Hello Gentle Reader
Some years ago, I tried a novel by the Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-ninety four, Kenzaburō Ōe. “Somersault,” had an interesting premise, of a piece of work by the author. However, at five hundred pages of monologues, and very little action, with a plot that moved more like malaises in January, I closed the book up and just a few years ago donated to the library, which accepted the book graciously – and actually put it on their shelves. After that piece of work, of a novel, that I never finished, I decided it was best to leave the author alone. Then in two-thousand and ten, the Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-ninety four, Kenzaburō Ōe had a new book in translation called “The Changeling,” which had originally been published back in Japan in the year two-thousand. Once again however, my curiosity of the author began to itch and scratch at the surface once again. I had already read the first Japanese Nobel Laureate in Literature who happens to be one of my favourite authors Yasunari Kawabata. I read his complete opposite of an author Yukio Mishima. Whose wife according to the translator John Nathan, in his introduction of “Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness,” had called Yukio Mishima’s wife a “cunt,” in English, at Mishima’s annual Christmas party. The pleasure and surreal and often magical enjoyment of Haruki Murakami has also been someone I’ve read, who has been able to achieve an international status, of a bestselling author, and who Kenzaburō Ōe had just deemed as a relatively less important pop author. However, in a interview with the magazine “The Paris Review,” Kenzaburō Ōe had expressed less contempt for the author of Haruki Murakami, and had expressed in some ways a sense of admiration that the author was able to achieve something that both he and Yukio Mishima were unable to achieve – an international following. Kenzaburō Ōe himself has his own doubts, of the fact that he has a devoted readership in Japan.
The press release from the Swedish Academy who awards the Nobel Prize for Literature has this to say about Kenzaburō Ōe’s work, which specifically ties into this piece of work itself:
“Japan's capitulation after the dropping of the atomic bombs in 1945, when the Emperor - a divine personage - descended to the people and spoke in a human voice, was a shocking experience for the young Oe. The humiliation took a firm grip on him and has coloured much of his work. He himself describes his writing as a way of exorcising demons.”
The Swedish Academy also points out the fact that the author himself, has influences from the western world; especially the anti-heroes of another Nobel Laureate in Literature (who ended up actually declining the award, because he had declined all formal honours) Jean-Paul Sartre, and his existential philosophy and thoughts on the individual greatly influenced Kenzaburō Ōe when he studied at the Tokyo University. The influence of Jean-Paul Sartre and his philosophy can also be seen as an influence on this particular novel as well.
To say this is an easy read of a short novel, would be a lie. It is a short little novel, but its depths and writing style are difficult. It’s a harrowing novel, full of reconsiderations, confusing retelling, as well as the fact that the all the chapters or the recounts of the life are not told in any chronological order, and often leads to a complex paradox of a novel, of the first person account of a man whose mind is not at all that sound as he continues to recount his early life, at the age of thirty five as he may or may not be dying of liver cancer. Kenzaburō Ōe has himself created a unique and challenging novel(la) because he does away with names, quotation marks, and plays a lot with puns, and characters themselves, can at times, bleed together, and at times seem like they may be the same character. Even the unnamed character himself does appear to be a strange character himself. He sits in a hospital bed, wearing underwater goggles, covered in cellophane. The image itself makes me think to myself of some strange David Lynch short film. Just a man sitting in a hospital bed, wearing underwater goggles covered in cellophane. Not to mention the metaphors and imagery of the sea, and the imperialist (Japanese imperialist) symbols that represent the cancer.
To quote from the first part of this novel(la) shows entirely what one means when this character is not entirely in his right mind, and comes off as rather surreal:
“Deep one night he was trimming his nose that would never walk again into sunlight atop living legs, busily
feeling each hair with a Rotex rotary nostril clipper as if to make the nostrils as bare as a monkey's, when suddenly a man, perhaps escaped from the mental ward..or perhaps a lunatic who happened to be passing with a body abnormally small and meagre for a man save only for a face as round as a Dharma's and covered in hair, set down on the edge of his bed and shouted, foaming, What in God's name are you? WHAT?...I'm cancer, cancer LIVER CANCER it is me”.
Reading that first passage, I thought to myself, that it was like reading “Somersault,” again – only shorter and more compact. I had wondered if the author of the nineteen-seventies, was any different than the one in the nineties who had wrote “Somersault.” Yet perseverance and a desire to get it red and over and done with, was all that I wanted to do.
Getting the novel(la) read was no easy task though. At least not reading it and also comprehending it. Many times I felt like re-reading certain passages, just to try and understand the novella. At times the novella was starting to make sense as well. When “a certain party,” was finally named as the “Father,” but was chosen to be known as simply “a certain party,” to place him up to the same status as being an idol, made sense. However, other times, the novel(la) refused to make any sense whatsoever, which is supposed to imitate the odd workings of the thirty five year old hallucinating cancer patient that may or not be suffering from cancer. However there are poetic scenes throughout the novella.
