The Flowers of Buffoonery

 “This beguiling novella from Dazai (1909–1948) revisits the protagonist from the author’s No Longer Human at a younger age…Dazai brings wit & pathos to the chronicle of Yozo’s four days at the sanatorium, as Yozo’s jocular banter with an art school classmate, a younger cousin, & a nurse belie a deep despair. In a few artful strokes, Dazai has sketched a memorable character.” — Publishers Weekly

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The Flowers of Buffoonery opens in a seaside sanitarium where Yozo Oba—the narrator of No Longer Human at a younger age—is being kept after a failed suicide attempt. While he is convalescing, his friends and family visit him, & other patients & nurses drift in & out of his room. Against this dispiriting backdrop, everyone tries to maintain a lighthearted, even clownish atmosphere: playing cards, smoking cigarettes, vying for attention, cracking jokes, & trying to make each other laugh.

While No Longer Human delves into the darkest corners of human consciousness, The Flowers of Buffoonery pokes fun at these same emotions: the follies & hardships of youth, of love, & of self-hatred & depression. A glimpse into the lives of a group of outsiders in prewar Japan, The Flowers of Buffoonery is a darkly humorous & fresh addition to Osamu Dazai’s masterful & intoxicating oeuvre.

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Osamu Dazai was born in 1909 into a powerful landowning family of northern Japan. His early works are filled with invention & wit, but it was after the war that he reached his full stature, first with the short story, “Villon’s Wife” (translated by Donald Keene & published in New Directions 15) & then with The Setting Sun, which created an immediate sensation when it was published in 1947. Dazai published a 2nd novel, & was publishing a 3rd serially, when he committed suicide in 1948, around the time of his 39th birthday.