This 1990 novel by the 1994 Nobel-winner fictionalizes publicly known facts about Oe's personal life: specifically, the story of his adult son Hikari, hopelessly brain-damaged yet possessed of a remarkable intuitive gift that has brought him fame and success as a composer of some highly original music. It's a curious book. The ordeals of the unnamed family at its center are described in a ``diary'' kept by their only daughter (and middle child) Ma-Chan, a student of literature who becomes her brother's keeper when their father, an eminent novelist identified as ``K,'' travels to America for a six-month residency at a California college. What begins as a strictly factual, almost clinical account of the details of caring for a grown man (``Eeyore,'' as Hikari is affectionately nicknamed) who's subject to epileptic fits, easily distracted, and only intermittently lucid, metastasizes, as it were, into a linked series of meditations on films seen (especially Andrei Tarkovsky's futuristic Stalker), books read (Blake's ``Prophetic Books,'' CÇline's Rigadoon), and disturbing experiences (a respected uncle's death from cancer, the apprehension of a neighborhood child-molester, strained relations with a muscular swimming coach who has been accused of sexual impropriety). These events appear, to the imaginative Ma-Chan, to have some significance in her ongoing struggle to accept her brother for what he is, and in her efforts to help make him a functioning part of society—imperatives that, in a courageous display of self-scrutiny, Oe clearly feels he himself has only imperfectly heeded. The novel is, on the whole, tediously discursive—and yet, as is always the case with Oe, the simplicity of his style and the bluntness with which his ideas are presented contrast intriguingly with the often hallucinatory intensity of his characters' emotions and perceptions. You know there's something substantial here, and you keep reading on. Imperfect work, then, but, still, a welcome building-block in the ungainly structure that is Oe's utterly distinctive and compelling oeuvre. (Author tour)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-8021-1597-7
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1996
IN THE NEWS
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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