Review: Shameful Life

The book that will be reviewed is the translation version of " SHAMEFUL LIFE ". To introduce and give a review the writer already read the book and several related articles in detail. Thank you to the previous reviewer who gave his works of review which gave the advantages and disadvantages of the book in many aspects of literature the writer managed to write this article with brief.

The novel " SHAMEFUL LIFE " is a novel created by mixing life experience and fiction that tells the story of a man's past life from childhood to old age. Dazai Osamu created the novel with the true name Shuji Tsushima. Osamu Dazai was born into a wealthy family in Tsushima. His father is a landowner and a politician. Dazai was born in 1909 and died in 1948 where which is centuries after World War 2---born the sixth son of eleven children his childhood was full of loneliness because his mother's health dropped down after giving birth to her eleven children while his father was busy with his work.

At the age of eleven Osamu Dazai showed his talent in literature writing and atone became his starting point in the literature world. Dazai Osamu's writing styles use a combination of symbol, tragedy, and humor then mix them with some of his life experiences as reference which gives a gloomy and dark, yet deep and straight atmosphere to the reader. The novel that will discussed is The Translated Novel by Mark Gibeau who is a specialist in modern, contemporary, postwar, translation, and translation theory of Japanese literature.

The story of " NO LONGER HUMAN " is divided into three chapters not included with an epilogue each chapter gives a different life story of the main character with the first viewpoint. The first chapter retells the story of the main character's childhood where the main character's childhood, describing his life as a nightmare and terror and the appearance of the clown acting to live among his family that he feared most.

The second chapter is divided into two sub-chapters. The first part tells about his teenagehood when he started school in the city. Life in the city broke his bond with his family since he joined and helped the radical organization that opposed the Japanese government.

The third journal is about the moment he decided to commit suicide together with the woman which states that part one of this journal or chapter three and Part two tells the incident after the double suicide where the main character survives and the woman dies. The main character is depressed because he is still alive and has become the suspect in the suicide case. Still, he manages to escape the punishment and moves out to another side of the city with the help of his family and his father's acquaintance. Yet, these advantages are leading him to his separation from his family.

Chapter Three Part Two also tells the story of the main character getting up from depression and his journey exploring the truth of his community started with his friend who only used him for his sake, the liquor, woman, and himself where he meets several women and gets married, but eventually get divorced or main character left them. Part two is his last falling when his wife who is the last woman of the main character married cheating with his friend and drug addiction made him crazy and leads him to asylum. After several years he got out of Asylyum and lived his life in a village where this time he considered himself ' No Longer Human".

The epilogue is the story of how the writer finds the main character's notebook that he left and small talk with the old woman who knows the main character, then the writer writes a book based the notes of the main character's lifetime left behind in the notebook.

THE REVIEW

• MENTAL IMAGERY

Then start the review from the similarities with the other book " THE SETTING SUN" which shows the miserable childhood in the first chapter which might become the purpose of the author to introduce us as the readers to the main resource of the problem and conflict that will appear in the novel, yet different from the compared novel " SHAMEFUL LIFE" describe the miserable or nightmare childhood is from the imagination, mindset, and the main character's disability to understand the human awkwardness than an experience of life.

" What a disaster! I've made Father angry. His revenge will be terrible, I must do something right away, and make amends before it's too late! Such were my thoughts as I lay trembling in bed that night." (page 8)

The imagination of the main character gives a major participation as one of the resources of upcoming events like the clown personality that is created from his mindset for covering his true self As Carl Gustav Jung says about one part of his theory " Jung believes that people have an identity or persona that they want to project to others( structural learning)"  and from other written by Jeff Alford.

" Although shortest in page count, the novel's first journal is its most complex, as Yozo muddles memories of his childhood with the critical, analytical mindset of his adulthood. As a child, Yozo found he could hide his emotions behind a clowning, comedic mask."

The clown description in this novel surely will attract the reader to question what kind of clown the main character will use to stay in society. This concept of a clown in this novel is not about the clown in reality, but it is just a personality that had been made by the main character to hide his true personality which also becomes the one of interesting parts of this novel where the psychological viewpoint and approach such as Sigmund Freud or Gustav Jung will be useful.

• LOOKS NATURAL FOR A FICTION

When the writer reads this book the story the first thing that appears in his mind is the story is like the real thing is documented that is given some dramatic element to make it more dramatic. The parts that made this thing look natural are not the kind of background description or the character, but the writing style of the dialogue and the story. In chapter one the story only focused on the main conflict which is the childhood of the main character with only a few descriptions about the other making the story straightforward. Then in the next chapter, the main character's story will repeat some mistake or part of the previous conflict which is like a symbol cycle of human life that will never end and leak from the author for the next conflict like in the problem in the second journal " Takeichi's prediction, that women will "fall for me (page 19)" and " one of Takeichi's predictions came true, the other did not. The one empty of honor, women would fall for me, came true (chapter 3)" The problem in the second chapter and the third chapter is related to the leaks that are well hidden and waiting for the moment when the reader recognizes it after reading the whole story this kind of elements in the writing style is the one who made it like a natural story. The dialogue is also casual for small talk as the drunk people are suitable with some scenes in the city while other dialogues give deep meaning and heavy talk, yet packaged with a light atmosphere.

" "Ready? How about tobacco?" I asked "Trag (our abbreviation for tragedy)" Horikisaid almost before I finished. "medicine?" "Powder or pills?' " injection" " trag" " really? It might just be a hormone injection" " No, trag trag. Come on, it's the needles-could anything be more tragic" "

The novel " SHAMEFUL LIFE" is one of the novels that is good at imaging the ordinary human aspects which is suitable for any era where the dark side and awkwardness of human nature are processed into a short, but meaningful book full of moral value in each dialogue and giving a massage that human life is not as simple as the human thought, a one of the wonderful short novel.