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Praise for Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age!:
“Exquisitely sensitive … Notable for [its] piercing emotional honesty … A hopeful book, one that beautifully charts K's evolution from a man ashamed of his son to one capable of celebrating the boy's unusual but complex humanity.”
—John Freeman, Dallas Morning News
“Wondering how Oe would pull this [book] off, I thought of Ingmar Bergman, who draws so clearly from his own life and produces profound cinema. Oe shares this great ability to grasp his characters’ psychology, supremely assured in his own artistic gifts to allow the inner drama of Eeyore's life to speak for itself.… In this fluent translation by John Nathan, Oe's novel stands out as a dark jewel, its maker, its master ecdysiast, hiding as much about himself as he reveals.”
—Luis H. Francia, The Village Voice
“There is nothing quite like it in the English language.… Compelling and strange. Oe is repeating no one and nothing.… [In] this story … ordinary events become extraordinary moments of aloneness where the father and the son merge into the same breath. Which is the opposite of loneliness. This is intimacy and art … Oe does what Blake did. He demonstrates time and time again that morality obliges us to oppose the reality or cruelty of injustice with a redeeming vision.”
—Nasdijj, Raleigh News & Observer
“Oe is cunning in his reliable/unreliable author guise, so that one sometimes doesn't know how ‘true’ to the facts he is being … but far from being an irritation, such tricks only lead one deeper into the poignant picture of the strange, burdensome, loving relationship between father and son. Sometimes hilariously funny, often dramatic, always seductively readable, this is a marvellous book, beautifully translated.”
—Anthony Thwaite, Sunday Telegraph (London)
“[A] moving novel … [that] ranks with such triumphs as Oe's The Silent Cry and Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness … A dazzlingly unconventional fiction, alive on every page with deeply considered ideas and restrained emotion, that's capable of frequently reducing the reader to helpless (albeit grateful) tears. Oe has been afflicted, and blessed, with a great theme that's entirely his own—and has made it the cornerstone of an irresistibly compelling body of work.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
“The novel display[s] Oe's gift for the portrayal of the inevitable emotional blunders of human beings.… Over and over Oe presents examples of how real communication between people is almost impossible, in the end suggesting that maybe simple presence of mind and gentle care are the best we can do. Whether this is a first experience with Oe or not, the reader will be left with questions, many questions, and all good ones.”
—Amy Havel, Review of Contemporary Fiction
“Writing once again with depth and passion about his relationship with his brain-damaged son, the Nobel laureate transforms his musings into a full-blown narrative that becomes a thoughtful yet provocative study of the nature of human relationships.… A deceptively modest, powerful book by a master at the height of his literary powers. Whether he's expanding on a mystical or philosophical concept or painting an achingly poignant picture of a unique father-and-son relationship, Oe contrives intensely memorable images of these two special characters and their thoughts, insights and loves that will stay with readers.”
—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Moving … This novel… ranks with Oe's best work.… Rouse Up is conversational in style, concise, full of literary allusions and revelations.… Poignant and memorable.”
—The Sunday Star-Ledger (Newark)
Also by Kcnzaburo Oc:
FICTION
Somersault
A Personal Matter
A Quiet Life
Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids
The Pinch Runner Memorandum
The Silent Cry
Seventeen and J
The Catch and Other Stories
Teach Us to Outgrow Our Madness
An Echo of Heaven
The Crazy Iris and Other Stories of the
Atomic Aftermath (editor)
NONFICTION
Hiroshima Notes
A Healing Family
Japan, the Ambiguous, and Myself
Copyright © 1986 by Kenzaburo Oe
English translation copyright © 2002 by John Nathan
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.
Published simultaneously in Canada
Printed in the United States of America
FIRST GROVE PRESS PAPERBACK EDITION
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Oe, Kenzaburo, 1935–
[Atarashii hito yo mezameyo. English]
Rouse up o young men of the new age! / Kenzaburo Oe.
p. cm.
ISBN 9780802195401
I. Title.
PL858.E14 A9313 2002
895.6'35—dc21 001051298
Design by Laura Hammond Hough
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