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No Longer Human

by Osamu Dazai, Donald Keene (Translator)

4.01 of 5 stars 4.01 · rating details · 1,743 ratings · 134 reviews

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. Oba Yozo's attempts to reconcile himself to the world around him begin in early childhood, continue through high school, where he becomes a "clown" to mask his alienation, and eventually lead...more

Paperback, 176 pages

Published January 17th 1973 by New Directions (first published 1948)

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Jan 25, 2013 Paquita Maria Sanchez rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: literature

Those days where you wake up with your head in a fog and your body feeling like it's covered in bricks that you have to dig your way out of, and your leg is asleep so you trip getting out of bed, and you're late for work so of course the traffic's bad leading you to road-rage across lanes accelerating then braking back and forth again while muttering to yourself about how stupid everyone is and you're so glad it's Sunday in their fucking world because all the drivers are 90 years old and frail w...more Those days where you wake up with your head in a fog and your body feeling like it's covered in bricks that you have to dig your way out of, and your leg is asleep so you trip getting out of bed, and you're late for work so of course the traffic's bad leading you to road-rage across lanes accelerating then braking back and forth again while muttering to yourself about how stupid everyone is and you're so glad it's Sunday in their fucking world because all the drivers are 90 years old and frail with their noses practically pressed against their front windshields as the zip down the highway at 50 mph in a line across all 3 lanes, and you didn't have time or money to eat so your stomach gnaws at you all day as you try to focus on your work, but you're buried to your neck in it, and you just can't seem to stop making that same stupid mistake over and over again even though you've completely attuned yourself to your workflow on a normal day, and the shift drags on for an eternity and everyone's in a bitchy mood and you finally make it home and drink yourself forgetful, all the while staring at a wall and grinding your teeth before finally making your way to the bathroom to brush your teeth, but instead you fall asleep on the floor with the faucet running and have nightmares about spiders eating your eyelids and spinning your fingers into webs so that you have to use your hands like clubs for the rest of your life, and then you wake up fully clothed including your shoes and you feel really weird about everything that happened.

The narrator of this book lives this sort of day every single day, his presumably short lifetime nothing but disappointment and dejection, and he tells us about it exhaustively on every page. He uses a lot more punctuation than I did, but it's every bit as tiresome. Booze, sex, women, breaking up, booze, women, booze, suicide attempts, booze, breaking up, booze, women, breaking up, and everybody sucks but especially me, booze, suicide attempts, breaking up, morphine (Woo hoo! Life rules!), too much morphine, suicide attempts, breaking up, etc. Maybe that's your thing, I don't know. I wasn't in the mood, being that I haven't had a shit enough day to act pathetically and irritatingly cynical in a while, so the whole time I was reading this I just kind of wanted to flick the narrator in the nose for reminding me just how much I can "me me me" suck sometimes.

Recommended for sadists, masochists, and whiny little shits. It's pretty good, though. Question: Would you like some cheese with that whine?

Additional thought: I just wanted to jump back in here for a little troll patrol: I understand from the blurb that this book is supposed to be about internal struggles of the Japanese concerning the infiltration of Western ideals, cultures clashing, confused identity, you know the drill. I want to assure you that was not lost on me, as it was one of the primary reasons I chose to purchase this book in the first place. I find such transitional periods and the ensuing struggles with definitions of self to be very fascinating. Here comes the "however": However, I really didn't see that here. I think it would be rather ethnocentric to assume that overly-critical self-analysis, apathy, depression, defeat, insanity, and substance abuse are specifically western imports. Did we introduce the Japanese to booze? Not as I understand it. Did we stumble upon a happy-go-lucky paradise of Huxley-an automatons when west met east, only to spoil/enlighten them with our savage knowledge of the depths of human depravity, of the Sisyphean nature of living? Nope. There is simply not enough culture-specific material in this novel for me to even begin to make some argument about cultural hybridity w/r/t this character and his particular struggles. For the most part, this book could have been written in any number of languages without reshaping its skeleton. No, I didn't read it in Japanese, so maybe I'm missing something in the translation, but if that's the case then the translator himself needs to start working on his resume, because he has completely botched this effort. However, I really don't think that's the case. (less)

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Apr 19, 2011 Mariel rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: I am terrified

Recommended to Mariel by: the stupid, the proud

No Longer Human... Yozo believes halfheartedly (it doesn't beat strongly enough to be whole) himself to be an outcast. He feels nothing in himself to connect himself to himself, let alone others. I have to say that I didn't feel he was different from other people. All along I was disregarding the not being human parts. It wasn't different to feel behind blank walls, a gravity for numbness and not having to think. I kinda think (aha!) one has to know themselves a bit before they can begin expandi...more No Longer Human... Yozo believes halfheartedly (it doesn't beat strongly enough to be whole) himself to be an outcast. He feels nothing in himself to connect himself to himself, let alone others. I have to say that I didn't feel he was different from other people. All along I was disregarding the not being human parts. It wasn't different to feel behind blank walls, a gravity for numbness and not having to think. I kinda think (aha!) one has to know themselves a bit before they can begin expanding that inner mental world into other worlds (brief as those glimpses are). It was frustrating that Yozo did not try to know anyone else, worse still his talking in circles of what wasn't true. He could have known. It was out there... Because he was terrified? So I throw away the outsideness because it is too inside. I KNOW it isn't true that he's unlike anyone else. What really got me? The painful stuff? The inability to trust. That's where I feel separated and wonder if I've got some inhuman quality in me. I wonder if other people feel this way... If other people go through life doing stuff because what else can you do, not because the really think in their heart of hearts that opening up is going to go anywhere. I cannot believe that there will be anyone there for me (books don't know I'm there).

