Review from a Transgressive Fiction Fan
I spent like three years just crazy depressed. Grim thoughts all the time, super self destructive, at once alienating and distributing “cries for help” or whatever you wanna call it… sheesh, man. It was so fucked. I’m really glad I got out of that frame of mind and I hope I never go back. No Longer Human was something I read toward the end of that phase. I probably would have been okay anyway, but this shit helped a ton. Dazai totally nails the impossibly bummed out mindset without being corny or melodramatic, and when you’re basically just being a little sad black cloud all walking around, you’re super cynical and things like this book are almost impossible to find ’cause your first reaction to everything is just to tear it apart and say it sucks… which is hella corny and melodramatic anyway, but if you know what it’s like, like, being unbearably, unstoppably sad, and trying to put some sort of normal-ish face on it in your day to day life (between intermittent private and regrettable public freakouts probably), then well, this book pretty much covers all that really, really perfectly.
“Insightful” Review from a Mainstream Reader
Despite its popularity and awards it had achieved, I still feel that this book is a little too dark for me. It was so dark to the extent that I got depressed while reading it. Maybe that what makes this book prize-worthy, its ability to draw the readers into the darkness of the character’s life.