A review by keiiiiiiii
The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai

emotional hopeful reflective medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

This is a pretty mid book until the second part of the book. Osamu just hit you with his Sad Boy Poetic words. Some of my random thoughts:

- It's amusing that this book mentioned Jews but didn't mention Chinese, Korean, Indonesian, Philipines, and other parts Japan colonized.
- I think the guy that the brother complained about was Americans??? They didn't strictly come from aristocracy yet they became a superpower country post WW II. The part where the brother said that the artist (Americans) built their wealth through street-smartness while lacking refinement/taste.
- The mother or the mother or both, are symbols of decaying Japanese, especially the aristocratic one.
- It's interesting that the daughter became the breadwinner (or at least attempted to be one), mirroring how women worked at the factory after the men had gone to war.
- Woe to the Japanese aristocracy, they're the real victims of World War II.
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