He did have his painters... "There are some people whose dread of human beings is so morbid that they reach a point where they yearn to see with their own eyes monsters of ever more horrible shapes. And the more nervous they are- the quicker to take fright- the more violent they pray that every storm will be... Painters who have had this mentality, after repeated wounds and intimidations at the hands of the apparitions called human beings, have often come to believe in phantasms- they plainly saw monsters in broad daylight, in the midst of nature. And they did not fob people off with clowing; they did their best to depict these monsters just as they had appeared. Takeichi was right: they had dared to paint pictures of devils. These, I thought, would be my friends in the future. I was so excited I could have wept."
But where were the monsters? Yozo's monster was himself. He's the person who hates themselves and yet can only spend time with themselves. (Just say narcissist, Mariel!) So the monster wasn't really as it appeared... Just what he's afraid for it to appear as. I do know the pain of not doing the all or nothing. He feels the shame yet cannot just go all the way and be HONEST. He only walks the plank of being caught, turning back just in time. That's kinda hell. I wish all the time that I could either stop being so honest about my embarrassing shit, or just stop feeling feeling bad about it (knowing all too well the pain of coming up against "friends" who despise depression in others). It sucks to live in half.

"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 I ever met someone society has designated as an outcast, I invariably feel affection for him, an emotion which carries me away in melting tenderness."
Yozo, you'd never recognize them in time.

"There is no disputing the accurate, scientific fact that millions of germs are floating, swimming, wriggling everywhere. At the same time, however, if you ignore them completely they lose all possible connection with yourself, and at once become nothing more than vanishing "ghosts of science." This too I came to understand. I had been so terrorized by scientific statistics."
I liked Yozo a lot for this (also all of the following lines about those statistics about wasting three rice grains and how everybody's three rice grains build up. How these scientific facts are useless and beat you. I also worry about this shit like Yozo).

I found myself wishing that I could talk with Osamu Dazai instead of with his photographs of Yozo the bozo, and all of his other unfinished costumes. Someone who would see a little further behind the walls. To the angels. It is there in No Longer Human. It is kinda hard when you don't trust people either, when you're also afraid of people sometimes. I like to think about other people, try to understand them and how they feel or dream (even if they die in their sleep). But I also feel so depressed sometimes like no one would ever do the same for me. I wish Yozo had tried AT ALL to do something for someone else. I don't even know why I think he should have... Except I guess I would have for him. Dazai did.

P.s. There's stuff in translator Donald Keene's forward about the modernization of Japan and influence of American culture. I thought of one thing: suicide. This might be the only Japanese novel I've read with suicide where it was seen as taboo. I don't know if there is even anything to that. It just seemed weird that it was after Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain with its natural suicides. In my family the suicidal urges became routine or as a lever to pull in others. Nothing natural about it. Death seems like a shadow you couldn't rip out but that? A big ass ugly building erected in front of your bedroom window.(less)

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Sep 19, 2012 Ben Loory rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

the opening of this book, which is a description of three photographs taken of a man over the course of his life, is one of the most best and disturbing things i've ever read. just an absolutely thrilling beginning. the rest of the book doesn't quite live up to it, although it often comes close. it feels a lot like The Stranger or Notes from Underground. i only wish it built more instead of kind of petering out.

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Apr 18, 2011 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

At the very beginning of No Longer Human, Dazai lays out his narrator's plight in clear, stark terms:

Although I had a mortal dread of human beings I seemed quite unable to renounce their society. I managed to maintain on the surface a smile which never deserted my lips; this was the accommodation I offered to others, a most precarious achievement performed by me only at the cost of excruciating efforts within.

The narrator, Yozo, born into a wealthy political family in rural northeastern Japan, h...more At the very beginning of No Longer Human, Dazai lays out his narrator's plight in clear, stark terms:

Although I had a mortal dread of human beings I seemed quite unable to renounce their society. I managed to maintain on the surface a smile which never deserted my lips; this was the accommodation I offered to others, a most precarious achievement performed by me only at the cost of excruciating efforts within.

The narrator, Yozo, born into a wealthy political family in rural northeastern Japan, has left behind three notebooks - with three photographs to accompany them - as a means of explicating his life of complete and utter failure. The journals trace his alienated, terrified, and miserable meandering through an Imperial Japan that was made schizoid by the rushed and forceful collision between traditional Japanese culture and Western modernization, from his earliest memories as a bewildered, wary child to his final days as a Tokyo exile, a wizened, prematurely gray young man showing the full effect of the bruisings and buffets that an inimical and omnipresent life ceaselessly dealt out. Unable to connect to his family because he can't understand them; friendless because he is incapable of either trusting others or being trusted; scornful of women even as he squeezes every cent out of his broken lovers; irresponsible in every expectation of a regimented society - Yozo's only recourse to allay the anxiety and terror that daily waylay and murder his soul is in rivers of booze, pills, and flight. His agonizing inability to connect with the mysterious entities that have filled the world and constantly press against him forces him to assume the mask of a "clown" - cheap laughs and comical routines are what he believes appeases the hostility and hatred of humans, who otherwise would tire of his eccentricity and eliminate him from their presence.

