This is without a doubt the darkest story I’ve ever read.

I first read it in a Junji Ito manga adaptation before purchasing the original book by Osamu Dazai.After reading, it truly made me think about death and how a person feels so ‘alienate’ that they withdraw from society, as if I had been depressed for the entire week.

The story depicts Yozo, who is incapable of revealing his true self to others and instead maintains a facade of hollow jocularity. His attempts to reconcile himself to the world around him begin in early childhood, continue through high school, where he becomes a “clown” to mask his alienation,later involved in alcoholism and drug abuse which eventually lead to a failed suicide attempt when he’s an adult.

The only issue I had was with the main character, Yozo.He talks about how frightening people are, doing things solely to satisfy their own emotions, and how scary they are to him, but he is exactly that. Everything he does is motivated by his own emotions. He exploits nice people and justifies it by claiming that humans are animals.While in reality,he is exactly the animal he describes, controlled by his own fear.

(Trigger warning;suic!de) Even though I have a love-hate relationship with the character, the saddest part was learning that the book was heavily inspired by the life of Osamu Dazai. The character Yozo was a ‘self insert character’ that portrays Osamu tragic life. Osamu was suicidal and suffered from mental illness, alcoholism, and drug addiction. He,much like Yozo are detached from society.On June 3rd, 1948, he and his wife eventually committed suic!de which they drowned themselves in the Tamagawa River.

This made me really sympathize with the author, and he is still one of my favorite authors to this day. The book he wrote really portrays a sense of isolation, loneliness, and alienation from society that it always gives me a sense of odd,yet grief whenever I read his book.

For me, one of the most shocking parts was to read about the author’s life afterwards. Things that strained credulity in the book are taken directly from his life.

I read it about a year ago and enjoyed it. It was a sad but thought provoking book.

I think what stood out to me the most in the book were the struggles of faking “normal” and the main character’s inability to notice that there truly were people that liked him.

It was definitely a look on mental illness that few authors ever touch on.

I think it’s good, but not great. Those who are totally blown away by it should read some Camus, Cioran, Ligotti, etc…

Literally just finished it right now. I felt conflicted with the novel the entire time. I can relate to feeling like a spectator to other humans lives but it’s hard to like Yozo. I loved the novel but the selfishness, self loathing, and disgust he had for the world around him made it difficult for me to sympathize for a man who created all his problems. I’m just glad he points it out but is then conflicted with being an egoist or the complete opposite. A man who is never sure of himself but somehow always is with the decisions he makes.

Page 157-158 where he acknowledges his self destruction is what made me love this novel

I love it for its role in Japanese literature overall. No Longer Human is basically the definition of a Watashi Shōsetsu. An entire genre came from this (I mean there were others before, but Dazai really gave it the shape it had forever since). But like other works in that genre, it’s kinda rough reading this knowing it’s basically autobiographical, and one can speculate whether Dazai specifically focuses on all the negative stuff and dark thoughts.