Hello Gentle Reader
** There will be No Short Story Review this month, because I have become very busy at the moment.**
In these novels of this volume of four short novels by the Nobel Prize winning writer and the second Japanese writer to win the Nobel Prize for Literature Kenzaburō Ōe, there certainly are certain themes and concepts that are constantly seen throughout these four novels Gentle Reader. Damaged people, certainly is one of those themes that come up with the writing of this writer. The author himself has a brain damaged son born in nineteen-sixty three, who has inspired his “idiot boy,” stories and novels, which have populated his autobiographical outlook of writing, and his ability and desire, to exorcise these demons or troubles. From the first time he heard the Emperor of Japan’s voice; on the radio renounce his divinity and the destruction that the war in which he had grown up in, as a child and wrenched him away from the world of childhood innocence and naivety, into a world of barbaric behavior with a rather ambivalent moral compass. This had lead to his existential themes in his work, where the adult characters wish they could head back inside the childhood shell, in which they were painfully wretched away from; like a piglet taken away from the nipple of their mother. These existential characters then act on sexual impulses and violent behavior that isolates them on to the fringes of society that, then allows Kenzaburō Ōe to give his own social criticism of what he sees. These characters and the characters that are separated from the paradise of childhood, and the people they become remind me in many ways of the people in the photographs of the photographer Diane Arbus with her photographs of the people living on the fringes of society.
“Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness,” was written in nineteen-sixty nine, in the year nineteen-seventy two “The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away.” In this collection of novels titled “Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness,” – “The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away,” is the first novel that one reads, even though it is the last novel in this collection that was written. “Prize Stock,” the second novel in this collection, is the earliest written in this collection, published in the year nineteen-fifty seven, and it had won the prestigious Japanese literary award the Akutagawa Prize. The consensus however if one reads this collection of four short novels, is that by far “Prize Stock,” being the best written out of all four. While “Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness,” and “The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away,” are the more challenging, but are not the most popular or well respected by the reader. One of the reasons being I think is that while reading, “Teach Us to Outgrow our Madness,” is that it felt like it was re-written version of “The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away,” – which now would be best to say is that “The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away,” is a re-written version of “Teach us to Outgrow Our Madness.”
The core concepts are still there, with both of these novels. For one, both novels deal with the parent-child relationship, between both the son of the novels and the mother. The father in both novels of the narrator has gone absolutely mad and has secluded himself. Isolating himself away from the world. While the mother in both novels, is an antagonistic creature. The kind of person who greatly causes many problems for the narrator himself.
In all, it felt like a cheated trick while reading this novel. The similarities were greatly similar, and it was difficult to read one without, thinking of the similarities with the other. One of the major differences though between both novels, is that “Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness,” has a brain damaged child in it, and concerns more specifically with the relationship between the child, and the rather obese father. Where as “The Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away,” does not have a brain damaged child, but rather focuses on the relationship between father and son, simply by the parental relationship between the father falling into the depths of insanity and the narrator as the son. Not like “Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness,” where it focused on the relationship between the relationship as the narrator or the obese father, as the father and the brain damaged child as son, with the mad father now deceased in the background. These are the only differences between the two novels. The rest is all recycled. The themes, the style itself – there are no quotation marks, and moves in a rather disjointed time line; and the relationships between the characters if slight reversed or changed, still echo the similarities. It felt like a cheap cheat of a trick.
Aghwee the Sky Monster
Written in the year nineteen-sixty four “Aghwee the Sky Monster,” is one of the first novels, that deal with Kenzaburō Ōe’s theme and his ability to concept in dealing with the birth of his first born son, who happened to be brain damaged. The character D in this story had a brain damaged child born to him. The doctor himself had said that the child itself had a brain hernia. Together with the doctor, D starves the child to death. However he later learns that what was first suspected of being a brain hernia was actually a benign tumour. What comes next is his subsequent descent into madness over his grief of what he had done to his child, and the fact that he is now haunted by “Aghwee,” a fat baby the size of kangaroo in a white cotton gown. This leads to him become a lunatic and his inability to work, and refusal to leave his home, and his entire life falling apart. Which then leads to his father to hire the narrator as a companion; kind of a caretaker and chauffer, for his now insane son.
“Alone in my room, I wear a piratical black patch over my right eye. The eye may look all right, but the truth is I have barely any sight in it...when I look at this world with both eyes I see two worlds perfectly superimposed. A vague and shadowy world on top of one that is bright and vivid. I can be walking down a paved street when a sense of peril and unbalance will stop me like a rat just scurried out of a sewer..Or I'll discover a film of unhappiness and fatigue on the face of a cheerful friend and clog the flow of easy chat with my stutter,”
This is the opening of this short little novel, and is an intriguing beginning to a good short novella, one of my favourites with “Prize Stock,” which in all brings this entire collection of four short novels to a fifty/fifty appreciation. On a personal view of opinion, as a reader, I would recommend this collection to any reader who has patience, and is interested in Japanese literature, to start here when reading Kenzaburō Ōe to become acquainted with his themes, and also just for the two novels “Prize Stock,” and “Aghwee the Sky Monster.”
While reading “Aghwee the Sky Monster,” it felt like, reading a novel that Haruki Murakami would have written. In essence it is a ghost story. A sad somewhat depressing ghost story, which deals with the relationship between father and son, and the grief a father, feels for what maybe seen as a selfish and immature action to save his son out of mercy and yet in the end he feels an immense sense of grief because his only and first born child is dead. From there something snaps in his mind. A screw came loose metaphorically and in his grief “Aghwee,” – the only word his son could say before his death; is formed, and becomes his companion. From there on out, D’s life falls apart bit by bit. His wife leaves him, and his mistress, can no longer wait around for him. D’s former life becomes a mere shadow to the present situation of the aftermath of his mental breakdown and the appearance of his invisible and imaginary friend “Aghwee.”
Yet matters become more complicated when the narrator begins to question of “Aghwee,” really exists for D, or if it is all just a ploy for his own unseen motive until it is all but too late.
The description of how the sky, is full of all the people a person looses, is one of the most beautiful and memorable moments of this novella. The story itself about human companionship, itself is a wonderful story, much like “Prize Stock,” was. Both deal with some of the continual themes and criticisms that Kenzaburō Ōe deal with. I also have to admit that these four short novels are the only ones that I have read by this author and finished. As previously admitted, his novel “Somersault,” was attempted a few years ago and failed miserably and, since then was very unsure of reading anything by this author. However, with the completion of these novels, by the author, there is a renewed interested in him and his work.
Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
