Oe, Kenzaburo

Average customer rating:

What it takes to be a man
Interesting, very.
All the way to Africa, Happy ever Africa
Extremely moving and emotional
A passable novel by a Nobel laureate

A Personal Matter
Kenzaburo Oë
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

What it takes to be a man.......2007-02-09

The fondest dream of Bird, the nickname of this novel's protagonist, is to travel to Africa, then write his memoirs upon returning home to Japan. This proposed trip is in actuality just another step in Bird's life long pattern (at the age of 27) of running away from responsibility. Bird's problem at the present time is that his wife has just given birth to a boy with a herniated brain. There appears to be little hope that his son will survive this terrible defect. Should Bird put the boy through an operation, only to die or at the most exist as a human vegetable? Bird eagerly awaits a telephone call from the hospital, while visiting his mistress, Himiko, telling Bird that "the monster" has died. Not a particularly a nurturing father's response, but it would set Bird free. He even considers strangling his son to death. Additionally, Bird treats his suffering wife with disdain and neglect. Also, Bird's extreme passivity is obvious when he fails to protest when he is summarily discharged from his teacher's job.

Kenzaburo Oe is an extraordinarily gifted writer with a rare ability to get inside a person's heart and soul. With keen powers of empathy and perception, Oe sensitively describes the pain, anxiety, anger and bewilderment of Bird as well as some of the other fathers at the hospital who also had children born with serious birth defects.

By the book's end, Bird discovers a measure of responsibility in himself and gets on with his life in a mature manner. Finding the courage to be an adult--rather than always escaping from it--finally becomes a personal matter to Bird.

Interesting, very........2006-04-27

My initial thought after having finished this book was "interesting." It's a good book that gives you an idea of the current social dilemmas Japanese society faces today. Bird is afraid to speak and assume the role as a father as he tries to figure out how he should deal with his new born son who he only sees as a social stigma. The book follows him through is personal ordeal.

All the way to Africa, Happy ever Africa.......2006-04-16

It is a terrible thing to think of your family as a cage, the ones who prevent you from realizing your dreams and living your life fully. Only if you could leave them, leave behind all your responsibilities and worries, abandoning those who depend on you to the capricious whims of fate...no longer your burden.

Bird is a man with a fantasy. He buys maps of Africa, and squirrels away money into a secret savings account. He is an ordinary failure, one who has never amounted to anything, or done anything of note. His only saving grace is his wife, who's influential father secured him a job and saved him from his own descent. Things are holding at a static state until the birth of his son, born brain damaged and even more of a burden than foreseen. The doctors and relatives advise to let the child die, better for everyone involved. Bird must choose between responsibility and fleeing. Saving the child means sacrificing his secret bank account, his dreams, everything. Fleeing to Africa means a new life of adventure, accompanied by the sexually-free Himiko who wants to escape with him.

Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe took elements of his own life, his brain damaged son, his powerful desire to run from the odious cards dealt to him and the unknowable future, and crafted them into the fictional story of Bird. Everything here is raw and real, from the despair and shame to the liberating freedom of moral ambiguity. I don't know how I would personally respond in a similar situation. Would I accept my responsibilities or yield to temptation? Like all great novels, the story leaped from the printed pages into the deepest recesses of my own morality and character, making me question both.

Extremely moving and emotional.......2006-04-12

"A Personal matter" whose first English edition I had from the library, moved me indeed very personally. In fact, it would be interesting to know, how to objectively judge the artistic value of the book, which evokes so strong emotions - for me it is very difficult.

I had known for a long time, what is the subject of this novel, before I decided to read it. I knew also, that the author has a son with the developmental defect. Just after the first chapter (which in itself was a little boring, but it was necessary to set the situation, waiting for the new baby, and to initially characterize Bird, the baby's father and the main character; afterwards, I could not put the book down and read without break till the end, it is also not too long).when the baby was born, I started to feel discomfort and then became really angry. The further I read, the stronger anger I felt towards Bird, his mother-in-law, his friend Himiko...I think this was the author's intention. The birth of a sick child is always a shock, especially forty years ago, when the parents could not be prepared for it before. But such a compete rejection in the name of... of what? Convention? Personal peace of mind (dubious, considering Bird's sensitivity and his haunting memories of wrongdoings so much smaller). How could the mother be so much prevented from knowing what is going on with her baby? How can the intentional causing of the baby's death be even considered by the father? Himiko, to whom Bird turns in his desperation, and the other friend from school, are for me the bad voices in Bird's subconscious. On the other pole is Mr Delcheff, a foreigner, who does not have doubts what to do and follows his heart.

During the few days when Bird cannot decide what to do with the baby, he relives his life, goes through some sort of catharsis, it helps to meet people who were strongly imprinted in his memory and come to peace with himself.

Luckily, the ending gave me back my faith in people...

The other point worth mentioning is the Nobel Prize - I cannot help but feel that Kenzaburo Oe exploited the experience of having a child with a problem... Especially that after getting the prize he said that this is the end of his writing. I wonder if he would have written the same knowing that there is a possibility of his son reading it. Almost TOO personal for me.

The language, as pointed out in the translator's introduction, is very un-Japanese. It is not up to me to judge the language, but I think that as a whole it is a very Japanese book: two suicides are mentioned, Bird's suicide is being considered, the moral dilemmas are completely not from the Western cultural circle...It could not have been written by someone American or European. Probably it is not a coincidence, that Mr Delcheff, who is so much different from the other characters, is from Eastern Europe. Also, it bears the mark of its time - although it is personal, it is very rooted in the reality of the sixties.

