No Longer Human

Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human is a devastatingly raw, hauntingly beautiful novel that grips the soul and refuses to let go. It’s not just a book—it’s a mirror, a scream, and a confession all at once. More than any other novel I’ve read, it captures the ineffable ache of being alive, the dissonance between how we are perceived and how we perceive ourselves, and the quiet horror of emotional alienation. This is, without a doubt, my favorite book—not for the comfort it offers, but for the way it understands. Told through the fictional notebooks of Ōba Yōzō, No Longer Human is a semi-autobiographical descent into isolation, mental illness, and existential despair. Yōzō is a man plagued by the inability to connect with other people genuinely. To survive, he wears the mask of a clown—playing the fool, the comic relief, the harmless one. But this charade, this emotional self-exile, eventually corrodes his inner life, leaving him numb, broken, and spiraling. What makes this book unforgettable is Dazai’s prose—both clinical and poetic, unflinching yet tender. He writes with the rawness of someone who has lived every word. You feel the cold detachment of Yōzō’s observations, but also the deeply buried desire to be known, to be loved, to be human. The contradictions within Yōzō reflect the contradictions we often suppress in ourselves: the desire to belong versus the instinct to run; the need for love versus the fear of being seen.You just have to read it!

"To fall for, to be fallen for. I feel in these words something unspeakably vulgar, farcical, and at the same time, extraordinary complacent. Once these expressions put in an appearance no matter how solemn the place, the silent cathedrals of melancholy crumble, leaving nothing but an impression of factiousness... These incomprehensible, insidious beings have fantastic as it seems, always looked after me. In my case, such an expression as to be fallen for or even to be loved is not in the least appropriate.Perhaps it describes the situation more accurately to say, I was looked after"Relating to this sentiment, is equivalent to sitting on death row for 50 years, confined to a cell, nullifying the possibility of freedom and autonomy within your inevitable doom. Ive been debating the possibility of being exempt from the quote, nearly every solitary moment for over a month. Falling victim to the futility of powerfully embedded cognitive dissonance, ignited by a morose surplus of childhood trauma, I don't think I can recover from this sort of blunt and confessional disillusionment, riddled in the text of "No longer human."I'm doomed to read this novel to completion, repeatedly into a more dangerous cycle of self deprecation with each innocence shattering, read.Good translation :)

I am definantly not a rereader or rewatcher. But I have read this book 4 times already. Its a great book and overall Dazai Osamu is a great author.

I stumbled across this in a Jacob Geller video essay (if you haven’t watched his essays, you should; in my opinion he’s the best horror-centric video essayist out there), and so I was immediately interested because of how Geller pitched it; he gave the viewer a pretty intense trigger-warning, insinuating that this was going to be an intense, very bleak novel (the way he described it made me think it was going to in the vein of Murakami). Apparently Geller has never read Thomas Ligotti’s The Conspiracy Against the Human Race, or Iain Banks’ The Wasp Factory, or anything written by Kristopher Triana, but I digress.Published in 1975, it’s a very introspective, quasi-autobiographical novel—also one of the ten best-selling novels in Japan (I find this kind of surprising, but I suppose it captured the country’s zeitgeist at the time of publication)—exploring the liminal cultural spaces spanning from post-war Japan and a technology-driven postmodernism through the perspective of a very lonely, aimless, depressed MC who keeps on doing self-destructive things and to which bad things continually keep happening.It is bleak but not very “edgy” or graphic. And the one graphic event involved the r-word that rhymes with grape. But it mostly happened off-screen, was poetically insinuated to boot, and was more about the MC’s psychological reaction to it happening rather than a reliance on graphic details (which, again, there were none); unsettling but swallowable due to Dazai’s delicate approach.I liked this book but didn’t love it—partially because I wished there was a bit more Japanese culture interwoven throughout, partially because it was slightly overhyped. It is a very readable, well-paced book with great translated prose, but it didn’t quite scratch any of my genre, narrative, or prose itches. I kind of recommend it, though.

I read the book in one afternoon. Completely enthralled! Recommend highly. It is well worth your time to read it.

A dark and deep story that soaks into your skin and lingers in your mind. Reminiscent of Camus' The Stranger.

I love this book! Very deep into thought and if you are an anime fan of BUNGO STRAY DOGS you know what um talking about. But in general this is a great book for people that like going into deep thought while reading and helps you connect with other peoples thoughts.

Exactly what I expected. Needed for school, great deal.