No Longer Human in Exceptional Books

Oct 08, 2016 Smiley rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, japan

Second Review [3.75-star]

Keenly interested in a column in a Thai newspaper dated November 5th, 2017 showing a book cover of a translated novel in Thai titled สูญสิ้นความเป็นคน [sun sin kwam pen khon, Loss of Humanities, literally translated], I recalled reading this book No Longer Human last year and it has roughly similar meaning as compared with the Thai title. Incidentally, I need time to have a look at the Thai version since, I think, it's interesting to read and compare the Thai version tr ...more

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Oct 13, 2020 Smiley rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, japan

Vaguely, while reading this Dazai fiction I recalled some familiar settings, characters, writing style, etc. despite its information on the front cover - a postwar Japanese classic in a new translation - till I took his No Longer Human (Tuttle 1981) [https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...] translated by Prof. Donald Keene from the shelf to compare. Then I realized that these two translations have long and recently rendered from the same Japanese title, that is, 人間失格 [Ningen Shikkaku].

Having ra ...more

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Oct 04, 2023 Laura rated it it was amazing

Shelves: literary-fiction, patti-smith-recommended-this-book, translations, japanese-literature

I have always shook with fright before human beings. Unable as I was to feel the least particle of confidence in my ability to speak and act like a human being, I kept my solitary agonies locked in my breast.

A curious book. It's not at all odd that he did not feel human among humans. Goodness knows how others feel about themselves in relation to others. Our existence is complicated at the same time as it is not at all. On the surface, some people seem to slide through life without so much as a h ...more

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