Literary rants

 

 

I read a lot. I stare at books and screens like a maniac until the stories are finished. This habit is shared between all two of my sisters so you can say we have a little shelf full of books that we have re-read a thousand times and still never get bored. Nowadays, I often read to get ideas for the blog and to brainstorm topics for future articles which has led me to come across an array of new words and possibilities.

My pastime during the day is playing games. This particular game that I play has a very interesting plot and the characters have a very unique way of speaking. One of them really piqued my interest when she talked about a villain’s backstory through an allegory. Allegories are stuff that tell you the truth in a roundabout way, basically.

I was just randomly scrolling through the web one day and found out an alternate version of Romeo and Juliet. My knowledge of this famous romantic tragedy was very limited since all I knew was that Romeo used to like Rosaline who didn’t know he existed and then he fell in love with Juliet and in the end, they die. Upon thoroughly reading the actual plot, I genuinely felt bad for hating on Romeo because I used to think it was very un-becoming of him to give up on Rosaline in the blink of an eye. Little did I know that he was mourning over his unrequited love to the point that his best friend was annoyed at Rosaline for not liking him back. Now, this new version follows Rosaline’s point of view and is set in a time where she actually returned his affections. Alas, he elopes with Juliet by faking both of their deaths and leaves Rosaline behind with a son. Peak drama that I had not, in a thousand years, would expect. Too bad I read this version before even knowing the original version because it fueled my dislike of Romeo even further.

 Also, couldn’t he have waited for like, five more minutes to see if Juliet would wake up before ending his own life? Like brother, calm the hell down. I do appreciate Shakespeare’s works but. I just can’t seem to find myself take Romeo seriously. He has a very pretty way of talking though.

I like it when there are stories that parallel real-life events. A Japanese author named Kafka Asagiri has created a series named ‘Bungo Stray Dogs’ which has a very interesting cast of characters. All of them are given the names of famous authors from Japan and the West. The people in this world have a unique power, which they refer to as an ‘ability’. These abilities are named after the said authors’ greatest literary works of all time. Herman Melville’s ability is named ‘Moby Dick’ Which is a huge airship in the shape of a whale. Likewise, the series is also apt at creating the plot based on each author’s real life events. It is extremely disconcerting for viewers when they watch the first season as most of us cannot understand why the show has a running gag of “double suicide’’ by a character named ‘Osamu Dazai’ and the very particularly named abilities that don’t seem to match the actual ability itself. Only after a thorough background check of the show, do viewers come to realize that the show has filled itself with real-life references. Osamu Dazai was a very renowned author who had written his semi-autobiography named ‘No Longer Human’.

The protagonist in his book was leading a life of depression and misery and had tried to commit suicide with a woman he had loved.  However, due to a tragic twist of fate, the woman dies and he ends up getting saved. This incident is the origin of that gag in the show, where the ever-so handsome Mr. Dazai tries to convince the café waitress and the mafia’s blonde informant to commit double suicide with him. Also, they gave Dazai a whole baggage of depression mixed with the loss of a dear friend and the title of a very calculating and lethal assassin.

Another character who has his share of tragedy is Doppo Kunikida. The real Doppo Kunikida’s wife, Nobuko Sasaki, left him to fend for himself after only five months of marriage. Her mother suggested that she should commit suicide with him (Mam, are you a psychopath?) but she dumped him ruthlessly which is worse than suicide. At that time, kunikida had stumbled upon a financial block and was unable to support his pregnant wife, which is why that narcissistic woman left him. This separation traumatized Kunikida and he slowly started to lean towards writing romantic poetry after that. Case in point, he is one of Japan’s greatest romantic poets of all time.

Well, the show’s Kunikida also had a two-episode worth of the same heartbreak. He and Dazai rescue a ‘kidnapped’ woman named Nobuko Sasaki who is actually hatching an undercover plot (but we don’t know that, obviously). This beautiful woman who ‘looked like a lily’ entrances audiences with her soft-spoken charm and her overall elegant way of holding herself up. Incidentally, Mr. ‘I-need-to-focus-on-my-job-rather-than-on-love’ Kunikida, finds himself getting into her charm too but she turns out to be a murderer’s wife who shared the same psychopathic mindset. She dies, but not after thinking that maybe she should have dropped the murder act and chosen Kunikida. Too late lady, you already broke our man’s heart!

Suffice to say, I thoroughly enjoyed it even more when the second season brought forth a newer cast of characters (both from Japan and the West) that fully awakened the literature enthusiast within me. I was barely seeing the sunlight during those college days when I was getting home at 8:30 in the night when I left home at 9:30 in the morning (arguably better timings than ninety percent of the colleges in my city but still). I was also being constantly yelled at and being told that I wasn’t studying enough and that I should give that stupid medical entrance exam. Due to the amount of times my self-worth was suffering damage every day, I was in no mood to watch a sappy drama or an emotional one either. I think my humor was affected too because despite Bungo Stray Dog’s underlying dark theme about death and tragedy, I somehow gained insight as well as enjoyed it. I got a roundabout history class of three seasons. I also got another lesson about how circumstances affect a person’s will to live. Anyone, with a life of constant misery and suffering, have zero to no self-esteem and end up in an endless cycle of self-pity.

 

Overall, I was spurned to improve my writing when I watched it because the language used is so beautiful and it sounds like honey to my ears. Say, how does ‘Plum blossoms in the snow’ sound to you? I – I know it sounds out of context but it has such a soft ring to it.

 

 

Note: as I was writing this article, I was doing a wiki search to make sure I got all the facts covered so when I arrived at Dopo Kunikida’s part, I was unable to wrap my head around the fact that his mother-in-law suggested suicide to her own daughter rather than letting him marry her. Can you imagine the conversation being like-

“Hey mom, there is this guy named Kunikida. He’s a decent guy. I want to marry him”.

“What?! Don’t do this, Nobuko! I have something better for you…better than marrying that man!”.

“Ooh, what is it?”

“Kill yourself with him. Here, I got you some cyanide. Or do you want something sharp-?”.

“I can just…divorce him after marriage, no?”

But for real, I disliked the part where she left him for her own enjoyment and expressed contempt in the face of her husband’s difficulty.