Considering it’s a love letter… just basic things, like “I love you”, probably written in a poetic way?
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You only had issues with the last 3 lines? Give me your brain, because I have 0 idea what I just read. 
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wait, did it say it was a love letter? I must have missed that.
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それはお園が京都で修業していた時に貰った艶書であった。
(Emphasis mine)
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Thank you. I didn’t look up 艶書 and just assumed it’s a synonym for document or letter… the 書 lulled me into a wrong sense of security. 
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Well, it is a letter
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Ahhh. I got the metaphor in that sentence but not the other I think because one was easy to ‘visualize’ but the other I conflated the ‘belly’ with the train itself. I didn’t catch the consistency of using those descriptions.
Haha, a lot of Dazai’s works are less about Japanese knowledge and more about picking out the message he’s trying to convey (which is usually more of a wiggly ‘vibes’ than a straightforward message because if the latter it’d be easy to grasp!). It reminds me a lot of a class I took on short stories in university which was full of things like this. The writing is delicious and then it just stays tumbling around your head awhile and you get a feel for the meaning. If that makes sense 
I do this all the time. Aozora is really hard to rate because you have to remember details like ‘did it have old kana? did it have old kanji with no furigana? was there old grammar?’. I feel like after I read it I tend to forget those things, but they do make an impact on how easily a learner can pick up the story.
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December 16th’s Mystery Pick!
Natively: 反スタイルの記 | L35??
朗読: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fJ9da3RsEg
I’ll put in a request to recategorize this to nonfiction.
I loved this. It was incredibly interesting to read and after this I actually plan to reread it more slowly and look some things up. I had no idea this sort of drug culture existed in Japan at that time, and I wonder how much it informed Japan’s current drug policy. I also have noticed I’m very drawn to 坂口安吾’s writing style. He’s not a poetic as 太宰 (for example) but he’s got a way with words and is a pleasure to read.
edit:
I ended up reading a bit of several sources are none really gave me all I wanted, but the tldr is that yes, these drugs were legal up until 1951 when the 覚せい剤取締法 was passed. It also seems like they were only available for a little while before the war as well, so it didn’t have a ton of time in the country to be easily used. ヒロポン in particular had less than 10 years (昭和１７～２６). I didn’t immediately come up with any great sources in Japanese as to what led up to this, and I’m sure I could find them in English but as I’d like to challenge myself a bit I’m instead going to look for a book on this in Japanese to read next year 
edit: ok I can’t seem to stop reading about this. This article was a good overview read: https://novel.daysneo.com/works/episode/c3b6af57a4175ce7a393ab9710004764.html
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I DNFed 「女らしさ」とは何か | L37. At that length the level was just too high for me. I put it in deepl because I was curious what it actually argued and it’s an interesting piece but there were just way too many words I didn’t know. I would easily put that in the mid 40s levelwise.
Might just be that I am having a really bad day, but I was so lost right from the start.
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I see from @cat 's review that it also makes the 人間/人形 wordplay, so that’s twice this advent.
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Yeah, this was an interesting essay. I didn’t notice until afterwards that it was the same author as the Dec 10 essay on kamikaze.
Looks like this was still a period where authors were freer in their kanji use; the second sentence writes ふつかよい two different ways:
そのときは二日酔いの薬というＹ君式の伝授で、社の猛者連中が宿酔に用いて霊顕あらたか、という効能がついていた。
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I thought it might be a reference back to the earlier paragraph where the fat, wealthy guy puts down his ticket to be stamped and suddenly everyone follows his lead. Which in the end turns out to be the wrong decision.
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I noticed that as well. Or well, I noticed that the person doing the 朗読 pronounced both as ふつかよい but my dictionary gives しゅくすい as the reading. However, this article implies ふつかよい is the main reading with しゅくすい as the alternative.
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I’m going to play catch-up today as it’s been a week, and I started late in the first place.
「女らしさ」とは何か | L37 : This was above my level, a dozen lookups in just the first sentence. I ended up turning to the youtube reading and was able to get most of it from context while listening and reading along. I appreciated that she spoke fast enough that it wasn’t a drag. Definitely a reminder that I enjoy non-fiction more than fiction, as it was less of a struggle in terms of attention than 手ぶくろを買いに | L20 .
