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A review by chasegartzke
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai
5.0
Trigger warnings for this novel: depictions of extreme depression, anxiety, alienation, child ab*se, drug ab*se, s*xual ab*se, and su*cide.
No Longer Human, in case you are unacquainted, is a brutally painful novel written by Osamu Dazai and published in 1948. Dazai loosely tells the story of his own life, from childhood to his late twenties, and may even confess to a few crimes (we can’t be sure which parts were fictionalized). The stand-in for Dazai, Ōba Yōzō, is riddled with mental illness and is neurodivergent. He struggles to understand the humans around him, and almost all of them lack an understanding of him as well. Bludgeoned by an overwhelming sense of loneliness and self hatred, he sinks deeper and deeper into despair, addiction, and self harm.
This novel is the second best selling novel in Japan’s history, and a bestseller here in the US - something I believe speaks to humans’ fascination with the macabre and a desire to see a character with similar attributes but who is ultimately worse than themselves (something that I think is more common than many would care to admit). The intrigue for many readers lies with Yōzō’s undiagnosed and untreated mental illness(es). And once Yōzō is sent to an asylum (not even for his mental illnesses, but for a morphine addiction) his ultimate fear is realized…
“And now I had become a madman. Even if released, I would be forever branded on the forehead with the word, “madman,” or perhaps, “reject.” Disqualified as a human being. I had now ceased utterly to be a human being.” - Ōba Yōzō; No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai
The tragedy for Yōzō wasn’t that he was different or even unwell - both of which were things he already knew. And it wasn’t even going into an asylum. It was the stigma.
Osamu Dazai, the author, died of double suicide by drowning (tied to a woman and speculated lover, Tomie Yamazaki, which is eerily depicted in the novel as a failed suicide attempt by Yōzō) one month after the publication of his book. This is made all the more tragic by the epilogue of No Longer Human in which the closing narrator begins by referring to Yōzō - Dazai’s stand-in - as a madman before speaking with a former lover of Yōzō about her reading the gut wrenching notebooks (which are the body of the text) when she said, “I didn’t cry. I just kept thinking that when human beings get that way, they’re no good for anything,” before saying, “it’s his father’s fault. The Yōzō we knew was so easy-going and amusing, and if only he hadn’t drunk — no, even though he did drink — he was a good boy, an angel.”
Yōzō wasn’t a “good boy,” or an angel. He was actually quite cold and inhumanly neglectful. It is here that we have confirmed for us that even the people who were closest to him never knew him, and despite her kind words even she felt he was, “no good for anything.”
I don’t think Dazai meant to (I suspect this novel was a trauma dump), but maybe he gave us a cautionary tale. Partially biographical (confirmed), sometimes troubling to read, yet beautiful at times, we see what can happen when mental illness goes unchecked and stigmatized, we see what can happen when we let the wrong ones into our circle (I’m looking at you, Horiki), and he shows us the destructive power of childhood trauma and how difficult (but possible) it can be to heal from that.
I could end there, but I feel obligated to mention the other possibility; we may not be meant to get a deep meaning from this novel. The character of Yōzō exhibits a disdain for humanity’s need for use and meaning in everything. To him a bridge may be beautiful and interesting, but only until he realizes it has a purpose. Then as he grows up he starts to not only see beauty in things existing for no purpose, but in art that depicts the truth - or the truth as he sees it - that the world is an awful place full of awful people. And since Yōzō is our stand-in for Dazai, we could be forgiven for assuming that Dazai might have shared Yōzō’s views. So maybe this novel has no intended deeper meaning, and is just meant to be art reflecting the ugliness in the world that haunted Yōzō and Dazai. But ultimately, I think art is subjective. If you find meaning in No Longer Human, you’re certainly not alone.
If you’re in an emotional place in life where you can handle it, read it.
No Longer Human, in case you are unacquainted, is a brutally painful novel written by Osamu Dazai and published in 1948. Dazai loosely tells the story of his own life, from childhood to his late twenties, and may even confess to a few crimes (we can’t be sure which parts were fictionalized). The stand-in for Dazai, Ōba Yōzō, is riddled with mental illness and is neurodivergent. He struggles to understand the humans around him, and almost all of them lack an understanding of him as well. Bludgeoned by an overwhelming sense of loneliness and self hatred, he sinks deeper and deeper into despair, addiction, and self harm.
This novel is the second best selling novel in Japan’s history, and a bestseller here in the US - something I believe speaks to humans’ fascination with the macabre and a desire to see a character with similar attributes but who is ultimately worse than themselves (something that I think is more common than many would care to admit). The intrigue for many readers lies with Yōzō’s undiagnosed and untreated mental illness(es). And once Yōzō is sent to an asylum (not even for his mental illnesses, but for a morphine addiction) his ultimate fear is realized…
“And now I had become a madman. Even if released, I would be forever branded on the forehead with the word, “madman,” or perhaps, “reject.” Disqualified as a human being. I had now ceased utterly to be a human being.” - Ōba Yōzō; No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai
The tragedy for Yōzō wasn’t that he was different or even unwell - both of which were things he already knew. And it wasn’t even going into an asylum. It was the stigma.
Osamu Dazai, the author, died of double suicide by drowning (tied to a woman and speculated lover, Tomie Yamazaki, which is eerily depicted in the novel as a failed suicide attempt by Yōzō) one month after the publication of his book. This is made all the more tragic by the epilogue of No Longer Human in which the closing narrator begins by referring to Yōzō - Dazai’s stand-in - as a madman before speaking with a former lover of Yōzō about her reading the gut wrenching notebooks (which are the body of the text) when she said, “I didn’t cry. I just kept thinking that when human beings get that way, they’re no good for anything,” before saying, “it’s his father’s fault. The Yōzō we knew was so easy-going and amusing, and if only he hadn’t drunk — no, even though he did drink — he was a good boy, an angel.”
Yōzō wasn’t a “good boy,” or an angel. He was actually quite cold and inhumanly neglectful. It is here that we have confirmed for us that even the people who were closest to him never knew him, and despite her kind words even she felt he was, “no good for anything.”
I don’t think Dazai meant to (I suspect this novel was a trauma dump), but maybe he gave us a cautionary tale. Partially biographical (confirmed), sometimes troubling to read, yet beautiful at times, we see what can happen when mental illness goes unchecked and stigmatized, we see what can happen when we let the wrong ones into our circle (I’m looking at you, Horiki), and he shows us the destructive power of childhood trauma and how difficult (but possible) it can be to heal from that.
I could end there, but I feel obligated to mention the other possibility; we may not be meant to get a deep meaning from this novel. The character of Yōzō exhibits a disdain for humanity’s need for use and meaning in everything. To him a bridge may be beautiful and interesting, but only until he realizes it has a purpose. Then as he grows up he starts to not only see beauty in things existing for no purpose, but in art that depicts the truth - or the truth as he sees it - that the world is an awful place full of awful people. And since Yōzō is our stand-in for Dazai, we could be forgiven for assuming that Dazai might have shared Yōzō’s views. So maybe this novel has no intended deeper meaning, and is just meant to be art reflecting the ugliness in the world that haunted Yōzō and Dazai. But ultimately, I think art is subjective. If you find meaning in No Longer Human, you’re certainly not alone.
If you’re in an emotional place in life where you can handle it, read it.