Osamu DAZAI (native name: 太宰治, real name Shūji Tsushima) was a Japanese author who is considered one of the foremost fiction writers of 20th-century Japan. A number of his most popular works, such as Shayō (The Setting Sun) and Ningen Shikkaku (No Longer Human), are considered modern-day classics in Japan. With a semi-autobiographical style and transparency into his personal life, Dazai’s stories have intrigued the minds of many readers. His books also bring about awareness to a number of important topics such as human nature, mental illness, social relationships, and postwar Japan.
Just realized that my Mandarin translated copy is a bind-up of three stories: No Longer Human , Setting Sun and Villon's Wife. So technically, I have finished this book 😂 Will write a separate review for the other two after I finish them.
No Longer Human is about a young man who lost trust in humanity and lived in despair. He was born without conforming to the social norm and felt stressful communicating and confronting with people, even his family members. He often being suspicious of other people's behaviour and believe that everyone is wearing a "mask". Living in solitude, he craved for sex and alcohol, and got himself in many troubles.
There isn't any plot advancement here. Like any other Japanese literature, it explores the dark side of the inner self. It can be pretty repetitive as the character keep on rambling and complaining about his life. However, at the same time, I found the story ended abruptly and craved for more.
This book is kinda the biography of Osamu Dazai. He wrote it based on his true experience. Understand Osamu's background before reading this book will give you more depth about the character, Oba Yozo. To be honest, I didn't know whether to sympathize or loathe Osamu. He's the definition of f***boy in this era, yet he is suffering inside.
Go into this book with caution. There are many content warnings such as drug & alcohol addiction, depression, suicidal thoughts and sexualisation of women.
One of most thing appreciated from Osamu Dazai is the pure honesty to his own life story. This is not the book written to provide any resolution to life, or even suggestions, but instead, it's just self-obsession to the kind of "shameful" life he was living but could not change at all, yet with lots of self-struggle. I believe it must have taken so much courage and self-reflection that he could even arrange all these into words. It's like doing operation on his own body, he's like writing about himself in third person, it's painful but seems the pain is not felt by himself. There's many broken pieces of himself from the story, which he's pressing himself really hard with self-conflict, but almost every time the "shame" got the better of him. His pain comes so much from his overestimate of human and underestimate of himself, it is not a perfect world, and it's okay you are not. It's so unfortunate that Osamu Dazai eventually chose to let go of his life, we can only hope the better he felt after, and this book would always remain an important part in Japanese literature.
这本书颇负盛名,从我购买了夏目漱石的我是猫开始,太宰治这个名字就不断出现。原来的室友,日本忠实爱好者曾经阅读过这本书的日文版。可能是因为我讨厌前室友,也可能是因为我讨厌她对于本书的描述以及翻译的片段,我一直拒绝阅读这本书。 但是,我决绝不了这个封面(这就是封面爱好者的苦衷。。。)如此符合我审美的封面和如此有名的作者,让我觉得,也许,也许我会喜欢这本书。而且我安慰我自己,现在是夏天,就算是很丧很丧的书,也不会比当初读The Catcher in the Rye还要痛苦吧(当时我是开春的时候选择的这本书,那时的英语文学老师强烈建议我等到暑假期间再度,她说It is a very depressing book, you would not enjoy it at all, it is not your style. 事实证明她是对的,我是真不喜欢这本书) 我用了三天的时候读完了,途中几次都想要把书扔进河里,北京初夏的太阳和好天气都不足以抵消这本书的丧。主人公的无病呻吟,他对于生活的消极态度,那些狐朋狗友的糜烂生活,以及他对于自己一些反社会行为的解释都让我觉得荒诞不已。我有时会觉得,也许把他揍一顿或者扔进矿洞挖几天的矿会让他更积极的面对生活一点。不论他是不是日本极其重要的作家,这种写作叙述风格我可能永远都不会尝试了。。。真的不适合我。所以对于这本书的评价可能非常的片面和主观,外加上是翻译过来的,我很难对于语言进行任何的评价,完全是按照个人好恶打分的。
I felt quite uncomfortable when reading this book, since the whole story and the background setting is such a awful and chaos one that exceeds my tolerance. Also, some of the decisions that made by the protagonist are just confusing to me. But this book do impress me a lot, providing me several questions to think about. The unfortunate life experience of the protagonist serves as a reflection to the society that time, and he is a rebel to the reality, society and his fate, while the result is failure.