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Decadence is a concept that designates a given historical moment as a phase of decay and valorizes the past as an irretrievable golden age. This study offers an innovative examination of a century of Japanese fiction through the analytical prism of decadence.

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Introduction: The Making of Decadence in Japan 1. Immature Decadents: The Waste of Useless Men in Indulgences - Two Novellas by Oguri F?y? and Iwano H?mei 2. The Decadent Consumption of the Self: Naturalist Aestheticismin Morita S?hei´s Sooty Smoke 3. Decadent Returnees: The Dialogic Labor of Sensibility in Nagai Kaf?´s Sneers and Ueda Bin´s The Vortex 4. Taish? Malaise as Decadence: Self-Reclusion and Creative Labor in Sat? Haruo´s A Pastoral Spreen and Tanizaki Jun´ichir?´s A Fool´s Love 5. Decadence Begins with Physical Labor: The Postwar Usethe Body in Sakaguchi Ango´s The Idiot and Tamura Taijir?´s Gateway to the Flesh 6. Decadence as Generosity: Squander and Oblivion in Mishima Yukio´s Spring Snow 7. Capitalist Generosity: Decadence as Giving and Receiving in Shimada Masahiko´s Decadent Sisters Conclusion: Toward Japanese Decadence: The Dynamics of Energy from Waste to Living Labor

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"Skillfully blending literary, philosophical, historical, and economic issues, Ikuho Amano´s exploration of Japanese decadence is groundbreaking and compelling. This brilliant analysis of non-productive, subversive labor as resistance to mainstream social and aesthetic values highlights new fascinating connections between European and Japanese modernity...a crucial reading for anyone interested in East-West literary and cultural relations." - Nicoletta Pireddu, Associate Professor of Italian and Comparative Literature, Georgetown University, USA

"This book is an exceptionally fine study of how decadence as a theme can be understood as a counter trope to the major aesthetic currents (including collectivity and conformity) that dominate twentieth century Japanese fiction. Ikuho Amano´s brilliant, close readings - buttressed by a wealth of references to Japanese literary-critical discourse and contemporary Western literature and theory - and rediscovery of some important but neglected works of fiction portrays modern Japanese fiction in an entirely new light." - Leith Morton, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan, and author of The Alien Within: Representations of the Exotic in Twentieth Century Japanese Literature

´Ikuho Amano´s study of Decadence is a contemporary genealogy of ´useless men´ in a modern efficiency-driven economy. It will be of interest to all scholars of modern Japanese culture, transculturation, and intercultural studies.´ - Regenia Gagnier, Professor of English, University of Exeter, UK and author of Individualism, Decadence and Globalization

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Ikuho Amano is an Assistant Professor of Japanese and the Coordinator of the Japanese Program in the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, USA.

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