Introduction: The Making of Decadence in Japan -- One. Immature Decadents: The Waste of Useless Men in Indulgences : Two Novellas by Oguri Fūyō and Iwano Hōmei -- Two. The Decadent Consumption of the Self: Naturalist Aestheticismin Morita Sōhei's Sooty Smoke -- Three. Decadent Returnees: The Dialogic Labor of Sensibility in Nagai Kafū's Sneers and Ueda Bin's The Vortex -- Four. Taishō Malaise as Decadence: Self-Reclusion and Creative Labor in Satō Haruo's A Pastoral Spreen and Tanizaki Jun'ichirō's A Fool's Love -- Five. Decadence Begins with Physical Labor: The Postwar Usethe Body in Sakaguchi Ango's The Idiot and Tamura Taijirō's Gateway to the Flesh -- Six. Decadence as Generosity: Squander and Oblivion in Mishima Yukio's Spring Snow -- Seven. Capitalist Generosity: Decadence as Giving and Receiving in Shimada Masahiko's Decadent Sisters -- Conclusion: Toward Japanese Decadence: The Dynamics of Energy from Waste to Living Labor
Summary:
"Ikuho Amano examines the significance of "decadence" in the context of twentieth-century Japanese literature. Decadence, the literary theme and motif surviving through the history of literary and cultural discourses in Japan since antiquity to the present, holds a key to understand the wide range of social consciousnesses that cannot be always molded by a given social mainstream. Drawing on the economic issues prevalent in twentieth-century fictions, the book argues that non-productive labor plays an integral part of modern society and culture while accommodating the entropic excess of modern society. Subversive practice of economy is in particular a recurrent theme in Japanese Decadent literature, including waste, squandering, wagering, and excessive generosity. Through these deviant dealing of resources such as money and body, the decadent individuals negotiate with modern utilitarian ideologies of society based on labor and production, showcasing their desire and dream outside the circle of diligence and productivity"-- Provided by publisher