The protagonist, a young male by the name of Oba Yozo, is the prime example of a soul who feels isolated from the rest of society, and out of fear of having this oddity brought to surface, he puts on a comical facade to make himself ‘normal/human’ to both family and friends.īecause of this, Yozo leads a life of unhappiness, having described every night of living in the human world as a terror. In likeness of the book, I shall divide this so-called review into three parts. Reading No Longer Human sheds light upon the emptiness that all humans feel, but because of the frequency at which artists outwardly explore that emptiness, they also tend to develop such aforementioned pretensions. I make no excuse for myself either.Īfter having read NLH, I know that poets, playwrights, prosers and the lot are the most pretentious beings ever, myself included.Įven in the case of NLH, the main character’s first few thoughts could easily be translated into one thing: ‘beauty is the only necessity in the world.’

Many a time our downfall has been our own minds – we’re much too idealistic and much too impractical.

Now I have never written a review, which in the beginning felt quite daunting, but after remembering what Neil Gaiman said about rules as just restrictions, I now feel slightly more assured.īefore having read NLH, I thought that poets, playwrights, prosers and the lot were the most pretentious beings ever, myself included. Sorry I haven’t posted for over a week now – I was consumed by life’s holy trinity of unpleasantries: college, creative block, and reaching a breaking point after having kept hidden for months my inner turmoil from family.īut I’m back, with a review of a semi-autobiography I’d just finished last night – Osamu Dazai’s No Longer Human.

No longer human yoshiko