I was cleaning my bookshelf when I discovered my copy of “No Longer Human” by Osamu Dazai, and I remember being incredibly impacted by this novel. I do not wish to make people uncomfortable, so I apologize if this may be too much information, (please let me know if I have shared too much and I will remove this section from the post.) but as somebody who is bedeviled with mental illness, aside from the outdated beliefs and language I found this novel unnerving due to how synonymous some of the protagonist/author’s thoughts overlapped with my own. This was one of the few novels I thought about for days after finishing. I am curious to see what other people have thought about this novel.

Thank you all for taking the time to read and reply, I hope you all have a lovely day.

  • averageENTJgirl@alien.topBEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    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.