Directory of Lost Causes (By Quentin S. Crisp)

The Joy of Novels

A Writer's Life For Me - The Joy of Novels

To commemorate my annus horibbilis in publishing, I would like to present the first of what I believe will be two translations of short pieces from the pen of Dazai Osamu.

How lucky you are! These works have never been seen in English before, and here they are for your delectation. Now, this is the point at which I am supposed to give a potted biography of Dazai, but, to tell the truth, I just can't be bothered. I'm sure that I couldn't add anything to the countless potted biographies of Dazai that already exist, and, I don't have all the dates and so on straight in my head anyway.

What if I say this: Dazai was the black sheep of Japanese literature. He was a drinker and a womaniser. A legend has built up around him perhaps largely because of his early death by suicide. It was, in fact, a 'lovers' suicide'. I believe he had previously survived two such suicide pacts, leaving behind the corpses of two lovers in the process. As I say, I don't have it all in front of me right now. I can't deny the appeal of the legend, but I am personally more interested in the work. To me, Dazai's most famous novel, No Longer Human, is what The Catcher in the Rye should have been, but failed to be - a true appeal direct from the heart of an outsider, and, despite the title, one of the most human books I have ever read.

Below is a piece from a collection of essays called Mono Omou Ashi, or The Reed that Thinks. The title is a metaphor for human beings. If you think there are mistakes in my translation, please let me know.



The Joy of Novels

Novels have been, from the beginning, the reading matter of women and children. A so-called sensible adult would not read them with any sense of deep involvement, and certainly would never take them so seriously as to bang the table-top with their fists in heated debate after reading. When people say that they have been edified by a novel, humbled by a novel and so on, well, if they are making a joke of some sort, perhaps the conversation might still be of interest, but if they have truly straightened their collar or bowed their head in the presence of a novel, one can only say that this is the act of a lunatic. For example, in some house or other, the wife may be reading a novel, and the husband, standing in front of the mirror and seeing to his tie before going to work, might ask, “What novels are interesting these days?” to which his wife might reply, “I thought Hemmingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls was very interesting, dear.” Fastening the buttons of his waistcoat, the husband then asks, as if humouring a complete imbecile, “What was the plot?” The wife becomes excited and recounts the story in great detail. Moved at her own explanation, she is choked with tears. The husband, pulling on his jacket, says, “Well, that certainly sounds interesting.” Then, that bread-winning husband goes out to work, and in the evening, calling at some salon, speaks thus:

“If we’re talking about contemporary novels, after all, I’d say it has to be Hemmingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls.”

That is precisely how pitiful novels are. The truth is, if you can pull the wool over the eyes of women and children, you’re already a great success. And there are many ways to trick women and children, whether by affecting an air of solemnity, playing the dandy, lying about your distinguished background, spreading out all your paltry learning in display, or shamelessly reporting the unhappiness of your home without a thought to the consequences; and if it is thereby plain as day that you are attempting to manipulate the sympathies of housewives, it does not matter, because then we have those dunces known as critics, who fill their rice bowls by holding this nonsense up as something to be worshipped – it’s enough to make you sick!

There’s one last thing I’d like to say. A long time ago there was a man called Takizawa Bakin. His stories were not very interesting, but, in the introduction to The Satomi Clan and the Eight Dogs, he wrote the following:

“If this work may be of enough interest to keep awake a few women and children, I shall be satisfied.”

And to “keep awake a few women and children” that man lost his eyesight, and even then he did not stop, but continued writing by dictation. Have you ever heard of anything more ridiculous?

No doubt this will seem a superfluous addition, but on one occasion, on a night when I was unable to sleep, I read Toson’s Before Dawn from beginning to end. I read until morning, and then I grew tired. So I tossed that heavy book down next to my pillow and, nodding off, I had a dream. It was a dream that was absolutely and in all parts unconnected with the work I had just read. I heard afterwards that Toson had taken ten years to complete that novel.