Ōe Kenzaburō: Nip The Buds, Shoot The Kids

[Jayaprakash]

I'm reposting this as a separate thread in case anyone else wants to discuss this book at some point:

Nip The Buds, Shoot The Kids by Kenzaburo Oe. Set in the second world war, this novel follows the fortunes of a group of teenaged reformatory school boys, evacuated from the city and dragged about the countryside until a village that will take them in is found. When they are finally taken in, an outbreak of disease causes the villagers to flee, leaving the despised group of boys trapped in their abandoned village. The boys try to carry on on their own, and make a stab at building a life and society of their own. Then the villagers return, and the high-handed brutality of the adult world re-establishes itself.

It's a very short but vivid and intense story which doesn't flinch from dealing with violence or sexuality. It's been compared to The Lord Of The Flies, but if anything is the exact opposite, with the despised children attempting to live a decent, fulfilling life in the absence of adults, and being plunged back into a state of abject captivity when the adults return.

I felt the book suggested that the war had completely compromised the moral authority of the adult world, and only those who were not a part of it, either because they were children, refugees or deserters, had any chance of rediscovering what it meant to be human. Everyone here is more or less corrupt here in direct relation to their degree of assimilation with the adult world.

A very bleak and haunting little book.
Edit: I've had some time to think it over and piece apart the initial impact of the book and what I feel on sober consideration, and I think the book deserves the full five stars.*****

[DreamQueen]

This has been sitting on my shelf for quite some time. Your post makes me want to push it closer to the front of the queue - but after Invisible Cities, of course!

Have you read anything else of Oe's? I thought A Personal Matter was brilliant but was disappointed by Somersault.

[Jayaprakash]

This was the first novel by Oe I've read, after reading a bunch of interviews with him that were stumbled across on a peripatetic net trawl. I've also got a copy of Somersault - they had multiple copies of everything else in the shop I went to and I didn't want to repeat the mistake I made with Chinese author Wang Shuo, buying the one they had multiple copies of (Playing For Thrills) only to enjoy it and then find the single copy of Please Don't Call Me Human, the only other novel by him available here it seems, sold out.

In light of the Mishima discussion currently underway elsewhere on this forum, I thought it might be interesting to reproduce this one-star review of Nip The Buds from amazon.com:



http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/common/customer-reviews/stars-1-0._V47060502_.gif A.B.C.D. Encirclement, October 6, 2002
By A Customer

Oe lachrymosely indulges every anti-Japanese propagandist in the american media conglomerate (Ingram) with ample opportunity to smack their lips over the "moral failings" of Japan. The fact that this ineffectual moralist won the Noble prize while it was denied to Mishima speaks volumes on what supine expectations the american propaganda industry expects from Japan. Both left and right. Writer like Oe and Murakami... are parasites getting fat by preening all the morbid phobias of a degenerate american elite, allowing them to wallow in self-adulation. What would Mr. Oe have done during the war? Sheepishly meet the demands of an expansionist american navy? Allowed China to invade the country so as not to offend their sensitivities?...Japan chose WAR rightfully, even with the foreknowledge that it was a lost cause. And Japan would not even exist today if Mr. Oe were around then.
Instead of Oe or Murakami or Bannana Yoshimoto's insipid writing for privileged sectors in the american market (The Nanny Diaries) feeding that markets endless appetite for peeling scabs and self-abasement try and find a video of the Shunya Ito film Pride, which angered ALL the right people in the world and was one of the most popular films in recent Japanese cinema. Or any of the great Yukio Mishima's books, who was indeed what he described himself to be "the conscience of post war Japan".

[DreamQueen]

My mistake - it's Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! that I have, not Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids. :(

I clearly have too many books if I can't keep track of them in my head.

[matt.todd]

Wow, that's an ... interesting ... review of Mishima and Oe. The one from Amazon, that is. If Mishima is the embodiment of post-war Japan, then I'd be very worried. Mishima is an excellent writer, but some of his very, very right-wing politics and ideals are not exactly the most positive message one can give.

Though, I know very little about Oe, so I can't talk about him...

[DreamQueen]

If Mishima is the embodiment of post-war Japan, then I'd be very worried. Mishima is an excellent writer, but some of his very, very right-wing politics and ideals are not exactly the most positive message one can give.

You've got a point there. I recently read John Nathan's biography of Mishima and it seems pretty clear that Mishima's suicide was in part inspired by what he saw as Japan's fatal move away from the super right wing ideas he espoused.

[fausto]

It's quite obvious that the Amazon review was written by someone with sympathy for the Japanese nationalists. As for Mishima himself and his suicide, politics is one thing but let's not forget his sense of decorum, his love for acting and provoking and his passion for shows.

[Jayaprakash]

Quite.

I live in a country where, although we have a past as a colony rather than an empire, there is a similar conservative-traditionalist collusion on the right extreme of the political spectrum, and views such as the one on Oe quoted above are expressed towards artists of a liberal bent. Trying to understand the intolerance in my own society, I found the parallels with this review illuminating.

[Daniel del Real]

This is my third Oe's book and found it very similar to The Prey in question of the environment and the reminiscense of how WWII affected the rural part of Japan.
This text was like a fleeting star of narrative coming across, leaving beautiful sparkling all over, but at the end fading away as many other stars that surfaced the sky.
Again, as in the prey, the eyes looking at everything belong to children. Kenzaburo applies very well this vision to their main characters, you never doubt that these thoughts or observations belong to persons from that age. This is a strong part in the book.
About the war, tragedy and everything left by this, the message is that the young generation from that age were abandoned by the imperialist ideology of adulthood in the moment, and being defeated in the battle, they had to rise to build up a new Japan from the debris. The kids were trying to structure an organization allowing them to live well, and the evil force from the adults comes as a way to destabilize everything.
A very good book, not as memorable as the other two I've read from Oe but still a nice short novel.
****0

[john h]

I've only read two of Oe's books--"The Silent Cry" and "A Personal Matter" but just on the basis of those I would say he deserved the Nobel Prize. Actually, three now that I think of it. Also read a book of short stories, the title of which I can't remember. But I remember it was excellent.

[mimi]

Thanks John. I remember Nadine Gordimer talking about how great he was not just as a writer but as a human being. He is next on my reading list.

[Daniel del Real]

I've only read two of Oe's books--"The Silent Cry" and "A Personal Matter" but just on the basis of those I would say he deserved the Nobel Prize. Actually, three now that I think of it. Also read a book of short stories, the title of which I can't remember. But I remember it was excellent.

A Personal Matter is my favorite. I'm looking to get a copy of The Silent Cry. Do you think is better than A Personal Matter John?

[john h]

Yes, I definitely do think "The Silent Cry" is better although I liked "A Personal Matter" a great deal. It's in my top 10 or 15 all time. Curiously, I think it was maybe 30 pages too long but that's just a quibble.

[liehtzu]

Can't go wrong with The Silent Cry. It's a masterpiece.