After defeat in 1945, the aristocratic Kazuko and her ailing mother retreat to a mountain villa in Izu, where snakes and bad omens gather. Her opium-addicted brother Naoji returns from the front, and Kazuko pursues a married novelist in a desperate bid for love as her class dies out.
Books mentioned in The Setting Sun (4)
A Sportsman's Sketches by Ivan Turgenev: “"What about Turgenev?" "He's an aristocrat. That's why I dislike him." "But A Sportsman's Sketches..." "Yes, that one is rather good, I admit." [auto-translated]”
Introduction to Political Economy by Rosa Luxemburg: “In the room next to the parlor, I was reading Rosa Luxemburg's Introduction to Political Economy with a strange excitement. I had brought it from Naoji's room upstairs the other day. [auto-translated]”
Selected Works of Lenin by Vladimir Lenin: “Along with it I had also borrowed, without asking, the Selected Works of Lenin and Kautsky's The Social Revolution, and set them on my desk in the next room. [auto-translated]”
The Social Revolution by Karl Kautsky: “I had also borrowed, without asking, Lenin's selected works and Kautsky's The Social Revolution, and set them on my desk in the next room. [auto-translated]”