![]() ![]() He is, by no means, a good person, but he’s not evil either. ![]() No Longer Human is a short book, but the density it packs into its 177 pages is enough to make you feel weighed down by the inexplicable familiarity and desperation of Yozo as he struggles to find his way in the world. And Dazai’s novel can remind us that even though it may seem like everyone else fits in better than we do, more than likely we are all just playing along. It can be hard to separate our lived realities with those we post about and experience online. Dazai seems to be continually asking, “What version of ourselves do we project to those around us, and is that version an accurate representation of the person we truly are inside?” When reading about Yozo’s struggles and trauma, anyone who has ever experienced feelings of anxiety when amongst friends and strangers will recognize something familiar in the narrator’s silent anguish. However, No Longer Human is still one of Japan’s best-selling books today, meaning that its appeal transcends beyond its original historical context. Because Dazai’s semi-autobiographical novel was published only a few years after the end of World War II, it might be easy to prescribe a particular historical lens to the book. As he grows up, he eventually masks his own pain behind alcohol, drugs and women, but is never fully able to escape his own dissatisfaction with his life and the fact that he consistently feels like an outcast amongst everyone. ![]() Readers are plugged directly into Yozo’s mind where we get a firsthand look at the world through the eyes of an individual who spends all of his time measuring himself and his behaviors against those around him. No Longer Human is a book fraught with anxiety. It is only when one of his classmates - another young boy named Takeichi - is able to see through Yozo’s false projection of himself that his life takes a turn. Even as a young boy, Yozo struggles to connect with his peers, resorting to taking on the mask of class clown just so that he is able to fit in. Told through a series of notebook entries written by a man named Oba Yozo, No Longer Human explores his complex relationship and self-hatred with himself, a man who has never once felt like a human being who belonged in the world. ![]() Recently, re-issued by New Directions, Dazai’s final book written before his death still feels startlingly relevant to today’s self-riddled paranoia and insanely online world despite the fact that it was written nearly a century ago. Behind the screen, it becomes impossible to feel satisfied with your own daily life when everyone else seems to be better at being a human being than you.Ĭelebrated Japanese author Osamu Dazai published No Longer Human in 1948, but the book is still extremely popular today. We measure ourselves against the fabricated realities posted online by others, and they in turn measure themselves against us. Suddenly, things like what a person ate for lunch or what their morning routine looks like become extremely important. A quick log in to Instagram or TikTok reveals millions upon millions of daily recollections posted by individuals in attempts at documenting the minutiae of life. The invention of social media means that we have never been more acutely aware of the lives being lived by those around us. ![]()
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