No Longer Human

by Osamu Dazai

Book Overview

Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.

Portraying himself as a failure, the protagonist of Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human narrates a seemingly normal life even while he feels himself incapable of understanding human beings. His attempts to reconcile himself to the world around him begin in early childhood, continue through high school, where he becomes a "clown" to...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0811204812
• ISBN13: 9780811204811
• Release Date: January 1973
• Publisher: New Directions Publishing Corporation
• Length: 176 Pages
• Weight: 0.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.1" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

Amazing

Won’t spoil it

Not engaging

It had a couple interesting anecdotes and relatable ideas about life and people, but it wasn’t really anything groundbreaking. Overall, I don’t think the story was intriguing and the characters felt flat.

An Unsettling Beauty

This book is wonderful, it encapsulates the experience of a man who whilst being an absolute POS somehow also shows that whilst he pities himself, the author of the book most clearly does not. I read this book in a very interesting transition in my life as I was making the change from High School to Adult life, and it changed my mind on who I was and who I should be. That’s not to say that I became better, simply more proactive. This is a book that is certainly not for those looking to change their lives, but for those who stumbled upon it and felt a relation to its title and just as this book changed me I hope that it helps another soul lost in a transition.

My thoughts

I don't really write many reviews.... Obviously, since I don't have the best grammar nor do I know how to write a good review, but this book was just amazing. I've read it before but never got to buy it. I'm so glad I got this book, 10/10.

addictive

i first looked into an anime called sayonara zetsubou sensei and the first episode included an excerpt from this novel. so i decided to read it and i really enjoyed it

Genius or Madman?

"No Longer Human", by Osamu Dazai is basically a narrative based on the author's life. It would be difficult not to be captivated by Yozo, the main character of the story. From childhood Yozo feels strangely alienated from human society. As you read his views about the world you can't help but become completely fascinated with his strange way of interpreting the world around him. This book is obviously intended for a mature audience due to the explicit subject matter involving drugs, alcohol, sex, and prostitution. I think the author's objective in writing this novel is to open the eyes of those who read it. Although the character of Yozo seems odd and quirky, the reader can't help but feel enlightened by his way of seeing things. On several instances I found myself thinking he was in fact a genius for seeing things in such a different way than the average person. This of course would make me the ordinary person. Although as Yozo points out in the book, genius is often mistaken for madness and I suppose it goes the other way as well. Along with enlightenment comes the sad realization that perhaps it is his ability to see the truth in people that causes him such horror. He knows that people put on false fronts in order to fit into society and because of this one can never truly trust another person. I admit even I can scare myself when I over analyze the fact that you can truly never know another person's thoughts or intentions. Yozo however takes this to extremes and relies on vices to keep his mind from scaring him to death. I found this book almost impossible to put down. It is a story like no other I have ever read. I found the story captivating. I think part of what kept me interested was wondering if Yozo would ever feel comfortable in his own skin. I almost felt sorry for him and hoped he might find even the slightest bit of happiness. Of course any small bit of happiness he found he would pay for ten fold with misery, which was his nature. Overall I found the book very eye-opening, even though the ending did not have much of a climax.

Topically (and otherwise?) funny

I tutor a Japanese woman once and week and I recently asked her for advice on selecting Japanese authors (partly for the reason mentioned recently in The Atlantic Monthly's book review section: American literature normally finds itself caught in a breeze of cultural shallowness). "Osamu Dazai is good," she responded, "but I think he maybe too depressing."My student, understandably, reads the book in a very different context than I do. She follows Yozo, the main character, through his trials and tribulations with a sense of impending dread - one that is brought to fruition with a storyline meant to explore the emotional and personal impact of the post-war period. While the American reader can glean the same reading, "No Longer Human" is also appealing in its quality of universality as applied to the common man. Yozo stumbles around his life bemoaning the world around him and his inability to operate in it, and the effect is often humorous and insightful. True, he is a tragic character, but one imbued with a sharp eye and a sharper wit. "No Longer Human" is filled with observations that I laughed at because of their appropriateness in my life, which upon casual comparison, shouldn't be similar at all."You thought it was funny? How? It's so sad!" my student all but yelled at me."Well, it's funny because it's so...correct. It's a great book because it deals with something so simple, and it deals with it well."

A timeless classic of world literature

No Longer Human is regarded as a work of autobiographical fiction that reflects the struggle for the Japanese people to adjust to post World War II realities. Well, I'm not so sure about that. As Donald Keene states in the introduction, it is probably a mistake to do so. The events are clearly based upon his life experiences, but the story is too well crafted to be a mere recounting of the years when his life was surrendered to drugs and alcohol. And what relation does the book have to the post-war years, aside from the fact that this is when it was published? Whatever the case, No Longer Human is a fabulous book, a true work of World Literature. For all of us who appreciate literature, we are all very unfortunate that Dazai took his life at a relatively young age and before his best works were created. Suicide is the ultimate act of selfishness.

Very powerful book

This is one of the most powerful book I have ever read. This novel (inspired by Dazai's autobiography and written in the first person) tells the story of one person who feels since childhood utterly alien from his fellow human beings but learn to put a face to hide his deep sense of alienation and his despise for the hypocrisy of society. He feels incapable to belong to a human society (hence the title). Follows a descent into alcohol, drugs, suicide as the main character enters into aldulthood. The story did remind me a little of Camus' The stranger (l'etranger) in so far as both are a tale of a person alienated from the society at large. But Dazai also explore the sense of self-loathing and self-destruction and is therefore much darker (Camus sounds cheerful in comparison). Dazai is known as a dark post-war writer and indeed this is a dark novel.