Reading Society
The Reading Society is a secret Communist study group that enters Yozo's life during his college years in Tokyo, introduced by his acquaintance Masao Horiki as a way to show off his "modernity." For Yozo, a man who has lived in mortal dread of human beings since childhood, the movement becomes an unexpected and paradoxical refuge. He finds the atmosphere of an underground movement "curiously soothing and agreeable," not because of its basic aims but because of its "personality"—its irrationality appeals to him far more than the logic of the world, which he finds frightening and incomprehensible. While Horiki attends only the first meeting, treating it as just another Tokyo sight, Yozo continues to attend regularly, performing his full repertory of farce to relax the tense, life-and-death atmosphere that the comrades maintain around their elementary theoretical discussions.
Yozo's Role and Motivation
Yozo's participation in the Reading Society is driven by a complex of personal needs rather than political conviction. He finds the irrational world of the movement far more agreeable than the world of rational gentlemen, and he is able to do what is expected of him in a "sound" manner. His clowning makes him so popular that he becomes considered indispensable at the meetings, though he is fully aware that he is deceiving the comrades who see him as an optimistic, laughter-loving fellow. He attends not because of any common affection derived from Marx, but because he likes to, because those people please him. The movement's irrationality gives him a sense of ease; he feels that though outside lies the sea of irrationality, it is far more agreeable to swim in its waters until presently he drowns. His involvement deepens unexpectedly when he is chosen as leader of all the Marxist student action groups in the schools of central Tokyo, racing about here and there maintaining liaison, carrying in his raincoat pocket a little knife he bought for use in an armed uprising—though he remembers it had a delicate blade hardly strong enough to sharpen a pencil.
The Nature of the Movement and Its Members
The Reading Society operates with excessive precautions, its members perpetually prey to life-and-death tensions that suggest to Yozo a clumsy imitation of a detective novel. The missions on which he is employed are of a stupefying inconsequentiality, but the comrades keep themselves worked up into a state of frantic excitement by incessantly reminding themselves how dangerous these errands are. Yozo finds it uproariously amusing to see his comrades, their faces tense as though discussing matters of life and death, absorbed in the study of theories so elementary they are on the order of "one and one makes two." He punctiliously acquits himself of all their dangerous missions, smiling and making others smile, and is never so much as picked up for questioning by the police, whom the comrades call "the dogs." The movement serves Horiki merely as a pretext for idiotic banter; he gives as his reason for not coming again the stupid joke that Marxists should study not only the productive aspects of society but the consumptive ones. Yozo reflects that in those days there were Marxists of every variety—some, like Horiki, called themselves such out of an empty modernity, while others, like himself, were attracted by the odor of irrationality.
Consequences and Decline
The Reading Society's demands on Yozo escalate to a point that overwhelms his sickly body and fragile psyche. The jobs required of him become so frequent and frenetic that he can no longer perform them half in the spirit of fun. He races about here and there maintaining liaison, and his fondest wish is to drink himself into a sound stupor, but he has no money. Requests for his services come from the party so frequently that he scarcely has time to catch his breath. His only reason all along for helping the group had been his fascination with its irrationality, and to become so horribly involved is a quite unforeseen consequence of his joke. He feels secretly like telling the group, "This isn't my business. Why don't you get a regular party man to do it?" Unable to suppress such reactions of annoyance, he escapes—but it gives him no pleasure, and he decides to kill himself. This decision leads directly to his love suicide attempt with Tsuneko, the event that changes everything and marks the beginning of his descent into a life of shame. The Reading Society, which had offered him a temporary escape from his dread of human beings, ultimately becomes another force that drives him toward self-destruction, its irrationality no longer a comfort but a trap from which the only exit seems to be death.
