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More copies of this ISBN:This title in other formats:A Personal Matterby Kenzaburo Oe
Staff Pick
If you like your books to be a punch in the face, then consider A Personal Matter a good nose bleed of a novel. This is a depiction of human frailty, alienation, despair, and ultimate triumph. Coming to grips with the narrator proved to be quite a wrestling match — this complexity is what I like most about the story. Based on his own personal experiences, Oe offers a glimpse into complicated Japanese societal stigmas and how one man crumbles under their weight, only to reemerge upon humbly accepting the birth of his ill-fated son. Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:A Personal Matter is the story of Bird, a frustrated intellectual in a failing marriage whose utopian dream is shattered when his wife gives birth to a brain-damaged child. Review:"Without doubt Oe's awesome learning, frightening memory, complex ideas, unbridled imagination, resilient political will, and indiscriminate modesty tempered by absolute self-assurance make him the most formidable figure in the literary world of Japan now." Masao Miyoshi, author of Off Center: Power and Culture Relations between Japan and the United States Review:"In Oe's books, everything has a peculiar sense of humor that is always on the verge of tragedy — a very dark humor." Kazuo Ishiguro, author of The Remains of the Day Review:"Oe Writes like a new American realist....His prose is as direct and frank as an ice pick." Life Review:"Oe's themes of abnormality, sexuality, and marginality are outside the tradition of Japanese equipoise....His work has a gritty, grotesque quality, which makes him seem more akin to Mailer, Grass, or Roth than to many Japanese novelist." The New Yorker Synopsis:Oe’s most important novel, A Personal Matter, has been called by The New York Times “close to a perfect novel.” In A Personal Matter, Oe has chosen a difficult, complex though universal subject: how does one face and react to the birth of an abnormal child? Bird, the protagonist, is a young man of 27 with antisocial tendencies who more than once in his life, when confronted with a critical problem, has “cast himself adrift on a sea of whisky like a besotted Robinson Crusoe.” But he has never faced a crisis as personal or grave as the prospect of life imprisonment in the cage of his newborn infant-monster. Should he keep it? Dare he kill it? Before he makes his final decision, Bird’s entire past seems to rise up before him, revealing itself to be a nightmare of self-deceit. The relentless honesty with which Oe portrays his hero — or antihero — makes Bird one of the most unforgettable characters in recent fiction. What Our Readers Are SayingBe the first to add a comment for a chance to win!Product Details
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