Osamu Dazai
Paperback | Pages: 176 pages Rating: 4.11 | 17179 Users | 1463 Reviews
Describe Containing Books No Longer Human
| Title | : | No Longer Human |
| Author | : | Osamu Dazai |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Anniversary Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 176 pages |
| Published | : | January 17th 1958 by New Directions (first published July 25th 1948) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Cultural. Japan |
Description As 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 Huston
Particularize Books Toward 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 |
Rating Containing Books No Longer Human
Ratings: 4.11 From 17179 Users | 1463 ReviewsCriticize Containing 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?It's the worst thing when people refuse to bullshit, right? Can you imagine? They might wander off in the middle of a sentence because you're boring. They would tell you when your jokes are lame. They could never hold a job, much less a family. It's not sociopathy, it's more like catastrophic self-awareness. It doesn't work out for Ōba any more than it would work for you.Didn't work for his big influence, Dostoevsky, either, although I just reminded myself, as I do about once a year, that
The quiddity of No Longer Human was a game of antonyms. I found the novel heartbreaking because of the protagonists clarity; this isnt a ready world for such vision.
I spent like three years just crazy depressed. Grim thoughts all the time, super self destructive, at once alienating and distributing "cries for help" or whatever you wanna call it... sheesh, man. It was so fucked. I'm really glad I got out of that frame of mind and I hope I never go back. No Longer Human was something I read toward the end of that phase. I probably would have been okay anyway, but this shit helped a ton. Dazai totally nails the impossibly bummed out mindset without being corny
the opening of this book, which is a description of three photographs taken of a man over the course of his life, is one of the most best and disturbing things i've ever read. just an absolutely thrilling beginning. the rest of the book doesn't quite live up to it, although it often comes close. it feels a lot like The Stranger or Notes from Underground. i only wish it built more instead of kind of petering out.
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.
No Longer Human - a book with which I was not comfortable - a book which constantly frustrated me. Was that why I read it in a day - to be done with it - to be able to put it back on the shelf? But still, four solid stars - recommended to those who suffer - i.e. humansA story of a man with a lifelong depression - a depression which leaves him incapable of maintaining any kind of positive human relationship. I could almost relate to that except that this character, Yozo, never seems to learn hide
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