I’m enjoying how Dazai begins his chapters. They always seem to hook me. This time it’s with a long meandering, but beautiful description of the beach near his middle school:
海の、波打際、といってもいいくらいに海にちかい岸辺に、真黒い樹肌の山桜の、かなり大きいのが二十本以上も立ちならび、新学年がはじまると、山桜は、褐色のねばっこいような
嫩葉 と共に、青い海を背景にして、その絢爛 たる花をひらき、やがて、花吹雪の時には、花びらがおびただしく海に散り込み、海面を鏤 めて漂い、波に乗せられ再び波打際に打ちかえされる、その桜の砂浜が、そのまま校庭として使用せられている東北の或る中学校に、自分は受験勉強もろくにしなかったのに、どうやら無事に入学できました。そうして、その中学の制帽の徽章 にも、制服のボタンにも、桜の花が図案化せられて咲いていました。
My rough translation: Close to the water’s edge there were more than twenty quite large black barked mountain cherry trees standing in a row. When the new school year starts the mountain cherry trees, with their dark brown sticky looking new leaves, blossom brilliantly with the blue ocean in the background. And before long the wind blows the petals and they fall in great numbers into the ocean floating like precious stones inlayed into jewelry on the surface of the water. Riding on the waves they are beaten back to the shore once again. That cherry blossom beach was used as a campus by a middle school in the Tohoku region. I didn’t really study for the entrance exams, but I managed to get in. On the buttons of that school’s uniforms and on the insignia on its hats was the image of a cherry blossom.
Dude needs to learn that periods are a thing.
)
Even if
But in 人間失格 it is only one comparison at once! 