A review by donie
The Setting Sun by Osamu Dazai

dark reflective slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

Victims. Victims of a transnational period of morality. That is what we both are.

The Setting Sun tells about the social change that occurred in Japan after the second world war, especially about the death of the Japanese aristocracy. This is the second book of Dazai I've read and I'm still unmoved in my opinion that I'm not very fond of his characters. I'm saying it without any malice though because I don't think his characters were designed to be likable (and the forms of depravedness they took strike me as humane). The writing in this novel is beautiful, but it may also be credited to Donald Keene's incredible translation.

A pleasant read, overall; would recommend to people who are a fan of slow-paced modern-day classics. I'm giving it 3.5★ because although it wasn't a bad read, it didn't give me any major impressions and I wasn't a fan of the pacing in certain part/s. I think I enjoyed No Longer Human more than this because to me it dealt with the internal conflicts and struggles of its character/s better, but that is more of a personal preference (and I understand that this book is supposedly among the more "objective" works of Dazai).