A Personal Matter

Nobel prize-winning novelist Kenzaburo Oe's best known book is a remarkable and intimate journey through the maze of ethics, fatherhood, and responsibility. The protagonist Bird is a dreamer; he dreams of going to Africa, of undemanding love, of a perfect son - none of which are within his grasp. His child is born with a herniated brain, and his wife's obstetrician is already talking excitedly about an autopsy as the baby, a boy, continues to live. This stubborn will to live, and Bird's responsibility to decide his son's fate, drives Bird deep into denial. If he doesn't do anything, then the baby might die naturally, and Bird will be free of the deformity that threatens to reflect ill on him as a man and husband. But his wife wants their child to survive; she wants to name him, to love him. And Bird begins to question his first inclinations. His touching relationship with his mistress Himiko only reinforces his sense of inadequacy and cowardice - until, that is, he begins to accept life as it is.This stark, haunting novel leaves the reader with a deep sense of both loss and hope, although the latter is more, in Bird's mind, "forbearance." Oe's honest treatment of this difficult subject matter is sensitive and skilled, understated in a way that emphasizes the magnitude of what Bird faces. John Nathan's translation provides smooth, beautifully-rendered prose. The subject matter may be too depressing for some readers but should appeal to those interested in quality literature. The issues Oe tackles are significant, and his characters, deeply human. A PERSONAL MATTER is an unforgettable novel not to be missed.

A Personal Matter is a powerful, engrossing read. The language (in English translation), the connections, the descriptions, and the characterizations are taut and satisfying. With the exception of a few scenes and transitions which are palpably less crisp than others, the story sparks with brilliance and urgency. Oe neither shades his protagonist from the blinding light of reality and human dilemma nor indulges in superfluous philosophizing. The narrative is blissfully clean and existential. Highly recommended; a tonic for almost any imaginable mood.

Oh my, but this book is not light reading. Don't let its deceptive slimness fool you - every page is somewhat similar to being smashed in the head with a shovel. After reading Oe's description of Tokyo, you will no longer be afraid of Hell. Were this book converted into a movie, every single set of this movie would be coloured in dark shades of brown, and it would be raining in every single scene. This hellish vision makes the perfect setting for the hellish torment of Bird, the hapless protagonist. It is made all the worse because Bird is truly a man alone - out of all the characters in the entire book, he is the only one who could, under more fortunate circumstances, be capable of love. (Not even Himiko, the true woman of his life, is capable of love, which makes the desperate screaming need for her that Bird has all the more poignant.) The ending, like many have already commented, is indeed very abrupt and seems like an overly glib and easy solution to the painstakingly drawn emotional struggle that almost kills Bird. However, when you think about it, you see that this solution "solved" nothing - am I to believe that life with a hateful wife, a domineering mother-in-law, a condescending father-in-law and an invalid infant are in any way "good"? No, in a situation like Bird's there really is no way out. And that is precisely what the book is about - in some situations, there just -isn't- a way out, and the only difference between people when they receive such blows from life lies in how they take them.

My impression is that many readers are missing a major point here! Like Oe, I am also the parent of a severely handicapped child (who is now an adult). Different people react to the unexpected, shocking and profound experience of the birth of a handicapped child in different ways, but it is not easy for anyone. Reader, if this ever happens to you, you probably won't go through exactly what the protagonist goes through or in the same way that he does, but you will probably in some way go through as great an emotional struggle as he does. This is the only book I have ever read that will let those of you who have not had this experience yourself get a glimpse of the violent and conflicting emotions, the anguish, fear, love and dread and the struggle for acceptance and maturity that are involved. If you have a handicapped child, read this book - you will understand it all too well. If you know anyone with a handicapped child, give them this book to read. If you have trouble understanding the love and care that someone gives to his or her handicapped child, read this book! This book doesn't just describe an existential crisis experienced by some loser who has a minor problem arise - this book describes a human experience that will profoundly challenge anyone no matter how serene and controlled their previous life has seemed to be. Bird is not really an anti-hero, in many ways Bird is Everyman, confronted with an anguishing and terrifying situation. The ending is not glib but reflects a hard-won emotional maturity and responsibility that are very difficult to arrive at and that are in doubt until the very end.

Japan has lost the power to connect the principle or theory and reality. I think literature's value is in making those connections. That's the mission of literature. Morals are significant. -Kenzaburo Oe Kenzaburo Oe is probably the most highly regarded of Japan's post-war novelists and A Personal Matter is certainly his best known book. It is the harrowing, semi-autobiographical story of a parent's worst nightmare and of a brutal moral dilemma. As the novel opens, the twenty-something protagonist, whose immaturity is reflected in the fact that he retains his boyhood nickname of Bird, anxiously awaits the birth of his first child, but dreams of escaping his mundane domestic life in Japan and traveling instead to Africa. When Bird's son is born with a herniated brain--one doctor nervously giggles that it looks like he has two heads--he faces a choice between starving the child to death or financing exorbitantly expensive surgery with little chance of success. Even a successful operation is likely to cause significant brain damage. Overwhelmed, Bird seeks to avoid his responsibilities by twittering--like his namesake--between alcohol, an old girlfriend and his African fantasies, avoiding his job, his wife, his child and most of all, the decisions which need to be made. Just hours after finally delivering the child to a back alley abortionist who will kill him and preparing to use the money he has saved up not on the prospective surgical procedures, but to run away to Africa with his girlfriend, Bird has an epiphany in a gay bar and, at last, determines to grow up and accept the mantle of responsibility that he has always sought to avoid. The story ends with the baby having been successfully operated on, though his future mental development remains in doubt, and with Bird's father-in-law telling him that his childish nickname is no longer appropriate because he is a changed man. It is an open secret that the Nobel Prize has become little more than a politically correct constituency plum in recent years, so the prospect of reading a novel by an eminent left-wing Japanese novelist honestly filled me with dread. I was totally unprepared for this fierce, beautiful passion play and was pleasantly surprised by the stark, noirish prose style of Oe's writing. The brutally direct sentences of this brief novel present an unforgettable portrait of a man wrestling with a stark moral choice, one that lies at the center of much of our own politics, but which is seldom faced honestly. The fact that Oe's own son was born with a herniated brain only serves to add another layer of tension to an already unbearably tense tale. When Bird chooses life and himself becomes a man it is truly one of the most moving and gratifying moments of spiritual triumph in all of literature. Bird emerges as a heroic but very human figure. I can't imagine any reader being unaffected by this book; in fact, I can easily imagine readers being haunted by it. T