Dazai has written a bleak and beautiful look at the anguish of the loner, the misfit, forever forced to look at himself in the mirror and spot nothing but his defects and disfigurements - yet at the same time, the reader also sees quite clearly that Yozo is narcissistic to the extreme, too lazy and resigned to make the slightest effort to help himself, terribly misogynistic to the parade of women who make sacrifices to save him, only to face the inevitable abandonment - even during a death pledge. Thus, compassion and contempt struggle as the book proceeds, each one alternately coming out on top. This dual-view is an integral part of No Longer Human: while Yozo sees himself as a fraud, a clown-caper performing his way through a midnight world, his few friends and family never abandon him, and several women fall deeply for him - they see him as a bright, cheerful, and funny young man, incredibly handsome and full of bright life. Which view is correct? Self-perception versus the perception of others is always a fascinating enigma, the crux of the grand theatre that comprises human life. Each individual presents a mask to the world - but he cannot control how others see that mask.

Donald Keene provides an elegant, succinctly expressive translation. Dazai's brisk, clipped sentences are replete with the wiry tension of his story; and in the midst of a page honed to a keen edge of melancholy, a wry, matter-of-fact humour will slyly insinuate itself into the sadness and lift the reader out of Yozo's despairing depths. Personal truths made universal are the glorious kernel of literature, and Dazai's truths for some, like myself, may cut so close to the bone that it hurts. Yet these truths also heal, and this dichotomy of pain and relief is what makes No Longer Human deeply human in every way.(less)

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Apr 08, 2008 Mark rated it 5 of 5 stars

i read this and automatically thought the stranger but while i hated the stranger i absolutely loved this.

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Feb 22, 2013 Clark rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: made-ups

I spent like three years just crazy depressed. Grim thoughts all the time, super self destructive, at once alienating and distributing "cries for help" or whatever you wanna call it... sheesh, man. It was so fucked. I'm really glad I got out of that frame of mind and I hope I never go back. No Longer Human was something I read toward the end of that phase. I probably would have been okay anyway, but this shit helped a ton. Dazai totally nails the impossibly bummed out mindset without being corny...more

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Jul 28, 2009 Gertrude & Victoria rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: japanese-library

I consider this book to be the bible for the disaffected artist. No Longer Human was the final novel written by Dazai Osamu. It is also his magnum opus and a true-to-life representation of the restless and tormented spirit that Dazai was. This work could be taken, at least to a certain extent, as an autobiographical account of the writer himself.

Oba the main character recognizes, from early childhood, his place in the world, which is no place, neither here nor there. He feels pangs of alienation...more

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Jun 10, 2008 Tim rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: own

This is a very quick but sad read. It is the story of a man who feels increasingly disconnected from the world. He feels at first disconnected by the banality of his home life. Food is utilitarian, as are the bridges over train lines that had seemed so lovely, such a flourish, until he discovered that they were there to help people cross the tracks safely.
He tries to please people, plays the clown, but they always penetrate this cover. This increases his fears and eventually he turns away comple...more

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Jun 15, 2012 Sebastian rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Apr 25, 2013 Charlie Canning rated it 4 of 5 stars

A cautionary tale from a bohemian writer

Dazai Osamu (1909-1948) was the pen name of Tsushima Shuji, a writer born in the town of Kanagi on the Tsugaru Peninsula in what is now Aomori Prefecture. The family were wealthy landowners in the region and both his father, who represented the district in the Japanese Diet, and his elder brother were political figures of some renown. As Dazai was the tenth of eleven children and the fourth surviving son, he was very far down the food chain, however. This...more A cautionary tale from a bohemian writer

Dazai Osamu (1909-1948) was the pen name of Tsushima Shuji, a writer born in the town of Kanagi on the Tsugaru Peninsula in what is now Aomori Prefecture. The family were wealthy landowners in the region and both his father, who represented the district in the Japanese Diet, and his elder brother were political figures of some renown. As Dazai was the tenth of eleven children and the fourth surviving son, he was very far down the food chain, however. This was to prove both a curse and a blessing. The difficult part was that his family was so large that he was raised in his aunt's household. When he reached school age, he was sent off to board in a distant town and did not often see his family.

On the other hand, not being the first-born son did have its advantages. There wasn't much expected of him and he was free to study what he wanted. He was given a generous allowance - first by his father and then by his elder brother, and lived well. Well enough, in fact, to take up with a geisha named Oyama Hatsuyo before leaving Tsugaru for Tokyo.

Most students go off to school with a trunk full of clothes and maybe a bicycle. Dazai wanted to bring his geisha. A few months after enrolling in the course of French literature at Tokyo Imperial University, Hatsyo moved in with him. But the family intervened and Dazai was separated from Hatsuyo. Shortly thereafter, Dazai attempted to kill himself with a woman he had just met. He lived; the woman drowned.

Dazai seems not to have learned much French at university, but he did get the bohemian part of the literature down. In fact, Edward Seidensticker wrote that Dazai's life was "almost a parody on desperate bohemianism: flirtations with communism, drunkenness, addiction to drugs, repeated attempts at suicide."

