Not the most stunning Oe, not by a long shot, but a serious of really-not-bad conversations about film, art, and death, and reflections on how the livNot the most stunning Oe, not by a long shot, but a serious of really-not-bad conversations about film, art, and death, and reflections on how the lives of the recently deceased continue to haunt the world around us, and it's abstract and interesting enough. I was reading this while traveling, which probably affected how I interpreted it. This is probably something I should have read on a rainy afternoon at home, not on a long-distance bus....more
Kenzaburo Oe is a writer who always leads me to cinematic analogies-- David Lynch and Takashi Miike, primarily-- so I'm gonna make another.
What if youKenzaburo Oe is a writer who always leads me to cinematic analogies-- David Lynch and Takashi Miike, primarily-- so I'm gonna make another.
What if you took the ragtag boys of The 400 Blows, and transferred them to the ruins of 1940s Japan? What if you added enough desperate gay sex in hovels to make Jean Genet blush, occupying soldiers, prison slave labor, fascist remnants, girls with their mothers' corpses, down-and-out Koreans trapped in Japan, and descriptions of flaccid penises?
You'd have Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, Oe-san's first novel, which was just as weird and chaotic as I'd hoped. ...more
I've often thought of Oe as having this sort of David Lynch quality. Comparisons to Eraserhead are inevitable here. We have the deformed child slowly I've often thought of Oe as having this sort of David Lynch quality. Comparisons to Eraserhead are inevitable here. We have the deformed child slowly getting sicker, the reluctant father, the absent mother, the icy and terrifying realms of medicine and technology, the web of sexuality and alienation... Reading A Personal Matter is a constant downward spiral into the darker areas of modernity. I love shit like this. Maybe you don't. Your tolerance for grotesquerie entirely determines your opinion of the book....more
It made me think of Eraserhead. There's a deformed baby and an anxious father and a catastrophic landscape filled with grotesques. Other points of refIt made me think of Eraserhead. There's a deformed baby and an anxious father and a catastrophic landscape filled with grotesques. Other points of reference might be Juan Rulfo's "Pedro Paramo" and Bruno Schulz's "Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass," or a sadly underappreciated Thai film called "Wonderful Town." The comparison of a Japanese novel to American, Mexican, Polish, and Thai works of art suggests a remarkably international common thread. There's all the same sense of unspeakable nausea, of constant violence lurking in every corner, and of families that cross the lines of life and death, of sanity and insanity. And, except for Eraserhead, they all feature outsiders visiting remote and primitive parts of their own nations. In this way, The Silent Cry, despite its shocking originality and grand-guignol descriptions, has an odd sense of familiarity, which makes it all the more unsettling....more
My main experience with Oe was far more magical-realist than this work, which, while not explicitly realistic, seems grounded in the everyday. Oe prodMy main experience with Oe was far more magical-realist than this work, which, while not explicitly realistic, seems grounded in the everyday. Oe produces a rather charming episodic narrative, bringing in autobiographical details and an eye for the charmed details of modern existence....more
