Hi, everyone!!! Salamat po ng marami sa suporta sa aming Cubao Expo adventure!!
Do you know that I'm currently mourning the loss of two books from my J-Lit Collection, namely "The Master Of Go" by Yasunari Kawabata ( Which I barely understood, since I am not familiar with Japanese Chess...But, I love "Snow Country" better, check it out guys) and "Blindwillow Sleeping Woman" by everyones darling Haruki Murakami (Which I never liked anyway, I still think that his novels are superior than his short stories) which I was able to sell to two very lucky individuals?
Hey, this is one of the very rare times that I did let go some of my J-books, so consider yourselves lucky.

Lately I've been too busy doing stuff, and my brain is sort of malfunctioning so I will try to keep this review as short and sweet as possible and I'll try to do away with too much Lit-Crit commentaries and raves against Coelho and his fans (and forgive me for the grammar and the spelling, I am too tired to care about it)....

So, ladies and gents let me introduce to you a novel by Japanese Nobel Laureate Kenzaburo Oe, entitled.....Dyaraaan!

A Personal Matter.....

Now to give you info on the writer, Oe was born in 1935, openly Left-Wing (As opposed to the extremely Right-Wing Mishima), writes very autobiographical stuff and also won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994...

The theme of this Novel is...How a person copes against absurdity or the absurd scenarios and events that happens in ones life and how he adapts to all the despair, anguish and angst that engulfs his existence and how these things affect the decision making capabilities of an individual...To make it short, let's just label this story as Existentialist, okay?

So if you don't have any problems with that let me go ahead with the plot.

The main character is a twenty-something college prof who goes by the name "Bird", who because of his immaturity, physical weaknesses and his loneliness considers himself as a total loser.
Since his masculinity doesn't fit the standards set by society he feels down-trodden and inferior.
Things become worst when his wife gives birth to an abnormal child (born with brain hernia).
Aside from the depression he feels due to his weaknesses, "Bird" now faces another burden...
He must decide if he should kill the baby, or to let it live without any warranty that the child would live long, or if it will grow up normal.
However, comfort came in the form of Himiko, a former university classmate, who brings him to her world of sexual freedom and liberation. But, as time went by, the superficial joys he experienced with Himiko started to fade as slowly he started to realize that he must face the responsibilities that are bound to his miserable fate.
Now, "Bird" should make a very crucial decision. Should he escape his responsibility and fly away with Himiko? Or, should he stand up and accept his responsibilities and fate as a father?

For me, the novel's plot and themes are very good since I am in love with literature with dark motifs or is heavily dosed with misery and Existential themes, I also love the language which is brutal compared to Japanese writers like Tanizaki or Mishima in which the stories are sensual but the language are suppressed.

However, I am not a very big fan of moral lessons or happy endings, so I will just leave it up to you to decide if this is indeed a very good book or if it is downright crap.

God, I definitely need some sleep so bye for now and see you next time....

If you are really lucky, you can get a copy from Booksale at around 15-65 php, or just borrow it from some of the core Bookay members, most of the guys have it.

Suggested Reading...

Spring Snow (Yukio Mishima)

Runaway Horses (Yukio Mishima), just finished reading it earlier, definitely a must read.

The Stranger (Albert Camus)

Snow Country (Yasunari Kawabata)

The Lake (Yasunari Kawabata)

Hardboiled Wonderland and The End Of The World (Haruki Murakami)

Man's Fate (Andre Malraux)

The Trial (Franz Kafka)

And, also check out Oe's novella "The Catch", I love this one...

jluna00.multiply.com.....pa-add lang po