The Flowers of Buffoonery opens in a seaside sanatorium 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 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. While No Longer Human delves into the darkest
corners of human consciousness The Flowers of Buffoonery pokes 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 Buffoonery is a darkly
humorous and fresh addition to Osamu Dazai's masterful and intoxicating oeuvre.
