On the Road

Yasuda Shunsuke is a university student with a sharp eye for other people’s pretensions and a less certain understanding of his own feelings. Around him gather an arrogant classmate, an affected artistic circle, an aspiring woman writer, and a quieter young woman whose presence unsettles his composure.

In libraries, concert rooms, cafés, and streetcars, conversation turns into rivalry and cultivated opinions conceal more intimate doubts. A visit to a psychiatric hospital exposes different kinds of curiosity and sympathy. Later, an unexpected confession forces Shunsuke to consider the distance between romantic devotion and the restless pursuit of conquest.

First published in 1919, Akutagawa Ryūnosuke’s On the Road combines social comedy with a searching account of love, loneliness, and self-deception. Its Tokyo setting is alive with books, music, fashionable theories, and the awkward exchanges of young intellectuals.