I strongly recommend this book because it touches the most important and basic questions: what defines us as human? What are morals, love, duty, family? And at the same time, it is superbly written. I would give 4.5 stars, but no such possibility, so I settle on four.

A passable novel by a Nobel laureate.......2006-01-12

When Oe won the prize for the Nobel in '94, I remember being in a small classroom at the University of Hawaii. The voice floating through the air was that of translator-extraordinaire Edward Seidensticker. He was visiting us UH students at the beginning of his usual 6-month stay in Honolulu, just finishing off his 6-month stay in Japan. He had a cold, but he was determined to give his talk anyway. I don't remember the talk, but I remember Seidensticker's assessment of Oe winning the award. Slurping his coffee while sustaining a cough drop in his mouth, he said, "It's too bad Ibuse Masuji hadn't lived longer. He deserved the next prize, not Oe."

Somehow, I've never been able to appreciate Oe's writing. Nevertheless, A Personal Matter is perhaps one of Oe's more accessible works. Given its rather short length under 200 pages and its well-paced rhythm, it makes for a good book to read for a book club. Even people not familiar with Japanese literature can find themes and overtones here from Western literature.

I couldn't help recalling Catcher in the Rye when the protagonist, Bird, would break into vituperative pangs of passion and murder that he could not carry out. This is a book wherein the main character wishes he could re-do a "rape" or have his child die so he can relive his youth, correcting the mistakes of his life before he really has to cope with them during a mid-life crisis that...precocious man that he is, is sure to come before he hits 30. Bird is Holden Caulfield, ten years later, but still wishing he could be a better man. In that sense, the novel is somewhat tedious: we tire of this character who is so self-obsessed and self-loathing. As a teenager, Holden Caulfield has a kind of preciousness about him; at 27, our Bird is kind of a bore.

The ending of the book, I think, comes to a welcome, speedy conclusion, but it leaves you wondering. "Wha?" There are no real answers presented in this book -- just tidy endings. Not a bad book to discuss with others, but I don't recommend it. If you end reading it for yourself, it's bound to leave you with an aftertaste of self-loathing like that of its protagonist. Like the way coffee and cough drops might taste together, I imagine.

Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness: Four Short Novels: The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away, Prize Stock, Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, Aghwee the Sky Monster

Average customer rating:

Needed it for a class...
seminal!!
One of the best writers from Japan
not about mental health
madness outgrown?

Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness: Four Short Novels: The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away, Prize Stock, Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness, Aghwee the Sky Monster
Kenzaburo Oe
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

Needed it for a class..........2007-01-09

The longest stories ever... But they were alright, I found them more interesting to talk about than to actually read...

seminal!!.......2004-08-12

I adore this book... I read it all at once, woke up my parents in the middle of the night talking about its descriptions of the sky, talked about it at my college interviews, which were about three years ago... Loved it. But Discovered that some of Oe's other work isn't as good. But wow! The language, plot, the strangeness, the beauty, inventiveness, and reach of the book is tremendous. :)

One of the best writers from Japan.......2001-09-03

If you haven't bought this book, then you should get it now. Kenzaburo Oe is one of the few left wing writers in Japan who has made a great impact world wide. His style is original, his themes often poignant. His own personal suffering and the suffering of his own brain-damaged child often feature in his novels in subtle and not so subtle forms. You will not find any cliches in this novel and Oe is never nauseatingly sentimental. A true gem.

not about mental health.......2001-06-27

Please do not be misled by the title or Amazon's classification of this work in "Psychology and Counseling." Oe writes about madness not from the perspective of a clinician but from that of an artist. The madness he urges us to leave behind is that of societal expectations.

Although "Prize Catch" might be difficult for those who have experienced racism to read, one has to remember that Oe recaptures (pardon the pun) the atmosphere of rural Shikoku seen through the eyes of a boy in the waning days of World War II. I suspect that the villagers would have had equal difficulty relating to a Caucasian American.

This is an excellent introduction to Oe's public and private lives.

madness outgrown?.......1999-05-05

this book (i must say) is one of the most original and "a-joy-to-read" works of literature i've picked up recently.

i liked the obscure nature of the stories and the eccentricity of oe's characters.

for the most part they all seem to be in some way influenced by his own experiences as a child disillusioned by the war.

the first story is perhaps my favorite.

i liked the way that the narrator insisted that he was a person not to be pitied and that his cancer was justified and perhaps even the result of his insanity he witnessed through his father.

second: 'teach us to outgrow our madness.'

i found this story to contain the most interesting relationship that i've had the pleasure of reading about.

'eeyore! the pork noodles in broth and pepsi cola were good!'

ahh.

i'll be quoting that for years.

it wasn't only an awkward relationship that the father and son shared but rather an affirmation of the amount of absurdity inherent with any interpersonal relationship.

all in all i'd say that this is definitely one of my favorite books.

i'll probably give it another read some day.

yup.

Seventeen and J: Two Novels
Average customer rating:

Friction between the Public and Private Self

Politics and Sex

The Solemn Tightrope Walkers

Two Novels: J and Seventeen.

Seventeen and J: Two Novels
Kenzaburo Oe
Manufacturer: Foxrock Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

Friction between the Public and Private Self.......2006-05-26

Seventeen and the two halves of J are three variations on a similar theme. In these stories, the protagonists are confronted with the realization that their private and public selves are irreconcilably different, and it is this schism that leads to the characters' self-destruction.

In Seventeen (4.5 stars), Oe masterfully portrays the story's anti-hero, a seventeen year old boy who awakens to many fears--death, status as outsider/outcast by family and peers, his own insecurity--as well as the antidote to these fears: masturbation (Oe's use of a Japanese euphemism that means "self-defilement" is telling of the protagonist's sadistic streak). In fact, the protagonist longingly states that it would be nice if life was just one long orgasm. By a few twists of fate, it is right-wing extremism that he chooses as his "suit of armor" to cover his vulnerable ego, and it is the emperor he chooses as the object of his quest for the lifelong orgasm.

