Portraying himself as a failure, the protagonist of Osamu Dazai's narrates a seemingly normal life even while he feels himself incapable of understanding human beings. His attempts to reconcile himself to the world around him begin in early childhood, continue through high school, where he becomes a "clown" to mask his alienation, and eventually lead to a failed suicide attempt as an adult. Without sentimentality, he records the casual cruelties of life and its fleeting moments of human connection and tenderness. Still one of the ten bestselling books in Japan, is an important and unforgettable modern classic: "The struggle of the individual to fit into a normalizing society remains just as relevant today as it was at the time of writing." ( )