"Human Disqualification" is Osamu Dazai's last complete novel during his lifetime.
Written in a martyrdom-like self-narrative style, he portrays the story of a well-behaved intellectual who, after a taste of the world's cold, indulges in wine, and finally destroys his own story.
The novel has almost dominated the best-seller lists on major book websites, and has 130W+ reviews on Dangdang Books.
However, while the novel has gained a great reputation in China, it has also been criticized for its too dark tone.
Today, I will take you to a brief reading of "Human Disqualification".
01 Preface
From the very beginning, Dazai showed the unique emotional appeal of his work. From the perspective of "I", three photographs of The Great Court Yezang are described.
The child's smiling face, the more you look at it, the more people feel inexplicably gloomy. That's not a smiley face at all. The boy was not smiling at all, as evidenced by his clenched fists. No one can smile while shaking their fists. It's a monkey, it's a monkey's smiling face -- a face full of ugly wrinkles. It was so strange and ugly that after seeing the uncomfortable expression, people wanted to say that he was a "little ghost with a wrinkled face". I've never seen a child with such a weird expression. ”
"Gloomy", "ugly", "weird"...
With many "very heavy" words, he tries to pull the reader into the world of "sin" at the beginning of the reading.
02 Hand 1
The protagonist, Dating Yezang, was born in a large landlord family in the northeast and was the youngest child in the family.
Ye Zang, who was always bedridden, often pondered bizarre questions.
Think of the intricately shaped train station as a funky playground, confused by the role of the sheets, and even confused by eating... I don't understand what man does for a living.
"People die if they don't eat" – this phrase sounds to me as nothing more than a nasty intimidation. But this superstition (which I still think is a superstition) has always brought me uneasiness and terror. People die without eating, and they have to work and eat for it, and for me there is no language more obscure and threatening than this sentence.
The cowardly Ye Zang grew up alone and lacked fatherly and maternal love. He wants to be loved by the outside world, but he is silent because he can't trust the other party.
Ye Zang, who was always at odds with the world, felt that he was an outlier, so he became uneasy and afraid.
In order to get the love of human beings, he began to endlessly dress up funny to make people laugh. In the summer, he would wear a bright red sweater and walk around the cornice, causing the family to laugh.
Ye Zang was overjoyed by the successful play, and he felt that he was no longer weird and seemed to be integrated into the world.
So at school, I also worked hard to perform. Deliberately write some funny essays, but also explain funny comics to students after class.
But no matter how hard Ye Zang tried to perform, he still couldn't really integrate into this world.
He believed that inside the human being was a ferocious beast, and that once provoked, it would reveal its true nature. Even if he annoyed his father, he would tremble all over his body.
Nor did he understand why people deceived each other, but were improbly unharmed, as if they were unaware that they were deceiving each other, and this kind of unabashed, generous, and dignified example of mutual distrust was everywhere in the world.
Even if they are molested by male and female servants, they do not have the courage to confide in their parents. He didn't even trust his parents.
03 Hand 2
Ye Zang finally advanced to junior high school and came to a foreign country for the first time.
This makes him feel relaxed and happy, because without the people close to him, he does not have to work so hard to play freely.
However, his perfect performance was recognized by his classmate Takeichi. The terrified Ye Zang could only do his best to please Takeichi, and the two of them seemed to have become close friends.
Once, Takeichi gave Yezang a self-portrait of Van Gogh. He thought it was a portrait of a monster, but when he painted his self-portrait, he even drew a gloomy portrait of a monster. This shocked him, it turned out that he was happy on the surface, but he had such a gloomy heart.
He said that in that instant, his future path of depravity was decided. So he locked the painting in the innermost part of the drawer.
After graduating from junior high school, Ye Zangyuan wanted to enter art school, but his father hoped that he would become an official in the future. Ye Zang did not dare to disobey his father, and eventually went to a high school in Tokyo.
In Tokyo, Hazo meets his "friend" who leads him to the hell of reality, Horigi.
This was the first time he had seen a real Ichii scoundrel, but he saw the shadow of his kind in Horigi.
Horigi consciously assumed the role that Ye Zang had played in the past, and constantly catered to everyone in a ridiculous and amusing way, which made Ye Zang feel at ease.
In his dealings with digging wood, Ye Zang joined an illegitimate communist society. Ye Zang also learned to use the paralysis of cigarettes, alcohol, and prostitutes to temporarily forget the horrors of people, and fell deeper and deeper.
