#The Flowers of Buffoonery

[bsd-bibliophile]

Dazai Osamu’s “The Flowers of Buffoonery”

“The Flowers of Buffoonery” (道化の華, Dōke no hana) by Dazai Osamu is being published in English. The story has been translated by Sam Bett and will be released March 7, 2023. 

This is one of the stories foreign fans of Dazai have desperately wanted to be translated. It is the story that Dazai submitted on his first attempt to win the Akutagawa Prize in 1935 and one of the stories included in Dazai’s first collection The Final Years, published in 1936.

The story is described on many websites as "Dazai’s hilariously comic and deeply moving prequel to No Longer Human”. While the story is a sort of prequel to No Longer Human, it’s not a prequel in the sense that Dazai wrote about what happened before the events No Longer Human took place. The description for the English translation on Amazon says the following:

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.

“The Flowers of Buffoonery” is a sort of prequel to No Longer Human in that the protagonist of both stories are named Oba Yozo, both are I-novel works (semi-autobiographical, confessional literature) so the characters and events are loosely based on Dazai’s own experiences, and both stories share similar themes. “The Flowers of Buffoonery” was written thirteen years before No Longer Human, which may be why the overall atmosphere in the story has a much lighter atmosphere. There is a definite change in Dazai’s writing from his earlier short stories, which are more hopeful and charming, to his later works that are much darker and forlorn. In a way, “The Flowers of Buffoonery” could be considered a starting point in the journey Dazai took to write No Longer Human. The differences in the character “Oba Yozo” of “The Flowers of Baffoonery” and the “Oba Yozo” of No Longer Human are a sort of reflection of Dazai himself and how he changed from the beginning of his writing career to the end of his life.

[kryptonian-in-winterfell]

Dazai’s Ability might be named after No Longer Human, but his entire character is based off The Flowers of Buffoonery

It’s in the way the book is a comedy despite being about suicide.

In the way the main character (Yozo Oba) and his friends are constantly joking around despite Yozo being a sanatorium for a failed double suicide with a beautiful woman.

In the way the author is constantly cutting in with funny commentary and lying to the audience at almost every step.

In the way I’m lulled into a false sense of everything being alright, into believing Yozo is actually okay, despite knowing that there’s something wrong.

There’s even a story about crabs.

If you want to understand BSD Dazai, read The Flowers of Buffoonery. It’s very insightful.

[moonofiron]

“But in my softness I find peace, however fleeting.”

- Osamu Dazai, The Flowers of Buffoonery

[book51ut]

Review of The Flowers of Buffoonery by Osamu Dazai

ooh what a spooky little mindfuck this one is. only 95 pages & a whole lot for me to chew on. the novel starts out from the perspective of the novelist (i believe that dazai intends to suggest that the novelist is also fictional, but knowing dazai’s life and death, it is apparent that he IS the novelist, both literally and figuratively) creating his characters and attempting to tell the story that puts him in such a state of unrest. It follows the story of a man who attempted suicide by jumping off a bridge, and his four days in the sanatorium surrounded by a cast of characters. The novelist interposes at the beginning and end of every chapter. While the fictional conversations are light and filled with laughter, the novelist spews a profound and ever present sadness. Dazai himself died via suicide by jumping off a bridge. that was not rlly surprising based on the book. two things about this book really fascinate me. the first is that this is basically a long suicide note, we see his emotions and his opinions on why his character did this thing right from the beginning. He wanted to die but wrote a book about what might happen if it didn’t work. What a weird voyeuristic look into his life, one that, as a reader who didn’t know the man, feels all together too personal and intimate. the second, just from the perspective of an avid reader and write myself, was the ever present idea that the story was being constructed right before my eyes. i feel like too often when i consume media, especially fiction, i accept the characters as being full people, having full lives and intricate backstories beyond what is simply on the page. as though when i put the book down, they keep on moving and talking amongst themselves. the layout of this book reminded me that it was made by an author, a person with a thought in their mind who simply wanted to share it

[sapphireshorelines]

If poor taste is what you call a perverse interest in intimidating people, it’s perhaps a fitting term for how I navigate the world.

Osamu Dazai, The Flowers of Buffoonery

[wintersettled]

"'I blame that newfangled philosophy. Marxism.' A fabulously silly line of dialogue. Superb."

BE SERIOUS???

[feralprodigy]

“Go ahead and laugh. He is a crow dressed as a cormorant.”

The Flowers of Buffoonery, Osamu Dazai

[le-dormeur-du-val]

Enough. Shame on me for making suck a mockery of myself. Blame it on my wounded pride. The fact is that my fear of being ridiculed is so intense I'd rather beat my critics to the punch. That's the epitome of cowardice. I must find a way to be more modest. Ah, humility.

Osamu Dazai - The flowers of buffoonery.

[im-god-ren]

[sylasmeowmeow]

"If only you could understand the sadness of the ones who grow the delicate flowers of buffoonery, protecting them from but the slightest gust of wind and always on the verge of despair!"

-The Flowers of Buffoonery, Osamu Dazai

[judgingbooksbycovers]

The Flowers of Buffoonery

By Osamu Dazai.

[robinisgae]

Adding flowers of buffoonery to my collection (ignore the shit quality)

[anne-bsd-bibliophile]

- Dazai Osamu, The Flowers of Buffoonery

[telekinesis-mind-control-comics]

Don't wait until I'm dead, to give me my flowers 💐🌸💮🪷🏵🌹🥀🌺🌻🌼🌷🪻⚘️🌱🪴🦋