No Longer Human

Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human follows Oba Yozo, a man who sees himself as a failure. He tells the story of his life in his own voice. On the surface, that life looks normal. Inside, he feels he cannot understand other people at all.

His struggle to fit into the world starts when he is a small child. In high school, he plays the clown to hide how cut off he feels. As an adult, he tries to take his own life and fails. He tells all this in a flat, unsentimental way. He notes the small cruelties of daily life. He also notes brief moments of warmth and closeness with others.

The novel also shows a young man caught between two forces. One is the collapse of old ways in an aristocratic family from northern Japan. The other is the pull of Western ideas. This is a work of modern fiction for adult readers.