Kenzaburō Ōe (1935–2023)

Having read and enjoyed 'A Personal Matter' I imagined myself liking 'The Silent Cry' more than I did. Oe deals with the darker parts of life - struggle, misfortune, death and the proceeding ramifications. His works show a commendable honesty, giving voice to the negative emotions which we ourselves either never share or even block from our consciousness. But where 'A Personal Matter' had an inflection of comedy, 'This Silent Cry' is considerably starker and somewhat relentless.

This isn't to say it is a bad book, in fact, writing this review I find myself becoming more aware of its strength. It's a book that would be ideal for literary study due to the magnitude of complex relationships, in depth self-exploration, allegory and historical reference it contains. The book is both about existing through tough experiences as well as dying and what you leave behind.… (mere)

Summary: Ma-chan, a quiet, college age woman is left to care for her older brother who has a neurological disorder and younger, college-bound brother while her father, a famous writer, sorts out his life and faith in California on a writer’s residency.

All Ma-Chan wants is to live a quiet life, writing her thesis on Celine, a French novelist, while caring for her brother, nicknamed Eeyore, who suffers from epileptic fits that have caused brain damage, yet left him with an unusual musical talent. She has been more or less marginalized, an orphan even before her parents left Japan for California. Her parents tended to focus on the afflictions of the older brother and the promise of the younger brother, O-Chan, preparing for his college entrance exams while his parents are in America, Her father, a famous writer, has left for a writer’s residency in California. In reality, he is suffering from a “pinch” of the spirit, having suffered a loss of faith that causes him to wonder “how is a faithless person to cope with life?”

Ma-Chan is left to cope at a more practical level. She has to help her older brother deal with his sexual urges in socially appropriate ways while seeing that he gets to his sheltered workshop each day. She has to help others understand her brother’s seizures and resist their mockery of him, often in internal cries of “Hell no! Hell no!” She also takes him to the Shigetos, who help Eeyore discover and develop his unique gift for musical composition. One of these is titled “Sutego” or orphan. Both brother and sister are orphans together.

Eventually, it is recommended that Eeyore take swim lessons to channel some of his physical energies. It is here that they meet Mr. Arai, a shady character who agrees to teach Eeyore to swim. And he is very good at it and a bond develops between them, even as everything in us screams “predator!” Mr Shigeto starts watching out for them until a confrontation with Arai in which Mr. Shigeto is severely beaten, opening the way for Mr. Arai to pursue his designs.

The “quiet life” Ma-Chan wants comes at the cost of submerging her own selfhood. She describes herself as “robotizing.” She sees herself as a skinny thing with stick legs, oblivious of her own sexuality and that others might notice her. Yet there are her “Hell Nos” and her “Diary of Life,” written that “her papa might remember he has a family.” One comes to the end of this novel wondering whether Ma-Chan will find her voice and her self in more than a diary and her internal monologue. Will she heed the self that says “Hell No!” or let her father treat her as an orphan while he pursues an esoteric spiritual search? Will she emerge as the scholar in her own right?

Many of us want a quiet life. Life doesn’t always permit this, and more than that, at what price do we secure such a life? Is it at the price of our selves? Must we robotize? It seems these are the questions Oe’s novel asks of us. Meanwhile, he seems to take a swipe at the pretensions of literary figures who think their existential “pinches” more important than the real pinches they make those around them endure.… (mere)

it upset me aside from the upsetting premise — a man tries to kill his infant son because he can’t handle having a son who is “deformed” — but because the way he finds redemption for intentionally trying to kill his child is via an abortionist(?) gay man he abandoned during school and his girlfriend (not his wife) who he probably (?) sexually assaulted. these two people are prepared to help him do something terrible (murder his child) but when he realizes they are "ugly" -- the girlfriend is mixed race and bisexual, the doctor is weak, gay, victimized, he realizes he doesn't want to be like them, even though Bird has directly harmed both of these people and fantasizes about killing his girlfriend, and then when he shies away from murder again, he fantasizes about beating her into unconsciousness and raping her then.

the language was interesting, i admire the skill of the translator here. it is not the japanese i’m used to reading (via translation) and i desperately want to know what Mishima said to Oë to get into a fist fight. a really nauseating novel — lots of vomiting, shame, assault, just hateful behavior. the language was wheezy, collapsing, slurring, and not just because the narrator, Bird, spends a lot of time drunk and throwing up. strange assortments of words and sentences like someone talking really fast and then gulping air, but all within a single sentence or a paragraph. the compacted timeline adds to this, the whole novel is 150 pages or so and takes place over three or four days.

I understand that trying to kill your infant child is something you spend the rest of your life trying to get over but I don't want to take part in that any longer, and most if not all of Oë's fiction has his disabled child in it as a character. I'll read more Oë but not anymore of his fiction.… (mere)