No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

4.5/5 rating

Genre: Novella, Adult Literary Fiction

Trigger Warnings: Grooming, Incest, Rape, Suicide, Suicide Ideation, Depression, Death, Addiction, Abuse, Classism

"People talk of 'social outcasts.' The words apparently denote the miserable losers of the world the vicious ones, but I feel as though I have been a 'social outcast' from the moment I was born. If ever I meet someone society has designated as an outcast, I invariably feel affection for him and emotion which carries me away in melting tenderness" (Dazai 67). 

Have you ever read a book where you felt the author was writing your thoughts? A moment when you sit and ask how the author could understand you so well? 

Have you ever felt your heart sink for the author? Wished to grab them, and pull them into a hug. Reminding them they are not alone, but wondering if those words would even effect them. 

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai is a novella of a young boy named Oba Yozo. This young man lives as the fictional portrayal of Osamu Dazai himself. Dazai sees Yozo as a failure, who is trying to live a normal life. Yozo grows up believing that he can not function in this world as a human, so he pretends by using humor to amuse the humans among him. He records the cruelties life brought him, and the connections that were fleeing at the tips of his fingers.

As I read through the pages in this book, I realized I related to Oba Yozo's character more than I wished to admit. 

At the beginning of the book, I believed that Yozo had Anti-Social Personality disorder. It goes without saying that he was a human who believed that he wasn't. He had a social disorder, and this was the one that initially stuck. However, as the book went on, I realized that I might be wrong. The more Yozo explained his desires and what his life felt like, it became more clear on what he might be suffering from. 

"Am I wrong in thinking that these people have become such complete egoists and are so convinced of the normality of their way of life that they have never once doubted themselves" (Dazai 25)?

Just like Anxious People by Fredrik Backman, perception plays a large part within No Longer Human. One person's misery may be someone's joy. Just as their misfortunes may be treasures for us. Perspective and circumstances play an interesting part in human's lives. For one person, the burdens of another can cause you to go crazy, while for another person, it is nothing and leaves them unfazed. 

Oba Yozo's perception in life was distorted and corrupted by injustice. There were even times that I couldn't defend the young man. These were moments when I felt ashamed to have felt sympathy for the man, and yet, I couldn't help but feel like he was misunderstood and he misunderstood the world. That being said, his actions were not justified by any means. 

Alter egos are easy to write in some cases. An alter ego of a superhero or villain are the most common, but that's different from what Osamu Dazai did. He wrote his alter ego as a torn, failure of a person. My heart hurts thinking that this is maybe what Dazai thought of himself, and knowing the history of what happened to Dazai, many feel pain in their hearts seeing the connection.

Dazai wrote with insight, and taking care with every sentenced he had written. Someone had once told me, that they wanted their book to have meaning behind every sentence. Dazai would be an example of what I thought her book would have sounded like. 

There were even times when I hadn't made connections that Dazai made. When reading, that is exactly what a reader should take out of a book. For example, on page 147, Yozo begins to explain the words Crime and Punishment. He recalls that Dosoievski arranged these words to not be synonyms but as antonyms-like oil and water. 

As the story progresses, Dazai makes a point to have Yozo show his struggle in human interaction as he becomes an adult. Yozo goes onto tell the readers that he is "wretchedly timid and [is] forever trying to read the expression on people's faces" (Dazai 150). 

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai is a psychological novella that goes into the mind of an emotionally neglected person. With the elegant story telling and deep connection with characters being written, it is no wonder that this is still in the top ten bestselling books in Japan. 

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