Oe's choice of a seventeen year old protagonist is not coincidental. This story is patterned after the murder of a left-wing politician by a seventeen year old youth. Not surprisingly, Oe's interpretation of events enflamed a passionate response from Japan's ultranationalist right who were outraged by Oe's connection between right-wing activism and the masturbation of a lonely, frightened boy.

Again in J (4 stars), Oe uses sex as the vehicle for his message about the strain between acting on one's true impulses and desires and conforming to social norms and expectations. The contrast is illustrated immediately as the Tokyo-ites observe the silent, condemning crowd outside of the house of an adulterer. The scene is repeated later at J's cottage after the "free love" goings on of the young socialites is witnessed by a young boy from the village. The villagers retreat, but the damage is done. The socialites are overcome with a feeling of defilement and emptiness, crushed as a result of not meeting the expectations of a disapproving society.

The second half focuses on the struggle between expression and conformity in the odd "pervert's club" of J, an old man, and a youth. At different stages, they realize that there is no compromise--they must either give in to their true nature or commit entirely to conforming to society. In the end, they all reject society and meet inglorious ends.

In Seventeen and J, Oe uses rather extreme situations to highlight the difficulty or even impossibility of reconciling personal expression and social expectations. Both the vehicle and the content of Oe's message are oddly gripping and memorable. These stories will not be enjoyed by all readers, but I think they will reward those who keep an open mind and search for the meaning that Oe instills in his works.

Politics and Sex.......2004-08-01

_Seventeen & J_ was one of the many books resting and collecting dust that I bought on a whim and reall had little intention of reading soon. I have read two other Oe novels before these two short novels, _Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids_ and _A Personal Matter_ and his reknowned short story "The Catch," but while I did enjoy these works I was caught up in the recent literature of two of my favorite writers: Murakami Haruki and Yoshimoto Banana, and withing their numerous pages concerning sheepmen and girls who love to sleep in the kitchen, I was kind of bored when I entered Oe's more mundane world.

However, after a couple of years and haing read many of the works of Natsume Soseki, Tanizaki Junichiro, Mishima Yukio, and Kawabata Yasunari, I decided to try another Oe novel. After all the man did win the Nobel Prize for literature, and that must mean something, hehe.

I am glad that I did read these short novels, because they give the reader a view of the tumultuous early 60s in Japan.

_Seventeen_ stars a a young high school student who has just turned seventeen years old. While he is in the bathroom, he feels on top of the world and that with a little effort he will be able to accomplish anything. However, after he leaves the restroom, his high hopes fall back to earth and he gets into a poltical argument with his sister. He supporting the left, communists, and she supporting the right, basically nationalists. The sister wins the argument and succeeds in reducing her brother to tears. However, he pays her back with a swift kick to the eye. One can almost tell that "Seventeen" wants someone to say something to him, but the onl thing that happens is that his father says his sister won't help pay his college tuition.

The next day is even worse. The boy fails several important tests, but worse of all he wets himself while running 800 meters. Later a friend takes Seventeen to a rightest political rally, which the young high schooler becomes entranced by. He soon joins the rightest group, and even though he spouts all of the correct rightest slogans, one can tell he is only doing so because he feels that he finally belongs to a group of people.

The hero of _J_ is quite different than Seventeen. He is the 29 year old son of the president of a steel company and has money coming out of the yin yang. He also has a group of artists, a poet, an actor, a jazz singer, a camera man, a sculpter, his younger sister, a poet, and a film maker, his wife, at his beck and call. The novel starts out with J and his friend getting drunk in his jaguar as they head to his father's country houe to film a movie directed by his wife. They enjoy their time there, well mot of them at least, drinking, having sex, and telling dirty stories. However, things go wrong when they catch a little boy inside the cabin who escapes by crashing through a window. Everything works out fine in the end, but not before some very harsh words are spoken among the friends. Their close personal web of friendship, thought to be quite strong, was, in fact, quite weak.

The second part of the _J_ novel, finds J teamed up with a 60 year old man. They are both chikans, men who find sexual arousal through rubbing themselves on young girls on crowded trains, buses, subways, etc. However, they are quite cautious when they do it, that is why they are quite moved by a young man who performs chikan almost completely out in the open to gain experience so he can write a grand poem about sexual perversity.

Both novels are quite good. _Seventeen_ seems a bit stunted, but that is because the second half was not translated. The second part has never even been reprinted in Japanese because its original publication brought Oe much criticism from the left and the right. So, in all honesty, to protect his life, the story was never reprinted or translated.

A great book that gives to reader a raw view of the extremist in Japan during the early years of the sixties.

The Solemn Tightrope Walkers.......2000-01-20

This is quintessential Oe.

If we fail to see ourselves reflected in society often we become outcasts or are labeled as deviant. The images of Seventeen and J are not reflexive. Therefore, by acts of violence and sexual molestation, they superimpose their images on a world which refuses to see.

With Seventeen and J, Oe depicts the transmution of post-war Japan. This is cleverly evidenced by J's truncated name and the attitude of Seventeen's father. While the political aspect of Japan is more apparent in Seventeen, the politics in J are presented in a more abstract level.

They have each architected an inner world populated with the shadows of despair, doubt, and disgust. Oe lets us become voyeurs of the private and sometimes painful world of these two young men who are self-described "others".