No Longer Human has been favorably compared to Kafka's Metamorphosis and there are certainly many parallels between the two works. Like Kafka, Dazai gets right to it. There is no "lost Eden" to yearn for because there never was an Eden to begin with. In the opening pages we learn that the narrator's alienation is complete and that whatever accommodations he has made to his family or society have been only ruses to mask his total estrangement from "human beings": "I gradually perfected myself in the role of the farcical eccentric. I thought, `As long as I can make them laugh, it doesn't matter how, I'll be all right. If I succeed in that, the human beings probably won't mind it too much if I remain outside their lives. The one thing I must avoid is becoming offensive in their eyes: I shall be nothing, the wind, the sky.'"

Ordinarily, you would put such a book down quickly and look for something a bit more, shall we say, inspirational? But as with Kafka, the thing that grabs you - that by turns horrifies and amazes you - is the earnestness of the appeal and the art with which it is made. So powerful is it at times that you want to reach through the spine of the book and lay hands upon the suffering narrator.

In spite of its rather depressing rhetoric, No Longer Human is in many ways a comic novel and it calls to mind John Kennedy Toole. The mock romanticism of the book is hilarious and the juxtaposition of comic elements throughout the novel lightens the gloom. But there are few things in life less humorous than suicide. And as with Toole's Confederacy of Dunces, whatever mirth there is to be found in Dazai's work is tempered by the author's suicide. Shortly after No Longer Human was published in 1948, Dazai Osamu jumped into a river and drowned. This time, both he and the woman who accompanied him succeeded in killing themselves.(less)

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Mar 03, 2013 Meher Engineer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: scarring, favorites

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Writing this review...I feel conflicted but at the same time I had a lot of feelings reading this book so I feel the need to let someone know about them.

Dazai weaves an intricate web in which we the readers both grow to love and hate Oba Yozo our narrator for the many times he has missed the obvious thing to do as a son, student, husband and man. He has never quite understood his role, I have to conclude that part of him detests the expectations on him but he's too silent a soul to ever contradi...more Writing this review...I feel conflicted but at the same time I had a lot of feelings reading this book so I feel the need to let someone know about them.

Dazai weaves an intricate web in which we the readers both grow to love and hate Oba Yozo our narrator for the many times he has missed the obvious thing to do as a son, student, husband and man. He has never quite understood his role, I have to conclude that part of him detests the expectations on him but he's too silent a soul to ever contradict these expectations openly.

The sad truth is that these actions aren't obvious to Oba...and I can't even imagine what it must be like living never fully understanding how to live. I think Dazai taps into a very dark part of humanity that exists in all people. Where we look at ourselves and beg our mind to release us from thoughts and just tell us what to do because we can't for the life of us figure it out ourselves.

Dazai in a sense torments Oba throughout the novel, forcing him into situations which only throw him into further despair because when he makes the wrong decision or doesn't act quickly enough...he fails.

Oba never found out what he should be doing. He perfected pretending and laughing at himself, and drinking himself into further misery...but I think that the things he feels are universal in a certain sense.

For writing such a horribly dark novel, that I will never read again because I do not want to ever put myself through that again. It took me two years to finish reading one scene of the novel because I just couldn't bear it but now that I have and I've read the rest. I can understand Oba's character a bit more.

In conclusion, 'No Longer Human' by Osamu Dazai is definitely a novel someone should read at least once in their life (more if they can take it but I can't). It really sheds light on the darkness that lives within humanity and forces us to question our behavioural patterns as a society as we look at the way Oba percieves us as an 'outsider' to the general world.(less)

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Oct 30, 2011 Ben Hourigan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recently I've been wrapping up my first novel, Kiss Me Genius Boy. It's the first in a series of probably three parts, called No More Dreams, and I've started to pass it around. My friend Alice recently read a version which starts with the protagonist inhabiting a squalid apartment, failing at his PhD and despairing at having found himself on the outskirts of life, and she told me that my writing reminded her of Osamu Dazai.

It's been a long time since I encountered Dazai, through the translation...more

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Jan 29, 2011 Tancredi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: preferiti, giapponesi

"Tutto passa.
Questa è la sola e unica cosa che a parer mio s’avvicini alla verità, nella società degli esseri umani, dove ho dimorato sin oggi come in un inferno rovente.
Tutto passa."

Viene facile accostare Dazai al più celebre Mishima: entrambi hanno scritto dei romanzi a forte tematica autobiografica, ed entrambi manifestano nei loro scritti lo stupore irreversibile per le trasformazioni in atto nella società giapponese del secondo dopoguerra.
Mentre, però, in Mishima lo straniamento viene estre...more "Tutto passa.
Questa è la sola e unica cosa che a parer mio s’avvicini alla verità, nella società degli esseri umani, dove ho dimorato sin oggi come in un inferno rovente.
Tutto passa."

