”I thought, ‘I want to die. I want to die more than ever before. There's no chance now of a recovery. No matter what sort of thing I do, no matter what I do, it's sure to be a failure, just a final coating applied to my shame. That dream of going on bicycles to see a waterfall framed in summer leaves—it was not for the likes of me. All that can happen now is that one foul, humiliating sin will be piled on another, and my sufferings will become only the more acute. I want to die. I must die. Living itself is the source of sin.’”

What a tragedy that is to be different from everyone around you so much so that you must constantly don a facade. That the only time you feel somewhat at ease is
in the privacy of your own thoughts, but eventually those too turn against you as you wander through the motions of life aimlessly, moving from vice to vice, constantly seeking and never finding. That you can wish for something as simple as riding a bike through
the leaves of summer and be denied it. To carry a fear of a father from birth until the day of his death, thinking you must do as everyone says, act as they wish you to act, just to scrape by. But then that stops working, and you dont know what to do, and you are left to drown by the very same who once laughed by your side.

Beautiful prose! Excellent nuanced discussion on the
human condition. Japanese literature sure is depressing (but maybe it has something to do with me being depressed and then reading this)! Dazai’s ability to perfectly articulate things you could not find words for is master class. People who read this book will fall into one of two categories, and I think that is summed up well in this final exchange:

”’…but miraculously enough the notebooks were saved. Just the other day I read through them for the first time.’

‘Did you cry?’

‘No. I didn’t cry…I just kept thinking that when human beings get to that way, they’re no good for anything.’”