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I finished the book a little bit ago, but I wasn’t in a good mood to write. In any case, damn, Yozo’s a crappy husband. That was one of my main takeaways, to not follow in his footsteps. I also wrote something in my annotations about how he might think that humanity is equivalent to purity. From what I understand, he especially started thinking of himself as less than a person after the trauma that occurred in his childhood. He then marries Yoshiko — which is still gross to me, by the way — who he views as someone very pure. He also said that he started feeling human around her. That all kind of went to hell when she fell victim to what I’ve inferred to be the same trauma he went through as a kid, but I could be wrong. And that’s when he starts wondering if trust is a sin and whatnot. I said that it shouldn’t count as sin, but it could definitely be dangerous. Right, and then at the very end of the third notebook, I think everything kind of came full circle in the worst possible way (which I’ll avoid talking about due to potentially triggering topics for others). The epilogue interested me, considering the lady at the bar called Yozo “an angel.” There was a comment in the translator’s note that said something about how Yozo was so preoccupied with the bad things about him that he never saw the love he either gave or could’ve given, something like that. Honestly, I failed to notice this myself. Maybe that because I related to his misery? Or maybe it’s because throughout the notebooks, we see through his eyes. Overall, the whole book was pretty damn interesting.

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I just finished the first part of the third notebook~

While I do think I’m a lot like Yozo, I don’t agree with his perspective on love. Him marrying Yoshiko spontaneously really weirded me out, considering how young she is and that he seems to think she’s a ditz (Might be a time period thing, but it’s all creepy as hell nonetheless.). Maybe a part of it is that she reminds me of a good friend of mine within our system (who, for context, is nineteen) who I’d never do that to or think of in that way. Yoshiko reminds me of her in the sense of her concern for Yozo, her whole talk about how he couldn’t have returned to drinking because he promised kind of struck a chord with me

Him being intimidated by Shizuko and Shigeko is interesting to me as well, because with all they do to try and make him happy, he just uses them the entire time and even sees Shigeko — a literal child— as an enemy. His dependence on them for substance money and whatnot might be a trigger for the way his bad habits get much worse throughout the course of the notebook. I also think that his hatred for this dependence is seen as a wound to his sense of masculinity. While he stays and watches Shigeko, Shizuko seems to be the main breadwinner. Also, I don’t think he divorced her before marrying Yoshiko, another thing that I find quite repulsive, in a sense. True love doesn’t work that way. It’s not just some spontaneous thing where you can just claim someone as yours and call it a day. Hm. Maybe that’s a talk for another time

Anyways, I also find it interesting that he and Horiki foil each other: Yozo’s rich yet unhappy rural upbringing versus Horiki’s poor city life that he seems to enjoy. Yozo is also fully separated from his family while Horiki seems to like his parents. The dislike also seems to be reciprocated between them, yet they still hang around each other. Misery loves company, haha

And generally, one of the things that really stuck out to me was his perspective on society. After likening society to the individual — in this case, himself — he seemed to become a lot truer to himself despite that likely not being the healthiest outlook. In my annotations, I said that I think that society is a mindset or general guideline for public behavior that may or may not be a general consensus. I think I could’ve worded that better, but that’s all I could think of on the spot. There’s also the part where he talks about being frightened of statistics and how that fueled his negative mindsets. We once read somewhere that brains try to destroy themselves when they know too much, which I can personally relate to. While it seems Yozo used to think that way, he now just disregards such things as “lies.” I guess detaching yourself from those things does make them feel a lot less real. I can identify with that, I said. All the philosophical society stuff really interested me though, that’s the long story short here

And that should wrap up my thoughts~

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Someone ask me stuff, I’m bored and attention starved

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September 17, 2024

I have just finished reading "No Longer Human" by Osamu Dazai.

Outside, the autumn sun is shining warmly, and a cool breeze is blowing. With the "ber" months in queue..I’m excited for this beautiful season to unfold and the stacks of the books 📚.

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So clearly, I’m not the only one, haha

While we are at it, want to see one of the funniest reviews I found on goodreads?

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Yozo Oba is just me being dramatic about life lol

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So I did end up getting back to all of that, I left off at the beginning of the first part of the third notebook

Yozo’s so miserable that it almost makes me laugh, but at the same time I heavily relate to him. Embarrassing and hypocritical, isn’t it?~ Haha

But a bunch of things I noticed influence his behavior in the long run are his trauma, his lack of addressing his problems — which I want to say the time period also plays a factor in, as well as traditional values and mindsets — and reliance on escapism, and his ingenuity and constant lying as a result of his trauma, general environment, other factors, or whatever the hell

I find his similarities to Dazai interesting, even though my knowledge on the author is pretty limited

Usually, I’m not that great at drawing conclusions about other people unless I know them well or relate to them, so I could be wrong about what I say. This is just how I’m interpreting it all

And side note, damn, Dazai’s misogyny bleeds through, this really is semi autobiographical (I say this half in jest, but as I said before the intentional parallels are interesting from what I do know, as it seems that Yozo is made up of a lot of Dazai’s self projections)

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I think I might continue No Longer Human today, but I’ll have to reread everything I’ve already read first because it’s been so long

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I can’t sleep, so I figured I’d come here for some late night talks

So, to start, what would count to you as a backwards world? I was talking to a headmate (@goldenweaveress) about this earlier, and her answer was different from mine, so I think that implies a sense of subjectivity in the concept of “backwards”

I also wonder what that can reveal about how a person sees the world, but I’m unfortunately not one of the terrifyingly analytical alters who can figure it out quickly. I’d like to say I’m getting better, though~

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Hello, all~ I’d make this look prettier, but it’s just way too much effort, haha. I’m Minerva, I’m twenty-six, and I’m an introject of Kafka from Honkai: Star Rail. I like philosophy, some classical literature (I’m currently reading and annotating No Longer Human, but it’ll likely take a while due to the amount of writing), classical violin, and honestly, alcohol. I don’t really plan on posting about the less healthy parts of my life, so this should all be relatively straightforward

I’ll probably just post about random stuff that’s on my mind or things that would be interesting to discuss. I also like my source, so feel free to chat about that~

Right, and note that I usually refer to people endearingly. Tell me if that makes you uncomfortable, as that’s usually difficult for me to gauge