"THE LIFE OF A FOOL" REVIEW BOOK

Akutagawa Ryunosuke’s short story collection “The Life of a Fool” is imbued with the spirit of worshiping pure beauty. Because Akutagawa is a person who has spent his whole life pursuing absolute beauty with the concept of “art for art’s sake”. Because of this literary concept, Akutagawa has always been considered a madman, a person who cannot be accepted by the social crowd.

AKUTAGAWA – THE PERSON WHO HAS FALLEN INTO BEAUTY

Akutagawa Ryunosuke is the father of modern short stories in Japan. Along with Nastume Soseki and Ogai Mori, writer Akutagawa is a mainstay of modern Japanese literature, having a profound influence on the writing style of later generations. Although his writing career was extremely short, lasting only 13 years, he left behind more than 150 short stories and novels. The collection "The Life of a Fool" includes 9 works, a rather modest number compared to his creative achievements. However, the collection is a selection of the most quintessential works in chronological order to help readers see the differences in Akutagawa's writing style and thoughts in different periods.

Beauty is what Akutagawa always seeks through his writing, he is a person who always pursues and worships beauty. The character model that sees perfect beauty as the truth of life is clearly shown in his short stories. For him, life is first of all beauty and then goodness. That concept makes people see him as a madman, rushing into beauty regardless of the current ideological framework.

“A human life is not worth as much as a single line of Baudelaire’s poem”

The short stories in the collection “The Life of a Fool” will bring readers closer to his artistic ideas. Akutagawa devoted himself to portraying a Yoshihide in the short story “Hell”, a man who is so passionately in love with the true beauty in painting that he is willing to sacrifice his life. Yoshihide never paints something he cannot see with his own eyes, cannot feel from his heart, because to him it is no different from deceptive art.

But other artists are not like him, they can paint heaven even though they live no better than those in hell, they can paint hell even though they have a life of luxury that tramples on the miserable. Art for others is based on the traditional framework of their predecessors, without having seen or heard it. Speaking of painting flowers, it must be graceful, speaking of painting people, it must be gentle. Painting is a noble and elegant thing, there is no place for the trivial, vulgar, dirty, or resentful. But life is never all as one wishes, if it is only perfect like that, then it is certainly not the whole life, but only the life of a rich aristocrat. The painting that glorifies the smile of the ruling class, no matter how perfect, is never beautiful, never art.

So for someone like Yoshihide who only paints what he sees with his own eyes, how can he follow the art of those who hold the brush? What Yoshihide saw was only the cries of the oppressed class in society, the scattered corpses of hungry and miserable lives. Therefore, the paintings he painted were filled with cries, death, and suffering. He was willing to jump on a corpse on the side of the road to feel the pain of human life, willing to give up his life to feel the pain and use it to paint what he called a masterpiece. And he shed tears because he held a brush but could not paint what was called art:

“Then the climax was one day, a disciple, not knowing what to do, went out to the garden and saw his teacher standing there staring at the spring sky with tears in his eyes. […] He also found it strange that an old man so complacent that he jumped on a corpse on the side of the road to paint the Five Wheels of Life and Death would cry like a child because he could not paint a screen.”

Unfortunately, the person who goes against the crowd, the person who is different from the rest of society, is always the one who is considered abnormal, crazy. Yoshihide and Akutagawa worshipped art and beauty, opposing the framework of the sloppy theories of those who called themselves artists but had never felt with their hearts. But like the title of this short story collection, they were seen as living “the life of a fool”, criticized and ridiculed for being abnormal people with unrealistic artistic dreams.

THE WORRY ABOUT THE TIMES

Akutagawa's literature is always sad, tragic and haunting, sometimes it is an unintentional mockery of the world. That tragedy originates from the author's childhood tragedy, his mother died of depression leading to suicide. Because of that, he grew up in pain and fear, so when he grew up, Akuatagawa could not live optimistically and happily like other people of his age. Akuatagawa inherited that depression from his mother, which made his later years even more tragic.

The short story "Kappa" in the collection "The Life of a Fool" contains Akutagawa's pain and worries about life in a very special way. "Kappa" is a fictional work, based on the theme of the unreal aquatic creature kappa. This is a creature that only appears in ancient Japanese legends. The story describes a young man who accidentally came to the world of kappa, and when he returned to human life, he was considered crazy.

