Product Description
For Oe Kenzaburo, a Japanese novelist who won the 1994 Noble prize in literature, William Faulkner is not so much a father of Yoknapatawpha as he is a critic of the masculine possessiveness attributed to the creation of the imaginary county. Faulkner and Oe: The Self-Critical Imagination focuses on the Faulknerian influence on Oe's satirical or self-critical imagination-especially on his feminist or hermaphroditic criticism of the male _I_ contained within the shosetsu (novel). Akio Kimura expertly investigates Oe's feminist turn in his novels in the 1980s as a criticism of this _I_ as an authoritarian first-person narrator. Oe considers this concept to be a disruptive reflection of Japanese society's established order.Oe's response to such a disruption is the introduction of a series of metaphors utilized in order to represent Faulkner's individualism and the subsequent deconstruction of Japanese autocracy. Drawing on Kofman, Irigaray, and Derrida, this book explores how Faulkner's individualism inspires Oe to juxtapose the Japanese authoritarian and the Faulknerian self-critical. Kimura explains that Oe's intensive reading of Faulkner's later novels-The Town, The Mansion, A Fable-has brought him a sense of ambiguity, or his awareness of being split between the Japanese _I_ and the Western _I._ By comparing these two significant novelists, this study acutely highlights the generic difference between the novel of the West and the Japanese shosetsu. ... Read more

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Lizentiatsarbeit, die am 01.05.2001 erfolgreich an einer Universität in Schweiz im Fachbereich Japanologie eingereicht wurde. Gang der Untersuchung: Es handelt sich im ganzen gesehen um eine solide, wohldurchdachte Arbeit über ein Hauptwerk des japanischen Nobelpreisträgers Ôe Kenzaburô aus dem Jahr 1967. Es geht nicht um eine Gesamtanalyse des Romans, sondern um eine rein motivgeschichtliche Untersuchung - eine durchaus sinnvolle und begründete Einschränkung. In Kapitel 1 - 3 stellt der Verfasser in instruktiver Weise die Grundlagen zum Werk, zur Person des Autors und zu den biographischen Konnotationen bereit und er erläutert seinen theoretischen Ansatz in Bezug auf die Motivforschung, wobei er auf die Problematik hinweist, die diesem Begriff und seiner Anwendung in Japan anhaftet. Das umfangreiche Kapitel 4 enthält sodann die Analyse der zentralen Motive: Sexualität, Gewalt, Tod und Wiedergeburt, der behinderte Sohn, der Wald usw. Diese Abschnitte stützen sich in akribischer Weise auf die Primärquelle und auf die Interpretationen der Sekundärliteratur und bringen eine Fülle von aufschlussreichen, sehr interessanten Einsichten und Zusammenhängen an den Tag. Dabei wird Manches kritisch betrachtet und berichtigt, und der Verfasser gelangt auch durchaus zu eigenen Bewertungen und Stellungnahmen. Allerdings wünschte man sich bei einigen Abschnitten des 4. Kapitels, dass sie etwas mehr über den referierenden Standpunkt hinaus gelangten. Letzten Endes ginge es um den Versuch, etwa in dem allzu kurz geratenen Schlusskapitel, die Motive in ihrem Zusammenhang sichtbar zu machen, d.h. die Strukturen von Ôes dichterischem Universum in sinnfälliger Weise blosszulegen. Die Gestaltung und sprachliche Formulierung der gesamten Arbeit ist gut, die Präsentation der umfangreichen Bibligraphie hervorragend. Inhaltsverzeichnis: |Vorwort|1 |Zur Zitierweise und zu den Zitaten|2 |Einleitung|5 1.|Erläuterungen zu Man'en gannen no futtoboru|9 1.1|Formales|9 1.2|Gli... ... Read more

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A group of Mexicans sit in the desert, gazing up at the image of their new saint--a seductive woman with a smile like Betty Boop's--projected onto an outdoor screen. The woman is Marie Kuraki, recruited to act the part of a "sorrowing mother," to help unite the workers on a cooperative farm in a remote village in Mexico.