Viene facile accostare Dazai al più celebre Mishima: entrambi hanno scritto dei romanzi a forte tematica autobiografica, ed entrambi manifestano nei loro scritti lo stupore irreversibile per le trasformazioni in atto nella società giapponese del secondo dopoguerra.
Mentre, però, in Mishima lo straniamento viene estremizzato, unendosi alla sua combattuta omosessualità, in Dazai si presenta come straniamento dal se stesso. Il giovane Yozo, lungi dal capire una società estranea nella quale si ritrova catapultato, non riesce nemmeno a comprendere se stesso. Non a caso, Dazai ha uno stile narrativo completamente diverso da quello, fortemente lirico ed emotivo, di Mishima: malgrado la scelta della prima persona, la narrazione è distante e distaccata dagli eventi e dagli stati d'animo del protagonista.
Per quanto riguarda la trama, potrebbe pure sembrare un romanzo di formazione un po' alla occidentale: l'abbandono degli studi, le ubriacate notturne, la continua ed esasperata ricerca del sesso, i tentati suicidi. Ma è con uno spirito completamente diverso che il protagonista affronta tutto ciò.
Ciò che caratterizza, ancora, egualmente Dazai e Mishima, è il problema del contatto con l'altro, dello scontro tra individuo e società. Dazai, se possibile, ne è maggiormente ossessionato: lo si comprende bene nella secona parte del romanzo, quando i dialoghi tra i personaggi diventano occasione di pure disquisizioni. E così, una volta concluso che la società "non è altro che individuo", al protagonista appare chiara la profonda contraddizione, e finalmente riesce a specchiare il suo io sfuggente nella società altrettanto sfuggente ed ambigua: "l'incomprensibilità della società è l'incomprensibilità dell'individuo". Ciò gli fa apparire vana la sua consolidata abitudine a recitare una parte, a vivere come se la vita fosse solo uno spettacolo, a fare finta di essere umano. Il mondo così gli appare "un luogo d'orrore insondabile", un mondo nel quale non c'è posto per lui, "squalificato" come essere umano.

(E stendiamo un velo pietoso sulla pesante traduzione di seconda mano...)(less)

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May 02, 2011 La Stamberga dei Lettori added it · review of another edition

Shelves: tancredi

Viene facile accostare Dazai al più celebre Mishima: entrambi hanno scritto dei romanzi a forte tematica autobiografica, ed entrambi manifestano nei loro scritti lo stupore irreversibile per le trasformazioni in atto nella società giapponese del secondo dopoguerra.

Mentre, però, in Mishima lo straniamento viene estremizzato, unendosi alla sua combattuta omosessualità, in Dazai si presenta come straniamento dal se stesso. Il giovane Yozo, lungi dal capire una società estranea nella quale si ritrov...more

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Oct 30, 2012 Kkinugawa rated it 4 of 5 stars

One of the most famous books in Japan. The author of this book, Osamu Dazai wrote this book before he is going to commit suicide. Therefore the book contains a lot of distress and entaglements that author had against human. If you read this book, you would also notice that characters other than main character are all representives of modern people, and since they are going to be portrayed from the point of view of main character who in the essence, urging to live as 'real human', you are going t...more

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Feb 19, 2013 Bobby Albrecht rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: japanese-literature

What happens when a man comes to believe that living itself is a sin before God? You get the horrifying tale of a man who feels he has no connection to humanity, that he is in fact inhuman.

Often labeled a pseudo-autobiography of Dazai himself, though I find that disingenuous (although many of the events in the story parallel very closely with his own life), this is without a doubt the quintessential work of Dazai Osamu, a man who would take his own life in the same year of its publication.

The st...more

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May 13, 2013 Steve Gripp rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club-of-pflugerville

A Japanese Holden Caufield narrates this exquisitely depressive novel. From the intro, we see the author try to depict a beginning, middle and end, literally, with three photographs of a man. However, the narrator descends into this black hole of existence whilst interacting with humanity. It's a bleak novel, and (note to backstory) this was sort of a Wallace-ian novel, where all of his morose thoughts foretell the author's last days on Earth. The plot, in itself, is not that engaging, for the n...more

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Jan 01, 2013 Christopher Rodriguez rated it 5 of 5 stars

(REVIEW HAS SPOILERS) I agree with an already mentioned remark that this book can serve as the bible of the "unaffected artist." This novel wonderfully questions human tendencies--things that a society deems normal, which may very well appear strange to the objective eye. Dazai does a remarkable job in showcasing the pain and confusion that comes from feeling extremely alienated. The book makes me wonder about 'qualifications' and 'classifications' of what is human. And if not what is human, the...more (REVIEW HAS SPOILERS) I agree with an already mentioned remark that this book can serve as the bible of the "unaffected artist." This novel wonderfully questions human tendencies--things that a society deems normal, which may very well appear strange to the objective eye. Dazai does a remarkable job in showcasing the pain and confusion that comes from feeling extremely alienated. The book makes me wonder about 'qualifications' and 'classifications' of what is human. And if not what is human, then at least what we (as a society) determine as normal. And who is 'society'? A collective of authoritative figures, or a plural way of saying "one person"?

Regardless, I had a morose feeling as the story progressed because I could see Yozo increasingly become trapped in the pitfalls of 'culture' and 'normalities.' It was as if every decision he made could either leave him in high esteem or low esteem with the people of his society.

