Welcome to Litsy!

2 books done so far for September nice. #bookspinbingo somebody pick a number off that card for me :) pretty plz 🥰

New book day with new bookmark on that got from Waterstones. Sit in sun in garden and read with a wine 🍷. Hubby firing up bbq after to yay.

Finished reading on 15 April 2023.

“I must now admit that I was still afraid of human beings, and before I could meet even the customers in the bar I had to fortify myself by gulping down a glass of water.” Some say this story is Dazai‘s suicide note. It‘s a sad and dark and painful story of Oba Yazo who has never had a connection to anyone around him. I wanted to read this before reading Junji Ito‘s graphic novel version. #Booked2023 ~by an author no longer living

‘ i find it difficult to understand the kind of human being who lives, or who is sure he can live, purely, happily, serenely while engaged in deceit.‘ 5*/5 the book i‘ll surely come back to and read once again. masterpiece.

I can‘t say I enjoyed this one. It reminded me of Women by Charles Bukowski, but not as crass and vulgar. Oba Yozo struggles his entire life with not having any purpose or drive. He never makes positive relationships within his family or peers. The story follows his relationships with women and his addiction to alcohol and heroin. It was a depressing account. It was melancholy from start to finish. I would have bailed if it was any longer.

Next up.

Beautiful book, very depressing but as someone who has struggled with mental illness reading this book gave me a sense of comfort, reading someone describing things I felt made me feel so valid and I kept thinking “so I‘m not alone”.
The way he treated women was a massive NO from me, but I‘m glad at the end the people who knew him finally did something to help.

Full review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4639740809

I‘m on like the second chapter its really long but its very interesting so far, and has a lot of detail lately, Oba Yozo been talking about this one guy named Takeichi who has been his friend for a long time and they talk about painting ghosts and they rate each others drawings and now Yozo is looking back on it and he realizes the meaning to the ghosts and everything.

I‘m only on the first chapter of this book so far it‘s great I kinda confusing but he talks a lot about how people are terrible and how they are menaces to society and his gloomy kitchen idk it‘s all messed up so far

Weird, intriguing, misogynistic in places, definately relatable as someone who struggles with other humans.

Second Japanese title this year. I feel like this one will hit like a train but stories with people who real...flawed and lost..just call to me.
#summerishere #Japanesefiction #stuckinlimbo

Junji Ito's adaptation is both much richer in concrete events and much more sexually explicit. It makes me wonder whether the translation I'm reading for the novel is bowdlerized. Because, like, I've never known Junji Ito to write many sex scenes in general.

"The weak fear happiness itself. They can harm themselves on cotton wool. Sometimes they are wounded even by happiness."

I can't wait to see Junji Ito's take on this book, especially given how little explicit body horror there is so far.

https://myliteraryramblings.in/the-books-of-disquiet/
My reviews about Journey to the end of the night and no longer human

Been listening to this one at work but it‘s tough to get around the misogyny. I end up scowling a lot. Translated from Japanese, a wealthy and disgruntled young man struggles with...um, everything.

No Longer Human is a complex narrative built on the subtitles of human interaction. Dazai deconstructions the notions of society, love and crime to explore the variation of truth in a rapidly changing world.

This book made me absolutely disgusted with the main character, as Dazai horrifically captures his inevitable downfall; yet by the end, repulsion is fleeting and I‘m left to wonder how much I can ever truly know about another human being.

Now I have neither happiness nor unhappiness.

Everything passes.

That is the one and only thing that I have thought resembled a truth in the society of human beings where I have dwelled up to now as in a burning hell.

Everything passes.

The incomprehensibility of society is it incomprehensibility of the individual. The ocean is not society; it is individuals.

The synopsis of this book calls it poignant, and I can't think of a better adjective. The entire story evokes a deep sense of despair. His social anxiety and self-doubt were present from early childhood, and it's made clear how deeply internalized his depression and alienation became. The narrative did an excellent job highlighting the torment that comes with putting on a happy facade that's at odds with how you feel inside.

I have sometimes thought that I have been burdened with a pack of ten misfortunes, any one of which if borne by my neighbor would be enough to make a murderer of him.

Here‘s another cover variant 👋

“I think even a death mask would hold more of an expression, leave more of a memory. That effigy suggest nothing so much as a human body to which a horse‘s head has been attached. I have never seen such an inscrutable face on a man.”

I really enjoyed this book, one of my 2017 Highlights and Dazai is a very good discovery so far :) since a few months I'm absolutely into japanese literature.

No Longer Human is presented as the diaries of Yozo, a 20-something man, who is in serious need of cognitive behavioral therapy. He feels disconnected from society and is only able to function with the help of women and gin. If you're in the mood for bleakness, pick up this Japanese classic. #LitsyAtoZ #LitsyReadingChallenge #ReadHarder

The only way to get out of this recliner involves lowering the footrest.
If I lower the footrest, the kitty goes boom.
I've tried waking him up without any luck.
Hmm ⁉️#catsoflitsy

Went shopping for #Cupidgoespostal and found nothing but leftover Xmas crap. ? Being perpetually single, this wouldn't normally bother me. Maybe my Litsy valentine likes broken candy canes???
Anyway, I needed a "D" author for #LitsyAtoZ, so here one be! (Sorry. Too much cold medicine ?)

Here are some of my #silhouettesoncovers 😍😍😍
#seasonsreadings2016 #tbr

#bookmail
Look what Mr. Postman brought me today!!! Thanks for brightening my day ;)

My immediate response after finishing: Dazai, you morose fuck. Which really is all you need to know.

Painters who have had this mentality, after repeated wounds and intimidations at the hands of apparitions called human beings, have often come to believe in phantoms -- they plainly saw monsters in broad daylight, in the midst of nature.