The Setting Sun was a flawed and uneven novel. It frequently fell into maudlin romanticism and suffered from the familiar “kasutori-gentsia” habit of scattering vacuous European terms and references about like confetti. Nonetheless, its almost immediate status as a classic came from more than just the morbid conjunction of the decadence and suicide it depicted with the decadence and suicide of the author. No other work captured the despondency and dreams of the times so poignantly. Whatever he may have lacked, Dazai was not lacking in a self-pity that resonated strongly with the deep strain of
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