The Setting Sun

About the corrupt and idle noble family, whose life in 1947 is portrayed in his book The Devil’s Flute Murders, mystery writer Yokomizo wrote:

"This was all before Osamu Dazai wrote his work Setting Sun, about the decline of the aristocratic class after the war, so we did not yet have ready terms like 'the sunset clan' or 'sunset class' to describe these people, newly bereft of their noble privilege and falling into ruin. But, if we had, then I think it likely that this case would have been the first to see the term used." (The Devil’s Flute Murders, p. 17).

I quoted this in my review of  Yokomiso’s book earlier this week, and then decided to read Osamu Dazai’s very famous book The Setting Sun, which in a way defined the postwar era as Yokomizu said. Luckily, I already owned this book, along with many other classic Japanese novels. 

Wonderful Japanese classics that I might read again, based on Haruki Murakami’s list.

In reading both Yokomizo’s detective novel and Dazai’s work of literary fiction, I learned that Japan before World War II had a class of titled aristocrats as well as an Emperor, and these aristocrats had much inherited wealth and did not perform productive labor. Noble families lived on large estates with a number of houses, sometimes designed in both Japanese and Western style. Like European aristocrats, the Japanese nobility relied on numerous servants, who cooked for them, served their meals, took care of their beautiful silk kimonos and other clothing, aired and folded their bedding in the morning, and filled their large bathtubs in the evening. The new Japanese constitution outlawed titles and hereditary peerage. The constitution took effect in May of 1947: the characters in both novels are highly aware of this official loss of status that they have experienced, or are experiencing during the events of the two books.

Also in 1947, conditions in bombed-out, burned-out cities were disastrous for rich and poor Japanese people. All necessities, including food, were very scarce for everyone, with black marketeers creating even more problems. Neither of these authors describe the plight of poor people, though one knows they existed, and in fact many lacked not only food but also shelter. Despite being somewhat better off than the poorest citizens (to whom they were suddenly equal before the law), the aristocrats in the novels felt very deprived: their former unearned standard of living simply could not be maintained. In both stories, the noble families include one relative with a bit of his fortune remaining — and the entire family wants to depend on this person. However, that doesn’t last long. 

In The Setting Sun, Dazai’s narrator is a 29 year old woman, Kazuko, who has formerly lived a completely idle and undemanding life with her mother and her recently deceased father. Her brother is missing in action somewhere in Pacific theater after the war, and when he appears, he’s quite a mess. 

Kazuko suddenly finds that she and her mother must move from their rather luxurious home in Tokyo to a small house far from the city they knew. At the insistence of her uncle, who more or less takes responsibility for them, she and her mother, and later her brother, must figure out how to live with no servants, and how to cope with postwar food shortages and other challenges. Her mother is good-natured, very passive, and doesn’t even try to understand what has happened, but assumes that she will continue to be cared for, fed, nursed, and be handed whatever she needs despite her sudden loss of status, money, and servants. She loves her son and her daughter, but fails to understand what they are going through.

Kazuko tries to insulate her mother by doing heavy farm labor to keep them supplied with vegetables, and by selling their valuables one by one: clothing and jewelry, etc. While her uncle tries to help them, he too is rapidly losing his sources of income (the details are vague: we don’t really ever know where their wealth came from previously). Her brother, after being repatriated from the former war zone, spends most of his time drunk; he becomes addicted to opium, takes any money they have, and often goes to Tokyo where he has disreputable friends with artistic careers but little moral character.

Choices are limited, and Kazuko descends into self-destructive behavior, attempting to become the mistress of a dissolute artist who maintains a Bohemian and corrupt lifestyle. Quite a bit of the short novel consists of the long letters she writes to this man, attempting to explain her position in society (or her lack of a position). It’s a very dark book, with an even darker ending. Her efforts to find herself are very fascinating, and I haven’t really captured the spirit of the book in these few paragraphs. It’s a portrait of a person deprived of the environment she had been accustomed to expect. At the same time it is a portrait of a society that has changed drastically and for the complacent aristocracy, has changed catastrophically.

My impression, based on both The Setting Sun and The Devil’s Flute Murders, is that Japan was lucky to be rid of the idle and unproductive nobles, who were effectively living as self-indulgent parasites. This impression is based solely on the two books, and I think this was the intention of both authors. It’s amazing to imagine this long-ago and very alien era compared to dynamic and democratic life in Japan today — if I am not misinformed! I wonder if the few nations on earth that still maintain such an idle class would be lucky if some catastrophe had rid them of these parasites. Finally, I wonder about our own billionaires and how their excessive lifestyle will be able to continue!

Review © 2023 mae sander.