An Anti –  Love Story

—  On Junnosuke Yoshiyukiʼs Toward Dusk

Abstract

Junnosuke Yoshiyukiʼs novel Toward Dusk (1978) is not a work that tries to depict the humanity of the individual characters. Rather, it is a work that tries to depict pure human relations only. More specifically,the author took out only the structure of the love relationship and depicted it. The seven chapters that make up this work are the so-called seven figures which each represent the structure of the love relationship. If a reader sees the seven chapters (i.e. the seven figures) superposed, he can see clearly come out the structure of the love relationship that is simple and complex at the same time. But the structure looks very desolate and dreary. We no longer can call this novel a “love story”. It is an anti-love story.