#puhh

Snake symbolism plays a big role in this story and maybe this might also tell us how we should see the snake/serpent symbolism in TG. So at the start and in the middle of the story snakes can be actually seen as a death symbol. The first chapter of setting sun is called snake .There are two incidents why Kazuko's mother is scared of Snakes. The first one: Kazuko's father dies and snakes are present during his death. The second one: because Kazuko confuses viper with snake eggs and tries to burn them (her mother sees this as a bad omen and Kazuko feels so bad about it that she has the unbearable sensation that a snake is growing inside of her own chest to shorten her mother's life). Kazuko's mother dies in the story later. She tells Kazuko before her death that she had a dream about a snake and Kazuko really sees a snake.

But now comes the interesting part .Kazuko who sees herself as a person born for love and revolution later recalls words from Jesus "wise as serpents and harmless as doves" and now look at the full sentence in the bible which also appears in the book : “Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves" (this sentence needs actually an own  meta post. Depending on the translation it says shrewd/cunning instead of wise and harmless instead of innocent (x). But I hope  it's obvious why this describes Kaneki and  why serpents/snakes can be interpreted  in a positive way here).  

And really there are a lot of moments which represent Kaneki's life (or rather what happened to him in the end of TG.) For example Kazuko and her mother talk about Naoji and Kazuko says " Scoundrels like Naoji simply don't die. The ones who die are always the gentle, sweet, and beautiful people" and it gets even better:

Before the mother dies there's actually a part where she gets sick and says after recovering " God killed me, and only after he had made me into someone entirely different from the person I had been, did he call me back to life." If this doesn't describe what our god of death (Arima) did to Kaneki then I don't know what else does.

I mentioned above that all the three main characters share some similarities with Kaneki. Naoji is the one who commits suicide in the end and he mentions in his testament that he should have died sooner, but couldn't kill himself as long as his mother lives .Now of course these are not clear parallels, but he also mentions that he wanted to become strong and that he's better off dead and these are of course passages which could be interpreted in regard to Kaneki (but I won't do it. I just wanted to mention it). There's also a diary written by him which Kazuko reads and there's the sentence  "You do not know that you are loved" written in it (There are so many passages in this book which remind me of Kaneki it's actually scary).

I actually even wonder if Kaneki's name had been inspired by this book because the snakes Kazuko sees during her father's death are twisted all around the trees of the garden pound and it's actually a story where money plays a huge role (Kaneki's name has the kanjis for tree and money). But like many things here this is of course just speculation and yes some things will be clearly a coincidence, but I wouldn't wonder if this is an important book for Ishida. And yes, we can still hope that Ishida used the quote from setting sun in the first chapter to foreshadow that our beloved protagonist will realize that he's loved and made for revolution. In the end his life could parallel Kazuko ( Naoji and the mother could represent what happened to him at the end of TG and the start of :Re) because even while reading it (it's written in the first person and Kazuko is the narrator) there are a lot of moments where it sounds like Kaneki is speaking or at least which remind me of him (Kazuko  mentions that she doesn't understand love or simple affection or that she can't go on living like this and that her present life is unendurable)….Really I wouldn't even wonder if I will see more parallels later.

Other parts which I found interesting:

-There's a part about the "right hand of Venus" and this hand is described as pure

- There's even a part about Venus which reminded me of Eto. Eto is often associated with nakedness, but no matter how cruel she is we know why she became like this and this passage here reminded me of her "the tragedy of her nudity".

-Kazuko writes a letter, but also talks about herself in it : Then, half covering my face with my right hand, I murmured, "I'm sleepy. I'm so terribly sleepy."

This reminded me of V14 not only because of the word sleepy, but also because of this here:

- Naoji tells his mother to put a mask on after hearing that her tongue hurts and he calls it "aesthetic treatment" and Kazuko tells the reader " Mother dislikes putting anything on her face, even glasses or an eye-patch if her eyelids are inflamed, let alone a mask" (really it's not possible to read setting sun without being reminded of TG)

-Kazuko calls herself a victim in the last chapter and feels as if she has lost everything (her mother, brother, her lover etc.), but at the same she calls herself happy now because she wanted to become pregnant and this finally came true (could mean Kaneki will get a good/bittersweet ending).