A Quiet Life

"A Quiet Life" is narrated by Ma-chan, a young woman who at the age of 20 gets caught up in an unusual family situation. Her father is a famous novelist; her older brother is brain-damaged but possesses a gift for music; and her mother's life is devoted to caring for them both. When her father is offered a visiting professorship in an American university, Ma-chan finds herself at the center of family relationships that she must begin to redefine.

Is it a novel? Is it a memoir? Nobel prize winner Oe recounts the story of two siblings of a brain-damaged brother who finally get to shine when their world-famous novelist father accepts a fellowship in America. Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information.

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Like Oe, who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994, K-Chan, the character at the heart of this novel, is an internationally renowned Japanese novelist. His story pits the quest for individual identity against the measure of selflessness necessary for healthy family life. Wisecracking and often emotionally insensitive, K-Chan suffers a spiritual breakdown that impels him to leave his young adult children in Japan while he and his wife take up residence at a college in California-and where, in peace, he might answer the daunting question: "how is a faithless person to cope with life?" Thus, it is up to his 20-year-old daughter, the narrator Ma-Chan, who describes herself as a "withdrawn coward," to care for her older, mentally handicapped but musically brilliant brother, nicknamed Eeyore, and her younger, independent and intelligent brother, O-Chan. The narrative traces the quotidian challenges Ma-Chan faces, shuttling Eeyore to and from work at a vocational welfare center and attending to his epileptic seizures. Meanwhile, supporting characters, all friends or family of K-Chan, wonder aloud to Ma-Chan about her father's abandonment of his children, and discuss with her episodes from his past that might have led to his nervous breakdown. Unfortunately, Oe employs stilted dialogue (made worse, no doubt, by a lifeless translation) between characters on topics that include Tarkovsky's film Stalker and a novel by Aitmatov about the Crucifixion. These discussions are clumsy and lack the grace and whimsy apparent in other novels of ideas by writers like Milan Kundera (whom a character named Mr. Shigeto is said to translate). A dramatic climax in which Ma-Chan is nearly raped by Eeyore's swimming teacher lacks credibility. Eventually, the family-minus K-Chan-is reunited in a conclusion that, like the novel, makes more of a dry conceptual impact than an emotional one. (Oct.) Copyright 1996 Cahners Business Information.