Customer Reviews

The Silent Cry

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Kenzaburo Oe's "The Silent Cry" is a masterpiece. No two ways about it. It's a dark, complex, and difficult piece of work and not easy to digest unless you have a modicum of knowledge of Japanese socio-economic history. The spirit of revival of the feudal uprising of 1860 is the central motif that renders the dialectical relationship and the unspeakable horror visited upon the two Nedokoro brothers, Mitsu and Takashi, ultimately comprehensible. While radical younger brother Takashi needs to relive the heroic (real or imagined) past of his great granduncle to bring a measure of validity to his own existence, older brother Mitsu's life crumbles when he sires a horribly retarded child whom he institutionalizes and then fails to come to terms with the ritualistic suicide of his best friend. So does Mitsu's marriage to his wife, Natsumi, who takes to the bottle and appears headed for disaster until brother-in-law Takashi imbues her with fire and converts her to his cause. But there's no happy ending and she's cruelly let down. Takashi's rabid vendetta against the Emperor, the Korean supermarketeer, and his cruelty towards his disciples is a perversion in his search for truth. Mitsu's inability to break out of his self imposed inner exile, his refusal to connect with the past and his corrosive negativism poisons everything about him, including his marriage to Natsumi, which is wryly but painfully observed. Oe employs the imagery of the dark encroaching forest over the valley to evoke a dangerous sense of foreboding that builds to a shattering climax when shocking family secrets are revealed but there's no relief, forgiveness or healing in the aftermath. Nevertheless, Oe avoids an entirely downbeat ending by pulling off a stunning surprise that forces Mitsu to re-examine and give his life another go. The ritualistic suicide of Mitsu's friend is the dramatic manifestation of the "silent cry" of truth he finds unutterable. At another level, "The Silent Cry" can be read as a study of an insular nation coping with the rising tide of foreign influences that threatens the old way of life. It's incredibly rich in its treatment of a universal theme that will guarantee its relevance forever. Oe writes with a rare intensity that perfectly captures the strangeness and beauty of the Japanese psyche. It's an awesome landmark of a novel that no serious lover of literature can afford to miss. Some may find "The Silent Cry" a dark and disturbing piece of work. Perhaps it is. But it's essential reading.

It has been said by some that to know a country is to read its novels; far better than to read its (manufactured) history. Novels too are manufactured but novels are more likely to expose the emotional and spiritual "truth" of the country concerned. In THE SILENT CRY the writer OE covers much historical, emotional, social, Japanese ground but does it in such a way as to make it a wonderfully entertaining journey for the reader. I for one would love to read a Freudian criticism of it. For example, a recurring motif is suicide, in various forms, one being hanging and that image is conveyed by a the anti-hero's best friend who removed all his clothes, painted his head red, shoved a cucumber up his arse and then hanged himself; another being the anti-hero's brother who shot himself in the head the remains of which reminded the brother of a pomegranate. Such vivid imagery recurs throughout this novel. Another distinguishing feature of it is its lack of cliches, its almost poetic prose, poetic in the sense of dense. You daren't skip a phrase let alone a line. It is a rich read. Historically, the novel covers the transition from an agrarian village life to the impact of the supermarket, racism, the vulnerability of the Japanese economy (this written in 1966- in 2001 have the Japanese finally faced up to real economic reform?)foreigners, and on the cover, an artistic representation of the Hiroshima ground zero. The one-eyed hero is self-effacing and has an alcoholic wife, retarded son and is a cuckold. His brother is vain, hostile, proud, an adulterer who has sex with his retarded sister. It is true that it is reminiscent of the Cain and Abel story or the Brothers Karamazov and I think it deserves mention in that mythical company. Its themes that resonate with me most tellingly are the need for one and one's country to come to terms with the truth about the past. The anti-hero Mitsu is on a search for the "truth" throughout the novel.As an individual I need to come to terms with my mother's suicide as well as other aspects of my personal history. As an Australian, my nation needs to come to terms with its past and our genocidal attitude to Aboriginal Australians. The second theme for me is that constant internal worrying and guilt can be self-defeating - at the close of the novel Mitsu feels "throughout the time remaining to me..a hundred pairs of eyes (of his cat, of his great grandfather, brother, wife) would glitter like a chain of stars in the night of my experience. And I would live on, suffering agonies of shame under the light of those stars, peering out timidly like a rat, with my single eye, at a dim and equivocal outer world..."(p.269) Yet, at the urging of his now pregnant wife, he chooses to accept a job in Africa instead of a job at a University, symbolic I would guess of his need to accept the past come to terms with it and get on with living, for some sort of peace. Survival becomes the key to that peace. Its weird at the end too because despite all the preceding horrors, the novel's ending creates in the reader a wry grin or satisfying chuckle as the anti-hero realises with his new job he may be able to achieve an important personal goal - building a thatched hut.A memorable read.

