Picture Credits: Carousell
“All I feel are the assaults of apprehension and terror at the thought that I am the only one who is entirely unlike the rest. It is almost impossible for me to converse with other people. What should I talk about, how should I say it? – I Don’t know.”
Introduction
Book’s Name - No Longer Human
Author’s Name - Osamu Dazai
Genre - Novel, Fiction
Language - Japanese, English
Synopsis
No Longer Human is a dark and disturbing life-story told from the perspective of Oba Yozo, who is actually a reflection of Dazai himself.
Dazai wrote this novel in a state of frenzy and some people even suggested that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. Whatever went on in his mind is conveyed through Oba’s character.
The story is told in the form of notebooks left by Oba Yozo. The work is made up of three chapters, or "memoranda", which chronicle the life of Ōba, how he declined to a morphine addict, how his life turned into one full of crimes, alcohol, prostitutes and suicides.
Portraying himself as a failure, the protagonist of No Longer Human narrates a seemingly normal life even while he feels himself incapable of understanding human beings.
Oba Yozo’s attempts to reconcile himself to the world around him begin in early childhood, continue through high school, where he becomes a “clown” to mask his alienation, and eventually lead to a failed suicide attempt as an adult.
Without sentimentality, he records the casual cruelties of life and its fleeting moments of human connection and tenderness.
About the Author
Shuuji Tsushima (1909-1948), later came to be called Osamu Dazai, was a postwar Japanese writer considered to be one of the most prominent writers of fiction of the 20th century.
He came from a highly respected, wealthy family of landowners. With his father absent for most of the time and mother ill, Dazai was mostly brought up by the servants of the mansion and his aunt Kiye.
Dazai wrote many short stories and novels and most of his works were semi-autobiographical in nature, describing his sense of alienation and his debauchery.
He was a complicated, troubled man who tried and failed many times to commit suicide during his lifetime, from swallowing sleeping pills to hanging himself, he tried everything. Most popular of his works include - Setting Sun, published in 1947 and No Longer Human, published in 1948.
Psychological Analysis
One of the ongoing themes in the novel is alienation. Human beings are always spoken about as if they are a completely different species from the narrator. Oba, or rather Dazai, constantly talks about how he is different from humans, how he puts on a “mask” to blend in with them, to not upset them.
Despite always saying how he is not human and isolating himself, Oba comes across as any other human trying to please those around him, just a bit more twisted and troubled.
His whole problem is that he is unable to fit in, unable to recognise and find the place where he belongs. So, he thinks there is no place for him in the society and thus, his existential crisis and paranoia.
The story is very depressing. It makes you feel pity but also intense disgust towards the narrator and his hypocrisy and at the same time you can’t blame him for it either.
Oba made mistakes, he had a vile side but he had a good one too that he himself couldn’t see but the women that came in his life probably did because a woman once said that Oba was an “angel”.
For Oba, there was nothing that he held close to his heart, he lived inside his own shell, never allowing anyone to break and enter, never showing his true self, always living his life with a mask on.
We all have something we live for - family, love, dreams or even our own self. But Oba didn’t have anything like that and if he did, maybe his life would’ve turned out a bit differently.
Oba’s mental issues and struggles made him hate himself, he became even more blind towards his strengths and the many possibly better paths his life could’ve gone down than the one it did.
This just goes to show how weak and fragile humans are. One mistake and we feel our whole world shattering in front of us, just getting by another day becomes tiring.
No Longer Human is considered Dazai’s will or kinda like his suicide letter because soon after the book was published, he committed double suicide with a woman by drowning in a canal near his house and unlike his earlier attempts, this time he succeeded.
It’s hard to imagine that just living can be so difficult and terrifying for a person that they’ll repeatedly try to kill themselves until they finally succeed.
Famous Quotes
“Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness. Everything passes. That is the one and only thing I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell. Everything passes.”
“Something impure, dark, reeking of the shady character always hovers above me.”
“And now I had become a madman. Even if released, I would be forever branded on the forehand with the word “madman”, or perhaps, “reject.” Disqualified as a human being. I had now ceased utterly to be a human being.”
The Bottom Line
This tragically beautiful book was a difficult read at some times. I had to stop and take in the things that Oba felt, many of which were rather relatable.
The sense of other-worldliness, of not belonging, of having to put on an act in order to not be completely shunned, for many of us it might just be a phase but many people are unable to overcome these feelings and Osamu Dazai and Oba Yozo are one of them.
The book shows us how terrifyingly difficult it can be to be normal, to be human.
My ratings of the book - 4 on 5
Get your copy from Amazon - No Longer Human
Written By - Sanjana Chaudhary
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