When you start a book, most people expect happy endings. They expect fairytales with a beautiful romance. The books always start with the main character at their lowest point. In the end, they’re in a happy relationship together. They saved each other. Not No longer human, Dazai Osamu’s book No Longer Human is the exact opposite.

We can start by getting to know the author a little. Osamu Dazai was a writer born in Aomori, Japan. He lived from 1909-1948. Dazai was the sixth son of a wealthy family but didn’t get a lot of attention from his parents, being that his mother was sickly and his father was always working. He was taught most things like writing and reading by his nanny. When he was around 16 he decided he wanted to become a writer. Though he had many reasons for wanting to become a writer, his biggest idol/inspiration was a man named Ryūnosuke Akutagawa. Dazai was devastated when he read that his idol had ended his life. To the point of him dropping out of school and turning to drugs, alcohol, and women. To make it even worse, his parents even disowned him. By age, 26 he was back to writing and trying to become an author. He wrote many stories that had incorporated different elements of his own life until he ended it with his wife at the young age of 39. He was a successful writer and is popular even to this day. Most of his books were semi-autobiographies. A common theme to his stories is human suffering that also had different forms of adult comedy.

  The main character of Dazai’s last published book, No Longer human Oba Yozo, starts as a child whose parents have wealth and live a pretty regular life in the early 20th century. Yozo was a sickly child, so at times he would miss months of school at a time. Though when he would return, he would still be at the top of his class in academics. I think that’s when he began to separate himself and think of himself differently than he did other people. Once he got to high school, he viewed himself as a clown. At school, he would tell jokes and lies so people would see him a certain way. He would even write these great stories to get reactions out of his teachers. He was always successful at everything he did. Though there was the very rare occasion that someone would catch onto his antics, he would keep that person the closest. Even though those were the people he hated the most. But that was just the kind of person Yozo was. During this period, he discovered his love for drawing and painting. After high school, he went to college for a short time until things started to go downhill. Those events led to him becoming an alcoholic. He became so depressed that he dropped out of college, and his parents even disowned him. Throughout the book, he continued to go through ups and downs. Most of the time, he tried to solve his problems with women and alcohol. In the end, he always got hurt by one person or another. It led to his hatred of women. Still, every time Yozo would crawl right back to them. Later he finally turned to drugs which led to his accidental demise. He died at only 27 but looked as if he was in his 40’s. Against Oda Yozo’s thoughts of himself were him being a “monster,” “clown,” or “inhuman,” yet ten years in the future, Yozo was described by a friend as an “angel.”

I think I love this story so much because I feel like I can hear Dazai’s voice in my head. I can feel his thoughts even though the character himself is fictional. It makes you think about the things that go through your head. And all of the different societal pressures that come with life. It’s a great story about reality and what the world around us is really like.