By becoming a "saint," Marie, an unbeliever in search of spiritual peace, reaches the end of a long journey induced by a series of personal tragedies: above all, by the death of her two sons, which happened when one of them was pushing his brother in a wheelchair along a path above a cliff by the sea.

To rebuild her life, Marie leaves her home in Japan to go to a commune in California, under the shy guidance of a guru called Little Father; then on to Mexico, where she falls briefly under the spell of the Dark Virgin of Guadalupe; and finally to a mountain village in the shadow of an Aztec pyramid. There she offers what's left of her life to the local people, who come to venerate her, though her own faith remains as enigmatic as before.

An Echo of Heaven presents an astonishingly fresh and penetrating portrait of a woman of independent character and strong physical appetites, looking for a way to understand the mystery of her life. It is a work by a Nobel Prize-winning writer at the height of his powers.Amazon.com Review
In An Echo of Heaven, Nobel Prize winner Kenzaburo Oetells the riveting story of Marie Kuraki, a seductive, perverseintellectual whose two young sons, one retarded and one crippled,commit suicide. Thus begins Marie's intellectual, spiritual, andsexual journey to find meaning in this horrific tragedy. Oe, who drawsa provocative but sympathetic portrait of Marie, supplements hisnarrative with old letters and journal entries from those whose livesshe influenced.

Oe's prose (as translated by Margaret Mitsutani) is cold and precise,perhaps to maintain emotional distance since Oe himself has a mentallyhandicapped son. The description of Marie's quest also affords him theopportunity to engage in profound reflections on faith, sin, death,sexuality, heaven, and hell. --Madeline Crowley ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

An Echo of Sickness
Oe Kenzaburo is an immaculate writer.His humble, honest and beautiful prose is as lucid as ever, and his ability to convey the tragic inner madness of Kuraki Marie is disturbing.

This nonfiction book is a biopic of Oe Kenzaburo's friend, Kuraki Marie.Kuraki Marie is a stalwart an outspoken person, one in which her personality will make the reader either love her or hate her.There is very little middle ground, as she is openly confrontational about her beliefs and what is appropriate for herself and, to a lesser extent, those around her.While I do not want to tell future readers exactly what kind of tragedy befalls Kuraki, I will say that it is a tragedy involving her family that one can easily see as making a person descend into a despair that one may very well never climb out of. . .

While tragic novels are not typically something I shy away from (I think Dostoevsky's "The Idiot" is a masterpiece) I cannot truly love this nonfiction novel.For me, and this may just be my personal taste, I find Kuraki Marie distasteful.Even before her tragedy occurs she has the makings of a person who prizes theatrics in speaking to consciously create her own character.A case in point is when she is describing how Flannery O'Conner's short stories have played a central role in how she interprets the world.It is not that O'Conner's works are bad, because in reality they are brilliant, it is how she speaks in a manner which leaves others with the impression that she is trying to forcefully make you want to read O'Conner's works to understand the world. (Hell, even Oe Kenzaburo started reading O'Conner afterwords.) If you think of how a christian zealot comes onto you, it is a little more subtle than that, but essentially it leaves you with the same bitter aftertaste.

As for Kuraki Marie after the tradgedy involving her family, she takes misery to an extreme level.I am not trying to lessen her tragedy, because you can tell from her letters to Oe that she is indeed suffering a world of pain which has no end, yet her personality makes me have little sympathy for her.She takes what emotions she has and projects them onto others surrounding her, almost in a way that makes me believe that she wants others to sink into her miasma as well, not just to illicit sympathy.And once again, her tragedy is a play, as if she cannot detract her true sorrow from the theatrical airs she puts on.

All in all, I find that this is a valid novel, one in which Oe must have felt some disquiet, almost like a reflection of what was going on in his soul during the writing process.It left me feeling reflective in an uncomfortable way, and I think that may have been Oe's intent.I give this novel 4 stars because whether I found it entertaining is not the goal of this novel.I think that the purpose was to make the reader reflect on how he or she acts in front of others.Do we say what we truly mean, or do we use theatrics to get our meaning across?Maybe that is why I disliked Kuraki, because her mannerisms are a reflection of the ugliness inside of me which I want to shy away from.

