Knihy
Osamu Dazai
Early Light

Osamu Dazai
Early Light

2022 |

Early Light offers three very different aspects of Osamu Dazai's genius: the title story relates his misadventures as a drinker and a family man in the terrible fire bombings of Tokyo at the end of WWII. Having lost their own home, he and his wife flee with a new baby boy and their little girl to relatives in Kofu, onl…y to be bombed out anew. "Everything's gone," the father explains to his daughter: "Mr. Rabbit, our shoes, the Ogigari house, the Chino house, they all burned up," "Yeah, they all burned up," she said, still smiling. "One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji," another autobiographical tale, is much more comic: Dazai finds himself unable to escape the famous views, the beauty once immortalized by Hokusai and now reduced to a cliche. In the end, young girls torment him by pressing him into taking their photo before the famous peak: "Goodbye," he hisses through his teeth, "Mount Fuji. Thanks for everything. Click." And the final story is "Villon's Wife," a small masterpiece, which relates the awakening to power of a drunkard's wife. She transforms herself into a woman not to be defeated by anything, not by her husband being a thief, a megalomaniacal writer, and a wastrel. Single-handedly, she saves the day by concluding that "There's nothing wrong with being a monster, is there? As long as we can stay alive." Early Light offers three very different aspects of Osamu Dazai's genius: the title story relates his misadventures as a drinker and a family man in the terrible fire bombings of Tokyo at the end of WW…II. Having lost their own home, he and his wife flee with a new baby boy and their little girl to relatives in Kofu, only to be bombed out anew. "Everything's gone," the father explains to his daughter: "Mr. Rabbit, our shoes, the Ogigari house, the Chino house, they all burned up," "Yeah, they all burned up," she said, still smiling. "One Hundred Views of Mount Fuji," another autobiographical tale, is much more comic: Dazai finds himself unable to escape the famous views, the beauty once immortalized by Hokusai and now reduced to a cliche. In the end, young girls torment him by pressing him into taking their photo before the famous peak: "Goodbye," he hisses through his teeth, "Mount Fuji. Thanks for everything. Click." And the final story is "Villon's Wife," a small masterpiece, which relates the awakening to power of a drunkard's wife. She transforms herself into a woman not to be defeated by anything, not by her husband being a thief, a megalomaniacal writer, and a wastrel. Single-handedly, she saves the day by concluding that "There's nothing wrong with being a monster, is there? As long as we can stay alive."

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Odešleme nejpozději 31. 3. 2026

O knize

Stav:	nová
Vazba:	Pevná
Počet stran:	72
Jazyk:	česky , anglicky
ISBN10:	0811231984
ISBN:	9780811231985
Vydání:	1
Vystaveno:	1. 3. 2025 12:35
Číslo položky:	1161516

O autorovi

Osamu Dazai

Osamu Dazai, rodným jménem Šúji Cušima, japonsky 太宰治 byl japonský spisovatel. Narodil se v rodině bohatého statkáře. Studoval francouzskou literaturu na vysoké škole, ale studium nedokončil. Na škole se prvně pokusil, kvůli školním výsledkům, spáchat sebevraždu. O další sebevraždu se pokusil spolu s vdanou milenkou. Poté si vzal gejšu, načež ho rodina vydědila – ovšem také kvůli jeho angažování se v levicových skupinách. Byl v té době rovněž drogově závislý. I s manželkou se pokusil o sebevraždu . Poté se rozvedli. Následně, v letech 1940-1946, prožil své nejproduktivnější období, kdy vydal řadu knih a dosáhl i jistých úspěchů. Po roce 1946 se však dostal znovu do krize, trpěl alkoholismem i psychickými poruchami. Během této krize napsal jedno ze svých nejúspěšnějších děl, Člověk ve stínu. Poté spáchal sebevraždu, která se mu tentokrát již povedla. Jeho prózy jsou značně autobiografické, až sebestředné, zobrazují ale i sociální konflikty japonské společnosti a bariéry mezi třídami.

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