Osamu Dazai (1909–1948)

5/5

This book was simply amazing, truly wonderful and impactful. Better than I can properly describe. I just started reading it out of curiosity one night and ended up reading 70% of it in just one sitting, I finished the rest in the following morning.

The story in itself is pretty simple. It's a man stumbling his way through life, suffering from what I can only describe as crippling social anxiety and abuse and the way these things change and shape him. It's pretty clearly autobiographical to some degree, but I won't go much into it since I don't know much from the author himself.

The story in itself feels like a character study. Everything revolves around the main character, of course, and, since it's in first person and deals with very personal feelings you end up understanding him better than he can understand himself. Most of all, he's a victim of his own mind and the sexual abuse he suffers as a child. Most of people focus just on that, and that's okay. But for me there's more stuff that's worthy to mention. First of all, he's also somewhat of a villain at certain times. Sure, he's a victim of circumstance, but many times he just takes advantage of people and I'm not even sure if he notices what he's doing. Besides that, it's very interesting how much he's scared of other people. There's a certain point where, when talking to his then infant step-daughter, a mere innocent phrase from her can send him into pure despair, seeing her as someone who is also dangerous.

All in all, to keep it short, it's an amazing story. I would not reccomend it to many people due to the very somber and depressing nature of it, but if you're up for it, be sure to give it a shot.… (lisätietoja)