Dull, dull, dull
I ussually finish a book I start, and this book was no exception.I think the reason I decided to read it is because its author won the Nobel Prize in 1994, and one should read something by such winnners--tho there are many I have not, yet, read anything by.This book tells of atragedy which Marie suffers and how she is devastated by it.It also tells of her promiscuous sex life, and of her flitting from one interest to another, but I could not care about her and while the translation is eminently readable I kept thinking "why should I care about this woman?"I never found an answer.I cannot recommend this book to anyone who is looking for an interesting experience.So why did I write this?Since there are only two reviews I thought one should get another viewpoint on the book.

Echo of Heaven
Kenzaburo Oe is one of the best writers I have ever read.In Echo of Heaven, we see some of Oe himself in his dealings with Marie Kuraki.Marie's experiences are unimaginable, and yet she somehow continues on inlife. Oe's true brilliance comes out in his most recent work.I found thatthe more I read about Marie and her life, the more anxious I would becomeand want to continue reading. I was totally mystified with Kenzaburo'swords, and most importantly,in his description of his dreams of Marie. Oehumored me in the way he views Marie with her Betty Boop lips.Hisdescriptions are unforgettable.Though Marie eventually lives out her lifeas a saint we feel her pain throughout her life.What is important is theimpact that Oe produces when describing Marie's experience.I recommendthis book to anyone who enjoys modern literature.

A story about a woman's loss and how (& why) she lives on.
The author writes about a woman named Marie Kuraki.Marie suffers the worst kind of losses imaginable.Yet, she never gives up on life.She is devoted and relentless in the pursuit of her beliefs -- a modern day saint.Despite her reputation for selflessness, she refuses to succomb to her image as a saint and steadfastly presents herself as a woman -- a human being at all times.Oe presents her story in a detailed, loving, and non-glorifying manner.
It's a great read, but brace yourself, Marie's losses are devastating. ... Read more

Product Description
Lurid depictions of sex and impotence, themes of emperor worship and violence, the use of realism and myth - these characterize the fiction of Mishima Yukio and Oe Kenzaburo. Napier discovers similarities as well as dissimilarities in the work of two writers of radically different political orientations. Napier places Yukio's and Kenzaburo's fiction in the context of postwar Japanese political and social realities and, in a new preface for the paperback edition, reflects on each writer's position in the tradition of Japanese literature. ... Read more

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Nobel Prize Laureate Winner Kenzaburo Oe selects and introduces nine compelling stories by japanese writers on the A-bomb and its aftermath in Japanese society from 1945 to today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A.B.C.D. Encirclement
Sure to please americans in their expectations of what the contemporary Japanese are like. But its only [information] for a foreign market and it's diseased media. In fact the BOMBING of Pearl Harbor was a very festive commemoration. Deal with it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Oe Fan
I read Pinchrunner Memorandum in the fall of 2001. It was the final book for the assigned reading for a class taught by the translator, Professor Michiko Wilson. After reading the novel I became a single goose bump as the significance sunk in. I later found out that this book was the final in a series often called the Handicapped Son, and I have read the rest of the series that has been translated. It is comparable to Mishima's tetralogy, except that it is much less trite and self-indulgent.

Oe encompasses all of humanity in Pinchrunner Memorandum by delving into the marginal world and explicating how it reveals the darker side of society led by a force seeking chaos through subliminal tyranny. Similar to Oe's parody of Mishima in One Day He Himself Shall Wipe My Tears Away, Oe takes the role of court jester and reveals the panting, self-destructive struggle of humanity through his use of grotesque realism as a man and his son attempt to save the world from the annihilation it so desperately seeks. They brave savage riots of students from the left and right, nuclear terrorists, and maniac capitalists. One common trait among all these people is that suicide is a foregone conclusion for victory. Those who are not willing to die condemn themselves to defeat. ... Read more