Reviews

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

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randomheart's review against another edition

challenging dark emotional reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I listened to the audiobook for this and I think that was one of the main reasons it took me quite a while to get into. I've always found it much harder to get into audiobooks as opposed to myself being the one reading a book (I get distracted very easily...and when I read, I tend to have to go back an reread passages a lot). I definitely think that a book of this nature (one that has heavy philosophical and introspective themes) is not the ideal type of book to listen to as an audiobook. I think this in a way might have influenced my feelings on it, and it makes me want to reread this again one day in book format instead to see if those feelings change.

Overall, this book isn't an easy one to get through. The themes and issues it deals with are dark and quite depressing. At the same time, I can also see why so many people find this book so personal and relatable, myself included. There's something quite universal about the feeling of not being able to 'fit in', and in Yozo, the protagonist's case, this feeling results in him not even seeing himself as a human being. He spends so much of his life 'clowning' in order to assimilate in society that it ends up making him spiral into drink and drugs to cope, and eventually into the dark depths of despair and self-destruction.

As someone that suffers from anxiety and depression (and particularly social anxiety), I definitely found a lot of the fear that Yozo felt about rejection and constantly having to people please in order to be non-confrontational extremely, extremely relatable. I have been there. I am still there. The 'clowning' he did was very real to me (although I tend to 'clown' in a different way). There is absolutely something deeply personal about all of this, which is why it's not at all surprising to me that so many people can resonate with the depth of Yozo's feelings and emotions in this novel.

I will admit, that there were parts of this novel that lost me a little. Maybe it was also a cultural or contextual thing that I don't understand fully? It makes me want to reread it again to see if I'd understand it all better if I analysed everything in deeper detail.

Yozo himself is not an especially likable protagonist either. He obviously doesn't have to be since in a way that's what makes him as realistic as he is...but I can't deny that a lot of the language he uses, and the way he speaks about women, is quite misogynistic and rubbed me the wrong way. That being said, I'm aware that this was written a long time ago as well...so I can understand that this is likely what most men thought about women at the time and society has changed a lot since then.

I can certainly see the literary value of this book, and I do want to come back to it again one day...but I think I might take a break from books of this nature for a little while for the time being.

3/5