No longer human

>>8328016
Kind of average iibh

>>8328016
All his books are like that.
Read Schoolgirl and The Setting Sun.

>>8328016
liked The Setting Sun better, anon

>>8328016
Ridiculously depressing book. You're right. It is heavy and it gets darker and darker as it goes on. I felt that it was a simple story about a man so completely alienated from people that there was nothing that could redeem him. Even the girl who came into his life connected for a bit but even she and his relationship with her couldn't save him from his loneliness.
He was well liked. He knew exactly how to be a likable person and did his act of being a comedian but throughout all of this and despite his understanding of what makes people like him, he never really felt anything for them. Just a numbness and indifference to their daily matters. What's the fuss all about anyway?

Can someone elaborate on his profound confusion with the act of eating food? Why did it baffle him to that degree? I was a bit unclear on that part.

Anyone just elaborate on the reasons for his alienation in general because I always felt that they were a bit ineffable. Just a general but utter disconnect from every other person. Noone bothered to care for him deeply and he never bothered to search for it because it would involve getting into the banality of human life which depressed him terribly. imo that's what really fucked over his sense of loneliness.

feel free to correct me or improve my interpretation or add your own. even i feel that i don't fully grasp his state.

>>8328037
oh well, that's fine too

>>8328061
already read a small collection of short stories, berfore reading no longer human. none of them felt nearly as fucked up as the later though

>>8328072
I think this is a book especifically for the depressed. in fact, after reading the epilogue, I felt that the book was written in order to show the reader that there is nothing at the end of that road, only suffering and more suffering

about his problem with food, I think it has two reason d'étre: 1) he hated with a passion the time when he had to gather with his family just to engage in the cold and meaningless activity that is having lunch and 2) it's just another aspect of his detachment with society, the world and life in general

>no one bothered to care for him deeply and he never bothered to search for it because it would involve getting into the banality of human life which depressed him terribly
yeah, I think that's more or less it. he felt from a young age the contradictions and the two-faced nature of every day relationships and that scared the shit out of him

>in general, people don't show how terrible they really are. they are like a calm grazing cow that, suddenly, rises its tail and releases a whip in the horsefly
love that shit

>>8328183
>in general, people don't show how terrible they really are. they are like a calm grazing cow that, suddenly, rises its tail and releases a whip in the horsefly
Fucking this. I've come to realize exactly this but independently. People are brutes. I don't blame them. It's just how things are and it just is human nature. To be terrible brutes in general.

Most brutes meet other brutes and begin to grow some tenderness between them by some miracle or some brutes move together in groups and circles around those like them. But at the end of the day that is what we all are: brutes. Yozo was in a world where the one person with whom he could share any tenderness with killed herself. he was alone in a world where nobody was willing to be compassionate to him. He saw them all as brutes and monsters : hideous and ugly which is why he drew/painted them as that.

He never got to experience whatever beauty or love it is that most brutes in the world experience or achieve because of his alienation from the banality of human life.
He couldn't be saved. His awareness and detestation of the everyday life put him beyond saving.

I liked it. It was my favorite book for a while because it actually stimulated my emotions in a way that a book had not done before. However somehow along the line I imagine I screwed myself over and blunted what could have been a more impactful novel than it was. Perhaps I shouldn't have first heard of it from the anime. Oh well.

The experience I had was that some of the novel was genuinely depressing, but some of it was so melodramatic I would find it funny. Maybe that's just a part of Yozo's character, but the author (either Yozo or Dazai) felt at times too detached from any sort of happiness for me to empathize with. It seemed to me that a lot of Yozo's troubles were self-inflicted, and therefore trivial from an outside perspective.

I felt a stronger response to the small anecdote in The Setting Sun about the not-Yozo brother who owing to his aristocratic upbringing is isolated from the common people despite his best efforts.