kawakami in, Heaven.

[bsd-bibliophile]

It frightened me even that I had accepted a moment’s kindness: I felt I had imposed horrible bonds on myself.

Dazai Osamu, No Longer Human

[cinematic-literature]

Perfect Days (2023) by Wim Wenders

Book title: 木 (Tree in English) by Aya Kōda

[mournfulroses]

Yosano Akiko, transl. by Kenneth Rexroth, from The Burning Heart; Women Poets of Japan

[metamorphesque]

haruki murakami (pinball 1973)

[feral-ballad]

Emi Yagi, tr. by David Boyd & Lucy North, from Diary of a Void: A Novel

[Text ID: “I’m so alone—I feel like I might forget who I am.”]