Rouse up o young men of the new age!

by Kenzaburo Oe

Paperback, 2003

Status

Available

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Collection

Eugene & Marilyn Webb Collection

Publication

London : Atlantic, 2003.

Description

Fiction. Literature. HTML:Wise and illuminating, Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! is a masterpiece from one of the world's finest writers, Kenzaburo Oe -- winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. K is a famous writer living in Tokyo with his wife and three children, one of whom is mentally disabled. K's wife confronts him with the information that this child, Eeyore, has been doing disturbing things -- behaving aggressively, asserting that he's dead, even brandishing a knife at his mother -- and K, given to retreating from reality into abstraction, looks for answers in his lifelong love of William Blake's poetry. As K struggles to understand his family and assess his responsibilities within it, he must also reevaluate himself -- his relationship with his own father, the political stances he has taken, the duty of artists and writers in society. A remarkable portrait of the inexpressible bond between this father and his damaged son, Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age! is the work of an unparalleled writer at his sparkling best.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member colinflipper

I came to read ‘Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age’ after being completely blown away by Oe's novel, ‘A Personal Matter’. Both books concern the nearly autobiographical subject of a man dealing with the dilemma of a mentally disabled son. In ‘A Personal Matter’, the narrator is young

and child is newborn, and the story felt more heavily emotional. The narrator of ‘Rouse Up O Young Men…’ approaches his dilemma in a scholarly and philosophic way, using William Blake as his guide.

In both books, I was greatly attracted to the precise, almost expository, writing style. I don't know how much of this should be attributed to John Nathan, who translated them to English.

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LibraryThing member vpfluke

This was an excellent novel. This is an autobiographical tale that interweaves the story of the author's son who has brain damage with musings on the poetry of William Blake. The father tries to show that raising his son requires special intuition that he sometimes can give, but needs insight from

other sources. There are memories of the author. being caught in a constricted section of favored water hole and being saved by his mother. Then his son is saved from drowning at city gymnasium pool by a person of questionable politics. The son is nicknamed Eeyore, the melancholy stuffed animal from Winnie-the-Pooh. Oe has ruminations on life and politics, and his literary travels, but he is always thinking of his son. For a section M, who is probably Yukio Mishima, has an intense although silent presence. Eeyore lives his life a little strangely, if not obliquely, but he comes to the fore in his ability with playing and even composing music. The novel has a rather satisfying resolution at the end, but I don't want to hint at it.

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LibraryThing member Samchan

I picked this book up on a whim after reading about it on one of my favorite book blogs and being drawn to its poetic title (from a work by William Blake). This was my introduction to Nobel Prize winner, Kenzaburo Oe. I’m not going to be able to do justice to this book, but still wanted to

capture my thoughts on it. The book is about a father, a writer, who tries to write up a dictionary of all that his mentally-handicapped son needs to know about life. All throughout, he meditates on the ways in which his interpretations of William Blake’s works illuminate his understandings of the father-son relationship, death, his own childhood, human communication and connection. It feels like an intensely personal memoir (and indeed there are elements, we’re told by Oe’s translator, that are taken from Oe’s life), diary, and literary analysis all at the same time. I wasn’t so much interested in the parts on Blake’s poetry and indeed, most of it went over my head. Yet, what kept me turning the pages was the father’s recounting the experience of parenting a handicapped child, the difficulties, the fears, but also the joys—never in a trite, overly maudlin way. Apparently this theme is one that runs through many of Oe’s other works, and thanks to this book, I’m eager to explore this father-son relationship further. It’s a quiet book, often esoteric and boring in parts, but deeply moving.

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