No Longer Human - Osamu Dazai
Translated from Japanese by Donald Keene.
First published, in Japanese, in 1948.
For the second time ever, a student recommended and lent a book to me to read.
This one is an odd book. I've now had a few students tell me they enjoy it, and I find myself curious as to what exactly it is that they enjoy...
The main character, Yozo, is met as a young boy, seeking to entertain those around him, and already beginning to put on masks in order to do so. He begins to see himself as 'no longer human' pretty quickly, due to the disconnect he feels between the things he does and the things he feels 'humans' would do. Throughout the book, Yozo gives in to his worst impulses more and more, feeling himself drifting further from the morality of 'humanity', and seemingly powerless to stop his descent. He takes up drinking and womanizing, and has at least two suicide attempts in the course of the book. At times he feels remorse for his actions, but never enough to permanently change his behaviour.
The story is structured as three separate notebooks written by Yozo, then collected and book-ended by an unnamed 'editor'. This editor is able to comment on the open-endedness of the story by pointing out that he doesn't even know if Yozo is alive anymore.
The fact that this novel was semi-autobiographical and was the last work of author Dazai, who soon afterwards took his own life, adds to the melancholic and 'hopeless' feel of the text as a whole.
I think I get it. Conceptually, I understand that people without a true sense of the hope found in Jesus could feel an ongoing sense of alienation, isolation and 'dehumanisation' such as Yozo and Dazai both felt. Yozo has some interactions with Christianity, but it seems a far more legalistic/religious version than the relationship I have with God, and as such it makes sense that this offered both the character and the author no comfort in their trials. We all face difficulties and sorrows - both Christians and non-Christians - but even in my darkest times I have known a hope that can bring me through to the other side. Yozo and Dazai seem to never have found this hope, and as a result are left hopeless. At one point Yozo/Dazai writes: "Unhappiness. There are all kinds of unhappy people in this world. I suppose it would be no exaggeration to say that the world is composed entirely of unhappy people." (page 157). For those that have no hope, this becomes a true and insightful statement. The student who lent me the book has even underlined that passage.
I imagine that is why this book is popular to a certain group of people (and it has apparently remained a bestseller in Japan since it was written). It is certainly insightful about fallen human nature.
I just hope I can point well enough to the solution offered by Jesus to such a mess.
Completed 7 May 2025.
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