Osamu Dazai
(June 19, 1909 - June 13, 1948)
On Saturday, November 25th, I visited the grave of Japanese author Osamu Dazai in the Zenrinji Temple cemetery in Mitaka City. Dazai was, and remains a titan of modern Japanese literature, although little of his work has been translated into English. I’ve read a few of his books in English. But for all of his gigantic reputation in the world of Japanese letters, his was a sad, pathetic, wasted, irresponsible, depraved and dissolute life. He wasn’t the sort of man you would want as a father, a friend, a neighbor, or a teacher. He was, in fact, a failure in each of those roles. But he had a gift with the pen.
Dazai came from a wealthy family in northern Japan. He attended the prestigious Tokyo Imperial University (Tokyo University today), to study literature. He dropped in and out of college more than once, to the chagrin of his family. He was supported for a long time by an allowance from his family which was repeatedly suspended and then reinstated as a tool for trying to curb his wild behavior away from home, in the big city.
He wasn’t the sort of man you would want
as a father, a friend, a neighbor, or a teacher.
He was a womanizer and participated in a half-successful suicide pact with a young woman. He was charged as an accomplice in her death until his family paid a sum to the police and to the woman’s family. He advocated Marxist Socialism at a time when that ideology was outlawed.
During his college years he began writing and publishing in student media on campus, which led directly to his career as a writer. He was very deep, steeped in literary technique, and productive. In Japan, technique is highly regarded (often more than the actual product), because things are often judged by there appearance. He was married and divorced twice, and had three children. He participated in a second, successful suicide pact with another lover in the Tamagawa Canal, near his home in Mitaka City, not too far from where I live.
The 2019 movie No Longer Human (directed by Mika Ninagawa) is a Dazai biopic. It borrows the title of Dazai’s most famous novel (1948). It’s the story of a troubled man incapable of revealing his true self to others, and who, instead, maintains a facade of hollow jocularity, later turning to a life of alcoholism and drug abuse before his final disappearance. Obviously based on his own life, it is a sterling example of the “I-novel,” called “shishosetsu” in Japanese. It’s a type of confessional literature which evolved from 19th century naturalism in Japanese writing, where the events in the story correspond to events in the author’s life. I’m not a fan of the I-novel.
Dazai is also a member of the “buraiha” movement, or “Decadent School” of Japanese literature - dissolute writers who expressed the aimlessness and identity crisis of post-World War II Japan.
His problems stemmed largely from alcoholism. He was a complicated person.