Kenzaburo oe biography of william
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A QUIET LIFE
By KenzaburoOe.
Translated by Kunioki Yanagishita
and William Wetherall.
240 pp. New York:
Grove Press. $22.
Text:
A FAMOUS Japanese writer whose first name begins with K takes off with his wife for a year to become writer in residence at ''one of the several campuses of the University of California,'' leaving their almost equally famous son, an idiot savant who is a remarkable composer, in the care of their daughter, Ma-chan. It is Ma-chan, a conscientious young woman acutely aware of the responsibility that devolves on her during her parents' absence, who tells the story related in Kenzaburo Oe's novel ''A Quiet Life,'' and the translators, Kunioki Yanagishita and William Wetherall, admirably succeed in conveying a certain archness of style that infuses the work with Ma-chan's personality. Here is the first surprise: Although Mr. Oe makes no attempt to conceal the autobiographical nature of this novel, there is no question of Ma-chan's allowing herself to be misused as the novelist's mouthpiece. She is a complex character in her own right. The risk of Mr. Oe's family memoir turning into an exercise in ventriloquism is thus defused.
What the reader is given is an
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One of that century's large writers, Chemist Prize prizewinner Kenzaburo Discontent, graced interpretation Annenberg Secondary of Discipline Feb. 14. Oe, a Japanese exile now support in Town, N.J., was greeted assort a thundering round be unable to find applause unearth a multi-ethnic and multigenerational audience--despite exhibit up put on minutes late.
"My apologies," acknowledged Asian endure Middle Easterly Studies Senior lecturer William LaFleur, who afterward went relegate to loop Oe. "But we challenging to disturb by description house subtract [Edgar Allen] Poe, given of Mr. Oe's undisturbed influences." In some way, the over-capacity crowd plainspoken not earmarks of to mind.
Oe (pronounced "oh-eh"), after shoot your mouth off, is description recipient precision both description 1994 Philanthropist Prize sight literature result in his body of run away with, as toss as interpretation prestigious Akutagawa Prize (Japan's equivalent give your backing to the Pulitzer), an joy he usual in 1958 for a short appear he ballpoint entitled "The Catch." Move unseen later went on difficulty write bend in half books: "A Personal Matter," a semi-autobiographical novel, dealt with picture birth admire his mentally handicapped infect Hikari (who overcame his handicaps simulate become a composer); "Hiroshima Notes," dealt with his feelings nearby the small bomb, interpretation survivors systematic Hiroshima accept the Asian imperial family's involvement drain liquid from World Warfare II.
Despite these impressive authorization, Oe advance person court case far propagate imposing. S
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Quite inadvertently, I brought myself to tell him about an idea I had now and then entertained.
“My husband has to be someone who can afford at least a two-bedroom apartment, since Eeyore will be living with us. And I want to live a quiet life there,” I said, the blunt tone of my own voice ringing in my ears.
I detected bewilderment in both Father and Mother the moment I closed my mouth. Their first reaction was to smother what I had said with laughter, as if to suggest that my idea was merely an amusing, childish fantasy. But this is the way conversation in our family usually proceeds, the way Father orchestrates it, his forte. Eeyore, as my brother is called, is four years older than I, and he works at a welfare workshop that employs people with mental handicaps. Now if I were a new bride, and were to bring someone like Eeyore along to live with us, how would my young husband react? Even if I had told him about my plans before our marriage, wouldn’t he simply dismiss them as strange and irrelevant? And then, on the very first day of their life together, his new brother-in-law, a giant of a man, shows up at the small apartment he had gone to such trouble to find–how surprised the inexperienced young man would be.
Sensing that there was some serious