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, and other patients and nurses drift in and 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, 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 prewar Japan, The Flowers of Buffoonery is a darkly humorous and fresh addition to Osamu Dazai's masterful and intoxicating oeuvre.
"Un libro cortito, rarísimo e intrigante. Dazai se inserta dos veces en la historia: primero desde el personaje Oba Yozo, que tiene una historia sospechosamente similar a los hechos que ocurrieron en su vida sólo cinco años antes, y luego desde el narrador sin nombre, quien en vez de narrar la historia, narra *sobre* ella. Es un juego que logra capturar la atención por las cortas páginas que dura, y sin duda nos permite dar un vistazo breve sobre la oscura percepción del autor en sus propios términos, sacándonos unas cuantas risas en el camino. "