He structures the book with a prologue, three notebooks (the third of which is split into two parts) and an epilogue. What strikes me about the structure is the curious voice that emerges from the prologue. Who is observing these pictures with such strong judgment? It's not until the epilogue that we discover the viewer of the photos to be a writer traveling to meet a friend. The anonymous POV of the prologue allows us to see ones objective (out of context) opinion on Yozo's appearance--he notices how strange Yozo appears in each photograph, how he doesn't seem to be present in the moment of the photograph the way that everyone else is.

In Yozo's journey of trying to understand and be apart of human tendencies/interactions, we meet Horiki and Flatfish--two characters that seem to serve as manifestations for "society" or human norms. Through Horiki, Yozo tries to escape the pains of his thoughts and the feelings of his alienation. He drinks, smokes and becomes involved with prostitutes during his time with Horiki. He comes to realize that both vices and Horiki are not dependable forever, and yet he continues to cling to the vices rather than Horiki so that he may feel some sort of reprieve from his daily sufferings (odd how, though he deems himself inhuman, he finds refuge in very human methods). When Yozo survives his attempted suicide, we are shown how Horiki and Flatfish harshly judge him with both distance and ridicule (Horiki referring to him many times as a criminal/Flatfish remarking about choices he MUST make in society). They, to me, represent society as a whole--the personification of indulging in vices, expectations, judgment, labeling, sense of duty, attention to appearances, strained assistance (when helping others-making them feel like a burden). But ultimately, these figures of society (since they stand in for the authoritative shadow that Yozo feels lingering above him) become figures of human beings, and therefore become the sources of which he draws his conclusions on humans.

I could write about this shit for days, but the beautiful thing that Yozo finds is that nothing is certain except that "Everything passes." Nothing that society or the plural-of-'person', or any human being does or says is ultimately True except that things begin and end---that nothing ever lasts.

The question I would like to leave with is: How different are the pitfalls Yozo faced from the one's present in an America society today? Yozo exposes some flaws that we all tend to have as humans, and yet he (even though he doesn't qualify himself as human) showcases those very flaws in the end. To be specific, one of those characteristics is deception. The book begins with the writer we meet more closely in the epilogue describing the photos he finds. Through the novel we see how he tries to keep up the facade of being human. But he is trapped within human (and more specifically Japanese) classifications, and so it isn't hard to think of oneself as inhuman when the course that you chose to take and the philosophies and ideals you adopt/cultivate are not in line with the majority of your culture. So what makes us human ultimately? The answer is subjective, but the answer reveals more about you than you might know.(less)

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Jul 31, 2012 Da-Wang Wu rated it 3 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. 從《維榮之妻》開始認識太宰治
早預知《人間失格》會讓人太過憂傷，因而一直擱著
事隔多年，終於鼓起勇氣翻開這本書

「生而為人，我很抱歉。」
生命中只要曾有過一次這般想法的人
或許就很難再用全然樂觀的自信面對未來了
而曾幾何時，道德與正義這般美德使人如同階下囚
左右無奈之中逐漸失去信仰，在懺悔或憤怒裡徘徊難離
所謂世間，大概就是需要不夠道德、不夠正義的人來繼續往前邁進吧

《人間失格》，失去做為人的資格
厭世，墮落，厭己，更墮落，更厭己...
太宰治如此過了一生，我了解這不是屬於我的藍圖
但那些片刻，我也是這般地徬徨無措

最後選擇讓自己如此赤裸裸地攤在天空下
以真面目呈現給在我生命舞台上的每個人
不說謊、不造作、不玩花招
而這一刻, 你們愛我嗎？

對於那些愛我的人總是充滿著無限感激
覺得這樣的我卻能擁有信賴與喜歡是相當不可思議的事
心裡卻也因為過去的記憶而隨時預備著
這些人每分每秒都可能轉身離開、突然消失
如此地無常

愛、喜歡、緊張、膽怯、糾結、不知所措、心亂如麻
到最後才了解，這一切都與你們無關
你們愛不愛我都無所謂了
重要的是我怎麼去面對自己
每一瞬間改變機率的關鍵都是我的意願

而我，
願意勇敢嗎？

// 書摘

我不相信神的寵愛，而只相信神的懲...more

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Jan 22, 2009 Zack rated it 3 of 5 stars

My friend Stephan, now living in Portland, Ore after years in Japan teaching ESL, was recently here for a visit and recommended this book after reading a thing of mine with a similar theme. Its protagonist, Yozo, has felt fundamentally alienated from human society (everyone else) all his life, and disguised that alienation with clownish behavior. It has its moments, especially in describing the particulars of Yozo's persistent love/hate of everyone else, and his frequent deference to their muddl...more

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Dec 05, 2011 Jeremy added it

Shelves: japanese-literature

What is it with young men in so much Japanese literature? Whether it's Murakami, Mishima, Soseki, or Dezai they always come across as either lonely, shut-off or damaged (or some combination of the three). Yozo feels about as radically alienated from the world as any character could be. Even bitchy little Holden Caulfield never carried half as much angst as the main character in No Longer Human seems to have. And the loneliness he feels is all the more painful because of how deeply internalized i...more

