Scan barcode
A review by scoutk
The Life of a Stupid Man by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa
medium-paced
- Loveable characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
***mentions of suicide and man***
I am utterly divided. I just finished it and I hated it, but I hated it in the own depths of my being, so it is not bad writing, but it isn’t good either. The issue that I have with the book, is that even though it is a suicide note and I feel conflicted about how to feel about him. He is so clearly a man with a godcomplex and the way he describes himself, his emotions and his being, as something of poetic nature, while also just being a bad person and not even trying to value life, but going into the depths of suffering and glorifying it, doesn’t sit right with me. I don’t need another book about a man who believes his suffering puts him above all the suffering and wrongness he commits and that he even relishes in the selfhate it creates in him. I might as well not be a fan of melancholy, but this just feels so flat out like a man, who believes himself to be far more brilliant and superior in thought than anyone else, so to not lose his mind, he kill’s himself. I hate flat depth. He is not deep, he is shallow. But then again it is complicated, the man has problems and he was a human and no one should feel the way like killing themselves, but then again I also got major ickies from lots of chapters of his book. Maybe it’s better in Japanese. I will have to see and read it again sometime.
I am utterly divided. I just finished it and I hated it, but I hated it in the own depths of my being, so it is not bad writing, but it isn’t good either. The issue that I have with the book, is that even though it is a suicide note and I feel conflicted about how to feel about him. He is so clearly a man with a godcomplex and the way he describes himself, his emotions and his being, as something of poetic nature, while also just being a bad person and not even trying to value life, but going into the depths of suffering and glorifying it, doesn’t sit right with me. I don’t need another book about a man who believes his suffering puts him above all the suffering and wrongness he commits and that he even relishes in the selfhate it creates in him. I might as well not be a fan of melancholy, but this just feels so flat out like a man, who believes himself to be far more brilliant and superior in thought than anyone else, so to not lose his mind, he kill’s himself. I hate flat depth. He is not deep, he is shallow. But then again it is complicated, the man has problems and he was a human and no one should feel the way like killing themselves, but then again I also got major ickies from lots of chapters of his book. Maybe it’s better in Japanese. I will have to see and read it again sometime.