As the weather gets warmer and we finally get a balance of rain that seems less like an impending disaster, the grass is definitely starting to really grow. One morning last week, I looked outside and could have sworn it had grown an inch overnight. We try to wait as long as possible before the first mow, but this year everyone in the neighbourhood has really leapt into the yard-work fray.
I can’t blame them. Winter was hard. Everyone wants to enjoy the outdoors and some sunshine. But I would rather watch the wildlife and the flowers bloom — even if those flowers are weeds. I want to soak up the warmer and dryer weather and appreciate every moment of it. Even if the peer pressure is looming and the grass is climbing over my ankles.
Dazai Double Feature
This week I decided on a double feature since both of the Osamu Dazai novels I want to review are less than 200 pages put together. I do love a short novel. Not only do they reliably help me out of even the most prolonged of reading slumps, but short novels are where writers really shine. It takes a lot of skill to craft a narrative that is tight but still full of intent and power. In short works, one does not have a word to spare. Every sentence must have purpose and composition and structure need to be at a masterful level in order for it all to come together.
Dazai’s short works are a perfect example of this. The perfect amount of detail, a close eye to structure, and not a single word out of place or without meaning.
The Flowers of Buffoonery
The Flowers of Buffoonery is actually a bit of a companion piece to the longer novel No Longer Human, however I am going to refrain discussing it in the context of that work because I think it has merit as a stand-alone piece of fiction.
“Welcome to Sadness. Population one.”
The Flowers of Buffoonery by Osamu Dazai
In The Flowers of Buffoonery, a young man has survived a suicide pact and is now recovering at a sanitarium. He is visited by his brother, but more importantly by his friends who both do and do not want to talk about what happened to him.
In the novel, Dazai uses humour to explore the realities of being on the fringes of Japanese society and to have committed an act that will forever mar a reputation. Mostly the book is about how buffoonery may only disguise pain and may only hide the depth of emotion truly being felt or struggled with by the buffoons. The continual breaking of the fourth wall and the tone of the narration had me laughing out loud.
Even all of these decades later, this is still a darkly hilarious book — even if it also has a lot to say between the salty turns of phrase.
The Beggar Student
The Beggar Student feels like it is trying to capture some of the humour of The Flowers of Buffoonery, but in general it’s a weaker book that isn’t as funny. That’s not to say that there isn’t some very hilarious writing here. Dazai describing how he is in the act of mailing a cowpat of a manuscript to his publisher made me not only laugh but share the passage with my lovely spouse and repeat it until I became annoying.
“Not even the wisest reader knows the anguish of the writer who has sent a truly awful piece of writing to a magazine in order to survive.”
The Beggar Student by Osamu Dazai
In The Beggar Student, Dazai makes himself a character who follows a young student met by happenstance through a strange adventure that involves some drinking and a party. It becomes funny in a more pathetic sense as Dazai laments the waning of his own youth and the advent of adult responsibilities. It’s a good book, but it definitely hits different and ends up striking a more melancholy chord. The ending is much weaker and cliché — and it’s very obvious when you read it.
Baby Bunnies
Other motivations not to get out the reel mower just yet? We currently have two teeny tiny baby bunnies in our yard that are our current procrastination from work. Deadlines have been tough, and every time one of us gets up to get some water there is an inevitable pause in front of the window in the hopes of seeing something cute and fluffy hopping around in the asters or chewing on the dandelions.
Yep, we are working a bit less efficiently than I want, but it’s definitely worth it. Maybe we can wait until June to worry about grass.
