nettipiiskuri’s Reviews > No Longer Human > Status Update

I’m also really interested in how unreliable his perception of the world might be. He doesn’t necessarily describe people as they objectively are, but as he experiences them. So I keep asking myself: is Yozo actually fundamentally different from everyone else, or has he simply convinced himself that he is?

there’s this irony that building an identity and adapting ourselves to other people might actually be one of the most human things we do. Maybe Yozo’s problem is not that he is incapable of being human, but that he is painfully aware of how much of “being human” involves performing and figuring out who we are.

I find especially interesting how he almost seems to exile himself from society. He sees himself as an outsider, but at the same time, he reinforces that identity by constantly performing, clowning, and trying to become whatever he thinks other people want him to be. It made me wonder whether society is actually rejecting him, or whether he has internalized that rejection so deeply that he now does it to himself.

My Thoughts on No Longer Human so far:

I honestly did not expect this book to get this deep this quickly. What has fascinated me most so far is Yozo’s relationship with “normal” humanity. He constantly feels like everyone else knows some secret about how to be human that he never learned, which makes him feel fundamentally separated from other people.