Seventeen and J are both "Solemn Tightrope Walkers". Yet, what they are trying to balance is their existence in a world which they despise with a raison detre. This is demonstrated by Seventeen's fanatical involvement with a right-wing political group and J's flirtation with being a "chaikan".

These two novels should be read by anyone who gives a damn or have stopped.

Two Novels: J and Seventeen........1999-05-28

Oe Kenzaburop is a genius. I gave a copy of this book to two people-once three or four years ago to my high school English teacher, and once again this year to a fellow college student at Binghamton University.

The first person liked Seventeen better. He thought the masturbation scene in Seventeen was masterful. I thought so too. The scene is supposedly the first masturbation scene in a Japanese novel, and it was enthrallingly detailed. Seventeen was a good depiction of a boy coming of age, and his confused entry into the world of Japanese politics. The second person to whom I gave the book, loved the part in which the protogonist of Seventeen kicks his sister in the face, breaking her glasses.

As the first person to whom I gave the book liked Seventeen better than J, the second person to whom I gave the book liked J better than Seventeen. I too liked J better. J was a more vivid depiction of Japan and its contemporary personage's. J is written in two parts. The first part of the book takes place in the country, it presents J as a person confused about sex and his own sexuality, and at some point he even comes across as homosexual. The second part shows him in the city. He no longer contents himself with the answers life grants him, he decides to go out into the world and chance finding the sexual answers he desires by taking action. He becomes a "chikan," a sexual predator, who rides trains looking for his next victim (he exposes his naked parts to innocent train passengers, usually young school girls heading to school or returning home). Riding the trains he meets two persons with whom he will develop a great bond. This novel introduces some of the most memorable characters in fiction. In the world of Japanese literature Oe Kenzaburo ranks with Saikaku Ihara, Yasunari Kawabata, and Mishima Yukio.

J is about sex, it is about the pain of being a sadist-the suffering a sadist has to go through because he is miss understood. Reading this book, and seeing the unfairness in it, is enough to make a person question the way we view people, and society for that matter.

This book is essential for anyone who's interested in sex, or is just a straight out pervert. The first person to whom I gave the book was an erudite, whom I felt needed to read the book to be further learnt in literature. The second person was one who wanted me to suggest some books for him to read, for he wanted to be well-read. I felt this book was essential for such a goal.

The Crazy Iris: And Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath (Oe, Kenzaburo)
Average customer rating:

A personal touch to war

The Point

Don't Listen to A.B.C.D. Reader!

A.B.C.D. Encirclement

A moving collection depicting the effects of the atomic bomb

The Crazy Iris: And Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath (Oe, Kenzaburo)

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ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Customer Reviews:

A personal touch to war.......2007-05-14

"The Crazy Iris" edited by Kenzaburo Oe is a collection of stories about the dropping the atomic bombs. These stories are not from a historical context or from a military standpoint, but of normal, relatable people. The stories cover the carnage seen through the eyes of a twelve year old to the memories of women going back thirty years to the high school they once attended. It also covers how the outlying villages were indirectly affected by the bombing through word of mouth and deaths of friends and families.

The Point.......2007-05-14

I read The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath by Kenzaburo Oe for an assignment in my History of Japan class. It's a collection of short stories complied to mark the fortieth anniversary of the atomic bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as the book jacket says. I am not a fan of overly flowery language (though I suspect the collection wouldn't have sounded as such in its native tongue), but the stories get the point across. The point? Everyone was affected by those weapons, no matter how old you are, what you believe, what your country thinks you should believe, and so on and so forth. I myself do believe that dropping the bombs were warranted and ultimately served their purpose, but to read the tales of survivors in compact form puts things into perspective. I wouldn't wish these sort of memories on anyone. I wouldn't wish anyone to have this pain. I hope to God that moments like Hiroshima and Nagasaki are never forgotten, and that we learn from them.

Don't Listen to A.B.C.D. Reader!.......2006-04-06

I'm writing this just to offer the opinion that A.B.C.D.'s review is biased (at best) and ultra-nationalist and revisionist (at worst).

Read this book and judge it for yourself. The various stories recount life in militarist Japan, horrifying scenes of atomic aftermath, and the desperate psychological and spiritual struggle to cope with the trauma of survival. This collection is a moving testament to its authors' experiences, but to say that it explicitly is anti-war or blames anyone for the atomic blast would not reflect the entirety of the book. The viewpoints and opinions of the authors are as varied as those of the Japanese themselves.

A.B.C.D. Encirclement.......2002-10-07

Oe lachrymosely indulges every anti-Japanese propagandist in the american media conglomerate (Ingram) with ample opportunity to smack their lips over the "moral failings" of Japan. The fact that this ineffectual moralist won the Noble prize while it was denied to Mishima speaks volumes on what supine expectations the american propaganda industry expects from Japan. Both left and right. Writer like Oe and Murakami (who deserted his own country for no nobler reason then to make more money after making a sickening porno film popular in the us) are parasites getting fat by preening all the morbid phobias of a degenerate american elite, allowing them to wallow in self-adulation. What would Mr. Oe have done during the war? Sheepishly meet the demands of an expansionist american navy? Allowed China to invade the country so as not to offend their sensitivities? ... Japan chose WAR rightfully, even with the foreknowledge that it was a lost cause. And Japan would not even exist today if Mr. Oe were around then.

A moving collection depicting the effects of the atomic bomb.......1998-09-29

Compiled by Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oe, this is a collection of stories depicting the effects on various people of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The emotional, physical, and social scars are delicately and movingly presented. Some readers might find a bit too much sentimentality for their taste, but most of the stories are very strong--especially the title story, by Masuji Ibuse, who also wrote the massive novelization of the bombing of Hiroshima, "Black Rain." Since it consists of short stories and is somewhat less harrowing than "Black Rain," it serves as a good alternative.

