Jun Tsuji - "Death of An Epicurean"

"Death of An Epicurean"

One notable play written by Tsuji is the dadaist/absurdist "Death of an Epicurean" (「享楽主義者の死」 (“Kyōraku-shugi-sha no Shi”?)) in which a figure must confront Panta Rhei (Ancient Greek: Πάντα ῥεῖ), or the transient nature of all things. Tsuji saw the concept of Panta Rhei to be related to Stirner's Creative Nothing, wherein it is because of the nihility of all things that there is potential for creativity and change. Tsuji also found this relevant to the Buddhist concept of nothingness, sometimes translated as mu.

In “Death of an Epicurean”, Tsuji comments on the destruction of the Ryōunkaku (Cloud-surpassing Tower) in the area of Tokyo he often called home, Asakusa. This building was a skyscraper that had become very much a symbol of modernity in Japan, and its destruction in the 1923 Great Kantō Earthquake came as a harrowing omen to many who saw it as reminiscent of the Tower of Babel. This symbol would become a popular one in literature, used by such authors as Ishikawa Takuboku.

Written in the wake of this event, Tsuji's “Death of an Epicurean” reads:

In this passage Tsuji describes the birth of an Epicurean out of someone who experienced the transience of such eternal-seeming icons as the Ryōunkaku and greater Tokyo. The Epicurean is portrayed here as someone who, in their despair, embraces the Arts in response to tragic ephemerality. For Tsuji, whose residence was reduced by the earthquake to a "monster right out of Cubism", this passage comes off as autobiographical, describing his own turn to revelling in Epicureanism and the Arts.