From the beginning, the work was absurd, but it was a metaphorical absurdity. What is so attractive about the world of kappa to humans? It is truly a place that is completely different from that of humans. It is a place where fetuses can choose for themselves whether they want to be born or not, women can freely pursue men without fear of public opinion, love across classes is a noble thing, those who love each other are suicide soldiers and are posted on posters for propaganda.

“In your human stories, suicide soldiers are people who kill each other to win a railway line, right? I think compared to that suicide soldier, our suicide soldier is much more meaningful.”

That world of kappa is the life of humans at that time turned upside down, and it is also Akutagawa's desire for a happier world. So, when my character came to the kappa world for a while, enjoyed democracy and freedom here, he became a misfit when he returned to the human world. My character still lived with the good values he learned in the kappa world, and people considered him crazy and sent him to a mental hospital. Was he really crazy to believe in freedom and democracy in a world that did not exist, or was society crazy to disregard the value of freedom?

The work, through the free world of kappa, attacked the capitalist society that valued war and despised human life. And those who realized the cruelty and coldness of that capitalist society were considered crazy. Therefore, the literature that Akutagawa wrote was considered the literature of an idiot, an abnormal person.

“Why do you oppose the modern social system?

Because I see the evil that comes from capitalism.

The evil? I don't even think you have the ability to distinguish between good and bad. How is your life?”

Akutagawa often uses somewhat absurd things, materials from ancient stories and legends to express his thoughts. Just like he used the kappa in the legend to write the short story “Kappa” to refer to the contemporary society, the contemporary Japanese government chasing after materialism and meaningless war. He used the hero Momotaro in Japanese legend to write the short story “Momotaro” to satirize the brutal war of the government in Asia, the heroism that is in the name of protecting other peoples but is actually invasion. He used the story of Buddha Shakyamuni to write the short story “Spider's Thread” to criticize those who are selfish and only care about themselves.

The writing style based on ancient material but from a different and sometimes contradictory perspective is what makes Akutagawa's writing special. He expresses his concerns about life in a different way, using ancient stories as material, so it is very absurd, but it is a metaphorical absurdity. His literature is like a series of codes, the reader will decode the absurdity and understand the hidden thoughts inside.

THE TRAGEDY OF THE ARTIST

Those who disobey the will of the crowd will always be heavily criticized, those who dare to oppose the old way of thinking and live according to their own will find it even more difficult to survive in society. Akutagawa was such a person, his writing career was never easy. If in other short stories he expressed his anxiety and pain in an absurd metaphor, then in the story “The Life of a Fool” that pain was expressed directly. This was his last short story, and was used to name this collection of works. This short story was written a month after he committed suicide, ending his short and brilliant thirteen-year literary career.

“No matter how unfortunate, gods cannot commit suicide like humans.”

The work is considered an autobiography of Akutagawa’s pain and unfulfilled wishes. Throughout his writing career, the artist has always been devoted and devoted, but the times have changed, capitalism has come to power, and a troubled, sensitive person like him is seen as even more insane. He has no way to continue writing and creating, nor is there any way to live in that rotten capitalist society. He has endured that criticism all his life, and has no way to continue to endure.

The work depicts a class of people who struggle to live when times change, writhing in pain because capitalist life only cares about money. It is a life where people have an abundance of material things but are rotten in spirit. Akutagawa wants to rebel against that society, but there is no other way to live. Society is vast, people are small, and individuals who oppose society only suffer. “He went through his life, finding himself not particularly desirous of anything. But just a flash of purple fireworks… a flash of fireworks that went out in the sky was enough to save this life.”

Akutagawa Ryunosuke’s life was like a meteor streaking across the night sky, brilliant and short-lived. He worshipped beauty, he was considered insane. However, he still wanted to live like a meteor, although it was short-lived and extinguished, but there were times when it was so brilliant that it moved people’s hearts.

“The Life of a Fool Will” is not the entire literary career of Akutagawa Ryunosuke, but it is the most outstanding works at each memorable milestone of his life. From the first short stories that were praised by his predecessor Soseki to the short stories that made him rise to the same level as Soseki. Akutagawa’s success can be described as extraordinary. But unfortunately, the eternal tragedy in society is that an extraordinary genius is treated no differently than a madman