The association that the Cancer is:
“a flourishing bed of yellow hyacinth or possibly chrysanthemum’s bathed in a faint purple light,”
The final thoughts of the novel(la) is that Kenzaburō Ōe’s work here, reminds me a great deal of his voice when speaking in English. It is not very pleasant to the native speaker’s ears, and in the end can be difficult to comprehend, on what exactly he is trying to say. However, in the end after some mulling over it, and some thoughts of the novella itself, and a bit of research and reading some discussions of the work, and a great many thanks to John Nathan, for his introduction of the author, had allowed some very interesting insight into the author’s overview of his work, especially dealing with autobiographical references. Kenzaburō Ōe himself had stated that the greatest event of his childhood was when the Emperor of Kenzaburō Ōe’s childhood, Emperor Hirohito had denounced his divinity, and in the end was nothing more than human. This action, itself ripped the author from his innocence of childhood, and propelled him into the adult world. His characters – like this one; also have experienced the same shock, of the surrender and denouement and have only seen the world turned upside down, when they have seen nothing more than the understanding that whatever and everything that they had been told, about the emperor was not true – or what would now be seen as not true. In many ways these characters, wish to go back to that period before they were thrown into the adult world abruptly and without reason. Childhood becomes a sort of, sanctuary for them.
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Prize Stock
Hello Gentle Reader
It is a double review, because both of these short novels by Nobel Laureate in Literature of nineteen-ninety four Kenzaburō Ōe are in essence rather short, it felt dutiful to do a double review, for both of the novels. To compare both of these novels “The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away,” and “Prize Stock,” is a rather interesting comparison, because both novels deal with a very similar subject matter in two very different ways. Both deal with Japan during World War two. While the first dealt with the subject of the matter, after the war had been lost, and the Emperor had relinquished himself of his divinity, “Prize Stock,” deals with the War as it happens.
If one were to ask me which one of the two novellas was better, it becomes difficult after reflection and reading the second one to say which one really is all better than other one. “The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away,” felt like some Kafkaesque David Lynch film, but when one reflects on the story itself – at the heart of the narrative is the theme of the loss of innocence in a barbaric world, and one’s desire to go back to that sense of childhood and innocence. However what hinders “The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away,” is the execution. A disturbing work, that can become a bit difficult to follow, is what makes the narrative, annoying and at times frustrating.
However on the contrary “Prize Stock,” is written in a more linear style of writing, and in many ways, this plays to the advantage of this novella and its themes and story. Told from the prospective of a young man or teenager – or child, the linear world view, makes much more sense to the narrative itself and is able to deal more expertly on the barbaric surroundings of the very village life itself.
“My brother and I were small seeds deeply embedded in thick flesh and tough, outer skins, green seeds soft and fresh and encased in membrane that would shiver and slough away at the first exposure to light. And outside the tough, outer skin, near the sea that was visible from the roof as a thin ribbon glittering in the distance, in the city the heaped, rippling mountains, the war, majestic and awkward now lie a legend that survived down the ages, was belching foul air. But to us the war was more than the absence of young men in our village and the announcements the mailman sometimes delivered of soldiers killed in action. The war did not penetrate the tough outer skin and the thick flesh. Even the “enemy,” planes that had begun recently to traverse the sky above the village were nothing more to us a than a rare species of bird.”
The very description of the village, and its placid rural concept of the war that had beyond its reach, and the very little concern the villagers had/have for the war, feels like a certain metaphor and symbol for the childhood and its innocence. Yet as an enemy plan flies over head and crashes, the entire village is left with a horrifying realization that the war had come knocking on their door.
To describe the village as utopian would be a lie. The narrator and his brother live above a store house on a mat. Their father makes a living by, hunting weasels and skinning them. Taking in the pelts to the ‘town,’ and most likely selling them for profit. Just like here, if one kills a coyote and takes in the feet of the coyote the fish and wildlife office – or something like that will pay for the feet. The poverty, in which both brothers and their father live, shows the barbaric behavior and living conditions of the village. The ‘town,’ is also not much better. The children of the ‘town,’ look down upon the children of the rural village, and with no adults around they would easily throw rocks at them. Yet in the presence of adults all they can manage are scowls.
The plane that had crashed had three soldiers on the plane. Two of which were dead. The third one lived. Yet when he comes into the village, the entire village is shocked to see for the first time a black man. He is treated as an animal. Not just because he is an enemy soldier but because he is also a black man, which shows some racist tendencies – but also because of the villages ignorance to a black man. However in time, this ‘Catch,’ turns into more of a pet, of the village children.
He becomes a special grown up, friend and pet for the children. With the prefecture’s office, taking so long to make up their mind on what to do with the village new pet, it allowed for the children to get used to the new creature in their village. However in time, affection grows for the creature. Much like one can feel for a mongrel dog, before the pound takes it away. However when the prefectures made up its mind the dehumanization and the corrosive effect of war once again showed its self, as the black soldier desperately tried to save his skin when it came time for him to be taken away from the village.
“The war, a long, bloody battle on a huge scale, must still have been going on. The war that like a flood washing flock of sheep and trimmed lawns in some distant country was never in world supposed to have reached our village. But it had come, to mush my fingers and hand to a pulp, my father swinging a hatched, his body drunk on the blood of war. And suddenly our village was enveloped in the war and in the tumult I could not breathe.”
The world of the children – the safe sanctuary of the village; was to be taken over by the effects of the war. Innocence once again lost. I think and theorize that this is what keeps these two novella’s closely linked together, is because of their dealings with the theme of loss of innocence as an effect of the war and its corrosive touch.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
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M. Mary
