Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Ōe
Translated by Paul St. John Mackintosh and Maki Sugiyama
189 pages
Published 1958 (English translation published 1995)
Read from March 29 to April 8
Rating: ★★★★ out of 5
My most vivid impression of this novel is the uncommon, uncomfortable carnality of the narrator's physical sensations. I can't speculate whether this level of bodily detail -- pubescent erections like "asparagus stalks," tender explorations of anuses, spittle flying whenever a character speaks or reacts -- is a feature of literary fiction (I haven't read much), Japanese fiction (I've read basically none), or something pertaining specifically to Ōe's themes of dehumanization, of rutting and grubbing somatic beings cut loose by a wartime society lacking human empathy or compassion. It makes for vivid, visceral reading, but the vast majority of fiction I've read before now is too, well, polite (in the literal sense) to touch such matters.
The book itself, or rather I should say the plot, is straightforward and simply constructed, but the physical impressions of the narration are both the focus and the strength, I think, of the story. To substitute cliche for critical thought, I will say Nip the Buds explored a dark crevice of human experience totally unfamiliar to me. Powerful and absorbing stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment