Particularize Books Concering No Longer Human
| Original Title: | 人間失格 [Ningen Shikkaku] |
| ISBN: | 0811204812 (ISBN13: 9780811204811) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | 大庭葉蔵 [Ōba Yōzō] |
| Setting: | Japan |
Osamu Dazai
Paperback | Pages: 176 pages Rating: 4.11 | 17179 Users | 1463 Reviews
Point About Books No Longer Human
| Title | : | No Longer Human |
| Author | : | Osamu Dazai |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | First Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 176 pages |
| Published | : | January 17th 1958 by New Directions (first published July 25th 1948) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Cultural. Japan |
Explanation Toward Books No Longer Human
Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human, this leading postwar Japanese writer's second novel, tells the poignant and fascinating story of a young man who is caught between the breakup of the traditions of a northern Japanese aristocratic family and the impact of Western ideas. In consequence, he feels himself "disqualified from being human" (a literal translation of the Japanese title). Donald Keene, who translated this and Dazai's first novel, The Setting Sun, has said of the author's work: "His world … suggests Chekhov or possibly postwar France, … but there is a Japanese sensibility in the choice and presentation of the material. A Dazai novel is at once immediately intelligible in Western terms and quite unlike any Western book." His writing is in some ways reminiscent of Rimbaud, while he himself has often been called a forerunner of Yukio Mishima. Cover painting by Noe Nojechowiz, from the collection of John and Barbara Duncan; design by Gertrude HustonRating About Books No Longer Human
Ratings: 4.11 From 17179 Users | 1463 ReviewsWeigh Up About Books No Longer Human
Fails to deliver and didn't captivate me or draw me in in any serious way at all. Time passes, and things happen, but I feel like there's no reason for me to care. I don't feel anything reading this, and that's odd considering the topics dealt with. 177 pages blow by and leave no mark or trace at all. There are beautiful passages here, to be sure, but the book is, in my opinion, largely forgettable. Perhaps an issue with the translation?The Bourgeois Anti-Bourgeois NovelWell, supposedly no longer human, but really very human, very bourgeois. I have heard this is assigned in the Japanese school curriculum: and nothing gets assigned in an official curriculum unless it supports the middle class. (Sorry, I've been reading too much Bernhard recently, especially "Gathering Evidence.")
(Image taken from the Junji Ito manga adaptation of the novel... which I will also review later)I do not like typing these words. This is something I hesitate to say during the best of situations, but I simply do not know how to review this book. This is... this book makes me feel like I got a glimpse of something I shouldn't have, and rather than putting it down and walking away, I continued reading someone's most private thoughts. Now obviously, Dazai intended these thoughts to be read, but
No Longer Human is brutal, and about as accurate a portrait of the skewing effects the twin corrupters of narcissism and depression can have on a life. The narrator, based closely on Dazai's own life, is insufferable, not only to those around him but to himself and yet like a corrosive fog, he consumes everyone and everything with whom he comes in contact. Anyone blessed enough to not have depression in them will likely not find much to like in this book, but for the rest of us, Dazai is
Behind ballads of an orphaned heart,Lay poetic trance of a loves facade.Dreads the ghostly art within hazy shades,Human shame in comic masquerades.Inebriated words coughing in notebooksEmpty sake bottles in curls of smoke,Vice or virtue, the gullible spirit bragsDiabolical tales of a death mask.Everything passes, cried the blue cradleSlept, the wings of a fallen angel.A solitary word blissfully prances from the anxious mind, fears the disintegration of its syllables; the distorted enunciation of
Caught between the past and the present a young man (Oba Yozo) finds that he is becoming more and more alienated from society and any sort of future. His decent into existential crisis is the reason why this book is so often compared to The Stranger by Albert Camus.
This novel was utterly perfect and so masterfully written. The prose is one of the most charming I've come across and I absolutely loved it. It's one of those books which I wish I had a printed copy so that I could smell and underline mostly everything, write comments next to paragraphs etc. Unfortunately, I cannot and that makes me sad. Hadn't I watched Bungo stray dogs and hadn't I identified as Osamu Dazai and hadn't I loved this character so much I would probably not have read this book soon
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