On Books, Music, Moods, and Anguish

Being ill once more this year, I finally got some time for self-reflection and to put some of those thoughts in (digital) ink.

For the last month, I have been drawn to some writers once again: Georges Bernanos and Osamu Dazai. At first thought, it’s hard to say there are any likeness between the hot-blooded French Catholic Bernanos and the nihilistic and depressive socialist Japanese Dazai. To that, though, I would like to object. Both men have a direct connection through what we could call a shared pain: the anguish of alienation from your fellow man.

The way this feeling is expressed by both isn’t equal, but it does share some similarities. This feeling, though, isn’t unique to them, but it’s shared throughout the entire XX century.

That’s maybe why at the same time I was drawn again to the books of those two, I was also drawn to the electric-distorted sound of the post-punk ’80s, especially from Joy Division. This somber tone, this existential anguish in music, is the same anguish of Bernanos and Dazai.

It shouldn’t be a surprise then that what drew me to all of those was nothing else than this same feeling of anguish, of alienation, this perception of the “lost cause” of this world we live in. In times like those, I envy any person that can manage to keep their hope alive, that can believe we head towards a brighter future, and not just towards more darkness, anguish, and pain.

Those feelings are bound to pass, they always pass, but until then, all of these men will be accompanying me from their graves, in their books and music.

— Kuehnelt