“It would be more moral to have no thoughts at all.” #schoolgirl #20BOS26 Book 37 #shortstoryseptember

My second read for Short Story September is a book I picked up fairly recently after seeing it pop up on a number of blogs I follow; it’s by an author I’ve read before and was a recent recent from Penguin Classics in their nice plain coloured, French flap range. The book is “Schoolgirl” by Osamu Dazai, translated by Polly Barton, and it made for perfect reading on my train journeys to and from London in August. Most of my reading of Dazai’s work has been pre-blog, but I have spent time with a couple of his books on the Ramblings. He’s a fascinating author, and this little volume contains some early short stories by him, including the title story which is edging close to novella length. Intriguingly, all of the stories are told from the point of view of female protagonists, and they’re compelling reading. “Schoolgirl” itself opens the collection and at 61 pages is the longest in the book. It’s narrated by a teenage girl, who takes the reader through her day; we get the view from inside…