[Kenzaburo Oe's 'The Silent Cry'] 'The Truth' is More Painful Than Anything [Reading Record]
During my summer vacation, there was a book I wanted to sit down and read.
That book was Kenzaburo Oe's 'The Silent Cry'.
I knew that with my very poor experience in pure literature, I wouldn't be able to tackle it half-heartedly.
In fact, at first, it was just plain painful.
My eyes would slide right over the page. Even though I was definitely following the characters, the content wasn't sinking in at all. I couldn't understand the Japanese being written.
But, once I passed a certain point, I read it all in one go.
At the same time the story began to move, I felt my synapses starting to adapt to Kenzaburo Oe.
Perhaps it was the tenacity to see the ending through no matter what.
A tenacity born of my own stinginess, since it cost 2,090 yen even though it was a paperback.
Kenzaburo Oe 'The Silent Cry'
This work is called Kenzaburo Oe's magnum opus.
Even though I had looked up at the sky after reading 'Prize Stock / The Catch' and wondered, 'What is this story about?', thinking I would never read him again.
I can only assume some kind of gravitational pull was at work.
That is because I ended up picking up 'A Personal Matter'. Once I read 'A Personal Matter', it was inevitable that I would reach for 'The Silent Cry', the next work written after a two-year silence.
I think I wanted to know.
How the writer Kenzaburo Oe had faced 'life'. What conclusion he had reached during his silence.
I truly feel now that I am glad I encountered it and was able to read it.
There are many motifs in common with 'A Personal Matter': a newborn baby born with a brain disability, the woman who gave birth to that child, and a narrator weary of the fact that his own child is a deformity.
It was born based on the author's own 'personal experience', and I think that by writing it as a novel, he decided to face the form of life his own child had received.
Although the two works share many motifs, I felt that 'The Silent Cry' was a work that elevated the previous one to a more poetic realm.
It is both allegorical and as grand as an epic poem.
That is likely because the work is structured to move back and forth between the modern day of 1960 (which is still over sixty years ago from the present!) and 1860 (the first year of the Man'en era).
Following those two timelines, you end up watching the outcome of the 'peasant uprising' that occurred in a mountain village in Shikoku.
What I felt strongly while reading was 'the terror of an excessive desire for self-realization'.
If one's self-consciousness of 'how I want to be' is too strong, people can very easily be controlled and brainwashed by themselves.
The way he falls into ruin due to his self-consciousness is so spectacular that I couldn't write my reading notes sober, and I had to borrow the power of alcohol.
I think I was struck by such a strong intoxication and perversion, where he even drew up a script for his own ruin and steered things to happen exactly that way.
Was he happy having become the person he wished to be?
Or did he regret the 'truth' he shouted at the very end, and repent every night?
I couldn't come up with a clear answer, but it was enough motivation to pick up the next Oe work.
I have to admit it.
I have been ensnared by Kenzaburo Oe at this point.
Wanting the best of it, I bought the Iwanami Bunko selection of Kenzaburo Oe's short stories.
848 pages for 1,518 yen. Iwanami is kind to the wallet.
#DoesItEvenMatter
The beginning is certainly tough. I can very well understand why one would want to give up.
For now, I want you to try your best until '6. Football in a Hundred Years'. That's page 173 in the Kodansha Bungei Bunko edition.
From there, the stage begins to move. You will surely want to see how it turns out.
I am definitely more interested in the outcome of the story than in 'following the expression'.
#WhatIsThisStoryAbout
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Bonus
I want to try speaking in a cute voice at least once before I die
#StandFM