Rouse Up, O Young Men of the New Age: A Novel [Hardcover]

Kenzaburo Oe (Author), John Nathan (Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 12, 2002

Wise and illuminating, Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! is a masterpiece from one of the world's finest writers, Kenzaburo Oe -- winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. K is a famous writer living in Tokyo with his wife and three children, one of whom is mentally disabled. K's wife confronts him with the information that this child, Eeyore, has been doing disturbing things -- behaving aggressively, asserting that he's dead, even brandishing a knife at his mother -- and K, given to retreating from reality into abstraction, looks for answers in his lifelong love of William Blake's poetry. As K struggles to understand his family and assess his responsibilities within it, he must also reevaluate himself -- his relationship with his own father, the political stances he has taken, the duty of artists and writers in society. A remarkable portrait of the inexpressible bond between this father and his damaged son, Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! is the work of an unparalleled writer at his sparkling best.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Writing once again with depth and passion about his relationship with his brain-damaged son, the Nobel laureate transforms his musings into a full-blown narrative that becomes a thoughtful yet provocative study of the nature of human relationships, filtered through the author's fascination with the writings of William Blake. The story starts in familiar territory as the narrator, "K," replays the heartbreaking realization that "Eeyore" has a bizarre form of brain damage that may actually be a malformed second brain. He grapples with his son's disturbing behavior, delving into such basic human concepts as death and suicide. K also deals with the reaction of the readers of his fiction in several passages, most notably that of a student who kidnaps Eeyore and leaves him at a Tokyo train station because he disapproves of the author's political stances. K's overall family life is left largely untouched until the end, with the author choosing instead to allude to his son's experiences through references to Blake's works, which become the subtext as Eeyore finally begins to compose and perform music and then to claim his real name and identity. This is a deceptively modest, powerful book by a master at the height of his literary powers. Whether he's expanding on a mystical or philosophical concept or painting an achingly poignant picture of a unique father-and-son relationship, Oe contrives intensely memorable images of these two special characters and their thoughts, insights and loves that will stay with readers. Agent, Jim Auh of the Wylie Agency. (Mar.) Forecast: Oe's Nobel and the stirring title of his latest should attract browsers' attention; his pristine prose will keep them riveted.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Nobel prize winner Oe draws on real life to tell the story of famed author K, who lives in Tokyo with his wife and three children, one of whom is disabled. When the disabled child starts acting up, K must rethink his beliefs, his relationships, and himself.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press; 1st edition (March 12, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802117104
• ISBN-13: 978-0802117106
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,401,817 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Moving, Thoughtful, Layers of Meaning, January 9, 2008

By 

J. Stensrude (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! (Hardcover)

This is my fifth Oe novel, and I am always surprised at how one theme manifests in myriad fascinating plots. However, I am not surprised that he was the Nobel laureate in literature for 1994. Oe's writing is dominated by his decidedly masculine presence, but never loses itself in it. His descriptive language is eloquent without becoming mired in flocks of adverbs and adjectives (thanks also to a fine translation). In each of the novels I've read, a parent faces the challenges of a handicapped son, just as has Oe in real life. But in each of his fictitious works, the handicap varies and never duplicates his son's challenges nor the challenges of the characters in his other books. Rouse Up is a closer parallel to Oe's own experience than any of his other novels. It is decidedly autobiographical. No doubt he has used the novel format to cause some things to have a more satisfactory outcome than they may have had in real life. For instance, according to the Afterword written by translator John Nathan, Oe gives the fictional son a more robust ability to express himself than his real-life son. As Nathan describes it: "he is able to express himself in words, conveying wit and tenderness and compassion and his own brand of reductive wisdom about the world as he experiences it." Oe's real-life son, Hikari, has the gift of music. Though profoundly brain damaged, he has made his man's mark in the world as a celebrated composer. In an interview, speaking of Hikari's healing music, Oe commented, "My son's music is a model of my literature. I want to do the same thing." [...] Rouse Up is about fathers and sons, about the elation and disappointments of parenthood, about the joys and burdens of responsibility. Every son's father will find himself there. And, ultimately, like Hikari's music and Kenzaburo's prose, the journey is about healing.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More Rousing than Most Oe Novels, March 8, 2006

By 

Crazy Fox (Chicago, IL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rouse Up, O Young Men of the New Age: A Novel (Hardcover)

Of the Oe novels I've read, this is one of the better ones in my opinion. A low key, understated spirituality suffuses this novel, and the narrator's engagement with the poetry of William Blake adds resonance and depth to Oe's prose (which otherwise often strikes me as okay but somewhat flat).

While the work is fiction, it is crafted from events in Oe's real life and is thus more autobiographical than American readers may be comfortable with. This is a common feature of much Japanese fiction, as with the prewar I-Novels (shishosetsu) or the works of Shiga Naoya, though it is not an unknown phenomenon elsewhere--in fact, all fiction writers draw upon their own experiences to some degree. Here the degree is stronger, that's all. In any case, Oe has refined, sublimated, organized, and crafted his experiences into a fine, well-told story here.

The afterword by the translator is okay but not very helpful, basically quoting long passages from the novel as if you haven't just finished reading it. A few good insights pop up there nonetheless. His translation work itself, though, is as far as I can tell quite excellent.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As much about poetic imagination as postwar Japan, March 28, 2004

By 

Rob Wilson (Santa Cruz and Honolulu) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! (Paperback)

torn between a redemptive vision of culture and a globalizing hegemony of the right, this is a splendid and pithy novel that unlocks the sublime visionary power of William Blake (as revolutionary figure) to do global work inside post-imperial Japan and the US/Anglo hegemony. The son is caught between Blake the father and Los the son, and figures a way forward for all: Mutual Forgiveness is the Path to Eternity, said Blake to real politik. I love this novel, it taught me more about Blake and poetry than most poems I read, odd for a Japanese novelist to be tutoring this way!