Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness by Kenzaburo Oe
This book is really four short novellas in one book. They were translated by John Nathan who worked personally with the author on the translation. (Oe won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1994.) The title of the book comes from the third story; I read it first since I figured there was a reason to have named the entire tome after that story. The main character's son is born with mental challenges. The narrator is never given a name (and is referred to as "the fat man"), and begins to call his son "Eeyore" after the donkey in Winnie the Pooh. The father becomes deeply attached to the boy, but because the boy's understanding of the world is so minimal, the story is really about the father reconciling himself to his son's situation. The story is told through a third person limited point of view. (However, as I read, I kept wondering how much of the story was autobiographical since Oe's own son was born with a mental challenge.) The pivotal event in the story is a trip to the zoo. I'm sure this story contains a lot of spiritual and philosophical revelations that I completely missed. It's that kind of a story. You read it and wonder what you're missing because you have the sense it's a more significant story that just a fat man and a handicapped son.
The second story I read was "Prize Stock." It is set in a remote Japanese village during WWII. An American plane crashes nearby, and the locals take custody of a large black prisoner. The story is told through the eyes of a young boy who befriends the prisoner. Although they do not speak the same language at all, the soldier and the townspeople learn to communicate and form a strange friendship. The children are especially friendly with the soldier, even to the point of freeing him and taking him swimming. Eventually, the Japanese military sends word that the prisoner is to be transferred to a proper prison. This is when the story reaches its climax. It is a powerful point in the story, and it disturbed me for days after reading it. At the very end of the story, the representative of the military, Clerk, is killed while sledding with the children. The symbolism in this story is hard to miss. It is a statement for peace. . .the American and the Japanese villagers get along quite well until the representatives of the war enter the village. War, declared by people in far away places, is what separates people who would otherwise be friendly. Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness would be a good title for this story, also. Perhaps those folks in Washington should read it.
The second story I read was "Prize Stock." It is set in a remote Japanese village during WWII. An American plane crashes nearby, and the locals take custody of a large black prisoner. The story is told through the eyes of a young boy who befriends the prisoner. Although they do not speak the same language at all, the soldier and the townspeople learn to communicate and form a strange friendship. The children are especially friendly with the soldier, even to the point of freeing him and taking him swimming. Eventually, the Japanese military sends word that the prisoner is to be transferred to a proper prison. This is when the story reaches its climax. It is a powerful point in the story, and it disturbed me for days after reading it. At the very end of the story, the representative of the military, Clerk, is killed while sledding with the children. The symbolism in this story is hard to miss. It is a statement for peace. . .the American and the Japanese villagers get along quite well until the representatives of the war enter the village. War, declared by people in far away places, is what separates people who would otherwise be friendly. Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness would be a good title for this story, also. Perhaps those folks in Washington should read it.
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