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58th out of 121 books
—
76 voters
Self Portraits: Tales from the Life of Japan's Great Decadent Romantic
by
Osamu Dazai
A rich boy turned drop-out, a radical turned drug addict, obsessed with self destruction and suicide, Osamu Dazai retains his cult status among Japan's intellectual youth more than forty years after his death. These stories, based on his own experiences and arranged chronologically, provide insight into the sources of Dazai's enduring appeal as well as his art.
Hardcover, 230 pages
Published
January 1st 1991
by Kodansha America
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Osamu Dazai is my favorite Japanese writer. And I love a lot of Japanese writers. In fact Dazai is my favorite writer period. And I like or love a lot of writers. Why I love Dazai is that he had a mess-up life and wrote about it with incredible charm and with a sense of humor. "Self Portraits" is a series of stories that are based on Dazai's life, but he changed it around to suit his purpose and of course to entertain the reader. The editor writes a brief intro to each story explaining what real...more
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Jun 21, 2009
Kimley
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommended to Kimley by:
Tosh, of course!
Shelves:
japanese-lit,
20th-century
On the cover of my copy of this book is a blurb that says "A cult figure for Japan's disaffected youth" but let's just cut to the chase, Dazai was an asshole! Living off his wealthy family, he was a drunk, a drug addict, a womanizer, a fan of the suicide pact in which he survives but his partner in crime does not (oops!) - just the kind of guy you want to bring home to mother. He was also handsome, a snappy dresser and I'm guessing could ooze charm if he wanted to. It always seems to be like tha...more
4 likes · like · see review
Dazai's frail sunken chest and haunted handsome gaze says it all - dissolution, sickness, deep feeling, and beauty are authentic pathways through an inauthentic and decaying world.
Going into this I thought him a self-absorbed hedonist unconcerned with the heartbreak and death he left in his wake. Coming out of it I think of him as a self-absorbed hedonist who absorbed all the heartbreak and death in himself and the world at large and transformed them into simple and sensitive tales of epiphanies...more
Going into this I thought him a self-absorbed hedonist unconcerned with the heartbreak and death he left in his wake. Coming out of it I think of him as a self-absorbed hedonist who absorbed all the heartbreak and death in himself and the world at large and transformed them into simple and sensitive tales of epiphanies...more
8 likes · like · see review
"A moving example of a writer beset with torments and fears, many of his own making, struggling to create something of value."
--- Kirkus Reviews
Remarkably well-written auto-biographical stories from one of the most interesting literary personalities in Japan. The short story No Kidding...4 pages. Remarkable in its complexity with the best ending sentence I've ever read.
--- Kirkus Reviews
Remarkably well-written auto-biographical stories from one of the most interesting literary personalities in Japan. The short story No Kidding...4 pages. Remarkable in its complexity with the best ending sentence I've ever read.
I was in high school, visiting NYC, wandered into St. Mark's Books and bought this because the guy on the cover looks so cool. I believe that it called him a hero to the disaffected youth of Japan, or something like that, on the back cover. That was good enough for me. I agree with Tosh that he is in a class all by himself.
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His real name is Shuuji Tsushima. Although his father wanted him to be a politician, he insisted on being an author. When he applied to the Tokyo University French Literature Department, he was 20 years old. For most of his lifetime, he was a drug addict, an alcoholic and a sufferer of tubercolosis.
His last book Ningen Shikkaku (No Longer Human)(1948) is an authobiography. It documents his childh...more
More about Osamu Dazai...
His last book Ningen Shikkaku (No Longer Human)(1948) is an authobiography. It documents his childh...more
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