悪妻論 | L35 : That was a major contrast to 「女らしさ」. In spite of being written later, it’s language seems more archaic. I had to rely on the youtube reading as well. My impression was of a boring, rambly, emo, edgelord. 「人の心は姦淫を犯すのが自然」? Ok dude.
赤い蝋燭 | L19 : This happened to my buddy E̶r̶i̶c̶ Rob.
赤い手袋 | L20 : Sudden depressing turn at the end there. Liked it, a quick read.
待つ | L28 : She’s just like me fr
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The Aozora text furiganas the first 宿酔 explicitly as ふつかよい, I was just too lazy to do the ruby markup. Though as the book I’m currently reading (振仮名の歴史 | L30??) points out, it’s hard to tell whether furigana were the author’s original intent or added in editing and printing. Apparently Soseki cared a lot about the kanji choices he made but didn’t care to exercise much editorial influence over the furigana. Some of his stories ended up with different furigana in some places in the Osaka newspaper vs Tokyo newspaper vs the first paperback edition…
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December 17’s mystery pick:
Natively link: 一片の石 | L35??
朗読: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzHQ7270vmA
I’ll put in a request for this one to also be moved to nonfiction.
I can’t say I found this one that interesting. It felt like a very basic point being made in a belabored way. Then again, I also got bored of all the China talk and barely bothered even trying to parse the poems. Maybe someone else will enjoy it more. I did find 堕涙の碑 to be quite interesting though. Apparently in English it’s known as the “Monument of Tears”.
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Mmm, me too. I have a bad habit with this kind of text of kind of skimming through and assuming words I don’t recognize are all just Chinese people and place names, which means I don’t look up things I really ought to…
The author was a poet, so I suppose for him the poetry was a big part of the point, but I’m not a big poetry fan even when I can read it easily. Ironically, he seems to have had a big memorial stone of his own put up in Niigata:
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I’ve fallen somewhat behind and didn’t have time to share my thoughts about the stories and essays I’ve read, so here is an aggregate post including all of them.
10日 - 特攻隊に捧ぐ
I have been curious about the author for a while, so it was nice to finally get a small taste of his writing. About the actual content, I have slowly been listening to the audiobook of 永遠のゼロ recently which also features the 特攻隊, so it had me pondering on the nature of war and thinking back to some of the characters from 永遠のゼロ.
11日 - 葬られたる秘密 A DEAD SECRET
I have heard of Lacadio Hearn before, so I was excited to read one of his ghost stories. To be honest, though, this didn’t leave much of an impression on me. I found it to be an ok read and that’s all I can say!
13日 - 蠅
We started out with the cicada and description of the stables…and then moved on to the innkeeper, the people waiting for a carriage…and while reading, I kept wondering how everything would tie together and why the story was called 蠅、and I found at the end! 
I didn’t see that coming, but I am a fan of a dramatic ending so thumbs up for this one.
14日 - 手ぶくろを買いに
This was very healing and cute! I normally don’t like 癒し type things, but children’s stories or talking animals do it for me!
15日 -「女らしさ」とは何か
Rather difficult in the first section, but became easier to read after. I found this to be a nicely written 評論 that felt very similar to works of Western feminist theory but from a Japanese point of view. Considering that it’s from the 1920’s, I was surprised how modern the ideas felt.
17日 - 蜘蛛の糸
I am a big fan of 芥川龍之介 and this short story, so I took the opportunity to revisit it today! I recently read another book in a very modern setting that referenced 蜘蛛の糸 (which I shall not name due to spoilers), and it reminded me how fantastically this story (like many of 芥川s stories) captures a dark little slice of human nature. Ok, fan girl mode off now. 
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Uh, there was no story called 蝉. Based on the date, do you mean 蠅? That’s a very different insect 
(I liked the ending too)
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Oops yeah I did! I’ll edit that! That would indeed be a different story (all those insect kanji start to look the same)
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