NO LONGER HUMAN
Reviews
No Longer Human (人間失格 / Ningen Shikkaku) is a quiet, bitter, and almost unfiltered confession from a man named Ōba Yōzō, who feels he has never truly been human. Through a narrative structured as diary entries, the reader is led into a labyrinth of anxiety, alienation, and existential emptiness. Yōzō is unable to understand or adapt to societal norms, so he wears a mask of jokes and false cheerfulness to survive. Yet, that performance leads to his downfall—depression, addiction, and suicide attempts.
What’s most haunting about this book is not just Yōzō’s story, but the way it reflects the parts of ourselves we often try to hide: the fear of rejection, the belief that we are unworthy of love, and the desire to disappear. Dazai’s writing is straightforward yet piercing, cutting deep without excessive flourish. The autobiographical tone is unmistakable, since Dazai’s own life mirrored his protagonist’s—and that makes the book all the more painful to read.
Psychological dimension — From a psychological standpoint, No Longer Human can be read as a raw portrait of chronic dissociation, deep-seated shame, and a fractured sense of self. Yōzō is constantly performing for others, unable to reconcile his internal despair with the identity he presents to the world. His self-loathing isn’t theatrical—it’s chillingly real, rooted in trauma and a persistent disconnection from meaningful human contact. The novel doesn’t offer redemption, only exposure: of a psyche eroded by social pressure, isolation, and unresolved pain. It’s not just a story of personal collapse—it’s a testimony of how deeply societal expectations can wound those who are already fragile.
Recommended for readers interested in themes of alienation, identity crises, and human fragility. Also, for those who are unafraid to dive into emotionally dark, psychologically intense narratives.
Note — This book can be deeply triggering for readers with experiences of trauma or severe depression. Approach it with emotional readiness.
But strange enough, this book is my comfort book—my go-to-read book.
Depressive.
A short story about Social Alienation with a touch of tragedy.
this book made me question whether i could set aside my morals in order to appreciate what is deemed art
gotta marinate on this one
It was alright. There were some parts that were insightful, led me to be a bit sympathetic with the guy. Ultimately, he felt as human as any of us were. Maybe the deeper message got lost on me, so I wouldn't say it's particularly profound. But perhaps during its time.
Even when he ends up completely alienated & estranged from society he realises he is no happier than before. A really dark & depressive read.
It's when you see someone else sharing your exact thoughts of self-hatred and self-blame that makes you consider how wrong it all is. And it's when they mirror your fears and echo your rock bottom that the isolation you feel trapped in suddenly gives way a little.
That's how it felt reading this, as someone struggling to navigate lost and alone in the dark. As someone who's felt the need to hide the part of themselves too "subhuman" for society. The experience of reading this book felt like a release, and it pulled up a stool for me at the bar in Ginza to sit with my fears of abandonment and isolation.
I just wish there was someone there to echo Osamu Dazai's thoughts back to him so he could hear how he sounded.
This book’s basically the dark, poetic version of ‘It’s not a phase, mom!’
Highlights
I was no longer a criminal-I was a lunatic. But no, I was definitely not mad. I have never been mad for even an instant. They say, I know, that most lunatics claim the same thing. What it amounts to is that people who get put into this asylum are crazy, and those who don't are normal.
My unhappiness was the unhappiness of a person who could not say no. I had been intimidated by the fear that if I declined something offered me, a yawning crevice would open between the other person's heart and myself which could never be mended through all eternity.
God, I ask you. Is trustfulness a sin?
For someone like myself in whom the ability to trust others is so cracked and broken that I am wretchedly timid and am forever trying to read the expression on people's faces. Yoshiko's immaculate trustfulness seemed clean and pure, like a waterfall among green leaves. One night sufficed to turn the waters of this pure cascade yellow and muddy.
I'M MISERABLE.
He could only consider me as the living corpse of a would-be suicide, a person dead to shame, an idiot ghost.
The thought of dying has never bothered me, but getting hurt, losing blood, becoming crippled and the like—no thanks.
Sure you are.
The ocean is not society; it is individuals. This was how I managed to gain a modicum of freedom from my terror at the illusion of the ocean called the world.
They were happy, the two of them. I'd been a fool to come between them. I might destroy them both if I were not careful. A humble happiness. A good mother and child. God, I thought, if you listen to the prayers of people like myself, grant me happiness once, only once in my whole lifetime will be enough! Hear my prayer!
He's an angel.
"If all you've got is just enough talent to get along, sooner or later you'll betray yourself."
Is it not true that no two human beings understand anything whatsoever about each other, that those who consider themselves bosom friends may be utterly mistaken about their fellow and, failing to realize this sad truth throughout a lifetime, weep when they read in the newspapers about his death?
My sanity has been taken away.
Though I have always made it my practice to be pleasant to everybody, I have not once actually experienced friendship. (1)
I have frantically played the clown in order to disentangle myself from these painful relationships, only to wear myself out as a result. (2)
I had learned bit by bit the art of meeting people with a straight face-that's not true: I have never been able to meet anyone without an accompaniment of painful smiles, the buffoonery of defeat.
In my case, the wound appeared of itself when I was an infant, and with the passage of time, far from healing it has grown only the deeper, until now it has reached the bone.
There are some people whose dread of human beings is so morbid that they reach a point where they yearn to see with their own eyes monsters of ever more horrible shapes.
During the course of my life I have wished innumerable times that I might meet with a violent death, but I have never once desired to kill anybody.
When I hated something, I could not pronounce the words, I don't like it When I liked something I tasted it hesitantly, furtively, as though it were extremely bitter. In either case I was torn by unspeakable fear. In other words, I hadn't the strength even to choose between two alternatives. In this fact, I believe, lay one of the characteristics which in later years was to develop into a major cause of my life of shame.
"As long as I can make them laugh, it doesn't matter how, 111 be all right. If I succeed in that, the human beings probably won't mind it too much if I remain outside their lives. The one thing I must avoid is becoming offensive in their eyes: I shall be nothing, the wind, the sky."
I might already have been disqualified from living among human beings. This belief made me incapable of arguments or self-justification. Whenever anyone criticized me I felt certain that I had been living under the most dreadful misapprehension. I always accepted the attack in silence, though inwardly so terrified as almost to be out of my mind.
“I seem to have heard the theory advanced that human beings live in order to cat, but I've never heard anyone say that they lived in order to make money”
Mine has been a life of much shame. I can't even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being.
People have told me, really more times than I can remember, ever since I was a small boy, how lucky I was, but I have always felt as if I were suffering in hell. It has seemed to me in fact that those who called me lucky were incomparably more fortunate than I.
is it not true that no two human beings understand anything whatsoever about each other, that those who consider themselves bosom friends may be utterly mistaken about their fellow and, failing to realise this sad truth throughout a lifetime…
the manner of speech of everybody in the world- held strange, elusive complexities, intricately presented with overtones of vagueness: i have always been baffled by these precautions so strict as to be useless, and by intensely irritating little manoeuvres surrounding them.
i despised him as one fit only for amusement, a man with whom i associated for that sole purpose. at times i felt ashamed of our friendship.
i was congenitally unable to refuse anything offered to me by another person, no matter how little it might suit my tastes.