Current Reads

NO LONGER HUMAN by

Osamu Dazai

Deborah Ogunnoiki, Books Editor

Content warning: suicide mention No Longer Human is a short novel by Japanese writer Dazai. The book is semi-autobiographcal, following the life of a young man named Yoko who struggles to show his true self to everyone. Believing himself to be a fraud and a fake, he ‘disqulifes’ himself from being human.

In a lot of senses this reminded me a lot of Descartes, who had the thought that just because he can think, he must be real. Dazai thinks the opposite, he thinks that because he thinks, just not in the same way as everyone else, he must not be a real human being.

On nights out I don the name ‘Toni’ and tell people that I study Law at Warwick (My name is Deborah and I study Classics). This art of living a double life is one that I relate to quite strongly with Yoko. But how long can you keep up the charade of acting ‘normal’ before the guilt begins to consume you?

Shortly after writing this novel, Dazai himself committed suicide. And in a sense this novel may have been his will.

Maybe the charade of being who others want you to be is a burden that just isn’t worth it.