No Longer Human — Osamu Dazai
No Longer Human — Osamu Dazai
A novel about alienation, shame, and a man?s growing inability to live comfortably among others.
Essay
This book leaves more of an atmosphere than an argument. Its pressure comes from watching a person become estranged not only from other people, but from the possibility of ever feeling natural among them at all.
I think that is why it belongs next to Inner Life and Loneliness in my mind. It captures a form of inward fracture that is hard to explain directly. Some books are memorable because they clarify the world. This one is memorable because it clarifies a condition of being out of step with it.