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Title: Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids by Kenzaburo Oe, Maki Sugiyama, Paul St John Mackintosh ISBN: 0-7145-2997-4 Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers, Ltd. Pub. Date: May, 1995 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $22.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.33 (15 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A haunting tale that will linger in your mind for days...
Comment: A sparse and chilling tale that recounts the worst week in the lives of 15 adolescent juvenile delinquents left abandoned in a plague infested village. This first novel of Kenzaburo Oe clearly shows his brilliance in capturing the essence of the human condition - warts and all, and why he would go on to win the Nobel prize in literature in 1994. The emotional themes of abandonment and isolation are expertly brought to life and devices such as not providing any details regarding geographic setting and exclusion of character names (with the exception of Minami and Li) will draw uneasy, slow building tension to readers. A lean, expertly translated read that contains numerous scenes and passages that will stay vivid in your memory for days on end.
Rating: 4
Summary: Dark, beautiful, tragic.
Comment: My introduction to Kenzaburo Oe, "Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids" struck me with the force of a bamboo spear. With his beautiful prose (and the complementary translation by Mackintosh and Sugiyama), Oe paints his characters with the brush of traditional Japan but in the style of a contemporary miscreant. Throughout, the book conveys relentlessly brutal portraits of an altered, horrific reality.
From the moment the reformatory boys are introduced to the end of their abandonment and the narrator's final, fearful sentences, Oe drags the reader through the hell of his ambiguous setting. Pulled along with the narrator, his brother, and their reform school compatriots, the reader follows into the nightmare of a plague-infested village and their utter isolation. While the boys struggle to eke out their existence and build lives in their newfound freedom, one is constantly on edge awaiting the collapse of their delicate system. When, finally, the villagers return and the madness of the world indeed crushes their fragile independence, the reader emulates the boys in their sense of relief and subsequent betrayal.
One of Oe's first novels, the deft manipulation of the reader's emotions and interactions between the characters promised great things for the young writer. As I begin another of his books, I cannot help but agree that he deserved his Nobel.
Rating: 4
Summary: A punch in the stomach...
Comment: That's what my wife told me when I picked it up to begin reading it. But that's what a good book is supposed to feel like. And it did. It was dark, cruel, and painful,, and contained vivid descriptions of inhumanity, though it was not without its moments of humor.
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Title: Hiroshima Notes by Kenzaburo Oe, David L. Swain, Toshi Yonezawa ISBN: 0802134645 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: July, 1996 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: A Personal Matter by Kenzaburo Oë, John Nathan ISBN: 0802150616 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: January, 1988 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: The Silent Cry: A Novel by Kenzaburo Oe, John Bester, S. Shaw ISBN: 4770019653 Publisher: Kodansha International Pub. Date: December, 1994 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Survival In Auschwitz by Primo Levi ISBN: 0684826801 Publisher: Touchstone Books Pub. Date: 01 September, 1995 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe ISBN: 0385474555 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 16 September, 1994 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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