The Silent Cry: A Novel (Japanese for Busy People)

Average customer rating:

its all about mirrors
The Great Post-War Japanese Novel?
A difficult but brilliantly written novel
a moribund, melodramatic piece of Japanese weirdness...
Weird and wonderful surreal tragi-comedy

The Silent Cry: A Novel (Japanese for Busy People)
Kenzaburo Oe
Manufacturer: Kodansha International
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 4770019653

Book Description

The Silent Cry traces the uneasy relationship between two brothers who return to their ancestral home, a village in densely forested western Japan. While one brother tries to sort out the after-effects of a friend's suicide and the birth of a retarded son, the other embarks on a quixotic mission to incite an uprising among the local youth. Oe's description of this brother's messianic struggle to save a disintegrating local culture and economy from the depredations of a Korean wheeler-dealer called "The Emperor of the Supermarkets" is as chillingly pertinent today as it was when first published in 1967. Powerful and daring, The Silent Cry is a thoroughly compelling classic of world literature.

Customer Reviews:

its all about mirrors.......2005-01-02

this is the first novel i read by kenzaburo oe. and its simply superb. the post war its brilliantly portraid in this book. when a couple of brothers return to their hometown, each one has some experiences that changes his vision of the world. but theres another aspect that i loved in it. there was a revolution a century ago, directed by their grandgrandfather. slowly, they go discovering more about this, and finally they mirror the characters and the revolution. its a success repeating itself. the time is a circle. Oe proves it brilliantly here. Its a bit hard to read, but its worth it. DO IT!

The Great Post-War Japanese Novel?.......2004-09-06

Many critics believe The Silent Cry (not it's translated title: which would be Footbal in the First Year of Mannen) is the great post-war Japanese novel, ranking above even Mishima's The Sea of Fertility tetraology.

If there's one thing that should be mentioned first about this novel, is that it achieves for Japan exactly what Voss does for Australia, and what The Tin Drum achieves for Germany . Like all of these, an epic landscape is evoked to explore the major issues, profoudnly yet simply handled. It also has the markings of a masterpiece, in that it reads like both a summary and yet at the same time an advancement on all that the author has said to date, on a canvas of a biblical size (a definition that, in my opinion, ought to extend the franchise to other masterpieces: Faulkner's Absalom! Absalom! or David Storey's Saville, for instance). This explores every facet of post-atomic, post-imperial Japan's inner life - all the more remarkable for being able to slice through the all-pervasive level of regimentation. It's also a wry commentary on the 'Emperor system' of thought that was so prevalent at the time, and led to the ritualistic suicide of Oe's friend, Yukio Mishima.

A difficult but brilliantly written novel.......2003-01-30

Oe in " The silent cry" deals with the perplexing problem of finding ones root. The novel is a story of about two brothers who return to their village, each for their own reasons.

The story deals with by the main characters search for answer to ýhow does a modern man communicate( in philosophical sense )?ý One brother thinks, we can communicate by death and in our silence. The other wants to communicate by connecting his present with the past of the society.

It is a difficult novel due to the hard subject matter. But Oe does SPLENDID job in expounding the difficult issues through his excellent narrative.

a moribund, melodramatic piece of Japanese weirdness..........2002-09-30

Despite all the glowing comments in previous amazon.com reviews I must confess that I really don't see how The Silent Cry can be judged as anything other than a strange (read: unbelievable, contrived), totally depressing piece of (otherwise well-written) literature. It compares poorly to some of Yukio Mishima's and Haruki Murakami's better works. Having lived in Japan for years I shudder to think what sort of image it projects about post-war Japanese youth.

The story is a bit complex. Generally it portrays the lives of dysfunctional brothers returning to their ancient country estate, and somehow making parallels between their lives and those of their great-grandfather and his brother during the time of the Meiji restoration (1860s). Some of the insights are interesting, but sadly these are buried in what can be described as a mess. The modern day (actually, circa 1960) brothers and the friends and family have an impossibly depressing, unfortunate lives. The wife is an alcoholic, children/siblings/friends commit suicide and/or suffer from horrible physical/mental anomalies. In this 300 page book no one, and I mean *no one*, so much as smiles. So you think the Japanese people are a nature-loving, inherently serene people? If so I suggest you do NOT read this book!

Having said all this, the story does pick up some pace towards the end (..after an extremely tedious first half). And generally speaking the author, and the translator, have produced nice prose. A shame it is all wasted on a strange story with neurotic (and uninteresting) characters.

Bottom line: time would be better spent on reading some better examples of modern Japanese literature. Best give The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle (Murakami) a try and forget The Silent Cry.

