A review by brinasonline
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

medium-paced

• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I really struggled with this one, but by the end of the book, I wondered: Is this what can happen to kids who have faced horrific crimes at the hands of adults and never get justice?  

It is briefly mentioned that the narrator faces sex-crimes in his childhood. BRIEFLY. MENTIONED. Now, I don’t know if I’m projecting, but I could see how this might’ve shaped the narrator and his actions in adulthood. It is not an excuse for how horrible he is to everyone (especially all the women / his child-bride), but it gives some more context as to why he is so tormented in his adult-years.

It is worth noting that there seems to be a consensus that the main character is based off of the author (Dazai) and his life… and that is off-putting.

These were some of the parallels between the author and the main character: tries to commit suicide with multiple women, cheats on every wife he has, and packs up and leaves his families when the “next best thing” comes around. For someone who spends so much of the book claiming that he “doesn’t care about women”, “doesn’t listen to women”, and doesn’t “desire a relationship”., this man literally (LIKE ACTUALLY) needs to be detained to stop soliciting sex from women.

For the positives: Dazai strips away every human convention and breaks-down the act of existing in a way that makes you question why we do anything the way we do it. 

I’m grateful to not entirely relate as I feel the main character is far too self-involved, rigid and has NO self-awareness (even when constantly feigning self-awareness), but there were moments that reminded me what I have felt at some of my lowest points. It’s almost nice to know that someone was able to write it down. 

Talking about the author: I truly do believe that this book was Dazai’s suicide note and that he was trying to reconcile his own life through the main character.

With this reading, it is clear that Dazai has blind-spots as to who he was and was very comfortable harming people (women) who he deems less than himself (literally all of the women). He “others” himself to shield his ego and he contradicts himself at every turn.

Dazai is “not like the other girls”. 

Further, I struggle with the last chapter of the book. It made me sob, but after some reflection, I think Dazai is trying to excuse all the horrible crimes he’s committed against women by blaming his father, a very wealthy politician who financed his life and did not require that his son get a job for most of his adult years if he wanted more money for “cigarettes, alcohol, and prostitutes.” In all fairness, the main character in the book does not make it clear if his father knew that there were sex-crimes being committed against the narrator in his childhood. If this was the case, then the father should’ve died earlier… ideally, at the hands of the narrator. Unfortunately, I cannot take that into consideration as that was not divulged in the text. The author ends the story on “he’s an angel”—so fucking frustrating. You’re trying to tell me that I just read a whole book about a guy who abuses women, is creepy about his 17-year-old wife’s virginity (among other horrific shit), is inadvertently is responsible for a 19 year old girl’s death… but he’s an “ANGEL”?? And yes, he spends the WHOLE BOOK saying how terrible he is, but you get the sense that he doesn’t actually understand. He uses a lot of the disgusting things he does as a way to argue that somehow he’s the one who is most hurt (and is the true victim) of his crimes against others.

Sad to say he reminds me of so many of the men I have dated ((and YES—that’s MY bad)).

Regardless, this book made me write an entire essay for this review, so I would say I am intrigued by the themes.