A Personal Matter - just not mine

1994 nobel literature prize by Kenzaburō Ōe

May 09, 2025

I lowkey didn’t like this book, I read it with zero context. I thought it was offensive and dare I say contrived, but the book is short enough (150ish pages) that I didn’t mind. My arms were raised in pitchforks and I wanted to see what other people thought. After searching for fellow haters I found some context that instantly gave the book more depth and meaning. Though I don’t think that makes the book particularly any better, it does make me appreciate it more.

lil summary

“A Personal Matter” was written in 1964. The book follows Bird a 27 somewhat degenerate delinquent turned cram school professor who is having a baby with his wife. The baby is born with a brain hernia and life for bird starts to go on a downward spiral. He caves under his drinking addiction, hooks up w his old college crush, loses his job, and wishes death upon his baby the whole book.

thoughts

It’s kinda an edgy book, but thats it’s strength, each chapter is sprinkled with juuust enough vulgarities and crudeness that I don’t want to put it down - like when you see a car crash and you rubber neck a bit longer than you should, cause you wanna see the damage the destruction. The same way I wanna see a chewed up car, the same I wanna see Birds life unravel. This shit must have been quite the disturbing read back in the 60s.

Reading Birds dark thoughts I can stew in this ugly bleak life that bird is living. I like reading his constant mental torment - a perfect example is as follows:

The baby is in the hospital and the doctors are saying if the baby gets enough strength in a couple days they should be able to operate on its brain. Bird thinks how can he ask the doctors if they could instead kill his baby. Like imagine how tf would you even bring that up in a room full of people trying to save its life. Cause you know I’d be saying instead of the operation what if we just gave it a handful of some sleeping pills and poisoned it a lil.

The edginess is very real. It’s the thoughts we have that we feel evil for even thinking. Be it whatever, it doesn’t shy away from it, rather it basks in the filth of that thought pattern. Showing the paralysis and detachment that follows from such thoughts. Those thoughts don’t define us but it shows a depth of how much we can feel and imagine - or maybe that’s just me lol. A raw portrayal of someone spiraling, it reads honest and uncomfortable.

So I’m fucking w the theme of the book - I wonder what that says about me tho hehe. Then you got this prose which tbh don’t do it for me there’s a few cool lines that get me. One analogy of an old tv turning off and the electric mercury dot fading away in a flash would be similar to death. Shit like that gets me. If only he could nail all his purple prose but that’s a tall order. So I’m stuck with a lot of flowery descriptions of broken down homes, towering hospitals, gloomy skies, rundown bars, ugly cars, and hideous people. When you ain’t rocking w it, it makes some chapters feel like a drag.

like this is a cool way to think of death *vhwpp*

I enjoy hearing the inner ramblings of Bird and the constant torture he is under - the constant torture he puts himself in. That the golden honey of the book. Everything else is filler to me with plot points that go nowhere. His wife who he talks to once, students who adore bird only to do nothing, an American legislator who loses his job for some reason. 3/4ths through the book they bring up an old friend Kikuhiko. Who’s pointless and one dimensional, serving only to remind Bird - at the very last 3 pages - that he was a tough cookie 7 years ago and that he seems miserable now. Which spoiler, suddenly makes bird want to keep the baby alive. So when he suddenly fricking cares bout his grotesque hideous stupid dumb ugly baby in the last few pages… I’m like wtf bro, how you gonna do that. I’m thinking lame as hell. He shoulda ran away with his new bae to Africa, let the baby die, and have a couple pages about how miserable he is in Africa w new bae or sumn. Instead bros like “nah, fuck that, imma boss up and father this baby and love my wife.” BORING. LAME. TACKY. I had a feeling it’d end like that, cause this damn baby just wouldn’t die.

context

While in my fit of rage and annoyance with how the book ended I go online to see what the hell people think of this ending. I immediately read

“Personal Matter is a 1964 semi-autobiographical novel by Japanese writer Kenzaburō Ōe.”

Then I’m like oh shit bro lived through this… The ending of him keeping the baby makes that much more sense and validates it. Ōe was going through all this torment on whether to keep or kill his baby and in the end he gets a glimmer of hope and decides to raise that dang baby. But when I think about the book I would have loved an ending where he decides to kill the baby and run to Africa. It would have been interesting for him to imagine if he did kill his baby and the aftermath that follows.

Turns out that damn baby turned into a Japanese composer and I’m listening to them now while I write this write up - notice I didn’t call it a review! So shout out to the aristocrat family of the Oe’s full of writers and musicians.

Okie goodbye

I ain’t be reading books all that much, so the fact I finished this book says sumn. It’s interesting enough and I love a 150 page length - just long enough to feel like I read a book and short enough to not get jaded if I don’t love it. While I had my fair share of issues with it, I still think it’s a good read. It lets me know what works and what doesn’t. Hopefully it inspires me to read some more books, and maybe reading this inspires you to read some books.

Well thanks 4 reading my ramblings on a 60 year old book. Not everyone would do that but you do! You are hot fun and sexy and are interested in the world in ways no one else is. You see through the blades of grass, you stare at the sky longer than most, getting lost in your thought and imagination, you are transcendent. No one knows the inner machinations of the world like you do. I can tell that cause who else would be interested in reading a digital newsletter from a publication who has no idea what they are doing. I fw u heavy! until next time!

uhh idk comment if u heard of this or read this b4