Pathway to Japanese Literature
Discover Japan's stories—across time, across language.
← Back
Dr. Niji's DecadenceAuthor: Sakaguchi Ango
| Original Title | 霓博士の廃頽 |
|---|---|
| Author | 坂口 安吾 |
| Genre | Detective & Mystery |
| Author Type | Male Author |
| Summary | In a shadow-drenched city under starry skies, an eccentric philosophy professor and his beleaguered student spiral into a surreal dance of violence and mystery. Dr. Niji—a diminutive, silk-hatted academic—ambushes his narrator with manic ferocity: kicks, nose-twisting, and desk-throwing escalate into nocturnal chases through plane-tree alleys. The student endures these outbursts with morbid curiosity, convinced the professor’s rage masks a secret tied to his recent marriage to a pistol-wielding young beauty. By day, lectures devolve into chaos; by night, drunken escapades at a forest tavern reveal Dr. Niji’s obsession with Clara, a barmaid whose affections ignite his wife’s wrath. Amidst neurasthenic despair and absurd brawls, the narrator navigates a world where logic crumbles—fortunes twist maliciously, souls vanish mid-conversation, and love manifests as drunken propellers of fury. What begins as academic duty unravels into a darkly comic odyssey of obsession, betrayal, and spectral misfortunes, where every shattered window and flung chair hints at deeper grotesqueries lurking beneath civility’s thin veneer. |
← Return to List← Return to TOP