If I single out literary artists, it’s because unlike (say) Picasso, whose personal flaws and disasters were relevant to his art only insofar as they distorted its subjects, Dazai made his flaws the very subject of his art. But that only goes to show that-when it comes to artists in general and in particular to literary artists-“ordinary standards” don’t apply. You would not expect all of this “disorganization” to add up to a career of any sort, let alone that of a distinguished and remarkable author whose works are considered to be classics of Japanese literature, and for whom a prestigious literary prize is named. Before long the pattern of Dazai’s life was established, with him failing at school, squandering his allowance on alcohol and prostitutes, dabbling in Marxism, and courting-symbiotically-women and suicide. Things took a turn for the worse, however, starting in 1927 when his literary hero, Ryunosuke Akutagawa, committed suicide.

He was a diligent student and seemed bound for success. Though for sure the adjective applies, Rexroth might as accurately have said “supremely” or even “magnificently,” for Dazai’s life was nothing less than a monument of disorganization, a litany of self-inflicted wounds and disasters culminating in not only his own but two other suicides.īorn Shūji Tsushima (he acquired his pseudonym in 1933) to an upper-class Japanese family, from an early age Dazai demonstrated a precocious talent for writing. In the words of poet and critic Kenneth Rexroth, his was an “extremely disorganized” life. The older I get, the less interested I am as both reader and writer in things are that-or that feel-“made up.” Put in positive terms, the more attracted I am to stories and novels that strike me as boldly genuine, and those who create them.Īs he would have been first to admit, by ordinary standards Osamu Dazai (1909–1948) was not what most of us would call a “decent” man.

No longer human novel