Kogito, ergo sum. He thinks and remembers and imagines. Therefore, he is.
Once again introspection and autobiography are transmuted into compelling fiction in the latest from Japan’s 1994 Nobel laureate (Somersault, 2003, etc.).
Protagonist Kogito Choko is a bookish, self-effacing veteran novelist whose oeuvre had frequently influenced, and been influenced by, the accomplishments of his brother-in-law and best friend Goro Hanawa, a celebrated filmmaker. Shortly after Kogito learns that Goro has killed himself by jumping from a rooftop, he receives a number of audiocassettes bearing the message that Goro would cross to “the Other Side” but maintain contact with their recipient. As Kogito listens obsessively, his imagination revisits shared experiences and intellectual passions, including the two men’s boyhood experiences, the self-obsessed poetry of Rimbaud and the fiction of Kafka, the abortive wartime experiences of Kogito’s late father, violent abusive attacks perpetrated by hired yakuza thugs, and evidence of the filmmaker’s affectionate condescension toward the resolutely unglamorous author. This very discursive novel’s strengths and weaknesses reside together in the gradual revelation of Goro as Kogito’s soulmate, idol, muse, taskmaster—and doppelgänger (as we’re told directly when Kogito realizes that “all the scenes Goro had incorporated into…[his screenplays] were things he had actually experienced or observed”). The narrative contains numerous aslant allusions to Oe’s own fiction and critical reputation, and to his biography in a moving portrayal of Kogito’s long marriage to his devoted wife Chikashi, and yet another portrait (in the figure of their son Akari) of Oe’s immensely musically gifted son Hikari. This demanding, fascinating anatomy of the development of a writer’s sensibility asks much of the reader but offers several truly affecting sequences—even in an arguably unneeded “Epilogue” focused on Chikashi, which re-emphasizes the past’s grip on the present, and climaxes with a luminous benediction linked to another literary touchstone: a famous play written by African Nobel Prize–winning author Wole Soyinka.
Kogito, ergo sum. He thinks and remembers and imagines. Therefore, he is.Pub Date: March 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-8021-1936-0
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Grove
Review Posted Online: April 8, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2010
IN THE NEWS
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with...
Talk-show queen takes tumble as millions jeer.
Nora Bridges is a wildly popular radio spokesperson for family-first virtues, but her loyal listeners don't know that she walked out on her husband and teenaged daughters years ago and didn't look back. Now that a former lover has sold racy pix of naked Nora and horny himself to a national tabloid, her estranged daughter Ruby, an unsuccessful stand-up comic in Los Angeles, has been approached to pen a tell-all. Greedy for the fat fee she's been promised, Ruby agrees and heads for the San Juan Islands, eager to get reacquainted with the mom she plans to betray. Once in the family homestead, nasty Ruby alternately sulks and glares at her mother, who is temporarily wheelchair-bound as a result of a post-scandal car crash. Uncaring, Ruby begins writing her side of the story when she's not strolling on the beach with former sweetheart Dean Sloan, the son of wealthy socialites who basically ignored him and his gay brother Eric. Eric, now dying of cancer and also in a wheelchair, has returned to the island. This dismal threesome catch up on old times, recalling their childhood idylls on the island. After Ruby's perfect big sister Caroline shows up, there's another round of heartfelt talk. Nora gradually reveals the truth about her unloving husband and her late father's alcoholism, which led her to seek the approval of others at the cost of her own peace of mind. And so on. Ruby is aghast to discover that she doesn't know everything after all, but Dean offers her subdued comfort. Happy endings await almost everyone—except for readers of this nobly preachy snifflefest.
The best-selling author of tearjerkers like Angel Falls (2000) serves up yet another mountain of mush, topped off with syrupy platitudes about life and love.Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-609-60737-5
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2001
A first novel, this is also a first person account of Scout's (Jean Louise) recall of the years that led to the ending of a mystery, the breaking of her brother Jem's elbow, the death of her father's enemy — and the close of childhood years. A widower, Atticus raises his children with legal dispassion and paternal intelligence, and is ably abetted by Calpurnia, the colored cook, while the Alabama town of Maycomb, in the 1930's, remains aloof to their divergence from its tribal patterns. Scout and Jem, with their summer-time companion, Dill, find their paths free from interference — but not from dangers; their curiosity about the imprisoned Boo, whose miserable past is incorporated in their play, results in a tentative friendliness; their fears of Atticus' lack of distinction is dissipated when he shoots a mad dog; his defense of a Negro accused of raping a white girl, Mayella Ewell, is followed with avid interest and turns the rabble whites against him. Scout is the means of averting an attack on Atticus but when he loses the case it is Boo who saves Jem and Scout by killing Mayella's father when he attempts to murder them. The shadows of a beginning for black-white understanding, the persistent fight that Scout carries on against school, Jem's emergence into adulthood, Calpurnia's quiet power, and all the incidents touching on the children's "growing outward" have an attractive starchiness that keeps this southern picture pert and provocative. There is much advance interest in this book; it has been selected by the Literary Guild and Reader's Digest; it should win many friends.
Pub Date: July 11, 1960
ISBN: 0060935464
Page Count: 323
Publisher: Lippincott
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1960
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
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