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Dec 11, 2012 Jan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Ningen Shikkaku" (literally "disqualified as a human being") is a book about a person who feels a strong alienation towards other people. The story, grouped into three notebooks, is told from the perspective of this person. He describes himself as an ugly, unlikeable "fake" person since childhood, unable to understand the motives of other people, and society in general. He tries to live "undetected" amongst his fellow human beings by what he describes as "clowning", i.e. being ridiculous and/or...more "Ningen Shikkaku" (literally "disqualified as a human being") is a book about a person who feels a strong alienation towards other people. The story, grouped into three notebooks, is told from the perspective of this person. He describes himself as an ugly, unlikeable "fake" person since childhood, unable to understand the motives of other people, and society in general. He tries to live "undetected" amongst his fellow human beings by what he describes as "clowning", i.e. being ridiculous and/or funny. He harbors ambiguous feelings towards women. While apparently being afraid of them (as probably of all people), he still somehow attracts them. His life seems desperate, with dropping out of university and choosing drink instead. A chance encounter in a bar leads to an attempted common suicide, which fails on his part (the girl dies).
His behavior causes the cutting of ties to his family, which supported him until then, and he barely makes a living by drawing cartoons. He spends all money on drink and women, even pawning belongings of his girlfriends for his lifestyle. The narrator switches between women a bit, and deceives or disappoints them without remorse. Several suicide attempts fail, and his "friend" (he himself doesn't see this person as a friend) and a custodian try to help him. However ultimately he goes from alcohol to drugs and becomes rather sick. It is left open if the narrator survived or not, though probably not.

I am sure no-one wants to meet a person such as depicted in this book. On the other hand the feelings of alienation shown in it most likely will be familiar to many people too. However the magnitude at which they are felt or at least depicted by the narrator is rather huge, and probably unrealistic. It seems as if the main character has a significantly distorted self-perception. He is probably not honest to himself and exaggerates the stories he tells... you don't learn much about the full person, and what really made him like that, you only see his fears and isolation in the stories he tells. One could say that his alleged incomprehension of other people is just a shield for his insecurity and that he probably is in denial of himself.
(less)

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Jun 25, 2012 Asma rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Asma by: Sean O'Hara

Shelves: japanese

This novel in Notebook form records the memories between childhood and early adulthood of a timid Japanese man. His early fears to go anyplace public, to refuse or contradict anyone, and to accommodate his will to another's will were masked to gain his school fellows' respect by his funny stories and playacting.

The interesting plot tells Oba Yozo's life story through youth and college up to age twenty-seven by his encounters with others and his conscious introspection. The female and male chara...more This novel in Notebook form records the memories between childhood and early adulthood of a timid Japanese man. His early fears to go anyplace public, to refuse or contradict anyone, and to accommodate his will to another's will were masked to gain his school fellows' respect by his funny stories and playacting.

The interesting plot tells Oba Yozo's life story through youth and college up to age twenty-seven by his encounters with others and his conscious introspection. The female and male characters catalyze Yozo's meditations about the seemingly horrid nature of the world. Are Yozo's feelings about life an exaggeration or an echo of Osamu Dazai's own autobiography? The Translator's Introduction by Donald Keene sees No Longer Human as biography and art.

(view spoiler)(less)

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Jan 07, 2009 Keith rated it 4 of 5 stars

A bit depressing for my taste, but I suppose that was the point. The writing is excellent...really gets you into the mind of someone extremely detached from society.

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Sep 26, 2010 Shawn Buckle rated it 3 of 5 stars

Dazia's 'no longer human' is about on individual alienation and what it means to be normal in Japanese society. Since it is written in the 1940s, Dazai's fortitude of this nascent problem makes the book all the more worthwhile.

Yozo, our narrator, is a young man from northeast Japan. His father is in politics and is able to provide whatever Yozo wants in terms of material. Yozo, however wants to find out who is really is and wants to live as that person. Through his self-centeredness and exploit...more

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Mar 06, 2013 Licinius rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, favorites-2013, favorites

Les antonymes de Déchéance sont des mots comme Ascension, Avènement, Conservation, Gloire, Progrès, Réhabilitation… Tout ce que Yôzô – le narrateur et antihéros de ce roman – a tenté d’atteindre, mais a surtout manqué pour s’enfoncer dans cette déchéance. Sa vie telle qu’il nous la raconte n’est qu’une longue cascade de désespoir vers un abime presque infernal. Alors qu’il avait tout pour réussir au départ – sa famille est riche et influente –, Yôzô échouera à cause de sa nature humaine, à cause...more Les antonymes de Déchéance sont des mots comme Ascension, Avènement, Conservation, Gloire, Progrès, Réhabilitation… Tout ce que Yôzô – le narrateur et antihéros de ce roman – a tenté d’atteindre, mais a surtout manqué pour s’enfoncer dans cette déchéance. Sa vie telle qu’il nous la raconte n’est qu’une longue cascade de désespoir vers un abime presque infernal. Alors qu’il avait tout pour réussir au départ – sa famille est riche et influente –, Yôzô échouera à cause de sa nature humaine, à cause de sa sensibilité, son manque d’assurance, sa peur du conflit, de prendre des décisions et d’intégrer la complexe hiérarchie sociale japonaise. Jouant au « bouffon », ses farces ne sont qu’un maigre masque contre la laideur de son existence.

