Season of the Sun - Taiyou no Kisetsu

A novella by Ishihara Shintaro. Published in Bungakukai in July 1955. In the autumn of the same year, it won the 1st Bungakukai Newcomer's Award. In January 1981, it won the 34th Akutagawa Prize. Published by Shinchosha in March of the same year. It depicts the scene of a playful sexual exchange between Tatsuya Tsugawa, a student in the boxing club who believes only in physical actions, and Eiko, a pretentious bourgeois girl, and explores the surprisingly healthy and desperate form of love between young people. The depiction of a penis tearing a shoji paper screen became an explosive hit, and, aided by the fact that the author was an unknown student writer, it sparked a spectacular debate over literary and ethical values, even giving birth to a new custom known as the "Taiyo-zoku." This shocking material was inspired by Takeda Taijun's earlier work, Igyo no Mono. The significance of "Season of the Sun" lies rather in the fact that it confronted people at the time, ten years after the war when they had finally grown accustomed to peace and were feeling depressed, losing sight of their dreams of postwar change as consumer life improved, with the rebellious sentiment and playful sexual awareness of the new young generation, and forced them to become aware of the arrival of the 1950s, a period when "the postwar era is no longer in full swing."

[Hisashi Furubayashi]

"Season of the Sun" (Shincho Bunko)

Source: Shogakukan Encyclopedia Nipponica About Encyclopedia Nipponica Information | Legend

石原慎太郎の中編小説。1955年（昭和30）7月『文学界』に発表。同年秋、第1回文学界新人賞受賞。56年1月、第34回芥川(あくたがわ)賞受賞。同年3月新潮社刊。肉体的な行動のみを信じている拳闘(けんとう)部の学生津川龍哉(たつや)と、背伸びしたブルジョア娘の英子(えいこ)との遊戯的な性愛の交換風景を描きながら、そこに若者たちの意外に健康で必死な愛の形を追究してみせた作品。陰茎で障子紙を破る描写が爆発的な評判となり、作者が無名の学生作家であったという事情も手伝って、文学的・倫理的価値をめぐる論争が華々しく展開し、「太陽族」という新風俗まで生み出した。この衝撃的な素材は武田泰淳(たいじゅん)の先行の作品『異形(いぎょう)の者』にヒントを得たものである。『太陽の季節』の意義はむしろ、戦後10年、ようやく平和にも慣れ、消費生活の向上とともに戦後変革の夢を見喪(みうしな)って鬱屈(うっくつ)していた当時の人々に、若い新世代の反逆的な心情と遊戯的な性意識を正面から突きつけて、「もはや戦後ではない」昭和30年代の到来をいやおうなく自覚させた点にあるとみるべきだろう。

［古林　尚］

『『太陽の季節』（新潮文庫）』

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