Update On No Longer Human

Update on No Longer Human

I only have 50 pages left of the book and I am going to keep my thoughts on the book to myself until I finish it. I plan to have this book completed today and start a little life today as well. So I will see you all in a few hours maybe 

After thinking about it I have decided to put off reading A Little Life. So far all the reviews on this book are saying that it is really sad and there are so many trigger warnings, so i think i’m going to wait. I have decided to start promises and pomegranates

Promises and Pomegranates by Sav R. Miller

I'm sorry everyone but I have to DNF this book. Promises and Pomegranates is the worst book I have read in a long time. This review will contain spoilers about the part of the Promises and Pomegranates book I read. Promises and Pomegranates are supposed to be a dark contemporary romance based loosely on the story of the two greek gods Hades and Persephone. While reading this book I was able to get up to page 136 before I finally decided to stop torturing myself. This book has literally put me into a reading slump. Our main characters Kal and Elena are very insufferable. Both Elena and Kal are obsessed with their genitals and each other. Kal's entire personality is he is supposed to be dark and mysterious, he treats Elena more like a child than a lover. Kal constantly calls Elena little and throughout 136 pages of the book there is a heavy emphasis on their age gap, Elena is either 18 or 19 and Kal is 32. The entire relationship is super weird, Kal constantly views Elena as nothing more than a sex object to tease. Maybe it's just me but this is truly not a romantic book at all, at certain points he just leaves her alone in a big house or unknown area with no idea what to do. They truly only view each other as hot people they want to have sex with. Now maybe the book gets better the deeper you read but I truly just didn’t want to waste my time. I give this book two stars because the forced sexual or “romantic” scenes of the book were funny but I’m positive that this wasn’t supposed to be a comedy. If you like dark contemporary kind of weird slightly manipulative books then this is the book for. But, the rule of thumb is always look up what a book is about when its recommended from booktok

No Longer Human by Osamu Dazai

After reading this book I can fully agree with many of the reviews, yet I don’t necessarily think that it is a very sad book. This book definitely has sad parts but in of its self is not sad. While I read this book I also heavily annotated it through color coordination. Most of my tabs were pink in the beginning and proceeded to be blue and purple toward the end, even a few were orange. Pink represented relatability, Purple represented wtf moments (basically moment in which I was questioning whether or not this was a character I wanted to relate to), blue represented sad, and orange represented interesting questions and beautiful writing. While reading this book I constantly felt guilty about relating to such a complicated man, it allowed me to come to terms with problems I have within myself. I believe that if Yozo (our main character) had left Japan he might not have felt so entirely isolated from society, he might of realized that its okay to be different, but because he stayed in Japan he never got to explore and see all of humanity, I also believe that if Osamu Dazai had left Japan he might have seen an entirely different side of humanity. If you are curious about Japanese literature I definitely recommend this book but you should only read it if you are in a good mental space, I personally didn’t cry but some people did so tread carefully. I plan on giving a spoil filled review tomorrow or maybe during my February wrap up. 

(1)this is something I thought when I read no longer human for the first time 2 years ago and just remembered now, I thought the real Dazai, or maybe just the character Yozo, was very sexist. Might have to do with the abuse he faced as a child (I'm not sure about this part, it's been a long time). The only woman he ever appreciated was Tsuneko, who he attempted double suicide with. It seemed to him that all women were liars and Tsuneko had become superior to them when she said she was not happy.

(2) I’ve noticed the same thing when I read his short story Tanabata. Any thoughts on this? If you answered this before please just give me a link. I Love what you’re doing with the quotes/meta, thanks 

｡☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆✼★━━━━━━━━━━━━★✼☆｡

It is true that the Yozo, the protagonist of No Longer Human, was sexually abused as a child by a female servant at the house. And the real Dazai has hinted at being abused as a child in his first famous publication, “Memories,” so there is a similarity there. But I don’t think that he was sexist. 

^ Dazai and Michiko with their daughter Sonoko

*Caution: this post includes some mature topics. If you do not want to read PG13 rated material do not read this post*

Women in Dazai’s Life

Dazai Osamu was very attached to his aunt and a nurse maid who helped raise him, Take-san, and actually considered both of those women to be more like a mother to him than his own mother. His real mother was in very poor health and was regularly away relaxing at onsens for health reasons. 

After his idol Akutagawa’s suicide in 1927 Dazai turned to spending money on clothes, alcohol, and prostitutes. As Dazai grew up he fell in love with a geisha, Hatsuyo, and ran away with her only to be disowned by his family because of it. 

Nine days after being disowned he attempted suicide by drowning with a waitress, Shimeko, who died while he survived. His family intervened so he wouldn’t cause trouble with police investigations regarding the incident. 

Then Dazai basically forced his family into paying off Hatsuyo’s debts so he could marry her. He believed that she was still a virgin when he married her and was devastated when he learned that wasn’t the case. On top of that, while he was in the mental institution recovering from drug addiction, from when he was taking a morphine-based painkiller at the hospital being treated for acute appendicitis, Hatsuyo committed adultery with his best friend, an artist by the name of Zenshirou Kodate. Dazai and Hatsuyo then attempted a double suicide by taking sleeping pills, but it didn’t work. Instead they divorced. 

Shortly after that his writing mentor Ibuse Masuji helped him to marry a middle school teacher named Michiko. After marrying Michiko his women troubles consisted of him getting another woman, Shizuko, pregnant and a year long relationship with a hairdresser, Tomie, who he later succeeded in a double suicide with. 

*No Longer Human spoilers ahead*

Keep reading

Reading Slump

In the month of January I was in a really big reading slump. I had read some books but never finished them so in this month of February I will be posting my tbr and my honest reviews of what I have read.