Two months ago I decided that I wanted to join in on one of the reads for the Non-Structured Book Group. I always enjoy reading the insightful post of those who participate. I joined in on reading A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe this month. Of course, my post is hardly as perceptive as the others are bound to be, so be sure to take a look at what the other participants said.
A Personal Matter – Kenzaburo Oe
Grove Press, 1969 (originally published in Japanese in 1964)
Buy: Amazon | Bookdepository *
Because the cover summary sums it up so much better than I can:
“A Personal Matter is the story of Bird, a frustrated intellectual in a failed marriage whose utopian dream is shattered when his wife gives birth to a brain-damaged child.”
Actually, the reader learns of the birth of the child on page 15. And the ensuing pages portray Bird’s attempts to cope with the news. Except that he doesn’t. Cope, I mean. He flees his wife, his baby and his family and takes up drinking and an affair. Bird might sound like a sympathetic character from that summary, but he isn’t. He is selfish, caught up in his own misery and definitely feels like a character who is stuck in his earlier teenage or student years. He may be married, but he isn’t an adult.
I struggled with this book. There was something in it that compelled me to keep reading, but all the same I wasn’t enjoying it. Part of the difficulty was Bird’s voice and behaviour: calling a baby a monster? But it was more than that. There is a bleakness to the life of Bird that I found it hard to deal with.
“In a world shared by all those others, time was passing, mankind’s one and only time, and a destiny apprehended the world over as one and the same destiny was taking evil shape. Bird, on the other hand, was answerable only to the baby in the basket on his lap, to the monster who governed his personal destiny.”
And that bleakness is not limited to Bird, it is everywhere. There is a strange sense of alienation in every character involved in the story. Is this a story about the after effects of WWII? Is it a story of alienation in the Cold War? Is it supposed to portray the bleakness of modern living? Somehow, I couldn’t come to terms with it. It was too much. There is simply no joy left in life, if you look at it the way it is portrayed in this book. Even sex is only escapism, and not so much escapism but a mechanical violent act.
*** MIGHT CONTAIN SPOILERS ***
But then those last ten pages. They saved the book for me, restored common sense a little. It was like waking from a bad dream, realising that it was all a portrayal of an author and not reality. I understand that some might think that the change is too sudden, too much like trying to wrap everything up in the end which might make it unrealistic. But for me it redeemed the story, helped me put it all into perspective. It helped me to take a step back and look at these themes of alienation. It helped me realise why exactly I had been so uncomfortable with the book before that. And without it, I don’t think I could have written what I have written about it here. I would have been too caught up in my dislike of Bird. Not that he ever changes into a likeable person, but it didn’t disturb me so much anymore.
“As a matter of fact, I kept trying to run away. And I almost did. But it seems that reality compels you to live properly when you live in the real world. I mean, even if you intend to get yourself caught in a trap of deception, you find somewhere along the line that your own choice is to avoid it.” Bird was surprised at the muted resentment in his voice. “That’s what I’ve found anyway.”
*** END OF SPOILERS ***
A Personal Matter is a difficult and intense read. I didn’t expect to say this while reading the first 140 pages, but even though I had difficulty with it, the book makes a worthwhile read as well. Plus, there are beautifully written passages even if it is hard to see at first, because of the themes.
Oe is a great writer-I enjoyed your insightful post a lot
The last ten pages saved the book for me, too. One of my friends said to me, “Isn’t it interesting how he left his dream of Africa to his girlfriend? She was the one who went”, and it made me think that he was the one who had grown up enough to set his dreams aside for his family. Such a responsible thing to do. If he hadn’t, I would have despaired of the book.
I like all the points you mentioned of the bleakness of life, even sex being a mechanical, violent act. It’s odd to me, that at 27 he would be so jaded.
Overall, to me the question remains, “What Iwould you do should your baby be born handicapped?” It’s a powerful question, which I imagine would be all the more difficult for those whose culture seems to expect perfection.
I just know I’ve loved all the special needs children I’ve had in my classroom. Even though that’s very different from being a parent, how could I not love my child? I couldn’t.
I need to read this! Sounds intriguing. I like the way you wrote about your personal response to this book without trying to over-analyse it all.