Ayant raté ses études, raté son destin de peintre, raté sa première tentative de suicide et aussi raté son mariage en étant trompé, Yôzô ne supporte plus ce monde trop individualiste et diffus à la fois. Il est évident que ce livre a quelque chose de Dostoïevskien dans l’âme, Yôzô est une sorte de Raskolnikovdont le vrai crime n’est ni plus ni moins de ne pas intégrer ce Monde, cette société nippone. Les interrogations sur ce monde sont nombreuses et amenés finement. Qu’est ce que réellement le monde pour Yôzô sinon un ami de bar et quelques femmes éloignées ? Qu’est ce que réellement cette société avec son carcan et ses obligations culturelles proche de la démence ?

Car au fond, Yôzô a beau joué le bouffon ou le clown devant les autres, il ne fait que s’attribuer un masque, un rôle qui vaut autant que celui de politicien ou de flic. On joue un rôle pour être accepté dans cette société, pour appartenir à cette grande famille qu’est l’humanité (c'est-à-dire tout et rien à la fois) quitte à se mentir parfois à soi même et passer un mauvais quart d’heure devant le miroir.
Une bonne découverte sur la littérature japonaise en tout cas !(less)

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Dec 20, 2012 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: madhatter

touchstone of J-lit, 人間失格 is the "i'm going out of my mind" scream! of the flip-side of the Japanese-identity-exploration question of modernist Japanese writers. compared to the purveyor and surveyor of erotic obsession, Tanizaki; the 'tea ceremony and mountain geisha' specialist Kawabata; the militarist and aristocracy-examiner Mishima, Dazai is the middle-class "voice of neuroticism-cum-total decadence/hopelessness" that has enjoyed a resurgence in popularity in recent years, as the Japanese e...more

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Jul 01, 2011 Steffanie rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I read this book in just a couple of days. It could probably be read in one lazy afternoon. I read it, expressionless. I finished it without wincing or panicking. And then when I closed the book, I burst into tears.

The book is basically five chapters. The middle three resemble memoirs. They are written by the self-proclaimed non-human, and main character: Yozo. The first and the last chapter are written by a man that found the memoirs ten years after their completion.

Yozo not only feels aliena...more I read this book in just a couple of days. It could probably be read in one lazy afternoon. I read it, expressionless. I finished it without wincing or panicking. And then when I closed the book, I burst into tears.

The book is basically five chapters. The middle three resemble memoirs. They are written by the self-proclaimed non-human, and main character: Yozo. The first and the last chapter are written by a man that found the memoirs ten years after their completion.

Yozo not only feels alienated by everyone around him.. he really believes himself to be different. He doesn't feel human. He speaks of being disqualified as a human. That is the most heartbreaking part, because it is very clear that he is simply too human. He feels everything that humans feel, to such a bitter extreme that he falls as low as a human can fall. He fakes his way through life because he is too terrified to show his real self. He plays the clown and the drunkard, because he has never had confidence in himself. His art is his true love, but he only draws cartoons and pornography because of his fear. Fear of humans. Fear of himself. Fear of society, whatever that is.

What startles me the most is that the man who complied the memoirs seems to pity (detest) Yozo, as much as Yozo would have thought people would detest him, if they knew the real him. The complier calls Yozo ugly as a child, freakish as a teenager, and monstrous as an adult. He seems to have wanted to compile the memoir *because* it was so disgusting. And that is sad. It is just so sad. It seems to imply that people in Yozo's circumstances are helpless. They can fake their way through life, and not really live. Or they can be real, and become truly lost and suicidal.

To a lesser extent, it is startling how much I see of myself in Yozo, and how much I see people I know as Yozos. We all play the clown. We all do what we need to do to become accepted, and then secretly hate ourselves even more for doing such.

There is no really good character in the book. Even Yozo's sweet innocent wife pays the greatest cost for her innocence and trustworthiness. There's certainly no character I like. But the book is powerful and...not for everyone.

One thing that I will stop doing after reading this book: I will stop making mistakes in Japanese in front of my classes, secretly on purpose. Stopping the everyday circus act is impossible for me, but I can take this one step. Every time I mess up a word or a kanji on the board on purpose to get a laugh, I am doing the same thing young Yozo did when he missed the P.E. bar on purpose, landing on his butt. I can't end up like Yozo. (less)

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Jun 10, 2011 Seth rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: odd

It was good. Great, in parts. But don't expect Mishima from this miserable bastard.

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May 25, 2011 Alberto D. rated it 2 of 5 stars

Total disappointment. The first novel was excellent; this one, on the other side, lacked everything. The two more important concerns in the life of the main character in this novel are: women, and money. The novel is about a man who is a total wreck, dissolute, good for nothing (I would say). There is nothing to be enjoyed reading this kind of novels. I gave it two starts, since it is always good to read works by international writers. The novel in itself is indeed original for a Japanese writer...more

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About Osamu Dazai

His real name is Shuuji Tsushima. Although his father wanted him to be a politician, he insisted on being an author. When he applied to the Tokyo University French Literature Department, he was 20 years old. For most of his lifetime, he was a drug addict, an alcoholic and a sufferer of tubercolosis.

His last book Ningen Shikkaku (No Longer Human)(1948) is an authobiography. It documents his childh...more

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Quotes from No Longer Human

“The weak fear happiness itself. They can harm themselves on cotton wool. Sometimes they are wounded even by happiness” — 48 people liked it

“Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness.

Everything passes.

That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell.

Everything passes.” — 37 people liked it

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