The setting sun

Literary fiction · Tragedy

Print length: 175 pagesNew Directions, 1968

Description

Set during Japan’s early postwar years, The Setting Sun follows Kazuko, a young aristocrat confronting a society in profound social and moral crisis. Rather than remain within the expectations of her inherited class, she deliberately leaves that world behind. Her personal break with aristocratic identity unfolds amid the destructive consequences of war and Japan’s movement from feudal traditions toward industrial modernity. Through Kazuko’s experience, the novel explores the alienation of modern life and the uncertainty that accompanies the collapse of established values. Her effort to choose a different future becomes part of a wider portrait of a country whose old social order no longer offers security or direction.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Direct · Lyrical · Spare

Pace

Measured

Tone

Bleak · Intimate · Melancholic · Reflective

Structure

Linear

Focus

Character · Ideas · Voice

Emotional intensity

4 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 3 / 5
Ideas: 4 / 5
Structure: 3 / 5
Background knowledge: 2 / 5

Themes

ClassIdentityIsolationMoralityTransformationWar

About Dasai Osamu

Osamu Dazai was a Japanese author whose fiction ranges from autobiographical confession to social portraiture and playful revisions of traditional tales. He made the I-novel, with its exposure of the authorial self, a characteristic form, often writing in direct, spare prose that shifts between anguish, irony, and dark comedy. His narrators scrutinize the roles people perform to remain acceptable, along with the shame and dependency concealed behind them. No Longer Human develops this method through a framing narrative and the notebooks of Yozo Oba, whose practiced clowning masks his estrangement as his life narrows through damaged relationships and addiction. Dazai also placed private crises within a changing Japan. The Setting Sun uses letters, journals, and divided perspectives to follow an aristocratic family losing both its material security and its inherited moral order. Blue Bamboo shows another side of his range, recasting Chinese legends and other traditional narratives as witty, psychologically uneasy fables whose scholars, lovers, and wanderers remain vulnerable to vanity and embarrassment.

No longer human Apple Books

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: New Directions
Language: English

Keep your books and notes in Collected for iPhone.

Apple Books is a service mark of Apple Inc. iPhone is a trademark of Apple Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries.