Sarah s.

Honestly, I didn't feel the book was particularly sad, or at least it won't make you want to cry, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't make me “feel”. In fact, reading the words printed on those pages, made me fellI had momentarily returned to early 2021, at the peak of my depression. I didn't feel disgusted with the character, as many have mentioned. It was something like pity, or even understanding. Don't get me wrong, I'm not freeing him of his deplorable actions, I probably just got into Yozo's character too much. To start off, he was never sane. Since he was little, he needed external validation, he felt that his existence was worthless (apart from the abuses he briefly mentioned he suffered from the family servants). As time passed, especially after entering college, his mental state worsened. He never had options in his life, he never gave himself the luxury of having them, and he only accepted what others wanted him to do. He ended up entering the world of booze and material lusts, to shorten the space he felt there was between himself and humans (note that he always excluded himself from humanity), and when his father practically abandoned him in the capital, his addiction worsened, he basically stopped going to college classes altogether, and even the drawing classes he liked so much. The truth is that he got lost, and had no one to tell him what he should do to come back (which Yozo himself wonders when Flatfish didn't help him nor, at least, was transparent with him). In short, what I saw was a poor soul that did not recognize itself, and that there was no one to recognize it. “No longer human”, was how he saw himself. He never saw himself as a human being, and he was always looking for a sense of belonging. Still, he was human, always was human, because such feelings are, after all, human. Still, it obviously doesn't justify the deeds he committed (not the crime he was judged for, I mean, the guy tried to commit suicide with his loved one, is that a crime?), but faced with the role of a reader, I’ve put myself in the position of comprehension. I still stopped to think about the complexity of the games he created, a salute to the antonyms game, which got me thinking (even more than the rest of the book), and gave me the ecstasy of not knowing for sure how to answer such a question. Of course, it's possible that I put myself in his shoes, of how close I could have been to him if little things in my life had been different. Notably my mother, who at the end of the day, shows me a path I can follow. In the end, I leave my recommendation for those who are not with extremely shaken mental health, who will be able to handle the brunt of the weight of this man's life decline. I still suggest reading as a third person, but understanding the complexity of the character's mentality, perhaps throwing out even your precepts and feelings of "justice" before reading the book, for better enjoyment.