it upset me aside from the upsetting premise — a man tries to kill his infant son because he can’t handle having a son who is “deformed” — but because the way he finds redemption for intentionally trying to kill his child is via an abortionist(?) gay man he abandoned during school and his girlfriend (not his wife) who he probably (?) sexually assaulted. these two people are prepared to help him do something terrible (murder his child) but when he realizes they are "ugly" -- the girlfriend is mixed race and bisexual, the doctor is weak, gay, victimized, he realizes he doesn't want to be like them, even though Bird has directly harmed both of these people and fantasizes about killing his girlfriend, and then when he shies away from murder again, he fantasizes about beating her into unconsciousness and raping her then.

the language was interesting, i admire the skill of the translator here. it is not the japanese i’m used to reading (via translation) and i desperately want to know what Mishima said to Oë to get into a fist fight. a really nauseating novel — lots of vomiting, shame, assault, just hateful behavior. the language was wheezy, collapsing, slurring, and not just because the narrator, Bird, spends a lot of time drunk and throwing up. strange assortments of words and sentences like someone talking really fast and then gulping air, but all within a single sentence or a paragraph. the compacted timeline adds to this, the whole novel is 150 pages or so and takes place over three or four days.

I understand that trying to kill your infant child is something you spend the rest of your life trying to get over but I don't want to take part in that any longer, and most if not all of Oë's fiction has his disabled child in it as a character. I'll read more Oë but not anymore of his fiction. ( )

No review - read too long ago to recall. ( )

"...If i may be frank, I think the baby would be better off dead, and so would you and your wife."

In addition to the usual self-dealing quality, so-called "Multiverse Theory," when employed in the context of post-war Japan, also has the fateful reminiscence of the atomic/quantum theory which has precipitated the most recent catastrophe

Fatherhood as conferring the egocentric boon which is the expurgation of passive personality traits, though with conspicuous neglect of the actually existing child (and wife) considered as a person, a lack of consideration (perhaps the ability to conceive of a consideration) which persists despite the magnanimous swoon which saves a life. ( )

This short book packed a big punch. It's the story of a boy-like young man, Bird, confronting a terrible situation where his newborn son has a severe deformity of the head. The story takes course over a short period of time and illustrates the mental anguish Bird goes through as he determines how to deal with this unexpected blow to his life. He finds solace in the arms of an ex-girlfriend, and the story takes interesting turns from there. The language is wonderful, the story satisfying, and the characters very well developed . . .I completely see why this author was a Nobel prize winner for literature. ( )

This was a nice short read. It’s the story of Bird, a man who knows only how to run from responsibility, faced with his newborn child being born with a brain hernia that will likely leave him heavily disabled for life. Bird drinks himself into a stupor after his child’s delivery, and shacks up with an old “friend” from his college years. To Bird’s relief, it initially appears his child will die shortly after being born. Then, though, the child resists death, and Bird struggles to deal with the consequences of raising a disabled child. He realizes he would rather the child die than live, and moves to make arrangements without notifying his wife. Bird plans to take off to Africa with his lady friend after the child dies, i.e. leave his wife and old life behind for an exotic faraway land. Near the end, though, he reconnects with a childhood friend whom he had abandoned and is called out on his lifelong habit of fleeing. Bird has a radical change of heart upon facing his own cowardice and decides, actually, to keep the baby, who turns out to not actually have a brain hernia (only a benign tumor), and for the first time in his life, accepts his burdens.

So this book is narratively about a man who flees (relatable). He has a fable-like turn of heart at the end of the book, and is rewarded with a relatively healthy child and a more palatable self-esteem. This “message” of the story is interesting to me, as I know all too well how some people can fly through life without actually ever facing themselves and their lots. Most people are, most of the time, “running away.” It’s just easier. It takes courage and moral character to accept your place as an actor in the great interconnected drama of life. The role involves a fundamental break with the ego, a recognition of others. It’s painful for the egoist inside us all to self-abdicate, but it seems to be very rewarding in opening us up to higher levels of love, intimacy, and self-knowledge. My only big complaint in this regard was that I thought the book wrapped up too neatly and too quickly. The only serious consequences Bird faced for a lifetime of egoism are internal: regret, guilt, and maybe grief for lost possibilities. If you read the book, you’ll know what I mean about the ending being fable-like.

On another level, this book seems to be (like a great number of other works of postwar Japanese fiction) about the loss of traditional ways of life in Japan in the face of globalization and Western imperialism. To dumb it down for myself: Bird’s child is born with a great deformity//Western culture intrudes itself upon Japan; Bird recoils and attempts to kill this intrusion upon his old life of freedom//Japanese traditionalists and conservatives (as well as just older people generally) cry out in anguish as the old is violently wrenched away and replaced with something monstrous; Bird sees that pain is inevitable on any path and owns up to the life stretching before him without instead flying away//Japanese culture slowly and reluctantly finds uneasy compromise with Western living. Basically. Nice work from a writing perspective but I have to admit this didn’t hit home for me because I know nothing but the culture of Western imperialism.

Lastly, as with most other Japanese writers I’ve read (all male, as far as I remember), this book uses women as mere props: temptresses, burdens, a polarity between pleasure and responsibility. Himiko is not very much of a character to me: she is blithely hedonistic, almost a devil-like seducer of Bird trying to get him to flee from responsibility and indulge instead in pleasure. His wife is kind of the opposite: a feared figure whom Bird sees as a restraint on his freedoms. Boring and predictable in this regard.

All in all, pretty good read, nothing earth-shattering for me but certainly worth my time. Points off for wrapping up too quickly and being kind of misogynistic. ( )