Description

Dazai Osamu authored The Fairy-Tale Book (Otogizoshi) within the last weeks of the Pacific War. The standard stories where Dazai's retellings are based are well-known to every Western schoolchild, but this really is no children's guide. In Dazaiis fingers such stock characters whilst the kind-hearted Oji-san to Oba-san ("Grandmother and Grandfather"), the naughty tanuki badger, the fearsome Oni ogres, the selfish old man, the "language-reduce" sparrow, and obviously Urashima Taro (japan Rip van Winkle) become complicated people experiencing complicated and nuanced ethical problems. The resulting reports are believed-provoking, frequently amusing, and slyly subversive.