A Personal Matter
Sunday, October 28th, 2007 @ 03:38by Kenzaburo Oe (1964)
Bird, the anti-hero protagonist of this book, is the archetypal frustrated, alienated youth, resenting the burdens of responsibility that age and marriage has caged him in from reaching his utopian dream of travelling to Africa. Casting his life adrift, never bothering for (if not resentin) any purpose, never facing his problems, Bird is forced to face his newly-born baby, the final obligation that “may clang the door shut”: a deformed, vegetable infant.
Horrified by what seems like a life imprisonment, Bird again tries to run away, dodging the question as long as he can, dragging his past life with him, to the dead corner, only to realise:
What was he trying to protect from that monster of a baby that he must run so hard and so shamelessly? What was it in himself he was so frantic to defend? The answer was horrifying — nothing! Zero!
Oe treated Bird’s eventual decision to take up his responsibility not with hopeful optimism, opting instead for resigned, if somewhat mutely resentful, “forbearance”:
I kept trying to run away. And I almost did. But it seems that reality compels you to live properly when you live in the real world. I mean, even if you intend to get yourself caught in a trap of deception, you find somewhere along the line that your only choice is to avoid it.
There’s a strong autobiographical element in this novel. Although not particularly impressive, A Personal Matter is quite an enjoyable late coming-of-age novel.
