The Life of a Stupid Man

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Akutagawa’s stories are fascinating because they each deal with themes of death and decay through the lens of everyday objects, nature, and human relationships. The stories are deeply embedded in the heaviness of feeling and human experience, putting into perspective the confines of a human life and how synonymous it is with the eternal ephemerality of “a drop of dew, a flash of lightning.” The manuscript was completed on June 20 1927, and Akutagawa sent it to another novelist friend, Masao Kume. In an attached note, Akutagawa wrote: "I am living now in the unhappiest happiness imaginable. Yet, strangely, I have no regrets. I just feel sorry for anyone unfortunate enough to have had a bad husband, a bad son, or a bad father like me. So goodbye, then ..." We started with his descriptions of his mother whom he described as lunatics and whom he barely have any affection for but also afraid he becomes like her as he lives each days with fear. Then, we moved slowly as he grows to become a writer but pressured to concur with the writing industry, married to a woman he loves but ends up in affairs, growing passion for arts and philosophy but also contradicts most of them, become a father but felt he is useless and unsuitable and each time he muses on death and what does it mean to live. At school Akutagawa was an outstanding student, excelling in the Chinese classics. He entered the First High School in 1910, striking up relationships with such classmates as Kikuchi Kan, Kume Masao, Yamamoto Yūzō, and Tsuchiya Bunmei. Immersing himself in Western literature, he increasingly came to look for meaning in art rather than in life. In 1913, he entered Tokyo Imperial University, majoring in English literature. The next year, Akutagawa and his former high school friends revived the journal Shinshichō (New Currents of Thought), publishing translations of William Butler Yeats and Anatole France along with original works of their own. Akutagawa published the story Rashōmon in the magazine Teikoku bungaku (Imperial Literature) in 1915. The story, which went largely unnoticed, grew out of the egoism Akutagawa confronted after experiencing disappointment in love. The same year, Akutagawa started going to the meetings held every Thursday at the house of Natsume Sōseki, and thereafter considered himself Sōseki's disciple. The Death Register is the thoughts of the author himself which told about the three people in his family and how they died. It was a recollection of his thoughts, on the people that somehow mattered to him, and also showing how he had felt at each individual's death at the time. It was sorrowful, and I had definitely loved the haku at the end of the story.

Nothing like dipping into your favourite author’s works when you’re stressed no? I’m glad this was the last book I read before studying for my exams. Lo primero que me encontré con este libro fue con el “biombo del infierno”, el cual pasé de largo ya que ya lo leí la semana pasada en “Roshomon y otros cuentos”, luego me vi sumergida en un ambiente denso de “Los engranajes” me costó leerlo sinceramente, no estaba preparada para verme en un ambiente de depresión mezclado con un comienzo de esquizofrenia, donde las alucinaciones visuales y otros fantasmas comienzan a alterar su pensamiento.By 1926, his insomnia was chronic and his fear of having inherited his mother's madness had become an obsession. There had also been a number of affairs and near-affairs with women, which left him with feelings of guilt. One woman in particular remained his private fury, the Goddess of Revenge, and the source of much of his torment.

Short stories, I know for me, have always been a hit-or-miss. I’m almost always left with wanting more from a short story, but not this time. The three short stories will not be for everyone's cup of tea, which I recommend proceeding in this book with extreme caution of the trigger warnings (Death, Suicide, Suicidal Thoughts) . It highlights the stages of life in which Akutagawa reflects on his life, up till the moment of his death bed.

Summary

It is difficult to say that such book is understandable or not, factual or fictional. Either way it is reasonable to believe that this kind of writing was written and published by a desperate man who suffered enough in his life and had depressing thoughts about life in general. The first story is a little bit disturbing. It describes an incident of a man who was murdered and tortured before his wife which acted in a strange way. At twenty nine, life noblonger held any brightness for him, but Voltaire supplied him with man made wings.