A Quiet Life

Ever since Oe's handicapped son was born in the early 60s (see A Personal Matter), the writer's life has been turning around the challenge to his family in raising the child, and around his feelings of guilt about initial reactions to the shock. He has written about it in various permutations and from different standpoints. The situation pretended by this novel is this: Eeyore, the son, is now 25, he is a stable element in the family, he works in a workshop for handicapped people, he is a talented composer, and he still has occasional fits. He has two 'normal' siblings, a sister of 20 and a brother of 18 or so. The parents have been so preoccupied with the eldest, that the father has neglected his relationship with the other kids. The father is a prominent writer, but he has his problems and depressions. He accepts a guest job at a UC campus in California for a year. His wife is worried about him and decides to accompany him to the US. The responsibility for the family in Tokyo rests with the daughter, Ma-Chan, who has her own insecurities. She takes charge and she writes the book, which she will give as a gift to her father in the end. An important part of how she sees 'K' is as a semi-religious person, somebody who alleges not to have a faith, but seems to have made his way at least half towards the church. And Ma-Chan shows her own mettle with her mantra of defiance: Hell, No! She will not succumb or give up or do the wrong thing. What do we have here? Autobiography clad in fictional garb? A new look at the own life? Is the obsession that KO obviously has for this subject a reason to reduce the star count? Everybody talks about KO as 'K' in the book. So we have Kafka's K, Brecht's K, and Oe's K? While KO is no humorist by far, he is using the alleged authorship of the daughter for unabashed Oe-bashing. His friends are outraged with him. He is irresponsible in leaving his kids alone in Tokyo. He is an egocentric, he is selfish, arrogant, a coward, his attitude to action when needed is lukewarm.. And do not take the title too literally! There are a molester, a rapist, a murder story with unclear culprit, cancer, funeral, epileptical fits, and literary encounters with Aitmatov, Ende, Celine, Vonnegut... I would say, if you want to get to know Oe, this may not be an ideal starting point, since the subject may be too deep inside Oeland for a newcomer. For me, it was an ideal read for a flight from Shanghai to San Francisco.

Shizuka na seikatsu or A Quiet Life by Oe Kenzaburo, is a good solid read. At first the story starts out very slow and doesn't really pick up the pace until the last section called, Diary At Home. But the in depth fleshing out of the two principal characters, Machan and Eeyore, more then compensate for lack of plot points. This gives the whole story a very Ozu style atmosphere. Oe, like Ozu, is concerned with side streets instead of busy highways and like the scene in Ozu's Early Summer, where the family visits the great Buddha in Kamakura, the focus is on the family's conversation and the Buddha is ignored. You really feel like you don't want the story to end as you allow yourself to get wrapped up in the characters in their simple everyday lives. This also gives the novel an Ozu quality in that in an Ozu film you don't want the story to end. I was amazed that this book could accomplish such a similar quality. Do yourself a favor and read A Quiet Life. Then read Kaifuku suru Kazoku or A Healing Family, the book that won Oe the Noble Prize.

The book has a slow start and proceeds at a similar pace for most of its length. As the title suggests the lives of the two principal characters are quiet and have little impact on the world beyond their family. One of the six chapters is devoted to an analysis of a Russian art house movie. A French novelist with fascist leanings is discussed at similar length - and in sympathetic terms!This description might sound dull, but for readers not put off by the paragraph above, this is a great novel, a stroll through the mind of one of the best novelists of the latter half of the twentieth century. The self-effacing narrator Ma-Chan and her handicapped musician brother Eeeyore are the main focus for the book's little dramas, but we learn as much, perhaps more, about the absent father (presumably a thinly disguised portrait of the Oe) - and many readers may feel that he is the principal character, albeit one who is observed from afar. The meditations on Celine and Tarkovsky do not slow the book down: they are intriguing and drove me straight to the nearest bookshop selling the neglected French writer. The diversions to the family's home village; Ma-Chan's introspection and Eeeyore's piano lessons at the home of the Shigetos are all beautifully rendered by Oe. There are echoes of Shusaku Endo's novels and the gentle poetic films of Ozu. The villian is too crudely sketched, but this one of the few weaknesses in a great novel.

Oe's most recent, and purportedly final, novel is a profoundly honest look at himself, as he imagines he seems to his daughter, his mentally handicapped son, others in his family, and his friends. The bravery of the writing makes one yearn for such honesty on the part of other writers. Here is someone who does not pretend to be wise, or to tell us how to live properly, but who is unflinching in his assessment of his own weaknesses and their unintended impact on those he holds most dear.