New Directions Publishing
177 Pages
No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai was recommended to me by a friend who happens to be a librarian at a local high school. In turn, it had been recommended to her by one of her children. This is probably the shortest book I’ve ever reviewed. Typically, I tend to read longer books because I like those better. Sometimes, shorter books don’t give me all that I want in a story. With No Longer Human that is not the case. There is a lot of life stuffed into the few pages that make up this book.
Obo Yazo is a self-proclaimed failure. From early childhood, he’s hidden behind humor so that others didn’t know exactly how alone he felt. In the aftermath of Japan’s loss in World War II, Obo finds himself in a world torn asunder between traditional Japanese values and the encroachment of formerly forbidden Western lifestyles. He finds no place where he fits in. The old world wasn’t really the place for him, and the new world is rapidly overwhelming him and leaving him behind.
Osamu Dazai wrote No Longer Human in May 1948, in the years after the end of the war. Japan was changing. It was no longer the isolated imperial power it had been. Conflict and defeat had opened the country to new ideas. Osamu struggled with these changes. Barely a month after he wrote this book, he was dead of apparent suicide. His own bout with depression filled the pages with heaviness.
Even more than seventy-five years after it was written, No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai unfortunately still rings true. There are people who don’t feel that they fit in anywhere. They hide behind facades and deflect from their own woes. Then it seems like a surprise when they suddenly die at their own hands. No one really knows what other people are going through. This book explores some of that from the perspective of a person going through it.
No Longer Human was well worth the recommendation that it was given. It is a deep exploration of the human condition, for bad or worse. It is a heavy message in a very short amount of space. While you could probably read this in a single sitting, some parts need to be digested fully to understand. It took me longer to read this book than some of the 500 or 600-page books that I like to read.
Craig Bacon knows this could be a tough book to read. Take it slowly.