Eight Views of Tokyo by Osamu Dazai

First published: "Tokyo hakkei," 1941 (English translation, 1983)

Type of plot: Psychological

Time of work: 1930-1940

Locale: Tokyo

Principal Characters:

• A writer
• H, a former lover
• Mr. S, a former teacher
• T, a young draftee

The Story

It is July 3, 1940. The author has stopped at a small impoverished village on the Izu Peninsula looking for an inexpensive place to stay and write. For ten days he recalls the sordid events of the last decade, writing about a life of poverty and debauchery as a young student in Tokyo. He had moved many times to keep ahead of the law and creditors—hence the "eight views," although he actually records more than eight impressions of his past.

His writing retreat gets off to a bad start. The inn is shabby, and the maid insists on a deposit when she learns that he will stay ten days. That night, however, he gets out his worn map of Tokyo. It reminds him of a mulberry leaf eaten by silk worms. Like the worms, people from all over Japan descend on Tokyo, pushing and shoving, each seeking a desperate living, "females calling to males, males just wandering around half-crazed."

The first "view" is a Totsuka boardinghouse, where he rented a room in 1930 and entered the French literature department of Tokyo Imperial University. From the second semester on, however, he stops going to classes to work as a political activist. He also invites to Tokyo a young geisha whom he had met a few years earlier, who is identified in the story as "H." H was under contract as a geisha, and his family is shamed by the scandal. An older brother is sent to Tokyo to clear up the matter. There is a tense family conference. The writer agrees to send her back to the countryside as long as they are permitted to get married eventually. He sleeps with her for the first time the night before she leaves.

H wrote that she had arrived back, and that was all. The writer, in despair because of her lack of commitment, devotes full time to political work without much success. He begins a short and sordid affair with a Ginza bar girl who falls in love with him. In part to get attention from both H and his family—they were appalled at the H affair—he attempts a double suicide with the bar girl by swimming into the sea at Kamakura, but only she succeeds. He is put on probation, and his family is reconciled with the would-be suicide. They buy out H's geisha contract and send her back to Tokyo, where he rents a house in Gotanda, the second "view" of Tokyo. By this time, the author is twenty-three and H is twenty. He is supposed to be continuing his studies, supported by the family, but he seldom attends classes, and does nothing but watch H.

That summer they move to the Kanda area of Tokyo, one known for its bookstores and student hangouts. In the fall they move again, and again in the spring they move to Yodobashi as the writer begins to dabble in haiku. Twice he is held by the police and questioned about political activities. He moves again to avoid the police, to a room over a lumber dealer in Nihonbashi. In this sixth "view," the writer takes on a pseudonym to cover his trail. Beset by ennui, he occasionally goes to the university, not to his classes but to lie on the lawns.

It is there that he learns that H had slept with another man before joining him in Tokyo. He rushes home to confront her, but she coolly denies the allegations, allaying his suspicions. Later that night, however, he reads Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Les Confessions de J.-J. Rousseau (1782, 1789; The Confessions of J.-J. Rousseau, 1783-1790), and comes to the realization that H had lied. He feels betrayed and leaves in disgust and confusion. Lacking another place to stay, he returns home to her, and they make an uneasy reconciliation. Again they move, to a small gatehouse of a ruined mansion. They survive on money sent from the family, which has all but given up on the twenty-four-year-old profligate son.

The writer begins a lengthy last testament, thinking of suicide once again. It becomes his first major work, a chronicle of his evil childhood and adolescence. Having set this period down on paper, he finds that he cannot finish, that he needs to bring it up to the present: "I was being consumed by a demon who eternally beckoned. It was like an ant trying to stop an express train."

By now it is 1933, and the writer is theoretically due to graduate, but he cannot. The next two years he lies to his brother to get more money to live as a "student," repeatedly promising to graduate, and buying time to complete his manuscript. Finally, he finishes and names it The Final Years.

The next "view" is a room in a house in Suginami owned by a friend. For two years he continues work on his collection of stories and continues the pretense of going to classes. By this time, he is deceiving even H. He puts on his school uniform about once a week and works on his stories at the school library, returning home in the evening. The burden of this elaborate deception and the increasing impatience of his relatives begin to weigh heavily on the writer. He knows they will cut off his meager allowance if he tells them that he is finishing his last testament.

They move yet again when their friend changes houses to be near his work. Neglecting his health and drinking, the writer finally chooses his best fourteen stories and burns the rest. He settles his affairs and adds two letters to his completed manuscript. He pretends to H that he is busy with graduation preparations, but he knows that he will fail his final exams at the university. It is 1935 and time to end the deception and die.

Because he could not drown himself five years earlier, the writer tries to hang himself in the hills of Kamakura, but once again he is a failure, returning home with a red and swollen neck. Again his family rallies around him. Ironically, a few days later he nearly dies of appendicitis. He has a long and difficult recovery requiring lengthy hospitalization. H takes up residency in the small private hospital with him; three months pass. They move to the seacoast of Chiba Prefecture to continue the recuperation, but another danger appears. While in the hospital, the writer becomes addicted to painkilling drugs, and this new vice is expensive. He becomes dirty and a nuisance to editors in Tokyo, whom he asks for money.

He is finally on the edge of recognition, for his friends have placed several of his stories in good magazines while he was in the hospital. Soon all the stories are sold to pay for his drug habit. As he falls deeper and deeper into debt, his acquaintances begin to avoid him. Finally he reaches the bottom and is placed in a mental hospital. H meets him a month later when he is released. Their reunion is tense and full of suspicion. Nevertheless, he immediately begins to write to pay the bills. His earlier stories were well received, and he has requests from two magazines for more stories. After selling them, he spends the money on a month long drunk at Atami. Returning to Tokyo, he is given another shock. H has had an affair with a painter friend of his, and there is no resolution. He and H attempt suicide by poisoning but fail. She finally leaves him to a solitary drunken existence. His family falls on hard times and he begins a gradual transformation. There is no critical incident, no dramatic turning point, but somehow he decides to become a real writer. He works with great intensity, and soon produces a story about his latest failed suicide, which sells immediately.

This success leads him to a yearlong retreat in the mountains, where he completes more short stories and works on a novel. He also makes a conventional arranged marriage through a mentor—the wife is not described—and gradually works his way out of debt. One evening, in their Tokyo house overlooking the Musashino Plain, he hits on the idea of writing about his views of Tokyo.

Two final scenes are added. One is a meeting with a former teacher who had almost given up on him during his deranged period. They visit an art museum where a painting by H's painter is displayed. Both agree that it is no good. The other scene occurs when his sister-in-law's fiance, T, is drafted. His wealthy relatives and employees in their factory all gather at a temple to see him off. When his regiment stops there, T immediately picks out the writer from the back of the crowd. There was a bond between them because the writer has also faced death. As the troops leave, he calls out, "You have nothing more to worry about!" Several days later, the writer sets out for Izu to write, and the story comes full circle.