A Personal Matter

by Kenzaburō Ōe

Paperback, 165 pages

English language

Published Jan. 13, 1994 by Grove Press.

ISBN:: 978-0-8021-5061-5

(5 reviews)

Kenzaburō Ōe, the winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize for Literature, is internationally acclaimed as one of the most important and influential post-World War 2 Writers, known for his powerful accounts of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and his own struggle to come to terms with a mentally handicapped son. The Swedish Academy lauded Ōe for his "poetic force (that} creates an imagined world where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today."

His most personal book, A Personal Matter is the story of Bird, a frustrated intellectual in a failing marriage whose utopian dream is shattered when his wife gives birth to a brain-damaged child.

2 editions

Jim Brown reviewed A Personal Matter by Kenzaburō Ōe

stuck in a cave

No rating

The main character describes his problem/dilemma in this book as being sort of stuck in a cave, a "personal matter" that is purely his own and that he can't really share with others. Reading this book is being stuck in that cave with Bird, meaning that it's dark and impossible to see a way out.

The ending actually reveals Oe's struggle to figure a way out for the character and the novel - the deus ex machina is not very fulfilling but also sort of understandable given how the narrative progresses.

Tsundoku reviewed A Personal Matter by Kenzaburō Ōe

This is at least my 3rd reread of this book, I am choosing to feel like garbage

4 stars

This book is so ugly in an amazing way. You feel like crap reading this horrible, sad sack of a man as the protagonist. He has such ugly thoughts.

But as a disabled person, I'm well aware while people may not go as far as Bird does in this book, this ugliness does exist in people.

And it's worth noting that he's not the only one. There's lots of dehumanizing dialogue from people in this book.

I recommend that people stomach Bird (and the rest) and make their way through the book. It's short, and I found it worth it. It's a gut-wrenching book, but powerful.