Weird and wonderful surreal tragi-comedy.......2001-06-24

It has been said by some that to know a country is to read its novels; far better than to read its (manufactured) history. Novels too are manufactured but novels are more likely to expose the emotional and spiritual "truth" of the country concerned. In THE SILENT CRY the writer OE covers much historical, emotional, social, Japanese ground but does it in such a way as to make it a wonderfully entertaining journey for the reader. I for one would love to read a Freudian criticism of it. For example, a recurring motif is suicide, in various forms, one being hanging and that image is conveyed by a the anti-hero's best friend who removed all his clothes, painted his head red, shoved a cucumber up his arse and then hanged himself; another being the anti-hero's brother who shot himself in the head the remains of which reminded the brother of a pomegranate. Such vivid imagery recurs throughout this novel. Another distinguishing feature of it is its lack of cliches, its almost poetic prose, poetic in the sense of dense. You daren't skip a phrase let alone a line. It is a rich read. Historically, the novel covers the transition from an agrarian village life to the impact of the supermarket, racism, the vulnerability of the Japanese economy (this written in 1966- in 2001 have the Japanese finally faced up to real economic reform?)foreigners, and on the cover, an artistic representation of the Hiroshima ground zero. The one-eyed hero is self-effacing and has an alcoholic wife, retarded son and is a cuckold. His brother is vain, hostile, proud, an adulterer who has sex with his retarded sister. It is true that it is reminiscent of the Cain and Abel story or the Brothers Karamazov and I think it deserves mention in that mythical company. Its themes that resonate with me most tellingly are the need for one and one's country to come to terms with the truth about the past. The anti-hero Mitsu is on a search for the "truth" throughout the novel.As an individual I need to come to terms with my mother's suicide as well as other aspects of my personal history. As an Australian, my nation needs to come to terms with its past and our genocidal attitude to Aboriginal Australians. The second theme for me is that constant internal worrying and guilt can be self-defeating - at the close of the novel Mitsu feels "throughout the time remaining to me..a hundred pairs of eyes (of his cat, of his great grandfather, brother, wife) would glitter like a chain of stars in the night of my experience. And I would live on, suffering agonies of shame under the light of those stars, peering out timidly like a rat, with my single eye, at a dim and equivocal outer world..."(p.269) Yet, at the urging of his now pregnant wife, he chooses to accept a job in Africa instead of a job at a University, symbolic I would guess of his need to accept the past come to terms with it and get on with living, for some sort of peace. Survival becomes the key to that peace. Its weird at the end too because despite all the preceding horrors, the novel's ending creates in the reader a wry grin or satisfying chuckle as the anti-hero realises with his new job he may be able to achieve an important personal goal - building a thatched hut.A memorable read.

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A.B.C.D. Encirclement
Lessons from suffering

Hiroshima Notes
Kenzaburo Oe
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Crazy Iris: And Other Stories of the Atomic Aftermath (Oe, Kenzaburo)
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A Personal Matter

ASIN: 0802134645

Customer Reviews:

A.B.C.D. Encirclement.......2002-10-07

Sure to please american expectations as to what the contemporary Japanese are like. But its just propaganda written to order for a foreign market and its diseased media. A vulgar soapbox sermon. Elitist and condescending. In fact the commemoration of the BOMBING of Pearl Harbor was a very festive occasion. Deal with it.

Lessons from suffering.......2001-04-25

Hiroshima Notes is a collection of seven essays written between August 1963 and January 1965 on the occasion of several visits by Mr. Oe to Hiroshima. The year 1963 was a watershed for Kenzaburo Oe. In 1963, his son was born with a lesion of the skull through which brain tissue protruded. Unable to decide if he should allow the child to die or agree to an operation which would leave his son permanently brain-damaged, Mr. Oe went on a reporting assignment to Hiroshima that resulted in "a decisive turnabout" of his life which, he says, "eschewing all religious connotations, I would still call a conversion".

The central figure of the essays is Dr. Fumio Shigeta, a medical doctor who was in Hiroshima on the day the A-bomb was dropped. He happened to arrive in the city to take up a new post just a week before the day of the bombing. It is through Dr. Shigeta that Oe learns how the bomb victims become social outcasts, have difficulties finding marital partners, get divorced because they cannot have children, hide in shame in the back-rooms of their houses for years, and commit suicide or go insane upon learning that they are diagnosed as having "an A-bomb disease". In the midst of this pain and suffering, Dr. Shigeta patiently applies his medical skills to help the victims. He ignores the stigma placed on the victims by Japanese society, and for him there is no taboo on issues like the genetic effects of the radiation.

Dr. Shigeta is the "authentic man" for Oe, a person who is "humanist in the truest sense ¡V neither too wildly desperate nor too vainly hopeful". A man of modesty, patience and perseverance, Dr. Shigeta appears to be the real-life counterpart of the fictional Docteur Rieux of Albert Camus's novel The Plague: "When Hiroshima was attacked by radiation - the plague of the modern age - the city was not specifically closed off. Since that day . . . Dr. Shigeta took upon himself the misery of Hiroshima, and has continued to do so for twenty years."

More than anything he saw in Hiroshima, it must have been the example of Dr. Shigeta that made Oe realize that there was just one answer to his own personal question whether his son should be operated to live brain-damaged thereafter or be left to die. If Dr. Shigeta could bear the suffering of thousands of strangers and dedicate his life to relieving their pain, then he could bear the suffering of raising a brain-damaged son. I believe it was this realization that made Oe wake up and face his own suffering: "I think it was in Hiroshima that I got my first concrete insight into human authenticity."

While the Hiroshima Notes are the central document of Oe's humanism, they also provide a uniquely Japanese view of the Hiroshima bombing. Oe examines the feelings of shame and humiliation in the victims, and the attempts of the people of Hiroshima to forget what he calls the "holocaust of the A-bomb". His tone is very restrained and unemotional, devoid of moralizing and anger. Any sensationalism is missing from Oe's writing. He does not accuse or explain, he simply reflects. At times, though, he gets tangled in his reflections. The most embarrassing example is his argument that the A-bomb would never have been dropped on Leopoldville in the Congo because the American decision makers wanted to drop the bomb only on a people with the "human strength to cope with the hell that would follow." This racist, muddled thesis is an absolute exception, however. A small stain on Oe's essays which shows that even a Nobel Prize winner with a conscience will get caught up in prejudices from time to time.

I recommend these essays to anyone who has read Kenzaburo Oe's "A Personal Matter" (the fictional account of the decision the author had to make with regard to his son), and to anyone who ever had to answer the question "why should I rather follow one course of action instead of another when both options involve me suffering?"

Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself: The Nobel Prize Speech and Other Lectures
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A beautiful experience

Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself: The Nobel Prize Speech and Other Lectures
Kenzaburo Oe
Manufacturer: Kodansha International (JPN)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 4770019807

Book Description

In December 1994, on the acceptance of only the second Nobel Prize awarded to a Japanese writer, Kenzaburo Oe gave a speech that was a message for mankind: one that pledged his own faith in tolerance and human decency, in the renunciation of war, and in the healing power of art--the power to calm and purify.

Other key addresses he has given elsewhere join the Nobel lecture in this volume, giving a wider view of the work of a literary activist who sees himself as one of a dying breed in the intellectual life of his own country.

Even those unfamiliar with his writing will be stimulated by the free-ranging thoughts of one of the century's most brilliant minds.

Included in the book are "Speaking on Japanese Culture before a Scandinavian Audience," "On Modern and Contemporary Japanese Literature," "Japan's Dual Identity: A Writer's Dilemma," and "Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself."

Customer Reviews:

A beautiful experience.......2000-11-07

I discovered this book thanks to Orson Scott Card, who speaks of it in "Children of mind". It is a powerful book, but hard to read. You can't feel the same way before and after havieng read this book. Oe writes with his heart, each word is a part of his mind. He's a very smart person, but seems so nice! I can't describe my true feelings about this book. The vision and explications of the "peripherical nations" is so interesting, whereas it's an uneasy subject. One advice: read this book. I'm a french reader, and I did it ("Japan, the ambiguous and myself" isn't translate in french). So you can!!!

Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (Oe, Kenzaburo)

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Monsters
Powerful
A punch in the stomach...
A.B.C.D. Encirclement
Dark, beautiful, tragic.

Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids (Oe, Kenzaburo)
Kenzaburo Oe
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0802134637

Customer Reviews:

Monsters.......2006-03-14

The bizaare, dark, and somewhat tragic tale of a group of delinquent boys taken to a secluded mountain village during World War II, then abandoned by the villagers when a mysterious plague strikes...
I found the relationship between the narrator and his younger brother very moving. In some ways, I was reminded of Golding's Lord of the Flies, however, this novel had more positive moments shared between the boys. Very immersing, I read it in one day.

Powerful.......2004-10-27

I have a friend once suffered from pneumonia. She read this book in the hospital when she had broken one of her ribs from a coughing fit. That is how pained and weak she was at that time. After she read the book she said she forgot her own anguish and cried for the suffering characters in this touching and tender book. I picked it up and have never been the same again. It made me angry, sad, and I wanted to do something about the injustice in this world. It made me a better person.

A punch in the stomach..........2003-04-08

That's what my wife told me when I picked it up to begin reading it. But that's what a good book is supposed to feel like. And it did. It was dark, cruel, and painful,, and contained vivid descriptions of inhumanity, though it was not without its moments of humor.

A.B.C.D. Encirclement.......2002-10-07

Oe lachrymosely indulges every anti-Japanese propagandist in the american media conglomerate (Ingram) with ample opportunity to smack their lips over the "moral failings" of Japan. The fact that this ineffectual moralist won the Noble prize while it was denied to Mishima speaks volumes on what supine expectations the american propaganda industry expects from Japan. Both left and right. Writer like Oe and Murakami... are parasites getting fat by preening all the morbid phobias of a degenerate american elite, allowing them to wallow in self-adulation. What would Mr. Oe have done during the war? Sheepishly meet the demands of an expansionist american navy? Allowed China to invade the country so as not to offend their sensitivities?...Japan chose WAR rightfully, even with the foreknowledge that it was a lost cause. And Japan would not even exist today if Mr. Oe were around then.

Dark, beautiful, tragic........2002-09-12

My introduction to Kenzaburo Oe, "Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids" struck me with the force of a bamboo spear. With his beautiful prose (and the complementary translation by Mackintosh and Sugiyama), Oe paints his characters with the brush of traditional Japan but in the style of a contemporary miscreant. Throughout, the book conveys relentlessly brutal portraits of an altered, horrific reality.

From the moment the reformatory boys are introduced to the end of their abandonment and the narrator's final, fearful sentences, Oe drags the reader through the hell of his ambiguous setting. Pulled along with the narrator, his brother, and their reform school compatriots, the reader follows into the nightmare of a plague-infested village and their utter isolation. While the boys struggle to eke out their existence and build lives in their newfound freedom, one is constantly on edge awaiting the collapse of their delicate system. When, finally, the villagers return and the madness of the world indeed crushes their fragile independence, the reader emulates the boys in their sense of relief and subsequent betrayal.

One of Oe's first novels, the deft manipulation of the reader's emotions and interactions between the characters promised great things for the young writer. As I begin another of his books, I cannot help but agree that he deserved his Nobel.

Rouse Up, O Young Men of the New Age: A Novel
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More Rousing than Most Oe Novels

As much about poetic imagination as postwar Japan

Over My Head

floating

A.B.C.D. Encirclement

Rouse Up, O Young Men of the New Age: A Novel
Kenzaburo Oe
Manufacturer: Grove Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Family Saga | Genre Fiction | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0802117104

Book Description

Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! is a virtuoso novel from one of today's finest authors. K is a famous writer living in Tokyo with his wife and three children, one of whom is mentally disabled. This child, Eeyore, has been doing disturbing things—behaving aggressively, asserting that he's dead, even brandishing a knife at his mother—and K, given to retreat from reality into abstraction, looks for answers in his lifelong love of William Blake's poetry. As K struggles to understand his family and his place in it, he must also reevaluate his relationship with his own father and the duty of artists and writers in society. A remarkable portrait of the inexpressible bond between a father and his damaged son, Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! is the work of an unparalleled writer at his sparkling best.

