The Answer Was Zero — Kenzaburo Oe's 'A Personal Matter'

Before Reading

Our monthly book club gives me the chance to encounter books I would rarely pick up on my own. I tend to shy away from Japanese authors in particular — perhaps because of their characteristically opaque writing style. This month's selection is A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oe, one of only two Japanese Nobel laureates in literature.

A Nobel Prize-winning author commands a certain respect. That's not to say unrecognized writers are lesser, but at the very least, a Nobel laureate's work seems worth reading at least once. And so far, I've never regretted the time spent reading a Nobel Prize winner's book.

For depicting the painful aspect of human life in our time through his poetic force, creating an imagined world where life and myth condense with mythical force. — Nobel Prize citation

Synopsis

A Personal Matter follows 'Bird,' once a promising graduate student, who discovers that his newborn son has been born with a malformed head. The novel deals with everything that unfolds in the wake of that discovery. In 1963, the author's own son was born with a deformity, and this autobiographical novel was published the following year, 1964.

A full-length novel depicting the process by which a father of a severely disabled child overcomes tragedy through inner transformation and growth, arriving at coexistence and reconciliation. Bird, a 27-year-old cram school instructor, is a drifting young man who, after marrying, dreams of an adventurous journey to Africa. When he learns his newborn has brain damage, he despairs at a reality that has stripped him of all freedom of action, and clings to alcohol and his old girlfriend Himiko in an attempt to escape responsibility for the child. But he must decide what to do with the baby... A Personal Matter depicts the spiritual wandering of a young man who wishes for the death of his intellectually disabled child — days of despair and deviation. It poses the question of whether hope for regeneration exists for modern people placed in a reality without an exit. This is one of Oe's masterpieces. The work became a turning point in Oe's life and body of work, and had a great influence on his winning the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Source: YES24

Tangled Prose, Tangled Heart

Because short reviews and synopses can color one's perception, I read this book with no prior knowledge. And while reading, my stomach turned. Why on earth would the author say something so repulsive, so twisted? Why did my insides coil and knot as I read? It was only after understanding that all of this was the author's own story that it made sense.

The writing in this book is genuinely difficult to read. I couldn't take a single sentence in and make it truly my own. How does one even write prose this tortuous, line by line? The words seemed to enter and then bounce right back out — an uncomfortable feeling. It mirrors the psychological state of the protagonist 'Bird': always wanting to flee, always trying not to look at what matters, forever uncomfortable with responsibility.

Alcohol, Africa. Escape from Life

His desperate clinging to alcohol was something I understood all too well. As someone who enjoys a drink, there is undeniably a comfort that alcohol provides in hard moments. But alcohol is ultimately nothing more than an escape from reality — it never helps solve the problem. His fixation on Africa, that distant place, shows Bird's desire to flee, laid bare.

But while I alone can spend my whole life running from my existence, the being I have created — my child — cannot. We cannot always be in flight. There are parallels to the protagonist of the novel Stoner. Some decisions must simply be accepted. Whether they are the consequences of pleasure, or the inevitable scribbles we didn't choose to draw.

All of us have these repulsive sides. Within me live countless layers of myself. I would never want to show anyone all my contradictory desires in their raw form. But for this author, the protagonist was his alter ego. And within that, he laid bare, without reservation, one human being's honest desires — the misguided wish for his child to die naturally, his own sexual longings.

The way this novel honestly shows the many selves colliding within — I think this is just as effective a method for conveying the author's intent as any clean, refined narrative. Human thought itself is the ultimate in irrationality. That is the kind of creature we are: capable of writing "I won't drink tonight" in the evening, and then reading it back in a drunken stupor in the early morning hours.

Himiko: An Insight into Violence

'Himiko' is the character who draws out Bird's most base self. Bird, beaten by passing youths for being weak, only realizes much later that what he did to Himiko was also violence. 'Even without malicious intent, something one person does can become a lifelong wound for another.' In our lives too, words we didn't mean as harmful can sometimes become scars someone else carries forever. There is a sharp insight embedded here about that kind of violence.

"Bird, in order to overcome fear, you must isolate it by defining its object precisely." — Himiko

The Answer Was Zero

Through this process, Bird comes to realize how meaningless his attempts to protect the self he called 'I' were. And he resolves to take in the sick child he had been trying to erase from his life in order to preserve that hollow selfhood. Bird's decision at the end feels, in some ways, like a rather abrupt shift in tone. But if you interpret it through the lens of 'multiverse theory' (that we are simply standing in one of many possible universes) that Himiko had spoken of midway through, it becomes more acceptable.

What on earth had Bird been trying to protect as he fled over and over from the monstrous baby, repeating shameful acts? Just what self had he been attempting to preserve? he wondered. And suddenly, he felt utterly absurd. The answer was zero.

The author carefully arranges his characters throughout. When first reading, their appearances felt too abrupt, but after finishing and retracing the story, one can feel how naturally the characters are placed to draw out Bird's transformation, layering the narrative as it goes. So the question marks I had on the first read turned into exclamation points.

After finishing the book and completing the discussion, I found myself wanting to know more about this author. When you read a book, you naturally see the writer behind it. Kenzaburo Oe showed his honest self in its most raw form. And he resolved to accept, as it was, the heavy burden that had come to him — and that process of resolve is reflected directly in the flow of A Personal Matter.

A Personal Matter Becomes Everyone's Matter

A Personal Matter laid bare, exactly as it happened, the turning point that changed his life. Afterward, Kenzaburo Oe spent his entire life caring for his disabled son, and lived out the commitment I felt at the book's ending for the rest of his days. He maintained the attitude toward life he believed was right, and refused to compromise on what he believed was wrong.

Kenzaburo Oe and his son Hikari. His name means 'light,' I'm told.

It may be called 'a personal matter,' but the depth of this personal matter is immeasurable. And a personal matter of sufficient depth ultimately becomes everyone's matter. Kenzaburo Oe conveyed this with extraordinary skill. I find myself wanting to turn the heavy resolve he upheld for his entire life over and over in the small moments of my own daily life. I'm going to pick up his landmark work The Silent Cry right away.

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