I read the spoilers but I don’t think even that could save the book for me, to be honest. It sounds horrible! That sort of character really bothers me though.
This book sounds difficult, but fascinating. All of today’s reviews make me want to give it a try.
In my opinion all the alienation in this book is DEFINITELY about after-effects of WWII – the massive destruction of the nuclear bombs (Oe even includes all that stuff about Kruschev resuming nuclear testing, and the Japanese response to that) and the demolition of the tradition Japanese worldview that happened with the destruction of those bombs and the surrender of the Emperor. 1961 was only 16 years after a surrender that many Japanese people had believed totally impossible; to me, the characters are all caught in a no-man’s-land between the old way of life that had been proven untenable, and a new way of life they had yet to find. Thinking about that idea really helped me to get through some of the more violent and alienated parts of Bird’s internal monologue – because if one’s whole way of life has been called into question, all the other assumptions might be false, too, like sex as loving connection, or loyalty between husband and wife.
I like your honesty about your feelings and reactions to this book. I read Oe a long time ago and I remember that his works and characters can be difficult even despicable but he is such a wonderful writer. The imperial surrender is always in the background in some of his works. Additionally, his eldest son suffers from a mental disability; some of his works deal with that as well. Great review.
Great review Iris. Sounds like a dark but well written book, not sure I’ll get to it any time soon but might have to try it out at some point.
Iris, I’m one of those people you mentioned who found the sudden “happy ending” unconvincing. Not that any ending could have pleased me too much because I felt Oë painted himself into a corner with his one dimensional characters! While I appreciate what you and Emily had to say about the backdrop of WWII as a reason for much of the alienation in the novel, I’m not sure that saves the novel for me since I thought it was full of bad writing (to be sure, occasionally some good writing, too) and a fairly overheated tone. Anyway, thanks for joining us for this book discussion and I’m happy you enjoyed A Personal Matter more than I did!
I love Japanese literature, though lot of it is bleak I’ve found. I haven’t read Oë though. Your have inspired me to add him to the teetering virtual TBR pile.
Thanks for joining in, Iris, and with such a thoughtful post. Unfortunately, I did not care for the book as much as you did. Could not help but feel annoyed at what seemed occasionally awkward prose (translation problems in part I think), the pat ending. In real life, I would expect or hope for such a neat resolution but here I wanted full blown alienation right through to the end. Loved the book in theory before I read it but was disappointed over the real experience.
“There was something in it that compelled me to keep reading, but all the same I wasn’t enjoying it.”
Iris, that was exactly how I felt, too. Anyway, I was also disappointed, not entirely, but somehow, because I was expecting to really love the book (I picked it after all, lol) but then came out just okay with it. While in reality I love that Bird did what he did, I just felt there was a disconnect with the rest of the book. I also felt Bird so unsympathetic. Still, I sympathized with Oe the person while not so much with this particular book.
I’m glad at least this wasn’t a dud for everyone and that most of us were okay with it even if Frances and Richard hated it.
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Being caught between tradition with the ideal of family & the modern mechanised consumer driven society, seems to be a constant in a lot of modern (post-war) japanese literature . The theme of isolation & alienation crops up in the works of Oe, Endo, Murakami (both Haruki & Ryu) Yamada & Ogawa, & probably a lot more on my TBR. Haruki Murakami, mentions this in- Underground, Tokyo gas attack & the japanese psyche.
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Just caught this, Iris, as I do the final work on an article about the same book. I have focused on the use of metaphor the matter of masculinity as it is deeply revealed by the novel, but my comment is more general. I found A Personal Matter strikingly honest and finely written, understated in the way that allows the reader to do a lot of work in the way I most enjoy. It´s always difficult to know how closely the translator has followed the voice of the writer so it´s a matter of saying I liked the translation as a piece of writing.
Yes, everything was provocative and fine (bleak, yes, but then life has that colour too) until those last pages; I feel they undermine the whole story and bring into question the honesty of everything that has gone before – honesty as writing, I mean. I felt rather deceived as a reader but I´ll go back to Oë on the basis of the pleasure I got from this text. Something very different to much formulaic writing.
Keep up the reading.
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