A Personal Matter – The Harrowing Moral Dilemma of a Man Unabashedly Seeking Respite from Reality

Born 1935 in a small village on the island of Shikoku, Nobel Prize-winning Japanese novelist Kenzaburo Oe, lost his father during the Second World War. He grew up in an era when Japanese people still worshiped their emperor and reeling from the devastation of war. Oe says the Japanese defeat pushed him to be a writer. But it is with the birth of his mentally challenged son Hikari (in 1963) Oe’s distinct cycle of fiction originated. In his interview to 'Paris Review', Oe remarks that the basis of all his literature is Hikari (whose name means ‘light’) and Hiroshima (the novelist visited Hiroshima between 1963 and 1965 to report on a peace congress, and his encounters with atomic-bomb survivors made him to write essay, collectively published as ‘Hiroshima Notes’). A Personal Matter (published in 1964 and translated to English by Professor John Nathan) was the first of Oe’s semi-autobiographical novels to engage with the theme of disability whose central characters were repeatedly sketched as fathers of brain-damaged sons. In A Personal Matter, the fictionalized memoir, Oe chronicles the existential suffering of a self-loathing young man, contemplating the arrival of his son born with a brain hernia.

Oe and his wife Yukari was told that without an operation Hikari would immediately die, but also warned that even with the operation the infant would only exist in a vegetative state. The dilemma of whether or not to proceed with the surgery is at the base of Oe’s short novel A Personal Matter. Later in many interviews, Oe said his conversations with Hiroshima survivors impelled him to save and take care of his son. As Hikari grew, so did the boy’s fictional counterpart in Oe’s novels – often rooted in the writer’s personal experiences with Hikari, although the narrator’s choices and conflicts in the stories are much more intensified. In real life, Hikari Oe conquered lot of obstacles thrown at him and went on to become a savant composer.

With A Personal Matter, Kenzaburo Oe doesn’t extrapolate the suffering of the father through feel-good anecdotes or romanticism. The honesty with which Oe approaches the novel’s central conflict would remain upsetting for some viewers (the prose often turns explicit and grotesque). The story is full of physical and psychological debasement. But despite the dark subject matter, there are moments of absurd humor which only deepens the novel’s power to look deep beneath the surface of things. A Personal Matter’s protagonist Bird (a nickname based on his physical appearance) is a 27-year-old teacher at a cram-school who like other young dreamers wants to break away from his excruciatingly painful reality. Bird withholds the dream to visit Africa, to lose himself in the wilderness among animals. He buys expensive road maps of Africa while his wife is at the hospital to deliver their first child. Bird has always been irresponsible at crucial junctures in his life, the memory of going on a four-week drinking binge after getting married looms in the back of his mind. He hasn’t finished his graduate studies and the present teaching-job is courtesy of his professor father-in law.

Kenzaburo Oe and wife Yukari Ikeuchi with their son Hikari Oe

After walking through the crowded city, burdened by anxiety and unidentifiable fear, Bird eventually receives news about the birth of his child. The boy child, however, is born with brain hernia and the chief doctor nonchalantly calls the baby ‘two-headed monster’. The doctors assure Bird that the child will die soon. A pediatrician awkwardly asks Bird to agree to an autopsy once the child dies. Even Bird driven by shame and the need to once again reject the reality encourages the doctors to let the disabled baby die. He proceeds with his alcohol and sex-filled bender. Accompanying Bird on his journey of self-deception is his old college friend Himiko, now a sexual adventuress depressed by her husband’s suicide.

A Personal Matter is strewn with moments of absurdity that catches our attention more because of the strong decorous manners usually displayed by the Japanese fictional characters. Through humor, Oe brilliantly breaks through the soft, culturally-restricted layers and perceives life in chaotic post-war Japan, even though the protagonist’s field of vision is compressed. Furthermore, Bird’s inefficiency in the boyish arcade games, the doctor who can’t stop giggling while conveying grave news about Bird’s child, the silliness of the reactions keep us afloat amidst the grave situation. The 60s reaction to the birth of child with developmental defect may shock our modern sensibilities. But this was an era when mentally challenged kids were vehemently ostracized, even their appearance in public spaces is considered disgraceful. Hence, shame and responsibility are the pivotal themes in the novel. Oe brilliantly evokes the feelings of shame, first through his description of Bird’s physical state; his impotence, constant sweating, vomiting are all detailed in a microscopic manner.

At one occasion, Bird reflects on how animals differ from humans by their complete lack of shame and vies for this sort of freedom. Moreover, Oe brings forth animalistic side of Bird by focusing on the daydreamer’s desire to take flight to Africa. In fact, the animalistic side keeps pushing the man to take string of despicable decisions, from Bird waiting for his abnormal baby’s death, resigning his job without putting up a fight to even contemplating infanticide.  Consequently, the eventual transformation rests on the basis of Bird discovering another factor animals don’t possess: responsibility. For the most part of the novel, Bird perceives the infant as a monster, to whom as a father he could only offer merciful death. While Oe was pained to take the decision whether or not to save his son, the conflict faced by his fictional creation was taken to extremes. The final two chapters kept me at the edge, hoping that Bird finds peace with his challenging reality. And for all his shameful behavior throughout the extremely unique situations, Bird is identifiable or relatable to an extent, since we all, now and then, bump against a reality sown with discord that we desperately want to escape. Overall, A Personal Matter is a strangely fascinating existential novel which meditates on modern human condition with a disquieting sense of emotional honesty.