A review by apricot_orchid
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

challenging dark slow-paced
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
I'm fairly certain you need brains to read and understand this book and I am not one of those people. I understood it...but I also didn't. I knew going into this that it would be depressing but the biggest vibe I got from the mc, Yozo, was that he was just pitiful. He seems painfully introverted to the point where he does "funny" or "odd" things to make his peers laugh in order for him to seem less lonely. But he doesn't want anyone to look too closely. And when they do it becomes a "keep your friends close but your enemies closer" type of strained relationship. It's written like Dazai wants you to sympathize and empathize with Yozo as I'm sure many humans in the world feel like they don't belong and are alienated in one way or another, but at no point was I rooting for him. I kept waiting for him to fail (or win depending on how you see it).

This book definitely covers many sensitive subjects. Half of the book is him drinking and the other half is him having horrible thoughts and relationships with women. Heavy on the misogyny and suicide talk. He does many many questionable things and it's best to thoroughly research the trigger tags as I did not. It's not so much as graphic with some stuff - topics are more mentioned like statements if that makes sense.

Did I enjoy the book? Not entirely but I think it captures well the struggles that a lot of people can face concerning mental health etc. It is a pretty short read, but the pacing is painfully slow. It doesn't really have a plot since most of it is Yozo's thoughts. It's hard to give a rating for this and I wouldn't necessarily recommend others to read it, but it was interesting to say the least.
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