No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

Published 1948 · 35,483 words · about 5 hours at an average pace · Fiction, Literary Fiction, Autobiographical Fiction

How hard is No Longer Human to read?

No Longer Human scores 78 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it very challenging. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 60 out of 100
No Longer Human employs a sophisticated literary vocabulary, with words like 'parochialism,' 'déraciné,' 'loquacity,' and 'sanctimoniously' appearing in both the translation introduction and the narrator's internal monologues. While not archaic or invented like Finnegans Wake, the precise and often philosophical language elevates it above accessible contemporary fiction. Readers encounter a rich lexicon that demands careful attention, placing it above The Great Gatsby in terms of word difficulty.
Sentence structure: 68 out of 100
The narrative frequently uses long, multi-clause sentences with extensive subordination, reflecting the narrator's intricate and often convoluted thought processes. Passages describing Yozo's internal struggles and philosophical musings often feature hypotaxis, demanding sustained reader engagement to parse the grammatical demands. This complexity is significantly higher than the direct, declarative sentences of 1984, though it does not reach the extreme, unpunctuated monologues found in Ulysses.
Abstraction: 82 out of 100
The book is profoundly philosophical, with the narrator, Yozo, constantly questioning the fundamental nature of human beings, society, and his own existence, often generalizing from personal anecdotes to abstract concepts. The plot serves primarily as a vehicle for his existential and psychological ruminations, making the content highly theoretical rather than concrete. This consistent focus on abstract meaning aligns it closer to Waiting for Godot or Brothers Karamazov than to narratives grounded in social observation like The Great Gatsby.
Information density: 78 out of 100
No Longer Human is conceptually dense, packing psychological insights and philosophical inquiries into nearly every paragraph. The narrative demands high attention as the reader must constantly process Yozo's internal monologues, self-analysis, and the profound implications he draws from seemingly simple events. This sustained intellectual demand, where external actions are secondary to internal processing, makes it more information-dense than Lolita or Austerlitz, requiring continuous engagement with complex ideas.
Narrative indirection: 80 out of 100
Yozo's first-person narrative is profoundly unreliable, as he constantly performs a 'clowning' act to hide his true self and admits to deceiving others. The external prologue and epilogue explicitly challenge Yozo's self-perception, particularly the epilogue's assertion that 'He was an angel,' forcing the reader to infer meaning against the narrator's self-deprecating account.
Symbolic density: 85 out of 100
The novel is rich with recurring symbolic motifs that extend beyond literal events. Yozo's 'clowning' serves as a pervasive mask for his existential dread, while his 'ghost pictures' symbolize his hidden, harrowing true self. The recurring theme of being 'disqualified as a human being' and the metaphor of 'the ocean' representing society imbue the narrative with layers of meaning.
Ironic distance: 82 out of 100
A profound ironic distance exists between Yozo's self-portrayal and the author's implied meaning, explicitly highlighted by the epilogue's contradictory assessment of Yozo as 'an angel.' Yozo's constant self-abasement and his attempts to deceive others create a gap between his stated intentions and the reader's understanding of his tragic vulnerability.
Resolution withholding: 78 out of 100
The novel deliberately resists clear resolution, leaving Yozo's ultimate fate and internal state ambiguous. Despite his release from the asylum, he remains 'disqualified as a human being,' experiencing 'neither happiness nor unhappiness,' and his final statement 'Everything passes' offers a sense of resigned non-closure.
Structural complexity: 75 out of 100
The narrative employs a distinct framing device, presenting Yozo's first-person 'Notebooks' within a 'Prologue' and 'Epilogue' narrated by an external, unnamed observer. This shift in perspective and the layered structure, where the reader receives a retrospective judgment before and after Yozo's account, creates a non-linear and formally experimental reading experience.

How No Longer Human is regarded

No Longer Human holds a literary regard score of 78 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

Where No Longer Human sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (63 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, No Longer Human scores 88 out of 100. A second mythos, tragedy, pulls at it with a weight of 0.2. About the map of stories.

Mode: Ironic
I was an animal lower than a dog, lower than a cat. A toad. I sluggishly moved—that’s all.
Symbol: Formal
What is society but an individual?
Mythos: Irony Tragic Pathos iv (irony iv)
Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness. Everything passes.
Genre: Confession + Novel
Mine has been a life of much shame.

Where the story of No Longer Human takes place

  • Northeast Japan and Tokyo, c.1915-1938 (1915 to 1938), the main setting
  • Funahashi coffee shop, postwar February (1946)

5 things that are true of No Longer Human, with the passage for each

  1. The framing narrator says he sees three photographs of Yozo, at about ten, as a student, and in a dirty room.

    I have seen three pictures of the man.

  2. Yozo's first suicide attempt kills the woman he goes into the sea with, and he survives.

    She died. I was saved.

  3. Yozo's one refusal in his life is the morphine offered by his wife.

    it was the one and only time in my life that I refused something offered to me.

  4. Yozo is twenty-seven at the close, with greyed hair.

    This year I am twenty-seven. My hair has become much greyer.

  5. At the end the madam calls him an angel.

    he was a good boy, an angel.

Scenes in No Longer Human that Frye would name

14 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Confession, The First Notebook
Mine has been a life of much shame. This opens the sustained introverted autobiography.
Anagnorisis, The Second Notebook
He murmured, “You did it on purpose.” Takeichi's recognition exposes the clown's mask and pivots Yozo's world.
Pathos, The Second Notebook
We threw ourselves into the sea at Kamakura that night. She untied her sash, saying she had borrowed it from a friend at the café, and left it folded neatly on a rock. The double suicide at Kamakura is the sacrificial death scene.
Eiron, The First Notebook
I gradually perfected myself in the role of the farcical eccentric. Yozo plays the self-deprecating clown who disarms and deceives others.
Anagnorisis, The Second Notebook
The next instant he asked with his quiet smile, “Was that real?” The district attorney sees through the performance in a second exposure.
Pharmakos, The Third Notebook: Part Two
He could only consider me as the living corpse of a would-be suicide, a person dead to shame, an idiot ghost. Yozo is the scapegoat figure of society.

Books that share these scenes with No Longer Human

About the author

Osamu Dazai