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Nip The Buds, Shoot The Kids by Kenzaburo Oe
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Nip The Buds, Shoot The Kids (original 1958; edition 2000)

by Kenzaburo Oe, Paul St John Mackintosh (Translator), Maki Sugiyama (Translator)

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9562921,787 (3.71)165
In Japan during World War II a group of boys who are evacuated to the country take over a village when the inhabitants flee a plague. The novel describes the way the boys administer the village--breaking into homes for food, burying the dead, caring for the sick--and what happens when the villagers return. By the author of The Silent Cry.… (more)
Member:Leonard_Seet
Title:Nip The Buds, Shoot The Kids
Authors:Kenzaburo Oe
Other authors:Paul St John Mackintosh (Translator), Maki Sugiyama (Translator)
Info:Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd (2000), Edition: 1st, Hardcover, 189 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:****
Tags:Japanese, literature, Oe

Work Information

Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburō Ōe (1958)

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» See also 165 mentions

English (27)  Spanish (2)  All languages (29)
Showing 1-5 of 27 (next | show all)
I decided to expand my Japanese reading list beyond Murakami and had heard good things about the Nobel Prize winning Kenzaburo Oë. The story is about of a group of delinquent boys abandoned in a mountain village when a plague breaks out. The story was pretty depressing and gruesome, but good. I'd give it 3.5 stars. ( )
  hms_ | Nov 22, 2022 |
This is one of those must read classics, especially since the author was awarded the Nobel for Literature. While never naming the place or time, or most of the characters, it centers on a group of reform school boys marched into the mountains around the time of World War II. Classism and racism feature prominently. The narrator's struggle to survive starvation and hatred long enough to escape, even though escape doesn't offer salvation, builds a hopelessness that is difficult to read. Many focus on the near apocalyptic setting and the spare details to push the book into an almost magical realism category, especially as examined against the author's other work, but it is squarely a flat realist narrative. On balance, it's not the difficult substance of the book, but the lack of much else but increasing violence that foils the book. It's one thing to describe hopelessness, and an altogether different thing to withhold hope. Also, an odd side note - there's a fair amount of homosexuality in the text that reads like it was meant to shock rather than as a true part of a character's life. Oe dropped it in at odd times, in odd ways, always trying to express vulgarity, which is an odd note to strike with the topic. The true success of the book for me was the author's deft hand with the natural world around his characters - the descriptions of the forest evidenced a poet's mind. That alone brought the rating of the book up for me.

3 bones!!! ( )
  blackdogbooks | May 30, 2022 |
I picked up this book cuz the way they described the setting sounded neat as heck, like you cant tell if its postapocalytpic or a war zone or a science fiction thing but its like horrifically timeless, and when i read the book it was pretty much exactly that. The setting was genius in how it provides minimal context but the characters and the story weren't there... The most interesting was the brother and he did like nothing. Also they talk about dicks way too much in this it was really sus ( )
  jooniper | Sep 10, 2021 |
Very poignant. Very raw. A booked that rocked Japan when published just 13 years after the Japanese surrender in 1945.

This is Japan’s Lord of the Flies with important exceptions: adults are always on the periphery and the children work together for survival.

During WW2, a group of boys is left to fend for themselves in a village deserted due to a viral outbreak. Despite most surviving against the odds, when the adults return, they force them into secrecy about how they have been treated. Only the narrator escapes to an unknown fate – clearly a metaphor for the author.

The storytelling is vivid and heartbreaking. Their plight is visceral and easy to get drawn into. Their betrayal and treatment at the hands of the adult villagers is harsh. The metaphors abound.

Oe was 23 when he wrote this. It’s a youth’s response to the intertia of mass denial as his nation lay crushed by the unbearable weight of the shame of surrender. This is captured well by John Dower in his excellent Embracing Defeat.

In a few hundred pages, Oe wrested his nation’s conscience into consciousness. He forced them to face questions about what being Japanese was all about. Had he been Russian, he would have faced the Gulag.

A powerful and important book in the literature of Japan, it needs to be understood in its context. With the passing of time and the necessary cultural chasm between English and Japanese, this is becoming harder and harder to do. My advice would be to read it as soon as possible. ( )
  arukiyomi | Oct 11, 2020 |
Magnificent and enthralling, with a cartoon aesthetic and a dark setting. The idea of society & social bigotry brilliantly illustrated through the eyes of children and their innocent ideas of justice. ( )
  ephemeral_future | Aug 20, 2020 |
Showing 1-5 of 27 (next | show all)
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» Add other authors (23 possible)

Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Kenzaburō Ōeprimary authorall editionscalculated
Ceccatty, René deTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Mackintosh, Paul St. JohnTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Nakamura, RyôjiTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Sugiyama, MakiTranslatorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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Two of our boys had escaped during the night, so at dawn we still hadn't left.
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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In Japan during World War II a group of boys who are evacuated to the country take over a village when the inhabitants flee a plague. The novel describes the way the boys administer the village--breaking into homes for food, burying the dead, caring for the sick--and what happens when the villagers return. By the author of The Silent Cry.

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