jva_lee 's review for:

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

3.5

dark sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: No

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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there is a literary sub-genre that is quite popular but i cannot put a name on it. to describe it, would just be saying “miserable man who hates himself but will not kill himself and hates the world and says he wants to be left alone and yet is always around other people, making them miserable with his own presence.” nowadays sometimes women are also these types of men (the bell jar and my year of rest and relaxation comes to mind) but it’s mostly men. oba yozo is, of course, one of these men. but yet, he is not so miserable and pathetic that i cannot enjoy his inner dialogue at all and simply hate the man. is he a good man? hell nah. but am i so irritated by his words that i wish i had enough courage to DNF the novel? no, not at all. he walks this tight rope of depressing and interesting that allows one to somewhat enjoy reading about this man. i find the epilogue very interesting, having the last words of the novel giving compliments to the man we just read about. it has us wonder, was he really that horrible? or was he really just that good of an actor but that people would still make excuses for his outrageous behavior?

(final thoughts that have nothing to do with my review: throughout reading the novel, the idea kept popping into my head, that there were probably many people who read this novel, and perhaps others of dazai’s, merely to help them characterize the fictional dazai osamu from bungou stray dogs for their soukoku fanfiction. this idea made me giggle every time.)