女生徒

Genuine beauty is always meaningless, without virtue.RatingI’ve opted to give Schoolgirl a 5/5 rating. GenreI am very unsure of the genre of this book, and therefore can only label is as Japanese Culture, and Japanese Literature. About the BookSchoolgirl follows the typical day of a young Japanese school girl. We are introduced to a lot of her inner feelings, including grief, mourning, happiness, and are shown her realism. With further revision, I have found out that this novella describes the social structures of a time in Japan, now lost, and how the young girl we follow struggles against them. Why did I choose this book to read?I chose to read Schoolgirl because it was the first Dazai Osamu story I came across. I’ve wanted to read Dazai’s work for a long time; he’s well renowned as being one of the best Post-War Japanese authors around, so when I found Schoolgirl I just had to dive in and give it a read.PricingI read this for free thanks to a 30 day free trial with Scribd.Note: with the 30 day free trial you only get three book credits to read three full books.What did I think of it?Schoolgirl is a hard title to review. I didn’t think much of it when I first started reading it, and it was hard to actively get into (see: qualms). Eventually, when I say down and forced myself to read, I was able to appreciate it for what it was. A young girl, struggling in the coarse of daily life; it was really relatable, other than the obvious Japanese traditions which I don’t partake in, but it was scary how much I could relate to this. It moved me, massively, and I teared up at one or two parts of the story. Dazai’s words may be used very simply at times, but they portray such a massive picture. Dazai has created a true work of art within Schoolgirl, and I may be biased because I love Dazai’s aesthetic so much, but this was truly stunning.Did I have any qualms with it?I had a qualm when I first began to read it, and that was the very short sentences that read more like a poem than they did a story. It took me time to get used to it, and to realise that perhaps this was due to translation, or this is how sentences are structured in Japanese, or just simply, Dazai wrote them that way. It took me time to adjust, but once I did, I can no longer refer to this as a qualm. Upon studying it after finishing Schoolgirl, I found out that Dazai was using new language types, using ironic and inventive language use and it made sense. After rereading the first few pages with this in mind, I was able to enjoy it much more. Would I recommend it and who to?I would definitely recommend this novella to everyone and anyone who enjoys Japanese literature, and stories that are likely to become classics in later years. I would recommend this to anyone who enjoys short novellas, and to those who enjoy novellas that make them think about the world, and their own lives.Overall opinionSchoolgirl is honestly a masterpiece. Never have I been so taken back by a story before, let alone a small novella. This deserves so much attention. You can feel the pain that Dazai was in when writing this and it gives the story a whole new feel. I loved this; I 100% loved this, and this is definitely a book I will be buying a copy of to add to my small collection of Japanese literature.