A review by elwirax
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

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

3.0


"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."

"Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness. Everything passes."
 

The semi-autobiographical nature of No Longer Human and the use of first person meant that I found it almost wrong to rate this knowing that it was definitely not going to be a 5 star book for me. The prologue was great which is why I hate to say that there wasn't much I actually enjoyed about this book irrespective of the subject matter. I found it hard to feel anything other than the ocassinal disgust which is astonishing given its raw exploration of mental illness and isolation. I'm led to believe that maybe this is due to the translation and its inability to convey the original meanings or emotions. Another factor that contributed to my dislike was the deplorable misogyny (yes, yes I am aware when and where this was written. I'm tired of reading about it). 

Yozo's flawed disposition left very little room to like him as a character. That being said, I also couldn't entirely fault him for succumbing to things like morphine addiction. Building a fulfilling life while trying to survive with Yozo's attitude towards life and society is hard. While I don't encourage such self destructive actions, I can empathise to an extent with his need need to grasp some sense of meaning and value in life whether it be false or not. The book attempted to show that despite being isolated a person can still try to build connections with others. However, this was mostly shown by mutual suffering which only added more gloom to an already gloomy book. I suppose that's maybe part of the complexity of Yozo's character, no matter how hard he tries he can't reconcile himself with society. I found his pursuit of self expression through art admirable but other than that he didn’t really have any redeeming qualities. 

Undoubtedly, the book is an interesting exploration of how mental illness progresses from adolescence to adulthood and the effects of alienation from society. While it was a good that mental illness wasn't glamourised and was allowed to show its true face, It was also hard to truly "like" the book. Definitely requires a re-read in the future.
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