Quiet Life [Paperback]

Kenzaburo Oe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 9, 1998

When her father leaves Japan to accept a visiting professorship from an American university, 20-year-old Ma-Chan finds herself suddenly the head of the household, and the centre of family relationships that she must begin to redefine.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Nobel laureate Kenzaburo Oe has produced a quirky, introspective novel that uses autobiographical elements to tell the story of a writer's family and his rediscovery of his place therein. Written in the form of a diary, the story is told from the point of view of Ma-Chan, the daughter of a famous writer (identified only as "K") who has decamped to California as a university writer-in-residence. Ma-Chan is left in charge of her equally famous brother, an idiot savant who composes brilliant classical music. The mentally retarded brother, nicknamed Eeyore, has violent fits, periods of incontinence, and a troubling new sexual awareness. Like Faulkner's Benjy Compson, he is the moral center of the book, a touchstone and a catalyst for the muted events that carry the novel to its unpredictable close. Full of digressions on the cinema, modernist music, and the novels of Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Oe's latest novel is a stylized, idiosyncratic confessional that only he could fashion. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Like Oe, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994, K-Chan, the character at the heart of this novel, is an internationally renowned Japanese novelist. His story pits the quest for individual identity against the measure of selflessness necessary for healthy family life. Wisecracking and often emotionally insensitive, K-Chan suffers a spiritual breakdown that impels him to leave his young adult children in Japan while he and his wife take up residence at a college in California-and where, in peace, he might answer the daunting question: "how is a faithless person to cope with life?" Thus, it is up to his 20-year-old daughter, the narrator Ma-Chan, who describes herself as a "withdrawn coward," to care for her older, mentally handicapped but musically brilliant brother, nicknamed Eeyore, and her younger, independent and intelligent brother, O-Chan. The narrative traces the quotidian challenges Ma-Chan faces, shuttling Eeyore to and from work at a vocational welfare center and attending to his epileptic seizures. Meanwhile, supporting characters, all friends or family of K-Chan, wonder aloud to Ma-Chan about her father's abandonment of his children, and discuss with her episodes from his past that might have led to his nervous breakdown. Unfortunately, Oe employs stilted dialogue (made worse, no doubt, by a lifeless translation) between characters on topics that include Tarkovsky's film Stalker and a novel by Aitmatov about the Crucifixion. These discussions are clumsy and lack the grace and whimsy apparent in other novels of ideas by writers like Milan Kundera (whom a character named Mr. Shigeto is said to translate). A dramatic climax in which Ma-Chan is nearly raped by Eeyore's swimming teacher lacks credibility. Eventually, the family-minus K-Chan-is reunited in a conclusion that, like the novel, makes more of a dry conceptual impact than an emotional one.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Picador (January 9, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 033035311X
• ISBN-13: 978-0330353113
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,185,096 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A beautiful book, February 22, 2000

By 

"[e-mail]" - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Quiet Life (Oe, Kenzaburo) (Paperback)

The book has a slow start and proceeds at a similar pace for most of its length. As the title suggests the lives of the two principal characters are quiet and have little impact on the world beyond their family. One of the six chapters is devoted to an analysis of a Russian art house movie. A French novelist with fascist leanings is discussed at similar length - and in sympathetic terms!

This description might sound dull, but for readers not put off by the paragraph above, this is a great novel, a stroll through the mind of one of the best novelists of the latter half of the twentieth century. The self-effacing narrator Ma-Chan and her handicapped musician brother Eeeyore are the main focus for the book's little dramas, but we learn as much, perhaps more, about the absent father (presumably a thinly disguised portrait of the Oe) - and many readers may feel that he is the principal character, albeit one who is observed from afar.

The meditations on Celine and Tarkovsky do not slow the book down: they are intriguing and drove me straight to the nearest bookshop selling the neglected French writer. The diversions to the family's home village; Ma-Chan's introspection and Eeeyore's piano lessons at the home of the Shigetos are all beautifully rendered by Oe. There are echoes of Shusaku Endo's novels and the gentle poetic films of Ozu. The villian is too crudely sketched, but this one of the few weaknesses in a great novel.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A writer's view of himself through the eye's of his children, December 4, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: A Quiet Life (Hardcover)

Oe's most recent, and purportedly final, novel is a profoundly
honest look at himself, as he imagines he seems to his
daughter, his mentally handicapped son, others in his family,
and his friends. The bravery of the writing makes one
yearn for such honesty on the part of other writers. Here is
someone who does not pretend to be wise, or to tell us how to
live properly, but who is unflinching in his assessment of his own
weaknesses and their unintended impact on those he holds most dear.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Taking Care of Your Family, July 19, 2007

By 

Jason T. Fetters "Horror Fanboy & Japanologist" (Tampa, FL The Sunshine State) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: A Quiet Life (Oe, Kenzaburo) (Paperback)

Shizuka na seikatsu or A Quiet Life by Oe Kenzaburo, is a good solid read. At first the story starts out very slow and doesn't really pick up the pace until the last section called, Diary At Home. But the in depth fleshing out of the two principal characters, Machan and Eeyore, more then compensate for lack of plot points. This gives the whole story a very Ozu style atmosphere. Oe, like Ozu, is concerned with side streets instead of busy highways and like the scene in Ozu's Early Summer, where the family visits the great Buddha in Kamakura, the focus is on the family's conversation and the Buddha is ignored. You really feel like you don't want the story to end as you allow yourself to get wrapped up in the characters in their simple everyday lives. This also gives the novel an Ozu quality in that in an Ozu film you don't want the story to end. I was amazed that this book could accomplish such a similar quality. Do yourself a favor and read A Quiet Life. Then read Kaifuku suru Kazoku or A Healing Family, the book that won Oe the Noble Prize.