Boy: About novels which drive people to death like Dazai's works. I think the acts of living are usually written in novels. I wonder why Dazai must write novels which drive people to death after all.
Mishima: That is Dazai has a problem rather than his works have. For example, when Goethe wrote The Sorrows of Young Werther, he might kill himself. But he didn't need to kill himself because Werther killed himself instead. I think Goethe grew greatly and gradually, facing the sun, as though trees grow. He often had crises like that and had lived while solving them by literature. I think that is literature. As for Dazai, literature luring people to their death doesn't matter, because literature isn't medicine and nutrition. However if authors can't revive by writing literature, I think what the purpose of it is. I don't like only his works, but also how to relate between his works and a author Dazai. But he is a very talented person. In Japanese modern literature, there are few authors as talented as him. does this sound natural?