Pathway to Japanese Literature
Discover Japan's stories—across time, across language.
← Back
Laziness KarutaAuthor: Dazai Osamu
| Original Title | 懶惰の歌留多 |
|---|---|
| Author | 太宰 治 |
| Genre | Modern Short Fiction |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | A man grapples with his most consuming vice—indolence—in a whirlwind of self-mockery and existential musing. His days dissolve into absurd distractions: obsessing over grape-seat etiquette, theatrically cleaning his ears, or donning a cold-prevention mask like a tragicomic prop. He rationalizes inertia with lofty proverbs (“A seamless celestial garment”) yet despises his own excuses, chain-smoking through hollow confessions of frailty. Between fleeting attempts at productivity—heating a spatula for a household member or skimming a writer’s work only to laugh bitterly—he spirals into daydreams of travel and trivial debates over corn-eating techniques. His inertia mirrors creatures: a listless dog, a slothful starfish. Yet beneath the farce simmers a desperate yearning to create, to transcend his “human disqualification.” He oscillates between shame and defiance, mocking literary pretensions while clinging to faith in art’s sincerity. Mythological vignettes and ghostly fables interrupt his ramblings, blurring reality and delusion. A moonlit hallucination terrifies him; a drunken epiphany about courtesans twists into despair. Through it all, he teeters between surrender and resolve—a man drowning in lethargy yet straining toward some fragile, uncertain redemption. |
← Return to List← Return to TOP