Customer Reviews:

More Rousing than Most Oe Novels.......2006-03-09

Of the Oe novels I've read, this is one of the better ones in my opinion. A low key, understated spirituality suffuses this novel, and the narrator's engagement with the poetry of William Blake adds resonance and depth to Oe's prose (which otherwise often strikes me as okay but somewhat flat).
While the work is fiction, it is crafted from events in Oe's real life and is thus more autobiographical than American readers may be comfortable with. This is a common feature of much Japanese fiction, as with the prewar I-Novels (shishosetsu) or the works of Shiga Naoya, though it is not an unknown phenomenon elsewhere--in fact, all fiction writers draw upon their own experiences to some degree. Here the degree is stronger, that's all. In any case, Oe has refined, sublimated, organized, and crafted his experiences into a fine, well-told story here.

The afterword by the translator is okay but not very helpful, basically quoting long passages from the novel as if you haven't just finished reading it. A few good insights pop up there nonetheless. His translation work itself, though, is as far as I can tell quite excellent.

As much about poetic imagination as postwar Japan.......2004-03-29

torn between a redemptive vision of culture and a globalizing hegemony of the right, this is a splendid and pithy novel that unlocks the sublime visionary power of William Blake (as revolutionary figure) to do global work inside post-imperial Japan and the US/Anglo hegemony. The son is caught between Blake the father and Los the son, and figures a way forward for all: Mutual Forgiveness is the Path to Eternity, said Blake to real politik. I love this novel, it taught me more about Blake and poetry than most poems I read, odd for a Japanese novelist to be tutoring this way!

Over My Head.......2004-02-16

This book has a lot of references to the works by William Blake, which makes it a difficult read. Additionally, Oe explains the writings of Blake and combines it with how it teaches him to understand his handicapped child. I felt like the novel was more autobiographical than fiction. Too deep for me at this point in my reading skill level. A good message though all throughout the novel.

floating.......2003-07-23

As usual Mr. Oe's prose is sharp as a knife. As usual there is an odd humility (here in relation to the writings of William Blake). As usual we find ourselves thinking we are listening to the humble mumblings about some guy with a disabled child only to wake up somewhere quite different than we thought we were. As usual we read something entirely personal in its politic ...
What left me reeling was the way this novel floats between the fact of Mr. Oe's life and the fiction that the novel is.
Hmm.
Read it.

A.B.C.D. Encirclement.......2002-10-07

Book Description

A Healing Family, Kenzaburo Oe's first book since winning the Nobel Prize for Literature, is an intimate portrait of the people closest to him. Above all, it is about his son Hikari.

Hikari was born in 1963 with a growth on his brain so large it made him look as if he had two heads. His parents were told he might never be more than a "human vegetable" requiring constant care; but they took the decision to raise him. Today, despite autism, poor vision, and a tendency to seizures, their son is an established composer with two successful CDs to his credit.

Oe has often written about the sorrows and satisfactions of being the parent of a handicapped child, most memorably in A Personal Matter; but nowhere has his writing been more personal, more buoyant, more revealing than in this non-fiction work. Without diminishing the suffering that Hikari and his family have been through, he celebrates the victories that can be won, especially his son's gift for music--his own "language."

Friends make an appearance along the way--doctors, musicians, other writers--as do the themes that have preoccupied Oe all his life: the rights of the underprivileged; the moral authority of the survivors of the atomic bombing; the mystery of language. But his thoughts keep circling back to his family--to the healing power of the family, and the unwitting courage we can all find in ourselves.

The book is illustrated with sketches of family life painted by his wife.

Customer Reviews:

A book that I would read again later........2003-10-12

My first book by Kenzaburo was Silent Cry. Recently I read A Healing Family and found that I really liked it a lot. Yukari's illustrations were beautiful. This book made me feel closer to Oe's family. It is very heart-warming.

At the time I read it, I was in the process of deciding whether to get my wisdom teeth extracted by a dentist or an oral surgeon. I heard that my face would be bruised and swollen, my jaws unhinged, etc. after the surgery. It was quite unnerving just to think about it. Then I read that Hikari has to make weekly visits to the dentist, and that his epileptic pills make his gum terribly swollen. I felt that I am in a much much better situation than some people. It was a consolation to read this book.

One thing I don't quite like about most of Kenzaburo's books is that he refers to a lot of other European writers and their works, which I find hard to understand. Well, that's just my ignorance.

Superb and touching portrait of a family........2002-03-13

Kenzaburo Oe, the Japanese novelist who won the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature, was 28 when his son, Hikari, was born. This event was the most important in Oe's life. Born with a herniated brain, Hikari has needed almost constant care since birth. "A Healing Family" is Oe's first non-fiction attempt to make sense of Hikari's life and the effect it has had on the people around him, most importantly his family.

This beautiful book shows the profound love, affection and pride the Oe family take in Hikari's accomplishments and happiness. From the age of five, Hikari has been obsessed with classical music, and eventually began to compose pieces for piano and violin. Much of "A Healing Family" concerns Oe's attempts to understand his son through music.

"A Healing Family" is a book everyone should read. Finely crafted, perceptive, intelligent and moving, it shows us again that compassion and empathy can make all the difference in the world.

A wonderful, soothing book of love...........1998-09-02

Hard to believe that no one else has written a review of this book because it is excellent... Oe's manner of dealing with his son's affliction and the effects it has on his family is truly amazing... His manner is truly one of love and serenity.... Without any reservations, I recommend this book to anyone who wants to know more about "heart"...

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