A Japanese classic from almost 75 years ago tells the timeless and visceral story of mental illness.
Trigger warning: This review contains discussion of depression, mental illness, and suicide.
Not gonna lie, I am started interesting towards Japanese Literature because of my favourites manga and anime - 'Bungo Stray Dogs'. Every character there was based of novelist and their ability is made based on their novel tittle. so thats why i am started to interesting about their book. first book that uve read is from Dazai Osamu, "No Longer Human". this is my first book of Japan Literature. oh, anyway ive been read alot of famous book like Whutering Heights, Great Gatsby and such a things. but if the novelist from Japanese or Asia, here's my first.
" Even though it
was written almost 75 years ago, Dazai’s semi-autobiographical account of his
mental illness easily reminds me of modern depictions of depression and
anxiety.”
When I first read No Longer Human by
Osamu Dazai in an attempt to expand my focus beyond American literature, I did
not expect the book to impact me as much as it did.
No Longer Human was the Japanese author’s
last complete work before he committed suicide in 1948. As a
semi-autobiographical work, it depicts much of Dazai’s own life through the
eyes of the main character, Oba Yozo, from his failures with love to his
participation in the Communist Party to the momentary bits of tenderness in his
life. Dazai shows a scarily realistic look into the mind of a man that
struggles through depression, alienation, and addiction as he searches for a
way to be human.
The book holds a particular focus on the
alienation of childhood depression, describing the way Yozo moves through life
in a time before the language of mental illness was ever discussed out loud. I
found that I related a lot to the visceral feelings of “otherness” that Yozo
describes, and in the time and culture it was published—post-World War II
Japan—the descriptions are especially poignant.
Dazai threads the needle of writing about
mental illness without seeming melodramatic, even with Yozo’s descriptions of
feeling inhuman scattered throughout the book.
Interspersed with examinations of society and
work culture, I found the book increasingly interesting and moving. I
especially related to how Yozo finds things that help him for a little while,
fleeting moments where he thinks everything will turn out alright, only to be
brought back into the throes of depression. The constant struggle to find
something that pins a person to life, or in Yozo’s words, to being human, is
something I had never seen, even when I read self-help and modern books about
mental illness.
There is also something to be said about the
beauty of translation. Ever since my class read the poetry of ancient cultures
in ninth grade, I have found that there is a distinct loveliness to translated
works. In the particular edition I read, translator Donald Keene manages to
balance content and mood well, but in return he sacrifices the form of the
original. There is no doubt that if I were to read a different publication, I
would have had a different experience.
I actually do plan on rereading this story in
Junji Ito’s manga form simply to see how the lines between Dazai’s original
Japanese, the English translation, and Ito’s horrifically visceral drawings
connect.
While I found that the book portrays
depression, and the alienation that is created, with an accuracy that I have
not read before or since, it should be said that the book, like many classics,
has a very loosely structured and character-driven plot. If you are more
interested in books rife with action and adventure, this is definitely not the
book for you. The climax is not so much a flurry of action as it is a character
climax, slower and rife with realization.
It should also be said that this book will not
be a good experience if you are not prepared for it. No Longer Human is
not a cheerful book, and it is not an easy book. It describes the thought
process of depression in graphic detail, and if you are not careful, it can
very easily be triggering.
One of my other favorite authors, V.E. Schwab,
often describes books and stories as mirrors—No Longer Human is no
exception. Even though it was written almost 75 years ago, Dazai’s
semi-autobiographical account of his mental illness easily reminds me of modern
depictions of depression and anxiety.
In a book so enamored with the inhumanity of
its protagonist, it felt acutely human to me, and at times, a reflection of my
own life that I was not prepared to look into.
Overall, I would recommend this book to anyone
who is prepared to read it, or more accurately, to anyone prepared to gaze into
the mirror of mental illness and face what stares back.
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