The Silent Cry is Oe's triumph. It questions the stories and histories that build our identity. In the story we learn that what really happened in the past is not nearly as important as what people think happened, and the lies our myths perpetuate. We are at the mercy of our history. We are controlled, not by the Gods, but by the stories of our past.

this is the first novel i read by kenzaburo oe. and its simply superb. the post war its brilliantly portraid in this book. when a couple of brothers return to their hometown, each one has some experiences that changes his vision of the world. but theres another aspect that i loved in it. there was a revolution a century ago, directed by their grandgrandfather. slowly, they go discovering more about this, and finally they mirror the characters and the revolution. its a success repeating itself. the time is a circle. Oe proves it brilliantly here. Its a bit hard to read, but its worth it. DO IT!

Oe sets _The Silent Cry_ in a rural village in his native Japan, and through the eyes of the urban protagonist Takeshi, the cultural war between ancient and modern (or native and foreign) is shown as a series of grotesque suicides, mob riots, and incestuous incidents. The book achieves greatness through Oe's suggestion that there are precedents for every horrible incident Takeshi sees; he weaves in a subplot of village ancestors that imagines a world where the fight between stasis and change has always raged. This is the masterpiece of a Nobel laureate

In the beginning, this book seems to be about a man, Mitsu, struggling to come to grips with the suicide of a dear friend. Soon, it becomes clear that Mitsu is instead attempting to accept himself. As you read these marvellously creafted pages, the story will creep under your skin. Oe's extraordinary feat is that, as the strory builds into its climax, you become so involved in the events that this becomes YOUR story. Your inadequacies, your hidden talents and, specially, your difficulty to accept yourself. At the end of this book, you have read your biography and maybe, just maybe, you'll be able to live with yourself... at last.

The American edition of Oe's novel may be called "The Silent Cry," but a more accurate translation of the title would be "Football in the Year 1860 [or the Man'an era]," the year Ii Naosuke, famous for brokering a commercial treaty with the U.S., was assassinated by a group of samurai loyal to the Emperor. It is also the year, in the novel, when the great-granduncle of two brothers, Mitsusaburo and Takashi, led a peasant revolt in their ancestral village.

The decision to discard a more literal translation masks what Oe is trying to do here, as he continues to pile on parallels between 1860 and the early 1960s, when this novel is set. Favoring historical symbolism and mythological surrealism, the novel defies a summary that would make much sense to the reader. A skeletal outline would describe the rivalry between Mitsusaburo, who has left his handicapped child in an institution and returned to his childhood home with his alcoholic wife, and his younger brother Takashi, recently returned from America, who "seems to want his actions influenced by the 1860 affair."

Takashi idealizes the embroidered family legends of heroism and leadership, and he arrays the village youth into a cult-like group to challenge the hegemony of a local business magnate known, not coincidentally, as "the Emperor." The story is filled with grotesqueries and violence, from the opening description of a friend's suicide (which is presented in a disconcertingly risible manner) to the rape and death of a local girl (an event that Mitsusaburo believes is invented) to Mitsusaburo's apparent nonchalance when he realizes that Takashi is sleeping with his wife.

The result is a tale of Freudian weirdness in a claustrophobic mountain village that might remind readers of Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County. Among Oe's works, it's not as accessible (nor, in my view, as good) as "A Personal Matter" and stories like "Prize Stock" or "Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness." But, in spite of its outmoded surrealism, there's something compelling and fascinating about the deranged rivalry between the two brothers who hijack the attention of this peculiar, mythical community.

This novel is indeed a masterpiece. Oe shows why he's a revered writer. The book, which is told through the eyes of Mitsu, who seems to be searching not only for peace of mind but also closure to several tragic but unresolved happenings in his life. Oe continues to pull us in with the introduction of several very interesting characters and events including a riot among the village peasants. It builds almost invisibly to a crescendo and a remarkable end. This book is a masterpiece

I've only read three other Oe novels and this one is my favorite. Its also one of my favorite books in general and I'm an avid reader. Its a very mature book so I DON'T recommend to a younger audience. As the other reviews say, it's dark and can even be painful to read at times. It's quixotic, brooding, bleak, and to borrow from another reviewer it does leave you unsettled and unnerved. However, it's also beautiful in an odd way... so if you're looking for something different this could be it. To summarize it, it's about two brothers who visit the village they were raised in. Although this may sound a little cliche the events and the history they discover are not.

A challenging novel, mixing Rabelaisian images with the intense claustrophobia of family history, shame and the quest for self knowledge and truth. The novel draws you into itself, but leaves you unsettled and unnerved.