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3.92 AVERAGE
3.92 AVERAGE
reflective
sad
dark
reflective
medium-paced
Kaunis kirja, jonka lainasin aluksi vain, koska ”Ei enää ihminen” ei ollut sillä hetkellä saatavilla, mutta epäilen, että saatan pitää tästä vielä enemmän. Vaikka tämäkin oli synkkä, pohjavireenä oli kuitenkin jonkinlainen Kazukon toiveikkuus ja siitä jäi hyvä mieli.
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide
dark
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
I didn't like No Longer Human at all, but I liked this one. I don't know if people would call this a book about grief, but I think it is. I feel like the main character felt a lot of grief before the deaths actually occurred, and I don't find that often in books.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Addiction, Infidelity, Suicide, Death of parent
Moderate: Alcoholism, Death, Drug abuse, War
Minor: Pregnancy
I'm planning to get back into reading it. I got busy and forgot about it for a while
dark
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Kazuko's mother was a reminder of everything beautiful, aspirational and in a way grounding about Kazuko's original life as an aristocrat in Japan. She loved and adored her mother. Her mother's deteriorating health symbolically coincides with their family's disintegrating wealth and social stability. It shakes Kazuko out of the shelter of her expectations of what life has in store for her. She is afraid of losing the comfort and resources of being an upper-class women - both materially and identity wise. This transformation landscapes itself in the revolutionary times in Japan that were modernizing the socio-economic layers and rendering aristocrats obsolete. Kazuko feels alone and unguided in these unchartered territories. She does not have a support system. Apart from having to do manual labour for the first time in her life, give up all privileged relics of her past to earn her bread, and surviving on the charity of others, she feels lost without any objective to model her life on. She discovers that her brother Naoji has fallen prey to similar confusion and ultimately given up on his life through suicide after his inability to reconcile with the aristocratic expectations from him versus the moral corruption that his refuge - his habits and his debauched company - make him undergo. Kazuko contrastingly preserves a spirit to survive by swallowing her pride, anger and fears. She redefines for herself what is expected from a respectable women of her times. She draws inspiration from the foreign ideas of revolution and individualism. She then proceeds to abandon the deadweight of her traditional expectations from life and society's conventional expectations from her.
challenging
dark
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
"maddie if you don't usually like classic lit why do you read it????" It grounds me. It reminds me that I am better than so many people heart emoji. I never thought that I would read 40 or so pages about a broke formerly aristocratic woman writing letters to her long-distance alcoholic crush that has a wife and fantasizes over having a baby w him and saying its her moral revolution... honestly not a waste of my time and truly entertaining. Love the presence of Marxism in this book tho. Obviously written by a man. Nevertheless, entertaining. Fav part was probs the beginning and reading about the mom and Kazuko's interactions. Love the part w the mom loving Naoiji more than Kazuko tbh. Funny how people can be. Did I like/understand what Dazai was saying w this, no. Was it entertaining, yes ma'am. I personally like No Longer Human more because I saw into the mind of the mc more. Also there was some funky representation of Kazuko as a woman.. but that is a whole other story. 3/5 stars