Flowers of Buffoonery

The Flowers of Buffooneryopens in a seaside sanatorium where Yozo Oba-the narrator ofNo Longer Humanat a younger age-is being kept after a failed suicide attempt. While he is convalescing, his friends and family visit him, and other patients and nurses drift in and out of his room. Against this dispiriting backdrop, everyone tries to maintain a light-hearted, even clownish atmosphere: playing cards, smoking cigarettes, vying for attention, cracking jokes and trying to make each other laugh. WhileNo Longer Humandelves into the darkest corners of human consciousness,The Flowers of Buffoonerypokes fun at these same emotions: the follies and hardships of youth, of love and of self-hatred and depression. A glimpse into the lives of a group of outsiders in pre-war Japan,The Flowers of Buffooneryis a darkly humorous and fresh addition to Osamu Dazai's masterful and intoxicating oeuvre.