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bgudmundr 's review for:
Otogizoshi: The Fairy Tale Book of Dazai Osamu
by Osamu Dazai
An amusing but very slow starting collection of fairy tales as re-imagined by Dazai himself. The Stolen Wen and Urashima-san were unfortunately yawn worthy to me and I considered putting the book down at that point and DNF'ing it. I came back after a week or two and finished the rest and enjoyed the author's thoughts on Click-Clack Mountain and The Sparrow Who Lost Her Tongue.
It's hard for me to heap praise on Dazai's effort here as his heart didn't quite seem in it compared to his other works I've read. The section about Momotaro felt like a cop-out. As I had never heard any of these tales before it was nice to get a look at Japanese myths and how they tend to not have a "moral of the story". Sure, you could perhaps glean one if you looked hard but did not seem the intent of the story.
Ever since reading Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology where he re-imagines a good chunk of stories, most authors who tried similarly seem to fall flat. Worth a read at least if you're hankering for more Dazai after reading his few novels.
It's hard for me to heap praise on Dazai's effort here as his heart didn't quite seem in it compared to his other works I've read. The section about Momotaro felt like a cop-out. As I had never heard any of these tales before it was nice to get a look at Japanese myths and how they tend to not have a "moral of the story". Sure, you could perhaps glean one if you looked hard but did not seem the intent of the story.
Ever since reading Neil Gaiman's Norse Mythology where he re-imagines a good chunk of stories, most authors who tried similarly seem to fall flat. Worth a read at least if you're hankering for more Dazai after reading his few novels.