I was cleaning my bookshelf when I discovered my copy of “No Longer Human” by Osamu Dazai, and I remember being incredibly impacted by this novel. I do not wish to make people uncomfortable, so I apologize if this may be too much information, (please let me know if I have shared too much and I will remove this section from the post.) but as somebody who is bedeviled with mental illness, aside from the outdated beliefs and language I found this novel unnerving due to how synonymous some of the protagonist/author’s thoughts overlapped with my own. This was one of the few novels I thought about for days after finishing. I am curious to see what other people have thought about this novel.
Thank you all for taking the time to read and reply, I hope you all have a lovely day.
I love it for its role in Japanese literature overall. No Longer Human is basically the definition of a Watashi Shōsetsu. An entire genre came from this (I mean there were others before, but Dazai really gave it the shape it had forever since). But like other works in that genre, it’s kinda rough reading this knowing it’s basically autobiographical, and one can speculate whether Dazai specifically focuses on all the negative stuff and dark thoughts.