His father, who had ended his term as a member of parliament, decided to sell his villa in Tokyo, and Yezo began to live alone in Tokyo. But Ye Zang, who had no concept of money, always spent all his money in two or three days.
At the instigation of digging wood, he also frequently went in and out of the pawnshop, but the money exchanged could only support the two of them for a few days.
Without the paralysis of cigarettes and alcohol, Ye Zang fell into the distress of people and the desire for money day after day.
On days like this, he met a waitress tokiko at a large bar in Ginza. In the process of getting along, I felt happiness for the first time.
With the continuous fermentation of bitterness in life, Ye Zang became more and more negative. Finally, one night, he and Toshiko jumped into the sea together in Kamakura.
Changzi died, but Ye Zang was rescued. Although Ye Zang was indicted for "assisted suicide," he was ultimately not convicted.
04 Hand 3
In order to prevent Ye Zang from throwing himself into the sea again, Ye Zang, who was released on bail, was grounded by the guarantor Flounder. The distressed Ye Zang sneaked out of the flounder's house. However, he did not have any friends, and eventually came to the Horigi family.
Ye Zang, who has a lot of femininity, met Shizuko, a reporter from the magazine, and got Shizuko's pity and lived in her house.
In order to make money, Ye Zang also began to draw comics. Under Shizuko's run, she also successfully earned money. It was also with Shizuko's help that she held talks with Flounder and Horigi and completely severed ties with her hometown.
But it was precisely because of this that she became more and more trembling in front of Shizuko.
Finally, Ye Zang still found that the daughters of Shizuko, who had begun to call her father, really longed for their biological father, and he really entered their lives anyway.
It didn't take long for him to leave Shizuko and return to the lady who owned the hotel.
Ye Zang suddenly felt that the so-called world was not such a terrible place, so he wanted to worry about the ridiculousness of the germs in the air.
But he still couldn't restrain his fear of humanity. At this time, he met the young Liangzi.
It was a simple and kind woman. He was touched by Ryoko's innocent and flawless trust, and soon married Ryoko.
Ye Zang began to enjoy life with Ryoko. He quit drinking and devoted himself to comic writing.
They would also go to the movies together after dinner, go to a café for coffee on the way home, or buy a pot of flowers. He trusted his little bride's every word and admired her every movement.
He felt more and more like a normal person and didn't have to die miserable anymore.
One day, Horigi found him again. The two began to relive their past friendships again, and drank in the bar.
On a sweltering summer night, Stubborn Wood came to Ye Zang's house again.
The two drink wine, and when Horiki goes downstairs to get the broad beans, he discovers that the manga merchant is having a relationship with Ryoko, and leads Yezo to see it.
Ye Zang, who discovered the truth, felt dizzy and cried bitterly.
Because of Ryoko's innocent and flawless trust, he gradually believed in human beings.
He didn't blame Ryoko, believing that the "sin" was not in her. It was her "trust in others" that caused her grief.
But Ye Zang couldn't help but cry out in his heart: Is it also a sin to have a "heart of trust" in Liangzi?
The self-portrait of the monster, once locked in the bottom of the drawer, came out again. The spiritual core rebuilt by Ryoko collapsed because of Ryoko's defilement.
Ye Zang was completely depraved.
He ate the sleeping pills that Ryoko had prepared for him, but woke up after three days and three nights in a coma. In order to quit alcohol addiction, but also addicted to morphine.
This is hell on earth!
Ye Zang planned to inject ten shots of morphine in one breath, and then jump into the sea and die. At this time, the flounder came to the door again and took him to a psychiatric hospital.
Later, Ye Zang's father died, and his eldest brother took him to the countryside for convalescence and spent the rest of his life with an old maid who was nearly sixty years old.
05 Afterword
Osamu Dazai explains the novel's two self-described perspectives.
The "I" in the preface and epilogue is Osamu Dazai's fictional writer who is at the same time as Yezo. And the writer also happened to know the lady who owned the hotel, and the three codexes were obtained from her.
The writer who had read the codex asked the lady boss.
Are you crying? You seem to have suffered a lot of sins with him.
"It's all to blame for his awesome father." She said lightly, "The Ah Ye we know is a very honest and very lovely person. If he doesn't drink alcohol — no, even if he does... He was also a good boy like God. ”
The hostess's evaluation has a logical conflict with the content in the codex, and people can't help but think about the reasons for it.
Whether it was because of Ye Zang's mental problems that caused the memory deviation; or the boss lady's words were untrue and lied; or was it really a good boy like a god, who had become crazy for some unspecified reasons.